The Frozen River

 The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon was a powerful book.  The plot follows the life of Martha Ballard, a midwife, wife and mother in Hallowell, Maine during the 18th century.

Though the town is a small rural town in upstate Maine, the houses of the wealthy are incredibly built.  The government is in its early stages and the court sits in Massachusetts.  Historically this is a fascinating story.  A difficult time to be a woman.  Very few rights and very little protection.  Martha fights to solve a murder and save the reputation of a woman who has been raped. 

Martha is also fighting a new doctor who has arrived with schooling from Harvard, but all of the births he has attended have been still born.  Martha is trying to push him out before more births are in danger.  

She is a change maker and her journals are invaluable for historical memory of life in America

The Black Wolf

 Ok the long awaited second novel installment of Louise Penny,  The Black Wolf finishes the storyline started in The Gray Wolf.  

In true Penny fashion this is a beautifully written novel with a mystery to solve, tension building and some incredible prose. She writes these mystery novels so incredibly you want to underline or copy out so many of the quotes about life and relationships.  

Amazingly in this novel she has come up with an unusual premise that I do not think could really happen but it mirrors so closely some of the outrageous things that are happening now in the United States.  The plot of this book is that there are people at the top of both the United States and Canada who are corrupt and are plotting to take control of the governments and companies for personal gain.

Using social media to pit the US andCanada against each other, to create chaos and throw both countries into war with each other. Killing people who are trying to stop them or sound the alarm.  It is a little scary to read as it is so close to reality and yet it is so well written that you cannot put it down.

In the best way possible the reader will enjoy the suspense and the closure when all the pieces fall into place and the guilty parties are stopped and good guys win.  It is always nice to know that even if real life is unsettled and we do not know the outcome yet, a book will have a satisfying ending.

The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes

 I love books written in multiple voices from different time periods, where the stories all connect in the end.  The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes, written by Chanel Cleeton is that style of novel.  

Taking the reader back to 1900 Cuba we meet Eva Fuentes, a young school teacher living through the revolution in Cuba as the country frees itself from Spain's rule.  As Cuba becomes involved with the United States a group a school teachers are sent to Harvard for a summer of learning and community building. A showing of goodwill between the two countries.  Eva is among the group spending her first summer away from Havana.  She meets a young man and the reader follows her experiences that summer.  When she returns to Cuba she writes and publishes a book.

Next we are introduced to Pilar Castillo, a librarian living in Havana in the 1960s as Fidel Castro is coming to power. She is a newly married woman whose husband has recently been imprisoned for subversive activity by the regime.  She finds a way to fill her days and make a difference by reading and saving books.  Pilar is asked by her neighbor ,who is fleeing the country, to hold onto and return a book to her friend.

Finally in 2024, in London, the reader meets Margo Reynolds, a young woman who has started her own company finding lost and rare items for people.  Mostly art and artifacts, it gives her a good feeling to see people reunited with their possessions or family heirlooms.  Her most current client has asked her to find a very rare and long lost book. Reconnecting with her ex husband to work on this case of finding the book, Margo and Luke also can reexamine their relationship.

A quick entertaining interesting plot and some interesting history of Cuba and the rise of Fidel Castro.

A Complete Fiction

 RL Maizes has written another book, even better than her other terrific novels and short stories, Other People's Pets and We Love Anderson Cooper.

In her newest novel,A Complete Fiction, Maizes brings us into the world of publishing, also into the life and mind of the writer.  I could not help wondering throughout the novel if this scenario has happened to an author or that it is a problem that worries writers when they send in a script to a publishing house.

In a quite entertaining way Maizes covers the very serious subject of the #metoo movement.  Talking about sexual abuse and how it affects the victim and also by extension the family of the abused. The subject is the topic that propels the plot forward of two authors writing a story of someone being abused in the workplace.  Each story is different but there is one theme that is the same in both novels, the viewpoint of the attacker.  

When R J Larkin who has written a novel based on her sister's personal experience  has made the rounds of publishers but has not been accepted for print finds out that George Dunn who read her manuscript has written a similar book, she accuses him of plagiarism on social media.  The internet blows up with opinions both for and against each author in a back and forth that threatens to unravel each person's life and their book deals.

Looking at the subject of #metoo and deciding who has the right to tell someone's story.  How far should an author go to have their work published?  It is something to wonder about when you read a book, is this story autobiographical?  Have the names and circumstances been altered enough for anonymity? 

Then there is the world of publishing, how much of an advance publishers offer and what the legal ramifications are about plagiarism accusations and making sure the facts are correct if accusations are made. 

In the end of this fast paced entertaining novel authors, friends and family all come out having learned incredible lessons.  

Behind the Trigger

Behind the Trigger, is a spy novel written by an Israeli novelist and a former intelligence officer under the pseudonym Yariv Imbar.

Developed as a psychological thriller the tension and suspense starts immediately on page one and continues to build as the story develops. Your heart will start beating faster as Irit, a skilled Mossad agent, wife and mother does not follow protocol during an espionage operation.  Irit loves her job going on overt missions, this time to set up a listening devise in a hotel room to spy on the conversations of a senior Syrian security figure.  Making a split second decision that brings her face to face with the target's wife changes the course of both their lives.

Fiercely dedicated to her job and trying to balance life at home with her husband and children she is being asked to leave her comfort zone and take on a dangerous assignment.  Irit befriends Noor, the wife of the senior Syrian weapons engineer who Mossad has been tracking.  Mossad takes advantage of the women's budding friendship to recruit Noor to help them track her husband. 

The plot engages the reader in the lives of Noor and Irit.  Noor is caught in an abusive marriage, struggling with shame and the loss of multiple pregnancies.  She is in need of a friend.  Irit is recruited to fill that role to achieve their mission, but finds that she becomes more involved than just as an agent.  The relationship becomes personal as Irit begins to face her own demons, memories of her own past emotional pain, resentments and secrets.  As the women become closer the danger becomes more real.  Noor setting up her husband for the Mossad and Irit putting her own life in jeopardy.  

On the surface this is a powerful thriller, highlighting the work of special forces,  surveillance techniques and the risks involved.  Under the surface it examines psychological feelings and fears.  Looking at women and their marriages. Each feeling inadequate in their lives, looking for validation and acceptance. The life of a woman in the Israeli secret service, balancing family and career.  The life of a woman and their personal feelings of value in the face of motherhood, controlling men taking advantage of abusive power.

The characters are well developed and the reader will be drawn in with compassion and fear for the women and anger at the men. Exploring the themes of friendship and love. What makes a marriage work and what are the risks to keeping a marriage together?  How far a person will go to save another.  How long a person can bury their own trauma or personal history before it affects their current life. This is a very satisfying story.

Death at the Sign of the Rook

 Death at the Sign of the Rook, by Kate Atkinson was for me a very confusing mystery novel.  This is the nest in a series of books that feature the detective Jackson Brodie.  He is now an ex-detective from the police department. He still ends up working with his previous partner though now she is relunctant to get involved with him, Reggie.

From what I could follow there are two mysteries involving missing artwork removed from the wall of two difereent country homes.  Each thief seems to have ben a caregiver to an elderly lady dowager who is now dead.

Could there be enough evidence to prove the two thieves are one and the same? Reggie starts to look into the possibilities, reluctantly helping Jackson.

Now involve quite a number of ancillary characters to muddle the works and a snow storm. It is a complicated and confusing plot to follow.

I did not enjoy it

The Eight Heartbreaks of Hanukkah

 Jean Meltzer has a come up with another loveable romance novel in The Eight Heartbreaks of Hanukkah.

This is the newest of Jean Meltzer's romance novels.  She has taken the genre by storm and built a wonderful Jewish romance following.  I have never been a romance fan, but Jean has captured my attention with her delightful novels.  She has perfected the novels by including Jewish connection to the stories in just the right balance.  This time it is a take off on A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens bringing eight ghosts to her work-a-holic protagonist, Evelyn is visited by eight ghosts leading up to the TV special she is producing while reconnecting with her ex husband.  Can she see the error of her ways before the end of Hanukah and rekindle the candles of true love?