Goldenseal

 Goldenseal is the newest novel written by author, Maria Hummel.  This is a short, simple story with a large, intense plot and message.

When two women have a very close long friendship that we learn about as it revealed from the present looking backwards.  The novel starts with the two women coming back together after years apart after a betrayal tears them apart.

Lacey grew up with her loving parents in a luxury hotel her father owned and managed. Her father, Papi, came to the United States from Germany before WWII.

Her mother, Mutti, is from a Jewish family who all lost their lives in the Holocaust. This affects her mother for the rest of her life.  Lacey is sent to summer camp for one summer which changes the direction of her life. She meets Edith at camp and they become fast friends.  Edith comes from a poor, uneducated family.  

Lacey and Edith prick their fingers, mixing their blood, the way young girls did in the 60's,  making them sisters. Their lives intersect and intertwine through their 30s.  Then a tragic event breaks them apart.  

Lacey retreats to the hotel and becomes a hermit until the fateful day that Edith comes to visit many years later as an elderly woman.  Over a carefully  planned dinner, each woman tells her interpretation of what happened revealing their hidden secrets. Each woman is searching for some remnants of their lost love or the ties that bound them.

Remembering how close my early friendships felt made this story come alive for me. Now at a older age, I can think back to where those friendships diverted and how we each changed over the years. This short novel packed a large punch.

The May House

 Jillian Cantor has written a new novel titled, The May House.  This is a very captivating novel about the lives of three sisters.  The plot follows them from childhood to becoming adults and how their lives develop and their reationships change.

We meet the May sisters as they visit their grandmother at her beach house on Coronado Island in California for a week in May. This becomes a family ritual, to visit the house the same week every May as the girls are growing up and they look forward to wonderful visit with their grandmother.

When they are in the twenties, away at school and starting their first jobs, visiting at the same time gets more complicated.  When their grandmother dies, she leaves them the house with the stipulation that they need to continue their visits.

Julie, Emily and Nora are not close as adults, thy different interests, they are busy in their own lives, they keep secrets from each other. The week every May at the beach house is the only connection between them. 

 The year Julie down't show up at the house changes everything.  Nora and Emily are worried and as they start to search for Julie they start to uncover the secrets that have been pulling them apart. 

The book is told in alternating voices of each of the sisters. Learning how family secrets, experiences and memories have shaped each of their personalities and their lives helps bring them closer.  It is a story of family ups and downs and learning how important sisters are. 

The Clementine Complex

 The Clementine Complex is a quirky mystery novel written by Bob Mortimer, a British comedian.  

The novel is written in a comedic style and is the story of a young man who seems to be very awkward socially.  Gary Thorn works for a law firm as a legal assistant.  He wears the same cheap suit everyday to work and carries a plastic briefcase.  He lives in an apartment that he has never really furnished or decorated.  He tells his next door neighbor that he is not sure how long he will be staying, though he has been there for two years. 

One night a coworker, Brendan asks to meet for a drink at the local bar.  While they are talking Brendan gets a phone call and says he needs to leave.  Gary stays a while longer striking up a conversation with a woman at the end of the bar.

A few days later, two policemen meet up with Gary to say he was the last person to see Brendan alive.  Gary tries to find the woman he thinks of as Clementine from the bar to give him an alibi.  These two actions set in motion the circumstances that follow. Gary does not seem very smart as he gives away information and doesn't seem to understand what is happening around him as he gets further and further mixed up in the dealings of these unsavory characters.

In this bumbling plot, Gary also spends time asking advise from a squirrel he sees when he is walking.  He assumes it is always the same squirrel and he carries on a conversation with it.  I did not really find it added much to the plot.

A simple mystery and a quick read, but not a book I would reccomend.

Boy From The North Country

We read books for entertainment, for education and for escape. Sometimes a book will surprise you and draw you into the pages, not letting you leave even after you close the back cover.  It stays with you for a while.  

Boy From the North Country is that kind of novel.  Some people have actually described this book as an autobiographical novel. It is based on the author, Sam Sussman's, real life experience with his mother, Fran Sussman.  Writing it as novel gives the author room to explores feelings and emphasize where he would like to and not worry about quotes and exact details.

Sam, or Evan in the book, comes home from studying in England when his mother, June, calls to tell him she has been diagnosed with cancer and is scheduled for surgery.  Evan comes home to the farm in upstate New York where he grew up.  He and his mother will go through the ordeal of chemo treatments and trying to fight the cancer taking over his mother's body.  

June has lived a holistic lifestyle on this north country farm.  She eats all the foods that she has read will help with the reactions to chemo, including extremely rare burgers.  Evan will overcome his aversion to red meat, as a vegetarian, to cook his mother this possible life saving food.  

Evan as a youngster could not wait to get away from this life. As soon as he was eighteen he ran off to college and to England to study.  He has been working on a novel that is never finished.  But now he promises to stay with his mother through her whole sojourn.

June has never really spoken about her life or the past with Evan.  She had divorced Evan's father when he was very young.  Over the years there have been a few men who have played the role of stepfather until the relationships became too toxic and June told them to leave.  But June is still a strong believer in the power of love.  She is still looking for and telling Evan the importance of finding true love.

Now as they sit through long hours of chemo treatments, June shares her story with Evan. Talking about her childhood, her time at college and her adventures in New York City.  She was an actress and took painting classes with Bob Dylan.  Many people over the years as Evan grew up told him he resembles Dylan.  Evan has always wondered if Dylan is really his father.  

With this little mystery running pushing the plot along, June and Evan really come together supporting each other.  Sussman writes beautiful prose as he describes the house, farm and nature.  He explores his feelings about losing a parent, themes of love, loss, grief and healing.  He learns to put into perspective the seduction of money, power, and fame.  As an observer you will have a wonderful journey reading this novel.

The Art of the Lie

 The Art of the Lie is an incredible novel written by the Laura Shepard-Robinson.

Though every mystery novel has some kind of twist the reader should have seen coming which leads to the uncovering of the murderer this novel is even more deceptive than most.

The book opens with Hannah Cole trying to keep her small confectionary, the Punchbowl and Pineapple in business.  Her husband has ben found murdered and there is question that he was involved in something illicit.  When the magistrate freezes her husband, Jonas' estate Hannah is having trouble keeping the business open.  Along comes William Devereux, who seems like a gentleman and offers Hannah the recipe for a new frozen invention, ice cream.  Her business is exploding with customers and success.  

But Hannah and Devereux it turns out are not what they seem.  Each has a secret they are hiding.  As they are working it seems to together, there are dark forces working against them.  They are also working individually, pulling off their own illusions and deceptions. 

This is a story of truth and honesty and how being deceptive can destroy lives. The plot is so well written that the reader is surprised at each stage and the ending is a surprise.

Agnes Sharp and the Trip of a Lifetime

 Leonie Swann has written book two of the series, Agnes Sharp and the Trip of a Lifetime,  This time Agnes and her friends are off on an adventure.  They travel to a resort hotel when Edwina wins a trip to the Cornwall seaside resort. 

Charlie agrees to treat everyone else to the vacation so that they can escape the cold winter weather and the fact that the boiler is not working.

Of course there will be trouble wherever this group goes and there seems to be a few murders that Agnes and others may have witnessed.  But with the elderly sometimes they are not to be believed, it could just be their faulty memories.

This is a clever followup to the previous novel.  The plot builds as the friends try to find the murder victims and their killer.  Hettie, the tortoise was left home but Edwina finds a boa constrictor this time that helps with the murder case.  We also learn a little more background on each of the characters which helps the reader relate to the characters.  There are still a few experiences that happen in this novel that are quite not believe even with a good dose of imagination.

The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp

The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp is the first in the new mystery series authored by Leonie Swann.  In the author picture on the back cover of the book , Leonie looks way too young to be writing about senior citizens solving mysteries.

This is another book in the new genre of senior citizens who are amateur detectives.  In this first book week meet Agnes who is living in her childhood home along with some friends.  They have come to live together to avoid the typical end of life experience of living in assisted living and leaving their end of life to chance.

Now the five member so of the house have signed a pact to help each one end their life when the time comes and they do not feel productive anymore.,  in the meantime they are sharing house hold duties.

When someone ends up dead in the neighborhood Agnes leads the group to help sove the crime. Also living with the group is a tortoise named Hettie who in a way helps solve the crime. An entertaining plot with many twists and turns and quite a number of red herrings along the way.

 There are a few experiences that happen in this novel that are quite not believe even with a good dose of imagination.