Knife Skills for Beginners

 A first novel for Orlando Murrin, Knife Skills for Beginners, was a quick entertaining mystery novel. 

When Paul loses his partner he is depressed and goes into hiding.  But one day an old friend Christian runs into him on the street and asks a favor.  This leads to Paul taking over the teaching job Christian cannot do while he recovers from a broken arm.

Paul show up at the Chester Square Cookery School.  There in the kitchen are the students for the week's session ready to learn the basics of being a chef.  Along with the unusual group of students we meet Rose, who owns the school and Suzie who is the new helper, running errands, washing up the dishes and serving the meals.  

Following all the characters and their strange habits keeps the reader guessing as to who the killer could be.  In their own way each of the students could be the guilty party.  Thrown in are recipes which always make a mystery novel more fun

To Die In Secret

 To Die in Secret, is the newest work of Haviva ner David.  Reading this novel after October 7th makes me wonder how it would be different if the author, an American Israeli, would have changed things with the information she has now.

This novel brings us to the home of Jude, dead with her son in their large farmhouse in a town outside of Salem Massachusetts.  Nomi the younger sister is flying home from a kibbutz for the first time in forty years.  She ran away from home after fighting with her parents and never came back.

Nomi has lost her Israeli husband and her mother is a dementia patient in a local nursing home. Jude left everything to Nomi.  She comes "home" to settle affairs, thinking she will return to the kibbutz.  Though she has never really felt at home there, she is cautious about coming back to Massachusetts.

As she finds out what her sister has been doing for the last forty years, helping others and making amends with the mother who was so unkind, Nomi starts to see that she could also make a difference for others and maybe come to terms with the anger, fear and unhappiness that has followed for her adult life.

This is a story of finding yourself, doing mitzvot and forgiveness, and finding a way to closure and moving forward.  Hope and faith can be wonderful ways to find peace.

Western Lane

 Western Lane, by Chetna Maroo, a short quick read.  A coming of age novel about a young girl who losses her mother at a young age.  Her mother's dath leaves behind a father who cannot get over his grief and three young daughters.  

The father at a loss takes his daughters to the squash court and teaches them to play.  Gopi shows the most promise on the court.  She starts to train for a competition going to practice everyday after school. She starts to practice with a young man at the club, Ged.  They are both training for the tournament.  

This is a story of family relationships, love, innocence and the closeness of sisters. Beautifully told in a slim novel that covers so much in a few words.

The Storyteller's Death

 The Storyteller's Death woke me up last night and as I thought about what the ending could possibly be, I had to get out of bed and go finish the book before I could fall back asleep.

This is the story of a young girl who lives between New Jersey and Puerto Rico.  Every summer she and her mother go back to her mother's family in Puerto Rico though her mother never seems to enjoy the trip. When her father is dying her mother starts to leave her with the family for the summer alone.  After her father's death she is sent by plane to spend summers with her relatives by herself.  She never feels at home in either location.

There is a very large extended family in Puerto Rico and when she reaches eighteen she starts to see visions of the elderly relatives as they pass on.  She realizes that she is a keeper of their stories.  Her relationship with her mother has been strained for years and she has no one to discuss her visions with.

As she starts to try and play detective and find out more about the family history, she encounters a handsome young man who works for the family, and some of the older men who had worked for the family in the past.  

A coming of age novel, learning about family, love, and the difference in status between those with and those without. Coming to understand who she is and what she feels is important in life.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

 If you are looking for an entertaining novel to pass some time between all the stresses of the day try The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid.  This is another book I even enjoyed as a re-read a few years apart.  

Evelyn Hugo is an old world Hollywood movie star.  Once the glamorous star of Hollywood, now a recluse in her dotage she decides she is ready to write her tell all biography.  She chooses Monique Grant,  a new young up and coming, unknown magazine reporter just starting out.  Grant arrives thinking she will get a n exclusive magazine article to launch her career, instead Hugo tells her she wants her to write her life story.  She will share just with Grant the story of her career, all the husbands she married along the way and why. 

Grant is surprised and shocked, why her? Each day Monique listens to Evelyn weave her tale of ambition, fame, unexpected friendships and great love.   Monique grows close to Evelyn as she spins her story out. The mystery of why she was selected to write the book and their connection intensifies as the book progresses.

The reader gets a great feel for the lives of such great movie icons as Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Judy Garland.  Childhood and innocence lost to the tough, competitive world of Hollywood.