Review: "How to Read a Book," Monica Wood

Harriet, a retired teacher, facilitates a book group at the Maine women’s prison. 

Violet is a member. She drove under the influence and killed a woman: Lorraine Daigle, a kindergarten teacher.

Frank Daigle is Lorraine’s husband, a retired machinist. He had a complicated relationship with Lorraine and is at loose ends after her death.

The three meet up in a fateful moment at a Portland book store. Violet, released early, is drawn to a cat, up for adoption, that she sees in the window.

Harriet is looking for the next selection for the book group.

Frank is working part-time doing maintenance in the shop. He spots Harriet, speaks to her, and feels a wave of attraction. Then he spies Violet.

Worlds collide.

This heartfelt, gently humorous novel left me teary-eyed. Then I proclaimed it an instant favorite.

Before all hell breaks loose when Violet comes into Frank’s view, he has suggested to Harriet that she try poetry next. She reacts warmly to him, but when he freaks out (in his way; he’s a gentle, kind man) at seeing the woman responsible for his wife’s death, she hardens to him.

Frank, however, wants to forgive Violet, and she is ready to begin a new chapter, to lead a good life. Eventually, the three unite.

Harriet helps Violet get a job in a bird lab at the university. The young woman loves working with the verbal, intelligent African gray parrots. She also grows too close to the lab’s director, Mishka, a brilliant but sullen Russian. 

Harriet continues to lead the book group. The women affectionately call her “Bookie.” When they read Spoon River Anthology, their imaginations are fired up and they start writing. Harriet is fulfilled by her work, but her niece and daughters are concerned that Harriet is too familiar with the inmates. They even know where her cat, Tabsy, hangs out in her home.

Frank has to deal with a drama-queen daughter, who idolized her mother. Should he, can he, tell her the truth about Lorraine?

These issues all come to a head for the characters, individually and together, in dramatic fashion. And the Spoon River Anthology fits in wonderfully with the poignant ending of the book.

I thoroughly enjoyed the descriptions of the bird lab, and Violet’s interactions with the parrots. I may have even learned a thing or two about animal behavior. Of course, as a retired librarian, I found the book group interactions and Harriet’s process for selecting materials engrossing. And Frank’s love of working with metal and fashioning it into useful objects was fascinating. 

How to Read a Book is the community read selection for Lithgow Public Library this year. I’m looking forward to participating in a book discussion on it and then a reception for and program by Monica Wood later this month.

Review: "The Botanist's Assistant," Peggy Townsend

Margaret Finch is well aware people call her “Big Bird” behind her back.

She doesn’t care.

Margaret knows she’s big-boned and plain-featured, but she has more important matters to focus on. She loves her job at a botany lab at Blackstone College, which appears to be in northern California, and reveres her boss, Dr. Jonathan Deaver.

And now he’s dead. The police think Dr. Deaver expired in his office because of a congenital heart condition. But Margaret, who pays great attention to detail, is suspicious.

She thinks Dr. Deaver was poisoned—by a plant. 

And she’s determined to find out who murdered him.

Margaret finds an unlikely ally in Joe, a custodian with a complex backstory. Although Margaret is socially awkward (and probably on the spectrum), her compassion helps young lab assistant Calvin to turn his life around (sort of) and he gets involved as well. Margaret even wins over a former adversary, Beth, the glamorous assistant to the dean of biological sciences.

It is unsettling for Margaret to discover that Dr. Deaver was not the paragon of virtue she imagined him to be. But she still wants justice done. Could the doctor’s wife, who may have contributed more to his success than he acknowledged, have killed him? And how about his temporary replacement, an unpleasant, ambitious man who has none of Dr. Deaver’s brilliance?

As Margaret puts her job on the line and takes risks she never thought herself capable of, she continues her carefully structured life in a quaint remote cabin left to her by a great-aunt. Margaret drives a 20-year-old Toyota truck, reads mysteries, gardens and wears a different flora- or fauna-themed shirt every day. A stray cat shows up on her doorstep and she surprises herself by taking it in.

And eventually, with a little help from her new friends, she solves the case.

I thoroughly enjoyed this warm and delightful book. Margaret is a wonderful character and the details of her life are charming. I hope she’ll be back for another gentle, fun sleuthing adventure.

Review: "It Could Have been Her," Lisa Jewell

Lisa Jewell has combined darkness and light to create a perfect thriller.

 

The light is Jane Trevally, aged 55, who lives with her four dogs in Rosebery Hall, Dorset. The once-grand manse is falling down around her, and is filled with awful memories—Jane’s parents drank themselves to death and she had a miserable childhood.  But Jane is stuck, unable to move on.

 

Then an adorable Westie shows up on her property. Jane would be happy to add the pup to her pack, but feels she must at least try to find its owner. She learns the dog had been staying with a young woman in a neighbor’s Air BnB rental. She tracks his home to a mysterious corner of Hampstead Heath in London.

 

When she arrives at the house in the Vale of Heath, Jane has a flashback. She met a man in a bar in her 20s and he brought her back to this place, where he lived with his wife and two children. She felt anxious about the situation, and quickly left. She’s always felt that she escaped some kind of dire fate.

 

The story of the house and the people who live there is the dark side of “It Could Have Been Her.” In flashbacks, the man who answers the door to Jane and takes back Hugo, the Westie, tells his tale. Stuart is a gentle man who wants to drift through life. He was living in a squat (albeit a well-organized one) when he met Jessamine in a pub. He soon becomes involved with her highly dysfunctional life with her daughter, Daisy, and mother, Annie, in that sinister house in the Vale of Heath.

 

The family’s life slowly spins out of control, as told in alternating chapters with Jane’s investigation. She wants to know how Hugo ended up in Dorset, and what happened to the young woman he was with. She wants to know more about the people who live in the house. Had evil things really happened there, as she once suspected?

 

Oh, yes. And there’s even a clown involved.

 

Jane begins to fancy herself a private eye. She married two rich men—one a viscount. She was an excellent stepmother to their children and donated most of her divorce money to an animal shelter in Spain (where she volunteered for years), but other than that she’s never held a “real” job. Jane is feeling like she might have found a purpose in life.

 

She stays in her second husband’s London flat while he is in the States, and thinks maybe she would like to return to the city.

 

Jane is not a lonely “dog lady.” Apparently, she’s quite a looker and keeps up appearances with expensive haircuts and Botox treatments. She has a good relationship with her stepchildren, especially the loveable, flamboyant Dexter, whom she enlists in her investigation.

 

Readers met Jane in Jewell’s previous nail-biter, “Don’t Let Him In.” She was an old girlfriend of murder victim Paddy Swann and helped his daughter solve his case. I thought she was an interesting secondary character. I’m so glad Jewell has given her a chance to shine. And from the way Jane and Dexter were talking, there could be more cases on tap. Fingers crossed!

Review: "The Au Pair," Teddy Wayne

Steven Hammer published his first book, The Blooms of August, to great acclaim, but his second novel flopped. Now he does endless research on his current work of  "literary fiction," teaches a single college eriting course as an adjunct and plays competitive online "Risk."

Oh, the irony.

His wife, Lucy Myers, is beautiful and driven, too obsessed with the investment company (focused on operations that “do good”) she runs to pay much attention to their kids, Sophie and Caleb. She rakes in the cash and pays Steven a stipend to give him some pseudo independence.

Lucy is too busy to hire a new nanny after sweet, middle-aged Constanza dies on the job (of natural causes) in the couple’s luxurious Brooklyn apartment. And she doesn’t appear to notice that Steven is recommending a stunning young Norwegian to replace Constanza.

Of course, he did forward to Lucy the most unbecoming photo of Astrid he could find.

Astrid is a good nanny, though. She’s circumspect, serious and wants to be a writer. She gets the kids to eat fish! Eventually, she confides to Steven that she loved his second book. In fact, she idolizes him in her stoic and literal way. 

Steven falls hard. The two begin a torrid affair, which they somehow manage to keep secret. When the family heads to the Catskills for a two-week vacation at a posh rental, however, tensions reach the tipping point. Tragedy results.

The Au Pair is a compelling thriller with an undertone of wry, dark humor. Steven is a compromised protagonist. He is really selfish. And sometimes, spectacularly unmotivated. I spent half the book silently exhorting him to get off his duff and write. Steven faces a number of moral dilemmas. His approach to them is—interesting.

I did find it fascinating to contemplate what people will do for love. I remember when an acquaintance left his wife for another woman. I could see why he wanted to leave the wife, but not why he felt so strongly that he would leave behind his young son. It did have a detrimental effect on the child.

It was only later that I realized the new woman loved him and that was what he wanted and needed most of all.

I wasn’t able to cut Steven that much slack, though.

I finished this book in three days (typically I take five). I can’t say more about what happens to Steven, Lucy and Astrid without ruining the suspense for future readers. I can say that I suspect Steven was named for Mike Hammer, hero of Mickey Spillane’s PI novels. By the end of the book, Steven thinks he has found his writing voice again by writing a crime novel. And that really comes as no surprise at all.