Wreck by Catherine Newman

 genre: contemporary fiction

Rocky’s way of looking at the world is centered in her fierce love of her children. She loves her husband, yes, and her elderly father that has come to live at their home following the passing of her mother - but her children have a vice grip on her heart. So when what feels like a random accident suddenly isn’t and when a weird rash is maybe more than that, poor Rocky’s emotional bandwidth is stretched to its actual limit.

Here is why I loved this book: Rocky is living at my stage of life. I feel so much of what she feels down in my marrow, about being in a messy female body, about being a mom and a wife and a daughter. And she’s so very funny sometimes. I just wasn’t disappointed, not in any way. If you loved Sandwhich like I did, I bet you’ll love this too.

Libby: The Alaskan Diaries and Letters of Libby Beaman 1879-1880 by Libby Beaman , Betty John

genre: nonfiction memoir

Libby Beaman is the daughter of a well-connected Washington DC family. After her youth is disrupted by the horrors of the Civil War, finding work in the aftermath proves to be another challenge. Thus, when there is a chance for Libby's husband to have a stable job, she encourages him to take it, even though that job is on the unthinkably remote Alaskan Pribilof Islands, newly acquired by the United States from Russia.  Not only that but she packs up her skirts and joins him, despite everyone's insistence that she stay home. This book is a collection of her diary and letters, a memoir of place never before seen by an American woman.

It is amazing, the books I find at the thrift store. What a story! Libby Beaman is a fiercely independent woman who also, you can see in her writing, knows she is a pawn in a man's game. With society's expectations in her mind of what a good Victorian lady ought to be, she can look the part but she has a hard time playing it! The things she experiences in Alaska are fascinating and harrowing. I hadn't anticipated learning so much about the life cycle of seals but if you are an animal lover, this book might be hard to read. The job her husband is there to do, overseeing the seal pelt harvesting, is such a bloody, stinking job. And there's really nowhere that Libby can go to escape it - or her husband's boss - who is his own problem.

She definitely sees herself as a proper American and that the indigenous people whose island she now lived on are backwards natives who not only were "uncivilized" but also had been influenced by the Russians for years. Her feelings of cultural superiority are sometimes very glaring, which is not surprising.  But you can see her learning and trying too. I like how this book is both her diary and her letters - you get her brutal honesty in the diary and then you can see how she tells family back home, making it all so much more smooth and chill than real life. I try to imagine BEING her. She was a real woman, living in this real place where you are iced in for MONTHS. She was a witness to a changeover in national loyalty, with old customs slowly being meshed into new.

This is one of the best memoirs/diaries I have read. Libby had an incredibly unique experience and I'm so glad she took the time to write it down.

Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes (audiobook)

 genre: contemporary fiction/romance

When Evvie, a recent widow, agrees to let Dean, a professional baseball player with the yips, rent out her basement, it is for practical reasons.  She needs the money.  She has a hard time ever leaving her house and she knows that having another person around could be good.  She's already got a best friend and a community that is both grieving the loss of her dead husband as well as wondering when she's gonna get back in the saddle.  So adding this one additional thing feels right.

But this is a romance novel, so we can guess how it will go - but it is also a lot more than that, in my opinion.  It is about mental health and boundaries and the way we can be our own worst enemy in our head, especially when we can't bring ourselves to let the hardest parts out into the light.  I felt the dialogue was actually quite good and Dean is both dreamy but solid, I believed that he could be for real - his pain and own brokenness tracked for me.  I liked the small town Maine setting and I especially appreciated the arc of Evvie's emotional life showed a healthy way to put yourself back together again after something traumatic.  I just enjoyed this novel a lot.

Audition by Katie Kitamura (audiobook)

 genre: contemporary fiction

Our narrator is an actress, a woman who has made a name for herself both on stage and screen.  The play she's in and the young man who has come to ask her about it will set the stage, as it were, for a book in two acts that, frankly, went way over my head, maybe.  It's Meta, I can see that now, but in the reading I was NOT pulled in.  The main character made no sense to me - her behavior and emotions didn't track with how I feel like people generally show up in the world.  She has essentially no sympathetic qualities and so after a while, she just made me mad.  This feels like a book for people who want to feel like they are talking intelligently about art and performance.  Maybe I'm not one of those people?

Heartwood by Amity Gaige (audiobook)

genre: contemporary mystery

Valerie Gillis, trail name "Sparrow,"  was through-hiking the Appalachian Trail when she went missing, somewhere in Maine.  Seasoned warden and confident searcher coordinator Lt. Bev is determined to find her.  But the woods are vast and wild - and Valerie is just one small person out there.  With each passing day decreasing her chances of being found alive, Valerie's disappearance takes on the feel of a desperate emergency, both for her family and for Lt. Beverly and her team.  

This mystery is told from multiple points of view and it didn't take long for me to get my feet under me.  There is a minor secondary plot with a quirky character whose connection takes a while to emerge and I liked this tangent that eventually weaves in, as you know it will.  I liked how I got just enough fleshing out and backstory that the overall story is not just about Valerie being missing and the hunt to find her but it is also about being a mom and HAVING a mom and how both of those things can be so very complicated.  I ended up listening for hours straight today as I tidied my house because I was so invested in Valerie and the team searching to uncover her.  

A Land so Wide by Erin A. Craig

 genre: fantasy

Greer's town, Mistaken, is a tiny safe haven in a harsh new world.  Ever since Mistaken was settled, the Warding Stones have kept the forest and its host of creatures at bay - all the horrifying creatures that can kill a person as easily as they can destroy a town will leave Mistaken alone.  When the certainty of their safety is threatened and Greer is forced to obey her father's wishes, wild chances have to be taken.  If Greer is strong enough to accept the consequences.  

This is a bloody, spooky book.  Greer isn't a particularly memorable character but I did love how much she loves maps - her internal dialogue was just fairly wishy washy in a way that grated.  The creatures here are wildly evil but the plot itself just had some gaping holes that never really felt filled for me by the time it was over.  I liked the backstory and the frontier/backwoods kind of vibe.  I'm not sure why I didn't love it more, maybe because it felt like YA. but the protagonist is 27 and yet in her head, for sure younger.  Regardless, I was interested enough that I was engaged until the end but I didn't finish feeling anything in particular.

A Quiet Life in the Country: A Lady Hardcastle Mystery by TE Kinsey (audiobook)

genre: historical mystery

Lady Hardcastle has determined that a move out to the country is JUST the thing, a quiet life amid pleasant country people.  Of course, she's brought along her multi-talented and capable maid, Flo, to keep her organized and comfortable.  But before being there a week they stumble upon a very dead body and cannot help themselves from becoming involved with the solving of this mystery.

Oh my goodness, this was a delightful romp.  The relationship between these two ladies is actually hilarious and I found myself guffaw outloud more than once.  There is a genuine mystery here and although I did have a bit of a hard time keeping all the characters straight, I managed well enough to SUPER enjoy myself.  The narrator of the audiobook is phenomenal and I know that this will not be my visit with Lady Hardcastle and the ineffable Flo. 

Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad by Jacqueline L. Tobin , Raymond G. Dobard

 genre: non-fiction 

The premise of this book is that quilts and their patterns were used during the time of slavery in the United States in order to help escaping slaves know where to go and what to do.  It's a fascinating idea that really captured my imagination.  And while I learned a LOT in this book about the Underground Railroad and several of the key players in this emancipation organization, this book did not actually convince me of the quilt code, unfortunately.  Hidden in Plain View is based on a story told by one woman that the authors met at a market in Charleston and from there, a LOT of conjecture was made.  The authors are honest with the fact that nearly all of their ideas are unsubstantiated but good "guesses," based on various children's book plots, narratives and spiritual songs.  To be clear - I enjoyed learning all I did about the spirituals and the escape routes etc.  I just couldn't get my brain to be convinced by what the authors were hypothesizing regarding the quilts, even though I do still love the idea of it, I can acknowledge that it just may not be true.

The Impossible Thing by Belinda Bauer (audiobook)

 genre: historical fiction/mystery/crime

This novel, told in two time periods, has at its heart a hobby and an obsession that I have maybe never thought about before: egg collecting.  There is a crime committed against a young man and his mother with tentacles that reach back over a hundred years, to a young girl, a tall Yorkshire cliff, and one extraordinary bird.  I almost don't want to explain more, because I loved my journey in this story where greed can manipulate the desperate and where neurospicy characters who look at the world through a unique lens can be the ones to figure out the missing pieces.  While part of it is upsetting (especially as a bird lover), I'm still thinking about this one, the world it introduced me to and a cliff full of wonders.

Curveball: The Alabama Son They Never Saw Coming by Joshua Cole

genre: memoir

This book was recommended to me by a friend of the author, otherwise it may have never made it into my hands - and I’m so glad it did. Joshua is a good storyteller, willing to share both the both raw and funny of his journey to finding the kind of life he was meant to life. It is so good for me to read real accounts of gender transitions because I always finish feeling so much compassion and respect for the price that so often has to be paid for authenticity. The little vignettes are sometimes a tiny bit out of chronological order but I never had a problem keeping my footing. I wish Joshua all the best.