The Testament by John Grisham 5

 

"You die with eleven billion, and people care about your last will and testament. Especially if there's a chance that one of the world's great fortunes is about to be fed to the vultures. The tabloids were there, along with the local papers and all the important financial magazines. The three rows Wycliff had designated for the press were full by nine-thirty. The journalists had a delightful time watching the Phelans gather in front of them. Three artists worked feverishly."

           -from the novel

Troy Phelan is one of the richest men in the world and, nearing death changes his will in a very sneaky way. He has 3 ex-wives and many adult children who can't wait to get their hands on some of his great wealth, and it seems none of them are very deserving.

Nate O'Reilly, a D.C. litigator just out of rehab and way down on his luck is tapped to find the actual recipient of the Phelan fortune. She is Rachel Lane, Troy's illegitimate daughter about whom little is known except that she a missionary in a remote area of Brazil. 

Nate is lucky to survive a plane crash and boat problems in his search for the woman. Fortunately, he has a river guide named Jevy, who, by the way, adds some humor to a story that gets pretty intense.

I found this to be a page-turner; the rating is 5.

A Painted House by John Grisham

"I was scared and tired, almost faint again, and I just wanted everything to be normal, with the Mexicans and the Spruills out of our lives, with Ricky home, with the Latchers gone, with the nightmare of Hank erased from my memory. I was tired of secrets, tired of seeing things I was not supposed to see."

        -Luke, from the novel

I thought I had read this novel, but I really didn't remember much of it. It was not the legal thriller for which Grisham is best known. My rating is a 4.

The narrator/protagonist is Luke Chandler, a 7-year-old living on a cotton farm with his parents and grandparents in Arkansas. The setting is fall of 1952. Luke must help with the farm work but dreams of playing baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals. As a former elementary school teacher, I tend to identify with youthful characters.

The Chandler family has little money and they depend on the cotton crop for a living. It is harvest time and they must hire migrants to help with picking in order to get it done in time. These would include a family named Spruill, folks they call "hill people" from the Ozarks, and a group of several Mexicans. At his tender age Luke is exposed to adult situations brought on by these two groups including violence and a sexual encounter. One can surmise the ill effects on him from the quote above.

A painted house of the title is a status symbol in this time and place because people like the Chandlers cannot afford paint and are looked down on by those who can. I will leave it for you to find out more about why the title is fitting.

The Secret War of Julia Child by Diana R. Chambers 3

 

"I'm just fumbling my way through like everyone else, trying to do my best. One thing I learned---well, two things: Work hard. And never give up."

       -Julia's advice to Trixie, from the novel

I began reading this book thinking it was a biography and not until the Author's Note did I know for sure it is a work of fiction. But A Conversation with the Author, the Credits and Acknowledgements made it clear the author had done mountains of research to make this part of Julia's story as authentic as possible. 

A good portion of this book was over my head and other parts were confusing. There are so many acronyms for WWII, the author included a dictionary at the beginning to define them, for example OSS, FANY, SEAC, SACO, WRENS and several others. I don't read many spy novels, making this more challenging reading. There were so many characters, I almost gave up trying to keep track of who's who.

Julia McWilliams aspired to be a writer in her youth but ended up with the highest clearance working for the OSS in exotic (and dangerous) places like Ceylon, India and China. She is described in various places and by different people to be strong, resilient, intelligent, organized, dogged and ambitious. Reading this, it is hard not to be impressed, and she certainly managed to survive a few life-threatening incidents. 

I wondered if I wanted to keep reading when Julia's future husband, Paul Child, appeared. They didn't like each other at first, so I had to continue to find out how they eventually connected. I am rating the book a 3 since I liked it enough to finish and I learned a lot but didn't enjoy it immensely.

The Wind Knows My Name by Isabel Allende 5

 

"But no crying. We have to be good. No, we're not lost. The wind knows my name. And yours too. Everyone knows where we are. I'm here with you and you know where I am. See? There's nothing to be scared about. Mama will be able to find us; she just has to call and ask Miss Selena or Tita Edu. We don't have to worry about the guardian angel either. She always knows where we are and she never goes too far away."      -Anita to her sister Claudia

I chose this book because I thought I had enjoyed another novel by this author but in looking at a list of her work, I saw nothing familiar. According to her bio she is known for magical realism, a genre that I don't always like. In this novel, it worked for me because it came in the form of imaginings of a traumatized child, her escape in a very real way. I've rated the book a 5.

This novel spans time and place by presenting the stories of Samuel Adler, sent as a Jewish child from Vienna in 1938 to London to avoid the Nazis and Anita Nogales, a 7-year-old blind girl brought from El Salvador by her mother and separated by the heartless U.S. immigration policy in 2019 of taking children from parents.

Anita's story reminded me of We Are Not From Here by Jenny Torres Sanchez about young people making their way north after fleeing a horrendous situation in Guatemala and trying to survive very dangerous situations to get to the U.S.

Other characters important to the plot are Selena Duran, a social worker who becomes very involved with Anita's predicament and Frank Angileri, a lawyer recruited by Selena to help with the needed legal work.

I loved how the two immigration stories are compared and contrasted and how Anita's story is woven into Samuel's. It was interesting being reminded of the onset of COVID 19 restrictions and the author reflects negatively on President Trump's first term because of his treatment of the pandemic AND his cruel immigration policies.

Amos Fortune free man by Elizabeth Yates 4

 

"You'd set all the world free if you could, wouldn't you, Amos?"    Violet

"Just the part of it that I can touch. That's all any man can do."     Amos

This book won the coveted Newberry Medal in 1951 so I knew it would be special. It was written for youth, but the story is universal. I am not exactly sure of the genre---biography, maybe fictionalized? It is based on an actual man who became known as Amos Fortune.

At-mun was prince of the At-mun-shi people in Africa when he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Boston as a 15-year-old. Fortunately, he was chosen by a Quaker man who treated him kindly. Renamed Amos by his owners, he learned quickly, worked very hard and rose above his sad beginnings. He would finally purchase his freedom at age 60 and then proceeded to save his earnings to purchase two wives who did not live long and a third, Violet, along with her daughter, Celyndia, who became a great support in their home in Jaffrey, NH. 

Amos became a very well-known tanner and was respected by the community in spite of the prejudice toward blacks at the time. He continued to buy freedom for and help many people before he died at the ripe old age of 91. (Illustrated by the quoted conversation above.)

An inspiring story of resilience and generosity! Rating: 4

Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene 1

"Hateread--to endure a book in order to write a scathing review." I recently learned this term from Dictionary.com. Sadly, that is what I was doing while reading Our Man in Havana. I believe I read another novel by this author years ago and liked it. This one however was awful. I read some 40% and had no idea what was going on! I decided life is too short to keep reading a book I hated. A rating of 1. (You may notice I found no quote worth sharing!)

While looking for an image to include I saw a summary. Maybe if I had read that ahead of time the story would have made more sense, but I doubt it!

Heartwood by Amity Gaige 4

 

"Some lost people don't have the skills but instead they have something else. I don't know what to call it. Heart. They survive because of their love of life or of the dear ones in their mind. They stay present. They keep their eyes open. Often when these people are rescued, they report feeling a sense of wonder out there. For the moments they had left. For the privilege of being alive at all."         

           -Lt. Bev Miller, from the novel

Heartwood is the Page Turners' May selection. I am not sure I would have selected it, but it was a page turner, a fast-paced thriller. I am giving it a 4 rating.

Three main characters alternate their experiences in moving the plot. Lt. Beverly Miller is the Maine State Game Warden in charge of the search for a missing woman who has disappeared from the Maine portion of the Appalachian Trail. It is a race against time to rescue her.

The missing woman is Valerie Gillis who is writing a letter to her mother which is actually like a diary. She was to meet her husband at a certain location but failed to show up. A member of the "tramily" (trail family) had to leave her and she is alone and lost and without means of communication.

Lena Kucharski is a 76-year-old woman living at Cedarfield Active Life Plan Community in Connecticut when she finds news of the missing woman and becomes fixated on the search. I found her interesting because I am close to her age and live in such a community. She writes about her scooter, the slowness of her neighbors (She wishes for a fast lane.), ladies who are into jigsaw puzzles and other things I see quite often where I live.

It was rather fascinating how the stories of all three women come together. The one thing I didn't like was the somewhat choppy writing style.

At first, I had a hard time getting into this story. I am not a true outdoor person so 'lost in the woods" is something I find hard to imagine. My husband, on the other hand, once dreamed of hiking the AT, as it is called in the book. I fondly remember reading My Side of the Mountain when I was teaching 5th grade. Lt. Miller mentions having read the novel in her youth.

I wonder what our group will have to say about Heartwood.