Thunder Bay by William Kent Krueger

 

"The biggest word in the human vocabulary has only four letters and no definition that's ever been adequate. We love our dogs. We love our children. We love God and chocolate cake. We fall in love and fall out of love. We die for love and we kill for love. We can't spend it. We can't eat it when we're starving or drink it when we're dying of thirst. It's no good against the bitter cold of winter, and even a cheap electric fan will do more for you on a hot summer day. But ask most human beings what they value above all else in this life and, five'll get you ten, it's love."

           -Cork's thoughts, from the novel's Epilogue

Seven down and twelve to go! I am working my way through this series. Actually, it would be more accurate to say I am enjoying my way through. This one rates a 5 as have most others.

Cork O'Conner's long-time friend and spiritual advisor, Ojibwe medicine man Henry Meloux, is ailing and asks a favor of him. Henry has seen visions of a son he has never met, the product of a love affair in his youth, and he wants Cork, now a private detective, to find him. Henry is about 90 years old and he is determined to meet his son before he dies. Cork promises to help without realizing how much danger there will be in this mission. 

Cork finds out that the son is Henry Wellington, a wealthy recluse living in Thunder Bay, Canada. When he finally comes face to face with Wellington, Cork is sent away without much hope for his friend. When there is an attempt to kill Henry, the plot thickens.

Much of the novel involves Henry's story of his ill-fated love affair in the 1920's. This was very interesting since Henry has been an ever-present character in the series with little revealed about him except for his visions and wisdom. This is the part where the reader learns about the prejudice, jealousy and revenge that will lead to an exciting climax.

Book 8, Red Knife, is coming up next!

The Keeper of Happy Endings by Barbara Davis

 "There are times for holding on in this life and times for letting go. You must learn to know the difference."  

                  -Maman's advice to Soline, from the novel

January 11, 2022

There are SO many quote-worthy passages in this book, I had trouble choosing one! The one I settled on is repeated a number of times in the novel.

This story has two female protagonists of different nationalities and backgrounds whose lives intersect in a rather amazing way. Aurora "Rory" Purcell is a young aspiring artist in Boston, despairing of ever seeing her fiancé again. (He has been kidnapped in South Sudan.) Soline Roussel is an older woman, one of a long line of bridal designers, first of Paris and later transplanted in Boston as a result of the Nazi occupation of France and her work in the Resistance. 

Rory finds an abandoned building which seems to "call her name." Feeling it is the perfect setting for fulfillment of her dream to open an art gallery for unknown artists, she seeks out the owner who happens to be Soline. In fact, the building had been Soline's bridal shop called L'Aiguille Enchantee, The Charmed Needle, and had been greatly damaged by fire. Thus, the two women are connected and, in spite of their age difference, become close. Flashbacks provide the reader with Soline's story starting in Paris and giving insight into Rory's rocky relationship with her mother. As the story continues, we find both women have suffered losses and are able to find comfort in their friendship. 

Soline's chapters begin with quotes from her Maman, Esmee Roussel, La Sorciere de la Robe, or the Dress Witch. I thought many of these were profound, such as the one at the start of my post. Another I really liked was: "Every soul creates an echo. Like a fingerprint or signature that becomes infused in the things around us. Who we are. Where we belong. What we're meant to bring to the world. No two echoes are alike. They are ours and ours alone. But they're incomplete---one half of a perfect whole. Like a mirror without a reflection. And so each echo is constantly seeking its other half, to complete itself." A rather lovely thought.

Esmee's bridal creations were believed to bring lasting joy and love to select couples, so she called herself le gardien des fins heureuses, the keeper of happy endings----thus, the title. Esmee worked la magie and it seems Soline inherited it along with her mother's skill.

I am giving The Keeper of Happy Endings a 5 rating. I enjoyed it very much.

----------------

May 19, 2022

I enjoyed this novel so much, I suggested it as a 2022 book club selection. Fifteen of our group met today to discuss the book. After looking over the discussion questions, I found I did not remember the "happy ending" of the book, so I started rereading around chapter 40. I still found it interesting.

Our group's average rating was 3.9 with only one person finding nothing much to like about it. She felt all the characters were portrayed as victims. A few of our folks agreed there were a LOT of coincidences, some difficult to believe. A number of us agreed that after having read a couple of pretty intense memoirs, we needed something a bit more "fluffy." We decided with so much romance, references to art and bridal gown design, it probably qualifies as "chick lit." 

The Star and the Shamrock by Jean Grainger

 

"On one hand, the Irish knew what it was like to be a persecuted people. They were subjected to terrible cruelty at the hands of the British by all accounts, so this stone wall of refusal on the subject of [Jewish] refugees was hard to understand."

     -Thoughts of Daniel Lieber, from the novel

In Berlin, Ariella Bannon is forced to make a very difficult decision. With her husband having been taken prisoner by the Nazis, she must send her children, Liesl and Erich, by Kindertransport to the UK. She asks her husband's cousin in Liverpool, Elizabeth Klein, if she will take them in and care for them. Elizabeth is a childless widow but out of compassion she agrees. 

After welcoming the children, Liverpool is bombed, and Elizabeth and the children relocate to a rural area of Northern Ireland. There Elizabeth teaches school and comes to love Liesl and Erich as her own. She meets other German and Austrian refugees, including Daniel quoted above. Several chapters into the novel, it becomes evident there is a spy in their midst. Daniel is arrested but Elizabeth and several others cannot believe he would betray them. If not Daniel, who?

I enjoyed this historical fiction and will give it a rating of 4. The ending was not completely satisfactory but after discovering this is book I of a trilogy, I understand why. Perhaps I will read book II one of these days.

The Candid Life of Meena Dave by Namrata Patel

 

"Advice to a young person from an old person:

1. Bravery isn't in big battles; it is in small acts.

2. Once you are over the age of 30 you can no longer blame the past or your parents for the way you are. Fix yourself, it's within your control.

3. There is always money in the banana stand. Sam has told me this is from a television program. What I infer from it is that subtext is often more telling than text.

                          -Note left by Neha Patel, from the novel

This was another Amazon First Reads selection and very different from what I have read lately. I enjoyed it and will rate it a 4.

Meena Dave is a young woman who looks East Indian but doesn't really know her background since she was adopted as an infant by American parents. After the traumatic deaths of her adoptive parents, Meena survives lonely days in foster care, puts herself through college, becomes a photojournalist and travels the world. She has no roots and few meaningful social connections. It is almost like she is running from herself.

When Meena surprisingly inherits an apartment in an exclusive area of Boston, she has a window into East Indian culture and her own identity. The historic building is called the Engineer's House because it was founded by East Indian students at MIT generations ago and the apartments exclusively passed down to their progeny. Even as Meena fully intends to sell the apartment left to her by Neha Patel as soon as she can, she starts finding ambiguous notes around the apartment and getting to know her neighbors, three nosy Indian aunties and an attractive and helpful guy, Sam. Meena tries very hard to distance herself from them all but, as one might expect and even hope for, she does not succeed. 

I learned a good bit of Indian culture along with Meena, especially the foods. I knew of Chai tea but not much else. This was one of the things I enjoyed about the novel along with references to places in Boston which I fondly remembered plus a little romance. But it was the gradual revealing of family secrets that kept me turning pages!

Copper River by William Kent Krueger

 

"There was spirit in all things, Cork believed, knowledge in every molecule of creation. Nothing ever went truly unnoticed, from the fall of a single leaf to the death of a child."

           - from the novel

This is the 6th book I have read in the Cork O'Conner series and the 8th novel by this author. Would you say I am a fan?

In Copper River, Cork is in hiding at the home of his cousin, Jewell DuBois and her teenaged son Ren. Jewell is a veterinarian and is treating the gunshot wounds Cork received in the previous novel, Mercy Falls. While Cork is trying to stay a few steps ahead of the hit man hired to kill him, a teenage girl is found dead in the Copper River. Ren and his friends, Charlie and Stash, may have seen the perpetrators and so, could be in danger. 

Soon Charlie's father, a known drunk, is found brutally beaten to death. Charlie has disappeared and, of course, law enforcement searches for her as a suspect, but her best friend Ren and others who know Charlie, are sure she could not have killed him. Suddenly the quiet little town of Bodine, Michigan, has several murders being investigated and Cork, always the lawman, cannot keep from being involved in the investigations with help from private investigator, Dina Willner.

This novel was another page-turner, and I will rate it 5. Looking forward to Book 7, Thunder Bay.

The King Tides by James Swain

 

"The world is a good place, and so are most of the people who live in it. Evil people are a minority, and they're not supposed to win. When they go down, we have every right to pop a bottle of champagne and cheer."

          -Jon Lancaster to Beth Daniels, from the novel

Another Amazon First Reads selection, this novel is set in Florida, where I live, which caught my attention early-on. I wondered about the title and as is turned out, King Tides are a climate phenomenon in South Florida. I had never heard of these exceptional high tides that flood the streets of that area at times. More evidence of global warming?

Jon Lancaster is a former Navy Seal and police officer who is now a lone wolf investigator. Dr. Nolan Pearl and his wife in Fort Lauderdale hire him as a bodyguard for their 15-year-old daughter, Nicki, who is being stalked by a number of strange men. There have even been attempted kidnappings of Nicki. Of course, protection of the teenager is not enough, Jon gets involved in trying to find the reason behind these unexplained happenings. He soon finds evidence of child pornography and even suspicions of serial killings.

Jon eventually meets up with Beth Daniels, an FBI agent who has surprising personal connections to the men involved and they work together to find the perpetrators. 

This novel was fast-paced, pretty much a page-turner. I enjoyed it and will rate it a 4. I would likely read another by this author in the future.

Strangers We Know by Elle Marr

 "My mother always warned me against believing strangers too quickly in a big city like San Francisco. What if the strangers we know carry the greater risk of breaking our hearts----betraying our expectations?"

        -from the novel

In San Francisco, Ivy Hon knows almost nothing about her biological parents since she was adopted as an infant. She is suffering with a strange illness and feels a need to search her genetic background to get some answers.

When she receives the results of her DNA test, she is informed by the FBI that she has a biological link to a serial killer called the "Full Moon Killer."  This murderer has been leaving victims around the Pacific Northwest for decades. On the positive side, Ivy finds a cousin online and pays a visit to her small town in Washington State. It doesn't take long for Ivy to discover that her mother, Tatum, was likely a victim of the Full Moon Killer and that her father disappeared near the time of her birth and is remembered by almost no one.

Ivy finds out that a few of her new-found family are or have been involved with an intimidating religious cult. She soon begins to feel she may be in danger herself.

I don't understand the significance of the title, found in the quote, because it seemed to me that Ivy was with actual strangers in most of the story. The book was pretty well-written and kept me turning pages, so my rating is 3.