Characters ring true in Tucker's third novel
919485
For as long as she can remember, Dorothea O'Brien has lived a peaceful, sheltered life at the Sanctuary - a luxurious home on 35 acres in New Mexico where she grew up with her father and older brother, Jimmy.

After the loss of their mother 19 years before, Charles O'Brien created a haven where he could protect his children from any threat of harm. The O'Brien kids couldn't play outside on sunny days for fear of sunburn, never learned to cook lest they suffer a cut or burn, studied from outdated texts that contained no disturbing recent historical events, and above all, had absolutely no contact with anyone from the outside world.

Jimmy left the isolation of the Sanctuary for St. Louis two years before, but kept in contact with his little sister. A gentle soul and talented artist, Jimmy has hidden the fact that life in the big city has not been all he had expected and he has been overwhelmed by his fragmented memories of a childhood trauma.  Now Charles O'Brien is gravely ill, and would like nothing more than to see his son safe at home once more. Dorothea defies her father's wishes and sets off in secret to retrieve her wayward brother, though she is unsure of his exact whereabouts.

When naive Dorothea arrives in St. Louis, the first person she meets is Stephen Spaulding, a former doctor who became a cabbie after the loss of his family in a tragic accident. He takes Dorothea under his wing, and helps her negotiate the strange new world she has just entered.  Little does he know that in helping her repair the fractured O'Brien family, he will find the means to mend his own shattered heart.

Though Dorothea and Jimmy know virtually nothing about their mother, the reader is privy to Charles and his wife Lucy's entire history. Author Lisa Tucker devotes as much attention to their ill-fated relationship as she does to the blossoming romance between Stephen and Dorothea many years later.

"Once Upon A Day" is Tucker's third novel and it defies categorization. While it contains several elements of suspense at the start of the story, complete with a major twist fairly early, its plot mainly unfolds in a straight-forward manner.

Tucker's talent isn't in constructing elaborate mysteries, but rather in stripping away the secrets and heartbreaks that separate her memorable characters from each other, leaving them free to love each other honestly and completely.

Tucker's characters are rich and fully realized, and they struggle with complicated emotions and motivations. This is a finely wrought dramatic tale which movingly illustrates how the events of one day can completely alter lives.

We can give the repercussions of a tragedy the power to utterly destroy us, just as we can allow hope born of yet another day to restore us.

--Andrea McGough
348186
This collection of three Christian novels combines drama, mystery and courtroom drama.  The first novel, "Where Yesterday Lives" looks at how secrets from the past can intrude into our lives so much that our present lives can fall apart.  Ellen, a reporter, is forced to revisit the past when her father dies and she is suddenly back with her sisters, brother, and mom.  The family conflicts and hidden secrets along with unresolved feeling Ellen has for a former boyfriend tempt Ellen to make some potentially disastrous choices about herself, her marriage and her family.  The dynamic between Ellen and her sister Jane is heartrendingly realistic.

This strongly Christian novel does confront life's temptations and daily choices but is not 'preachy' in delivery.  The story was well written and skillfully drawn.

The second novel, "When Joy Came to Stay", while also looking at how secrets from the past can and do affect our current lives and mental health, is quite a different story from the first.  This story takes a frank look at the loss a woman feels when she gives up a child for adoption and how the burden of keeping it a complete secret from friends and family can take a toll on her mental health, her day to day functioning, her marriage and her relationship with family. It is also a strong statement on the power of prayer, faith and love. Maggie Stovall, a strong successful woman who appears to have everything is silently struggling with choices from her past and with visions of the child that might have been hers, had she not given her up as a newborn.  She tries to comfort herself by telling herself that her daughter is safe in a better home, but can't convince herself because of the disturbing visions she keeps having of a young blond girl seeking her.  She has never admitted to her husband what happened in her past although she tends to blame him for her current distress.  Meanwhile, there are physical and emotional dangers facing  Maggie, her husband, Ben, and her long lost daughter.  I don't want to spoil the ending so you will just have to read it to find out if everything is safely resolved.

The third novel, "On Every Side"  Joshua Nunn, a lawyer who specializes in defending religious freedom for Christians.  In this intriguing story, we get a peek into both sides of the courtroom drama and into some of the backroom planning.  Joshua has recently lost his  longtime law partner who was a dynamic force for defending freedom.  When Jordan, a former foster child, returns to Bethany to sue for removal of a historical statue of Jesus from the local park, Joshua worries that he is not the force his former partner was, but prays for guidance.  Jordon struggles with his unresolved grief over the boyhood loss of his mother, his unanswered prayers for her healing, and his separation from his sister.  The town struggles over how to save their statue.  Faith, a local news anchor, chooses religious freedom over her job and struggles to help her town through this crisis.

I recommend this book highly as a moving testament to the complications life holds and the faith that can overcome all.  Note:  I did receive a free review copy, but I don't review unless I love it or hate it.  And if I hate it I don't hold back!
1719571
I really love this book--although based on the Bible, it reads more like a novel. Mrs. Tucker uses her imagination and really puts in words what I am thinking when I read about these women.  She puts in many more details--again with liberty--but it makes the characters more real.  I will re-read it because it is a lot to absorb in one reading.
3289742
While the previous collections ("The Fire Escape Stories") were satisfying and fully-formed as standalone books, it is obvious they function as appetizers for the main course, which is "The Fire Escape Belongs in Brooklyn."

In this novel, we follow the adventures (and occasional misadventures) of Mike, who continues to deal with not only the sudden and troubling disappearance of his best-friend Sally-Boy (the co-star of "The Fire Escape Stories"), but the small matter of encroaching adulthood. Any young person's travails and epiphanies, as they explore the freedom and chaos of college life, are at once unique and universal. Imagine how complicated this rite of passage was during the height of the Vietnam War. Cascio shows us the predictable generation gap most fathers and sons confront, but dives deep into the social, racial and sexual landmines that were scattered across American campuses, circa 1968.

We follow Mike as he interacts with both teachers and students, some brilliant, some bizarre, all familiar (yet very real and alive) in various ways, and his explorations are set against the tensions escalating at home, as well as in that far-off war that is slowly pulling friends and family into its vortex. And, of course, there is the redemption of love (between family, friends and especially a potential soul-mate).

This era has been ceaselessly explored in both fiction and non-fiction, in part because it was such a defining period in our nation's history. Cascio manages to interrogate the real ways these seminal years impacted real people, and with empathy and a reporter's eye, he adds to any reader's understanding of the good, bad, and especially the ugly of a time in America that's at once historic and ever-present.
3708005
I loved the characters in this novel. In a way, I almost wish I didn't know the similarities they bear to real people in Walls' life -- but I did read her memoir, so I do. Knowing the extent to which these characters derive from "real" people could diminish some of the wonderful, rich reality that these characters properly possess. But that isn't fair to Walls or to the inhabitants of this novel.

The plot develops gradually, and as gradually builds in intensity. The climax is not implausible, and is in some ways quite satisfying, though I'm not sure whether to view it as in some sense an easy way out. The actual ending is a bit abrupt, which left me blinking and wondering where these people and their world suddenly went -- but that's a quibble. I definitely recommend this book.
3954673
Like all of Kent Haruf's novels, BENEDICTION is set in fictional Holt, Colorado, a small town on the plains of northeastern Colorado.  (It is modeled on the actual town of Yuma, Colorado, where Haruf once lived.)  It is a quiet, conservative High Plains community, oriented around agriculture and church.  Most of the residents are decent, hard-working folk, but most are rather set in their ways.

The novel traces the last few weeks of Dad Lewis.  For over a half-century he ran the local hardware store, but now he is dying of cancer.  By and large, Dad's life was a good one, thanks in large measure to his devoted wife Mary.  Two events from the past continue to gnaw at him, however.  One was forty years ago when he discovered that his clerk at the store had been stealing from him and he fired the clerk, who soon after committed suicide.  The other concerned his son Frank, whom, when he realized that Frank was gay, he abused and tormented and ultimately drove away from the family.  The clerk's widow and Frank haunt Dad on and off through his final days.

Homosexuality is also a bugaboo for the town of Holt in general.  So, too, is the preacher Rob Lyle, who was exiled from Denver for preaching that the Sermon on the Mount should be followed literally and that Christianity is more than feeling good about yourself; when Lyle brings his message to Holt, he is rejected there too.  Yet another taboo is questioning the wisdom or morality of the then-ongoing Iraq War.

There also are many examples of love and kindness.  But overall, BENEDICTION strikes me as a modern morality tale, whose message is "Be receptive to change; accept people's foibles and idiosyncrasies."  Oddly, however, there is very little true happiness among the characters of the novel, even those who are sources of grace and kindness.  Most are simply enduring life.  And Dad and Mary Lewis represent the only successful marriage.

I could enumerate other oddities about the novel as well as several false notes in the conduct of its characters, but I will pass and jump to the conclusion -- the novel doesn't really cohere.  It does have its virtues.  Principal among them is that it is the antithesis of so many edgy contemporary novels.  Furthermore, its portrayal of dying and death is sensitive and instructive.

I now have read five of Haruf's quiet, old-fashioned novels.  Of them, I liked "Plainsong", "Eventide", and "Our Souls at Night" better than I do BENEDICTION.
1729570
Deep in the Maine woods, a tree falls and unearths the remains of a woman, the only mark of her grave a Star of David carved into a nearby tree. Soon, a wave of violence will disrupt the lives of a handful of people as the search for the woman's child ensues, and the book the woman once possessed in the days leading to her demise. Drawn into this is Charlie Parker, a private investigator touched by darkness, and for whom violence surrounds him.

The Woman in the Woods is the 16th entry in John Connolly's Charlie Parker series, and its opening chapters carry with it an unmistakable dread. The threat and promise of death looms large over this series, naturally, but it feels more prominent here, more like a warning. Or, perhaps, more like a preparation. Parker and his associates are growing older, as is the author himself, who recently celebrated his 50th birthday, and who has been writing about Parker for going on 20 years. I can't help but feel like Connolly is beginning to move his pieces closer toward an end game, tightening the narrative threads of particular concepts introduced in previous entries and forcing his characters to reflect on the nature of their demise as a close ally to Parker faces the threat of cancer. Of course, long-time readers will know that not even death can spell the end of a character's story, but it still feels like the noose is tightening around the series and that its finale is soon to be upon us.

As with prior novels, Connolly gives us heartless killers with odd afflictions, detours into the supernatural, and glimpses of an overarching narrative involving the war of good against evil. In The Woman in the Woods, we find evil particularly emboldened. I believe this is the first Parker novel written squarely amidst the turmoil of the Trump presidency, a presidency that has served only to empower white supremacists. Beyond the murderous Quayle and his companion Mors, there is the threat of white supremacy and the burgeoning increase in bigotry and racism as represented by the Stonehursts, the youngest of whom rides around in a truck decorated with Confederate flags. Naturally, Luis takes some issues with this northernmost Confederate idiot, allowing readers to live vicariously in the nitwit's comeuppance. It's interesting to see how the Trump regime has impacted some of my favorite authors and their responses to the creeping nature of this odious moron's hate into their work. In Stephen King's The Outsider, we saw graves desecrated by swastikas, and Nicholas Sansbury Smith's Trackers series has provided a good bit of Neo-Nazi-punching heroics. Sadly, the normalizing of these repugnant attitudes by the right-wing is now common place and hate crimes have been on the rise ever since Trump took office, so it's quite refreshing to see characters like Charlie Parker and Luis taking a stand against this all-too human evil. Their actions and reactions toward the Stonehursts had me smiling rather happily along the way, and I suspect this family of rich racists will be playing a larger role in the books to come.

There are few series that I look forward to with as much anticipation as a new Charlie Parker novel, and The Woman in the Woods delivers on a number of fronts. The characters and dialogue are as sharp as ever, and Connolly infuses the narrative with a sense of creeping dread, one that promises to deliver even more worry and upset in the near future. While I suspect we're finally getting close to the end of Parker's ultimate story, I certainly hope I'm wrong. There's nothing I'd like more than to keep on reading Connolly's series for many, many more years to come, but if the end of near, I believe Parker and company will be going out on a high note, and the end began here, with the discovery of a dead woman lost in the woods.
40459
It was not as good as the first book, Tucker's Way, but it was still a good read.
349090
In this, the third of Earl Derr Biggers' six Charlie Chan novels, Charlie has just solved the case described in The Chinese Parrot and is in San Francisco, yearning to return to his wife and family in Hawaii. His wife is, in fact, expecting their eleventh child. But at a dinner party, Sir Frederic Bruce, who is writing his memoirs about a woman who went missing some 15 years earlier, and who talks about the case at the dinner party, is murdered. Charlie is encouraged to stay, but boards the boat for home.

There he overhears something which makes him deboard and return to the case. "Moment of gentle embarrassment for me," he tells his former hosts. "The traveler who said goodbye is back before he goes." And when the District Attorney asks Charlie if he's on leave of duty from his police job in Hawaii, Charlie responds despondently: "One which stretches out like an elastic." All of Charlie Chan's intelligence and humanity are fully developed by this third novel. Now the author, who began as a writer of popular fiction with a romantic boy-meets-girl bent, turns to learning about how to plot mysteries. Here in Behind That Curtain Biggers deals with a "case" that is almost two decades old, and he does so very successfully.

Biggers female characters are strong and interesting, as are his supporting male characters. In this book Biggers introduces Inspector Duff of Scotland Yard. Duff and Charlie become fast friends, and, due to reader demand at the time, Biggers brought Duff back in a subsequent novel. All in all, a satisfying novel in the Charlie Chan series.
2266728
Faulkner concludes his story of the rise and fall of Flem Snopes with this third installment of the Snopes Trilogy, published 19 years after the first installment, The Hamlet. This can be enjoyably read as a stand-alone novel; for those reading it as the culmination of one long story, it can even be a bit repetitious, as large sections retell incidents already reported in the two earlier books, albeit often with additional or slightly different information.

The two central characters are those who bring about Flem's death: Mink Snopes, the convicted murderer first introduced in The Hamlet, who leaves prison after 39 years still intent on revenge against his cousin Flem for abandoning him during his trial; and Linda Snopes Kohl, the supposed daughter of Flem, who arranges for Mink's release for reasons of her own.

Faulkner's continued used of multiple narrators is particularly effective in this novel, allowing the reader to understand and empathize with both the simple minded Mink and the lawyer Gavin Stevens, the high-minded "knight" whose obsession is to "save" both Linda and, previously, Eula Verner Snopes, her mother. Interestingly, the reader is never allowed to see into the minds of Flem and Linda, so that their thoughts and motivations are always subject to the interpretations of other narrators.

The Mansion, both as a single novel and as the third of a trilogy, excels and enthralls as to plot and the grandeur of the language, but the story has added significance and symbolism that can be thought about long afterward. I'm still thinking about it.
2060423
"Gone Crazy in Alabama" is the third book in the series that follows sisters Delphine, Vonetta and Fern. In the first book, "One Crazy Summer," the girls travel to Oakland in the late 1960s to visit the mother who abandoned them when they were little. "P.S. Be Eleven" finds the girls back in Brooklyn adjusting to their father's new wife and their uncle's return from Vietnam. "Gone Crazy in Alabama" has the girls visiting their grandmother and great-grandmother in Alabama.

All three books weave historical moments throughout the plot, but the plot is not dependent on any one event like another one of my favorite books, "The Watsons go to Birmingham: 1963." The girls interact with the Black Panthers in Oakland, fall in love with the Jackson 5 in Brooklyn, and watch the Apollo 11 moon launch on their grandmother's TV. The historical elements provide flavor and context and add a richness to the story that is very endearing.

Delphine, the oldest sister, is the primary protagonist. While the books don't necessarily have to be read in order, it helps, if for no other reason than to see how Delphine has grown, how she treats her sisters and how her complicated relationship with her mother progresses.

Delphine's mother, Cecile, in this, the third book, continues to be one of the most interesting characters I have found in a middle grade novel. Both passionate and aloof, sane and insane, her relationship with her daughters is fascinatingly complex.

"Gone Crazy in Alabama" is probably my least favorite of the series, though it is saved in part by the final third of the book which involves a crisis that, unlike a 30 minute sitcom, is not solved immediately.

I can only hope that Rita Williams-Garcia has more stories for us with Delphine, Vonetta and Fern.
1426943
Karen Russell's slightly (but only slightly) futuristic novel touches on many important issues while creating a three-dimensional character who moves and challenges us.
1446028
The characters in Chris Mendius's novel, "Spoonful," are expertly drawn: they are three-dimensional flesh-and-blood portraits of people. That is what is so special about this novel, its humanization of the story's central players, which, admittedly, is a feat that's not normally highlighted. This seems a prerequisite to any bound book containing words, but it is unique when the characters are people that society often shuns: heroin addicts.

Mendius walks a tightrope between romanticizing his characters (and their drug use) and indicting them (and their drug use). It is easy to do either, but he skillfully does neither. He never once judges his characters, which is tastefully ironic given that these "types" of characters are exactly the types of people so often judged, and consequently demonized, by society at large. Michael, Sal, Lila and Dante, the book's fascinating main characters, are as detailed as the book's peripheral characters, like Teresa the den mother of a drug-dealing family in the hood, Stella the crusty pawnshop owner and Kenny the resident crack-head. These are real people. Again, it is very easy to veer down a side road of stereotypes, but Mendius keeps his hands firmly on the wheel. His characters are almost too real; at times you feel like these folks could be your neighbors (who knows, maybe they are?). For instance, Theresa's son, Mookie, an aspiring high school football star, does his homework amidst the drug deals and loitering junkies (some of those junkies being extended family members).

The story takes place in Chicago in the 90's - a time period I am wholly familiar with - and it captures that Generation-X feeling of apathy and directionless future with pinpoint accuracy. The book's style is gritty realism. And I like that, I like that a lot. That doesn't mean it is without humor or a sense of whimsy. On the contrary, it is very funny and loose. The drug use is also handled with class - some reviews have described the novel's depiction of drug use as graphic, but I felt the opposite. It is described just enough, but not overly so. The drug use fades into the background as the characters - their personalities, their pathos, their behavior and interactions with other characters - take precedent. The addiction is quite simply part of the characters' lives. It is that matter-of-fact, and I find Mendius's handling of that part of their lives refreshing.

"Spoonful" succeeds as a novel. The story is unpredictable - it keeps you glued to the pages - but the outcome is also inevitable, and that's extremely human. While you may or may not be a drug addict, or have dealt with addiction in the past, I believe that anyone can be the character Michael Lira. That's how it feels: Mendius puts the reader right into his shoes and it's the real deal.
4518481
Who knew what was meant to be a drunken one-night in Cancn could lead to so much?
The charismatic bouncer from Pennys - and lovable secondary character in the previous novels  Ben Morris, finally gets his time under the spotlight with K.A Tuckers newest addition to the Ten Tiny Breaths series; Five Ways to Fall.
Since the moment I read Ten Tiny Breaths I was hooked, so when the newest novel was released my expectations were high; I was not disappointed.
One of the things I love about Tuckers writing is the way she can create lovable 3D characters that slide faultlessly into place, in both the story and the readers hearts.
 And this time was no different.
Tucker had me laughing - and cringing - along with Ben and Reese as they got up to no good; dealing with their mutual attraction, Reeses retaliation against her cheating ex-husband, and learning to work together despite their sizzling chemistry. Not to mention overcoming the fact that Reese is the stepdaughter of Bens boss, and Ben very much prefers one-night stands, to actual relationships. All of which are obstacles that lead to a thrilling and captivating story.
This novel enchanted me from the first page until the final chapter. Full of intrigue, passion, humor, and Tuckers ability to steer clear of the forbidden and unrequited love clichs that one may think would be featured in the novel after reading the blurb; Five Ways to Fall is a fresh, unique and entertaining novel and an excellent addition to the series.
I cant wait to read whatever comes next.
2362950
Protagonist Eloise Hempel is trying to write a book about location and identity.  She hasn't succeeded by the end of "The History of Us," but the theme is nevertheless thoroughly explored in Leah Stewart's novel.

Eloise's life is changed forever when her sister and brother-in-law are killed in a freak accident.  She leaves her dream job as a Harvard professor to return to Cincinnati and assume the care of the couple's three children.  The story picks up seventeen years later with each family member at a crossroads.  With the children grown, Eloise hopes to sell the family home and recover a semblance of her former life.  But the house still belongs to her mother Francine, who creates a competition for it between Eloise, her nephew Josh, and nieces Theo and Claire.

Cincinnati is very much a presence in the story.  Eloise dreams of escaping her hometown, while Theo can't bear the thought of leaving.  Josh has given up a musical career and returned to Cincinnati.  Claire, a ballerina, is supposed to be leaving for New York, but she has a secret that she hasn't shared with the others.  We see the ties that each character has to Cincinnati, and how each of them is shaped by the Queen City.

"The History of Us" was especially interesting to me because I have lived in Cincinnati for the past thirty years.  I was pleased to see that Stewart, who teaches creative writing at the University of Cincinnati, is accurate in her geography and other local references--in contrast to some other authors, notably Mona Simpson, who took great liberties when she wrote about my hometown of Green Bay, Wisconsin.  (And yes, I know Simpson writes fiction, and yes, I know that she can take liberties.  It bothers me anyway.  But Stewart's Cincinnati is spot-on.)

I enjoy novels that are character-driven, and Stewart takes us deep into the minds of Eloise, Theo, Josh, and Claire.  We get to know them well and empathize with them.  Stewart gives us a satisfying ending, although few issues are actually resolved.  She leaves her characters with a lot of work to do.  But that's realistic, and at least she gives them hope.

"The History of Us" left me wanting more.  I'm anxious to check out Stewart's three earlier novels.  I'd also love to see a sequel to "The History of Us."
1779868
Dominick's life has been plagued with problems, from his abrupt, verbally abusive stepfather to his bungled marriage with Dessa after the death of their child. But every problem, it seems, stems back to Thomas, his schizophrenic twin brother, whose odd behavior colored every life event as far back as Dominick can recall.

Now middle-aged, Dominick is still struggling to come to peace with everything that Thomas has done, and come to stand for. If he can do that, it seems that maybe he'll finally be able to find some true happiness, both with himself and the world around him.

As Lamb's second novel, this book is just as beautifully written and powerful as its predecessor.
3115329
I'm not going to spoil the fun of reading this book but any fans of Tucker are not going to be disappointed by his latest work.  Also, he brings a new style of story in this latest chapter of his life which gives you a bit of an insight to the man who has entertained so many with his tales of drunken debauchery.