I read seven books in April.
Carys Davies was an award-winning short story writer before writing novels (do check out ‘The Redemption of Galen Pike’ which won the 2015 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Prize and is included in the collection of the same name).
Cy Bellman, American settler and widowed father of ten-year-old Bess leaves his small Pennsylvania farm and his daughter, in the unsympathetic care of his sister-in-law, to find out if the rumours are true: that the giant bones found in Kentucky are from a species still alive who roam the uncharted wilderness beyond the Mississippi River.
Just One Weekend by Catherine Aitken
Sandy leaves Scotland, and her husband, for a weekend in New York with her widowed best friend Isobel. There’s going to be a reunion concert there for The Brig, the group they were obsessed with for years.
Control-freak Sandy’s (very) detailed itinerary is thrown into disarray immediately when Isobel’s virtual American boyfriend appears, and Sandy gets saddled looking after the inebriated passenger who’s been irritating her in (she was upgraded) First Class.
There follows a wild weekend across New York with the stranger (who’s not such a stranger after all) when both their lives are changed forever.
I do love books set in New York and this was an exhilarating visit to the city that never sleeps.
There’s Something About Mira by Sonali Dev
This book is partly set in New York! Mira Salvi, from an Indian family now living in Chicago is finally engaged to be married (at the ripe old age of 28 … ) to a highly respected doctor, to the delight of her domineering parents. But a visit, minus fiancé, to New York takes her life in a completely different direction when she finds a strange ring and is determined to reunite it with its owner.
After New York, Mira has to go to India with her mother and future mother-in-law for a lavish spending spree on wedding clothes and jewellery. But as she suspects the ring’s owner is somewhere in that vast continent her mind is not on dresses.
I mostly enjoyed this. My reservation is one, not only for this book, but others that are told in first person present tense. It’s mostly to do with facial expressions – how can you see on your own face that ‘a smile plays on my lips’, ‘I look at him quizzically’ or whatever?
The People Next Door by Kate Braithwaite
A psychological thriller/domestic noir billed as having a ‘shocking final twist’ – which it certainly did.
The premise is ‘how well do you really know your neighbours’? In this case, the neighbours live in an affluent suburb of Pennsylvania. Jen has moved there with her partner and her daughter but she has a secret reason for being there.
Told from multiple viewpoints, in the past and the present, this is a tense and twisty read.
The Miseducation of Evie Epworth by Matson Taylor
Well, each to their own. I Did Not Finish this. It has pretensions to be a classic girls’ coming of age novel but I found all the characters to be cardboard cut-outs. It’s set in the 1960s and reminded me of 60s sitcoms which were funny at a time when we were more easily amused but are just tiresome now.
So after that I revisited Maeve Binchy, for the first time in years, and sank happily into her world.
First of all, with Quentins:
and then with Tara Road: