Murder She Baked

When I first started reading Joanne Fluke’s series a few years ago, I had no idea it was being adapted into mystery movies. Imagine my delight in discovering that our HULU live subscription (obtained to watch sports) includes offerings from the Hallmark Channel. You might say a little something for everyone, including my teenage son who is just as likely to watch a Hallmark Christmas movie as he is a football game. Until the Christmas romance watching commences, I’ve been biding my time with the Hannah Swenson mysteries, some of which can be found under the title Murder She Baked. While true to the characters, the movies do change the perpetrators from the books, so no spoil alerts needed if you are watching after reading.

If you do want to read before you watch, this is a post I wrote about the books in 2016.

In the murder mystery series by Fluke, Hannah Swenson owns a bakery in Lake Eden, Minnesota. However, in between baking the next day’s batch of cookies or catering her mother’s Regency Romance club, she has a nasty habit of stumbling upon dead bodies.

Comfort food for the serial reader, this series is predictable in plot (find a body, eat chocolate, go behind boyfriend detective’s back to interview suspects, make a cake, get trapped in a small space with the killer, eat more chocolate).  Swensen’s obsession with new recipes (helpfully printed at the end of each chapter) and the dilemma of which suitor to marry - detective or dentist - is quaintly old-fashioned, in our age of Instagram and Tinder. Also, comforting, once you’re hooked, is knowing that there are 17 or 18 more to read.

And recipes involving double or triple chocolate to try.

"I should have known better than to let myself get swept away"

When a movie comes out on a streaming service we don’t have, I look to see if it was based on a book. So when I saw this trailer, I was excited to find Loveboat, Taipei by Abigail Hing Wen. If you enjoy this one and the second, Loveboat Reunion, you’ll be thrilled to know  Loveboat Forever comes out next week.

In the first book, it’s the end of senior year for Ever Wong. She’s been accepted to a pre-med program at Northwestern. Her parents are ecstatic. Little do they know she’s been secretly applying to dance programs. And little does she know they’ve signed her up for an intensive language and culture program for the summer in Taiwan. In the program, she meets Xavier, the son of a mogul, who would rather be drawing than aspiring to run a company. Other key players (pun intended) are cousins Rick and Sophie. Rick becomes one of Ever’s love interests and Sophie discovers her prowess at social connections can be put to good, after she admittedly does some evil  

Fans of Crazy Rich Asians will find some familiar tropes - social media exchanges, extravagant parties, people who own private jets, and matchmaking schemes. Wen provides plenty of teen angst, over the top drama, and will they/won’t they moments to keep the plot moving.

Turns out they almost always will.

Lily Brooks-Dalton

These may not be your typical beach reads, but these two novels by Lily Brooks-Dalton are thought-provoking imaginings that are haunting in their realism, and entirely plausible in their prophecy. 

The Light Pirate

“There is a necessary tension between knowing how nature works in theory and witnessing it.”

Wanda is born during a hurricane. Although her father and brother work tirelessly as linemen to keep the lights on, eventually the strength of the increasingly frequent storms is too much for Florida’s infrastructure to handle. Most people become climate refugees as the state shuts down for good, but Wanda stays behind in the only home she’s ever known. Under the tutelage of Phyllis, a naturalist and survivalist, Wanda becomes adept at adaptation, the new superpower in this unrelentingly hostile environment.

Good Morning, Midnight

“He had never been satisfied and never would be. It wasn't success he craved, or even fame, it was history: he wanted to crack the universe open like a ripe watermelon, to arrange the mess of pulpy seeds before his dumbfounded colleagues. He wanted to take the dripping red fruit in his hands and quantify the guts of infinity to look back into the dawn of time and glimpse the very beginning. He wanted to be remembered.”

Augustine opts to remain in the Arctic after the rest of the scientists leave upon news of an impending disaster affecting the rest of the planet. In the hasty departure, he finds that a little girl, Iris, has been left behind. Meanwhile, Sully and her crew have just been to Jupiter and must speculate why all communications with Earth have been disrupted. Even though Augustine has Iris for company, he diligently tries to connect with others on his ham-radio. In this way, he’s able to connect with Sully who has been likewise scanning the frequencies for proof of life. Faced with an unknown future, human connection offers the only hope.

Oof

Fans of Laurie Frankel and Miriam Toews rejoice. If you appreciate their dark  humor, you’ll revel in We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman.

Ash and Edi have been best friends practically from birth. Now they must face Edi’s impending death. Edi says her goodbyes to her young son and husband and moves into a hospice facility near Ash’s family. Over the next few weeks, a revolving cast of characters visit Edi, bringing lip balm, bagels, and approximations of “The Cake” - a lemon pound cake she tasted once and has never been able to replicate. When Ash isn’t keeping Edi company, she’s juggling her own cache of lovers, trying to persuade her daughter to go to class, and sharing meals with her ex, Honey.

How do you say goodbye? How do you reconcile loss with life? Whose idea was it to name a candy horehound? All these questions and more are broached with love and humor. Death is messy. Life is messy. And sometimes all you can do is embrace the corporeal to deal with it.

Oh, and near the end, there’s a bit about petrichor. Always a good sign of a good read.

Similar =

The Libby app has a new (to me) button labeled “similar approximately equal sign.” So far it’s been more approximate than equal. After staying up all night finishing Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, I, of course, wanted to find something similarly engrossing. Kudos, Libby, for pointing me to Laurie Frankel’s Goodbye for Now. However, I don’t think I’ll be picking up Hot Response by Ruby Scott anytime soon (though I’m sure it’s engrossing in another sense of the word).

So here’s a very brief similar to list of my own making:

If you were intrigued by The Bletchley Women, you might try books by Beatriz Williams. Start with Our Woman in Moscow and then dive into her books about the Schuyler sisters.

If you want to recapture the whimsy of One Day in December, try Jenny Bayliss. My hold on The Twelve Dates of Christmas came in sometime in mid January, but I’d be happy to read that one and Meet Me Under the Mistletoe even in August.

If you were inspired by Carrie Soto is Back, try Head Over Heels by Hannah Orenstein. And then go behind the scenes of a professional, albeit amateur, matchmaker in Playing with Matches. Oh! And then you have to read Meant to be Mine if you like a good fatalistic rom-com.

"All My Puny Sorrows"

With the release of the movie Women Talking, you may be curious about the book from which it's based. You could read the book or (about its author here or here), but I also recommend reading one of her earlier works, All My Puny Sorrows. This is a repost from 2015.  

“Our house was taken away on the back of a truck one afternoon let in the summer of 1979.” So begins the novel All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews. In it, Yoli’s family can’t seem to catch a break. In childhood, it’s because her family balks against the rules of their conservative Mennonite village in Canada. They harbor a forbidden piano to foster her sister Elfrieda’s musical talents. When not at the piano, Elf spray paints the letters AMPS (“all my puny sorrows”) around the village in further rebellion.

In Yoli and Elf's adult years, the family suffers from Elf’s unhappiness. Elf’s career as a concert pianist is overshadowed by her multiple suicide attempts.Yoli has been traveling back and forth from Toronto to support her mother and brother-in-law and sit at her sister’s bedside. When not at the hospital, Yoli can be found sitting on her friend Julie’s porch. It is here the novel provides cathartic humor to balance the sadness of the rest of Yoli’s day. 

Toews brightens the pages of this devastatingly sad novel with Czech violinists, Italian agents, huffy nurses, and eccentric aunts. The brightest character, however, is Yoli. Her struggles to see her sister’s point of view, her texts with her teenage children, her endless to-do-lists, her trysts with mechanics and violinists, and her sometimes flinching optimism all carry the reader onward - even when the Kleenex box is empty.

"the whole world opened up"

Now is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson

To be a teen in the 90s in small-town Tennessee means going to the community pool, watching daytime TV, or driving listlessly to all the usual haunts. For Frankie, whose triplet brothers don’t shy away from mayhem, it also means having access to a photocopier they somehow procured. She and her new friend Zeke, an artist, revive the copy machine and decide to use it to create something artistic. She writes the words, a manifesto of sorts. He illustrates. And they both splatter the page with a constellation of blood. 

After they begin papering the town with their flyer, all kinds of conspiracy theories emerge, causing unease, and then panic, as rumors spread farther afield. By the end of the summer, the havoc they’ve unleashed dismantles their friendship as well. 

Twenty years later, a journalist reaches out to Frances, a semi-successful YA writer, about her involvement. Frances must decide whether to tell her story, reckoning with her past, or keep silent.

Wilson never disappoints with his exploration of the phenomenon of combustible human relationships. If you haven’t yet read his work, The Family Fang and Nothing to See Here are must-reads too.

Blah Humbug

The weeks after Christmas always hit hard. I find myself sleeping more, eating more, and when I’m not doing those two things, reading more, of course.

Luckily, I found two books perfect for this in-between time. Although ostensibly not Christmas books, they help make that transition from holiday rom-com to New Year fitness videos more palatable.

Something from Tiffany’s by Melissa Hill

If you’ve seen the adaptation on Amazon, you know that the plot is somewhat convoluted. A taxi accident outside of Tiffany’s results in a mix-up of two shopping bags, resulting in a surprise engagement for one character and a disappointing Christmas morning for another. While the movie scores points for simplifying the resolution, the book takes delight in prolonging the inevitable with the added bonus of being set in Ireland.

A Lady’s Guide to Fortune Hunting by Sophie Irwin

Fans of Jane Austen and Daisy Goodwin take note. Kitty Talbot is left in charge of her four younger sisters, and mountains of debt, when her parents die. Her solution is to embark upon London during the “Season” to find a wealthy husband. Her plan almost succeeds until she’s foiled by the older brother, Lord Radcliffe, who discovers the scandal of her family’s past. Rather than admit defeat, Kitty agrees to leave the family alone in exchange for Lord Radcliffe’s insider knowledge to help land her next target. You’ll dive in for the period details and stay for the cute repartee between Kitty and her foe.  

"good strong words"

Rewatching many of my teen favorites, I find myself now identifying more with the parents than the teen protagonist. However, despite my age, whenever I watch any version of this movie I still identify with Jo. Until I discovered these two titles which tell the familiar story from the point of view of the parents.

 March by Geraldine Brooks

Marmee by Sarah Miller

In both, we get a better sense of the toll of the Civil War and the ardent abolitionist beliefs of both the father and mother. In the first we glimpse the horrors of battle and slavery firsthand. In the second, Margaret March’s diary entries tell the familiar stories pierced with a deeper layer of worry, doubt and love of her family. Both Brooks and Miller flesh out the lives of the secondary characters and expand the narrative from the domestic to the economic, social, and moral issues of the day.

Here for the Drama

With two teenagers in the house, I know drama. I think that’s partly why I was intrigued by the title of Kate Bromley’s latest.

Winnie is an aspiring playwright. Her boss/friend Juliette invites her to London to help with the production of Juliette’s play. Seeking new material, Juliette convinces Winnie to go out with three strangers while they are in town. After that ends as badly as you might expect, Winnie finds herself attracted to Juliette’s nephew Liam. He and others help Winnie realize her relationship with Juliette needs stronger boundaries, and she begins to seriously consider a job offer back in New York.

Not all romances are created equal, but in this one, indeed, the play’s the thing. Bromley’s strength is her snappy dialogue, and she sets up multiple scenes for Winnie to show off her wit. There’s humor, a little spice, and star-crossed lovers that get their happy ending.

"no one in the world is a reliable source for their own story"

Recently my library curated a list of novels based on historical figures. From that list, I found two completely engrossing reads.

Booth by Karen Joy Fowler

Fowler takes us into a deeply troubled, yet fascinating family. Although the action culminates in the event that made this name infamous, the stories of John’s siblings are equally, if not more, dramatic. Nothing less would be expected from the offspring of a Shakespearean actor.

The Mayfair Bookshop by Eliza Knight

In this novel, we enter the world of Nancy Mitford. A struggling, though not impoverished writer, Mitford longs for acclaim. As her 30^th birthday approaches, she enters into a marriage of convenience and soon discovers her husband lacks what it takes to be the breadwinner. So Mitford turns her family’s foibles into the perfect plot for her next project. Fast forward to the present, Lucy, a young library curator, travels to London on assignment. She lands in Mitford’s bookshop and begins searching for clues to solve a long-running mystery in her own family.

For more titles, see this list. 

Bad Sisters

Anyone else still reeling from the season finale of Bad Sisters? If you need something to fill the void, try Sally Hepworth’s The Good Sister.

Fern, a librarian, is our protagonist and narrator. When her sister Rose finds out she can’t have a baby, Fern decides to remedy the situation. She does this, in part, because of the guilt she still carries - but doesn’t quite  understand - from a tragic event from their childhood. When Rose’s overbearing personality grates on her, she has this to say:

“Still, the illogical irritation is there. But illogical irritation is something one is allowed to have with one’s sister. I have read enough books about sisters to know that is true.”

But in this particular book, revealing what’s true makes for a stunning plot twist.

Murder She Wrote

Reading this remembrance of Angela Lansbury this week took me back to my grandparents’ house in Arkansas where the tv always seemed to be loudly playing Murder She Wrote. It was also at my grandmother’s house that I first discovered Agatha Christie. I still love a good mystery, and if it’s a little quirky, so much the better. Today’s repost reminds me of an author I need to revisit, Emily Arsenault.

Not since reading the Flavia de Luce mysteries, have I been so intrigued by the amateur sleuths that crop up in Emily Arsenault's books.

 In What Strange Creatures, Theresa Battle writes copy for a candle company catalog by day and procrastinates writing her dissertation by night. When her brother is arrested for the murder of his girlfriend, she tries to prove his innocence.  By seeking out the girlfriend’s current and former acquaintances she often draws inspiration from her dissertation subject, Margery Kempe. Weaving Kempe’s story with Theresa’s, Arsenault ventures to ask us to examine our own vocations.

 Miss Me When I’m Gone centers around Gretchen Waters, the author of Tammyland, a memoir of the author’s love of female country music stars. When Gretchen turns up dead after a reading, everyone is shocked, including Jamie, her best friend from college. Gretchen’s mother asks Jamie to be her literary executor and turns over the journals, files, and notes Gretchen was working from for her second book. Originally intended to be a book about the men of country music, Jamie discovers that this second book is actually Gretchen’s attempt to find out more about the identity of her father. As Jamie pieces together the notes left behind, she travels into Gretchen’s past and finds out more than the murderer bargained for.

The Broken Teaglass follows two young dictionary editors as they start finding random citations from a  mysteriously quirky story called The Broken Teaglass.  As the excerpts turn up out of order, they intriguingly reveal a corpse, a guilty conscience, and a love affair all set in the very dictionary offices from which they are working. What could be better than a novel that combines unrequited love, murder, and words? Arsenault builds up the suspense with each excerpt, and helpfully puts them all in order in the later chapters revealing that context matters.

 

 

Petrichor

 a pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather

This week, we had our first rain after an unusually dry summer and with it, our first petrichor. I was August 8 years old when I came across this word in a book. And then I read it in another one and another one. (Funny how when you learn a new word, you tend to start seeing it everywhere?) Of course, I haven’t heard anyone say it, so I may be mispronouncing it.

It popped up most recently in The Machine by James Smythe. In this nod to Frankenstein, I think, a woman attempts to restore her husband’s memory after it has been removed. As the memories are restored, his violent tendencies also return.

The other appearances remain a mystery (since all of the possible contenders are on hold), but it may have also been spotted in one of these. Even if I am mistaken, they include quite pleasing moments nonetheless.

The Taste of Salt Martha Southgate

What I Carry by Jennifer Longo

Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi

Butterflies in November by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir

Wish You Were Here

Fall sports are back on track, schools are hosting meet the teacher nights after a hiatus, and it’s almost as if the pandemic was a strange fever dream. Almost.

Before the onslaught of her own senior year demands – AP homework, college applications, and decorative jumpsuits -  my daughter read and recommended one of Jodi Picoult’s newest novels, Wish You Were Here.

Diana and Finn are all set for their Galapagos Island vacation, planned for March of 2020. However, Finn, a surgical resident at a New York City hospital feels compelled to stay as the first COVID cases begin trickling in. Diana decides to go alone and just manages to catch the last plane and ferry to a remote island as governments around the world begin to impose lock-downs.*

With all ties cut off to the rest of the world, Diana survives thanks the kindness of a few locals, who we suspect are used to catering to the needs of thankless American tourists. Although she gets sporadic emails from Finn, which truly narrate the horrors patients, caregivers, and family members face in dealing with this virus, Diana befriends a local nature guide who shows her the island’s wonders. Which, as the reader discovers, are breathtaking in their own right.   

 

*Apparently just like the Witch who froze Narnia, according to my daughter’s English teacher.

End of Summer

With summer winding down, there should be just enough time to fit in one last beach read. Packed with the picnic blanket, any of these three would be the perfect pairing while you’re waiting for the concert in the park to start or the sun to set on the sunflowers. 

For fans of Nashville

Run, Rose, Run by James Patterson and Dolly Parton

For fans of The Summer I Turned Pretty

The Summer of Broken Rules by KL Walther

For fans of In Her Shoes

The Summer Place by Jennifer Weiner

"the sexual prowess of a goldfish"

Every so often, you come across an author and immediately want to dive into everything they’ve written. Somewhat less often, you come across three at the same time.

The Startup Wife by Tahmima Anam

Asha marries Cyrus. Asha, Cyrus, and Jules create a new social media tool to bring people together around the “wai” rather than the what. This one has elements of all the things I love in a novel: behind the scenes – how does starting up a startup work – pondering religious beliefs – what gives life meaning- and smart, quirky characters – who can come up the best comeback.

“I’m stammering now, but I keep going, ‘He’s otherworldly but handsome in an almost comical way. His sentences are long, and when you’re in the middle of one, you wonder, where is this going? But he always manages to bring whatever he’s saying to a satisfying conclusion. Everything he says is mysterious and somehow obvious at the same time.’”

Intimacies by Katie Kitamura

The character in this book describes her time working as an interpreter at The Hague. She’s made friends and even found a boyfriend, but there’s a dark tension to the story she slowly unravels. Saturated in place, Kitamura examines how language either brings us together or tears us apart.

“This was done for obvious reasons, there were great chasms beneath words, between two or sometimes more languages, that could open up without warning.”

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston

August is new to New York City. She’s found an apartment, registered for classes, and even lucked into a job. But a chance encounter on the subway has her dusting off the investigative skills she wanted to leave behind in New Orleans. She may or may not solve the mystery, but her sleuthing brings her closer to those she’s kept at a distance, including her own identity.

“The older she’s gotten, the more she prefers thinking of love as a hobby for other people, like rock climbing or knitting. Fine, enviable even, but she doesn’t feel like investing in the equipment.”

Gritty

This week's PNW heat wave (temps reached into the 90s) has me feeling a bit gritty. Hence this repost from 2009.

Hearing Richard Price extolled again and again on Fresh Air for his mastery of dialogue, I decided to venture into the section of the library where many of the dust jacket blurbs proclaim “gritty.” I begrudgingly picked up Samaritan and rushed back two days later for Lush Life. 

Samaritan proves you can go home again but may get a severe concussion as a result. Ray Mitchell returns to his home town after a stint as a Hollywood writer and soon ends up in the ICU after being attacked in his apartment. He refuses to name his attacker but a childhood friend, now detective, Nerese Ammons is determined to make an arrest regardless. 

Lush Life takes place on the Lower East Side, where every bartender has a screenplay under the bar and every waiter has a casting call after work. When a mugging goes awry leaving one up and comer dead, detectives aren’t sure who’s telling the real story and who’s just acting the part. 

Can’t afford to go see the latest summer blockbuster? Price provides an action-packed thrill with dialogue you’ll probably be hearing in next summer’s box office hit.

Under the Same Sky, But Different

“The sky was magnificent. I have always loved the sky and I do not take notice of it often enough.”

So writes one of the characters in Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson. But it also aptly describes the past week I’ve spent in Colorado Springs. When not out hiking under brilliant blue skies, listening to cowboy songs under the stars, or exploring the neighborhood under threatening thunderstorms, I found myself dipping in and out of this epistolary novel.

Anders is a Danish curator. Tina is an English farmer’s wife. Tina writes to his museum to inquire after its famous artifact, the Tollund Man, that she remembers studying as a schoolgirl. Although their initial letters explore the history of this amazing find, they soon relate more mundane details of their daily life. The mundane turns profound as Anders reveals he is a widower and Tina shares she is unhappy in her marriage. Over the course of the novel, two strangers grow perilously intimate despite having never met in person. What begins as a curiosity leaves both their worlds irrevocably changed.

Firsts

On my son’s first birthday, he experienced his first ice cream sandwich. I’m sure we have a picture somewhere of his blissful grin in a face covered in melted ice cream and smeared chocolate. The summer my daughter turned seven she rode a bicycle for the first time without training wheels. Since we lived on a hill that descended into a busy street, she was mostly confined to big lazy circles in the street in front of our house. In a few weeks, they will both make their first plane trip, unaccompanied by any adults, to Austin to visit their grandparents.

I heard an excerpt from an interview with Jenny Han the other day where she mentioned something like “Firsts are best because they are beginnings.” That’s partly why she is drawn to writing about teenagers. And why we, as adult readers, are drawn to YA fiction. If you haven’t read Han's trilogy, The Summer I Turned Pretty, start there. Then you can watch the melodramatic, but nonetheless engrossing, series adapted from the books that was just released on Prime.

If you still haven’t gotten your fill of firsts, then I recommend Breathless by Jennifer Niven. Claude and her mother are “banished” to an island off the coast of Georgia the summer after her senior year after her parents separate. With little to no cell service, she can’t rely on the text support of her best friend (who she loves more than “libraries and sunshine and boys with guitars”), so she turns to the other young people in her midst. An encounter with Miah starts off as a welcome distraction, but soon forces her to face her issues with trust and acceptance.

What is your favorite "first" fiction?