Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty

Hello everyone.  I hope you're enjoying a nice day.

Growing up in upstate New York had many advantages, one of them was fall.  Not only is the heat gone and the air crisp, but the sweaters come out and so does high school football.  I've already admitted I was a band geek, and yes, before someone asks, I did go to band camp.  No, we didn't do anything that you're currently thinking of.  Anyway, if you'll get your mind out of the gutter I'll continue my story.  Our school band was huge 670+ people.  We had professional drill writers and did a different halftime show each week.  I attended every single football game at home and away.  While sitting in the stands many kids would go to the snack bar, not me though.  We had these tall fuzzy hats (we had to shampoo them), when I say tall, I mean at least 10 inches.  My dad made me put apples in my hat for a snack.  During the whole pregame I would feel apples rolling around on my head.  Actually, weekly pummeling by apples might explain a lot, my sisters would definitely agree.  My dad was proud of the apples, he picked them himself...hundreds of them...McIntosh.

I recently read Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty.  This is the story of the Delaney family.  Stan and Joy have four adult children.  The family owned a famous, Wimbledon winner producing tennis school.  Sadly, Stan and Joy have decided it is time to retire and because none of their children want to continue the school, they are forced to sell it.  Now the family struggles with their new life both being free of the constant game of tennis and missing it dearly at the same time.  One late night there is a knock at the door and a strange young woman appears who has been beaten and is desperate for help.  She, Savannah, becomes a bit of a project for the newly retired couple.  Their children, however, aren't so sure of Savannah's intentions. When Joy goes missing, fingers start pointing in every direction.  

This is book is being sold as a thriller.  If you have read even a small number of thrillers and are expecting one here, you'll be very disappointing.  Instead, I think the reader is getting classic Liane Moriarty, a family drama with a mystery thrown in.  While this book is a chunky 464 pages and may have been able to have been cut down some, the story is easy to get invested in and a bit addicting.  Despite its length I never found myself wishing it would be over sooner.  While not like Nine Perfect Strangers, if you're a fan of Truly Madly Guilty or any of Moriarty's earlier books, you'll be very comfortable here.  Interesting and enjoyable from start to finish AND a must for tennis lovers.

Until a year ago my sister still played tennis with her wooden racket from about 1972.  People kept stopping her offering her money for it.  I'm surprised my brother-in-law didn't offer them my sister and her racket as a package deal.

Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney

Hello everyone.  I hope you're having a great day.

Are you a big game player?  Video? Board?  My family loved games.  My dad loved cards, specifically Tripoley.  My mom enjoyed card games, but was also a fan of board games and she loved video games.  My mom went out and bought an Atari when they first came out.  Now my niece works for a gaming company.  We played games outside, tag, red light green light, red rover.  Stop laughing youngsters, I know I'm dating myself but you don't know how you're missing out.  We even played games in the pool.  We'd run off the diving board while someone threw us a ball.  The point was to catch it after leaving the diving board but before hitting the water.  Of course, there was the infamous Marco Polo, then the diving games where you had to retrieve things off from the bottom of the deep end.  No we didn't throw chairs in, there were real, weighted game pieces made for pools.  I feel a bit like Dorothy telling the scarecrow he was her favorite, as I think of all our games our absolute favorite was cannonballing my mom who was floating around the pool reading a book.  We would send tremendous splashes of water over her sunglasses and soaking the pages of her novel.  She got even, she started buying thin little romance novels, second hand for a nickel so she didn't care about our antics.  Spoil sport.

I recently read Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney.  This book is a domestic psychological thriller.  The story is about a married couple that go away for a trip to try and save their marriage..  The wife writes a letter to her husband every year on their anniversary and never lets him read it, until now.  I can't say anything else.  First of all, after finishing it I immediately demanded my husband read it and he's smack in the middle.  Also, I guess I wouldn't want to ruin it for you either (read like Eeyore).  Kidding, but seriously, this book is a wow.  It has a huge twist and I want you to be very surprised.  It's full of atmosphere, unlikeable characters, and questions galore.  It is quite the thriller.  The twist was so massive I was smiling for an hour that the author "got me", I never saw it coming.  Neither will you.  This book is not a game, it's the real thing.  Read it, you won't be disappointed.

The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell

Hello everyone.  I hope you are having a great day.

Last year I kept looking for all the new books to crowd the Christmas market.  There were very few.  Boy, publishers are making up for it now!  I have a ton of books that I've read and haven't had a chance to review and, even better, a huge stack of just released books to read.  It's thriller heaven!

I recently read The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell.  This is a story that moves toward a common ending on two different timelines.  A few years ago, two young people go missing. Kim, the mother of the missing young woman, has never believed that her daughter would leave her family behind, as many suppose.  Kim is certain that something evil has happened to her teenager.  In the more current time, Sophie, moves into a cottage provided to her boyfriend as he heads a local college.  At the garden gate of their new home, Sophie finds a sign that says "dig here".  What she finds is significant in so many ways and, of course, links the two stories.  As Sophie works to discover the mystery of the "dig" sign, we see the past of the two teenagers going forward.  At the end, we discover how they are linked and solve the mystery of the odd happenings in this college town.  

If stories being told in dual timelines bother you, this may not since the times are so close together. If you are a fan of Lisa Jewell, I don't think you'll be disappointed by this book.  While perhaps the beginning could have been a smidge shorter, it really works to explain the relationships in the story and in true Jewell fashion, to direct us to one "who done it" theory only to change the readers view repeatedly.

This book grabs your attention and after establishing the characters, moves very quickly to the shocking end.  As always, very enjoyable.  One warning, if you just sent junior or junior-ette to college maybe put this off for a few months.