Like Mother, Like Mother by Susan Rieger

Hello everyone.  I hope you are well.

Everybody should be able to be proud of their country.  Certainly, we all disagree with things our country does, or its policies.  Rightfully so, those disagreements make us think, ponder, and wonder if there could be a better way.  We grow as a species because of learning from each other, nicely not with violence.  That being said, right now it is agony being in the United States.  Now before you Americans get on your soap box telling me if I don't like it to get out, put on your big girl panties and hold on. I am talking about our upcoming Presidential election.  If you live in Europe, Asia, Canada...anywhere else...kiss your phone and computer for me.  I am being driven MAD, yes mad I tell you, because of political ads. We are the only remaining house with a land line phone, political parties call it repeatedly...the phone is ringing at this very moment.  Not politics this time, someone trying to get my Medicare card information to steal.  You can't get Medicare until you are in your mid 60's of which I am not.  Anyway, now not only are they calling the one land line in existence in the entire United States (the rest probably cancelled due to telemarketing calls)...now they are calling our cell phone!  Not only calls but endless texts. I try my best not to comment on politics, to be honest, it isn't fun like books. I just can't stand it anymore!  I can't read because of all the dag gum calls!!!  Last week, between telemarketing and political calls, we had 24 calls in one day.  TWENTY-FOUR. I swear to you I'm going to vote for Daffy Duck, just end it already.  Stop calling and texting me.  Don't get me started about YouTube ads, all politics and they won't let you skip them.  It is so bad I'm starting to look forward to the Walmart ad with the little claymation animals dancing to Le Freak by Chic (look it up, disco, 70's). Then there is all the stuff in the mail, so much I could wallpaper my bathroom (which might be where it all deserves to be).  Ugh, I need to calm down.  We need to talk about a book.

I recently read Like Mother, Like Mother by Susan Rieger.  This is a story about families.  Specifically, we follow Zelda, Lila and Grace.  Zelda is the grandmother who has an abusive husband. We learn about Zelda's past, including that her husband has had Zelda hauled off to an asylum. He tells their children the difficult news, later following up with the fact that she has died there. We also encounter Zelda's daughter, Lila, grown up and a woman with power.  She runs a major newspaper in Washington. Married to her work, Lila's children and husband suffer. Finally, we follow Lila's daughter Grace.  Grace resents her mother's career and the attention that it stole from her. There is a bit of a mystery that, once answered, really emphasizes the practices and traits that are passed down.  Are those actions repeated from generation to generation or purposefully changed?

I read books of all kinds but primarily thrillers.  Sadly, although my favorite to purchase and read, thriller stories become hard for me to remember.  Ultimately, most years my favorite book is not a thriller but something far more character driven.  Like Mother, Like Mother may be my favorite for the year.  The writing is wonderful, telling the story fully but without dwelling on the unnecessary. The characters, well, I don't think I'll ever forget them.  If you can finish this book without shedding sad and happy tears, then you have far more control than I do.  Enthralling from beginning to end, I loved every second.

Many, MANY, thanks to Random House and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.  You made my reading year!

We've also been getting final expense insurance calls (always fun), home improvement calls (I tell them I want to build a moat and fill it with sharks), and calls wanting to give me a legal referral for the car accident that they KNOW I've had in the last two years (I tell them I ran over a telemarketer).  To those that do the job of a telemarketer, I'm sorry, but the do not call list exists for a reason!  My sanity!

PS.  There are NO telemarketing calls in Like Mother, Like Mother.  Thankfully.

PPS.  I am laughing my butt off.  While waiting for hubby to read this and double check that I only messed up a few words (my usual), I got another telemarketing call. They wanted to know if I ever thought of writing and publishing a book.  They offered to do it through Amazon and could give me a $90,000 advance.  When I told them to send the contract to my attorney, they hung up.  Gosh, I wonder why!  Getting deep around here!

Middle of the Night by Riley Sager

Hello everyone. I hope your day has been fun.

A few years ago, we were driving to Florida. Naturally, I am an impatient traveler. What did you expect?    I think I begin asking the "Are we there yet?" question incessantly after being in the car for thirty minutes.  Don't get me wrong, I love exploring, driving around.  The highway, however, like 95, is a snoozefest once you can get over that whole "taking your life in your hands" part.  If you are not on the east coast, it is high on traffic and low on scenery. Obviously, the solution is to read.  Which I do, often in the car.  That's when it happened.  I made a huge mistake.  I read a few sentences to my husband.  That was all I intended, just the brief part that had some sort of importance to him.  Instead, he uttered that word I may now count as a curse word...."Continue."  He wanted me to read him my book, out loud.  All the way to Florida.  In case you don't know, that is like eleven hours from here. I relented since he was driving and ended up reading Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire. It is a wonderfully imaginative book, but if you read it out loud you will realize how many funky made-up names there are for things.  Names you must say over and over...AND OVER.  I personally blame Gregory Maguire for my inability to ever move to Spain.  I could never learn adequate Spanish as he broke my tongue, and I simply cannot roll a single "R."  So, years have passed, we were doing something around the house last week, and I made the same fatal mistake.  I read the beginning of the latest Riley Sager book out loud.  I was trying to illustrate how captivating he can be. Hubby agreed and uttered that word...."Continue."  Yesterday...well this morning at 1 AM I finished reading him the book.  Yes, 1 AM, he said he couldn't wait until this morning.

I recently read Middle of the Night by Riley Sager.  This is the story of Ethan Marsh, who moves back into his childhood home after his parents retire and move away. Ethan is having a difficult time sleeping.  Not only is he separated from his wife, whom he adores, but this is the thirty-year anniversary of the disappearance of Billy Barringer.  Ethan and Billy were best friends.  When they were ten, they were sleeping in a tent in Ethan's backyard.  Ethan awoke to find the tent slashed open and Billy gone.  As Ethan and the few neighbors that are left on Hemlock Circle try to go on with their lives, it is evident something is amiss.  Ethan needs to discover what happened to his best friend, Billy, and why.  Told in true Riley Sager form, most chapters end on a twist.  They alternate from the present and the day when Billy actually disappeared.  Both race to the end to reveal all, intersecting with several last-minute satisfying twists. My husband and I had so many theories, changing them almost daily.  Hubby did successfully guess a tiny piece of what happened but only after 340 of the 365 pages. Very fun and fast paced, exactly what Riley Sager lovers have come to expect.

To Riley Sager, more please, next time I'll read to myself!

The Helsinki Affair by Anna Pitoniak

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

We've been meeting this way for over five years now; we're getting close right? I feel like I must confide in you something extremely personal.  My husband and his friend "B" won World War II.  They played army in hubby's backyard.  Two little boys with those green plastic soldiers, the pooled pad attached to their feet, knowing both of them ...covered in dirt, trying to free those occupied by the Nazis.  Today, when they are on the phone, look out.  Talk of the past is flying by at lightning speed.  Everything was at one time a Caroll's Restaurant or some kind of obscure burger barn.  Every stop light on every single street (and they lived in a large beach city) is someone's corner, Edgar's corner, Bobby Sherman's corner, Romper Room's Corner. They know every owner and their house on their side of town, when it was painted, and when the trash cans are rolled to the curb.  If someone from the family worked in the garage on 17th Street...well, that was an extra hour of chat. One of the topics that frequently seems to come up is those darn little green men, soldiers, Martians would be more interesting.  I wonder if that is why hubby loves spy books so much.  He's grabbed a couple of mine.  Here is one he smuggled out of my tbr.

I recently read The Helsinki Affair by Anna Pitoniak. While the title evokes images of a snow ensconced covered landscape, this novel is not set entirely in Finland, however, and begins on a hot day in Rome. There, a nervous Russian Citizen tries to warn those within the U.S. Embassy about a pending event. The man’s information leads diplomat and spy Amanda to uncover a much larger global conspiracy.  She and her coworkers disguise, surveil, and deduce their way to the truth. But a name within a dead politician’s notes may lead Amanda to places she and her family don’t want to go.  

The story moves along, the characters are realistic, and there seems to be hazard at every turn. What more could a spy novel ask for?

Honestly, I try my best NOT to listen to hubby's conversations.  How many decades can one person hear about The Sea Shanty for?