Churchill's Secret Messenger by Alan Hlad

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

I recently received a book in the mail and before I could even get the package fully open my husband announced it was his.  Was it his? No, but something about this book intrigued him.  He loves most things spy related....hmmm....maybe I should start wondering about HIM!  Anyway, he is not a big pleasure reader so when he wants to read something, I encourage it.  Turns out he was quite mesmerized by this story, which he says is haunting.  I asked him to tell you about it.  His review follows.

I recently read Churchill's Secret Messenger by Alan Hlad. Set in the early days of World War II, it's about a young English woman who's recruited into a clandestine service to pose as a typical French citizen. Armed with her training, a few tools of the spy trade, and her prior familiarity with Paris, she finds herself parachuting into occupied France to courier coded communications between British Intelligence and the French Resistance. Having had a general interest in spies and cryptology, several books of the genre have made their way to my shelves. 

I now find myself with a difficult task. Without revealing any more of the plot, I wish to highly recommend this work. I realize it's a great deal to ask, to advise readers to avoid any other reviews, and not even to read the jacket blurbs, just to dive in and read it. Simply put, this book transcends the usual spy novel, and will not be one forgotten by the reader.   

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

Hello everyone.  I hope you are well.

I try and put something personal here that in some way relates to the book.  I know y'all just think I'm yammering on for the heck of it, which is true, but I'm also linking real life to the book of the moment.  I've talked about owning a haunted house, restoring houses, lots of housewife stuff (including endless dusting and chicken roasting, hopefully not really having anything to do with each other), my childhood and my often irritating family (I say teasingly to get a rise out of them). I've even told you way more than you ever wanted to know about my Brownie troop, that somehow was linked to a book. Today, I've got nothin'.  Yes, I know that is not how you spell nothing and incorrect grammar, I'm being folksy.

I recently read The Maidens by Alex Michaelides.  This is the author that wrote the very popular thriller The Silent Patient, which I very much enjoyed and even cajoled my husband into reading.  We were both surprised by the ending.  Reading the number of thrillers I do, I don't get surprised by that many so when it happens it's fantastic.

In the newest book, The Maidens, we are following Mariana, who has sadly recently lost her husband.  Marianna grew up in Greece, where her family was fairly well off. While on a Greek island with her husband on vacation, he goes missing.  She finds that he has drown and as the book opens she is trying to move on with her life but is also in mourning and deeply misses the man she loved so much.  To make matters more complicated she must travel to Cambridge University, where a girl has just been brutally murdered  and was a friend of her niece who is distraught.  Marianna takes it upon herself to help figure out who is the killer, to protect her niece from any future heartbreak and keep her safe.  Despite the police zeroing in on one subject, Marianna suspects a professor of Greek tragedies, Edward Fosca.  Not only does she suspect but she becomes adamant that he is the killer.  As readers, we see possible guilty people everywhere.  The author is astute at directing us to this person then the next, each with the real possibility of secretly being a monster.  

I thought I had this book figured out.  I eliminated everywhere the author was begging us to look for killers and I picked an improbable person and told hubby at page 207 I was a thriller reading genius and despite Alex Michaelides' best attempt, I had won...I knew who did it. Um...yeah...so much for my "I read so many thrillers I know all the authors tricks"...I'm a genius.... I was wrong.  Darn it. I thought I had it.  I really did.  My guilty person was good, really unexpected, explosive, but the author's was better.  The book was all things you expect in a thriller and obviously I enjoyed it despite being outwitted (my family would say that is so easily accomplished!)

Next time Mr. Michaelides, I'll beat you, now I'm determined.

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Hello everyone.  Hope you're day is going well.

When I was six, my parents decided to put in a pool.  A real, in ground, heated, diving board type pool.  One of our neighbors also had a pool.  So the Moms decided we all needed to learn to swim and hired a private teacher to come turn about six of us into mermaids at the neighbor's pool, which thankfully had been done first.  The teacher, we all thought, was the devil incarnate.  She would teach us to dog paddle, hold a long bamboo pole out and then entice us into the deep end, assuring us we could grab the pole should we not feel secure.  Of course, like the charming, angelic, innocent, young kindergarten age children we were, we trusted the "teacher" who, oh yes you know what she did,  she pulled the pole away.  Once in the deep end we were left to sink or swim, literally.  Our mothers sitting by the shallow end, with pretty furniture, drinking iced tea and talking about recipes or some hunky road crew member spotted on the way home from the grocery store.  All the while, we were being tortured by our devil spawn of a swimming instructor.  The joke was on them, Jennie swallowed so much water, after going under for the zillionth time, she promptly barfed all over the place.  Needless to say, lessons were cancelled for several days while the pool was cleaned. I'm certain my parents were very glad that our pool wasn't the one finished first.  Now, despite living near the ocean, I'm not crazy about the water, not even a sparkling blue pool.

I recently read Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid.  This is the author of the popular Daisy Jones & the Six and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. In this story we follow the Riva family. They all live in Malibu, California and much of their lives has had to do with the water.  The past and present lives of the four siblings are explored, Nina, Jay, Hud, and Kit.  As well as their parents and grandparents.  Their father is a famous singer and his fame affects the family in the past and present.  Every year Nina, the oldest sibling, holds a party in her house.  This year the party gets out of hand and before the next morning, people will be arrested, secrets revealed and the house will be burned to the ground.  

This book is one giant case study for character development.  I felt like I knew each of the kids and wanted them all to succeed.  This book will have to laughing and will tug at your heart.  I found myself in tears in several places.  Despite this book not being a thriller, I still could not stop reading. If you want big action, blood and gore, this isn't for you. However, if you want a great story with wonderful characters, then you'll find this book everything a book should be....memorable.  Loved every second.

Madam by Phoebe Wynne

Hello everyone. I hope you've had a nice day.

When we first started dating, my husband was surprised to learn that there was only one high school in my hometown.  The town he grew up in has ten or twelve.  It's a wee bit bigger of a place.  Still, he was shocked by the support for that one school.  Many years ago, while visiting, we decided to go to a football game.  My dad got hubby to go purchase tickets with him.  Purchase tickets?  In advance?  Hubby thought my dad was looney, which I maintain they both were/are.  Yep, the old spouse was amazed when he got to the school and the box office was mobbed.  He hadn't seen anything like it since seeing major college games.  What can I say? High school football was a major thing in my area and rivalries run deep.  Just ask my cousins, who lived in adjoining towns who were my school's mortal enemies!  It was fun, especially seeing Mr. "we have a dozen high schools" eyes light up when he saw the crowds. 

I recently read Madam by Phoebe Wynne.  This is the story of a girl's school covering the teen years of education. The school, Caldonbrae Hall, is a castle on the cliffs of Scotland. They are very proud of their traditions and insist on maintaining even the slightest detail...no mug, cup and saucer.  Rose, 26, is surprised when she is offered the job of teaching Classics.  The school hasn't hired a teacher in years and the one Rose is replacing left for a reason no one will disclose.  As you might expect of an elite school, the girls are down right snotty and less than welcoming. There is an undercurrent of things being unsaid.  Other teachers advise Rose to play by the rules and stick things out, all will be revealed after her employment probation is up.  As we readers guess immediately, all is not right in the education world.

I don't know exactly how to tell you about this book. It is being given bad reviews by some for a specific reason, but I can't discuss why without spoiling the whole book.  I actually liked the story.  I am a sucker for atmosphere, which this book has plenty...a castle on the cliffs filled with bratty teens, weird caretakers, an elusive headmaster, and a completely unreliable staff...what is not to love.  It made me keep reading, I had to know the secret.  What was being hidden and why?  This issue I have with this novel isn't about the story itself but the time it takes to reveal the secrets.  Now, before you all start booing me, I know the author wants to build suspense.  I get it.  I could have just used fifty less pages of me guessing what was going on a Caldonbrae, which I was correct, and a slightly shorter book.  If you are super critical, skip this.  If you like the whole story idea, like I did, it was an interesting, atmospheric read, give it a go.

By the way, that football game just wasn't as good as when I was a student there. I wonder why?

The Half Sister by Sandie Jones

Hello everyone.  I hope your day is going well.

I cannot believe it's June!  The beginning of June always reminds me of the family that lived next door when I was a kid.  The Mom was our beloved elementary school nurse and was an avid gardener.  The Dad built and flew model airplanes.  They had four children.  Two were older but one girl was my age, and one was my sisters'.  Needless to say, we played together a lot.  Heck, I still remember their phone number! It's weird how some things you remember like naming the tree in their front yard "old chucker," the sledding down the back hill, riding bikes, swimming, and the endless games of Red Light Green Light.  Of course, now they are all married, some with kids, and scattered across the country.  I often think of how lucky we were to have such wonderful neighbors. Today is the birthday of that friend, a date that somehow, I've never forgotten.  

I recently read The Half Sister by Sandie Jones.  I've read two books by this author, The First Mistake and The Other Woman.  I liked both very much.  The Half Sister is about two sisters, Kate and Lauren, who are grieving the loss of their devoted father.  One Sunday, while at their mother's house for dinner, a woman comes the door asking to see their father.  When they discover the mysterious woman claims to be their half-sister, they are skeptical but start wondering about different moments from the family's past.  When the woman produces a DNA test, the world falls apart and secrets start being revealed.  Who is telling the truth and who is lying?  This book takes that issue I love of unreliable narrators and spreads it to someone who never appears in the book and is dead before it starts.  Could his life have been a lie?  

This novel is quite the ride and literally has twists until the very end.  If you don't like family drama type thrillers, then stay clear but otherwise I doubt you'd be disappointed.  More likely, you'll be cold from all that rapid page turning!  Another win for Jones.

I don't know what I was thinking, I should have sent my friend this book for her birthday.  That would certainly have made it happy.

How Y'all Doing? by Leslie Jordan

Hello everyone.  I hope you're making your day a great one!

Are you a sucker for an accent?  My niece loves a British accent.  Growing up in upstate NY, I adored that southern "thang.".  We took a lot of vacations south, where my parents loved it and planned to retire.  I think they liked the respect people still had at the time, calling someone Miss or Mr. followed by there first name.  Maybe they liked that life seemed a bit slower, gentler (yes, sadly, I know it often isn't the case today), and the lack of snow.  After a two week trip to Myrtle Beach for Easter break, I decided I was going to marry a southern boy....specifically a pool boy...you know the kid that cleans the pool.  I was aiming high, huh, no southern lawyer or captain of industry, just the captain of chlorine.  

I met my husband in college, and he was not in charge of cleaning any pool but he did work at a hotel desk and rent bikes on the boardwalk.  When he would call me he would always say "hey darlin" with that deep voice and a sultry southern twang.  Needless to say, I melted.  We dated for many years and once he got a corporate job we got married.  His accent got more northern and I started pronouncing words the southern way like in-surance instead of insurance.

I recently read How Y'all Doing? by southerner Leslie Jordan.  If that name sounds familiar it should.  He is the actor that was on Will and Grace for years, was on Cool Kids, American Horror Story, The Help and loads of other shows and movies(check out Boston Legal where he kills people with a cast iron skillet...now that's southern).  In recent years he has a very popular Instagram channel where he opens videos saying "Well sh*t. How y'all doing?" In this cute little book, he discusses Instagram as well as his experiences in being in show business and life as a gay man.  

This book is fun throughout.   It is funny and the writing truly sounds like his voice.  While you won't find a deeply plotted thriller or earth shattering mystery here, you'll find someone with lots of heart that doesn't take himself too seriously, it's delightful.  What more could you ask for?  By the way, this book would make a great gift.

You should hear my husband say "theater," he makes it a  eighty-five syllable word, but it still sounds cute..

The Hunting Wives by May Cobb

Hello everyone.  I hope your day has been great so far.

Are you part of a club?  A book club maybe?  What about when you were a kid?  I was a Girl Scout.  I started in Brownies, many of my neighborhood friends were in the same troop.  We went camping together, had parties, earned badges, and sold cookies.  I remember getting my cooking badge.  All the neighborhood Moms pitched in.  For the cooking badge, Mrs. Jones taught us to make Chocolate Crinkle cookies.  She showed us how to measure properly, crack an egg, use a mixer, etc.  It was fun and it's one of the handful of things I remember from scouting.  My mother hosted the Halloween party, where I mastered bobbing for apples.  If you've never done it, you get quite wet and if you're old enough to be reading this and use makeup...forget it...head straight for the cider.

I recently read The Hunting Wives by May Cobb.  This is the story of a woman, Sophie, who moves with her family to Texas.  She's lonely and meets Margot, who has an easy sophistication.  Margot also has an unofficial club of women who admire her and they all pal around together.  This clique notices Sophie and asks her to join them.  Their going out late and drinking puts pressure on Sophie's marriage but she is drawn to this group, Margot, specifically.  She even likes the women after she discovers that they meet for wine and shoot rifles.  No problem, Sophie can keep up, she's athletic and a good shot.  Then someone turns up dead.  

This book is a sexy, delicious pleasure as you watch what happens to all involved.  To anyone ever having a bad experience caused by a "mean girl," this is for you.  Nothing but thrillery fun here.

By the way, I still make Mrs. Jones' cookies every Christmas and, yes, I measure correctly.