February Books

 Hi everyone.  I hope your weekend is going  or went well.

Last month I had a great reading month. I not only finished 11 books, but the books I read or listened to   were  very good. I will say my reading choices were all over the place, with a  couple of histories, a little fiction and a lot of mysteries. If you like book posts, I hope you'll choose to read on, and maybe you'll see something that appeals to you also.

My first book for February was this non-fiction history by Michael Capuzzo. Close to Shore is not only about shark attacks, but also about a more innocent time in history. The 1910's was a time when people were just starting to actually go swimming in the ocean (rather than only promenading along the shore or taking a quick dip in a bathing box), and it was also a time before people really thought about killer sharks in the ocean.

Although there is a bit of language embellishment in this book, I liked it. The author focuses in on what was the new thing to do, swimming in the ocean. Before that people went to the shore to escape the heat, but starting in the Edwardian Age, people (mostly men) decided that long distance ocean swimming was much healthier than a quick salt water bath. The new men's bathing suit styles also helped; they were stylish (for 1916)  black wool shorts and a black wool top. These made swimming much easier than the more cumbersome layers of the past. (As the author noted, colored swimsuits really didn't start until they were seen in Hollywood in the 1930s.)

I really enjoyed how the author described this era in detail and also  how the author described the way the Jersey shore became such a hot vacation place back in that time period. Even in today's media crazy world, those shark attacks were gruesome. I probably wouldn't have read this book, seeing I thought it was something different than it ended up being, but it  kept showing up in various places over the month of January. They had a huge stack out in Barnes and Nobel one day, and I also saw it on a couple of online reading lists. That made me curious, and I am glad I read it.  I learned a lot, not only about sharks, but also about early beach days. It  was a very interesting story.

My first listen in February was this novella that I had in my audible account. Willa Cather was a great American writer, and since this year I am trying to add more classics into my reading mix, I decided to listen to it. 

A Lost Lady is really the story of Neil, who grows up in Sweet Water, Kansas. Here a teenage Neil meets and is befriended by Mrs. Forester, a woman who married a man much older than she is. Throughout the years Neil was growing up, he was invited to the Forester's  home for various events. By the time Neil became an adult, he was quite  fond of Mrs. Forester (but not in a romantic way).  However, as Mrs. Forester's husband ages, although she was still a good wife,  she became quite restless. She assured Neil that when her husband died, she would be going to live her life. She makes it clear at that time that living in Sweet Water and being married to her older husband has not been the way she really wanted her life to go.

This is an  interesting and well written story in how it portrays a woman who wants to live her own life even if that means going against the conventions of her time. This story also shows how that idea is viewed from a younger person who happens to be male. The juxtaposition of the 2 main characters, Mrs. Forester and Neil, adds a lot of depth to the storyline. And Cather, being such a good writer, also focuses on how the times changed between the 2 generations, the elder being part of the later but still “pioneer" generation and the young man being a part of the next generation once the west was more established.    Mrs. Forester was really a woman a bit ahead of her time, even if the younger Neil thought she had some dubious habits.

I decided not to wait very long before listening to book 3 in the Lady Trent memoir saga. Last month I listened to book 2 when Lady Isabella Trent was in the jungle of Eriga studying serpent-like dragons. This time she is on a two year around the world voyage to not only study dragons, but with a goal of learning how to reproduce dragon bone artificially. That would save all the dragon species  instead of slaughtering them for the questionable uses and benefits of dragon bone.

Of course, some of the places Isabella Trent visited were not happy about her showing up. Lady Trent also took her son Jacob with her on this trip, and being a curious child or 8 and 9, he wasn't always the perfect sailor, getting into things boys will but captains of ships don't want them to touch.  On this voyage Isabella also  meets a foreign a archaeologist whom she finds quite interesting. Romance is possibly in the air in future stories. 😏

There is also a round of dengue fever. The ship they are all on, the Basilisk, is wrecked on the shore during a terrible storm. And then there's a diving bell experience and a kidnapped Princess on a diplomatic journey. There is never a dull moment in these stories, that's for certain. This book is another fun fantasy romp with a great character (Lady Isabella Trent) who has lots of interesting adventures.

A friend of mine recommended this novel to me. Things I Wish I Told My Mother was a fast read, light but still with a good amount of depth. (I know those 2 things seem to not go together, but even though the reading was light, the story hit home for me and probably many women on many levels.)

Laurie Margulis is a thirty something woman who works at an advertising agency in New York. She's a pretty down to earth woman. But her mother is not. Her mother is a top gynecologist, who is a perfectionist in every sense of the word. When he mother ends up in the hospital with some heart issues, she and Laurie decide to take a trip to Paris, and then onto Norway where her mother is from. In Laurie's mind (as she is the narrator) this might be good but challenging trip. 

This book takes you on an enjoyable romp through their travels, and then, it ends with a twist. Not totally unexpected, but I will say I was connected to the characters enough to have an emotional response. I did enjoy the story, and it's not a hard or too long of a read. 

I hadn't gotten back to reading the next Brunetti mystery (which are set in Venice) for too long. I read the first 2 books back in 2022, and I really liked them. Since it was finally time to pick up another one, my next book was #3 in this series. Dressed for Death was published in 1994. 

The book started off with 2 events. First of all a cross dresser was found dead in the grass next to a slaughterhouse across the bay from Venice. The red shoes he wore were what drew attention to him. Since the police in that area are short staffed, Brunetti's boss comes to him and tells him he is on the case. It takes Brunetti and the local police ( from the area where the body is found) several days before they even discover who this murder man is. 

 The other event that starts the book is that Brunetti's boss's wife  has left him and run off with the "prime-mover" of Italy's pornographic film industry.  That makes everyone in the office tip-toe around for fear of setting him off. Perhaps it is a good thing that Brunetti is working across the bay in Maestra. 

It's summer, and it's very hot. Brunetti can't go on vacation with his wife and 2 children to the mountains because of this murder. I never really thought about Venice in the summer, and it doesn't sound pretty. (Since this book is set in 1994, perhaps things have changed? But I think if I ever visit Venice I won't go in the summer.😏) As with the other 2 books in this series that I've read,  the story is well plotted and much more in depth than it first appears. What seems like just a transvestite's death  is more to do with banking and the law. The topic of this story is, as was also true in the first 2 books, not exactly a cozy subject, but well done. As far as I can tell ( 3 books in) you can't go wrong with this series if you like a good mystery.

My next listen is something out of my normal choice. This book is a history  about Pompeii, the famous Roman city that was wiped out when Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE. I was lucky enough to visit Pompeii back in 2005, and even before my visit, it's always been a place I wondered about.

Mary Beard was a new author for me. She has written a lot of histories about ancient Rome. I often look up authors to learn about them, and I did that with Mary Beard. She not only was a professor at Cambridge University (where she also completed all her college level education), but she is a trustee of the British Museum.  I could tell from listening to this book that the author was an expert in her subject. 

That information shouldn't intimidate you though because this book was really accessible and actually a pretty easy listen. I like how Beard did her chapters. A few examples are Street life, House and Home, Painting and Decorating and Who Ran the City. I will admit I skipped  one chapter about  politics since it really wasn't speaking to me, but the set up of the book made it easy to move forward since skipping a chapter did not mean I was lost for the rest of the book. I learned a lot listening to each of the other chapters though, and it was NOT dry information. In fact, the chapters were fascinating. I actually wish I had read this book before going to Pompeii, even though I could not have read it because it hadn't been published at that point.  😏

I really enjoyed this history, and I am adding Mary Beard to my I want to read more of their work list. 

My next book was this 2023 release from Anne Hillerman. This book had been sitting  in "my next to the bed"  book pile, and I don't know why I didn't pick it up earlier because I really enjoy this mystery series. 

This story takes place at Bear's Ears National Monument in Utah. Navajo police officer Chee is there on business, and his wife, Navajo police officer Manuelito, has come along with her husband just to get away for a couple of days. However, it doesn't take long before Manuelito has a scary encounter with some people with guns, and Chee comes across a dead body in a wealthy man's yard.

Both of these events are connected to the sometimes illegal trade in fossils.  What I liked about this story is that you, the reader, knew the guilty parties  long before Manuelito and Chee did. What you don't know is how the story would carry out, and that kept me reading.  This is another very good mystery in this series started by Tony Hillerman in the 1970's and then continued by his daughter Anne after Hillerman died. I'm excited that the next book in this series will come out this spring. Now let's hope it doesn't take me almost a year to read it.

After Utah in the US, my next book is # 3 in Asa Larsson's mystery series set in Northern Sweden. This series features lawyer  Rebecka Martinsson.  It also features police officer Anna-Maria Mella.  Both of these women have been in the series since book 1, and now they officially work together.

In this mystery a woman named Inna is found dead in an ice fishing bob house (or what the book refers to as an ark). She has been stabbed and electrocuted. This woman is a big wig when it comes to high stakes and risky investments. The mystery of her death goes  back in time and connects to the story of this woman, her brother, and a close associate as well as a few other people that are part of her inner circle. I think the author was very fascinated with these characters because she devoted much of the book to writing about them.  Early on, I'm not sure that worked for me, as I wasn't as interested in knowing as much about them as I was with the process of the murder investigation.  At one point it almost seemed like the author was trying to avoid the police investigation. Saying that, the backstory made sense as the police investigation returned in full swing.

What I didn't expect was where the book went after that. Wow. This book goes from being just a murder mystery to an international crime story that winds itself back to the 2 main characters Mella and Martinsson.  I didn't see the story behind that original murder coming. And the author does leave some things hanging so sometime soon I'll be reading the 4th book. I did read in the postscript that this is a 6 book series, so it sounds like this is not one of those indefinitely continuing series but has an ending. I don't think you must read books 1 and 2 first, but it definitely makes the story much richer if you do.

The book world seems to be flooded by WW2 books lately (which is NOT a bad thing), but I was looking for something set in a different time frame.  Hannah's latest book is about nurses serving in Vietnam, and that sounded like the change I needed, so my next listen was this book, The Women. 

This book is historical fiction. Hannah jumps right into the story, so within a very short time you are right along with Frankie McGrath, a new nurse on the ground just outside of Saigon. The colors, sounds, smells and views are in your face. I think Hannah does a great job with the setting and the overwhelming feeling a nurse first arriving in Vietnam must have had. I also think she has the pacing right, so this book moves along and really sucked me into its flow.

As the story continues, there is romance, personal conflicts, and friendships. Home from her service time, Frankie is shocked at how people want to act as though that part of her didn’t  happen. There is also the division in the country about whether the US should be in the war. Veterans are not being treated well. I was surprised that so many people said there were no women in Vietnam. I thought it would have been obvious, because if male soldiers are getting shot and injured, there needs to be medical staff to treat them. But then again, this book is set in the 1960's , and times were different.

As with many historical fiction stories, this novel is written for entertainment based on facts, but  I learned more about the time reading it. It is not an indexed history book,  just  entertaining and at times, predictable reading. I also thought about how many of this book’s readers were not around at the time this story was set.  I recommend this book if you like women's historical fiction, want an enjoyable read and/or like Kristen Hannah. Although this book could have been a bit shorter because the ending seemed to drag out just a bit, I think Kristen Hannah is getting better with every book she writes.

The Housemaid's Secret was  the least complicated and the quickest book in February's book list. In January I read the first book in this thriller series (The House Maid), and it did have  a great unexpected twist at the end. When I had a chance to borrow book 2 in the series, I decided I would read it.  Just like book one it was a very fast read (around 3 hours one afternoon), and just like book one there were times I was saying to myself "Don't be stupid." about the main character. 

This time Millie is working in a NYC penthouse cleaning and making meals. However, her client's wife stays locked away in a bedroom when Millie is there working. Her orders are, do not disturb my wife. Why? As the book proceeds you know something is up besides what the author is telling you.  Once again Freida McFadden writes a story with a few surprises. 

If you're looking for an afternoon of twists and turns and something not very difficult to read, then this might be a good book choice.  I enjoyed it, and will probably, on some other afternoon when I have time and am feeling lazy, will read another book by this author.

My last book for February is this novel, The Berry Pickers, which is set in Maine and over in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada.  In 1962, a 4 year old girl named Ruthie went missing while in Maine with her family.  The family are Mi'kmaq First People. Her brother Joe is the last to see her alive.

The chapters in this book alternate between Joe and Norma.  Joe's chapters are told in present tense, when Joe is in his 50's and dying from cancer. Parts of his chapters are memories of his childhood including when the family searches for his missing sister. Joe has always felt responsible for her disappearance.  In his chapters Joe tells the story of his life, and you do have to wonder how much of who he was is because of guilt from when his sister disappeared.

I'm not sure I liked Joe. I think he was a good soul who would rather take the easy way out. I didn't enjoy reading his chapters  the same way I enjoyed reading the other chapters.

Those other chapters are about Norma, a young girl who grew up with a very over protective mother. Norma has dreams about another life. As a child her mother tried to squash the content of those dreams as just a bad nightmare, but it is  obvious early on  that Norma does not know everything about who she is. I spent much of the novel  wondering when we would learn who Norma really was.

I liked this book. I didn't love this book,  but it is definitely a story that makes you think. It stuck with me also, because I've been thinking about it since I finished it last week. And it brings back the question (to me) of what makes a book good? Is it something you really enjoy reading, or is it something that you keep thinking even after you are done with it? Obviously if you enjoyed a book you would say it is good, but in 6 months or a year, will that book pop into your head if someone asks you to recommend a book?

OK, I'm getting philosophical and will be writing on a  tangent in a moment, so it's time to end this post.

As usual, I love a good recommendation, and thanks for putting up with my long monthly book posts.