Finished: The-Mother-in-Law (Hepworth) A very good book about a woman, Diana, and her daughter-in-law, Lucy, who at first seem to have a contentious relationship...but as you read chapters from their viewpoints, you come to understand what exactly they were feeling at certain moments, and how they just couldn't communicate their feelings...especially Diana. I'm going to put the Amazon blurb below, because I like it, but I just want to say that there are so many details and relationships that make the book really good and let you get to know the characters pretty precisely. You come to understand Diana's motivations AND I disagree with that last line in the blurb that says Lucy is glad she's gone when she dies. Lucy is actually devastated, which shows how their relationship grows over the years. Lucy and Diana seem to be the strongest characters among Ollie, who is an affable guy, but is making some risky business decisions; his sister, Nettie, wants only one thing..and that's to have a baby, especially after Lucy and Ollie are on their third; Nettie's husband, Patrick, wjo really just wants the inheritance Ollie and Nettie will get after their parents are gone; and Tom, Diana's husband, who is a loving father who can't say no and tends to give his children money instead of letting them work out their adult lives on their own. Diana is very much against bailing out her grown children when they have financial problems, feeling like they've got to go through the hard times. Plus, she is heavily involved in an Afghan rescue and relocation charity where she sees people who have nothing trying to make their way. So...the blurb...and it is a mystery to find out exactly who is responsible for Diana's death, and a very well written one. :-)

Amazon Blurb: 

From the moment Lucy met her husband’s mother, she knew she wasn’t the wife Diana had envisioned for her perfect son. Exquisitely polite, friendly, and always generous, Diana nonetheless kept Lucy at arm’s length despite her desperate attempts to win her over. And as a pillar in the community, an advocate for female refugees, and a woman happily married for decades, no one had a bad word to say about Diana…except Lucy.

That was five years ago.

Now, Diana is dead, a suicide note found near her body claiming that she no longer wanted to live because of the cancer wreaking havoc inside her body.

But the autopsy finds no cancer.

It does find traces of poison, and evidence of suffocation.

Who could possibly want Diana dead? Why was her will changed at the eleventh hour to disinherit both of her children, and their spouses? And what does it mean that Lucy isn’t exactly sad she’s gone?

Fractured relationships and deep family secrets grow more compelling with every page in this twisty, captivating new novel from Sally Hepworth.

 Finished: Such A Fun Age (Reid) What a good book! Emira is a 25 year old African American woman who babysits 3 days a week for a wealthy family, mainly responsible for 2 year old Briar. Alix and Peter are the couple, but most of the story is really about Alix and Emira. Alix is a successful business woman with two young daughters. One late night, an egg hits and breaks their front window, and they call the police. Not wanting Briar to wake up frightened, they quickly call Emira while she's out with her girlfriends and ask her how quick she can get there to get Briar out of the house. She drops everything and rushes over, but she's dressed for a night out and party and not in her regular conservative clothes she wears at the house. She walks with Briar three blocks down to the fancy grocery store and they walk through the aisles pointing out things. (Something Briar likes to do). A security guard stops Emira and asks her if that is her child. She says no, she's the babysitter, and the guard doesn't believe her. He thinks she kidnapped Briar! The situation escalates and Emira finally convinces the security guard to let her call Peter. He's there within three minutes and clears everything up. Of course, the security guard apologizes to Peter, but not to Emira. Emira is completely humiliated. As she steps outside, another white man, Kelley, a few years her senior, approaches her and says he filmed the whole thing; that she should press charges. She has no intention of letting that video go anywhere, so he agrees to delete it, but not until he sends it to her email so she at least has a copy if she wants to change her mind. Kelley and Emira get to talking, and when she runs into him a few days later on the train, they hit if off again and end up becoming a couple who care very much about each other. Emira is upset with herself for having her college degree, but not having figured out what she wants to do with her life. She's still on her parents' insurance and has only temporary jobs...the babysitting and a typist job. Her three best friends who we see a lot in the story, are all working and successful, but they are 100% there for each other, and for Emira. Alix also has three best friends who are all moms of young children, but they all live in New York. Alix and Peter have just moved from her beloved New York to Philadelphia and she hates it. I'm not going to spoil the book, but Alix is still traumatized by something that happened between her and her high school boyfriend. And to be honest, it was all her fault. Alix is a bonafide narcissist. She's not even sure she likes her own daughter Briar, because she's so chatty and busy all the time. She adores her baby Catherine who is only a few months old. After all...Catherine looks just like her. ugggg. Anyway, something happens and a previous relationship is revealed that throws Alix, Emira, Kelley and all their friends into an unstoppable drama that includes that video being releases against Emira's wishes. Accusations are made. Racism is always bubbling right between the surface. It's a really good story and has an appropriate ending. You will find yourself rooting for Emira and her loving, close relationship with the precocious little Briar. :-)

 Finished: The Paris Apartment (Foley) When down-on-her luck, Jess, messages her step-brother, Ben, in Paris to tell him she needs a place to stay for a few months, he's hesitant at first, but then says of course. Given up to foster care by their parents as preteens/teens, Ben was adopted by a wealthy, loving family. Jess spent the rest of her adolescence going from foster home to foster home. One raised in near poverty, and one raised in a nurturing environment. Ben texts Jess the day she's arriving and tells her the address and apartment number and says he'll be waiting for her. However, when Jess arrives at the very wealthy apartment building, no one answers the gate buzzer and Ben isn't answering his messages or calls. Jess manages to get in the gate by watching another resident punch in the numbers. As she ascends in the elevator, Beth realizes that each floor of the old, gothic building is actually an entire apartment! There are five floors and five apartments. Finally getting into Ben's apartment (by picking the lock) Jess finds it empty, except for Ben's keys and wallet. That's not like Ben and Jess becomes alarmed. Something is eerie about the place, and right off the bat strange things start happening. There are six other occupants of the building, including the "concierge" who lives in a tiny, one-room shed in the courtyard. As Jess begins to ask questions about her brother to the people who live there, we begin to see what Ben was up to and what may have happened to him. Meanwhile, Jess has to figure things out with very little to go on. Another good page-turner of a book! There's a big twist in the middle of the book that I didn't see coming, so that was a nice surprise. :-) I won't spoil any more, but it was a good read. 

 Finished: The Forest of Vanishing Stars (Harmel) Such a good book! In 1922, in Berlin, an old woman sneaks into the home of a German couple and takes their two year old daughter. The woman sees visions, and all she knows is she has to take the baby and keep her safe. She raises the girl, Yona, in the forest, never letting her interact with any other human beings. She teaches her, though, how to live off the land, how to build shelter, how to protect herself, how to read, how to speak several languages, and how to kill someone with her hands. Yona questions why she needs to know all these things, and the woman just tells her that she needs to be prepared...bad times are coming. The old woman teaches Yona as many faiths as she can, but basically raises her in the Jewish faith. As time goes on and World War II begins, the old woman and Yona often hear planes overhead, and finally even bombs dropping. They are very careful to move their camp often to avoid meeting any soldiers. In 1942, when Yona is 22 years old, the old woman dies. On her deathbed she tells Yona where she lived and the name of her parents. She tells Yona that they were evil people, but that she must tell her in case she ever needs to use her father's name for safety. Yona has flashes of her parents' faces and wonders if she would know them if she saw them. For the first time in her life, Yona is alone in the world. She loves the forest, feels connected to it, and doesn't want to leave it. One day, as she wanders near a river, closer to a village than usual, she comes across two emaciated men who are trying to catch fish with just their hands. She's shy at first, but happy to show them how to catch fish for their dinner. When they tell her that they are villagers, escaped from their village when the German Nazis came through killing Jewish families, she's appalled. They tell her that there are eleven others back at their camp, all of them having lost loved ones to the brutality. She shows them how to build a net and a basket, and helps them catch more than enough fish to feed everyone. They ask Yona to come back to their camp, and she agrees. Once there, she meets all the other people, including three young children, all of them dirty, ragged and hungry. Yona realizes she needs to stay as long as it takes to teach them to survive in the forest. This must be her mission, she thinks. I can't go into all the detail, but the stories they tell of dead loved ones, and the jobs they used to do in the village, and the fear they feel of the Germans, who could hunt for them any day, are heartbreaking. As you might imagine, Yona stays with the camp for a long time, even falling in love. Something happens that makes her leave the camp and her new Jewish family, though, and she packs up and leaves in the middle of the night. They've already lived through a harsh winter in the woods together, so she knows they'll be all right. Yona decides to go into a nearby village to see how things are there, and is shocked to see it occupied by German soldiers and nearly destroyed. I don't want to give away too much, but she grows close to some nuns, and then is instrumental in trying to save them when the Nazis are about to line them up and kill them. The German soldier in charge? Yona stands frozen as she recognizes him. It's her father! She yells out his name right as the nuns are about to be shot. As he turns to see her, he can't believe it. He comes closer to see if it's really his daughter...the one with two different colored eyes...the one with the birthmark shaped like a dove on her wrist. And, it is. He's beside himself with happiness and temporarily halts the execution. But as he takes her to the house he's commandeered, to eat and clean up, she can't believe that her father is one of the evil men who has been killing Jewish people. She tells him this and he pleads his case, trying to convince her that the people of the Jewish race aren't even human. He tells her that the Germans plan to search and attack all the runaway Jews in the forest in two weeks time. Yona is torn that she feels love for this man who is nothing but a monster. And, it's clear that he's so happy to have his baby back. Yona's mother had died of a broken heart two years after she was kidnapped. But, they are so at odds about the basic tenets of human decency, that she knows she can't stay there. She must go back to warn her friends in the forest. Does she succeed? Can she save those people and maybe more? Does she even survive the end of the war? hmmmmm :-)

 Finished: The Family Remains (Jewell) The sequel to The Family Upstairs, this book is as good as the first one. It kept me reading and wondering and at times worrying. :-) The story opens not long after the end of the first book. This time the story follows Lucy, Henry Jr., and Phin to see how they are handling life after all the truths came out at the end of the first book. Lucy is living with her brother, Henry, and waiting to purchase her own house for herself and her kids. Henry is bored with his life and as obsessed as ever with Phin. Phin, got almost as far away as he could. He's working as a safari guide in Africa. When Lucy and Henry get together with Lucy's newfound daughter, Libby for her birthday dinner, her boyfriend surprises her with tickets to Africa. She's going to finally get to meet her biological father, Phin. Upon hearing this, Henry decides to go as well, against Lucy's advice. When Phin finds out everyone is converging on  him, he hightails it out of Africa and heads to Chicago. Of course, Henry tracks him down there and we spend much of the book wondering what Henry has actually done to Phin when he surprises him at his door. Meanwhile, Lucy and her kids follow Henry to Chicago, afraid of what he'll do and they end up always one step behind him. Back in London, a detective is trying to solve the mystery of the 25 year old bones that have washed up on the banks of the Thame. It doesn't take him long to connect the bones to a murder that occurred back in the Lamb mansion all those years ago. Now, both Lucy and Henry (The Lamb children) have the London authorities after them in the U.S., while Lucy is still after Henry and Henry is nowhere to be found (but we know he's with Phin). Whew! I strongly suggest reading the first book before reading this one. Both are good reads! 

 Finished: The Family Upstairs (Jewell) A good, rather convoluted book, but still another page-turner. Twenty-five years in the past three bodies are found in a prominent mansion in, Chelsea, an upscale neighborhood in London. Even more mysterious, a baby girl is found upstairs in a crib, left all alone in the huge house. In the present day, twenty-five year old Libby, who was adopted at ten months old, receives a letter that she has inherited an estate in Chelsea today, on her twenty-fifth birthday. What follows is a wild story going back and forth in time. The family growing up in the estate,years before is the Lamb family, Henry Sr., Martina, Henry Jr., 11, and Lucy, 10. They are a happy family until they let various strangers start "staying" with them, who actually end up moving in and never leaving. A family moves in with two children the same age as the Lamb children, Phin, 12 and Clemency, 10. Their father, David, is a con-man, but becomes like a cult leader as things get worse and worse, especially after Henry Sr. suffers a stroke. The women of the house become mesmerized by David even as he continues to liquidate all the Lamb assets in the name of charity donations, but keeps the money for himself. Meanwhile, Henry Jr. becomes obsessed with Phin "the most beautiful human he's ever seen" and Lucy becomes best friends with Clemency. By the time the kids are teenagers, they've been abused, starved, held prisoner in their rooms, and more. They all know that they need to escape somehow. When Martina becomes pregnant, and not by her disabled husband, Henry Jr. has had enough. When the police find the three bodies that night, there are no teenagers to be found in the house...just the baby. Do they make it out okay? Have they become victims? Are they around when Libby turns twenty-five? You'll have to turn those pages like I did and find out how it all goes. :-) It took me until about the third chapter to really get into it because so many new characters were being introduced...but once things got going, they never stopped. 

 Finished: The Good Sister (McAllister) Another book I couldn't put down by the author I just read (Wrong Place Wrong Time)! This book is about two adult sisters who live in England, both married, one with a ten year old and one with an eight week old. They are very close and have shared everything all their lives. When the younger sister, Becky, calls her older sister, Martha, complaining about her horrible job working as a set designer and all the pressure she's under, Martha puts aside her own stresses, as she usually does, and listens to Becky. Martha, though, is the one at home with a newborn who won't stop crying. She cries constantly and very little will soothe her. Martha, who also runs a charity she set up for Greek refugees, is desperately in search of a nanny who will take care of little Layla. When a frustrated Becky calls with the same problems the next day, Martha asks her, why don't you quit your job and come be Layla's nanny? Of course, we'll pay you, etc. etc. So, when Becky says yes and starts, she has no idea how hard it will be. Layla is so difficult and her son, Xander, had been so easy. When Martha has to fly out of town for two days to buy a building to put a school in for the refugees, and her husband also has an out of town conference, Becky is charged with caring for Layla. When Becky wakes up in the morning that both parents are supposed to return, little Layla is cold and not breathing. Nothing will revive her and the officials declare that it was most likely cot death. Forty-eight hours later, Becky is arrested for her murder! The cause of death has been determined to be deliberate suffocation. What comes next is the heartbreaking trial with all the witnesses, most of them digging into past experiences they had with Becky. Martha thinks there is no way that her dear sister can be guilty, but as the testimony goes on, she starts to have her doubts. She's already just a shell of her former self, grieving her baby. A few more suspects come into play and the book really keeps you guessing. Another good book! :-)

 Finished: Wrong Place Wrong Time (McAllister) Another great page-turner which just took up the next day and a half of my reading life. :-) Jen is a happily married mother of 18 year old Todd. She's waiting up for him one night, just watching out the front window, when she spots him coming. Then, something goes terribly wrong. There is an older man lurking near Todd and Todd takes out a huge knife and stabs him to death. Jen screams for her husband, Kelly, and they run out to Todd, who is just standing there staring, with no emotion on his face. The police come and he's arrested. They won't allow Jen and Kelly to see him until the morning, so they reluctantly go home and try to fall asleep. When Jen wakes up the next morning, it is the not the next morning, but the day before! She's waking up on the morning of the murder. She has no idea what is going on except that she has somehow gone back in time by one day. Is there a way she can stop what is going to happen? It takes her all day to try and figure out what to do. She tries telling her husband, who is in her husband from the day before, so he doesn't know about the murder yet, but he thinks she's losing it. Then, the next day she wakes up and it's two days earlier! This pattern keeps going on until one morning it's a week earlier...one morning 3 months earlier...one morning a year earlier, etc. She realizes that there must be something important about each of the days that she's being "sent" to and starts trying to figure out why Todd would kill the man. She discovers the man's identity and soon some eye-opening connections to different members of her family come into play! It's a really good book with this fierce mother determined to do anything to protect her son and keep the murder from happening, even if people think she's out of her mind along the way. Loved it! 

 Finished: The Lies I Tell (Clark) Such a great page-turner! I read this book in a day and half. It's the story of Kat, a reporter who is determined to get close to a con artist named Meg, who Kat feels ruined her life 10 years before Meg, is a brilliant con artist who is back in town after ten years to finally pull her biggest con yet on the man who stole her dying mother's house out from under her, leaving teenage Meg and her mother living out of a car. Meg spent the years since conning men...but only men who had done irreparable harm to women. Women must stick together and look out for each other, and if they can't look out for themselves, Meg will do it! Of course, the way she goes about it is totally illegal, usually scamming the men out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Unfortunately, on her scam that put a high school principal in prison for having sex with students, Kat became a victim as well. Sent to report on the scandalous story, she wanted to dig further and expose the person who pulled the con. Ignoring her superiors, she took a call from Meg who gave her information that led to her being traumatized herself. It's a great book and I quickly came to root for Meg to get revenge (or justice?) on these predatory men. I also loved the ending on this one! :-)

 Finished: When The Emperor Was Divine (Otsuka) A vivid, heartbreaking YA book that has been banned from middle and high school reading lists. A Japanese American mother and her two young children are ripped from their home in California, are reclassified as enemy aliens and sent to an incarceration camp. The father had already been taken in the middle of the night after Pearl Harbor was bombed, and imprisoned in Texas. The horrific conditions of the camp, and the terrible treatment of their belongings and home when they finally return are awful to read. Not to mention how former friends have turned their backs on them. What a terrible, terrible ordeal for these American people! The book could have had a bit more substance and character development, but there is no shading over the horror of the situation. What a terrible time in American history, a time that students today should definitely be learning about. I shake my head at so many of the banned books in this day and age!