Finished: The Housemaid (McFadden) A page turner of a story and a very fast read. The story of  twenty-something, ex-con Millie who goes from living in her car looking for work, to being hired as the housekeeper for a very rich family. She really cannot believe they didn't reject her because of her background, but she's thankful to have the job...even if her room IS a tiny attic closet with the only lock on the outside of the door! Nina, in her late thirties, is the rich wife and mother who has hired Millie. She wants her to keep an immaculate house, cook all the meals, and sometimes watch over her very spoiled nine year old daughter, Cece. Nina is a piece of work. She makes intentional messes, leave incorrect dates on notes, and basically does whatever she can to make Millie's life miserable. But, Millie needs the job, especially being on parole, so she has no choice but to stay. Nina's very handsome husband, Andrew, is the complete opposite. He's very nice and considerate and handsome. He is the one who brought all the money to the marriage, and has a prenup with Nina. The rumor around town is that Nina is "off her rocker", having spent eight months in a psychiatric hospital when her little daughter was first born. When Andrew defends Millie to Nina, it just makes her fly further off the handle. She's convinced her husband is attracted to Millie and vice versa. Eventually things come to a head after Millie and Andrew do give in and sleep together. Andrew then tells Nina he no longer loves her and wants her to leave, that night. Then..........we are suddenly reading Nina's side of the story and the twists start coming! Just who is gaslighting who? It's a good one. :-)

 Finished: Daisy Jones and the Six (Reid) Another great book by Taylor Jenkins Reid! This is the story of an up and coming rock band in Los Angeles in the 1970's. The Six is a band created by brothers Billy and Graham Dunne. They work their way up to getting a manager and a contract and have a successful first album. Meanwhile, Daisy Jones is having a career of her own songwriting and trying to break into the scene. She has become somewhat of an "it" girl in LA, and she ends up with the same manager and record company that The Six are at. The bigwigs at Runner Records want to try out the chemistry between the ethereal but combustible Daisy and the magnetic, charismatic, but soulful Billy. Naturally they have incredible chemistry and when they do an impromptu duet together for a reporter from Rolling Stone, they get rave reviews in his article and even he suggests that Daisy become part of The Six. Their connection is undeniable. Billy and Daisy clash more than they get along, but they work hard at creating the next album, bouncing songs off of each other, writing lyrics together, showing their deepest thoughts to each other, and without either one wanting to, falling in love. Billy, however, is married to, Camilla, the love of his life, and has three little daughters. Camilla had stuck with him while he was making it big, getting deep into drugs and alcohol and sleeping with groupies on the road. She finally gave him an ultimatum when their first daughter was born and he straightened up and never strayed again, stayed clean, and worked hard on the road. So, when he meets Daisy, he is conflicted with unexplainable feelings for Daisy because they are basically two sides to the same coin. Daisy, is still into getting drugged up and drunk every sing day, and Billy just can't be around her, other than writing their songs. The story is too much to explain, but what a great story. There are also other characters, especially their band mates, who have their own doings. Reid creates such compelling characters. You just feel like you are right there with them and you get to know them so well and then before you know it, the story is over and you're left wanting to hear their amazing second album, even though it's fictional lol. I would love for there to be a sequel to this book. There is already a television series filming which I'm excited to see. 

 Finished: Middlesex (Eugenides) "I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974."  This is the first sentence of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize winner, Middlesex, which tells the fascinating story of a girl born as Calliope, who becomes a grown man known as Cal. The story follows a Greek family who flees, moving from a small village in Greece to downtown Detroit during an invasion by Turkey; as they struggle to make ends meet in the industrial Detroit; and then finally as they make a go of things before moving to the uppercrust Gross Pointe, Michigan. Unbeknownst to them, and with marriages between family members, an identical gene is handed down from both of Calliope's parents which causes her to be biologically what was known at that time as a hermaphrodite. She had both male and female sex organs, but because the old Greek doctor who'd moved to Detroit with the family did just a cursory check of her genitals when she was born, he missed the small, hidden male protrusion, and couldn't feel the testicles that were nesting in her abdomen. The Stephanides, already with a son, were thrilled to have a daughter, and knowing no better, raised Calliope as a girl. Calliope herself never felt anything out of the ordinary until puberty began to change her friends, but not her. At least, not in the feminine way. The book is told beautifully and is heartbreaking, but also humorous, but mostly gut wrenching as you feel so many feelings for Calliope, and then Cal. Calliope falls in love with her female best friend, not understanding the feelings she's having. Cal as an adult later in life, has never let himself get close enough to a woman to get intimate, even though he's fallen for quite a few women, and they for him. The story explores the history of Cal's grandparents, then parents, and then suddenly becomes pretty riveting when Calliope is born. Calliope makes the tragic decision to run away after her condition is finally discovered when she is fourteen, and the "expert" doctor wants to study her and then permanently convert her to a being female, even though he discovers that her genetics shows she's biologically a male. Cal reunites with the family and has embraced his identity as a male, but not before his father has died. There's so much detail in the book, that I say, just read it and you'll be reading a really, really good book while getting a glimpse of what intersex kids must go through to try and live their lives as true as they can to themselves. 

Finished: Carvel Daze (Garcia) A lovely memoir by my sweet cousin Bobby's best friend, about the neighborhood they grew up in on Carvel Lane in Sharpstown in Houston, Texas. We have our own family memories from spending time with our cousins on Carvel Lane, but we didn't live in the neighborhood. Reading about the familiar locations, though, like Bayland Park, where we spent many a day watching baseball games, brought back so many childhood memories. :-) I'm pretty sure that my cousin Bill, Bobby's older brother, was on the Tigers? When Chris mentions making the Indians baseball team, it brought back a memory of his brother David being an Indian! Bill, David and I were all very close in age, and Bobby and Chris were the little brothers, at least to me. Thanks for sharing your childhood memories, Chris, and for letting me know more about your family. And, thank you for being Bobby's best friend. "He was the first person I talked to when we moved here, and I was the last person he talked to when he left here."  

 Finished: Sea of Tranquility (St. John Mandel) Another good Emily St. John book! I had to reread my own recaps of Station 11 and The Glass Hotel to get a refresh on characters in case there were any crossovers, and there were! This was another page turner, but not in a murder mystery kind of way. Rather, there were several characters in different times in history whose stories end up being interconnected, and I quickly got attached to them. They all have one character in common who is time-traveling through history, meeting each of the characters, and trying to figure out if there is some kind of fracture in all their worlds, due to them all having the same experience with an unusual phenomenon. He's basically trying to figure out if they are all living in a simulation instead of in real life. This is the second book I've read in a few weeks that focuses on a deadly future pandemic, which, of course, is very timely. Jumping back and forth in time, we meet Edwin in 1912, who has basically been exiled by his parents in the UK for expressing his "outrageous" views. He's sent with an allowance, so has plenty of time to meander about and stumble across the unusual phenomenon. Next, we meet Olive in 2203, an author who lives on the moon, but is doing a book tour on earth promoting her red hot novel which is a story about, you guessed it...a pandemic. Little does she know that a pandemic far deadlier than covid 19 is just taking root and will be spread to the United States before her book tour is done. She's got a husband and little girl back home on the moon but whether or not she will actually make it back to them comes into question. At last we meet Gaspery-Jacques, a resident of a lunar colony in 2401. His brilliant sister, Zoey, works for the mysterious Time Institute. The Time Institute is where recruits go to learn how to time travel, with the express goal of investigating IF they are in fact living in a simulation, and if so, are there any cracks in the system throughout history. Gaspery begs his sister to let him become a time traveler and help with the cause. The number one rule at the Time Institute is that you can never do anything at all to change the course of history while you are in another time. After five years of training, Gaspery finally time travels where he meets Edwin and Olive, as well as a talented musician and a teenage girl who are also involved in the phenomenon. He knows the history of all these people before he ever meets him, and it becomes impossible for Gaspery to follow the number one rule...especially when he meets Olive. He knows that Olive will die from the horrific virus that is about to hit the U.S. only three days after he interviews her on her book tour. While talking to her, he convinces her to drop her book tour right that minute and head back to the moon. He saves her life, and changes history. Gaspery has also figured out that all these people have, in fact, experienced the exact same phenomenon at the exact same moment, in completely different times of history. This was a very unique book, at the same time, very reminiscent of St. John's other books. I really enjoyed it and hope there is more to come with these characters! 

 Finished: The Locked Door (McFadden) I haven't read an entire book in one day in a long, long time! This was the story of Nora, a 37 year old surgeon, who also happens to be the daughter of a notorious serial killer who was caught and imprisoned 26 years before...when his 11 year old daughter, Nora, turned him in. Nora was always a bit of a strange child, but she drew the line at finding a missing local woman in a cage down in her father's "work basement". Now, with her mother having committed suicide shortly after, and her grandmother raising her (first order of business, changing Nora's last name), Nora is a successful surgeon in a private practice where nobody knows who she is. She's also very closed off to having any kind of long term relationship, and her father, who is in prison for the rest of his life and who she hasn't communicated with in 26 years, continues to write her a letter a week which she rips up without reading. Nora's life begins to unravel when the police question her about not one, but two of her recent patients, who have turned up dead. And, not just dead, but dead with their hands chopped off. Young, dark-haired, blue-eyed women. Her father's exact M.O. When things start happening, like one of the missing hands from one of the girls is found in Nora's trunk, Nora reels and doesn't know who to trust and who to suspect in this elaborate setup. She's recently renewed a friendship with an old college boyfriend, Brady, who she'd only dated for 3 months, but who she's begun to have doubts about. And, her business partner and fellow surgeon, Philip, who is quite an overconfident skirt-chaser, has just set his sights on Nora's treasured office assistant, 25 year old, dark-haired, blue-eyed, Harper. Is Harper now in danger too? The ending is fast-paced, and I figured out who was setting Nora up to take the fall, but not why. It was a doozy! :-)

 Finished: Night Over Water (Follett) An older book of Follett's, but a very good one! The story is about a night that several people spend flying over the Atlantic from the UK to New York in a giant seaplane called the Pan Am Clipper. The Pan Am Clipper was a real airplane that was used from 1938 to 1941. In this story, Hitler has just declared war on the UK so this is one of the last flights out before the war begins. The luxury plane carries an aristocratic family fleeing the UK for America; a rich woman running away from her husband with a man she's just met; a young jewel thief, posing as one of the upper crust; an American movie star; a German physicist who has been freed from captivity in Germany and is fleeing to America, away from Hitler; an FBI agent escorting a murderer who has been extradited from the UK; an agent with the Scotland Yard; and a man who has a huge secret and a nefarious plan in the works. Someone on the plane isn't safe! The plane's engineer is being blackmailed to make sure the plane has to touch down in a different location than is planned for the final sea landing. One of these passengers will not make it to America if the bad guy has his way. Many relationships develop in the day it takes the plane to cross the Atlantic. And, a few people grow up and change their ways. A couple of surprise passengers join the plane at one of the refueling stops, and an unlikely hero or two emerge. It's a page-turning read and I'd love to know where most of the characters are now! :-) 

Finished: Malibu Rising (Reid) Loved this book! The story of the Riva siblings, children of world famous crooner, Mick Riva, who have basically been raised by the oldest sibling, Nina, since their devoted mother, June, died when Nina was just seventeen. Mick, though he loved June, had long been absent from their lives, having chosen a philandering, whirlwind, life on the road, touring the world and marrying and divorcing woman after woman. Having barely squeaked by monetarily, Nina had made sure that her brothers, Jay and Hud, fifteen when their mother died, finished high school, as well as her little sister, Kit, who was just 12 at the time. All four siblings have an extremely tight bond, and all four are drawn to the ocean and surfing. Growing up in Malibu, theirs was the Malibu of old beach houses and working day and night to make ends meet, i.e., before Malibu became the coastline playground for the rich it is now. By 1983, Jay has become a world champion surfer, and Hud the photographer that has put Jay's surfing prowess in all the magazines. The beautiful Nina has made enough money modeling for them all to be comfortable. And...she's married a very wealthy tennis champion. As we start the story, it is the day of the annual Riva end-of-summer party, and each of them is entering into it with less joy and more trepidation than they would like to admit. Nina, who has always taken care of everyone is shattered because her husband has left her for his female counterpart on the tennis world circuit. Jay has been informed at the age of twenty-three that he's got a serious health problem and may have to stop surfing. Hud has fallen in love with Jay's ex-girlfriend, and she with him, and he doesn't know how to tell Jay, who he has been extremely close with all his life. And Kit, the baby, at the age of twenty, has never yet kissed a boy and she's determined to change that at the party that night. As much as the world watches every move of the Riva siblings, they relish their private time together just being ordinary, eating sandwiches on the beach, ribbing each other, and, of course, all surfing together. The party starts, the famous guests arrive, the night gets wild, Nina's tennis husband comes home and begs for her to take him back, Jay finds out about Hud and his ex, and Kit discovers what she really wants. To top it all off, Mick Riva has chosen tonight to show back up in all their lives now that he's fifty and in his "waning" years in terms of the popularity of his kind of music. It's a fascinating story about how close the foursome are, how welcoming they are to another who may also be a sibling, how they stand strong and rally with each other, no matter how mad one may be at another. I loved the book, loved the ending and would love to read another story that catches up with Nina, Jay, Jud and Kit in a few years time! :-) 

 Finished: Damnation Spring (Ash Davidson) One of the best books I've read this year! Heartwarming, heartbreaking, visceral and so real. It is the story of lifelong logger, Rich, his wife, Colleen, and their five year old son, Chub, who in 1977 live and work in a small logging community on the northern California coast. Rich's father, grandfather, great-grandfather and so on, were all loggers, his father dying on the job when Rich was just a boy. Colleen is a lifelong resident who grew up with her parents and sister in a small cabin, her father a fisher and not a logger. Colleen and Rich are a true love story of being committed to each other, loving each other, arguing with each other, forgiving each other, joking with each other, and loving their son. Tragically, Colleen has had eight miscarriages in the years they've been married, the most recent being a baby girl lost at 22 weeks. They are both devastated and reeling. Colleen is desperate to have another baby, and Rich is now desperate not to get her pregnant again and watch her go through another loss. Meanwhile, Rich goes to work every day for the Sanderson company who does all the logging and milling of the forest in the area. When Sanderson's and the state's relentless spraying of pesticides in the area coincides with the protests from the naturalists who are against all the trees being cut down AND with what suddenly becomes a horrific number of birth defects in new born babies in the community, morals and responsibilities and generations of pride in being loggers and providing for their families come to blows. Colleen, who is an unofficial midwife in the area, is witness to one baby being born with the top half of it's head and brain missing. When three other couples have babies born with only partial brains, she can no longer stand as one with the logging community and deny that the spraying isn't poisoning them all. Anyone who opposes the spraying in the slightest is mercilessly turned on by the rest of the community, i.e., houses burned, children shunned at school, pets killed, etc. As it finally dawns on Rich that maybe Colleen is right and the spraying that goes directly into their water source may have been responsible for all her miscarriages, not to mention Chub's frequent nosebleeds, he sides with his wife and must face the wrath and revenge of the other loggers and the company. There is so much detail I'm leaving out, like what wonderful moments we see every day between Rich, Colleen and Chub as they traverse to the creek in the woods behind their house each morning to make sure they've got a clear pipe up to the house...Rich showing Chub all the while how to navigate the forest by using the palm of his hand as a map for all the creeks and boundaries. Or, like the sweet moments between Colleen and Chub when she asks him "where did you get those beautiful eyebrows?" and his answer is always "at the eyebrow store." Or, even the heart wrenching moments for Colleen of Chub's first day of kindergarten, which leave her truly alone for the first time in a long time. Or, the battle that Rich has with himself over his commitment to providing for his family the only way he knows how versus the risky step he takes financially to ensure their welfare in the future. Word by word, page by page, it's just a lovely book, but it doesn't sugarcoat the horrific moments. It makes them part of the lives of all these people as horrific moments are. As the person who recommended it to me said, the last fifty pages are a roller coaster of emotion, heartbreak and a bit of joy. It's definitely a book that will stay with me for awhile and one that I'd love to see a follow up to. 

 Finished: The Match (Coben) Another great page-turner by one of my favorites, Harlan Coben. :-) The protagonist of this story is Wilde, who we met in The Boy in the Woods. Wilde is 40ish now, he's not really sure, because he was left in the woods as a child to fend for himself. Only by befriending another little boy, David, whose family owned a house at the edge of the woods, was he brought into society, where David's mother, Hesther Crimstein became like a surrogate mother to him. He still had no memory of how he was left in the woods, still preferred living in his reclusive abode in the woods, and still remained close to Hesther, David's son, Matthew and David's widow, Laila. In this story, Wilde has decided to input his DNA into "one of those sites" to see if he gets a match. He's finally ready to see if he's got a mother and/or father out there, and to learn what exactly happened to make them leave him in the woods. Hester Crimstein is a brilliant attorney, and also a mainstay in several of the Coben novels. She's quite prominent in both of the Wilde books, there for advice, and there when Wilde's search takes a mysterious turn as he gets a hit for a possible parent, and at the same time, a hit for a possible half-sibling. When he reaches out to the possible parent (a father), he sets some frantic wheels in motion because it turns out his father is in the Witness Protection Program. By the time Wilde reaches back out to the potential half-sibling, Peter, he has gone missing. A complicated mystery ensues involving DNA matches, reality tv shows, a secret online vigilante society, and three murders (and counting). In the end, we do finally learn what happened to Wilde as a child, but there are some ends left dangling and a couple of unanswered questions. I'm really hoping there is a Wilde book #3.