Today’s Steals and Deals at AAR…..
I’m sure there are those who don’t like this book but I haven’t met them. I loved it. Here’s the blurb:
After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.
Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors—until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.
Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova’s son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it’s too late.
Shelby Van Pelt’s debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.
It’s on sale today for 2.99 here.
Kate Morton’s dual timeline books are some of my favorite of that oeuvre and this is one of her best. In my DIK review, I wrote:
There is a tragedy in the past—in this case the 1959 deaths of a young mother and her children—the truth of which has never really been known. In the present—2018—Jess, a journalist living in London, comes back to Sydney because her beloved grandmother, Nora, has fallen down the stairs and is now hospitalized. Nora, mysteriously, was trying to get to the attic—her housekeeper says Nora had been distressed the last few weeks. Jess wants to know why and therein begins the tale.
This is a layered novel with many characters and plotlines all of which Morton writes effortlessly. In present day, Jess, on the cusp of 40, feels as though her professional and personal life has been a let-down. She was essentially raised by her imperious, loving, and rather controlling grandmother–Jess’s own mother, Polly, lives in Brisbane and rarely speaks to her mother or her daughter. All three, it will turn out, have a copy of Daniel Miller’s As If They Were Asleep—a (fictionalized) book whose chapters tell the story of the Turner Family Tragedy of Christmas Eve, 1959. These embedded chapters along with the sections actually set in the past, teem with the people of Tambilla whose families along with that of the Turners are shaped by long held secrets and bone deep love.
I had a few quibbles–all around the present-day storyline–but I forgot them as soon as I turned the page. Morton doesn’t give a resolution to all the issues Jess faces–this actually gives the story a verisimilitude lesser fiction often lacks. Additionally, one of the big reveals of the book is not, I believe, intended to be a surprise. The connection between Jess, Nora, and Polly to Isabel Turner and her family is easy to make out early on in the book. But how that outcome occurred and, even more compellingly, why are things I didn’t see until the final chapters. The enigma at the heart of the novel is complex, heartbreaking, and will satisfy even the most critical mystery reader.
Morton limns the way humans hide truths from both themselves and others. With gorgeous prose, she slowly cracks open how, for better and for worse, families, especially mothers, love. This is a book tinged with sadness and yet, when I turned the last page, I felt elated. The hours I spent in the landscape meticulously portrayed in Homecoming were a gift. Readers of historical fiction will treasure this book.
Patchett is becoming one of our greatest living writers, if you ask me. Her ability to excavate our hearts, with all their joys and pains, is phenomenal. I like this book very much. Here’s the blurb:
One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating’s christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny’s mother, Beverly—thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.
Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Spending summers together in Virginia, the Keating and Cousins children forge a lasting bond that is based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them.
When, in her twenties, Franny begins an affair with the legendary author Leon Posen and tells him about her family, the story of her siblings is no longer hers to control. Their childhood becomes the basis for his wildly successful book, ultimately forcing them to come to terms with their losses, their guilt, and the deeply loyal connection they feel for one another.
Told with equal measures of humor and heartbreak, Commonwealth is a meditation on inspiration, interpretation, and the ownership of stories. It is a brilliant and tender tale of the far-reaching ties of love and responsibility that bind us together.
It’s on sale for 1.99 here.
Looking for a light, fun read? Here you go. (Here’s Kayne’s review.)
Happily Never After begins with a bang as an objector stands up and stops a wedding! This book has all the things I love about Lynn Painter’s books – witty banter, great characters, and a spicy romance. And though it lacks the depth of her other books–this one is pretty light–I still thought it was great fun.
Our heroine, Sophie, is trying to figure out how to get out of her wedding. A few days before the wedding, she sees her fiancé, Stuart’s, phone and realized he was cheating on her. Her father works for Stuart’s father and she is afraid he will be fired if she cancels the wedding. Her best friend, Asha, comes up with the idea of hiring an objector. Asha knows Max, her cousin’s old college roommate, and he had helped out another friend by objecting at their wedding. Asha contacts Max to stop Sophie’s wedding and save her from marrying Stuart, who is awful. Sophie hopes by having the objector stop the wedding and telling everyone about Stuart’s cheating, the blame for the canceled wedding will fall on Stuart. So, the plan is set and, whoa, It IS a very funny scene! Chaos breaks out, followed by a night of drinking and laughing with Sophie, Max and her friends.