Review of JENNY COOPER HAS A SECRET by Joy Fielding (New Release)

 4 Stars

This psychological suspense novel is a great read.

Linda Davidson, 76, makes regular visits to Legacy Place, a memory-care facility for the elderly, after her best friend Carol is diagnosed with dementia. While visiting, Linda meets 92-year-old Jenny Cooper who tells Linda that she has killed a number of people, mostly men who hurt her and she believes deserved to die. Linda has a lot of stress in her life: her husband died and she’s not certain how to move on with her life, her best friend doesn’t even recognize her, and the peace of her home is disturbed by the constant bickering between her daughter Kleo and her husband Mick who live with her. She becomes intrigued with Jenny and her stories which provide her a reprieve from daily life.

The suspense derives from trying to determine the truth. Is Jenny just spinning yarns for Linda’s entertainment? Are her confessions just the confusion of an ailing mind? At times she is surprisingly lucid, so her revelations cannot be easily dismissed. When a patient at the facility dies shortly after Jenny learns he sexually abused his daughter, is Jenny responsible? Does she actually pose a danger to others?

Jenny is feisty and quirky. She has a commanding personality who cannot be ignored. She is full of quips, often speaking without filters. Many of her exchanges with Linda are hilarious. For instance, when Linda asks Jenny about the number of her murder victims, even just a ballpark, Jenny replies with “’Shea Stadium’” and even after Linda explains what the expression means, Jenny retorts with, “’You say “ballpark” and I’m supposed to know that means to give you an approximate number? That doesn’t make any sense’” and continues “’What does how many people I’ve killed have to do with baseball?’” Amidst her witty remarks are words of wisdom. For instance, she tells Linda that she apologizes too much and should stop overthinking. She is definitely a memorable character.

Despite its lighthearted moments, the novel does touch on a number of serious subjects like aging, abuse, friendship, loss and grief, and family. Dementia and its effects, on both those diagnosed with the disease and their loved ones, are examined. Carol’s husband tells Linda she is such a good friend because she continues to visit Carol even as her condition deteriorates and Linda reflects, “Does he know how hard it’s become for me to visit my lifelong friend, the disappointment and outright anger that I feel toward her condition, that I feel toward her, and the guilt I carry for feeling this way? Would he consider me a good friend if he knew the depth of my resentment, the rage I can barely suppress whenever I confront the glazed look in her eyes, the unstated fear I carry of ending up the same way?” Perhaps because I am not much younger than Linda, I identified with a number of her concerns.

This is a fast-paced, quick read. I predicted the ending, but that didn’t lessen my enjoyment.

Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of MONA'S EYES by Thomas Schlesser (New Release)

 2.5 Stars

This novel is a translation from the French Les Yeux de Mona written by a French art historian.

Ten-year-old Mona has a brief episode of blindness and there is concern that she might suffer permanent vision loss. Her grandfather Henry, whom Mona calls Dadé, is supposed to take her for weekly visits to a psychiatrist but he decides “he would administer a therapy of a totally different kind, a therapy capable of compensating for the ugliness inundating her childhood.” He decides that, each week over the course of a year, he will take her to see a work of art “to lodge in her memory all the art offered in terms of beauty and significance” should she lose her sense of sight. For each of the 52 works, he tells Mona about the artist’s background, discusses artistic techniques, and concludes with the life lesson suggested by that piece.

The novel’s structure is repetitive. Dadé and Mona study a work of art in one of Paris’ galleries and she then applies the lesson learned from the art to her daily life. For instance, a painting by Raphael, Henry claims, instructs that people cultivate detachment, “not being the slave of one’s emotions, and of knowing to keep them at a respectable distance.” In the next chapter, Mona sees her mother’s fear and “reckoning she’d gain nothing from increasing it by expressing her own, she kept it to herself.” Likewise, a painting by Marie-Guillemine Benoist exposes “the demons of segregation” so in the following chapter Mona is inspired to tell a classmate that “’the [school]yard belongs to everyone.’” This structure is repeated 52 times!

The book strains credulity. Has the author ever met a 10-year-old child? In my 30 years of teaching high school, I met some very intelligent students who have gone on to great success, but I never encountered one who was as precocious as Mona. The way she speaks and thinks “about complex readings, learned interpretations, bold decipherments, and hypotheses” suggests a maturity and understanding well beyond her age.

There’s also the issue of how Henry speaks to Mona. Much is made of his “determination to talk to her like an adult,” but his vocabulary is much too sophisticated to be understood even by a precocious child. More than once, Henry senses that, because of “the dreadful complexity of his words,” Mona “couldn’t understand a word of this explanation” but he just plows on. His tone is also overly pedantic. He makes statements like “’this heightened pointillism is similar to the effect of those fragments known as tessellae” and “Whistler’s favorite artist was actually Hokusai, the famous creator of The Great Wave’” (as if Mona would know this Japanese artist) and Goya maintained “’a keen complicity with the great Spanish thinkers, such as Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos and Martin Zapater, who wanted to be free of religious obscurantism’” (as if a 10-year-old would be familiar with Spanish philosophers).

There is no doubt that the author is an intelligent and learned man, but some of his references, via Henry who acts as his mouthpiece, just seem intended to impress readers with his eruditeness. There are statements like “Henry thought of Werner Herzog, the director of the film Aguirre, the Wrath of God, in which the opening shot of Machu Picchu, with its mountains in the mist, was an image worthy of Friedrich or Turner” and “This curious approach . . . had come to him from a Japanese animated movie, My neighbor Totoro, one of Hayao Miyazaki’s marvels” and Vienna in the early 20^th century “was promoting the atonal music of Schoenberg, the disruptive architecture of Adolf Loos, the critical journalism of Karl Kraus, and the pictorial folly of Schiele and Kokoschka” and “Henry was thinking of all the artists, immersed in hybrid, intentionally immoral visions, belonging to that tendency dubbed ‘Decadent’: Gustave Moreau and Odilon Redon in France, James Ensor and Fernand Khnopff in Belgium, Max Klinger in Germany.” Is is necessary to drop in names all the time: Degas was “admired by the poets of his time, notably Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Valéry” and a Rosa Bonheur painting recalls “George Sand’s descriptions in The Devil’s Pool, a novel published in 1846, three years before the success of Plowing in the Nivernais at the Salon”? Do we really need to know that Gustav Klimt “lived at No. 19 on the Berggasse” in Vienna or that the Bazar de l’Hôtel de Ville is at No. 52 Rue de Rivoli in Paris? Henry is able to quote from memory fairly lengthy quotations from Charles Baudelaire, Théophile Gautier, Cézanne, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Louise Bourgeois?

The author also assumes the reader has a certain familiarity with art and its terminology. Each work of art is described, often using terms like “mise en abyme” and “pentimenti” and “barycenter” and “contrapposto pose” and “chevet” and “apsidiole” and “cuisse de nymphe” and “parallelepipeds” and “coronal suture” and “nuagiste” and “alizarin crimson.” I understand a photo of each piece of art will be included in the print text; since I was sent an eARC I had to do an online image search.

The book is marketed to art enthusiasts and fans of literary fiction, so I am the target consumer, but I was disappointed. I’m an art enthusiast: I make a point of going to art galleries in the cities I visit and I enjoy reading art history texts and have taken an art history course. I read primarily literary fiction so I am aware of the qualities of that genre. In this book, however, there is in fact little fiction; there’s only a simple, predictable plot, and the characters are unrealistic and so unrelatable. Literary fiction focuses on themes, but the themes in the novel are not profound. Who would dispute the power of art/beauty to edify and influence? And the lessons Mona learns are just clichés mentioned in the chapter titles: Know yourself and Respect humble folks and Let feelings be expressed and All is but dust and Less is more. The book is an art history tome. If I had approached the book at a leisurely pace as an art history text, I would perhaps have enjoyed it more, but it is marketed as a novel. This hybrid of art history text and fiction does not work for me.

The publisher suggests Life of Pi, The Kite Runner, The Little Paris Bookshop, and The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry as comparable titles. I beg to differ; I enjoyed all those titles, but Mona’s Eyes is not in the same category. This book might appeal to those who loved Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder.  I would not recommend it to anyone looking for a work of fiction with believable characters, a compelling plot, and profound themes.

Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of THE TSAR'S ANGEL by M. K. Stelmack

 3.5 Stars

A friend living in Alberta asked me to read and review this book by M. K. Stelmack, an Albertan writer. The novel is best described as an historical romance, not a genre I tend to read, but I must admit to being entertained.

The novel is set in Russia in 1825. Captain Gavril Kasparevich Danilov of the imperial guard meets Anna Ellesworth who has been charged by her father to kill the tsar Gavril serves to protect. As their lives and emotions become entwined and Anna is openly welcomed into the imperial family, can Gavril stop Anna from carrying out her mission? Will Anna allow Gavril to come between her and the assassination for which she has been trained virtually her entire life?

It is the characters of Anna and Gavril that appealed to me. Both are complex characters with both positive and negative traits and personal struggles. Anna, for instance, has been trained as a mercenary and has killed many times, but she suffers from guilt and low self-esteem as a result. Her feelings for Gavril complicate her situation and she is torn between love and loyalty. She has remarkable skills, especially for a woman of the time, but she is not perfect; she has doubts and insecurities which surface especially when faced with adapting to a different lifestyle. Gavril is handsome and brave and has a strong loyalty to the people of the Nyaboskoye estate once under the control of his family. But he is likewise less than perfect. His treatment of Anna is less than he promises.

Both of the protagonists are also dynamic characters who grow and mature and achieve some self-knowledge. Anna, for instance, comes to understand that she is motivated by a death wish, that she is “seeking salvation through death.” Gavril admits that he is no better than Anna’s father: because of him Anna had “endured labor, imprisonment, and his own condemnation instead of his forgiveness.”

Though Anna and Gavril are convincing because of their portrayal as flawed, complicated characters, the same cannot be said for some others. General Arakcheev and his wife and William Ellesworth seem to have no redeeming qualities. William’s last words, “’I should’ve killed you when I had the chance’” indicate the extent of his obsession and cruelty. One scene of Arakcheev’s humiliation of Gavril is noteworthy for its proof of the extent of the former’s hatred and brutality. Granted, Arakcheev seems capable of grief, but it seems selfish and since there are no previous indications of his being capable of love, his grieving is unconvincing. I prefer characters, even villains, with more nuance.

There is a lot of political intrigue and several scenes of graphic violence. More than one person schemes to get revenge. As a result, there is considerable tension. Nonetheless there are touches of humour that lighten the mood. For example, Gavril thinks, “He couldn’t imagine striking Anna. She’d likely lay him flat first anyway. There was something to be said for marrying a mercenary.” Later, in a tense standoff, Gavril asks, “’Are you asking me whether or not you should kill me? . . . You realize that my opinion will be biased.’” And then there are the exchanges between Gavril and Lev.

I also liked the author’s writing style; she uses some interesting similes and metaphors like “The conservatory door hinges sounded like quarreling cats” and “his heart leaped like a dog over a fence at her rejection of every suitor” and a residence is described as “a three-storied wonder of elegant lines and a pink the shade of a maiden’s spanked bottom.”

Russian novels are often lengthy and detailed so this one, at almost 500 pages, fits that mold. Some readers may be intimidated by the Russian names, particularly because characters are often identified by slight variations. Gavril is sometimes Ganya, and his sister, Yelena Yankovna, is also Natalia whose pet name is Natasha! There is a list of characters given at the beginning that is useful. My knowledge of Russian history is limited, but I was impressed with the amount of research the author did in preparation for writing this book.

This book starts slowly but the pace picks up, and I found myself wanting to continue turning pages. The richly developed and psychologically complex characters certainly kept my interest. The book will also appeal to those who enjoy intricate plots and are interested in Russian culture and history. The question about Yelena’s whereabouts at the end suggests a sequel perhaps. If that is the case, I will read it.

Review of SHY CREATURES by Clare Chambers

 4 Stars

This slow-paced novel was perfect for listening to on my morning walks.

Thirty-four-year-old Helen Hansford is an art therapist at Westbury Park, a psychiatric hospital. She has been in a long-term romantic relationship with a psychiatrist at the facility, Dr. Gil Rudden, who is married to a distant relative of Helen’s. Thirty-seven-year-old William Tapping is admitted as a patient. He has spent 25 years as a virtual recluse; living with three elderly and eccentric aunts, he has had almost no contact with the world outside his home. Though he does not speak, Helen discovers he has artistic talent and so takes a special interest in him. She sets out to learn about his past and finds people, Francis and Marion Kenley in particular, who knew William as a young boy. Eventually the reason for William’s trauma and subsequent paranoia, isolation, and silence is uncovered.

The novel alternates between the present (1964) and the past (1938). Both Helen and William’s perspectives are provided so the two emerge as fully developed characters whose motivations the reader comes to understand. It is impossible not to like William. Because of his upbringing, he lacks social skills, but he is intelligent, kind, and loyal. Likewise, Helen is intelligent and dedicated to work and her clients and dutiful to her family. Gil is her blind spot.

I disliked Gil from the beginning. He’s handsome and charismatic and he knows it; he uses charm to manipulate people to give him what he wants. What he usually wants is to have his ego stroked. His treatment of Lorraine, Helen’s teenaged niece who is briefly admitted to Westbury Park, is despicable. He tends to be patronizing which betrays his feelings of superiority. It is not difficult to predict how his and Helen’s relationship will develop.

My favourite character is Marion Kenley. She is open-minded and kind-hearted, not just in words but in actions. Her efforts to make amends for past missteps are commendable and even inspiring. She is the one who most clearly shows the transformative power of kindness. The name William gives her at the end is most appropriate.

The book is described as examining “all the different ways we can be confined” and that is an apt statement. William was confined in his home, Helen is bound to an unsuitable man, and Lorraine’s life is constrained by her mother. In the end, all come to experience the joy of freedom. Of course, the happy ending may strike some readers as somewhat sentimental.

The portrayal of British society in the time periods of the novel is excellent. People are so repressed; even horrifying and traumatic events are spoken of in an emotionally muted way using euphemisms. The discussions of the treatment of people with mental illness are informative.

This is my first book by Clare Chambers.  Because I enjoyed it so much, I’m going to download her Small Pleasures, an earlier novel which was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Review of GONE IN THE NIGHT by Joanna Schaffhausen (New Release)

 4 Stars

This is the fifth book in the Annalisa Vega series which I’ve enjoyed from the beginning.

Having left the police department, Annalisa is now a private investigator. Unfortunately, her business has been floundering, so when her brother Alex introduces her to Joe Green, a fellow inmate, who claims he is innocent of the murder of which he was convicted, she reluctantly decides to investigate. She does discover that an eyewitness may have lied at Joe’s trial, but she also finds some unsettling information about Joe. Her investigation leads her to a shelter for women and children fleeing abuse where the staff seems to know more about Joe than they’re admitting. Then more bodies are discovered which suggest the work of a serial killer. The other major complication is that Nick Carelli, Annalisa’s husband, was the lead detective in the case against Joe so she fears the strain her sleuthing might have on their relationship.

One of the appeals of this series is the character of the protagonist. Annalisa is definitely a strong female character. She is intelligent, thorough, fearless, and relentless in her pursuit of justice. She is not perfect however so she is relatable. As in the previous installments, there are personal struggles in her life. She still feels guilty about being responsible for her brother’s incarceration and worries about discrediting Nick and the effect that might have on their relationship, especially because she is in the late stages of pregnancy.

The plot is intricate with many layers and twists. I did predict some of the twists but not others. The one element I did not like is the recurring dream that helps Annalisa solve part of the case; for me, such surrealism does not ring true. The second case Annalisa investigates, that of a missing engagement ring, feels forced and superfluous, though it does lighten the tone since the Joe Green case certainly has no lighthearted moments.

There is a large cast of characters so I occasionally experienced some difficulty in remembering the connections. It was not a case of remembering who was who but how they came to be in each other’s orbit. Chance and coincidence certainly seem to play a role in bringing some of those people together.

As with the other novels in the series, I enjoyed this one. It’s an intriguing mix of police procedural, mystery, and family drama. A number of characters face moral dilemmas as well so readers will find themselves wondering what they would do in similar situations.

The ending suggests that this could be the end of the Annalisa Vega series. I hope not because all the books are good. This book can be read as a standalone, but why not treat yourself to the entire series beginning with Gone for Good and continuing with Long Gone, Dead and Gone, and All the Way Gone before reading this one, Gone in the Night.

Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of HIGH SEASON by Katie Bishop (New Release)

 4 Stars

This suspense novel has a dual timeline and multiple perspectives.

In 2004, 17-year-old Tamara Drayton was found floating face-down in the pool of her family’s mansion along the Côte d’Azur. Josie Jackson, a frequent babysitter for 5-year-old Nina Drayton, is charged with Tamara’s murder and convicted, primarily because of Nina’s eyewitness testimony.

In 2024, on the twentieth anniversary of Tamara’s death, a true-crime documentary about her murder is announced. Now, with no memory of the incident to which she testified, Nina begins questioning her memories of that night. Did she send an innocent person to prison for ten years? Nina returns to France to meet with her brother Blake, Tamara’s twin, and Evelyn, her mother, to determine exactly what happened. At the same time, Josie returns as well to spend time with her brother. A meeting between Nina and Josie is inevitable.

The narrative moves back and forth between 2004 and 2024. In the first timeline, we learn about events leading up to the night of Evelyn’s birthday party when Tamara is killed. In 2024, we see the arrival of people connected to the tragedy of two decades earlier and the events that occur thereafter. In both time frames, the perspectives of various people are given, including those of Nina, Josie, Josie’s best friend Hannah Bailey, Tamara, and a TikTok true crime influencer. Occasionally the reader might be momentarily confused about which timeline is being described because similar events, like a birthday party for Evelyn, occur in both.

Obviously, the novel explores the unreliability of memory: how it can be affected and manipulated. As a child psychologist, Nina “knows about false memory, and about how trauma can create great, gaping holes in your vision of the past. She knows that people’s memories are the most accurate in the eleven months immediately after the event, and then become hazy afterward, complicated by retelling and rehashing a story.” There’s the additional problem of Nina’s age when she testified. A friend asks her, “’But if you don’t remember it . . . how do you know you weren’t making it up? Kids make things up all the time, right? They make believe. How do you know that you were telling the truth?’”

The book also touches on class differences. There are the Draytons, an ultra-rich family, and their equally wealthy friends. And then there are the locals like Josie and Hannah and their families who need to work hard and sometimes still struggle financially. Josie’s mother actually works for the Drayton family. The relationship between members of the two classes is definitely that of master and servant. Hannah, for instance, wants to be part of the privileged class but she is not accepted by them. I did find that the portrayal of the super rich is rather stereotypical; they feel entitled, lack high moral standards, and behave atrociously towards the lower classes if they notice them at all.

The pace at the beginning is slow but ramps up as revelations from the past build suspense. Early on I had strong suspicions as to the identity of the guilty party but I didn’t know the motive. My interest in continuing to read was to see if my suspicions would be confirmed. I did like how people’s actions and statements are often misinterpreted by others: what may seem as dismissal or rejection of someone may in fact be an attempt to protect that person. And more than one person adopts a persona not in keeping with their true natures.

This is a good summer read perfect for the beach, even if that beach is not on the Côte d’Azur. It has interesting characters and sufficient suspense, as well as some thematic depth.

Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of SOLITARIA by Eliana Alves Cruz (New Release)

 4 Stars

This novel about domestic servitude in modern Brazil is a translation from Portuguese.

Mabel stays with her mother Eunice who works as a live-in maid for a very wealthy family. Mabel’s presence is merely tolerated; as a child she must stay in a small room at the back of the house assigned to her mother. When she is older, she is expected to help her mother, so the family actually has two servants for the price of one. Mabel is dissatisfied with the smallness of her life and she is motivated to work towards a better one.

Eunice is uneducated, has an alcoholic partner who takes her money, and has a daughter and an ailing mother dependent on her so she needs the job. As a consequence, she accepts exploitative working conditions. Workers like her are expected to be there whenever needed, “present without being,” but are treated “as though they’re invisible and disposable.” They are expected to be grateful “for receiving far less than . . . deserved during years of ceaseless dedication and work.” When tragedy strikes, Eunice must decide if she will be complicit and remain silent in face of the injustices meted out by the wealthy family she has served for years.

The book is divided into three parts; the first is narrated by Mabel, the second by Eunice, and the third by a non-human narrator. In the first two sections, it’s interesting to see the contrast between daughter and mother. Whereas Eunice accepts silent servitude, Mabel resents the unfair treatment she and her mother receive and she rebels; in fact, when Mr. Tiago smirks at hearing Mabel say she wants to become a doctor, she uses his scorn as further motivation. The third narrator ties together all the novel’s themes.

Throughout the novel, the author uses a unifying metaphor: she compares the smallness of a maid’s room to the small lives of those forced to live in one. Mabel comments that “for those who weren’t residents [in the luxury apartment building], everything was little: little-room, little-apartment, little-bathroom . . .” In essence they live in “A prison, a place meant to separate these lives from the world and from the other residents.” Mabel and the doorman’s son João Pedro want to escape from what is perfectly described as a “jail of the soul.”

There is a sharp contrast between the wealthy employers and their employees. The wealthy can use their money to make happen what is impossible for the poor. Mabel observes, “People like us needed to calculate every step with precision or our lives could derail forever.” She, for instance, has a problem also faced by a rich girl, but whereas the rich girl solves it easily, Mabel has difficulty solving it on her own.

Mabel and others like her are labelled as non-children, people who “don’t have the right to childhood.” Eunice mentions, “A good servant is silent; a child who is the servant’s daughter must be as well. She can’t laugh like a child, she can’t jump or play like a child. She isn’t a child.” Mabel and others like her “never had the chance to slip up in the one phase of life when it should be the most natural to.” The doorman of the building wants his son to know that “anything good he might do would go unseen, and anything bad would make him the easiest one to blame.”

I was aware that Brazil has one of the highest levels of income inequality globally and that its society is marked by significant racial inequalities, but this novel delivers that information in an emotionally impactful way. I recommend it to anyone wanting to more fully understand Brazil’s racial and class imbalances.

Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of SHE DIDN'T SEE IT COMING by Shari Lapena (New Release)

 4 Stars

 This novel is perfect for summer escapist reading.

Sam Frost is called by his daughter Clara’s daycare because his wife Bryden didn’t pick her up at the scheduled time. When Sam arrives home, Bryden is not there, though her cellphone, computer, and keys are, as is her car in her parking space. Sam checks with a neighbour and calls Bryden’s sister Lizzie and best friend Paige, but no one has seen or heard from his wife. The police are called, and Detective Jayne Salter leads the missing person investigation which soon becomes a homicide case.

The novel is narrated in the third person but from multiple perspectives: Bryden’s family, (mother Donna and sister Lizzie), best friend Paige, and a neighbour, as well as the lead investigator. Also included are Derek Gardner, whose car Bryden rear-ended six weeks earlier, and his wife Alice. Of course, the reader is not told everything that someone is thinking and feeling.

Very quickly a number of suspects emerge as it’s obvious that many people have secrets and are untrustworthy, being capable of deception and betrayal. Many have motives, especially jealousy, and opportunity. Everyone thinks Sam and Bryden had a perfect marriage and a perfect life, but this proves not to be the case. The reader is certainly kept guessing; much of my interest in the book lay in trying to determine the identity of the murderer.

The plot does have some flaws. The broken security camera system is very convenient. Then the case is solved more by chance, a witness coming in after remembering something crucial at the right moment, than solid investigating. The back story of one of the characters also seems rather far-fetched, though no doubt such people do exist. And of course the ending, with that final exchange, is particularly chilling because of this character’s personality and backstory.

I would not say this book is a literary masterpiece, but it is definitely entertaining; it does what it was intended to do. It’s fast-paced with lots of potential suspects, red herrings, and twists. I liked Jayne Salter and would enjoy seeing her in a series. As stated at the beginning, this is a perfect summer read to take to a park, a beach, a cottage, or the backyard.

Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.