Genre: Fiction

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Diane Chamberlain was one of my go to authors many years ago. Like Jodi Picoult, she painted pictures of family life with a vivid brush. Some books focused on dysfunctional families while some introduced normal families in crisis, but her characters were always well defined and interesting.  I am not sure why I stopped reading her books quite a few years ago, but I decided to get reacquainted with her writing last week.

The Silent Sister was a bit of a disappointment.  While the story was interesting, the characters didn't capture me.  Riley MacPhearson is the protagonist who needs to straighten the affairs of her recently deceased dad.  Her mom had died several years before, her brother suffers from PTSD and she recently broke up with her boyfriend. For the past twenty years she believed that her sister, Lisa, had committed suicide, but she finds evidence among her father's things that Lisa is alive.

Suddenly everything Riley believed is called into question as she tries to solve her family's mysteries.  I really wanted to like this book more, but I just didn't care enough about any of the characters.  There were a number of twists and turns though, and I enjoyed the chapters alternating characters as I got further into it.  My lack of enthusiasm could have just been my mood, and I will give Chamberlain another chance before making a final judgment.

- Beverly 
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Publisher - St. Martin's Press 
Date of Publication - October 7, 2014

"Nevertheless, she persisted"
               ...Mitch McConnell
​

The term "silent majority" has been around for many years, at one time referring to the dead, but Richard Nixon used it famously in November of 1969.  When our country was embroiled in a war we could not win, and young men were dying for political gain, a vocal minority began demonstrating.  Believing that the war dissenters were indeed a minority, Nixon asked that the majority of Americans let their voices be heard.  Because most people do prefer to remain silent during political battles, it is difficult to really determine whether ideas are favored by majorities or minorities, but in the case of the Vietnam War, the vocal minority persisted until the last American soldier returned.

In 2017, Elizabeth Warren felt that Senator Jeffrey Sessions was the antithesis of what we needed as Attorney General.  His record against civil rights alarmed her, and during the confirmation hearings for Senator Sessions, she began reading a letter that Coretta Scott King had written to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1986.  The letter told of her fears of him becoming a Federal Court Judge at the time, because of his "indifference towards federal regulations of civil rights laws."  

Several republicans, including Presiding Senate Chair Steve Daines tried to force Warren to stop "impugning" Sessions, "nevertheless she persisted." Mitch McConnell finally used Senate Rule XIX, which "prohibits ascribing to another senator or to other senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a senator."  Personally I believe this rule defeats the purpose of a free and fair confirmation hearing, but in this case it worked for Warren's opponents.  She was made to sit down. 

She lost in that moment, but Senator Warren is a fighter.  She will never give up, and no matter where your political leanings fall, that makes her an excellent role model for all of our daughters and granddaughters.  Standing up for what we personally believe in and not giving in to another person's contrary beliefs is the reason we all have (or should have) the right to vote.  It is the reason that "freedom of speech" is perhaps our most important right, and it is the reason that even the most hateful of groups should be allowed to state their most hateful of opinions.  

We shouldn't spend time trying to take away their right to assemble peacefully, because our time is better spent following Senator Warren's lead. We must drown out hate with words of reason and acceptance.  We must show America's better side to the people of other countries who believe they are watching us crumble.  If you are a marcher, march with pride, if you are a tweeter, tweet with love...no matter how you show your pride in America, do it peacefully and do it with persistence.  Hopefully, if everyone does his/her part, we will find that the "silent majority" represents complete acceptance for everyone in a country that has spent years working towards that lofty goal.

I am almost finished reading A Fighting Chance, by Elizabeth Warren, and I will review it next week, but this week I read Two Nights: A Novel by Kathy Reichs.  In this book she introduces a new protagonist, Sunday (Sunnie) Night.  An injured former police officer, Sunnie, is an strong character with an interesting back story. 

As always, a complete review of this book follows my blog.

Happy reading,

- Beverly

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Genre: Mystery

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Kathy Reichs is a master of the flawed heroine.  Temperance Brennan, heroine of eighteen books written by Reichs, is a brilliant forensic anthropologist with more than her share of baggage.  The character is so strongly portrayed, that it translated into a beloved television series.  I imagine Reichs is getting a bit bored with Temperance, and her latest book, Two Nights, introduces us to a new protagonist, Sunday (Sunnie) Night.​

After an injury ends her police career, Sunday moves to an island off of Charleston with thoughts of hibernation. Her former foster father, worried about her frame of mind, asks for her help.  He is a cop and is searching for a missing girl whose grandmother believes she was kidnapped by a cult.  Sunday, who barely escaped from a cult years before, decides to help in the search.

With the help of her brother, Gus, she begins a search that takes her deep into her own past as she attempts to find a girl who might be dead. The author, true to her style, keeps the action going with bombs and deaths and a very wealthy grandmother who will pay any amount to get her granddaughter back.

If you are a Temperence Brennan fan, you will be happy to meet this strong new character, and if you've never read Ms. Reichs before, this is a great opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a great new series.

- Beverly


Publisher -  Bantam 
Date of Publication - July 11, 2017

We're all stories, in the end. Just make it a good one, eh?”
— The Doctor, Season 5, Episode 13


I wrote a blog this week to help me vent all of the frustration that I was feeling about the daily happenings in the country I always believed would represent everything that was good and free in this world.  I railed on about the child/man who used a car to prove a point and the man/child whose lack of condemnation helped him prove it.  I got angry and sad and wanted to make it all stop!

...And then I stopped.  I realized that the insanity that has overtaken our world is winning, because it is overshadowing everything that is good.  Through it all, most of us have much to be thankful for, and we need to grasp on to that or we have truly allowed the evil to prevail.  We have to write, and live, our own stories and never let the "bad guys" muddy our plot.

I wake up every morning next to the person who loves and protects me with the same intensity that I love and protect him.  I am surrounded by a loving family and friends who make me laugh when I need to laugh and hold my hand when I need to cry.  I have a roof over my head, food on my table and a Kindle full of books.  I am well educated and am smart enough to know what I don't know.  My health, and the health of those I love, is mostly good, and when we are ill, we have the ability to get needed health care.  I live in a neighborhood that is populated with all races, religions and sexual orientations, and no one notices the differences.  

We celebrated Arthur's birthday this past week, and son Michael, nephew Jonathan and nephew Nick flew in to help us make it a special weekend.  There were fifteen of us enjoying dinner at our favorite restaurant, and as I looked around the table I realized that it is important to recognize that there is still much to celebrate.  

Since 9/11 much that is good has been couched in the realization that we are not guaranteed the safety that we believed our strength afforded us.  Suddenly every trip on an airplane, concert, sports event and mall trip seems like an invitation for some unhinged group to take a potshot at us.  Armed guards now patrol areas where our safety was once just taken for granted, and sometimes it is difficult to just stop and smell the roses.  We can't let that happen. We must continue to see that most people are good, and  those who seek to harm us will ultimately fail.  I have noticed that each act of foreign or domestic terrorism and every display of hatred encourages more people to fight for the rights deserved by us all. I really do believe that goodness will prevail in the end.

Speaking of goodness, if you live in South Florida and haven't been to the Regional Kitchen and Public House in West Palm Beach, you are missing a major treat.  Although I was once a travel/restaurant reviewer, it has been years since I reviewed anything but books. I can't resist plugging our new favorite restaurant though, even if it makes getting a reservation even more difficult than it is now.  Chef Lindsay Autry, former Top Chef finalist and chef extraordinaire opened this restaurant last year, and it has enjoyed amazing reviews since the day it opened.  Her southern heritage comes out in her food, and we all left Arthur's birthday dinner sated and happy with the taste of Pastry Chef Sarah's strawberry shortcake lingering through the night.  

Of course the perfect book always helps to cap off the perfect evening, and Lisa Scottoline's book, One Perfect Lie was just what the doctor ordered. It was difficult to know what to believe when Chris Brennan presented a strong resume depicting himself as a teacher and coach and is suddenly enmeshed in a world that he knows only through intense research.  We get the feeling that he is about to bring havoc to this unsuspecting town, but we just can't figure out his motive.  Definitely one of my favorites this month!

Too many guests and too much excitement for me to read/review more than one book this week, but this is one that you will enjoy.  

As always, a complete review follows this blog.

Happy reading,

- Beverly

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​Genre: Thriller

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Lisa Scottoline is a prolific author who writes a well received legal series.  I never got involved in her series and somehow missed her stand alone books.  If One Perfect Lie is an example, I have missed some very good reading that I will definitely catch up on this year.  

Chris Brennan starts a new job as a teacher and a coach in a small town high school. His credentials are excellent and his demeanor perfect.  The problem is that it is all a lie.  He never taught or coached before and spent a great deal of time studying for his new role.  He is actually there to infiltrate the baseball team and find the right young man to fill his needs.

Scottoline does an excellent job of making the reader hate Chris as he manipulates the boys (and their mothers) to achieve his goal.  She also does a great job making us care about individual boys whose vulnerabilities make them easy prey for a man who knows exactly what he is doing.  The chapters alternate between the stories of several different families and Chris himself, and I hated seeing each chapter end.

I am an avid reader, and it is difficult for even the best of authors to surprise me.  As an English teacher, I easily pick up on foreshadowing and figure out where the author is taking me long before I arrive.  Years ago I read a book that took me by such surprise that I literally threw it against a wall, and no book has affected me that way since.  I must say that Scottoline came close in this book that makes the reader second guess throughout.

I don't want to say too much, but I will say this is a fast paced, well written book that definitely belongs on your summer reading list.

- Beverly

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Publisher - Martin's Press 
Date of Publication - April 11, 2017

“Thou shalt not be a victim, thou shalt not be a perpetrator, but, above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.” 
                         ---Yehuda Bauer (Israeli historian and scholar of the Holocaust)


I have come to understand the actions of my ancestors in Germany in the 1940's.  People over the last sixty some years ask why the Jewish people stayed when their fate seemed so obvious.  Even the wealthy families who could have booked passage to a safer continent remained in their homes.  Surely they knew that their possessions were not as valuable as their lives, and yet they continued along in those lives as if they were invincible.

It is because they believed in their country and their countrymen.  They believed that since they had done nothing wrong, they would be safe.  Their politicians would straighten out this odd little man with a gift of rhetoric, and life would go back to what it always was.  After all, one man could never have the power to topple a strong government.

This one little man with the most powerful of voices garnered an army of those who felt that they had been forgotten, and he promised them that they would be forgotten no more.  He pointed to the several groups of so called heathens who were robbing them of a life that they deserved, and he swore that if he was given power he would rid Germany of them.  He promised them that if these people were gone, the "real" Germans would be safe, and they would make Germany great again.

Even those with good hearts began to be swayed in their thinking, and even those who knew it was wrong, believed that their elected officials would never let it go too far.  So they watched their neighbors get "deported" and said, "maybe we will be safer, and they will be happier with their own kind anyway."  Meanwhile, the Jewish people, the gypsies, the Catholics, they all believed if they were good citizens who did their jobs diligently, they would be safe.  They saw the walls being built, but believed the walls were not for them.  After all, some of them even voted for the party that this little man with big ideas represented.  They believed he would make them safe too.

When all was over, and the world came to realize what had happened, there was a unified cry of NEVER AGAIN!  Never will we turn our heads and watch our brothers and sisters be villainized and victimized. Never again will we collectively believe the rantings of one individual.  Never will we believe that "it could never happen here," because it can happen anywhere.

When times are tough and someone pushes just the right "buttons", a few people can become a mob of people who will turn on the innocent.  When people are hungry or cold or even bored, they will look for someone to blame, and if a little man with a big voice shows them the group who is causing their pain, they will support him as he attempts to "protect" them.  They will overlook his flaws if he is addressing their needs, and unless there is a strong government of men and women who believe in country over party, the country in question will change.

I do not believe that our President is comparable to Adolph Hitler.  I do not think that it is hatred that rules his heart.  I do believe that he has a vision of a stronger America and truly believes his way is the right way to attain that goal.  I do believe that he has no idea why so many people are against him.  I also believe that too many congresspeople are looking the other way so their individual agendas can be met. They fear that if they stand up for what they really believe in, they will lose the support of their party and eventually lose their jobs.  Maybe they will, but if it were me, I would rather go out fighting the good fight.  So thank you Senators McCain, Murkowski, and Collins for believing that the people that you represent are worth standing up for in this tumultuous time.  I hope more of your brethren will step up and help guide our leaders and protect our way of life.

Whisper My Secret: A Memoir written by JB Rowley tells the story of her mother whose first three children were taken from her by her husband's family.  This story takes place in Australia but could well have taken place here.  Myrtle was a wonderful mother who went on to raise seven more children with her second husband, but her heart always ached for those children she lost.

The Wrong Child, by Patricia Kay, is another story about mothers and children, but in this one, a hospital's mistake irrevocably changes the lives of two families.  

As always, complete reviews of both books follow this blog.

Happy reading,

- Beverly

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Genre: Memoir

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This memoir begins with a mother and her three small children laughing together until her world is quickly destroyed.  Several police officers arrive with a court order and take Myrtle's children. She is accused of being an unfit mother and never sees her three children again.

This story takes place in Australia and is written by one of Myrtle's later seven children after Myrtle's death.  Author JB Rowley found information which her mother kept hidden that included the birth certificates of the children who were taken from her.  Rowley tracked down her mother's secrets and shared them with us in Whisper My Secret: A Memoir.

We learn about Myrtle's early life and the tragedy that befell her family. We see her mother, Etti,  fall apart and Myrtle's attempts to live a normal life.  We follow her relationship with her neighbor,  Henry Bishop, a pregnancy, and subsequent marriage that was doomed to failure.  Henry spent little time with his wife and child and although she had three more children with him, their relationship never improved.  Henry's mother Agnes felt that her only child had been trapped into marriage and convinced him to divorce her and have the children taken from her.  Myrtle lost her children and her own mother convinced her to move away without a fight.

Happily, Myrtle meets and marries a loving man, George, and together they have seven children.  Her life with George is a good one, and she keeps her secrets until her death.  The author does a wonderful job tracking down the various truths of her mother's early life and the lives of Etti, Henry, Agnes, etc.  Her descriptions are vivid and help the reader understand how this wonderful mother walked away from the children who were her world.  While much of the dialogue is imagined, it rings true as the layers of Myrtle's life are revealed.

It is difficult to write someone else's story, even your own mother's, after that person is gone, but JB Rowley has done a strong job sharing a troubled past with us.  I was captured by Myrtle's story and recommend it for your non-fiction library.

- Beverly 


Publisher - JB Rowley; 1 edition 
Date of Publication - January 15, 2014

​Genre: Fiction
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The bond between a parent and child is as complicated as it is strong, and in Patricia Kay's novel, The Wrong Child, the reader is caught up in the emotional whirlwind that surrounds two families.  Abbie and her eleven year old daughter, Kendall, recently moved back to Abbie's hometown.  Kendall never really knew the father who abandoned her and Abbie, but she has grown into a strong, self sufficient child with the mother who adores her.

With the help of her dad, Logan, Erin is just getting over the loss of her mother several years ago.  Logan has spent these last few years trying to be the best parent possible to Erin and her brother Patrick, even as the loss of his wife still tears him apart.  Extended family helps the children come to terms with their loss, but Logan realizes that Erin still has a great deal to work out before she feels safe again.

When an innocent blood test leads Abbie to a life altering discovery, the lives of these two families cross paths, and author Kay tells a story that captures our hearts and keeps us rooting for a happy ending.  This emotion packed story is well written and the characters are beautifully described.  The author gets into the minds of these unhappy people and lays all emotions on the table.  This is a cathartic read that will keep your interest until the very last page.

- Beverly

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Publisher - Berkley 
Date of Publication - ​December 1, 2000

“News is what someone wants suppressed. Everything else is advertising. The power is to set the agenda. What we print and what we don’t print matter a lot.”
                                                          ---Katharine Graham


My first major as a sophomore in University of Miami was journalism, and although it quickly became evident that my style of writing did not lend itself to that field, I always admired the men and women who devoted their careers to bringing us the truth.  Freedom of the press is one of our most important rights, because the exposure of those people and actions that can hurt us, will ultimately be the main thing that will keep us safe.  This freedom however, like all things, can be exploited, and I am concerned that we might be stepping over the line in an effort to protect our freedoms.

Those familiar with me and this blog know that while my political leanings often straddle the middle, I am far left leaning on anything dealing with the equal rights of all races, religions, nationalities, genders and sexual preference.  I also believe that everyone must have the opportunity for health care, even though I do understand why some believe the wealthy shouldn't be obligated to cover all expenses.  I believe that those of us blessed with opportunities and abilities to take advantage of those opportunities must, in good conscience, pay it forward. I also believe that although we need to find a way to close our borders to illegal immigration, we need to do so with an open heart to those who now reside in our country.  

I tell you this so you can see that the present administration makes me uncomfortable, and I believe we must find a way to maintain the freedoms that it has taken us so many years to achieve.  That being said, I am very uncomfortable with the direction that our journalists are taking in exposing perceived wrongs in our current administration.  There is little doubt that our President and those surrounding him have little time for the media, and their treatment of those who are trying to do their job is deplorable.  

That does not, however, give the media free license to exploit the disgruntled employees who are "leaking" information to the press on a daily basis.  As unhappy as a majority of Americans might be with the policies and beliefs of our current President, he was selected by enough people to become the leader of our country, and barring some legal disaster, he will maintain that position for at least three plus more years.  Every newspaper article that ridicules his looks, actions and intelligence, tells the world that we believe we elected someone who will never be able to lead and/or protect us.  

It is easy to find things to ridicule this President about, but it would have been easy to find things to ridicule most Presidents about.  Our press was generally above the trite and gossipy news though, and left the less newsworthy articles to the sensationalist newspapers that line the supermarket checkout counters.  The real reporters didn't focus on the insiders who decided to "tell all" but instead spent their days hunting down the real stories, here and abroad, that helped us keep America safe and Americans aware of their surroundings.

Believe me, I do understand the desire that journalists have to fight back.  I think it is probably the same desire that out current administration has to lash out at them.  It is much like the fights I often witnessed in the schoolyard, where both sides lost their sense of reason and began believing in the need to win at all costs.  Our media should be above all of that and need to expend all of their energy in exposing things that really matter.  As tempting as it is, to continue to find ways to expose the lesser parts of our President and his administration, we need to follow the words of a smart woman who taught her family, "when they go low, we go high."

This week I decided to read a political thriller to take my mind off of things that were really scaring me politically, and I read Trap the Devil: A Thriller (A Dewey Andreas Novel Book 7) by Ben Coes.  It is the story of a rough kind of American hero whose attempts to protect us from a shadow government put him in all kinds of dangerous predicaments.  This was definitely a book to get the adrenaline going.

I kept up with the political theme when I also read Kill Alex Cross by James Patterson.  The story begins with the kidnapping of the President's  children and continues in typical Patterson style.  If you are an Alex Cross fan, this will make you happy.
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As always, complete reviews of both books follow this blog.

Happy reading, 

- Beverly

Click on the book cover to order a title mentioned in today's blog

Genre: Thriller

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The first two pages of Ben Coes book, Trap the Devil: A Thriller (A Dewey Andreas Novel Book 7), ripped at my heart as it definitely caught my attention. I was hooked.  Ben Coes grabbed hold of the reality that we live today, combined the politics of fear with the bigotry it promotes, and wrote a novel that will keep you up reading and thinking until you turn the final page.

Dewey Andreas is a rough kind of hero who "takes a licking and keeps on ticking."  In this thriller we meet him recovering from a wound and being recruited for a somewhat simple assignment. He is sent to Paris as back-up protection for the Secretary of State.  Nothing is simple in Dewey's world, and when the Secretary is assassinated with Dewey's gun, he must go on the run.

Meanwhile, we meet Charles Bruner, whose desire for vengeance, while understandable, is beyond the realm of acceptable.  He is put in charge of a group of U.S. Protectors who have no rules.  The President and the United States must be protected from terrorists, even if it means the taking away of rights, or lives, in order to achieve success.  

The reader holds his/her breath as a shadow government is formed, and we seem to be losing many of the very things that make us great.  Their plot is evil, but Coes makes us second guess everything as hero Dewey tries to save the United States from disaster.  It is difficult to separate fiction from reality at times, and I found myself researching people, places and things as I read into the night.

There is never a lack of action in Coes' book, but he doesn't let the character development falter either.  While it is the 7th in the Dewey Andreas series, it can be just as easily read as a stand alone.  The ending did make me anxious for number eight though, and I intend to search out the ones that I missed.

- Beverly


Publisher - St. Martin's Press 
Date of Publication - June 20, 2017