I’ve been eying a few books at Indiebound and Amazon. I finally bit the bullet and picked up one I’d been wanting to read but hadn’t because of the reviews. I decided to let my own interests gauge what I read, and since A Reliable Wife is a historical novel and I like that sort of thing, I picked it up. It is a hefty 291 pages. I am nearly halfway through.

Goolrick spins an interesting yarn. His description of the yarn, however, goes on and on and on. One of the issues I have with so many writers is the overdose of imagery and detail. Perhaps it is my short span of attention, but I find myself skipping half a page here, a full page or two there, of just description. I’m one who believes that setting is another character in a story, and you must give readers an accurate representation of what’s happening around your characters, what’s happening in between your dialog. I made a note this morning, in my Goodreads status update that I felt this book could be half as long and just as good. The attention to detail is amazing and yet, to me, slightly overdone.

The story itself is riveting so far! Ralph Truitt is a man who has been rich for so long he hardly notices anymore, except that most of the town works for him in some fashion. He is a lonely man, not old but not spry. He’s not had a companion in more than 20 years and uh……………it shows. Goolrick writes about Truitt’s desires the way only a man can. I almost feel the man’s pain! He seems painfully self aware of what others have and he does not. He feels as if people pity him or laugh at him behind his back. Living alone in the desolate prairie, where the snow piles high every winter and traps people in their own homes, on their own land begins to drive people mad. Without a companion, Truitt would spend the rest of his days alone and surely go mad with the rest of them.

Catherine Land is the woman who response to Truitt’s advertisement for ‘A Reliable Wife’. A simple woman is all Truitt asks for. A simple woman is what he thinks he’s getting. Oh, but Ms Land has some tricks up her sleeves.  She presents herself as something she is not. She has a scheme, a plan in her mind that must be carried out. The first part is to marry Truitt. I’m to the point where the plan she has set in motion has met a snag. And now I’m wondering how this is going to work out.

Such an interesting read, though I can’t help but think I’d have been done by now, had I bought this book on Kindle. I’ve realized that I love to lie in bed and read, and with my beside lamp on the fritz and the overhead light a little too bright, the atmosphere in my bedroom is just not very conducive to reading. Or writing, for that matter.

In all, I’m enjoying the story, skipping massive amounts of excessive (for me) detail, and already trying to predict the end. Can’t wait to finish so I can give it a proper review!  Preview this book on Goodreads  [HERE]

The other book I picked up is The Girl She Used To Be, by David Cristofano. I haven’t even cracked it open yet, but it is the tale of a girl whose family was in the Witness Protection Program. She is found, by someone she used to know and, against her better judgement and advisement, dives all at once back into her old life. I’m a fan of crime drama and thrillers, and since Grisham and Lescroart don’t have anything new for me to read, we’ll see if this one fills the void momentarily.

It’s a lovely Saturday in Atlanta. A perfect day to take the books outside and soak up some sun!

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sugar starts with a bang and ends with a heartfelt gasp.

At the beginning of Bernice McFadden’s Sugar, we don’t meet Sugar. We meet Jude, so to speak. Jude is the ghost in the story, the crux of every emotional scene in the novel. Jude is the murdered child of Pearl, a woman who befriends her next door neighbor that happens to go by the name ‘Sugar’.

Sugar is what polite people call a woman of ill repute and what not-so-polite people call a whore or a prostitute, blowing into the town of Bigelow on the wind of a powerful storm. The people of Bigelow are simple and quiet, a little bit superstitious and a whole lot judgemental. It seems like Pearl is the only person that really see Sugar for who she is… perhaps because Pearl is about the most naive person in Bigelow.

Pearl is a mere shell of the woman she used to be. Since Jude’s death, she had withdrawn into herself and her sadness. She’d once asked God to allow her to die, but he refused. Pearl guessed God had more work for her to do. Pearl was right. From the moment they meet, Pearl and Sugar are nearly inseparable. They eat together laugh together, and share a strange bond and a kinship that neither understand but both truly enjoy. For Sugar, it’s about having a friend where she used to have none. For Pearl, it’s much deeper.

Sugar, you see, looks amazingly, almost identically, like Jude.

For the first time in over fifteen years (the amount of years that had passed since Jude’s death in 1940), Pearl was smiling and laughing, responding to her husband in ways she hadn’t in so many years. Through her friendship with Sugar, Pearl sheds her graying hair and wrinkling face, stooped over posture and overall defeated, small, shy countenance. Sugar brings life and youth and vigor, again.

This bond, however, comes at a price. Sugar has a long, drawn out history, full of women who taught her that her body was for the pleasure of men and that alone, and men who confirmed this belief at every turn. Sugar does not know her mother or her father, choosing to create ties with the women that run the brothels where she works. She has spent her life wandering the country from Detroit to St Louis and back to Arkansas, perhaps in search of something, but not knowing what that something is until she finds it– family. Pearl would lose friendships over Sugar. Her life would change as a result of befriending her neighbor the Whore. People would talk, as they do in small towns. Reputations would be destroyed. But the bond would not break.

Sugar is set in the mid century 1900′s and bounces between Bigelow and Short Junction, Arkansas- Bigelow being the present, Short Junction being the past. McFadden weavers her characters through the lives of Pearl and Sugar effortlessly. As I was reading, it was like watching the film reel in my mind. As details of Sugar’s past come to light, the connection between Pearl and her husband Joe, and Sugar seem to rise slowly from the murky deep of a twisted tale. The men that Sugar knows and the secrets that she holds would bind them all together for life.

I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. it was a quick read, though it wasn’t intended to be… I just kept turning pages so I could find out what happened when Pearl’s friends tried to run her out of town, or when Sugar dressed Pearl up and took her to the Juke Joint, called Memphis Roll, or when Sugar’s on again off again John-cum-wannabe boyfriend threatens her. I wanted to see Sugar make the changes that Pearl longed to see in her, and I wanted to rejoice at Pearl coming into her own, again.

This story is somewhat formulaic and in many ways it isn’t. I always try to form an idea of how the story will end. How these people are all intertwined and why they matter to each other– why are all of these characters in this story? Who are they and why do I care? Only one of my predictions came true, and I didn’t come to my conclusion until well into 3/4ths of the novel. To me, that’s a writer that does a great job of concealing the end of the plotline. And just when you think that the story will end and nothing will happen as you think it’s going to happen, there’s a tiny little twist… a photo. A wordless addition that explains everything. The bond, the connection, and why Sugar looks like Jude.

I almost didn’t see it coming.

If I had one complaint… okay well two… the bounces between past and present were very jolting. Flashbacks are difficult to do, or so I’ve been told, and they didn’t come across very well, to me. I often had to reread paragraphs to realize that the author had returned to the story in Bigelow. The second was the hairturn transition of Sugar from Whore to near Madonna and back to Whore. Having her on again off again John utter a few nasty phrases to her seemed like a weak trigger, to me. I also felt a little unfulfilled regarding his confession, his attack on her, and Sugar’s refusal to bring him to justice. I disagreed with her reasons for not doing that. I felt it would have brought closure to a family so heavily haunted by a senseless murder.

That said, I enjoyed this book so much that I’ve already purchased the 2002 followup- This Bitter Earth. It continues the story of Sugar after she leaves Bigelow and the comfort and Safety of Pearl and Joe. I can’t wait to read it!

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My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I didn’t read The Time Traveler’s Wife. The synopsis never struck me as something I really wanted to read and I couldn’t get into it. I can’t decide if that was a good or bad thing. Probably good, because from the reviews, a lot of people went into reading Her Fearful Symmetry on the heels of Time Traveler’s Wife and expected it to be similar. It apparently wasn’t. I also didn’t know the two books were written by the same author– this book came recommended by two different people in two different circles of friends. I picked it up on a whim and started reading it. I find the best books that way!

This story begins oh, so right. Niffenegger (you mind if I call her Audrey? That name is a toughie)jumps right into the middle of the story and wades around in it. Our main character, you see… dies on Page One. And I figure if someone dies on Page One, there’s a good reason for it and a good story behind it.

This novel is the story of two sets of twins: Edie and Elspeth, and Edie’s twin daughters Julia and Victoria.  Edie and Elspeth are estranged. Have been for nearly twenty years. Elspeth’s terminal illness does not change this. Elspeth lives in London, in a flat above  companion Robert. Edie, her husband Jack, and the twins live in the States.

When Elspeth dies, she leaves her flat, all of her belongings and her money to the twins, with the stipulation that they have to live in the flat for a year before they can sell it. And that their parents, Edie and Jack, must never set foot in it. Her papers and diaries are removed, property of Robert. No one is to see them. Robert avoids reading them until absolutely necessary.

The twins are 20, but are small and thin and alarmingly co-dependent. Victoria is a mirror image of Julia, down to the beauty mark on her cheek. Victoria is weak, with a heart defect and severe asthma. Julia delights in taking care of Victoria, a constant companion. Victoria is the more artistic and fashionable one. She creates and sews and makes her own clothing. Julia is the smart one, the healthy and strong one. The trade-off, Julia thinks, isn’t fair. Victoria is the pretty one, despite their being twins. Julia is envious of the attention Victoria receives without even trying and insists on clinging to her. They have to do everything together. One cannot attend school without the other. One cannot work without the other. Both are still virgins because…what one does, the other must also. The suffocation is palpable.

Moving to London begins to change the lives of the twins in ways they could never plan for, or imagine. They meet other characters and cast members in Elspeth’s life– Martin, the OCD genius who lives upstairs, who showers three times a day and is compelled to scrub the floor for hours and stacks his life in plastic bins around his apartment, whose wife loves him more than life itself, but left him to have a life of her own. Robert, who lives downstairs, who avoids the twins like the plague when they arrive, whose sorrow over the loss of Elspeth is driving him mad, daily, who thinks he feels her presence, in her flat. Her ghost seems to haunt the place, knocking books over and pushing paperclips around and stirring curtains.

As the girls begin to enjoy life in London, their relationship begins to change. A bigger world means more opportunity, more to explore, more to do. Their interests begin to divide. They bicker and the threads that once tied them together start to unravel. Robert meets the girls and it takes his breath away how much Victoria resembles Elspeth. More than he wants to, he likes her. He can’t help but approach her and want to be near her. But there is the issue of missing Elspeth.

Who isn’t really missing, at all. She is there, in the flat. Stuck in the spirit world, as an energy. Haunting them until she’s able to find a way to let them all know she’s there. Using a crudely concocted OUIJA board and later a pencil and paper, the girls finally meet their Aunt Elspeth– if only after death. There are questions yet unanswered and mysteries yet unsolved.

Why didn’t Edie and Elspeth talk? Why did Elspeth leave her worldly goods to two girls she had never met? Why couldn’t their parents visit, and why couldn’t the girls read her diaries?

SECRET, Elspeth says. Oh. And a secret it is!

There are so many elements to this story, and one- no, two!-amazing plot twists. I do so love a plot twist! So many interwoven story lines, existing on their own course until they converge. The twins are the crux… everything else, everyone else are like the spokes of a wheel.

There are three parts to this story, each equally intriguing, but I don’t think that all are weighed equally. Part One begins slowly, unfurling the tale, lazy in its reveal, raising more questions than it answers. Part Two is full of change and discovery and adventure and drama and mystery, a tearing a part and a putting back together and a horrid plan that NO ONE should agree to, but all involved, unfortunately, do.

Part Three is the carrying out of said plan. And the backfire. And the end result. Part three made me gasp, made my eyes bug out, made my heart ache. And the end made me shake my head and say, ‘well that’s what you get, now isn’t it?’

For the writers in the room, I think what was most off-putting actually was the third person omniscient. The reader reads what everyone is doing, thinking, feeling. I found this POV to be really confusing. Perhaps the story would have been more gripping if we weren’t so privy to everything. A little mystery adds a lot. Make me guess, don’t tell me everything. Even simple third person might have made it a tad easier to understand, but I got it figured out, so I guess it wasn’t that bad.

There are some twists in this book that I still sort of don’t understand, involving the decades long estrangement between Edie and Elspeth. I think I’ll have to read it again soon, concentrating on that part, to understand it better. Overall I really enjoyed the book. Part Three, especially is un-put-down-able!

It doesn’t make me want to read Time Traveler’s Wife, though.

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My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’m a huge fan of period pieces, especially if the author does a superb job of transporting the reader back to a simpler time. I’m not really a thriller reader, so I had never even thought to read Sandra Brown before. It was a recommended novel on a Kindle list so I picked it up one day a few weeks ago.

From page one, I was engrossed in the story. We follow Ella through her everyday life as the owner of a boarding house, preparing breakfast and daily meals, cleaning, being a general companion to her boarders, her maid and right hand woman Margaret and her son, Solly. Solly is a special needs child, living in a time when doctors were just beginning to discover autism and not treat it like a mental illness. Ella rails against putting Solly in an Institution, away from her, where he’ll be locked up like a criminal. He’d live a much better life, albeit limited, by her side.

Enter one David Rainwater, a relative of the local Physician. He needs a room and Ella has one. He’s calm and disarming, polite and charming, especially to the two old ladies -sisters- who also board at Ella’s. Something about him both sets Ella off guard and intrigues her. The comfort she feels around him makes her uncomfortable, and his almost immediate rapport with Sully is both heartwarming and embarrassing. Mr Rainwater is able to accomplish so much in such a short time, more than Ella had tried or had time to accomplish in the entire time he was alive.

This would make a lovely romance, were it not for the backdrop of the time period– times were hard and work was even harder to come by. Blacks found work where they could but endured constant harassment and racist activity– mysterious fires are set and city leaders are murdered and no one investigates. The poor and indigent are left to fend for themselves on the edge of town, a place called Shantytown. Any effort made to assist Shantytown are met with disdain and concerted efforts to feed the hungry, especially the children are violently opposed.

Against Ella’s warning and his better judgment, Mr Rainwater gets involved in the world around him, cruel as it may be. He takes chances no one in their right mind should be willing to take– and perhaps that is fitting because Mr Rainwater may very well not be in his right mind. David is very ill, and has a limited life span. Every day holds meaning and power for him. Every day is special. Every person he chooses to spend his time with are the last people he will spend his life with. He chooses Ella, and Solly, and the sisters and Margaret. He chooses to make a difference, because he’s got absolutely nothing to lose.

I have to say, I haven’t read a good period piece since, well, Pride and Prejudice of course, but Lavyrle Spencer wrote the most lovely romantic pieces set in the early 1900′s. Loved them. This story is reminiscent of those. I found myself trapped back in that time, with my head in this book (or in the kindle), frantically flipping pages, trying to find out what happens next.

If I have one complaint, it’s the ending. It does seem to tie everything up with a big bow, but it’s so rushed and… convenient. The ending doesn’t mesh well but the rest of the book is poignant, has a great balance between action and introspection, love and war. The characters and setting are so well depicted, I can see them in my mind. If this is a genre that Sandra Brown is willing to write in, I am willing to read it!

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