When We Were Young

A moving, life-affirming story about two male friends who reunite and unravel old secrets and resentments while taking a long hike.

British novelist Richard Roper has the uncanny ability to embroil quirky characters in heart-wrenching situations, rendering their predicaments into immensely appealing fiction. In How Not to Die Alone (retitled and reissued as Something to Live For), a grief-stricken man grappled with his sad lot in life. In Roper's second novel, When We Were Young, he again mines the theme of how breaking the shackles of the past can lead to transcendence. 

As teenagers, Theo and Joel--would-be writers--were best friends until a life-changing accident drove a wedge between them. Now, estranged for more than 10 years, the two men lead separate lives. Hard-driving Joel, from a sordid family background, is a successful TV writer who harbors secrets. Floundering, lovesick and bitter Theo is barely scraping by, living in a backyard shed at his parents' house. Things take a turn when Joel crashes Theo's 30th birthday party, hoping to reconnect with his long-lost friend and to convince him to make good on a promise made in their youth: to hike all 184 miles of the Thames Path, from Gloucestershire to south east London. As the two set out on the long, arduous journey, they wind through episodic memories of the past--what united and divided them. What will it take for them to bury the hatchet and make peace? 

Roper delivers an enormously moving and surprising story about the rarely documented bond of male friendship, focusing on the lengths some must travel in order truly to forgive and sacrifice for another. 

When We Were Young: A Novel by Richard Roper

G. P. Putnam’s Sons, $26.00 Hardcover, 9780525539919, 352 pages

Publication Date: July 20, 2021

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NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (July 27, 2021), link HERE

Mango, Mambo, and Murder

When a food anthropologist moves from New York City to Miami, she suddenly finds herself in hot water created by a double-murder plot. 

Mystery writer Raquel V. Reyes plunges a lovable, quick-witted Cuban-American amateur sleuth deep into hot water in her fun, first cozy mystery novel, Mango, Mambo, and Murder.

 

Miriam Quinones-Smith, an academic-turned-food anthropologist-turned-cooking expert on a Spanish-language morning TV program, moves from New York City to Miami with her restless husband and adorable young son. When her best friend, Alma, drags her to a Women’s club luncheon, a socialite at the event face-dives into a pile of chicken salad…and dies. When another woman dies soon thereafter, all hell breaks loose. Miriam’s curious mind and meddling sweeps her into an investigation that delves into the Miami social scene and soon upends her life—and the lives of those she loves. Can her amateur super-sleuthing figure a way out of--and solve--the mayhem?

 

Reyes delivers a fast-paced, spicy debut--replete with rich details of Cuban-American culture--that will satiate the appetites of foodies and cozy mystery lovers alike.

 

Mango, Mambo, and Murder (A Caribbean Kitchen Mystery) Raquel V. Reyes

Crooked Lane Books, $26.99 hardcover, 9781643857848, 336 pages

Publication Date: October 12, 2021

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

Mona at Sea

A darkly comic story about a bright, clever college grad who struggles to come of age during the tumultuous Great Recession.

Mona at Sea is a very funny, darkly comic first novel about a high achiever, on the brink of starting her adult life, who has her hopes and aspirations dashed amid the Great Recession.

 

In 2008, in suburban Tucson, Ariz., bicultural, 23-year-old Mona Mireles graduates from college--top of her class and with an equally high opinion of herself--and is eager to start a promising new finance career on Wall Street in New York City. When the job suddenly dissolves amid the economic downturn, Mona becomes a "sad millennial" in more ways than one. Down on her luck, she sinks into anxiety and depression. Broke, lovelorn and not happy living at home--her parents' marriage is in a shambles--she is forced by her mother to attend a support group for others also in search of work. There, she meets other defeated, unemployed souls who make Mona's woes pale in comparison as she gets a fuller experience of all that awaits in the real world.

 

The story of Mona's efforts to reboot her life and find meaning in its pitfalls is filled with unexpected, bittersweet twists and turns. However, it's her intimately rich first-person narration--how her scorching wit and wisdom mask her own vulnerability and foibles--that makes her story come fully alive. Mona Mireles, ever a perfectionist--and unabashed in sharing her cleverly rendered observations, criticisms and insights--will keep readers laughing as she rises above her sad, zany lot in life.

Mona at Sea by Elizabeth Gonzales James

Sante Fe Writer’s Project, $15.95 paperback, 9781951631017, 270 pages

Publication Date: June 19, 2021

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (July 6, 2021), link HERE