You Should Have Known

A deeply thought-provoking, intimately drawn psychological thriller about an elderly woman who sets out to avenge her granddaughter’s death.

A sharp, sensitive, self-aware 72-year-old intimately narrates You Should Have Known, a beautifully drawn psychological literary thriller--and an accomplished first novel--by Rebecca A. Keller.

 

Francine “Frannie” Greene is a widowed wife and grandmother. This retired nurse still grieves for her husband and a teenaged granddaughter who was killed by a drunk driver years before. The girl’s shattering death deeply affected--and reshaped the lives of--everyone in the family.

 

After sustaining a few falls, Frannie’s adult children convince her to move into a high-end assisted living facility. Frannie is pleasantly surprised by her new living arrangement—she sparks an instant friendship with a woman in the library, Katherine, discovering they share affinities for books, pie and soap operas. Frannie, however, later learns that Katherine’s husband, Nathaniel, is the “reprehensible” judge who accepted a bribe and let off her granddaughter’s killer from serving prison time. Angered Frannie secretly plots revenge on the judge, but her actions go awry. When another resident dies suddenly and an investigation plays out--implicating others in the sudden death--Frannie is forced to face her own evils. Can she stand by and watch another injustice play out?  

 

The suspense of this complex thriller is heightened by Frannie’s wise, introspective narrative voice. Her anger and resentments contrasted against flaring bouts of conscience and self-questioning, make for an immensely thought-provoking psychological portrait that explores themes of what it is right and what is just.

 

You Should Have Known by Rebecca A. Keller

Crooked Lane Books, $29.99 hardcover, 9781639102600, 320 pages

Publishing Date: April 4, 2023

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, 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 (April 7, 2023), link HERE

The Island Villa

An emotionally probing romance about a mother’s upcoming fourth marriage and how her daughters come to terms with familial dysfunction.

An estranged, dysfunctional family reunites for a summer wedding on Corfu, a rugged island paradise off the coast of Greece, in the engagingly insightful novel, The Island Villa, by prolific British author Sarah Morgan.

 

Family matriarch Catherine Swift is a wildly successful romance novelist. Her own life, however, isn’t so happily-ever-after. Married three times with two daughters conceived from different husbands, she is tying the knot for a fourth time. Might her nuptials this time around offer a chance for mother-daughter reconciliation—and for her two adult children, six years apart, to finally bond?

 

The girls couldn’t be more different. Thirty-year-old Adeline, the older daughter--emotionally buttoned up and self-reliant--is reticent to attend the wedding. She was only eight-years-old when her parents divorced, and she’s skeptical about her mother’s wedded bliss. However, after she breaks up with her beau, Adeline jet-sets to Corfu. There, she’s reunited with her starry-eyed sister and secretly aspiring writer, Cassie, whose father, Catherine’s second husband, died when Cassie was just three-years-old. Cassie is excited about the wedding—until secrets revealed disarm both women. They ultimately find common ground, commiserating about their mother’s choice for a husband. Will the family finally come together or will things, once again, fall apart?

 

Relationships between mothers, daughters and sisters are common to Morgan’s (The Summer Seekers) fiction, and she once again skillfully portrays complex emotional dynamics therein. Readers will be swept up by well-drawn characters, each with her own romantic predicament, and a deft fictional examination of fragile and frayed familial bonds. 

 

The Island Villa by Sarah Morgan

Canary Street Press (HarperCollins/Harlequin), $17.99 paperback, 9781335630957, 384 pages

Publishing Date: May 2, 2023

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, 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 (May 5, 2023), link HERE

Earth's the Right Place for Love

An emotionally evocative romance set in 1947 that explores the bonds of family and how young love might ultimately take root and grow.

 

In Earth’s the Right Place for Love, Elizabeth Berg has written a poignant, emotionally powerful novel about the formative years in the life of 16-year-old Arthur Moses in the late 1940s.

 

Arthur--and those in his orbit--has been featured in three other Berg novels set in Mason, Missouri: The Story of Arthur Truluv, Night of Miracles and The Confession Club. In this novel, 85-year-old Arthur looks back on his life as a high school sophomore. Back then, in 1947, he was greatly influenced by--and looked up to--his dashing older brother, Frank, a charming heartthrob who often locked horns with their father, a brash man with a drinking problem. Young Arthur--kind, gentle and shy--had a crush on his cheerleader classmate, Nola McCollum, who actually had romantic designs on Frank. When Arthur learned of this, he secretly settled on building a friendship with Nola instead. However, when a sudden, devastating tragedy befalls the Moses family, Arthur and Nola become confidantes who help each other to grow through changes and challenges into young adulthood. Will Nola ever realize how much Arthur truly loves her? And will she ever love him back?

 

Love stories that probe the human condition are what Berg (I’ll Be Seeing You) does best, and this stand-alone story of Arthur’s early life shines with a refreshingly wholesome, 20th-century sensibility. Well-drawn characters and sensitively drawn scenes are what consistently endear readers to Berg’s exquisite storytelling. This novel adds to--and further deepens--the enriching appeal of that continuum.

 

Earth’s the Right Place for Love by Elizabeth Berg

Random House, $27.99 hardcover, 9780593446799, 288 pages

Publishing Date: March 21, 2023

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, 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 (March 24, 2023), link HERE

 

Silver Alert

A sparkling, serio-comic novel about an ailing wife, her elderly husband, overbearing kids and a manicurist trying to eke out a new life.

Prolific, masterful storyteller Lee Smith (Guests on Earth; Dimestore) returns to the Florida Keys in her sparkling, tender-hearted novel Silver Alert. For 12 years, Key West resident Herb Atlas—gruff, no nonsense and married several times—has been taking “great care” of his “last wife,” Susan—a passionate lover of the arts and an artist herself who started to exhibit symptoms of early-onset dementia at age 58. With Herb now 83 and suffering health problems of his own, and Susan’s condition progressing more rapidly now that she’s 70, Herb hired the upbeat and free-spirited Renee to help out.

Renee, a manicurist who lives in a trailer park, is struggling to escape a dark, secret past and reinvent her life. She becomes a friend and companion to Susan, and her lively presence in Susan’s and Herb’s live reinvigorates the emotional well-being of the Atlases. However, when Herb’s overbearing and domineering adult children and half-children descend on Key West and stage an intervention to help the burdened couple, things take a dramatic, unexpected turn. “Everybody agrees. Susan ought to be in a facility now”—except Herb. Feeling powerless and boxed in by the limits imposed by his obstinate children, who take over and orchestrate decisions for his life and Susan’s care, Herb ultimately rebels. On a lark, he sets off in his prized Porsche sportscar with Renee. The two go on the lam—a wild, liberating road trip that will change their lives forever.

Smith has crafted a remarkably well-rounded, empathetic, serio-comic story. Silver Alert is a novel that takes readers on a deeply meaningful, unforgettable ride brimming with hope.

 

Silver Alert by Lee Smith

Algonquin Books, $27.00 hardcover, 224 pages, 9781643752419

Publishing Date: April 18, 2023

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, 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 (April 21, 2023), link HERE

NOTE: To read this review, the original long form review as published on Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade (March 30, 2023), link HERE

The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

A wildly fun road trip adventure about an unpredictable octogenarian, with a secret past, who goes on the lam with her 20something caretaker.

Colleen Oakley takes readers on an off-beat, whirlwind road trip adventure--with an underlying serious message--in The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise.

 

Louise Constance Wilt is an unpredictable, whip-smart, Atlanta, Georgia native. With the 84-year-old widow hobbling around on a bum hip, her children, who live hours away, decide it’s time for their mother to have some live-in help. Enter floundering, 21-year-old, Tanner Quimby, whose promising college sports scholarship--and dreams of playing soccer professionally--are sidelined by a very badly broken leg. The arrangement would appear a win-win for the two injured women. However, after some initial, mutual resistance--and Tanner attuned to some dubious red flags in Louise’s behavior--the duo set off on an impulsive road trip. When Louise’s daughter files a missing persons’ report, the family discovers that Louise has actually been living under an alias for years—on an FBI watchlist involving a notorious jewel heist from Boston in the 1970s. Could this be true? And does this have anything to do with Louise and Tanner suddenly going on the lam?

 

Well-structured elements of mystery and suspense infuse this enjoyable friendship story about lives well-lived—however burdened by challenges and questionable choices. A lively plot, off-beat characters and surprising twists bring levity to darker themes that probe issues of feminism and aging. Oakley’s storytelling (The Invisible Husband of Frick Island, You Were There Too) is first rate. Readers will eagerly hop aboard this wildly fun, greatly entertaining ride.

The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise by Colleen Oakley

Berkley (Penguin), $27.00 hardcover, 9780593200803, 352 pages

Publishing Date: March 28, 2023

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, 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 (March 24, 2023), link HERE

Varina Palladino's Jersey Italian Love Story

 

A lively, fun-loving novel about the exploits of a large, unwieldy and passionate Italian-American family on the brink of rebirth and change.

 

A big, bold, brash Italian-American family is at the heart of Varina Palladino’s Jersey Italian Love Story. This fun-loving, bittersweet novel by Terri-Lynne DeFino orbits around Varina Palladino, a hard-working, widow. Now happily-single, the 70-year-old manages the family’s local Italian food specialty shop in Wyldale, New Jersey.

 

Many characters and plotlines are threaded through Varina’s life. This includes Varina’s spry, 92-year-old mother, Sylvia, whose is determined to find a romantic match for Varina. With the help of Donatella--Varina’s n’er do well daughter; Sylvia’s granddaughter--the two Palladino women secretly advertise Varina’s singlehood. The boldness of their plan backfires at the same time Varina’s three adult children face their own life challenges. This includes Dante, running the family construction business and flirting with divorce, and Davide, a hair salon owner, who is at odds with his erratic, younger sister, Donatella, who just can’t seem to get her life on track. There’s also good-natured, reliable Paulie, once the Palladino’s neighbor, now their border, who was pseudo-adopted by Varina after he came out as gay and his own family disowned him. When Varina, on her birthday, decides to celebrate by fulfilling her lifelong dream to travel, her decision becomes just one of many life-changing transitions made by each member of the family.

 

From the passions of love and family fireworks, to authentic recipes, Italian superstitions and expressions, DeFino (The Bar Harbor Retirement Home for Famous Writers) serves up a hilariously colorful, contemporary epic where lovably flawed characters and lively Italian details will wholeheartedly charm readers.

 

Varina Palladino’s Jersey Italian Love Story by Terri-Lynne DeFino

William Morrow & Company, $27.99 hardcover, 9780063228436, 416 pages

Publishing Date: February 14, 2023

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, 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 (March 3, 2023), link HERE

Good Grief

A captivating, impeccably rich study about the many ways companion animals enrich lives and how people mourn and grieve their loss. 

 

“When we open our hearts to animals, death is the inevitable price,” writes E.B. Bartels, a former bookseller at Newtonville Books, Mass. Good Grief, her impeccably researched first book, offers deeply personal stories about the many ways companion animals enrich lives and how animal lovers must ultimately cope with the pain of their loss.

 

Having a pet is a voluntary choice, and mourning pets is nothing new. Bartels states, “…67 percent of American households, 84.9 million homes, own ‘some sort of pet’…despite the inevitable loss that comes with that relationship, the ways people grieve a dead pet aren’t always taken seriously.” Bartels, a life-long and devout animal lover, has grappled with this predicament since she was a child. Her father loved animals, but her mother claimed she was “violently allergic” to “anything with fur, feathers, or hair.” That left young, animal-loving Bartels to cultivate fresh water fish in table-top aquariums. When “trouble in (fish) paradise” began and occupants were found floating in the tank and/or were swallowed up by larger fish, Bartels became intrigued by the nature of loss and grief. Starting in kindergarten, she developed something of a “pet aftercare industry,” where she assisted with animal funerals and burials with peers at school. 

 

This in-depth, richly informative narrative is replete with down-to-earth stories from Bartels herself and those of ordinary pet lovers, pet care professionals, celebrities and historians. The pivotal roles pet birds, reptiles, rodents, horses, dogs and cats have played in personal lives--and how they are ultimately grieved and remembered--are interspersed among fascinating historical facts: The Egyptians treasured the intimacy offered by pets and exotic animals and were known to bury them alongside humans in the same sarcophagi. The Summum community, a contemporary religious group in Utah, mummifies--preserves, in whole--their beloved animal companions. Popular icon, Barbra Streisand was so devastated by the loss of her beloved 14-year-old dog, Samantha, that she had her cloned in order to keep “some part of her alive.” Bartels thoroughly examines these and many other topics including euthanasia, taxidermy, ideas about reincarnation, pet cemeteries and more.

 

Readers, like Bartels, who long to consciously comprehend the pet-human bond--why people care so much for their pets, in life and in death, and what makes the bond so worthwhile and why--will be educated, greatly enriched and find much to reflect upon.

 

Good Grief: On Loving Pets, Here and Hereafter by E.B. Bartels

Mariner Books (Harper Collins Publishers), $27.99 hardcover, 272 pages, 9780358212331

Publication Date: August 2, 2022

To order this book on INDIEBOUND link HERE

 

NOTE: To read this review as published on Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade (May 3, 2022 ), link HERE

 

NOTE: To read a condensed version of this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (July 1, 2022), link HERE