Welcome to the fall season! Reading many great books and am excited to share here.
The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley
The Paris Apartment is a thriller about a journalist who mysteriously disappeared while living in an odd apartment building in Paris. With her signature style, author Lucy Foley attempts to deliver a fast-paced and multi-layered mystery. Nonetheless, the twists fall a bit flat and are lacking in tension and suspense. The story is filled with numerous characters that start off strong then quickly become monotonous clichés.
Synopsis: Jess, fleeing her life in England, makes her way to Paris to crash with her charming brother, Ben. Upon her arrival to Paris, Jess cannot find Ben. What she does find is a building with hidden secrets and residents who will stop at nothing to keep their secrets from being revealed. Alternating between the past and the present the story is narrated by Jess, Nick, Sophie, Antoine, Mimi, and the concierge. The tone and multiple characters is immediately spooky, frenzied and appealing. Unfortunately, that frenzied tone quickly becomes pointless, and quite frankly, uninteresting.
Meet Me at the Museum by Ann Youngson
Ann Youngson’s debut novel Meet Me at the Museum was so unexpected and turned out to be this fall’s charmer! It is a delightful read about two strangers dismayed by where their lives have taken them.
In Denmark, lonely museum curator, Professor Anders Larsen, has lost his wife and his hopes for the future. On an isolated English farm, dissatisfied Tina Hopgood is trapped in a life she doesn’t remember choosing. Both believe their love stories are over. Initially, the two connect over a shared fascination with the miraculous Iron Age archaeological find known as the Tollund Man. From their vastly different worlds, they find they have more in common than they could have imagined, and their relationship soon deepens as they open up to one another about their own chosen life paths in a series of heartfelt letters.
Girl At War by Sara Nović
“You don’t need to experience something to remember it.”
Girl at War is the debut novel of American author Sara Nović. A deeply affecting story about a 10-year-old Croatian girl, Ana Juric, who is caught up in the Yugoslavian civil war of the early 1990s, Girl at War achieves the impossible by making the stories of broken lives in a distant country feel as large and universal as myth. It is a brutal story, but a beautiful one.
Synopsis: The story opens in 1991 Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. Ana is a carefree ten-year-old, living with her parents and baby sister in their small, urban apartment. The very first line of the book (which is brilliant) foreshadows the civil war that is soon to break out across Yugoslavia, splintering Ana's idyllic childhood.
New York, 2001. Ana is now a college student in Manhattan and trying to move on from her past and let go of the secrets she keeps from those closest to her. Haunted by the events that forever changed her and her family, Ana returns to Croatia and assigns herself the scarifying task of sorting through the rubble of her homeland and reclaiming what can be saved of it—and of herself.
Up from the “Thistle Patch” The Story of the Morris and Mabel Wenger Family
Up from the Thistle Patch is an honest and tender biographical story published in 2021. A labor of love written by the 11 Wenger children, Up from the Thistle Patch is dedicated to Morris “Pop” and Mabel “Mom” Wenger and chronicles—chapters personally written by each of the siblings—life growing up on rural farms in Medina and Wayne County, Ohio. This story is a nostalgic visit to the 40’s 50’s 60’s and 70’s with a detailed telling of religious and family lineage dating back to the 17th Century.
The “voice” of each sibling reveals how Pop and Mom Wenger, along with the Wenger ancestry, work ethic, faith, education, and legacy of family shaped and prepared them for life away from the farm while still staying very much tethered to their upbringing and teachings. Regardless of time or distance; today, each sibling remains steadfast in their commitment to each other, their shared history, and the love and strength that comes with being a Wenger.