Page Turners

 Q: Have there been recent novels which had you laughing, crying, clinging to the edge of your seat?

 

-       from Susan

 

I love books and I do respond to good writing, but rarely as dramatically as the question suggests! But, yes, several come to mind, first of which has to be THE HEAVEN & EARTH GROCERY STORE, by James McBride. So, we all – that is the reading public – already know what a great, gifted storyteller McBride is, and his newest is a polished, breathtakingly good tale. It prompts all of the above responses, tears, laughter, and tension. The novel intertwines the lives of a loose community of Jewish immigrants and the Black people who live next to them in a badly neglected but close-knit neighborhood. I think McBride’s greatest gift is story, story brought to vivid life by his creation of distinctive characters, some we love and some we can’t wait to see get their just desserts, but all of whom are individuals rendered in 3-D. 

 

LAST SEEN IN LAPAZ, by Kwei Quartey is scary, dark, and upsetting, a novel set in Ghana and Nigeria and focused hard on the immoral, dangerous, and evil people who prey on poor women, trafficking them for sex work. Quartey doesn’t pull punches, he lets us see the kinds of men and women who choose to profit from the business, their complete lack of humanity, the ease with which they exploit and violently control their victims. The book is good, the scene he paints is as ugly as it can be. My heart went out to the women, and I feared for them page after page. Yeah, tough reading, but Quartey also cares for the victims and it shows.

 

I haven’t read a new laugh out loud book recently and I think Mick Herron’s glorious Slough House series don’t count as new, but I do intend to read Dave Barry’s latest satire on Florida weirdness, a novel called SWAMP STORY. He and Carl Hiaasen have pretty much cornered the What Is It About Florida? market, and I really enjoy Barry’s humor. 

 

I’m currently reading four books at once, only one of which is crime fiction and only two of which are fiction.  I have a stack of paper books calling and a handful on Kindle, and a library list, and I just added more Minds’ own books and their recommendations to that list. I’m almost afraid to read what this week’s bloggers rave about….

 

 

 And this. If you haven't tried one of my books, I have two different series going right now: