belated spring reading list

Getting back and catching up and writing the trip posts and time slipped away.

Future Home Of The Living God by Louise Erdrich - Cedar, a woman who believes she is the natural child until she learns she is adopted, decides to meet her birth family, native Americans, just when civilization is breaking down due to evolution deciding to go berserk. Nothing is reproducing to kind and Cedar is pregnant though she hasn't told anyone yet. The story isn't really about what the break down is as it is never revealed. The story is about Cedar as she confronts her other family, confronts her pregnancy. Mostly I guess the story is about Cedar and her relationship to her developing baby in a period of time when she has no idea what she is giving birth to. Pregnant women are supposed to turn themselves in to, basically, a prison existence in order to monitor the pregnancies to save the human race. There is no happy ending but this is the first book that has engaged me from the beginning in a long time.

Good Me Bad Me by Ali Land - Annie's mom is a serial killer who targets small children, mostly boys, and abuses her daughter. Child #9, Daniel is the straw because Annie knows this child. That and the party her mother is planning for her upcoming 16th birthday, a party for the several adults her mother is inviting, so Annie finally goes to the police and her mother is arrested. Annie gets psychological help, a legal liaison, a new temporary foster family, a new school, and a new name, Milly, while she waits for the trial when she must testify against her mother. Only her foster parents and her legal liaison know her true identity and all Milly wants is a normal family. Mike, the psychologist who has taken Milly under his wing until after the trial, his wife Saskia, and Phoebe, their daughter, have family problems of their own and so Phoebe starts to bully Milly at school while Milly struggles with her relationship with own mother, her fear of her and her longing for her, and her uncertainty about herself and her own secrets. And then Phoebe learns Milly's true identity. Like the previous book this one got my attention right away. It's a good story and well written I think, kept me reading.

City Of Endless Night by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child – in the newest book in the FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast series the headless body of the daughter of wealthy tech billionaire Anton Ozmian is found and Lt. D'Agosta of the NYPD is put in charge of the investigation. Pendergast is sent by his superior to help the NYPD solve the crime and in quick succession 5 more extremely wealthy people are beheaded regardless of their state of the art security systems with the heads never recovered. It's a perplexing case with no apparent motive and Pendergast figures out who the perpetrator is just a bit too late and finds himself facing his most able adversary in a fight for not only his life but Lt. D'Agosta's life as well.

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin – four siblings aged 13 to 7 sneak out to visit a gypsy woman they heard could tell you the day you would die. Each with her/his secret, only the older two divulged their dates, the youngest would only say 'young', a decade later after the unexpected death of their father. They become obsessed with their knowledge and as their lives unfold it is uncertain if the gypsy woman was right or if their knowledge of a particular date compelled them to make it real. The story is told in four sections plus the prologue, one sibling after the other. This was a good book, a good story well told, about not only their own particular lives but their relationships with each other, their pride and vanity, so I don't want to say too much.

These three I read on my sister's kindle during my plane rides:

Bleeding Hearts by Susan Wittig Albert – China, a lawyer who quit law to open an herbal tea shop, is asked to investigate the accusation of improper sexual behavior by the very loved high school coach on the quiet by the school principal and a stolen quilt is investigated. A China Bayles mystery, one of a series.

V is for Vengeance by Sue Grafton – private detective Kinsey Milhone witnesses a woman shop lifting and alerts security. Days later the woman is thrown off a bridge and the police call it suicide. The woman's fiance contacts Kinsey to investigate and prove that she was quite innocent of the charges against her but Kinsey finds that she was in fact part of a huge shoplifting ring that turned over millions of dollars in stolen goods every year. Other characters are a dirty cop, a likable repeat offender who gets hold of damaging photos, and the guy behind the shoplifting ring.

Death At Bishop's Keep by Robin Paige – set in Victorian times, an American 'spinster' Kate, who supports herself writing penny novels, finds out she is not the orphan she thought. Well, she is an orphan, raised by her maternal aunt and uncle but she discovers that she has two paternal aunts in England, one of whom has asked her to travel to England and be her companion and secretary which she does. The other aunt, a mean spirited dried up old woman who manages the household of the estate that belongs to her sister due to a bit of blackmail, objects to her niece's presence. A man is murdered at an archeological dig who seems to be related to her aunt's spiritual group and Kate sets out to solve the murder as fodder for her own writing and then both her aunts are poisoned and it is up to Kate to solve those murders.