THOUGHTS ON THIS 'n THAT

  I just finished Annabelle Tometich's memoir, THE MANGO TREE (LittleBrownBooks) and what fun it is. One moment, I was laughing silly and the next, dabbing my eyes. THE MANGO TREE is also full of cultural Filipino information that I'm glad I didn't miss out on. At the first sentence you are hooked. "Rows of orange people sit handcuffed in a beige room. One of them is my mother." So begins THE MANGO TREE, a memoir about growing up a mixed-race Filipina "nobody" in the mostly lily-white suburban Fort Myers, Florida. Mom was the first one in her family to emigrate from the Philippines to the United States and her "American" children don't appreciate the hard work it has taken for her to be a brown person with a wide nose in Florida. Of course living with mom, a bitter manic-depressive is no picnic for Annabelle and her siblings. Annabelle's family is anything but "normal" and that's all Annabelle wants - to be normal and to b

  THE MIDNIGHT NEWS (VintageBooks) by bestselling author, Jo Baker is a story of intrigue, love and danger during WWII. It is 1940 and twenty-year-old Charlotte Richmond watches from her attic window as enemy planes fly over London. Still grieving her beloved brother, who never returned from France, she is trying to keep herself out of trouble: holding down a typist job at the Ministry of Information, sharing gin and confidences with her best friend, Elena, and dodging her overbearing father. On her way to work she often sees the boy who feeds the birds—a source of unexpected joy amid the rubble of the Blitz. But every day brings new scenes of devastation, and after yet another heartbreaking loss Charlotte has an uncanny sense of foreboding. Someone is stalking the darkness, targeting her friends. And now he’s following her. As grief and suspicion consume her, Charlotte’s nerves become increasingly frayed. She no longer knows whom to trust. She can’t even trust herself . . . Jo Baker w

  Whale Fall (Pantheon) by debut author Elizabeth O'Connor   tells the story of what happens when one person's ambitions threaten the fabric of a community, and what can happen when they are realized. In 1938, a dead whale washes up on the shores of remote Welsh island. For Manod, who has spent her whole life on the island, it feels like both a portent of doom and a symbol of what may lie beyond the island's shores. A young woman living with her father and her sister (to whom she has reluctantly but devotedly become a mother following the death of their own mother years prior), Manod can't shake her welling desire to explore life beyond the beautiful yet blisteringly harsh islands that her hardscrabble family has called home for generations. The arrival of two English ethnographers who hope to study the island culture, then, feels like a boon to her—both a glimpse of life outside her community and a means of escape. The longer the ethnographers stay, the more she feels

  From the Pulitzer Prize winning author Jane Smiley comes LUCKY (Knopf). A story about a woman who becomes a folk music star during the nation's changing times. Before Jodie Rattler became a star, she was a girl growing up in St. Louis. One day in 1955, when she was just six years old, her uncle Drew took her to the racetrack, where she got lucky—and that roll of two-dollar bills she won has never since left her side. Jodie thrived in the warmth of her extended family, and then—through a combination of hard work and serendipity—she started a singing career, which catapulted her from St. Louis to New York City, from the English countryside to the tropical beaches of St. Thomas, from Cleveland to Los Angeles, and back again. Jodie comes of age in recording studios, backstage, and on tour, and she tries to hold her own in the wake of Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and Joni Mitchell. Yet it feels like something is missing. Could it be true love? Or is that not actually what Jo

    A lost mother A legendary book And a daughter searching for both Patti Callahan Henry's new novel, THE STORY SHE LEFT BEHIND Told in Patti Callahan Henry's lyrical, enchanting prose, THE STORY SHE LEFT BEHIND is a captivating novel of mystery and family legacy that captures the profound longing for a mother and the the evergreen allure of secrets. @Simonandschuster @Atria @Megtandemliteray @Patticallahanhenry

  Maid of honor and struggling novelist Natalie is different as can be from best man and ivory-tower academic Rob. In  Laura Hankin's novel, ONE- STAR ROMANCE (Berkley), what should be the melding of friend groups at the wedding of their favorite couple turns into a rivalry when Natalie finds out minutes before walking down the aisle that Rob rated her book one star on Goodreads.  When the reception ends, they hope they’ll never meet again. But as Rob and Nat  slip from their twenties into their thirties, they’re forced together whenever their fast-track best friends celebrate another milestone.  Through housewarmings and christenings, life-changing triumphs and failures, Natalie and Rob grapple with their own choices—and learn that your harshest critic can become your perfectly imperfect match. I'm an author, screenwriter, and performer who writes novels that you can read on a beach but also for a book club. My books include the upcoming rom-com  ONE-STAR ROMANCE ,  THE DAYDRE

  A dream vacation turns deadly in THE PARIS WIDOW (ParkRow).  Secrets from the past catch up to a married couple in Paris in this new edge-of-your-seat thriller from  USA Today  bestselling author, Kimberly Belle.   When Stella met Adam, she thought she had finally found a nice, normal guy—a welcome change from her previous boyfriend and her precarious jetsetter lifestyle with him. But her secure world comes crashing down when Adam goes missing after an explosion in the city square. Unable to reach him, she panics.    As the French police investigate, it’s revealed that Adam was on their radar as a dealer of rare and stolen antiquities with a long roster of criminal clients. Reeling from this news, Stella is determined not to leave Paris until she has the full story. Was Adam a random victim or the target of the explosion? And why is someone following her through the streets of Paris?   An irresistible, fast-paced read set in some of Europe’s most inviting locales,  The Paris Widow  e

  Rue Siebert’s life is stable in Ali Hazelwood's new novel, NOT IN LOVE (Berkley). She has a great job as a biotech engineer at Kline, one of the most promising start-ups in her field, working on a passion project in food science, and she’s  finally  financially secure. She gets to work alongside her two best friends and do what she loves every day.   Rue’s world comes crashing down when an outside company sets its sights on Kline. Its leader? A sexy businessman named Eli Kilgore. Who just so happens to be the man she  almost  slept with the night before he set foot in her workplace.   Little does Rue know that Eli’s interest in Kline comes from a deeply personal—and vengeful—history with Kline’s founder. But passion knows no bounds, and it’s not long before Rue and Eli throw caution out the lab—consequences be damned. Their affair is secret, no-strings-attached, and has a built-in deadline: the day one of their companies prevails.  I’m originally from Italy, lived in Japan and Ge

  Change of summer plans in @ElyssaFriedman new novel #JACKPOTShUMMER (BerkleyBooks). The four Jacobson siblings—Matthew, Laura, Sophie, and Noah—have gathered at their parents’ house on the New Jersey shoreline to celebrate July 4 th  for as long as they can remember. But this year, instead of hosting a festive annual cook-out, the Jacobsons must pack up their family home following the loss of their mother. Despondent and grieving, and with some long-held tensions simmering under the surface as they all reflect on their shared history and losses, the siblings try to put their best foot forward for the sake of their mourning father and each other.   When the Jacobsons learn about an upcoming Powerball drawing with a massive prize at stake, three out of four siblings decide to go in together on a ticket. Dreams of winning the lottery offer a smidgeon of hope in dark times: while all the siblings must manage their grief, Laura is also dealing with her crumbling marriage and an empty nest