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Book Review: WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE by Maria Semple

After I finish a book, I often need some time to process it before reviewing it. But then life sometimes gets busy and I don’t get around to it and next thing I know it’s seven months later and I can no longer remember details. So, even though I just closed the cover on Maria Semple’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette, I decided to put down some quick thoughts before I forget.

When fifteen-year-old Bee gets a perfect report card, all she wants as reward is a trip to Antarctica. Problem is, her mother Bernadette is an agoraphobe lacking in social skills, and the pending travel increases her anxiety. One day, she disappears. Bee sets out to find her mother by piecing together clues from various people’s notes, faxes, and emails, including Bernadette’s to a virtual assistant named Manjula in India. Despite almost every one else—including her father—believing Bernadette will never return, Bee refuses to abandon her search, determined to go as far as the end of the earth if she has to.

Semple, a former TV writer who has written for Arrested Development and Mad About You, has an engaging, breezy style, but beneath the wit, the pain and complexities of life are evident. The characters aren’t as they seem and things don’t turn out as expected—people who behave atrociously are capable of doing the right thing, and decent people make mistakes. Though most consider Bernadette an enigma who might be mentally unstable, she is extremely sympathetic through Bee’s eyes.

The circumstances surrounding the disappearance are complicated, but all Bee needs to know is that her mother loves her and would never abandon her. Her refusal to let anyone else convince her otherwise is quite affecting. I was completely invested in her search, and could not stop reading until she found “closure” (a word she hates but throws around so she can keep looking).

I’m running a giveaway of this book until Monday, August 27, so enter here if it sounds good to you. You can also watch Semple’s funny, self-deprecating trailer below.

Nerd verdict: Look for Bernadette for a good read

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Lee Child Reads from Gregg Hurwitz’s THE SURVIVOR

I’ve been rehearsing a play six days a week while still editing and reviewing books, so my blog posts will probably be short—but hopefully not boring—for the next month or so.

I got a kick out of Lee Child reading the opening to Gregg Hurwitz‘s The Survivor, out August 21 from St. Martin’s Press. I think it’s a nifty idea, and it got me thinking about other authors reading someone else’s work. How about Robert Crais reading Fifty Shades of Grey (first and last time I’ll mention that book here)? Stephen King narrating a Harry Potter novel? Which matchups would you like to hear?

If you can’t listen to Child’s recording where you are, you can read chapters 1-4 here. You can also order from Amazon here or an indie bookstore here.

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Book Review: THE PRISONER OF HEAVEN by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

I originally reviewed this for Shelf Awareness for Readers, and am reprinting it here with permission.

Fans of Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s Cemetery of Forgotten Books series finally have another installment to enjoy with The Prisoner of Heaven, which begins right before Christmas in 1957 Barcelona. A mysterious man with missing fingers comes into Sempere & Sons, the bookstore where Daniel (The Shadow of the Wind’s protagonist) works, and buys an expensive edition of The Count of Monte Cristo. He leaves it at the store with a cryptic message inside for Fermín, Daniel’s best friend and coworker. When Daniel presses for the meaning of the inscription, Fermín tells him the awful truth, including the real reason Daniel’s mother died.

Fermín’s sense of humor helps readers through some of the more horrific incidents when he talks about his prison stint in 1939-1940, when he met the writer David Martín (from The Angel’s Game). Daniel’s mother, Isabella, also makes an impression as David’s friend, who tirelessly lobbies to get him out.

Part of the intrigue of these three books is to see how all the characters and pieces fit together (even if some details don’t match what was disclosed at the end of Game), and as a note says at the beginning of this novel, they can be read in any order.

The Prisoner of Heaven doesn’t quite capture the magic of Shadow, but is more engrossing than Game. Like them, this is a tale about—and for—people who are passionate about books and the art of writing. It contains Zafón’s usual wit and eye for period detail, and ends with a cliffhanger indicating that Daniel’s journey down a dark path is just beginning.

Nerd verdict: Engrossing Heaven, if a bit in Shadow‘s shadow

Can’t get enough of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books? You can read about its origins in a free short story by Zafón that HarperCollins has made available here.

Buy Prisoner now from Amazon| Buy it from an indie bookstore

This blog will be quiet for about a week, as I’ll be out of town for a family emergency. I wish you all happy reading until we meet again.

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How Much Do Book Covers Matter?

I saw this beautiful cover for Michael Frayn’s book, Skios, this morning and was immediately attracted to it.

My trip to the Greek islands remains my favorite so far, and I have fond memories of the gorgeous vistas there. So when I saw this cover, I wanted to know more about the book. But when I went to Amazon to check synopsis and reviews, I saw this:

Wha? Turns out the pretty one was the UK cover, and we’re getting the ugly one in the US. I suddenly lost all desire to read it, despite knowing it’s not fair to the author, since he had no control over this. It’s the equivalent of losing my appetite when I see an otherwise delicious dish served in an unappealing way.

Has this ever happened to you? How much do covers matter to you?

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First Impressions: Flashback Edition

Couldn’t find three hard-hitting openers among the ARCs I received this week, so I thought I’d take a look back at some older favorites. I wanted to feature authors whose work you may not have read but might consider doing so after seeing these.

The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie (yes, that Hugh Laurie)

Imagine that you have to break someone’s arm.

Right or left, doesn’t matter. The point is that you have to break it, because if you don’t…well, that doesn’t matter either. Let’s just say bad things will happen if you don’t.

Now, my question goes like this: do you break the arm quickly—snap, whoops, sorry, here let me help you with that improvised splint—or do you drag the whole business out for a good eight minutes, every now and then increasing the pressure in the tiniest of increments, until the pain becomes pink and green and hot and cold and altogether howlingly unbearable?

Well exactly. Of course. The right thing to do, the only thing to do, is to get it over with as quickly as possible. Break the arm, ply the brandy, be a good citizen. There can be no other answer.

Unless.

He got you, didn’t he? “Unless” what?? This book is hilarious, and I’ve been waiting for a looooong time for his second novel. The Paper Soldier was supposed to be released years ago, but was indefinitely delayed due to Laurie’s busy schedule. Now that House, M.D. is over, maybe he’ll have more time for writing.

Where the Truth Lies by Rupert Holmes (yes, the Piña Colada man)

In the seventies, I had three unrelated lunches with three different men, each of whom might have done A Terrible Thing. The nature of their varying “things” ranged from obscene to unspeakable to unutterable, and you will surely understand if, as a writer, I was rather hoping that each had. (Done their particular Terrible Thing.)

In the case of my lunch with the first man, I knew by the time he rested his gold Carte Blance card upon the meal’s sizable check that my hopes were abundantly justified.

Ignore the fact this book was made into a movie that’s not very good (despite Colin Firth’s presence). It’s a sexy, twisty mystery that made me snap up Holmes’s second mystery novel, Swing, which was even better.

Caught Stealing by Charlie Huston

My feet hurt. The nightmare still in my head, I walk across the cold wood floor, shuffling my feet in the light grit. I’m half-drunk and I have to pee. I’m not sure which woke me, the piss or the nightmare.

My john is just a bit smaller than the average port-o-potty. I sit on the pot and rest my forehead against the opposite wall. I have a pee hard-on and if I try to take a leak standing up, I’ll end up hosing the whole can. I know this from experience. Plus my feet still hurt.

This opening started my love affair with Huston’s work eight years ago. I wanted to know why this guy’s feet hurt. Well, his day is about to get much worse, and by the end of this book, his feet aren’t the only things that hurt.

What do you think? Interested in any of these? What are you reading? Happy second Friday this week!

[Note about the covers: These are from the first editions I read. The current editions all have different covers but I prefer these.]

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First Impressions 6.22.12

Today sees the return of my featuring three openers from new or upcoming books for you to determine which make(s) you want to keep reading. Intros with long descriptions of weather and/or scenery are immediately disqualified.

This week’s selections:

The Last Kind Words by Tom Piccirilli, Bantam, available now

I’d come five years and two thousand miles to stand in the rain while they prepared my brother for his own murder.

He had two weeks to go before they strapped him down and injected poison into his heart. I knew Collie would be divided about it, the way he was divided about everything. A part of him would look forward to stepping off the big ledge. He’d been looking over it his whole life in one way or another.

I moved this book up my TBR pile based on this tweet from Piccirilli last week: “I knocked down a cripple, threw the book at his head, and took $25 out of his wallet. #howtosell” If he can entertain me with fewer than 140 characters, what can he do with a whole book?

Midwinter Blood by Mons Kallentoft, Emily Bestler Books/Atria, available now

Prologue

Östergötland, Tuesday, January 31

In the darkness.

Don’t hit me. Do you hear me? Leave me alone.

No, no, let me in. Apples, the scent of apples. I can almost taste them.

Don’t leave me standing here, in the cold and wet. The wind feels like nails that tear at my hands, my face, until there is no frosted skin, no flesh, no fat left on my bones, my skull.

Haven’t you noticed I’m gone? You couldn’t care less, really, could you?

What the hell is going on here? I’m intrigued.

The Bellwether Revivals by Benjamin Wood, Viking, available now

PRELUDE

June 2003

They heard the caterwaul of sirens, and saw the dust rising underneath the ambulance wheels at the far end of the driveway, and soon the darkening garden was a wash of flashing blue lights. It only seemed real when they told the paramedics where to find the bodies. There was one upstairs on the top floor, they said, another in the organ house, and one more at the foot of the garden—the riverbank in a nest of flattened rushes, with the cold water lapping against his feet. When the paramedics asked for his name, they said it was Eden. Eden Bellwether.

What do you think? Any of these pique your interest?

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Book Review: INTO THE DARKEST CORNER by Elizabeth Haynes

After I read this book, I wrote an email about it to my friend Lauren, who said I had to include what I wrote to her in my review. So let me start with that:

Stayed up ’til 5:30 to finish. [Mr. PCN] wasn’t feeling well and really needed sleep so I couldn’t read in bed with the lights on. Instead, I STOOD IN THE HALLWAY to read. Why didn’t I go to the living room? Because I thought I’d just read a little and then go to sleep. I didn’t even sit down or lean against the wall. I really wanted to be as uncomfortable as possible to tire myself out so I’d go to bed. But I kept reading, and reading, and next thing I knew, I’d been standing in the hallway for three hours.

That might sound insane, but I love it when a book makes me do that. This is the story of twentysomething Catherine Bailey, who meets super-hot guy Lee Brightman at a nightclub. There’s a spark of attraction, which quickly grows into a relationship, then devolves into a nightmarish, obsessive situation.

The novel begins with Brightman on trial in 2005 for an attack on Catherine, though he spins it as something else. Cut to 2007, and Catherine, now Cathy, has turned into a hermit living in a different city, with PTSD and an extreme case of OCD that makes her repeatedly check the locks on her doors and windows. It’s exhausting, but at least she’s a survivor rebuilding her life. And then she gets a phone call saying Lee is being released from prison.

Cathy is certain Lee will come for her, but has a hard time convincing others of that, including the kind upstairs neighbor who might be developing an interest in her. She starts feeling gaslighted, as little things in her apartment are moved around, something Lee used to do, but nothing she can call the cops about. Would she have to confront him herself, and would she survive this time?

Haynes cuts back and forth between 2003, when the two lovers first meet, and 2007, when Cathy is a shadow of her former self. Each time period plays with our emotions differently. It’s nice to see Catherine and Lee in happier times, when they were passionate and romantic. But as the story gets closer to the date of when The Terrible Thing happened, I was filled with dread, not wanting to witness it.

In 2007, Cathy’s OCD is sometimes painful to read about, but Haynes helps us understand the reasons behind her protag’s compulsions. And her growing friendship with Stuart, the nice neighbor, gives the story a sense of hope. Until Lee gets out of prison, and the terror starts all over again.

The novel has its frustrations, such as how Catherine couldn’t find one person, not even among close friends, who would believe her when things with Lee start taking a dark turn (everyone’s dazzled by his surface charm), or how she makes it astoundingly easy for him to find her in 2007 (let’s just say her contact info is the opposite of unlisted). But there was no stopping my obsession with knowing how it’d all end. After finishing the book, standing in the hallway at 5:30 a.m., I let out a sigh of relief that I could breathe—and sleep—again.

Nerd verdict: Head straight to the Corner

Buy it now from Amazon| Buy it from an indie bookstore

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First Impressions 5.18.12

I had a hard time this week finding three really strong openers, even in the books I enjoyed. These were among the better ones (I haven’t read any of them).

Guilt by Degrees by Marcia Clark, Mulholland Books, available now

He listened as the car pulled out of the driveway. When the sound of the engine faded into the distance, Zack looked at his watch: 9:36 a.m. Perfect. Three solid hours of “me” time. He eagerly trotted down the thinly carpeted stairs to the basement, the heavy thud of his work boots echoing through the empty house. Clutched in his hand was the magazine photograph of the canopy he intended to make. It would probably cost a small fortune at one of those fancy designer stores, but the copy he’d make would be just as good, if not better—and for less than a tenth of the price. A smile curled on Zack’s lips as he enjoyed the mental image of Lilah’s naked body framed by gauzy curtains hanging from the canopy, wafting seductively around the bed. He inhaled, imagining her perfume as he savored the fantasy.

Dead Scared by S.J. Bolton, Minotaur, out June 5

Prologue

Tuesday 22 January (a few minutes before midnight)

When a large object falls from a great height, the speed at which it travels accelerates until the upward force of air resistance becomes equal to the downward propulsion of gravity. At that point, whatever is falling reaches what is known as terminal velocity, a constant speed that will be maintained until it encounters a more powerful force, most commonly the ground.

Suzy’s Case by Andy Siegel, Scribner, out July 10

Little Suzy is lying in a Brooklyn hospital bed fevered and weakened. If her temperature were heating a pot you’d hear the high-pitched tone of a whistling teakettle. That’s why her six-year-old frame is on top of the dingy white sheets and not under them.

If her lungs were a train engine you’d hear puff, puff…chug, chug with the internal dialogue of her autonomic nervous system repeating, I think I can…I think I can.

Any of these grab you? Can the Suzy’s Case cover BE any creepier? It makes my skin crawl, but it’s also rather clever. In a creepy way.

Happy Friday!

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Book Review: OVERSEAS by Beatriz Williams

After four disappointing crime fic novels in a row, I decided I needed a change of pace, and was happy to fall into Overseas, an engrossing fairy tale by debut author Beatriz Williams.

Twenty-five-year-old investment banker Kate meets billionaire hedge fund manager Julian Laurence when he attends a meeting where she works on Wall Street. The two have an instant connection and embark on a tenuous friendship, but he suddenly disappears from her life, saying it’s not appropriate for them to continue. He surfaces several months later, and soon Julian and Kate are inseparable, deeply in love.

But Julian becomes overprotective, hinting at a danger that threatens their happiness. As the darkness approaches, Kate realizes she’ll have to take extreme measures to save his life, if not her own.

This novel is a time-traveling fantasy, with a prince doing dashing things for his princess. Julian is a powerful billionaire, a gentleman, poet, and hero, so he can pretty much give Kate anything: his heart, devotion, jewelry, use of a private jet, etc. It’s all very seductive, though Kate keeps saying she doesn’t want the material things. She won’t take his money, doesn’t want to be a kept woman, is determined to make her own way in the world, etc.

The problem is, after a major career setback at the beginning of the book, she doesn’t do anything toward that goal. She frets about not “paying my own way,” but she never even looks for a job. She becomes a damsel who’s entirely reliant on her man for most of the story.

It seems that Julian, when he meets her at different moments in time, is always immediately drawn to her simply because she’s beautiful and “not like other women.” As Kate points out, “You came out of the blue, my missing half. In love with me.” She also says, “And now I suddenly have this perfect life, and I didn’t have to do anything. I didn’t earn you.”

And that’s how I felt, too—the relationship wasn’t earned. Sure, attraction can happen instantaneously, but true love takes time and requires both people to know the complexities and depths of the other. Kate asks Julian, “I’m nice enough, aren’t I?” and the answer is yes, but to have this larger-than-life man be instantly, completely smitten with her—“over time” and “over distance,” as the cover says—her niceness and good looks don’t seem enough. She should match him in magnificence.

Julian’s vocal fervor toward Kate, while swoon-inducing at first, was too much for me, but I don’t read romance (though I loved Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife). He constantly tells her how utterly devoted he is to her, how he’d be “a mere soulless husk of a chap” without her. After many, many declarations like that, they started to lose their value as I became immune to them. When language contains that much ardor—and I did enjoy the old-fashioned way Julian talks—a little goes a long way. (In fiction, anyway; in real life, express your love freely!)

These issues aside, I liked the book quite a bit, and stayed up until four a.m. three nights in a row to finish it. Williams’s prose flows easily and she keeps the action moving forward. Overseas transported me to a glamorous life in New York City, a northern French town during World War I, and…well, another dreamy place at the end of the novel. It’s escapist and romantic and grand and that is nice enough.

Nerd verdict: Appealing Overseas

Buy it now from Amazon| Buy it from an indie bookstore

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First Impressions 5.11.12

Time for another sampling of opening passages from the books in my TBR pile, a regular Friday feature here at PCN. As some of you know, I go straight to the first page of the ARCs I receive before reading any accompanying press materials because the book itself needs to draw me in. If it’s a long description of weather or scenery, I’m usually done with it before I even start.

Here are this week’s openers for your perusal:

Heart of a Killer by David Rosenfelt, Minotaur, out now

Prologue

Detective John Novack knew something was wrong even before he stepped in the blood. Though he was a fourteen-year veteran of the force, in this instance his sense of foreboding did not come from an instinct finely honed by experience, nor was it a result of piecing clues together. The voice on the 911 call, as played back to him while he drove to the scene, had said it all.

“I killed Charlie Harrison.”

The Little Red Guard by Wenguang Huang, Riverhead, out now

At the age of nine, I slept next to a coffin that Father had made for Grandma’s seventy-third birthday. He forbade us from calling it a “coffin” and insisted that we refer to it as shou mu, which means something like “longevity wood.” To me, it seemed a strange name for the box in which we’d bury Grandma, but it served a practical purpose. It was less spooky to share my room with a “longevity wood” than with a big black coffin.

The 500 by Matthew Quirk, Reagan Arthur Books, out June 5

Prologue

Miroslav and Aleksandar filled the front seats of the Range Rover across the street. They wore their customary diplomatic uniforms—dark Brionis tailored close—but the two Serbs looked angrier than usual. Aleksandar lifted his right hand high enough to flash me a glint of his Sig Sauer. A master of subtlety, that Alex. I wasn’t particularly worried about the two bruisers sitting up front, however. The worst thing they could do was kill me, and right now that looked like one of my better options.

Which one(s) struck your fancy? Where do you think these books go from here?

Happy Friday and happy reading!

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Book Review: BLACKBIRDS by Chuck Wendig

This originally ran in Shelf Awareness for Readers, and is republished here with permission.

Miriam Black, the protagonist of Blackbirds, has the Dead Zone-ish ability to see a person’s future when she touches him or her, but Chuck Wendig takes it one step further by having her foresee only how and when the person dies. She becomes a grifter, paying visits to people she knows will kick the bucket and then taking their money so she can pay for food and shelter until her next target dies. Things get complicated when she runs into Ashley, a punk who wants in on her game, and meets Louis, a kindhearted truck driver whom she sees murdered in the near future while he utters her name. Does she somehow bring about his murder? And how can she stop it when the last time she tried preventing one of her visions, she ended up causing the death?

Wendig’s dark and twisty adventure is filled with misfit characters who defy easy stereotypes. Miriam is self-destructive, but she’s doing the best she can to survive the difficult hand life has dealt her. Louis, big as Frankenstein, shows Miriam more sweetness than she’s ever experienced. Stone-cold killer Harriet has a scene that makes readers understand her first kill; her story is even funny the first time it’s told.

Wendig inserts surprising moments of humanity among all the profanity. There’s a tale of a little boy and his balloon that should crack readers’ hearts. And despite fate being hell-bent on keeping her down, Miriam’s stubborn struggle to change it makes Blackbirds take flight.

Nerd verdict: Black, twisty tale with as much humanity as profanity

Buy it now from Amazon| Buy from an indie bookstore

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First Impressions 5.4.12

May the Fourth be with you! You know I had to get that out of the way.

Now, for this week’s First Impressions, let’s add something new. After reading the following opening passages, leave a comment saying which ones would compel you to read more, but also guess where you think the stories are headed. I love seeing people’s different interpretations, and how we pick up on different details. I don’t have any idea what the real plots are because I’ve read only these openers, so we’re all in this game together.

Here goes:

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, Hyperion, out May 15

I AM A COWARD.

I wanted to be heroic and I pretended I was. I have always been good at pretending. I spent the first twelve years of my life playing at the Battle of Stirling Bridge with my five big brothers—and even though I am a girl they let me be William Wallace, who is supposed to be one of our ancestors, because I did the most rousing battle speeches. God, I tried hard last week. My God, I tried. But now I know I am a coward. After the ridiculous deal I made with SS-Hauptsturmführer von Loewe, I know I am a coward. And I’m going to give you anything you ask, everything I can remember. Absolutely Every Last Detail.

The Demands by Mark Billingham, Mulholland Books, June 12

Chewing gum and chocolate, maybe a bottle of water on those hen’s teeth days when the sun was shining. A paper for the journey into work and half a minute of meaningless chat while she was waiting for her change.

Nothing there worth dying for.

Helen Weeks would tell herself much the same thing many times before it was over. In the hours spent staring at the small black hole from which death could emerge in less time than it took for her heart to beat. Or stop beating. In those slow-motion moments of terror that measured out each day and in the sleepless nights that followed. While the man who might kill her at any moment was shouting at himself just a few feet away, or crying in the next room.

It is not my time to die.

Or my baby’s time to lose his mother…

The Kings of Cool by Don Winslow, Simon & Schuster, June 19

[The numbers denote chapters.]

1.

Fuck me.

2. Laguna Beach, California

2005

Is what O is thinking as she sits between Chon and Ben on a bench at Main Beach and picks out potential mates for them.

“That one?” she asks, pointing at a classic BB (Basically Baywatch) strolling down the boardwalk.

Chon shakes his head.

A little dismissively, O thinks. Chon is pretty choosy for a guy who spends most of his time in Afghanistan or Iraq and doesn’t see much in the way of anything outside cammies or a burqa.

Actually, she can see how the burqa thing could be pretty hot if you played it right.

Did, you know, the harem thing.

Yeah, no.

OK, have at ’em!

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