207 Book Talk

  Sarah Ellsworth is a mother of two teenage sons, one away at college and the other, Finn, still in high school. One night she and her husband Martin receive a frantic, disjointed call from Finn. They aren't sure what is wrong, but they know their son needs help. When they find him sick and disoriented in the woods, they also find the body of his girlfriend, who has injuries that make it look like she has been attacked. Sarah wants to do the right thing and call the police, but her husband, a member of one of the most prominent families in tow, has other ideas. He convinces Sarah to leave the body where it is and get their son home. He and his high-powered family have experience covering up incidents that might put them in a bad light, and the death of a teenage girl, perhaps at the hands of their son and grandson, is no different. Sarah goes along with the ruse, but is unhappy about it and becomes increasingly concerned about what exactly the Ellsworth's are covering up this ...

The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James introduces us to Carly, a college student who has recently lost her mother. She leaves college and heads to New York to look into a family mystery that she was never allowed to ask about growing up. Her mother's sister Viv Delaney disappeared from her job as the night clerk at the Sun Down Motel in 1982.  Shortly after arriving, things fall in to place for Carly to stay in Fell for longer than just a few days, perhaps long enough to solve her aunt's disappearance. She stumbles across Heather, another twenty-something looking for a roommate when she goes to see the apartment her aunt was living in when she vanished. When they go to see The Sun Down Motel for the first time, Heather notices a help wanted sign. The motel is looking fora night clerk, and Carly finds herself working the same job her aunt used to have. The motel hasn't changed much, if at all, since 1982. As Carly works to learn more about her aunt, strange things are happe...

I discovered author Rachel Lynn Solomon when voting for the 2020 Goodreads Choice Awards. Her novel  Today Tonight Tomorrow   was a nominee for Young Adult Fiction. I read it and loved it, and was pleased to see she had an adult romance coming out this year called  The Ex Talk .  I ordered it a signed copy from Seattle bookstore Third Place Books , and got right to it when it arrived. The Ex Talk  introduces us to Shay Goldstein, 29, single, and in love with public radio. She works as a producer for a local Seattle station, and is not impressed with recent Northwestern grad, new hire, and rising star Dominic Yun. Of course, being a romance novel, the two are paired up to host a new show. The problem with this relationship show, The Ex Talk, is the premise that Shay and Dom are exes, when they have never dated and barely know each other. Neither is comfortable with the lie they will be telling listeners, but both are eager to have the opportunity.  As the bo...

I found  Last Day  by Luanne Rice on Kindle Unlimited. I had never heard of the author, but the premise of the book sounded interesting so I borrowed it. I would encourage anyone that decides to read this murder mystery to also borrow it from somewhere, instead of buying it. It is not a keeper, in my opinion. Last Day  follows Kate and Conor as they try to solve the murder of Kate's younger sister, Beth. Conor is a police detective who also happens to have been the first officer on the scene many years before when teenagers Kate and Beth were found tied up in the basement of their family art gallery with their dead mother, Helen.  Beth is found bludgeoned and strangled in her bed by Kate and two local officers she called for help when her sister didn't pick up numerous phone calls over the course of several days. Beth's daughter Sam was away at a summer camp in Maine, and her super sleazy husband Peter was conveniently on a guys only sailing trip at the time of Beth'...

  The 20th Victim  is the twentieth entry in James Patterson's Women's Murder Club series. Like any series with this many books to its name, the storylines are never as good 15 or 20 books in as they were at the beginning, but this one felt closer to those earlier entries than other recent titles have. This time around Lindsay and Cindy are caught up in trying to solve a cross country killing spree aimed at taking down drug dealers. Cindy has been contacted by the killer, or one of the killers, directly and in her drive for the scoop she and Lindsay get into a disagreement over sharing details of the crimes sooner rather than later. Yuki is also dealing with a drug related crime and wondering whether its right to charge a teenager wheelman for the crimes committed by his passenger. Claire is dealing with some scary health issues, and is not an active participant in solving crimes as she was in past storylines. As with many of the stories in the Women's Murder Club series, t...

I read  One True Loves  by Taylor Jenkins Reid because she had written one of my favorite books of 2020,  Daisy Jones and the Six . I didn't realize it at first, but she also authored one of the best audiobooks I have ever listened to, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo .  If I did not know the same person had written all three, I never would have guessed. The storylines are incredibly different, but her writing is superb in all of them. One True Loves  opens with teenage Emma Blair questioning her relationships, with her sister, her parents, with books, with her big butt. She is surprised to discover it is possible for her to have a wicked crush when she sees Jesse Lerner for the first time during her freshman year of high school. They don't end up together then, but by senior year they are a couple, and move across the country together to live the life they've both felt unable to live in Massachusetts. Their love is real and true and all-encompassing, and come...

Would you go back in time, and face whatever potential consequences there might be for that choice, if you could erase a mistake or eliminate a painful memory? That is a central question of Recursion  by Blake Crouch .  I am a huge fan of this author, and I was excited to realize he had written another book since Dark Matter  (which I loved), and that it fit prompts for both the PopSugar and Around the Year in 52 books challenges for 2021.  I found the premise of this book super interesting at first, but then I really struggled to stay engaged when the focus first shifted from Barry to Helena, and I found throughout the story that I enjoyed the portions told from Barry's point of view much more than those told by Helena.  Basically (and this story is NOT basic... brace yourself for lots of neuroscience), NYPD Detective Barry Sutton goes to a call for a woman sitting on the ledge of a tall building in NYC. She is suffering from False Memory Syndrome, a known but ...