The Wake Up by Catherin Ryan Hyde

The Wake Up is a bit of a slow burn of a novel that sucks you in by then end. We first meet Aiden Delacorte as he is getting ready to meet his girlfriend’s kids for the first time. While Gwen’s daughter and Aiden seem to hit it off well, things do go so smoothly with her son, Milo. Withdrawn, barely eating, and with a propensity to hurting animals, Milo is clearly a damaged child, and not very likeable. Aiden has to grapple with whether he can forgive the boy for some things he has done, and come to terms with the terrible things that Milo endured. While any novel involving child abuse is a difficult read, there is a fundamental question in the novel that intrigued me – we can forgive a child’s bad behavior when we know it is a result of unspeakable things that were done to them, but when that child grows up and repeats those unspeakable things we are usually not as forgiving.

As a side plot, Aiden had something that he refers to as his "wake up." After being shut off to all emotion after his mother left his father when he was a young boy, he one day starts to feel all of the emotions of his animals. The deer he shoots, the cows he raises, the rabbits about to be turned into dinner by his neighbors, etc. This makes him have to re-evaluate his life and his work. This semi-magical plot aspect was a little weird, but as someone who doesn't believe in magic but fully believes in fairies that take my stuff and hide it from me, I guess a little bit of the whimsical is okay every now and then.

Artemis by Andy Weir

It’s hard for any writer to follow up a major success, and Book #2 usually doesn’t turn out as well as Book #1. So it was no surprise that Artemis, by Andy Weir, was a bit of a disappointment, but what was surprising was how much of a disappointment it was. Set on the first and only colony on the moon in the not-too-distant future, Weir did create a compelling world where rich tourists come for a once and a lifetime experience in 1/6th gravity (Disney in Space!), but the plot and character development was heavily bogged down. Jazz is a young porter who has spent most of her life on the colony and probably can’t go back to Earth without getting very sick. She’s messed up every opportunity for a good living that has come her way, including trashing her father’s welding business and failing her EVA exam. Life on the Moon is expensive though, so when a lucrative but illegal business proposition comes her way that involves a lot of dangerous stuff, she jumps right in, and of course, bad things then happen.

In an attempt to re-create The Martian’s strengths (fast-pacing, quirky narration, using SCIENCE to solve problems, and an easy adaptation to the big-screen), we are left with a non-stop run of drama and physics/chemistry 101 with a twenty-something female narrator who thinks and talks exactly like a fifteen-year-old boy. Perhaps Weir wanted to challenge himself as a writer by taking on a female narrator, but it was so off-putting at times. She seems like a sci-fi fantasy projection: beautiful with a gorgeous body, tough-talking, will have sex with almost anyone apparently, and of course, is a genius. Oh, but she does cry in the corner on several occasions, just to remind you that she’s a woman. Hope they make her more realistic in the inevitable movie.

A Tangled Mercy by Joy Jordan-Lake

A Tangled Mercy tells the dual tales of present day Kate, who is having somewhat of a breakdown after the death of her mother, and Tom Russell, a slave in Charleston in 1822 who gets swept up in a revolt. Joy Jordan-Lake expertly weaves these disparate timelines together, which are each compelling in their own right. Kate returns to Charleston from her PhD work in the Northeast to pick at the threads of her mother’s mysterious life, pushing to find the answers that have eluded her for so long. Tom wants to keep his head down and manage as best as he can, given the circumstances, but has to watch as his love is raped by her owner and live with the uncertainty that their expecting child may or may not be his. It’s hard to reveal much more without giving away some of the interesting interconnections and plot twists, but the title “tangled” really does explain it well.

The Copenhagen Affair by Amulya Malladi

After a lifetime working in the corporate world as an overlooked minority woman, when Sanya finally gets the promotion she deserves, she loses it. Completely. First she can’t stop laughing, then crying, then she says nothing at all, hiding out in her bed for almost a year. Her husband, Harry, has a business opportunity in Copenhagen, but is also looking for a way to bring his formally cheerful and productive wife back, and he convinces Sanya to go with him. The new setting and different kinds of people she meets slowly bring Sanya out of her shell, but in an I-don’t-give-a-f$$k kind of way. The results are hilarious. As she mingles with Danish high society, she tells them what she thinks, and/or refuses to play their games, and you’ll want to take a bit of her spirit with you at the end. 

The rest of the plot includes some shady business dealings, propositions between married people, and a tall, dark and handsome stranger who seems to be the only one who understands what Sanya is going through. Harry, meanwhile, sees his marriage falling apart, and fights to bring Sanya back not just from depression but to their marriage. All in all a highly entertaining read, and worth it alone for setting. Come for the scenery and stay for the story.

The Trick by Emanuel Bergmann

The Trick alternates between pre-WWII Europe and present day LA. In the earlier narrative, Moshe runs away from his abusive father, the Rabbi Laibl, to join the circus and become a mentalist/magician. In the present story, eleven-year-old Max is searching for a magician to cast an eternal love spell on his parents, who are divorcing. He ends up finding Moshe, or The Great Zabbatini, at the end his life, and tries to enlist his help in keeping his family together. Moshe is reluctant initially, but then realizes how nice it is to feel needed, and that helping the boy might also help himself.

The earlier timeline is compelling, with Moshe's circus experience and love-of-his-life story set against the lead up to the war. This would make a great book in its own right. The later timeline is funny, with Max and Moshe's hi-jinks providing some laugh-out-loud moments. Moshe has now become an alter cocker, or old fart, and is grumpy and hysterical at the same time. He even turns out to have a special connection with Max and his family, though not the one you might think at first. As a whole, this book is definitely a worthy read.

When We Were Worthy by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen

In When We Were Worthy, the small town of Worthy, Georgia, is turned upside down when three cheerleaders die in a car accident. The town turns against the boy who hit them and his mom Darcy, and questions surround the location of a fourth girl, Leah, who should have been in the car with them. Marglyn, whose daughter was killed, is wracked by grief and regret. Then there’s Ava, who recently moved to town with her husband who grew up there, but is having trouble fitting in, and formed an inappropriate relationship with one of her high school students. The narrative alternates between the four women, with intersections, accusations, and eventually resolutions between them all.

I liked Marybeth Mayhew Whalen’s previous novel, The Things We Wish We True, which was also set in a small town and also told from multiple points of view, and I liked this one as well. She has a great knack of capturing the feel of a small town, whether it’s the positive way that everyone connects and helps each other, or the negative ways that people judge and ostracize each other. The multiple narrative trick can be a bit tough to follow at times though, and I’d love to see what she can do with only one narrator at some point. 

Working Fire by Emily Bleeker

Working Fire starts off with every EMTs worst nightmare: running a call on your own family member. Ellie’s dropped out of med school and moved back to her hometown to help her sister, Amelia, take care of their dad, who’s had a stroke. Even though Broadlands is the last place she wants to be, things seem to be going alright for Ellie – she likes working as a medic and just got engaged to her boyfriend. Then there’s a shootout, and both her sister and her brother-in-law have been hit. Ellie is first on scene, and the prime suspect is none other than Amelia’s high school boyfriend, who just happens to be her fiancee’s brother. Such is life in a small town.

Told in alternating timelines, Emily Bleeker works the case forward and also show glimpses of the past couple of months and what (might have) led to the shooting. While it seems hard to find a domestic suspense novel that’s told start to finish these days, it does work well in this scenario once you get past the first few chapters. Bleeker gets your adrenaline pumping with the first response scenes, but then lets you catch a breath and go back to the family’s mostly jovial domestic life. It’s a little disconcerting at first, but eventually the timelines meld and the pace picks up continuously. A solid effort and worthy read.