Britt-Marie Was Here

Title: Britt-Marie Was Here
Author: Fredrik Backman
Published: May 3rd 2016 by Atria Books
Format: Hardcover, 324 pages
Genre: Fiction

Though you do not need to read Backman’s books in published order, if you had, you would remember Britt-Marie was first introduced in “My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry”.

Suddenly traversing the world on her own since she can no longer tolerate her husband coming home with perfume on his shirt, Britt-Marie moves out and suddenly finds herself in an unemployment office with no skill set other than cleaning with bicarbonate of soda and her very particular brand of window cleaner. The woman in the office is as tolerant as a person can be with the Britt-Marie who has a way of offering suggestions that come out as criticism, but that it not her intention. With daily pressuring, a job is secured and this is truly where Britt-Marie’s life begins.

Borg is a depressed roadside town that is mostly shut down due to the local trucking company going out of business leaving the few remaining, mostly those that cannot get out and orphaned children, to get by as best as they can. As the overseer of the recreation center, Britt-Marie sets out cleaning the place and even befriending a rat. It is football (soccer) that holds this town together. They each have their favorite teams and the children are determined to play in the local tournament even though they can only practice on an asphalt pitch and need car headlights to light their way.

It is the children that start to melt this nag-bag of a woman’s heart. Since she has never had her own, she eventually learns their names and life stories. She tries not to be shocked, but when their realities become her own, she finds an inner strength to fight for them in a way that no one ever fought for Britt-Marie. Borg is becoming her town, her people, and a place that finally feels like home.

Of course, as she becomes settled, her husband comes looking for her and since Britt-Marie only knows how to be a wife, she is emotionally drawn back into that role - but is that what she truly wants? The local policeman is also knocking on her door and hopes that one day she would knock on his, but what direction will she go as the town is rocked by death and the children need her more than they ever have before. With a repaired car and enough petrol to drive to Paris, where will she go, what will the new Britt-Marie do with her new found confidence and independence.

The middle part of this book is a bit clunky and meandering, but that is all made up for in the end. If it is possible to have a coming of mid-life age book, this is it. You can see Britt-Marie’s growth and you can see that she has found her purpose if only she continues to have enough courage in herself to be the person that she has always wanted to be.

A Bella Flora Christmas

Title: A Bella Flora Christmas
Author: Wendy Wax
Expected Publication: November 7th 2017 by InterMix
Format: Kindle
Genre: Holiday Fiction
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for an opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Series: Ten Beach Road #5.5

I cannot reiterate enough how much I dislike novellas. Rarely do they move a book forward and are only used as unnecessary fillers that rarely affect the overall outcome of the series. A Bella Flora Christmas is no different.

Wendy Wax spends half of the book explaining to her readers who each character is and their relationship to each other in addition to their personal relationships. If you have been reading since the beginning, you already know whom everyone is and how Bella Flora plays into their lives.

Kyra is the main character of this novella and you get to hear her incessant whining when it comes to the father of her son, his over the top wife and the threat that they are holding over her.

There is a possibility that this is a small lead into her next book, “Best Thing Ever” due to release the end of May (2018) since the reader was never told the full outcome of the two things that were keeping Kyra up at night. Granted, one was partially decided, but the full consequence of events with the Deranian’s could fill a book all on their own. And what is going to happen over the next year with Bella Flora? That could be entertaining as well since the women tend to confuse situations more than they solve their own problems.

A Fatal Collection

Title: A Fatal Collection
Author: Mary Ellen Hughes
Expected Publication: November 8th 2017 by Midnight Ink
Format: eBook, Paperback: 264 pages
Genre: Cozy Mysteries
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for an opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Series: A Keepsake Cove Mystery #1

A Fatal Collection is the first book in the new Keepsake Cove Mystery series. Taking its lead from Lorna Barrett’s Booktown series, Keepsake Cove, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore is the home to small specialty shops, with descriptive names, that cater to tourists looking to add to their hobbies and collections.

Callie Reed has returned to Keepsake Cove, which is a little town within a town, and her Aunt Melodie’s “House of Melody” music box store to take a breather from her relationship with Hank and to figure out what she wants and to come to terms with the fact that their relationship is just is not working out. When Melodie is found dead in the shop the next morning, no one is more surprised than Callie to find out that she is the sole beneficiary of both the home and shop.

From all outward appearances, her aunt suffered from a simple accident, but what does not make sense was why she there in the middle of the night. What had also been kept from Callie was that Melodie was fighting with her business neighbor. Karl Eggars wanted the music box shop, so he could expand his business for his nephew but Melodie would not sell. Was this accident, no accident at all?

There appears to be a couple of strange goings on in Keepsake Cove and with the business owners up in arms over the association treasurer having such an expensive and elaborate lifestyle, there is a very public outcry for an independent audit to see if he is stealing from them. Between the infighting and Melodie’s death hanging over them, everyone seems to be a bit out of sorts.

Between shop assistant Tabitha and her costume of the day, psychic abilities, tarot cards and Grandpa Reed’s music box going off at odd times, Callie is in for an adventure when she stumbles across the reason why Melodie was in the shop at 3am, not to mention what secrets a shop patron holds, and a surprise or two that Melodie herself, may have had.

There is a great deal thrown into this first book and quite a few names and business to get to know. Hopefully, the second book will calm down a bit and readers can take their time strolling through Keepsake Cove with their “brick walkways, ornamental street lights, hanging flower baskets, and Dickensian shop front” and slowly get to know the people and place that their clientele have come to love.

The Vineyard Victims

Title: The Vineyard Victims
Author: Ellen Crosby
Expected Publication: November 7th 2017 by Minotaur Books
Format: eBook, Hardcover, 335 pages
Genre: Mystery
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for an opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Series: Wine Country Mysteries #8

After the sixth book in this series, The Sauvignon Secret, Ellen Crosby took a break from her Wine Country series and I missed them. When she returned five years later with The Champagne Conspiracy, I was delighted but apprehensive since I was not sure if she would be able to return to her characters the way that she had left them. I was not disappointed and now with book eight, I am once again glad to return to Montgomery Estate Vineyards.

Failed presidential candidate Jamison Vaughn sails his car past Lucie on a rain slicked road outside of Montgomery Vineyards and plunges headlong into the stone pillars. Many believe that it was an accident but Lucie was there and knows that it was a deliberate act. No one wants to say the word suicide, but what would cause a man, with so much to live for, to end his life in such a brutal way.

These stone pillars have a history with Lucie, it is in this same location, ten years prior, where she was in a horrendous accident that has left her disabled and people are sure that she is confusing her accident with what she saw. No, she is sure of what she knows and being the last person to see Vaughn alive and hearing his last words, she is determined to find out whom “Rick” is and why he needs to forgive Vaughn.

Suddenly walls have gone up and the Vaughn family is shutting Lucie out. They will handle the press and since her ex-lover Mick Dunne, who has held long ties to the Vaughn’s, dismisses her at every turn, Lucie with no option other than to strikes out on her own to find answers. The Vaughn family is happy with their “accident” explanation and would like for this whole messy affair to go away, but it appears that Jamie was meeting with a reporter and was about to go public with a long held secret.

Trying to buy Lucie off only seems to get her in deeper and when college cover-ups are revealed, and the truth of whom “Rick” is, leaves a wake of devastation that will send a members of their small community to prison and set an innocent man free.

Ellen Crosby weaves a twisty tale that spans decades, but in the end, loyalties are tested and those that have been hiding a ghastly act have their truth revealed. I cannot say that it was obvious from the start, but by the end, there could have been only one mastermind that could hold it all together and keep Lucie from the truth.