Pumpkin Pied

Title: Pumpkin Pied
Author: Karen MacInerney
Published: September 30th 2015
Format: ebook; Kindle Edition, Pgs 29
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Series: A Gray Whale Inn Short Story

A short story that adds the perfect feel for the beginning of the fall season.

Usually I complain about half books, but since this is not technically in that category, I can just go with the flow of starting a simple short story to kick-start the autumn season. Pumpkin Pied is not intended to move the series forward or to fill in any story gaps. It is just a quick snippet to settle into with a cup of coffee and a throw blanket.

It is fall festival time on Cranberry Island and with no guests at the Gray Whale Inn Natalie Barnes is free to participate in the island’s activities this year. Unfortunately, there is some shenanigans going on with the giant pumpkin competition, stories of a local ghost and now someone has splashed the corn maze with blood and has left a pig’s heart in full view. Then things take an awful turn when there is a fire and the old feelings of the land being cursed arise again.

To top it off, the field where the activities are held belongs to a home that will soon be placed on the market and the community of Cranberry Island may soon lose this gem and the festival that goes with it. That is unless a way can be found around the sale of the property to an outsider.

As Natalie said, “Who knew that harvest festivals could be so full of drama”.

The Truth According to Us

Title: The Truth According to Us
Author: Annie Barrows
Published: June 9th 2015 by Random House
Format: ebook; Hardcover, 486 pages
Genre: Fiction
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for an opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.

You might have second thoughts as you begin, but I recommend that you stick with this long and meandering book. The characters take on a life of their own the deeper you delve in and when their story is over, you will miss them deeply.

Taking place in the remote mill town of Macedonia, West Virginia during the late 1930’s, the reader is introduced to the Romeyn family. Told mostly through the eyes of young Willa and her aunt Jottie Romeyn, you see a family that loves deeply but yet there is tragedy that they must face.

What brings it all to the forefront is Layla Beck, the daughter of a U.S. Senator who has been banished from her family when she turned down a marriage proposal that her father thought was ideal for her. Layla had other ideas and now has to face the cold cruel world without her family’s money or influence.

During the depression, the Federal Writers’ Project created jobs that would help bring the realities of the time to the rest of America. Layla, now ensconced in the Romeyn’s home is to write the town’s history for their upcoming sesquicentennial.

Sparks fly when Layla moves into the Romeyns’ home, she sees first-hand this town’s many eccentricities and has to carefully balance each story’s truth. Having to battle both its people and her own family back home, Layla is determined to succeed. With her digging, old wounds are revealed and both Jottie and Willa will be the ones that suffer the most.

Like most families, there are secrets and tragedies. Felix Romeyn, the single father of Willa and Bird, is a gone a lot, though that does not mean that he cannot manipulate from afar. He loves his daughters, and they love him desperately, but there is more to his story.

Twelve-year-old Willa Romeyn, with her feisty spirit and indomitable curiosity, is very reminiscent of Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird. She loves her life, but when the realities can no longer be ignored, she must fight with everything she has to keep her family together. This will have a lasting effect and to see her spark of ferocity and devotion leave her will bring the reader to tears.

Jottie Romeyn is Felix’s sister. Eighteen years ago, she lost the love of her life and since that time, she has shut herself off. Her whole world now revolves around taking care of her nieces. When the past is finally exposed, decisions have to be made. Can she forgive? Does she have a choice? If there is a choice, will she make it?

The time and the place of this book is as much a character as any one living human being. Each person had a role to play and it is up to each character to perform their assigned part or to break from their character and live another life that was being offered. Not everyone is that strong. Not everyone is able to give up their comfort and challenge the future. When it comes to family, can you separate loyalty and the truth? Sometimes you have to make you own truth and make the best of what is left.

A Serpent's Tooth

Title: A Serpent's Tooth
Author: Craig Johnson
Published: June 4th 2013 by Viking
Format: Hardcover, 335 pages
Genre: Police Procedural
Series: Walt Longmire #9

Granted, from time to time Craig Johnson takes a windy route to tell a story and A Serpent’s Tooth is no different. What begins with a Mormon “lost boy” arriving in Absaroka County looking for his mother ends with an illegal oilrig going up in flames and bullets and knives flying.

You also have to throw in a man that claims to be a 200-years-old that has quite a unique story and who seems to show up at the most interesting moments. All the while, Walt and his regulars are dealing with a polygamous compound that is hiding secrets and a few bodies. Oh, but we are not done yet – it appears that the CIA is involved because someone in this ragtag group was once an agent who seems, as a defense mechanism, to have forgotten who he really is. Confused yet?

You can just feel the author’s mind turning as he is trying to meld the different parts of this story. Bring in a “lost boy”, add a little conspiracy, a dash of frontier justice, a smattering of backward thinking, a whole mess of cover-up, then spice it up with attitude and just as you think it is finished, throw in a twist that brings Walt Longmire to his knees.

I enjoy the books so much more than the television series. When it comes to a Walt Longmire book, there are multiple layers. The people, the places, the situations and most importantly the humor that gets the sheriffs of Absaroka County through the most harrowing of situations. I once read that Craig Johnson has more book ideas then time, so I know that I will be inglook forward to whatever it is that he has planned for this group.

A Place We Knew Well

Title: A Place We Knew Well
Author: Susan Carol McCarthy
Expected Publication: September 29th 2015
Format: ebook; Hardcover, 272 pages
Genre: Fiction
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group - Bantam Dell for an opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.

Intense and poignant, melding fact and fiction, leaving the reader with an ache and a tremendous feeling of loss. Sarah Avery’s life did not work out the way that she had planned. She was going to study opera and have a life. She had grace and the voice of Lauren Bacall. That all changed when her sister Kitty became pregnant, Sarah had to forget her dreams. As their mother said, someone had to become the sacrificial lamb. Sarah is now married to Wes Avery, a Georgia farm boy who after returning from the war owns a gas station in Orlando, not too far from the McCoy Air Force Base.

The old anxiety and depressive fears are returning to Sarah. A Place We Knew Well is taking place during the Thirteen Days in October when the Cuban Missile Crisis is looming heavy over the nation. Sarah is already fragile with the impending doom and alcohol and Nembutal are no longer taking the edge off.

As the missile crisis is gearing up and ¬¬Kitty reentered their lives, though they had been told that she had died years before, the Avery family is spinning out of control. There is one part of their daughter Charlotte’s life that has been kept a family secret and that is about to be revealed. The Avery family cannot withstand any more devastation but that seems to be where they are headed. The older seventeen-year-old Charlotte gets the more independent she is, the more potential for disaster Sarah sees and she cannot allow this to happen.

As Wes tries to keep a firm grip on his family, he sees that everything is slowly running through his fingers. As he goes through the normal motions of everyday life, he knows that nothing will ever be the same. Feeling hollow and helpless against the slow steady drip of rising dread, Wes takes on each new disaster until there is no more strength within him. He realizes that he can no longer help his wife and if he does not make the right choices, he too will lose his daughter Charlotte.

This is a sad book, a book that is surrounded by the death of hope. Sarah has to grieve the death of a dream. Wes has to mourn the simple sweet life that they had – how could he have not seen what was coming? Charlotte, the one innocent in this whole story, has to mourn the mother that she loves but at the same time, never knew. Each having to face what hurts more, the truth or the lie.

How do you grieve a dream? The person that you thought you were, the life you thought you had. Try to figure out where you came up with the idea that you could dream, plan, buy, or will into existence a life without suffering. The answer – in any way you must.

For Charlotte and Wes, the world was saved but their family was lost. As I said, this is a sad and heartbreaking book.