Night Road

Night Road  by Kristin Hannah

When you think about twins, you think about the bond that exists between them. Sometimes their secret language, sometimes their ESP with each other, and sometimes their shared likes and dislikes. But did you ever think about what it would be like to be the mother of twins? Or what it might be like to lose one? Did you ever wonder how the surviving twin might feel? I know that I never did, fortunately Hannah did and has written a beautiful story about this.

The twins in the book, grow and fall in love with life, their friends and one friend in particular. Both of the twins fall in love with Alexa Bail, Lexi, in different ways. It is this loves that shapes the story and all of the characters in it. Lexi is Mia’s, one of the twins, bff and she is the girl that Zack, the other twin falls in love with, for better or worse.

The twin’s parents, Jude and Miles are pillars of the community, good strong and caring people. They are more than comfortable. The mother in this story is, by the author’s admission a helicopter parent. Yet the way the character is written is never odious .Lexi’s Aunt Eva, the woman who took her in and raised her, works at Walmart and lives in a rented trailer. She is not financially comfortable but she is strong with a tremendous moral compass. There is a tragedy one night involving all three children and the reaction by their relatives splits the book into two parts. Eva is a lady who knows family and what it means without all the trappings of success . She is able to function after the tragedy to try to protect her niece. Jude cannot function and falls into despair. Both lose a child in this tragedy, and both handle it very differently.

 I have never read grief described the way that Hannah writes about it. Jude’s grief and her struggle to overcome it and come back to her life are so poignant and so believable. I found myself both crying and lost with her. I literally felt the sense of gray that Hannah writes about and I found myself getting cold with her. The inability to function, to feel is part of the emotional roller coaster is handled skillfully. It never becomes maudlin and I never found myself annoyed with how the character was written.  Anyone who has lost a loved one will be able to relate to Jude on a very visceral level.

Equally interesting and well written is the story of Lexi after the incident. Hannah has written about a young girl and the choices that she made, honorable but disastrous for her. The story of her and Zack is so well written that I can’t say enough good things about it. Zach’s reaction to everything is not what you would expect. Anyone who has ever fallen in love deeply will appreciate their story.

This book held my interest from the moment I picked it up. I could not put it down. Hannah has written a beautiful story that explores so many themes and she does it brilliantly. I did not want this story to end; of course I know that it had to but I kept wondering what Hannah would do with the characters if she had gone a little further in the story.

The Dangerous Edge of Things

The Dangerous Edge of Things by Tina Whittle

Wow, another strong female crime character!! There is more mystery than meets the eye in this book. First off we have a dead body in the opening scene and the fun begins. Tai Randolph has just inherited a gun shop in Alabama form her dead redneck uncle. Her brother is a mysterious character involver with a high end security firm called Phoenix. Her partner in this book turns out to be Phoenix employee who is an ex-cop with serious neurological issues. His name is Trey Severs and he is one dangerous and loyal character. There are plenty of other characters to like and dislike in this book. Garrity, Trey’s old partner is one to like. Landon and Marissa and the Senator and his wife inspire more dislike than like although at times the line between the two is extremely fine.

While trying to figure out why someone ends up dead in front of her brother’s quiet house, Tai soon finds herself in over her head. This is Atlanta after all full of ghosts both old and new. Tai’s occupation, before the gun shop, seems to have been that of as tourist guide. She will use that information and other friends to help her get to the bottom of this. She believes that her brother Eric is somehow involved in the actual murder, she is wrong !

Tai solves the murder with the help of Trey and along the way questions her feelings for him. The two of them start out on a bad footing but the soon they are trusting each other, him more than her. They need to trust each other because a wild ride starts that leads to the solution.

The plot is well developed and believable. Overall a good murder mystery that will hold your interest from start to finish.

A New Steel Magnolia

 Georgia Bottoms  a novel by Mark Childress

Warning this contains a spoiler

This is a warm, wonderful read. The characters are so well written that I felt that all of them were people that I knew all of my life. Georgia, her mother and brother made me laugh out loud. Brother is a piece of work and we all have someone, or know of one like him in our lives. Childress makes him likeable when in real life he may nothing more than a problem to deal with. All of the characters in the book are developed beautifully, even the one that you may not like is well written.

Georgia’s mom, Little Mama, is a woman who I fell in love with. She reminded me of my own mother especially as she was getting older, more forgetful and at time downright hilarious.

The story is set in Six Points Alabama, or it could be any small town where people stay and make a life. There are many secrets in this book and Childress lets us discover them all. The town’s secrets and Georgia’s secretes. Of course secrets never stay hidden. They always come out in the end and give the story spice. The best secrete in the book are of course Georgia’s. She keeps her own and half the town’s secrets, and does so in a way makes for a good read. Her main source of income is “entertaining” gentlemen in the back part of her house. For the life of me, I don’t know how she hid it for so long from her mother and brother and all of her friends, but she does. She claims to be sewing quilts, but no-one can do that much sewing! As in real life one half truths, or one outright lie, always begat’s another and that is true here also. Childress handles these beautifully. I got caught up with them as well as Georgia did ! I loved it all !

Georgia makes choices in the book, some good and some bad, as we all do. Childress ties her llife and choices in with 9/11 and with Katrina. This works because it is so true in real life. 9/11 changed many lives in small and big ways. People re-assessed their priorities and made changes accordingly. The changes that Georgia makes are no different. The one that involved her biggest secret is the most positive part of the story.

When Georgia was in high school, she dated and became pregnant by her black boyfriend. This was a definite no-no for that period of time especially in the South. For me the incredible part was that in the story time line, this would have been the 1980’s not the 1i940’s or 50’s. I would have thought that 20 some odd years past the civil right bill of 1964 that attitude toward inter-racial dating would have changed and boy would I have been so wrong! In the story she goes away, has the baby and gives to her boyfriend’s family to raise. She does send money toward his care every month, whatever she can after paying for everything else in her life. This is all from her “entertaining” and he other side line of selling hand mage quilts that she never made. Well life changed and her son comes into her life. Some of the books funniest scenes are between her son and her demented mother. I guarantee you will never forget them. The choice that she makes regarding her son and her life are the best in the book. This is where Katrina comes into play and you just know that things are not going to go as planned.

Georgia is a woman, like many of us, who may sometimes make wrong choices. In the end she finds away to make them right, We can all relate to that.

This is really good book and I know that I will re-read it, both for its humor and it’s insight. I hope thagt Childree does a follow up to her life, I sure would love to read more about her.

The Grayton Beach Affair

This book was just published and is worth reading !!

The Grayton Beach Affair by James Harvey

Just when you thought that you knew everything, or had read everything, you could about WWII, along comes something new. For example, I knew that German U-Boats where active off the Jersey Shore but didn’t know that they were very active in the Gulf of Mexico by Florida and Louisiana. I never even thought about a POW camp in the United States until this book came along. Harvey has written a book about cross and double cross, murder, mystery, international intrigue and a shot or two of romance.

The story opens in a Florida of yesteryear when life was a lot simpler. No internet, cell phones or cable TV. What a different world! This world allows the story to proceed without interference.  It is a story that could not happen in today’s world.  I’m not saying that it’s good or bad, just different and interesting.  There are German spies and Prisoners of War. There is a Southern Sherriff who appears npt tp be bigoted. There are locals who are insulated and caring. There is a  black family who is way ahead of the times, as is the main female character!

The story centers on a German American, Christian, who is disillusioned with America and returns to Germany before the start of WWII to help rebuild Germany.  He is pressed into service by Germany and fails in his mission; it is that failure that is the story. Harvey tells the story of this man on two continents while telling the story of the French Resistance. This part of the story is well researched and well written, a little simplistic at times, but well done.

 The female in the story, Margaret, is ahead of her time at times and then again very much in them. For example, she goes to a deserted area of Florida to get over the death of her fiancée, something that young women of the 40’s might not do. In the end, she winds up in a job, secretary to the president of a company, and engaged to the boss’s son, something that would be expected of women in the 40’s. There is a character, John Logan, in the story that is truly evil. Margaret deals with him as a woman in this decade might do. The Sherriff in the story is given a minor role and the murderer in the story is never really brought to justice.  This is the books only short coming. In retrospect, if the murderer had been brought to justice, it would have been a very different story.

I really enjoyed this book. Harvey has a way of telling a story without making it overly complicated. It is just plain refreshing to read his work.