Author: Karin Slaughter

I’m not sure who suggested this book to me but I’m certainly glad they did. I could not put it down; I went to bed one night after reading a section, turned the light out, and after an hour when I couldn’t stop thinking about it I started to read again.

A gunman enters a mall cafeteria with the intention of killing his ex-girlfriend and her mother. He then expects to be shot by the police. But Laura, also a mother, steps in to save her daughter. The manner in which she deals with the gunman and her actions afterward lead her daughter, Andy, to search for the secrets her mother has been hiding.

Goodreads Rating: * * * * *

Author: Catherine Hokin

Felix is a young German living in Berlin in 1941. His father is Jewish but his mother is German; his father has been dismissed from his job and they are having trouble making ends meet. Liesl is a young and naive girl who is engaged to be married to a high-ranking officer in the SS. On a night when she is out for one last adventure before her wedding the two meet.

Liesl is not happy in her marriage to her very controlling husband and she gets no help or understanding from her parents. Felix and his father are arrested; Felix spends the rest of the war in a concentration camp.

At the end of the war Liesl and her husband are whisked away to Argentina to avoid any prosecution. Felix becomes a lawyer and is determined to bring all the criminals to trial. But he never gives up hope of finding Liesl, or Hannah as he knows her.

Goodreads Rating: * * * *

Author: Alison Lurie

This book won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1985. I think, because of this award, I was expecting a much deeper story. Based on the title and the introduction of the main characters in the first two chapters I expected the affair would be between the two – I was wrong.

Vinnie and Fred are both professors at the same US college and both have been awarded grants to do research in London for publications they are working on. Vinnie loves England but lives a quite solitary life; Fred hates England because he and his wife have just separated and nothing is working out as planned.

Enter an English socialite and a Texan (need I say more) and life begins to change for Vinnie and Fred.

Goodreads Rating: * * * *

Author: Amanda Eyre Ward

I feel guilty that I asked the library to purchase this book. When you order a book from the Inter-library loan app you are often denied your request because the book is too recent and other libraries aren’t willing to send it out. When this happened with this book the librarian asked if I wanted them to purchase it so I said yes.

I didn’t enjoy the book. The premise was good; an elderly (she’s only 71!) woman wins a Mediterranean cruise and she invites her three children come along because she wants to reconnect with them after their difficult childhood. The story of each of their lives is interesting but cut up by chapters from the various ports of call they visit. Each chapter (sometimes only two pages long) is told from the vantage point of either Charlotte (the mother) or her children.

In the end, I was glad it was an easy read and that it was over.

Goodreads Rating: * *