Forgiveness. The twenty-first installment in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith is a novel titled, How to Raise an Elephant. Kindness abounds for the large recurring cast, and yes, there is an elephant. Mma Ramotswe has new neighbors and her white van experiences mishaps. After spending time with these endearing characters and drinking bush tea with them, fans will close this novel thinking about the importance of forgiveness and reflecting about where there is need for each of us to forgive or to be forgiven.
Rating: Four-star (I like it)
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Simon. Fans of the Bess Crawford series by Charles Todd are those readers most likely to enjoy the backstory contained in a novella titled, A Hanging at Dawn. Set mostly in India when Bess was a child, we find out about how the Crawford family first met recurring character Simon Brandon. The events of this story are the pivotal ones that bound Simon to the family and knowing that context now explains much about what we already know happened after the events in India.
Rating: Four-star (I like it)
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Tender. Nick Hornby offers up for readers a novel titled, Just Like You, a romance overflowing with tenderness. The couple is an unlikely match: 42-year-old Lucy and 22-year-old Joseph. She’s a White, divorced mother of two boys. He’s a Black aspiring musician who first met her when he worked in the local butcher shop. Love can overcome lots of obstacles, and the use of text messages in the narrative highlights the age difference between the protagonists. I was receptive for a big-hearted story, and this novel fit the bill perfectly.
Rating: Four-star (I like it)
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Wordplay. The P.G. Wodehouse estate made a great decision when they selected Ben Schott to reprise Jeeves and Wooster. The second novel from this project is titled, Jeeves and the Leap of Faith. Schott gets it all right: the wordplay, puns, escapades and eccentricities. I even laughed about wallpaper as selected by Jeeves and Wooster. Fans will especially enjoy the way that the Drones club chooses to solve their financial predicament. Readers looking for entertainment and humor, especially Wodehouse fans, are those most likely to enjoy this novel. Schott offers a finely written homage: fresh action, true to the original.
Rating: Five-star (I love it)
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Transported. I love the way poetry can call attention to something simple in nature, provide a vivid image through words, then send our minds off on an adventure to some other place. In her collection titled, How to Fly, Barbara Kingsolver offers a wide range of poems that provide transport from our home base of reality to new places. With eyes wide open to the wonders of the natural world, Kingsolver uses carefully chosen words to merge what she sees and feels with what a reader can find when we join her on a journey toward insight and understanding and awe.
Rating: Four-star (I like it)
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Aggrieved. Even the three dogs (Bedlington terriers) in David Leavitt’s novel titled, Shelter in Place, come across as entitled elites. Leavitt skewers with great skill the complete cast of characters in this novel, mostly through his fine deployment of dialogue to highlight the aggrieved state as felt by those who are so much better off than most. Residents of wealthy enclaves in Manhattan know these characters and possibly are these people. If after reading a sample of this novel and not finding the pointed wit, you may need to do some additional introspection. The world and the characters in the novel revolve around the star of protagonist Eva. Worried about life in the United States under President Trump, Eva buys an apartment in Venice as a potential refuge. I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with this cast of very unlikeable characters, thanks to Leavitt’s fine writing and pointed humor.
Rating: Four-star (I like it)
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Bride. Let Marie-Helene Bertino’s finely constructed sentences lull you as you read her novel titled, Parakeet, so you can dream along with the surreal narrative. We meet the protagonist known as the bride as she faces the emotional intensity of her wedding week. Her dead grandmother visits her in the form of a parakeet and presents a warning and a challenge. The momentum of the novel involves the bride’s response to the visit of the parakeet. I loved the finely written prose but can tolerate only so much surreality.
Rating: Three-star (It’s ok)
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