The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted

You know how you have some friends whose recommendations of books or movies are always spot-on for you?  You love what they love?  Well, I've found that some authors are like that for me -- and if they put a blurb on another author's book, chances are I'm going to like that book.  So when Joshilyn Jackson, whose novels I totally love, recommended "The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted" blog, I knew I'd want to read it.  I downloaded it to my beloved Kindle, and it was my Easter weekend reading.

In this lovely, gentle novel, narrator Heidi is mourning the loss of her husband Henry two years after his death, and floundering as she tries to run her bakery and care for their young son. Her mother sends her to check on a family house in Provence, which has just suffered a small fire -- so Heidi's mission, on the surface, is to get the house repaired, and give herself, her son, and her teen-aged niece a new setting for a few weeks. But things are not as easy as Heidi imagines they will be. Upon arrival, all of their possessions are stolen. The house needs more work and will take longer to fix than she anticipated. Her niece has complications in her life that Heidi hadn't guessed. But the magic of Provence, and her family's longtime friends there, start to heal Heidi.

It's hard to lay out the bones of the plot without the story sounding sappy. But truly, this is not a sappy book. It's written lyrically with much humor, and you can just feel the Provence air and smell the lavender and baking pastries. I loved being in this world as I read the book, and so enjoyed accompanying them as their lives unfolded.

It's a beautiful and well-written book.

Something Missing

Well, I'll cut to the chase.  Something Missing by Matthew Dicks is a delightful and unusual novel.  It's not like anything else you've read, I promise.  But gosh, was it a fun and surprising read.

This novel follows Martin, a full-time thief who feels serious affection for his "clients," aka the people from whom he steals. His obsessive-compulsive disorder rules his careful theft, as Martin only those items that his clients won't miss.... two potatoes, a can of peaches, that extra bottle of laundry detergent.  And along the way, Martin stumbles into situations where he realizes he can help his clients.   And once he breaks his previously inviolate rule of remaining fully invisible, he doesn't just change his clients' lives -- he changes his own. 

I was sorry to see this novel end... and now I'm wondering about that extra can of diced tomatoes I was sure was in the cupboard...

Motor Mouth

I've read all of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum mysteries, and they are always good for a fun and fast mystery.  But I'd never read any of her other books, and decided to give "Motor Mouth" a try when I found it at the library.  Her heroine, Barnaby, is a mechanic on a NASCAR driver's crew, and finds herself embroiled in a wild series of events.  While trying to help a friend, she discovers a dead body, which leads to stealing a truck, which leads to discovering new, coveted computer chip technology that can change racing, which leads to ... Well, you get the idea.  There is more silliness than actual serious plot, but the story rolls along in such an entertaining way that I didn't mind.  Yep, you have to suspend your disbelief a bit, but it's worth it for the sheer escapist fun.

This was a good sunny weather read.  I'm going to go see if there are other Barnaby mysteries, since I think this wasn't the first.

This is Where We Live

Here's another novel from the library "new book" shelf, "This Is Where We Live" by Janelle Brown.  And where they live is Los Angeles, on a hillside with a beautiful view, in a cute bungalow.  The "We" are a fledgling director, right off of a surprising success at Sundance, and her rock musician husband, whose new band is almost done with its first, promising album.  Their lives are on the rise, and their house symbolizes all they hope to be in this exciting city.  But that earthquake in the first chapter?  Yep, it's promises shake-ups to come.

We see Claudia's successful first film sink without a trace, leaving her wondering what to do next.  We see Jeremy's band start to fall apart, as his buddies realize that it isn't really what they envisioned doing with their lives.  The mortgage market starts to crumble, leaving them uncertain about how to -- or whether they can -- stay in their house.  What can they sacrifice to pursue their creative dreams?  Do they even want to pursue their dreams of directing and music success? 

In some ways, this novel puts you in the middle of your fears -- losing your job, potentially losing your home, having to do any job you can get to keep going -- while you wonder what is truly important in your life.  But this isn't a dreary novel, and even while it addresses the possibility of descent into literal and emotional insecurity, it does so with a grace and lightness that makes this book enjoyable.

I enjoyed this and found as I neared the end that I didn't want to put it down.

The Life You Want

I don't remember how I found Emily Barr as an author.  Probably I pulled a book of the "new book" shelf at the library.  But I do remember that I loved her writing right away, and was struck by how she could tell a story in a way that seemed different from the way anyone else would tell it.  That's not much of a description, ,I know, but I came away thinking of her as one of those authors whose books I would seek out and read because I trusted her skill.

This past week, I read "The Life You Want" by Emily Barr.  First, isn't the cover beautiful?  I love the cover and the book it promises.  There is something so appealing about that pinky-sherbet color, and the flying birds, and of course the expressive posture of the woman.

Anyway.  I loved this.  It's the story of Tansy, a thirty-something wife and mother of two small kids stifling under the weight of her suburban mommy life in London.  She's pining for the life she and her husband once had, backpacking freely in third-world countries and loving their freedom.  Suddenly, she finds herself presented with the opportunity to travel to India, without husband and kids, to help out a friend in need.

It sounds somewhat predictable, doesn't it?  But that's the wonder of Emily Barr's talent.  It's not predictable at all.  Tansy's character is all too human (slipping wine into her teacup to hide her drinking in the afternoons, flirting dangerously with a handsome teacher), but she's real and funny and understandable.  When she finds herself in the middle of something she doesn't understand, she begins to question everything.  What she wants... what she had .. what she thought she wanted.

It's an engrossing novel.

"The Rich Part of Life"

"The day we won the lottery I was wearing wax lips that my father had bought for the Nose Picker and me at a truck stop."  That's the opening sentence of The Rich Part of Life: A Novelby Jim Kikoris, and it was the wax lips that pulled me right in when I read this standing at the bookshelf at the library.  Remember those big red wax lips that used to be in the stores around Halloween?  Instant flash to childhood.

Eleven-year-old Teddy narrates this story, in which his quiet, withdrawn father buys a single lottery ticket and suddenly places the family into a whirlwind of unexpected events.  Relatives appear from out of the wodwork.  Teddy learns about his mother, who died a year ago, and watches as his father begins to open up and to date (the mother of his arch-enemy at school).  A soap-opera vampire appears on their doorstep and becomes a part of their lives.  The lovely -- and unexpected--  part of this story is that the lottery winnings provide a focal point for everyone around Teddy and his family, while all Teddy's father wants to do is retreat to his grief and his Civil War history. 

So the novel is really about family, and expectations, and remembering what the world looks like from a child's point of view.  It was funny, and sweet, and poignant and I'm glad I found this.

The City of Dreaming Books

 

A year or so ago I was browsing in a bookstore and came across Walter Moers' 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear which I bought for Caroline.  To be honest, I don't remember what it was about that book that made me think she'd like it, but it did look like her sort of thing (maybe it was the description of it as "a zany, fun-for-all ages odyssey" with a rough comparison to Harry Potter.  And if there's anything Caroline likes, it's zany.  She lapped it right up and asked if the author had written any more books.  I found and ordered a few more of his books, and The City of Dreaming Books was one of them.

Caroline read that when it came, and of course I was attracted to it myself -- a cover full of books, a title about a CITY of books, and a back cover that started like this:

Optimus Yarnspinner has inherited from his godfather an unpublished manuscript by an unknown writer.  He sets off to track down the mysterious author, who disappeared into Bookholm -- the so-called "City of Dreaming Books."  Yarnspinner falls under the spell of this book-obsessed metropolis, where an avid reader and budding author can find any number of charming attractions ... 

And yes, it was described as "another zany adventure" -- so recently when I'd exhausted my pile of library books, I picked it up.  And oh, was I delighted.

It's hard to describe this book.  It's so witty, with endless jokes and satirical references to the world of books and publishing and writing.  But it's a rip-roaring adventure, too, with a trip into the book-filled catacombs beneath the city where book-related monsters of all sizes and types lurk.  

I found myself reading this book slowly, savoring the clever and enjoyable prose.  I loved, for example, the description of the smell of  Bookholm:

You can smell the place from a long way off.  It reeks of old books.  It's as if you've opened the door of a gigantic second-hand bookshop -- as if you've stirred up a cloud of unadulterated book dust and blown the detritus from millions of mouldering volumes straight into your face.  There are folks who dislike that smell and turn on their heel as soon as it assails their nostrils.  It isn't an agreeable odour, granted.  Hopelessly antiquated, it is eloquent of decay and dissolution, mildew and mortality.  But it also has other associations:  a hint of acidity reminiscent of lemon trees in flower; the stimulating scent of old leather; the acrid, intelligent pang of printer's ink; and, overlying all else, a reassuring aroma of wood.  ... Ah yes, my intellectually inquisitive friends, you too can smell it now, the odor of forgotten knowledge and age-old traditions of craftsmanship.

See?  There is prose to linger over, word play to love, and a story that makes you want to race forward to see what happens next.  

 

I just loved this.