Book Recommendation – Oona Out of Order

Books are a lot like music. “If you like _____, then you might also like _____.” Thanks to some book blogger friends and the Goodreads app, there are always suggestions for books to read. I have read my share of time travel books, and this one was certainly different.

This is the first book I have read by this author. If I am being honest, I almost stopped after the first chapter. I had to remind myself that sometimes the things in that first chapter often are necessary to be the springboard for the rest of the book. That was the case here. It was all a little too – sappy teen love storyish for me. But I pressed on.

Before I explain, here the Goodreads synopsis:

A remarkably inventive novel that explores what it means to live a life fully in the moment, even if those moments are out of order.

It’s New Year’s Eve 1982, and Oona Lockhart has her whole life before her. At the stroke of midnight she will turn nineteen, and the year ahead promises to be one of consequence. Should she go to London to study economics, or remain at home in Brooklyn to pursue her passion for music and be with her boyfriend? As the countdown to the New Year begins, Oona faints and awakens thirty-two years in the future in her fifty-one-year-old body. Greeted by a friendly stranger in a beautiful house she’s told is her own, Oona learns that with each passing year she will leap to another age at random. And so begins Oona Out of Order…

Hopping through decades, pop culture fads, and much-needed stock tips, Oona is still a young woman on the inside but ever changing on the outside. Who will she be next year? Philanthropist? Club Kid? World traveler? Wife to a man she’s never met? Surprising, magical, and heart-wrenching, Margarita Montimore has crafted an unforgettable story about the burdens of time, the endurance of love, and the power of family.

That first chapter sets the stage for everything else that comes at you. From the moment Oona wakes up as a fifty-one year old, the chaos begins. Panic, fear, and the unknown face Oona as she navigates through the year, never really knowing if what she is experiencing is real. But when she leaps again at midnight on New Year’s Eve, she knows it is either real or a really bad nightmare.

What was interesting about this story was thinking about what it would be like if you had to live your life out of order. One year you would know people, while in other years they are strangers. In one year you have one set of friends, while in another a totally different set. In one year, you might witness a tragedy and in another it hasn’t happened yet. What could you do with the knowledge you have (or lack of it) as you lived from day to day knowing that you’d be off to another unknown year next? How would you live your life differently?

In the book, every so often a character will tell Oona, “No Spoilers,” and so I will not offer any here. There are many surprises and times I found myself yelling at the characters! LOL At the same time, I certainly took a few nuggets of wisdom away from this story.

3.5 out of 5 stars (only because I had some lingering questions at the end)

Book Recommendation: The Book of Lost Names

I am finding that there is no shortage of books set in World War II. What is really fascinating is that despite the number of them, they all seem to have a unique story line to them. That was the case with the book today.

This was a book I kept seeing come up on Goodreads as well as on a page of Historical Fiction recommendations. There were many rave reviews and positive reactions to it, so when it became available, I grabbed it.

Here is the Goodreads synopsis:

Eva Traube Abrams, a semi-retired librarian in Florida, is shelving books one morning when her eyes lock on a photograph in a magazine lying open nearby. She freezes; it’s an image of a book she hasn’t seen in sixty-five years—a book she recognizes as The Book of Lost Names.

The accompanying article discusses the looting of libraries by the Nazis across Europe during World War II—an experience Eva remembers well—and the search to reunite people with the texts taken from them so long ago. The book in the photograph, an eighteenth-century religious text thought to have been taken from France in the waning days of the war, is one of the most fascinating cases. Now housed in Berlin’s Zentral- und Landesbibliothek library, it appears to contain some sort of code, but researchers don’t know where it came from—or what the code means. Only Eva holds the answer—but will she have the strength to revisit old memories and help reunite those lost during the war?

As a graduate student in 1942, Eva was forced to flee Paris after the arrest of her father, a Polish Jew. Finding refuge in a small mountain town in the Free Zone, she begins forging identity documents for Jewish children fleeing to neutral Switzerland. But erasing people comes with a price, and along with a mysterious, handsome forger named Rémy, Eva decides she must find a way to preserve the real names of the children who are too young to remember who they really are. The records they keep in The Book of Lost Names will become even more vital when the resistance cell they work for is betrayed and Rémy disappears.

An engaging and evocative novel reminiscent of The Lost Girls of Paris and The Alice Network, The Book of Lost Names is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the power of bravery and love in the face of evil.

I really enjoyed this one. It was a good story that had things I figured out and a few surprises. As the story wrapped, I was left wanting to know more. Perhaps a sequel? I dunno.

4 out of 5 stars

Book Recommendation – Ward D

Since discovering the Libby App, my wife and I have been listening to almost all of our books in the car. She gets through hers faster than me, as she tends to be able to listen to them at work, too.

She will grab books that I already have on my Goodreads “Want to Read” list and there are ones that I have added to my list that she read first. The issue I have is that my “Want to Read” list grows faster than my “Read” list! Anyway, it is fun to discuss those books together after we have both read one from our lists.

Ward D has been on my list forever. It sounded really good. My wife read it and she said it blew her away. My son’s speech therapist read it, too, and she raved about the ending as well. I was waiting on a book that was still on hold and I looked to see if Ward D was available and it was, so I finally got around to reading it.

Here is the Goodreads synopsis:

Medical student Amy Brenner is spending the night on a locked psychiatric ward.

Amy has been dreading her evening working on Ward D, the hospital’s inpatient mental health unit. There are very specific reasons why she never wanted to do this required overnight rotation. Reasons nobody can ever find out.

And as the hours tick by, Amy grows increasingly convinced something terrible is happening within these tightly secured walls. When patients and staff start to vanish without a trace, it becomes clear that everyone on the unit is in grave danger.

Amy’s worst nightmare was spending the night on Ward D. And now she might never escape.

This is the first book I read by Freida McFadden. It was a good psychological thriller. It definitely has you guessing and wondering through most of the book. There are plenty of characters in it that make you wonder who’s good and who’s bad. There are also characters that will creep you right out!

I was about 3 hours into the book (the audiobook was like 7 hours) and I came home and started telling my wife about where I was in the book and recapping what was happening. Maybe it is just that I watched a lot of Perry Mason and Columbo, but I tend to over think things. I find little things and I question them. So I blurted something out to my wife and she looked at me dumbfounded.

“I’m right, ain’t I?!” I said, proudly. She was pretty impressed that I figured part of the ending out, but “there is more to it and you’ll never guess that!” she told me. Well, she was right. There certainly was a few things I didn’t see coming and it wound up being ok. I will certainly be reading some more of her books.

I can easily see that if I was reading a physical copy of it, I’d be staying up late saying, “Ok, just one more chapter before I go to sleep!” 4 out of 5 stars.

Book Recommendation – Lou’s On First – Chris Costello

Growing up, one of the things that is forever etched in my mind was waking up on Sunday mornings and Abbott and Costello movies would be playing on Channel 7 (WXYZ/Detroit). It was on those Sunday mornings that I was introduced to classic films like Buck Privates, Who Done It?, Africa Screams, The Naughty Nineties, and Hold That Ghost. Of course I loved all the Abbott and Costello “meet” pictures, too (Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and more)!

It wasn’t long after I first discovered them that I found one of the other stations played the Abbott and Costello cartoons after school. Even as a child, I could tell that Bud Abbott’s voice was his, and that someone else was voicing Lou Costello. I had no idea at the time that this cartoon was made in the late 60’s and that Lou had passed away in 1959.

In fact, I learned this week that there were a whole lot of things I didn’t know about him! I just finished a truly wonderful book about him, written by his youngest daughter, Chris Costello. A few years back, we became Facebook friends and she had posted that the audio version of her book was now available. I searched for it and got it to listen to on my drive to and from work.

I have had this book for sometime in printed form. It was on my “To Read” shelf for way too long. With all that I had going on in life, I found it difficult to actually sit and read for very long. So it sat on the shelf. When I recently discovered some of the audiobook platforms, I began to go back and search for audio versions of books on that shelf. When Chris said it was available, I was ecstatic.

Here is the Goodreads synopsis:

This intimate portrait of Lou Costello (1906-1959) offers a rare look at one of the most talented comedians of all time. Starting in the 1930s, Costello attained enormous fame touring the burlesque circuits with straight man Bud Abbott (1895-1974). Their live skits (including “Who’s on First?”), radio programs, and films made comic history. Behind the scenes, however, Costello faced numerous a bout with rheumatic fever that left him bedridden for months, the drowning death of his young son, and constant haggles with Universal Studios over its reluctance to adequately finance productions of Abbott and Costello films. Lou’s on First goes beyond Costello’s clownish persona to explore his Pagliacci, the private demons behind the happy public face, the heartbreaking moments in an otherwise storybook marriage, the business ventures soured by unscrupulous managers, and the true nature of the breakup of his twenty-one-year partnership with Bud Abbott.

I heard one comedian say, “The comedy community has a lot of trauma and pain.” A look at comedians throughout history will certainly show this to be true. Lou Costello had his share of tragedy and health problems.

Chris Costello was around 10 or 11 years old when her father died. She shares her memories of her dad, as well as stories and memories from those who knew him. As I listened to Chris share these stories, I learned about her father’s kindness to just about everyone he met that was in need. I learned that he truly did pay for Dean Martin’s nose job (and was sad to hear that he never really came around after that). I learned about the gambling that went on while making movies with Bud Abbott. I learned on the tragic death of his son and what that event did to Lou and his family. It was such an enlightening book.

I never really knew what brought the duo to their ultimate split. It was interesting to be able to know what was going on during the filming of certain movies as Bud and Lou’s partnership got close to an end. They were certainly professionals, because I would have never known that they were on the outs while some of those films were being made. They never looked like they were at odds with each other.

There are pros and cons to audiobooks. The pros of this one was that there are occasional audio clips from Bud and Lou and even audio from home movies. I don’t care how many times I hear Who’s on First – it will NEVER NOT be funny! It is a masterpiece!

This book made me laugh and made me cry. It is the perfect love letter to a comedic legend from his daughter. The “bad boy” from Paterson, NJ touched many lives, and his memory lives on there with a beautiful statue and memorial park.

Thank you, Chris Costello, for sharing these stories about your dad with me and the world.

I highly recommend this book to fans of Abbott and Costello! 5 stars!

For those who want to listen to the audio book, you can find it on all the major audio book platforms. You can also order through Chris the limited-edition 10-CD Collection with 8-pg “Costello Family Photo Album” which she will gladly autograph. You won’t find this set on Amazon or elsewhere as she self-funded this collection. For more info or to order email: accollectibles@aol.com

Book Recommendation – End of Story by AJ Finn

As you know, I love a good mystery. I also love a mystery with a great “I didn’t see that coming” moment. My latest read had both, and when the “I didn’t see that coming moment” came I was truly floored.

Here is the Goodreads synopsis:

“I’ll be dead in three months. Come tell my story.”

So writes Sebastian Trapp, reclusive mystery novelist, to his longtime correspondent Nicky Hunter, an expert in detective fiction. With mere months to live, Trapp invites Nicky to his spectacular San Francisco mansion to help draft his life story . . . living alongside his beautiful second wife, Diana; his wayward nephew, Freddy; and his protective daughter, Madeleine. Soon Nicky finds herself caught in an irresistible case of real-life “detective fever.”

“You and I might even solve an old mystery or two.”

Twenty years earlier—on New Year’s Eve 1999—Sebastian’s first wife and teenaged son vanished from different locations, never to be seen again. Did the perfect crime writer commit the perfect crime? And why has he emerged from seclusion, two decades later, to allow a stranger to dig into his past?

“Life is hard. After all, it kills you.”

As Nicky attempts to weave together the strands of Sebastian’s life, she becomes obsessed with discovering the truth . . . while Madeleine begins to question what her beloved father might actually know about that long-ago night. And when a corpse appears in the family’s koi pond, both women are shocked to find that the past isn’t gone—it’s just waiting.

Online reviews of the book are mixed. I had to laugh when one complained that it had 100 chapters. Some of the chapters were short, so I wonder why that reviewer even mentioned it!

The book had me asking questions throughout the read. Was it him? Was it her? Do they know more than they are saying? Why are they acting that way? Even in the slower moments there were things that made me think. When it all falls into place, all of those questions had answers.

I give this 4.5 out of 5 stars!

Let me know if you check it out.

Book Recommendation – Under The Paper Moon

A few weeks back, I was a lucky winner of a Goodreads Giveaway. I received Under The Paper Moon by Shaina Steinberg and I have just finished it.

My first thought when I saw the cover was “Film Noir.” It had that 1940’s look about it and after reading the synopsis, I was excited to read it:

Mr. and Mrs. Smith meets The Thin Man ’s Nick and Nora Charles in this intrigue-filled debut from film and television writer Shaina Steinberg, as two former spies who shared more than just missions during WWII reunite in 1948 Los Angeles. Can they let go of heartbreak long enough to team up for one last operation?

It’s 1942, and as far as her father knows, Evelyn Bishop, heiress to an aeronautics fortune, is working as a translator in London. In truth, Evelyn—daring, beautiful, and as adept with a rifle as she is in five languages—has joined the Office of Strategic Services as a spy. Her goal is to find her brother, who is being held as a POW in a Nazi labor camp. Through one high-risk mission after another she is paired with the reckless and rebellious Nick Gallagher, growing ever close to him until the war’s end brings with it an act of deep betrayal.

Six years later, Evelyn is back home in Los Angeles, working as a private investigator. The war was supposed to change everything, yet Evelyn, contemplating marriage to her childhood sweetheart, feels stifled by convention. Then the suspected cheating husband she’s tailing is murdered, and suddenly Evelyn is back in Nick’s orbit again.

Teaming up for a final mission, Evelyn and Nick begin to uncover the true nature of her case— and realize that the war has followed them home. For beyond the public horrors waged by nations there are countless secret, desperate acts that still reverberate on both continents, and threaten everything Evelyn holds dear…

It really did have that “Film Noir” feel to it at times and wasn’t really a bad read. I enjoyed how the author gave us a look at the present and some events in the past that helped to move the story line and the mystery along. It all fits together by the end.

Honestly, whenever I read a spy novel set in this period of time, it is hard for me to not read the dialogue like something out of a movie. That being said, I always read the character of Nick like a Humphrey Bogart sounding guy. Evelyn was Veronica Lake-ish to me. The character, Katie, I read like an annoying school girl because that what she reminded me of.

The story took a minute to get going, but when someone is killed it begins to move at a pretty decent pace. There were some twists in the story that I didn’t see coming and I probably would have rated it a bit higher if I hadn’t been put off by some “over the top” and almost unbelievable things that happen toward the climax of the story. That was the only downfall to the story for me.

Over all, it was a nice Historical Fiction read. The overall rating on Goodreads is 4 stars, I gave it 3.5 stars.

Thanks to the folks at Kensington Publishing for choosing me as a winner on Goodreads and sending me a copy.

#underthepapermoon, #betweenthechapters

Book Recommendation – Close to Death – Anthony Horowitz

I finally got my hands on a new release by an author I have come to really enjoy – Anthony Horowitz. I stumbled on him because of a couple Sherlock Holmes themed books he wrote. From there, I stumbled on his Hawthorne and Horowitz series. You can read about those a bit here:

Reading Recommendations

Here is the link to another Horowitz book:

Book Recommendation: Moonflower Murders

For those keeping track, the Hawthorne/Horowitz book series is now up to five.

The Word is Murder (Book 1), The Sentence is Death (Book 2), A Line to Kill (Book 3), The Twist of a Knife (Book 4) and now the latest in the series:

I have said before that I sometimes got bored with a series featuring the same character because the books tend to recap the previous books I had read. While Horowitz will elude briefly to bits from past books, it isn’t so bad that it takes away from the one you are reading.

I really do enjoy this series a lot and this book was a bit different then the previous ones. In the first four books, Horowitz is following Hawthorne and writing a book about a case he is on. This time around, he is writing about a case from the past. Here is the Goodreads synopsis:

In New York Times–bestselling author Anthony Horowitz’s ingenious fifth literary whodunit in the Hawthorne and Horowitz series, Detective Hawthorne is once again called upon to solve an unsolvable case—a gruesome murder in an idyllic gated community in which suspects abound.

Riverside Close is a picture-perfect community. The six exclusive and attractive houses are tucked far away from the noise and grime of city life, allowing the residents to enjoy beautiful gardens, pleasant birdsong and tranquility from behind the security of a locked gate.

It is the perfect idyll until the Kentworthy family arrives, with their four giant, gas-guzzling cars, a gaggle of shrieking children and plans for a garish swimming pool in the backyard. Obvious outsiders, the Kentworthys do not belong in Riverside Close, and they quickly offend every last one of their neighbours.

When Giles Kentworthy is found dead on his own doorstep, a crossbow bolt sticking out of his chest, Detective Hawthorne is the only investigator that can be called on to solve the case.

Because how do you solve a murder when everyone is a suspect?

It has characters that make you wonder just what they are up to, the atmosphere of a “locked room mystery” except its in a gated community, deep dark secrets, and a lot of twists and turns!

Highly recommend! 5 stars!

I’m a Winner!

My wife called me on her way to work this week and said that I had received a package. I told her I hadn’t ordered anything. She told me what the return address was and said it felt like a book.

I started to think about whether or not I had preordered a book awhile back. Nope. I told her it must be something someone is sending me for my birthday or something. My brother will send stuff every once in awhile from Amazon. Sam told me it wasn’t an Amazon box. I was stumped. It wasn’t until I thought more about it being a book that I wondered if maybe I had won one from Goodreads.

Since joining Goodreads, I always look at the free book giveaways. I don’t enter them all, but the ones that sound good to me I will put in an entry. I logged in and looked at my “Entered Giveaways” and began to scroll. Sure enough, I was chosen as a winner for a book. Next to the book on the site there was a box that said, “I have received my book.” When it arrives, you click on it.

I don’t win stuff often, and many of these giveaways have thousands of entries. I’m sure I will be posting a review when I finish…. Here is the book:

Book Recommendation: The Day Tripper

Slowly, but surely, I am working through my “Want to read” list. I just finished one that I almost stopped reading after the first chapter. It begins with a couple in their 20’s who are in the early stages of their relationship. Their cheesy “lovey dovey” exchanges were a bit over the top for me. However, once the story gets going, I was hooked.

The book is by James Goodhand and it is called The Day Tripper.

“Another time-travel book, Keith?! Really?!” Well, yes, but it has a very unique spin on it. Here is the Goodreads synopsis:

The right guy, the right place, the wrong time.

It’s 1995, and Alex Dean has it all: a spot at Cambridge University next year, the love of an amazing woman named Holly and all the time in the world ahead of him. That is until a brutal encounter with a ghost from his past sees him beaten, battered and almost drowning in the Thames.

He wakes the next day to find he’s in a messy, derelict room he’s never seen before, in grimy clothes he doesn’t recognize, with no idea of how he got there. A glimpse in the mirror tells him he’s older—much older—and has been living a hard life, his features ravaged by time and poor decisions. He snatches a newspaper and finds it’s 2010—fifteen years since the fight.

After finally drifting off to sleep, Alex wakes the following morning to find it’s now 2019, another nine years later. But the next day, it’s 1999. Never knowing which day is coming, he begins to piece together what happens in his life after that fateful night by the river.

But what exactly is going on? Why does his life look nothing like he thought it would? What about Cambridge, and Holly? In this thrilling adventure, Alex must navigate his way through the years to learn that small actions have untold impact. And that might be all he needs to save the people he loves and, equally importantly, himself.

This reminded me a bit of Gillian McAllister’s Wrong Place, Wrong Time in the sense that it was not your typical time travel story. In Wrong Place, Wrong Time, the main character just keeps going backwards in time. With The Day Tripper, the main character has no idea where or when he is going to be when he wakes up. He is living the days of his life – just not in chronological order.

One of my favorite quotes in the book was “The worst our enemies can do is turn us into them.” This quote really struck me and plays into the plot of the story. Reviews I read before picking it up compared the story to the Twilight Zone and Quantum Leap. I think you will enjoy it.

Book Recommendation: The Final Witness – Paul Landis

It seems that I have been reading a lot of non-fiction lately. It isn’t anything deliberate, it just happens to be the way the books I have “on hold” have become available. The latest is on a topic that has fascinated me for years – The JFK Assassination.

The assassination happened seven years before I was born. My grandmother had saved newspapers from the week after he was killed. She had some books on the events as well. In school, I remember the first research report I ever wrote was on the assassination.

I have read many of the books surrounding the event and have heard almost every conspiracy theory involved with it. When I saw this book come up on Goodreads, I naturally had to read it. Believe it or not, there was one thing in this book that I had never heard before.

Here is the Goodreads synopsis:

Dallas, Texas. November 22, 1963. Shots ring out at Dealey Plaza. The president is struck in the head by a rifle bullet. Confusion reigns.

Special Agent Paul Landis is in the follow-up car directly behind JFK’s and is at the president’s limo as soon as it stops at Parkland Memorial Hospital. He is inside Trauma Room #1, where the president is pronounced dead. He is on Air Force One with the president’s casket on the flight back to Washington, DC; an eyewitness to Lyndon Johnson taking the oath of office.

What he saw is indelibly imprinted upon his psyche. He writes and files his report. And yet . . . Agent Landis is never called to testify to the Warren Commission. The one person who could have supplied key answers is never asked questions.

By mid-1964, the nightmares from Dallas remain, and he resigns. It isn’t until the fiftieth anniversary that he begins to talk about it, and he reads his first books on the assassination.
Landis learns about the raging conspiracy theories—and realizes where they all go wrong.

Admittedly, I had hoped for a lot more about the events of that day. The author doesn’t really get into November 22, 1963 until a little over halfway through the book. He spends time explaining how he came to be a Secret Service agent and how he eventually was assigned to the White House and Mrs. Kennedy. There were some really enlightening stories about her and the reader gets a glimpse into what she was like behind the scenes.

Once he gets to the events that lead up to the trip to Dallas, things get really interesting. For months after the assassination, he would keep seeing it over and over again. I cannot imagine the trauma that the Secret Service men experienced that day and the days afterward. Eventually, it became to much and he resigns.

The most interesting thing to me was that he distanced himself from that day in Dallas for years! He never read any of the books (including the Warren Commission Report), watched any of the TV coverage and TV specials, he avoided it all. It wasn’t until recently that he began to discuss it and that led to this book.

Does the book add to the many conspiracy theories? Maybe a little. Does the book clear up questions about the assassination? Well, it cleared up one for me.

If you like historical non-fiction, or are interested in the JFK assassination, I think you will enjoy this one.