The Girls in the Picture - Review

The Girls in the Picture   🌟🌟🌟

by Melanie Benjamin

Published January 16 2018 by Delacorte Press

3.5 stars.

About a century ago, actress Mary Pickford and scenarist Frances Marion were best friends as their young careers were just taking off.  Together, they forged new paths for women in their industry, with Mary forming United Artist's studio with husband Douglas Fairbanks, and Frances being the best and highest paid female screenwriter.  With today's spotlight on Hollywood's  so-called casting couch, this story was quite timely in detailing how that term started, when these two women were in their thirties, their careers winding down.  Despite the strides made by these women, men still held the power and got away with pinching and feeling up whatever female body parts they desired.  Actresses who had babies, even those who were  married, risked outrage from their fans, while actors and studio heads could sire a dozen or more children with no such risks.  

Told in alternating chapters from each of the women's points of view, the book was certainly interesting, but not in a "can't wait to get back to that book" way.  It is honest and forthcoming, which makes for a likeable historical fiction tale.  It tells of two friends who grew estranged for different reasons, but were together courageous pioneers in their fields and impacted the film industry just as much as any of the studio heads of their time.  Unfortunately, I thought it a bit repetitive and on the longish side.  Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy.   

The Wife Between Us -Review

The Wife Between Us  🌟🌟🌟

by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen  

Publishing by St Martin's Press January 9 2018 

Wow, where to start?  I'm  reading along thinking the alternating points of view are leading down one road, and then BAM, nothing is as it seems and the path to the climax takes an entirely different course.  Some readers are going to hate this, some will love it.  Some will be sooooo confused.  You may need to go back and reread parts.

For me, I felt somewhat manipulated and kept asking myself if what happened really made any sense.  I kept with it, through more twists and turns, until the very end.  And then I started it over again.  And yes, it did make sense knowing now what I didn't know before.  So, touche and congrats to the author for pulling it off!

 

Absolutely not what I expected at all, from the title or from the first few chapters.  

My thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley.  

Poison - Review

Poison   🌟🌟🌟
by Galt Niederhoffer
To be published November 21, 2017, by St. Martin's Press 

Now, that's a good ending.  Quick, clean, and an I told you so.   

Loved the title's multiple implications, the relationship gone bad, the suspicions all around, substances with multiple uses and purposes.  I read this not trusting one single character.  Is Ryan trying to poison his wife Cass, or is she paranoid, delusional, and in need of psychological care?  

Liked less the writing in present tense, which seemed awkward to me and at times too much in the way of explanation.  But overall, an exciting and tense read. 

An unsolicited comp copy from St.  Martin's Press through  NetGalley.

3.5 stars.

I Was Anastasia - Review

I Was Anastasia   🌟🌟🌟

by Ariel Lawhon  

Feb 2018 by Doubleday

Finished Nov 11, 2017

Remember the thriller recently written completely in a reverse timeline and readers either tolerated it or hated it?   I didn't mind it too much, once used to it.   Well, in this  book only half of it goes backwards in time, but it bothered me anyway.  The chapters alternate between Anna Anderson's story and Anastasia's.  The Anastasia chapters slowly lead up to when the Romanov family is executed in 1918,  and Anna's goes from 1970 to around the time of the executions.  Only at the end do we know how it all started.  

I have been wondering... why another book on Anastasia; doesn't everyone already know this story?  Have we not watched it played memorably by Ingrid Bergman in the great old film, Anastasia, and heard the countless rumors of a Romanov surviving?  I was curious what this author could offer that wasn't already done.  For me, a few more personal details, and a renewed curiosity about Anna Anderson.  This is historical fiction and the author says she fudged on some details but not much.

 

All in all, I am not certain I'd recommend this one unless you do not already know the story, and even then a non-fiction might deliver better.  I have enjoyed looking at some pictures of the two characters, and there was a definite facial resemblance.  If this had been my first time learning about the Romanovs, I am sure I  would have rated it much higher.  Knowing how it would end and failing to feel any real connection until the last couple of chapters sabotaged this experience for me, I'm afraid.  Even so, some parts will remain memorable, I'm sure.  

Than you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy.

Seven Days of Us - Review

Seven Days of Us  🌟🌟🌟🌟 3.5 stars rounded up

by Francesca Hornak 

Published October 17 2017 by Berkley Books

Overall, this is a really good character driven debut.  A family is in quarantine the entire week of Christmas because their doctor daughter Olivia was exposed to the deadly Haag  virus while on a mission in Africa.  There's another sister, Phoebe, who is preoccupied being engaged to George, who shows up at the house during the week and is thus forced into the quarantine as well.   

Everyone except Phoebe has a secret or two under wraps, and all are very intriguing.  Well, even Phoebe is hiding something but she hasn't  yet realized it.  I think the fact that we know these secrets and are wondering anxiously what will happen in the end makes this a 4 star book.  The characters are interesting  enough, except I would have slapped Phoebe and George multiple times if I  could have, and if I was the slapping sort.  Emma, the mom, got on my nerves a bit because I've  been in her situation and handled it a little differently, but she was a good person.  Olivia and Jesse the long lost bastard son were great.  Dad was a bit boring with his lack of awareness or caring (he is still evolving in midlife but not sure you'd call it a midlife crisis). The characters were a good mixture of annoying and heartwarming,  with about a 3 on my likeability scale.  So a 3.5.  

The Stolen Marriage - Review

The Stolen Marriage  🌟🌟🌟🌟
by Diane Chamberlain
Published October 3 2017 by St Martin's Press

Despite a rather slow beginning and a few flaws, this book, full of history from the 1944 era, eventually had my attention as the characters grew into themselves.  Set mostly in Hickory, NC, we are aware that there are men from town who have gone off to war, that this is a time when women and blacks were to know their places, and that polio was becoming  a force to be reckoned with.  While Tess' fiancé is in Chicago treating polio, she makes an irreversible error in judgment and marries a virtual stranger with an unwelcoming matriarch of a mother and sister.  Soon she discovers that her new husband has many odd behaviors  and secrets.  Some of the reveals I saw coming, but only to a degree.

As a little girl growing up in a small town during the 50's, I knew a few people with polio (a friend's cousin two years older who was beautiful but nevertheless taunted by school children for her limp, a boy two blocks away who was my oldest brother's age, my 7th grade math teacher),  and we knew how lucky my family was to have been untouched.  We experienced the polio vaccines administered by shots and then on sugar cubes (Blech!  I actually spit mine out when no one was looking, which then worried me for years to come).  Diane Chamberlain is a fine teller of real historical events with her own twists  added, and the makeshift polio hospital they built in Hickory in a fifty-four hour time period was fascinating to read about, enough so that Life magazine visited soon after its opening.   The author's version of the story teaches how we adapt to our circumstances and overcome adversity.  I thought she did an admirable job, and I thank the publisher and NetGalley for my advance copy.  

The Other Girl - Review

The Other Girl   🌟🌟🌟🌟

by Erica Spindler  

Published August 22 2017 by St. Martin's Press

Finished October 2 2017

When Randi was a rebellious fifteen year old, she one night hitched a ride with a guy and another girl.  It turned out to be the worst decision she ever made even though Randi managed to escape the guy's clutches before any physical harm was done.  But instead of the police taking her story seriously, they sent her to juvie for some weed found in her pocket. 

Cut to cop Miranda fourteen years later at a murder scene, and it's a gory one.  An old newspaper clipping is found there, and Miranda starts to flash back to that night years earlier when she was known as Randi.  The clipping and other strange things found at the scene cause her to wonder what ever happened to that guy and other girl all those years ago, and is Miranda strong enough to find out?

This one had me captivated all the way through.  It's a very interesting, well thought out story with not too many characters to clutter  it up.  Miranda is flawed (and somewhat messed up),  but not as much as most everyone else.  I did predict who the murderer was, but not until right before the book revealed it.  I am very grateful for being offered a pre-publication ebook, compliments of the publisher through NetGalley.  This is one I'll gladly recommend.