Category Archives: Book Reviews

“The Good Goodbye” is the first novel I have read by Carla Buckley. I wasn’t sure is it was a mystery/thriller or fiction/literature. It turns out to be certainly more of the latter than the former. It was almost more about teenagers than it was about adults as the focus of the story was on two younger cousins who were, as they say, “coming of age” during the story.

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This is the first book I have read by Tess Gerritsen. I have never seen the television show which is based on her long series of books about Rizzoli and Isles, so I had no idea what to expect in this book. I originally thought it was a mystery thriller but in reading the book, I would classify it as fiction/literature.

The story is told in two parts, one which is set in the near past in the United States and then Italy and one that is set in Italy in the time preceding and then part way through World War II.

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I’ve read the books in this series over the last few years. What has drawn me to them are that I love mysteries and I have enjoyed the World War II component. I enjoy many books and television series that revolve around this time (my favorite is Foyle’s War and the new series Home Fires.) Unfortunate, in this book, Ms. MacNeal has focused more on racial prejudices of the United States during the period than on the mystery or war efforts. While it was still a good read, it was not what I expected from a Maggie Hope Mystery.

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This is the second book I have read by Diane Chamberlain, the first being “The Silent Sister”. I have been thoroughly engrossed by Ms. Chamberlain’s writing – she makes me think about things in a new a different way. Her stories are not feel-good books but instead, they are books that make you feel emotions.

In “Pretending to Dance”, we are introduced to Molly Arnette, a lawyer in San Diego who is on the verge of adopting a child as she and her husband are unable to have one of their own. As the story progresses, we discover that Molly has not told her husband about her past, including the fact that she was part of an unusual open adoption. It appears that she has not told him much and that some of what she has told him are lies.

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