April Reads II

Two more of Kristina's recommendations made it on the second half of April's reads - at least the authors if not the specific books.

She had recommended Ron Rash's 2004 "Saints at the River" which I hope to find at Half Price Books new location next time I'm in WDM. Instead, I read Rash's 2008 Pen/Faulkner Finalist "Serena".

Rash's books are set in Appalachia - an area that draws me as much or more than Ireland does. "Serena" is a story about the logging industry during the depression -a time when men were as desperate for work as Serena and her husband were to make as much money as possible from the timber before the area was made into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Rash's writing is spare, poetical, mystical. When I began reading "Serena" I didn't think I was going to like the book, but the quality of his writing kept me reading until I was hooked on the storyline. I should know by now that I like almost everything Kristina likes. (Yes, Kari, I will read "Moon Tiger" before you get here and we will talk about it!)

Emilie Richards is the author of the "Shenandoah Album" novels I've been reading. And because I've enjoyed those books, I picked up her earlier "Prospect Street". It is a typical "woman betrayed, divorced, on her own with two kids, down-sizing from wealth and perfect house into a Georgetown fixer-upper row house" kind of book. As she works on repairing the house, she is also rebuilding relationships. Of course there is an attractive, enigmatic man and a mystery to be solved - a good read for the rainy days of April.

Tony Hillerman has long been one of my favourite authors with his southwest Native American stories. Which is why the Denver Post quote: "Doss does for the Utes what Tony Hillerman has done for the Navajo" on the back cover of "White Shell Woman" by James D. Doss got me to part with $2.00 in order to bring it home and read.

There are now fifteen novels in the Charlie Moon mysteries Doss writes. "White Shell Woman" is number seven. Doss is now retired from the Los Alamos National Laboratory technical staff, so there will probably be more books about the Utes. And since Hillerman won't be writing any longer, I'll be reading Doss for awhile.

P. J. Alderman may have been nominated for a RITA for her first book, "A Killing Tide", but I'll probably not hunt it out based on reading her second novel, "Haunting Jordan". Some books with resident ghosts are extremely captivating. "Haunting Jordan" is just lame.

The other April Reads II, Kristina-recommended author, is Margaret Frazer and specifically, her Dame Frevisse Medieval Mystery series. I happened to buy #10, "The Squire's Tale". (As nearly as I can tell there are now 17 Dame Frevisse mysteries.)

Frazer is an Edgar Award nominee for two of the books in this series. Dame Frevisse is a 15th Century nun in the Oxfordshire convent of St. Frideswide. She is some distant relation of Geoffrey Chaucer's, thus the titles of books in the series.

"The Squire's Tale" seemed well-researched. It was well-written, though I was correct in figuring out "whodunit". I'm just not currently into medieval literature - though I have been in the past. Perhaps my interest in that era will once again be piqued and I will pick up another Dame Frevisse mystery.

Of my ten April reads, Tony Earley's "Blue Star" edges out Berg's "Last Time" as my favourite of the month.