If Wishes Were Horses

I am not going to spend time nor words on what I thought of Robert Barclay's If Wishes Were Horses. What I wish is that I didn't have the self-imposed rule that if I start a book I have to finish it. The reason I decided to check this book out in the first place was because it was one of those books listed as "Customers who bought this book also purchased..." under a recent book which I did like. And because I'm always looking for new authors, I gave it a try.
The book is okay. It just felt like the characters weren't 'filled out'; that the dialogue and plot were weak. I believe this is the author's first book and I think he's trying to be a Nicholas Sparks - and I'm not even that great of a Sparks fan.

Sarah McCoy is also a first-time author for me. This book I hesitated reading just because I have such a hard time reading about WWII Europe under Nazi rule. The book begins in a bakery in Garmisch, Germany; July, 1945. A woman clutches a letter as armed soldiers patrol outside the door. She cannot be discovered - not with the letter in her hand.
Move to modern-day El Paso, TX where journalist Reba Adams is trying to interview 80-year old German Bakery owner Elsie Meriwether for a 'feel good' Christmas article she is writing for Sun City Magazine.
This is such a compelling book. It gives the reader a very real look at Nazi Germany through the lens of the immigration issues taking place on our own southern border. The characters in this novel are fully fleshed out. I cared about them; their lives and problems. The flashbacks to Germany are so intense especially when 17-year-old Elsie decides to hide a young Jewish boy in her room. And Reba's feelings about illegal aliens crossing the Rio Grande into El Paso affect her relationship with her fiance, Riki, an agent with the U.S. Border Patrol.
McCoy keeps the commonality of the two story lines intertwined as she juxtaposes all the characters and their individual lives. I highly recommend reading this book. And I'll be reading McCoy's first novel, The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico as soon as get it through inter-library loan. 

Another new author. Another really good read. As Meat Loaf said: "Two out of three ain't bad." I must  remind myself to read something other than mysteries every once in awhile because when I do, I am generally lucky enough to enjoy some very good books.
The Underside of Joy is Sere Prince Halverson's first novel. Ella Beene is leaving one life behind her and heading into the unknown when a chance stop at a small town in Northern California presents her with the happiness she had only dreamed of having. She meets Joe and his two young children and for three years lives a life of unexamined happiness as a wife and mother. When Joe is swept away by a rogue wave as he photographs the beautiful coastline, Ella must face her own grief while helping her step-children understand their grief and confusion.
Zach was just a baby when Ella began caring for him. She is the only mother he has known. He and his older sister, Annie, both call her Mommy. So when their birth mother, Paige, returns to claim them, Zach is confused, but Annie quickly develops a relationship with her and calls her Mama. With Joe out of the picture, Paige expects to regain custody of the children she hasn't even seen for three years.
Both Ella and Paige consider themselves to be the children's mother. Their conflict uncovers both physical and emotional scars of the families' deeply buried tragedies, including Italian internment camps during WWII, post-partum psychosis and a father's damaging affair.
I loved this book, especially its last paragraph: "And so it has been for me in this place called Elbow, where the river bends and gives before it leads out to the Pacific, where years ago I stumbled upon a certain kind of happiness. I know now that the most genuine happiness is kept afloat by an underlying sorrow. We all break the surface into this life already howling the cries of our ancestors, bearing their DNA, their eye colors and their scars, their glory and their shame. It is theirs; it is ours. It is the underside of joy."