Help Find a Good Book

magoc book

I haven’t reviewed a book on my blog recently, and it troubles me. It isn’t because I haven’t been reading, but because I haven’t fallen in love with the book in my hands. So I’m asking your help. Send me the title and author of the best book (or books) you’ve read this year, plus a sentence or two on what it’s about and why you liked it. If you want to use a pen name, that’s fine. I’ll post it on the blog, read it and invite others to do the same. Then I’ll add my own review. I’d love to get a conversation going and help everyone find good books.

Let me start the conversation off with Lori Roy’s first novel, Bent Road, an Edgar winner and a powerful read.

BentRoad

Arthur Scott returns to Kansas, with wife Celia and children to face the past he’s run from his entire adult life. The Kansas family he joins is haunted with secrets surrounding the death of his sister, Eve, and the tormented marriage of his sister Ruth who married the man who loved Eve. The slow unraveling of the truth, told in the voices of Celia and her children carry the reader deep into both the pain and the love that bonds the family and threatens to disintegrate it.

This is a dark read, but one you won’t put down. Dark as it is, it ends with hope and so doesn’t leave the reader at the bottom of the pit.

 

This is, as many of you know, the kind of story I write, including the theme of social change that runs through the book. It is also a well crafted mystery, though it doesn’t fit the genre pattern. I invite you to read it and tell me why I didn’t fall in love with it. I think I could learn a lot about my own writing from your responses.

 

A final tip: If you subscribe to the blog you can become a part of what I hope will be an on-going conversation about books. 😉 

4 Responses to Help Find a Good Book

  1. terrypersun September 23, 2015 at 1:48 pm #

    Judy, I read a lot, and one of the books I really enjoyed this year was “There Must Be Some Mistake” by Frederick Barthelme. Very well written.

    • Judy September 23, 2015 at 4:10 pm #

      Thank you, Terry. I’ll take a look at it. Has anyone else reading this read it? Do respondd if you have.

  2. mymagicdog September 24, 2015 at 6:17 am #

    What a marvelous idea for a continuing blog! I’m certainly looking forward to recommendations from other readers. Sorry to say that I haven’t read a truly great book in a long time. However, one I recently discovered, and enjoyed, was the first in a series about Maisie Dobbs. In fact, that’s the title of the first book. Set in 1929, Maisie is a detective — a rare career for a woman of that time. A charming book and I hope to read others in the series.

    • Judy September 24, 2015 at 5:29 pm #

      Thank you Patricia! I’ll put Maisie Dobbs on my list and invite everyone to do the same.

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