Digging Finlay
I just finished the newest offering from Elle Cosimano in the Finlay Donovan series, and it definitely lived up to its predecessors and gave me a good time during the three days I took to read it. I have reviewed all the other books in the series on this blog; if you read the review of the first one, it will tell you all you need to know to pull you into this tale of the single mom/romance author who gets mistaken for a contract killer.
The books are, in order: Finlay Donovan is Killing It, Finlay Donovan Knocks ’em Dead, Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun, Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice, and this latest, Finlay Donovan Digs Her Own Grave. (There is also a book 3.5, a novella of 107 pages that reveals some of the back story of nanny Vero Ruiz, called Veronica Ruiz Breaks the Bank. That’s the only one I haven’t read…yet.)
As with the others in the series, not a lot of time has passed since the events of the previous book, but this time Finlay and her nanny/business manager Vero don’t actually create trouble for themselves, but are helped into the thick of it by Finlay’s elderly neighbor, Mrs. Haggerty. Margaret Haggerty has featured in all the other books, mostly as the busybody across the street who keeps a pair of binoculars next to her front window and writes down all the transgressions and suspicious behavior of the people in her neighborhood. (She’s the one who revealed to Finlay that her husband was stepping out on her with his real estate agent, Theresa.) But this time it is Mrs. Haggerty who is under suspicion—a dead body has been found buried under her backyard rose garden, and she’s the prime suspect. The police can find no connection between her and the victim, so she is cleared, but since her house is an active crime scene, she insists on moving in with Finlay, Vero, and the kids until the yellow tape comes down and the heating and electricity are restored.
Finlay, who has just finished a book and has a little breathing room before needing to get on with her next, had been looking forward to some calmer down time, hopefully including some fraternization with hot cop Nick, while Vero is negotiating her reinvigorated relationship with childhood pal and current love interest Javi. Neither of them is overjoyed to welcome Mrs. Haggerty into their home, but when her grandson drops her off and disappears, they haven’t much choice.
Then things take a turn that pulls them into the investigation, when Finlay’s cheating ex-husband, Steven, becomes a suspect! There is a small part of Finlay that wouldn’t mind Steven getting his comeuppance…but he is the father of her children, and ultimately she doesn’t believe he’s a murderer. But how to prove his innocence?
After re-reading the other four books before jumping into the new one, I have to say that I appreciated the slightly less fraught tone of this story. There were still twists and turns and surprises, but it was neither as convoluted nor as frantic, with a little more time to develop characters, and that was a needed development. The cast list was pared down (the last book had several criminals, a half dozen extra cops, multiple murder victims, and enough incidental characters that I kept thinking as I read, “Who is this guy again?”) We didn’t just get to know more about Mrs. Haggerty, but we also deepened our acquaintance with Cam, the teenage computer hacker; we saw Finlay and Nick get to know one another better; and I also loved the vignettes of the children, Delia and Zach, as they navigated being bullied at school and conquering potty training, respectively. There were quite a few laugh-out-loud moments, some genuine suspense, and some big surprises, but it felt like we settled down into a better understanding of the principals, which makes me anticipate the next book with greater pleasure.
If you’re looking for a cross between mystery and French farce, with a dose of middle class angst and some fancy crooks, you will want to try this series for yourself.
Part of Your World #1
I reviewed Abby Jimenez’s book Just for the Summer in February, noting that it was the third volume of a loose trilogy without a through-story; the books simply share a few characters. This week I picked up the first in that series, Part of Your World, and was immersed in another meet-cute story about a destined couple with huge obstacles to conquer.
Alexis Montgomery is the latest in a formidable dynasty of doctors who have created their own stage on which to shine; they have all (except Alexis) been world-class surgeons whose total focus is continuing this family tradition at Royaume Northwestern Hospital, to which their award-winning research and procedures have brought both fame and financing for almost 125 years. Alexis’s twin brother, Derek, is the surgeon of her generation, leaving her free to choose to be an Emergency Room doctor instead, even though this is looked down upon by her autocratic, competitive parents. But Alexis’s saving grace (to them) is that for the past almost-decade she has dated and then lived with and become engaged to the hospital’s chief surgeon, Neil, who is the doctor they had hoped she would be.
Alexis has recently identified, however, how deeply unhappy she is with Neil; she has been subjected to a systematic program of denigration and gaslighting for most of their relationship, and has finally managed to break free, using the excuse of his affair with his department’s anesthesiologist to kick him out of the house they own together. Through therapy, she is getting a solid idea of how thoroughly warped she has been by his manipulative verbal abuse and is making strides towards being emotionally healthy; but everyone else in her life—Neil and her friends and parents included—expect the two will reconcile.
Daniel Grant’s family has lived in the tiny town of Wakan, Minnesota, for as long as the Montgomerys have ruled the medical community in Minneapolis. His many-greats grandfather built a beautiful home there that Daniel, the last of the family so far, has turned into a bed and breakfast, which he operates during the tourist season when people come for the river rafting, fishing, biking, and other outdoor pursuits. The rest of the year he makes a meager living with his woodworking, building both furniture and ornamental pieces in his workshop apartment over the garage. Daniel is also the mayor of Wakan, although this isn’t so much a position of esteem as it is a combination of social director and arbitrator of petty community issues. He knows everyone and everyone knows him, and they all look out for one another in the precarious atmosphere of a town that depends on its visitors for its living.
There could hardly be two more dissimilar lifestyles or outlooks than these, but when Alexis runs her car off the road on her way home from a funeral in Iowa and Daniel shows up to tow her out of the ditch, there’s an undeniable spark that leads one of them to think there could be something here, while the other resolves that there’s no way this can be anything but a short-term fling. Alexis, 37, has the weight of the Montgomery dynasty on her shoulders and a wealthy city lifestyle to support her long hours at the hospital; Daniel, 28, drives a pick-up truck with duct-taped seats, slaves for every penny, and doesn’t own a suit. It seems impossible that either could give up their world to be with the other; there is just too much baggage and too many extenuating circumstances. But there is that connection…
I loved about 85 percent of this book, and would say it is worth reading. The caveats that make up the other 15 percent are two. One of them is the ending; it was pretty obvious what would eventually happen, but the manner in which it did seemed way too easy after all the angst put into the situation by everyone involved, making it a little anticlimactic.
The other caveat is something I would never have expected would bother me, but it did. There is, in this story, an element of magical realism. I am generally a big fan of that literary device in fiction; I have devoured most of Alice Hoffman’s books, loved Chocolat by Joanne Harris, enjoyed some YA picks by Anna-Marie McLemore, and admired (but didn’t love) the works of Isabel Allende. I like realistic stories that include fantastical elements treated as if they are wholly normal, which is a basic definition of the genre, but in this book, this element was awkwardly handled. The first allusion to the magical nature of the town of Wakan was dropped early in the book by a minor character, but nothing occurred to back that up until about three-quarters of the way through, and then it was so abrupt and unlikely that it felt less like magic and more like one of those phenomena where it’s raining and fish suddenly fall from the sky, miles from any body of water. The whole nature of magical realism is to blend it in seamlessly with the everyday so that it is delightful but doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb, and Abby Jimenez has unfortunately not mastered this writing technique. Far from adding to the story, it pulled me right out of it.
But…I’d still give it four stars out of five (mostly for the totally hot carpenter/mayor).
#Momspringa
I wanted to continue the more lighthearted mood engendered by The Road to Roswell but wasn’t wanting more science fiction, so I decided instead to look for an entry in the “relationship fiction” category. I couldn’t find an available check-out at the library, so I searched my Kindle for a reread and remembered Kelly Harms’s The Overdue Life of Amy Byler, which I read back in 2019 and enjoyed quite a lot.
Rather than re-hashing, I will post a link to my previous review here, but will add that one of the reasons I appreciated this book (in addition to the book- and librarian-related story line and the makeover of “momjeans”) was because it dropped me into a world that, at a naive and hopeful 18, I thought might be a career choice.
At a certain age, we all look back at the possibilities we passed up, the roads we didn’t travel, and wonder what would have resulted had we made different choices; one of my fantasy life stories was to go to New York City to become a book editor or work for a high-end magazine publisher. (Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar had a big effect on me in high school.) Amy Byler’s friend Talia, the chic, single, city-loving editor of a fashion magazine, was the definition of my dream, and the summer Amy spends in the city housesitting her empty apartment while attending theater productions, going to museums, and discovering wonderful restaurants, sounded like a lifestyle I would have loved.
One of the few regrets I have is that I have never made it to NYC, even for a visit. I guess there’s still time left…but my dream was to conquer the boulevards by striding down them in my Reeboks on the way to the office with all the other up-and-comers, not to be a tourist taking the freight elevator to the top of the Empire State Building in my wheelchair. I guess Amy wasn’t the only one with an overdue life! I mostly don’t regret the one I have lived, but I certainly wish I had been more adventurous at key moments and thus had more on which I could look back with satisfaction. Perhaps I will stick with the fantasy fulfillment of books like this one and simply pretend to be the person living the story—isn’t that really what reading is all about?
Momfluencers
What kind of word is THAT? Ask Jesse Q. Sutanto, author of the thriller You Will Never Be Me. The book is set in the worst cliché-ridden version of Los Angeles (as a 52-year resident of this city, I beg to differ with the exaggerated depiction!), and its two main characters are social media “influencers” who are also moms touting their lifestyle—thus that ghastly splice.
I had previously read Sutanto’s romcoms (the “Aunties” trilogy) and her delightfully silly mystery Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, so when I was looking for some lighter dark reading, I decided to try one of her thrillers. The library had this e-book on hand, and as a relative novice to Instagram with fewer followers than I would like (this is for my page featuring my portrait-painting), I thought it would be fun to read about some of the people who have made a true success out of their presence in such forums.
In some ways, it was fun; but I felt at a disadvantage with this book because, although the moms were supposedly besties in all things, the truth that they were jealous competitors who had trouble celebrating each other’s wins (particularly when one substantially overshadowed and outperformed the other) made both of them inherently unlikeable. And although I don’t mind villainous characters, I usually like it better when there is one sympathetic person in the story for whom I can cheer. You know, someone with at least one redeeming quality….
In the beginning, Meredith was the popular rising star and Aspen was the eager but slightly gauche fan. Before Meredith met Aspen, there was a friend-gap in her life; she was so busy trying to become popular to legions of online strangers that she didn’t have time to cultivate people in real life. But when she runs into Aspen at a Hollywood pretty-people party and realizes just how out of her depth she is, Meredith takes a shrewd look at Aspen’s potential and, flattered by her naive, awed admiration, decides to help her. She teaches her about hair and makeup, shows her how to make videos to entice both followers and sponsors, and gives her a leg up into Meredith’s world.
A few years later, Aspen’s star has risen exponentially, while Meredith’s influence has waned—her “brand” is a little tired, a little old. Aspen has crafted a new, polished look, married Ben, and given birth to darling twin girls Noemie and Elea; fueled by motherhood and the need to be the breadwinner in an unequal partnership (her husband is in real estate but not a player), Aspen has switched her brand to become a “momfluencer.” She films the daily routine, presenting herself and her family as living an idyllic existence—the twins always dressed in adorable matching outfits, every meal gourmet and served with panache, home decor curated to shine online. When you collect as many followers as Aspen, the deals for product placement follow, and the dollars flow in.
When Aspen gets pregnant with a third daughter, Meredith decides she has waited long enough for Mr. Perfect and chooses to become a single mother with the help of an anonymous sperm donor. While she wouldn’t go so far as to say she gave birth to baby Luca so that she, too, could go the momfluencer route, well…that’s what she has tried to do. But somehow she just can’t pull it off with the seamless brio of the successful and somewhat patronizing Aspen, who is too busy now to hang with her best friend Mer, drinking wine and gossiping as they used to do. The tables are turned; Aspen is on top, and Mer is, well, not either admiring or in awe. She resents Aspen’s success and especially her lack of willingness to share her ideas and methods the way Mer had shared with her when Aspen was the one at the bottom. Meredith discovers it’s not fun to be ditched, and finally, in frustration, she blows up at Aspen and says some unforgiveable things, and the friendship is over.
A few months later, Mer, who has been stalking Aspen (just a tiny bit, right? nothing serious) gets lucky. Little Elea leaves her iPad out on the patio where an enterprising person can appropriate it. Mer isn’t sure why she took it, but when she discovers that Aspen has created an online calendar that updates automatically onto all the family’s devices, she has access to Aspen’s social media schedule. At first she just tweaks things, causing Aspen to arrive late at a lunch date or forget to pick up the dry cleaning; but soon she is erasing meetings with sponsors and turning up in Aspen’s place to sign lucrative contracts. Meanwhile, Aspen can’t figure out what has gone awry—has the pressure of having to (appear to) be the perfect mom in front of millions caused her to lose her mind and her mojo?
Then something happens that turns the relationship on its head and sends Aspen’s and Mer’s story in a whole new direction…
It sounds like big fun, right? And some of it is. But until the twist 50 percent of the way through the book, there is a lot of snark. We don’t get to live through any of the harmonious early days of Meredith’s and Aspen’s friendship, we are instead dumped directly into the bitter rivalry felt by Meredith and the somewhat dismissive, too-busy inattention exhibited by Aspen. And neither of their lives is the shining example they present online because, let’s face it, motherhood is never that easy. Aspen and Ben have grown apart as he has become increasingly resentful of being on camera 24/7 (and having his nose rubbed in the fact that he’s not the breadwinner), while one of the twins is acting out like she’s 16 instead of seven. Mer is constantly exhausted by the unending round of nursing, changing, and being awakened by baby Luca, and upset by her inability to make more money and have the nice things Aspen has already achieved. None of the supporting characters—Ben, Mer’s sister Claire (or Clara? I could swear her name switched halfway through the book)—is a sympathetic one either. So the whole recitation becomes tiring if you are looking for some comic relief amidst all the anger and angst.
But…that twist. It makes things interesting. And there’s another one later on that takes things in an even more extreme direction. So although at 49 percent I was ready to give this book faint praise (not pan it, exactly, but not promote it either), it turned out to be a much better story than I had expected at the halfway mark. And it’s definitely eye-opening about the online popularity that people who want success must pursue. Although I wish I had the 17K followers my friend Phoebe has scored, and that I sold the bulk of my paintings the way she does, I’m certainly not going to be ruining a treasured friendship over it! (Even if I only have 879 people looking at my portraits today…) How DID she do that?
(If you’d like to follow me and save my friendship with the lovely
and talented Phoebe, you can find me at https://www.instagram.com/losangeles_melliott/.
I’m just sayin’…)
Breaking a curse
I picked up Abby Jimenez’s book Just for the Summer from Kindle Unlimited thinking it was written by Abbi Waxman, whose books I have enjoyed twice before. I later figured it out, but the plot sounded sufficiently appealing that I read it anyway, and I’m glad I did, because I really enjoyed it. It’s a “relationship” story along the lines of Emily Henry or Christina Lauren, some sort of meet-cute with complications and a hopefully HEA ending, but it’s better than many/most I have read.
It’s billed as third in a series, but it’s not one that is dependent on having read the others; they share some characters in common, but there’s not really a through-story here. This one is about Justin and Emma, two unfortunates who suffer from the same “curse”: Whenever they date anyone and then break up, their exes go on to find their “soulmates” in the very next person they date. (There’s a 2007 movie called Good Luck Chuck with this same “syndrome,” but in that case only the guy exhibits it.)
Justin does a funny “am I the asshole?” post about this on Reddit, Emma replies by saying she has the same problem, and after enjoying chatting with one another, they come up with a plan: They will date each other, break up, and cancel out the curse, so that each will then meet the love of his/her life. They do some calculating and figure out all the common denominators: They have to go out at least four times, communicate daily by text or by phone over the course of a month, kiss once, and then break up.
It’s a great plan, but there are a few problems: Emma is a traveling nurse, currently located in Colorado and planning to go with her friend Maddy (also a traveling nurse) to Hawaii for a three-month gig as their next stop, while Justin, who lives in Minnesota, has a big life-change coming up that will limit his freedom, so he can’t follow Emma to Hawaii even if he wanted to, and certainly not to stay for a month. So Emma persuades Maddy (with some judicious bribery) to go to Minnesota for the summer, and the experiment is set. But an unforeseen complication in Emma’s life plus the possibility of actual feelings between the two threaten the whole plan…
This was a story with a little more depth than some from this category; I liked the characters, who were all delineated precisely and filled out their roles in the plot. I liked that the complications weren’t manufactured but were things that actually happen to people, messy events and emotions with which they struggle. And the story arc was really well distributed, not building up to a rushed and idyllic ending—the pacing was measured, something that, again, felt real. Sure, there are a few of the standard clichés, but in this case they are made to work with the story and not against it.
Based on this book, I would definitely consider reading others by Jimenez.
Read the blurb!
After my foray into depressing post-apocalyptic water-world, I didn’t feel quite up to broaching a new nonfiction book about politics that my friend Marya told me it was essential that I read. I am dreading the takeover of the new regime, and the novella by Jenny Colgan wasn’t sufficient to lift my spirits. So I decided I would deliberately read something fun, and the author whose name popped into my head was Sophie Kinsella. I mean, Shopaholic, right? I pulled up her list of e-books on the library website, checked out the most recent—called What Does It Feel Like?—and sat down yesterday at breakfast to lose myself in fluff.
Okay, a successful writer, a lovely husband who takes care of the five kids while she’s writing, a book optioned for a movie, a walk on the red carpet, so far so good. And then…a stage four glioblastoma in her brain lands her in the hospital, where she has surgery, loses her short-term memory and most of her mobility, and has to start from scratch to relearn how to be a functional human while receiving chemotherapy and radiation, because of course it was malignant. C’mon!
Turns out it’s an autobiographical novelization of Kinsella’s recent experience. Oh, no! But she has apparently survived to write a book about it, so I finished it, even though I didn’t want to. (It’s only 144 pages, another novella.) If this is something you are experiencing, however, it’s a good read to get you through, cheer you up, and give you hope plus some wry jokes about bucket lists.
Next time, I will definitely read the blurb first.
Rare books and romance
Looking for something a little more lighthearted after my foray into a post-apocalyptic flooded world, I eagerly picked up a special on Kindle, written by Jenny Colgan and billed as a short story. The Christmas Book Hunt seemed to me more like a novella, being 127 pages long (most short stories don’t exceed 30 pages), but I never mind if something is a longer read than it “should” be, especially if I’m a fan of the author, so I was happy to jump in. Besides, it’s about books…
It’s a story about Mirren, a London-dweller whose beloved, elderly Aunt Violet is fading away. Mirren is anxious to make her last days happy ones, and Violet has expressed a desire to see a book she remembers from childhood—an extremely rare one-off of a well-known children’s classic hand-illustrated by a famous artist—but Violet has no idea what happened to the book after her father was gone and her life took a turn for the impoverished. It’s likely the book was sold, along with most of their other possessions, but it was such a rare and beautiful thing that hopefully it’s still out there somewhere.
Mirren eagerly jumps online to search for it, but can’t find more than a whisper that it even exists; she then decides to venture into the real world of rare books to see if she can track it down by Christmas. But canny dealers are alerted by Mirren’s search and, as she makes her way to bookstores from London to Hay-on-Wye and then to Edinburgh, her progress is being followed by several people who desperately want the book for themselves…
Although the story is billed as a “meet-cute” romance, the parts that deal with this are much less satisfying than is the relationship depicted between Mirren and her aunt, the real love story here. Because of the way the romantic interest (the nephew of a greedy rare book dealer) is introduced, then dropped, only to pop up again at the end, the happily-ever-after possibility that seems to present itself felt unlikely, as well as somewhat insincere. But I really enjoyed the hunt for the book and the unexpected turn of events for Violet. I’m hoping (after the close of the story) that Mirren shows some good sense and treats Theo with the lack of trust that should have been engendered from the beginning if not for her naïveté.
One last book
I managed to fit in one more before the artificial barrier that is New Year’s Eve divides us from our past and pushes us into the future. Don’t we as humans have weird customs? I mean, I understand turning-point events like the solstices and equinoxes, where something actually happens (the day becomes longer, the night becomes shorter, or vice versa, the seasons change, etc.), but artificial constructs like New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day are a bit baffling. It would seem more logical that the winter solstice would be the year’s turning point, but no, it’s 10 days later. Why?
Anyway, enough with the futile speculation; I read another book! And although I technically finished it on New Year’s Day, since I read 93 percent of it before the turn of the year, I’m counting it as last of last, instead of first of next.
This one is called The Twilight Garden, by Sara Nisha Adams, author of The Reading List, which I previously reviewed here. That book caused a rather lengthy rant about all the things authors don’t know about librarians when they write their supposedly library-centered books; but while her research left a lot to be desired, she was a good storyteller and I like books about gardening, so I decided to give this one a try.
It takes place in a small neighborhood called Stoke Newington in the city of London, where two brownstone-like side-by-side residences (one owned, one rented) share a common garden space that was obviously at one point well cared for, but has been neglected by a string of tenants until it has become choked with nettles and bindweed, showing only faint outlines of its former glory. Living in one side of the property (renters) are Lewis and Winston, a couple who began as bankers at the same institution but who diverged sharply in their goals and aspirations when Winston decided the financial scene wasn’t for him and instead found a job as a clerk in a local grocery, while Lewis continued up the competitive ladder. On the other side (owners) are divorcée Bernice and her 11-year-old son, Sebastian (Seb), the mom prickly and privileged (Winston has nicknamed her Queen of Sheba) and the son friendly and disarming. None of them (except Seb) has any desire to spend a minute with the others and, in fact, Winston and Bernice have an initially adversarial relationship that annoys them both to no end. But when Winston, in the midst of life changes that make him desperate for something to occupy his time and his mind, begins laboring in the garden, prompted by some unexpected input, Bernice is first irritated but then intrigued. Soon the garden begins working its magic to bring these two and others together…
The book takes place with dual casts in two separate timelines, with the property as the unifying element; one timeline is in the 1970s-80s, while the other is (almost) present-day (2018-2019). With the exception of three people, all the major players are Indian immigrants or the children or grandchildren of immigrants, so there are some nice scenes featuring Gujurati cuisine and traditions accompanied by some less pleasant events tied to racism and prejudice. But the heart-warming scenes are far more prevalent than are the hints of discord, and the book is a lovely picture of what happens when people come together to celebrate their triumphs and share their losses while creating a beautiful garden that will have longevity. It’s populated by interesting and memorable characters and has enough specific gardening details to satisfy those who were drawn to it for that reason. A lovely read—not too heavy, but with plenty of depth. I also liked the perfectly narrative art of the cover.
Wrapping up
This year it feels more like a winding down than a wrapping up. I read the fewest books in one year since I started doing the Goodreads Challenge 12 years ago. That year I read 75 books; my highest number ever was in 2019, when I read 159 books while working full-time from January to October (I retired from the library in October of that year). You would think it would be the reverse, since I have so much more time now than I did then; but there were some factors at play that ensured I would read a lot more then. First, I was running three teen book clubs, so I had to read one book per month for each club, plus a couple extra books in each age range (the clubs were 6th- and 7th-graders, 8th- and 9th-graders, and grades 10-12) so I would have ideas to propose as the following month’s read. I was also reviewing books for both the teen and adult library blogs (both of which I supervised), so I was heavily invested in spending all my spare time reading new teen and adult fiction to showcase there. And finally, of course, there was a certain amount of reading for my own particular pleasure! I basically worked, commuted, ate, slept, and read, and did absolutely nothing else!
Nowadays there are circumstances that tend to decrease my reading time: With my particular disability, sitting in one position for long periods of time isn’t great for keeping my legs at their best possible condition for mobility. I also watch a lot more on television these days, now that streaming services let you binge-watch an entire five-season show, one episode after another for as long as you can stay awake, as opposed to waiting for one weekly episode for a 12- to 20-week season and then waiting in turn for the following season. And I spend way too much time “doom-scrolling” political stuff online, or keeping up with friends on Facebook. Finally, once I took up painting I started spending at least a few days a week focused on making a portrait or two or a still life featuring items from my antique collection.
Anyway, this year I read a meager-for-me 66 books. Some of them were literary and some of them were chick lit, some were re-reads of beloved stories, and others were authors previously unknown. My statistics include:
23,782 pages, with an average book length of 360 pages
(shortest was 185, longest was 698)
Average rating was 3.6 stars
Some favorite new titles were:
The Unmaking of June Farrow, by Adrienne Young
Starter Villain, by John Scalzi
Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, by Jesse Q. Sutanto
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers
All the Dead Shall Weep, and The Serpent in Heaven, by Charlaine Harris
Found in a Bookshop, by Stephanie Butland
I felt throughout the year like I was having trouble discovering books that really resonated with me. Although I had some pleasurable reading discoveries, I never found that one book or series or author that really sucked me in and kept me mesmerized for hours at a time. I found myself reading during breakfast or on my lunch break and easily stopping after a chapter or two to go do something else, rather than wanting to settle in for a solid afternoon of reading. I’m hoping to find more compelling books in the new year. But reading continues to be one of my best-beloved pastimes.
Metaphor
Flying is such a useful metaphor for all sorts of movement in life, and Jenny Colgan makes the most of this in her book, The Summer Skies, the first in the McIntyre books. (I recently read and reviewed #2, not realizing there was one before it.)
This is the book in which we meet Morag McIntyre, an accomplished young pilot, the third generation to learn to fly in her great-grandfather’s 18-seater Twin Otter prop plane, Dolly, above the windswept archipelago of northern Scotland. The family runs a business that fetches mail, packages, tourists, medicine, and occasionally livestock between islands, a vital lifeline for the sparse population inhabiting them.
Morag is pursuing a life out in the wider world, piloting great airbuses on commercial flights to exotic locales, but one day she has a fraught experience in the air that shakes her self-confidence to the core. One good thing comes out of it when the human resources person who has to vet her return to the cockpit turns out to be the handsome and charismatic Hayden. Despite her secret misgivings about flying again, she is cleared by him and then begins dating him. When Hayden’s office transfers him to Dubai, Morag considers moving with him, but first, news of her grandfather’s illness sends her home to Scotland for a visit. She is pressed into service as co-pilot on a flight to the tiny island of Inchborn—home to a ruined abbey, a bird-watching station, and a visiting ornithologist from Glasgow—where an unexpected delay gives Morag the time she needs to figure out what she really wants, from flying and from life.
I really enjoyed this book. Several reviewers on Goodreads expressed disappointment because it didn’t feel, according to them, like a typical Colgan book, but I would have to disagree. It may have been simpler in plot and more spare with its characters than some (and also lacking recipes), but it felt, nonetheless, like a return to the familiar, which is to say, a trip to the icy but beautiful Scottish isles occupied by quirky characters with life issues to which we can most of us relate.
I will acknowledge one reviewer’s caveats, because they are germane: The research into how pilots are trained for aviation and what they are and are not permitted and/or expected to do (especially regarding switching back and forth between kinds of planes/flying) was incredibly sloppy, and I am surprised Colgan made these kinds of errors. I will also remark (again) about how poorly (and inaccurately) this book was described on Goodreads. (I have written a new summary and am working to get it substituted.) But the focus of this book is also on the relationships, and in that area it was entertaining and felt true to life. And as always with these books set in remote areas of Scotland, I was romanced likewise by the scenery.
