Our Colorado Reader, Connie is back at it again. Read her picks.

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill  by Abbi Waxman  ( pub 07.09.19  Penguin)

 

This often laugh out loud book centers on the life of a neurotic young woman who works in an LA bookstore. As she says, working there would be perfect if it weren’t for the customers. Raised by a loving nanny who takes the place of a father she never met and her globe trotting famous photographer mother, Nina is happy living alone with her cat Phil. 

Nina’s life is turned upside down when a lawyer notifies her she’s been left something in her wealthy biological father’s will. And, if that isn’t disconcerting enough, she finds that she has more family than she is able to handle. Thrown into the mix, is her Tuesday night Trivia Contest team’s events and her apparent attraction to one of the opposing team’s players. 

 

Fun, fun, fun. A delightful read even if predictable. If they clean up a few parts, this would make a great Hallmark movie. 

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The Lost Man by Jane Harper 
(pub 02.05.19  Macmillan)

By the author of the best seller (and really good read) “The Dry”, Harper returns us to her native Australia. Two brothers meet up at the fence separating their ranches and come upon Cameron, their 3^rd brother – dead. Set in a remote area of Queensland where your closest neighbor is 3 hrs. away and the sun can kill you in hours why then would Cameron leave his car and head out into the desert? Not exactly a murder mystery in the way the next review is, but certainly suspenseful as it brings us to know this family and its history and the brutal environment in which they live. And I will attest to the fact that listening to it while gardening out in the summer sun will most definitely enhance the experience.  

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What do you call historical fiction plus a mystery plus a setting in England? A trifecta!

A Test of Wills by Charles Todd – Inspector Ian Rutledge # 1  by  Charles Todd
(pub 08.01.96  Macmillan)

Obviously this is not a new book. However, “The Black Ascot – Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery #21” which was published 02.05.19 is. It always surprises, and delights, me when I hear about a new book in a series I was totally unaware of. And while I will probably never get to the entire series, I do like to go back to the beginning to get introduced to the characters and thus this read. 

Ian Rutledge was a successful homicide detective at Scotland Yard before he left to fight in the Great War. Back home in 1919, he is not the man he had been – having survived in body, but suffering from shell shock or PTSD as we now term it. For his first case back at the Yard, his jealous boss sends Rutledge to solve the murder of a popular retired military officer. Unfortunately, a war hero who is a friend of the Prince of Wales is the main suspect though others in the village or in the officer’s wealthy circle of friends may have had reason to kill the man. If Rutledge can’t keep his own demons at bay and ends up charging the wrong person – especially one so esteemed – it will certainly be the end of his career which will most certainly delight his superior.

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Another possible Hallmark movie, but this one more in the tear jerker genre. 

The Long Flight Home by Alan Hlad 
(pub 06.25.19  35K  Random)

Debut novel set in London during WWII. Susan and Bertie, her grandfather, are recruited by the British government to use their carrier pigeons to help relay messages to and from France. The American’s aren’t in the war yet and after his British parent’s sudden deaths, Ollie, a young American from Maine who learned to fly crop dusters on his parent’s farm, travels to England to join the British Air Force. Before he can join up, he is sent to help with Susan’s pigeons and the two begin to have feelings for each other.  While trying to rescue Susan’s pet pigeon Duchess, he inadvertently finds himself behind enemy lines in France with a British pilot who hates “yanks”.

A moving story based on the actual event of British Services enlisting the help of over 200,000 homing pigeons to carry messages across enemy lines during WWII.