The Silent Wife

The Silent Wife
by A. S. A. Harrison
Published by Penguin Books
323 pages
Genre: literature
Thanks to edelweiss for the preview
5 / 5


I read once, perhaps in a college psychology class, that marriages go through seven-year cycles. Hence the seven year itch. Supposedly, every seven years, couples face their biggest struggles. It has something to do with boredom and complacency.

Jodi and Todd have been together for twenty years, and like most couples with long marriages, they have a reasonable idea of what to expect from each other. Todd knows that Jodi will keep a nice home for him, make sure his laundry is done, and prepare him delicious meals. Jodi knows Todd will cheat on her, but always return to her.

If only it were that simple, kids.

As they approach a multiple of seven, their relationship hits its roughest patch. Jodi accepts Todd's dalliances and even justifies them somewhat. So long as he does not embarrass her or their marriage, he can cheat. Todd tacitly agrees and tends to abide by this. Sure, there have been slip ups, but for the most part, he's behaved accordingly. But he has a new girlfriend. Young, a bit more demanding of his time, and far more willing to give him something Jodi refuses to do. The price of that gift, though, is the bulls eye on the dartboard of his marriage.

The problem for Todd is that Jodi doesn't want to give in or give up. She likes what she has.

This book has been compared to Gone Girl in its exploration of a marriage that has disintegrated into bitterness on both sides. It's an unfair comparison, I think, because The Silent Wife is not similar to its genre companion. Yes, it's told from both points-of-view, and, yes, Jodi's willingness to play for keeps is quite ... um ... intense. She means to keep Todd at all costs. This differs greatly from Gone Girl, in which the happy couple will resort to any measures necessary to stay apart.

A. S. A. Harrison crafts a delicious tale, Her ability to switch from Todd's to Jodi's perspective is one thing, but the way she capably shifts in tone and mood between the two is impressive. Both characters are fully developed and not at all predictable. Todd, for all of his apparent mold-ability, surprises us more than once. Despite the philandering, he seems to be more of a victim than Jodi, who clearly holds the greater power in their relationship. Again, Todd deceptively appears to do so, but it's all Jodi.

That Todd cedes power over his life to the women in it also surprises us. He doesn't appear to mind in the least; in fact, on the few occasions he could determine his own fate, someone else jumps in and does it for him before he even realizes what's happened. That's perhaps what bothers Jodi more than Todd's cheating: she no longer controls him. Yes, he cheats, but he did so within parameters that Jodi established. When he breaks from their arrangement, Jodi is outraged. The cheating she can live with; his abandonment of their carefully choreographed dance she cannot.

There are a few holes here and there, and the ending feels a bit too tidy. (That was the "BOOYAH!" card with Gone Girl - the ending. Oh, that ending.) But this is a terrific story, told in a way that will keep you turning pages in shock, anger, curiosity, and concern.

The Abomination: Book One in the Carnivia Trilogy

The Abomination: Book One in the Carnivia Trilogy
by Jonathan Holt
Published by Harper
448 pages
Genre: fiction; mystery
Thanks to edelweiss for the preview
5 / 5

Jonathan Holt, where have you been all my life? And when are you going to write another book?

First, I suppose, we should discuss your debut novel. I really enjoyed it, every intricate, detailed page. I love the characters you created, although I will tell you that I have some - shall I say - questions pertaining to Aldo Piola. I'm sure you understand what they are.

But I've gotten ahead of myself.

I like the setting you chose. Venice. So rich with possibility, so ripe for crime, secrecy, and passion, right? You don't just have Venice around, you use Venice. She is as much a character as Kat, Holly, or Daniele. Or Aldo ... You also educate us a little about the city. I found it interesting that you so rarely allude to gondolas or the canals; instead, you focus on the water as a source - or conduit - of death and crime. The canals that are so breathlessly romanticized in film and literature are here stripped of that sheen and examined with a dispassionate eye.

Your story is gripping, fast-paced, entertaining, and even educational. I like how it starts off with a fisherman fearing for his life, then moves into a murder investigation of a woman dressed as a priest, and then morphs into an investigation into a prostitution ring filtering from Croatia into Italy. Against these big issues, though, you have small, personal stories. Kat and Aldo's pursuit of truth in the face of corruption. Holly's fears of being branded a whistle blower combating with her inability to ignore crimes potentially committed by her own country. And Daniele. I liked him so much. His website, Carnivia, is a fascinating creation, especially given his background of having been kidnapped as a young child and his need to solve puzzles. I like how Carnivia, with its absolute secrecy, is the piece that brings Kat, Holly, and Daniele together. There is a murder to be solved, yes, but there are other puzzles to be solved. What role does the Mafia play? What about the American government?

In fact, I'm glad this is the first of a series, because I'm not ready to say good-bye to Daniele. I like how Holly saw through him and accurately pinpointed his motivation for creating Carnivia. It's little personal details like that that make this such a superb novel. Or Kat's reaction to seeing what anonymous people say about her online. I like how she questions it based not on a "this is how it's done in Italy" position but rather "this is how it shouldn't be done to women." I like how she and Holly stood up for themselves, each in her own way.

For a novel packed with so many characters and so much detail and action, you might assume it would feel unwieldy. It should be difficult to know the characters as well as we do. But neither is the case. The story is far more straightforward than it appears, largely because you stick to the principal that we cannot stop future crimes until we account for those from the past. You do an excellent job of presenting fully realized characters. The only stereotype or flat character is Avvocato Morcello, right down to his greasy hair.

I hope people read this book, I truly do. It's an excellent mystery, fast-paced and loaded with action and characters we enjoy.

Now, about the next installment in the trilogy. When can we expect that?

The Last Good Man

There is something so quietly compelling about The Last Good Man, by Kathleen Eagle, that I struggle with writing this review. I don't know how to describe it, other than to say that The Last Good Man is one good book.

Savannah Stephens has returned home to Sunbonnet, Wyoming, from which she escaped after high school, intent on a modeling career. She achieved it, landing in a catalog similar to Victoria's Secret. But when she comes home, she is several years removed from the limelight ... and she brings a young daughter with her.

Clay Keogh, Savannah's best friend from childhood, didn't quite stay in Sunbonnet. He joined the military, eschewing his dream of being a veterinarian, but he's been back long enough to have married and divorced. When he hears Savannah is in town, he is nervous and anticipates seeing her. Their first meeting exceeds every expectation he had.

He touched his lips to hers, tentative only for an instant. His hunger was as unmistakable as hers. His arms closed around her slight shoulders, hers around his lean waist. He smelled of horsehide and leather, and tasted of whiskey, felt as solid as the Rockies, and kissed like no man she'd ever known, including a younger Clay Keogh. She stood on tiptoe to kiss him back, trade him her breath for his, her tongue for his.

"Savannah ..."

We discover that Savannah is hiding more than one secret, one of them more shocking than the other. Her friendship with Clay, which included some sexual experimentation in their teens (always to her satisfaction, only once to his, and even then ...), was eclipsed by her crush on Clay's older half-brother, Kole, the part-Indian father of Savannah's daughter. We also learn that Clay, in addition to running his family's ranch, has a weakness for horses no one else wants - horses that are imperfect or suffering.

And it is that particular symbolism that is a tad heavy handed in an otherwise good book. We get it. Clay feels sorry for sick, broken or incapacitated horses - horses no one else wants. Then there is Savannah, sick, broken and emotionally incapacitated. Yet Kathleen Eagle also shows us that Clay loves Savannah, has loved her since they were children. They are best friends, yes, but it's more than that on his part. Is it on hers?

There are some sex scenes, and while none are graphic, they are hot. Clay knows what Savannah wants as far as sexual intimacy is concerned, even if she isn't always ready to reciprocate.

A lot happens in The Last Good Man, but none of it is cataclysmic or volcanic. Instead, it's grounded in realism and truth, which makes us enjoy the characters all the more, and not just Clay and Savannah, but also Claudia, Savannah's daughter, and Patty, Clay's father. But this book is about Savannah more than anything else. She's a survivor, but she has a long way to go before she can give Clay what he wants and deserves, and what she wants and deserves as well.

It turns out that, in The Last Good Man, at least, you can go home again. It helps if you've got a good man waiting for you. 

Published by Bell Bridge Books and available on Amazon.com.

Thanks to NetGalley for the preview.

Sabrina's Window

I have a bone to pick with Al Riske, author of Sabrina's Window. I'm all for cliffhangers, but dude. Seriously. You didn't just leave me hanging, you left me clinging by my shattered fingernails to the edge of an abyss.

The premise of Sabrina's Window is a good one: seventeen-year-old Joshua breaks thirty-one-year-old Sabrina's window with an errant newspaper toss, and a friendship is forged. He pays her back by helping her with yard chores, and she tries to help him with girls. Joshua is dating Ronni, Sabrina dates Barry. Both relationships are unsteady at the moment; Joshua and Ronni seem to want different things, while Sabrina might be hung up on an ex.

In the book's summary, we're told that Joshua and Sabrina go out on a date, but really, all they do is go to dinner. Their fellow townspeople, however, think it IS a date, and that starts tongues wagging. But this thread is dropped quickly, if not unsatisfactorily, in lieu of pursuing bigger issues that confront Joshua and Sabrina. Can he figure out his way around girls, and can she allow herself to settle down and be happy?

All the while, their friendship progresses.

The really remarkable part, he supposed, was that he didn't feel shy or awkward around Sabrina - at least not as shy or as awkward as he normally did around, let's face it, any attractive female. He trusted her. Right away. He could tell she had a good heart and wouldn't hurt him. He could expose himself without feeling vulnerable.

Sabrina's Window is a love story of sorts, but not in the way you're thinking. Yes, there is love, and yes, there are passionate feelings, but Al Riske takes us in different directions than we perhaps expect. There isn't really a climactic scene or event; the story just unfolds, in a sleepy, unhurried way, reflecting, in a way, its setting of Taos, New Mexico.

But it's frustrating. It isn't that I demand closure; I enjoy books that leave you guessing as to what happens next. Sabrina's Window, though, REALLY leaves you hanging. Not only will you have no idea what will happen to Sabrina and Joshua, you won't have any idea where to begin. Oh, sure, Riske gives us some hints, but given the direction of the story, you can't be certain you really know anything. It's frustrating. Really frustrating.

I don't like happy endings slapped onto books, but in this case, no ending is almost as bad.

Or maybe it's that I just really enjoyed the way Al Riske writes, so when he ended his story so abruptly, he left me wishing for more. I look forward to reading more of his work.

Published by Luminus Books and available on Amazon.com.

Thanks to NetGalley for the preview.

The Replacement Wife

I can't help it, I loved this book. I loved it so much that I brought it with me to my son's high school band concert and read it there (don't tell). I loved it so much that I delayed teaching my 1st period students, just so I could find out what happens to Camille, Edward, Elise and Angie.

THAT is how much I loved The Replacement Wife, by Eileen Goudge.

I loved it in spite of it not being one bit like I thought it was going to be.

I rarely read much about a book before reading it, because I like to be surprised. I knew the basic synopsis of The Replacement Wife - Camille is in her early forties, married to her doctor husband, Edward, and has a matchmaking business. When her cancer comes back, she decides to match up Edward with his second wife, believing that in doing so, she secures care for her children and husband. So I kind of thought that this might be a humorous romantic comedy of sorts.

I was wrong.

The Replacement Wife is the study of a marriage and what it's like to be a single woman pushing forty. It is chock full of engrossing characters who make you want them to be happy, even as you know it will be immensely difficult for them. It's a book that makes you think about what you want for your loved ones after you die, and it makes you question what is selfless and what is selfish.

When Camille discovers that the cancer has returned and is Stage IV, she eschews treatment and instead decides to focus on helping Edward. She believes she must do this, because her own mother passed away when Camille was fourteen, leaving her to take care of her younger sister in the face of an airline pilot, absent father. Camille does not want the loneliness, fear and uncertainty that she experienced to happen to her fourteen-year-old daughter and nine-year-old son, so she convinces Edward to let her find him a wife.

Edward is not amused. He balks and resists, but ultimately agrees in an attempt to make Camille's waning months pleasant for her. She first tries to fix him up with Kat, a sexy, successful news anchor who has been very unlucky in love. Kat even tries to come on to Edward, knowing full well about Camille and her dying wish, but Edward gently rebuffs her. It's on to Elise, a divorceé teacher who also believes herself snake bit because her first husband cheated on her. Then there is Angie, the owner of a small catering company, who provides food for Camille's meet and greet socials, but whom Camille is convinced has no interest in love and marriage. Angie vies for Edward's affections on her own, albeit unintentionally at first.

Which one will Edward choose? Or will he choose at all? And what will happen to Camille? How will she manage this shift in their marriage, even if it is her idea?

Eileen Goudge tells the story from the different points of view, but we spend the most time in Camille's and Edward's heads. I found myself not liking Camille all that much. I started rooting for Edward to get together with one of the women just because I thought Camille was selfish and, quite frankly, stupid. Yes, I understand why she's doing this, but it made her off-putting to me. But Edward. I so wanted him to be happy, with whomever he believed could make him - his wife or one of the women.

As for the three contenders, they were nicely developed characters. I rooted for Angie, if only because she was the most fully realized of the group, and there was just something about her that I liked. Her relationship with Edward starts as friendship, when he discovers he can confide in her. I liked that about her. But as I said, I sympathized with Edward a lot. His frustration with this situation affected me.

He thought back to summer days when the kids were small, Kyra and Zach chubby little figures in orange life vests digging for sand crabs or collecting seashells in paper cups. Before cancer had come crashing in, like a rogue wave smashing a sand castle, to lay ruin to their carefree existence.

Before he'd come to feel unwanted by his own wife.

He knew it wasn't because she'd stopped loving him. Still, it hurt each time she turned away from him in bed, too tired or sick to make love. He couldn't recall the last time he'd felt the light touch of her hand on his thigh or heard her voice murmur seductively in his ear. He missed that. Yearned for it. Even so, he might have found a way to deal with his frustration if not for this crazy scheme of hers. What wife who truly loved her husband would willingly relinquish him to another woman, whatever the circumstances?

What wife, indeed.

The Replacement Wife is chock full of things to discuss, making it an excellent book club selection. I just loved it.



Published by Open Road and available on Amazon.com.
Thanks to NetGalley for the preview.

Last Will

I have a love-hate relationship with books about broken people. Sometimes, I'm in the mood and enjoy reading about people who can't get out of their own way to discover happiness. And then there are times when I just do not have the patience to read about people who need fixing. I've got enough problems.

So after I started Bryn Greenwood's Last Will and discovered that it is about not one, but TWO broken people, I realized I had to suck it up and get past my initial bad mood. I'd just finished with Insurgent, and felt exhausted in every sense of the word. I realized, though, that it isn't fair to Bryn Greenwood that I was too tired to read about another fractured soul so soon after leaving Tris.

I'm glad I gave Last Will a chance.

Bernie Raleigh's grandfather dies at age 90, leaving Bernie the sole heir. While some folks would be overjoyed to inherit so much money that, as Bernie later observes, they can write a check for $20 million and not notice it, Bernie is not one of them. He has worked very hard for nearly 20 years to hide, and inheriting his grandfather's legacy means putting himself back in the public.

But that's nothing, really, when it comes to Bernie. For Bernie Raleigh has not one but two tragedies he must overcome: first there was his kidnapping as a young teenager, which he barely survived and which continues to haunt him, rendering him incapable of sleeping in the same bed as another person. (It also renders him incapable of a certain completion during sexy times, we'll just say.) That would cripple anyone, but Bernie later suffered another sadness when his father and older brother died in an auto accident. With their deaths, Bernie became the designee to take over his grandfather's businesses, and he also became the lightning rod for his mother's disappointment. He was, is not, and never will be his older brother, much to her chagrin.

When he returns home for his grandfather's funeral, he sees the exotic Meda, a maid and single mother. He is attracted to her immediately. Meda has her own issues, not the least of which is a grandmother convinced that she was abducted by aliens. Medea herself suffered a horrific crime; the scar across her lips bears witness to her suffering.

Bernie and Meda engage in a romance, proceeding in fits and starts. These two have a LOT of hurdles to cross, given their own tortured backgrounds. They also have to get past Bernie's wealth and Meda's lack thereof:

"I don't like taking your money."

"Why?"

"You don't know what it's like being me!" The outburst startled Annadore into tears. Meda reached out and stroked her hair until she settled down again. 

"You don't know what it's like being me," I said quietly. 

 The story is told from Meda's and Bernie's points of view, along with that of Bernie's Aunt Ginny, herself a victim of loss. She provides the soothing balm, though, to these two characters, helping us feel hopeful that Bernie and Meda will heal each other and themselves.

This isn't really a romantic novel, although it has some romance in it. (Not much hotness, though, so if you're looking for that, this isn't for you.) It isn't a fairytale, either, because Bryn Greenwood knows that her characters can't be fixed easily. Both of them try, both of them fail, and they keep trying. This also isn't much of a love story, because the love they have is not always shared, nor is it offered without conditions. What Last Will is, I guess, is a story of people who need each other, even if they don't realize how much. IT turns out Barbra Streisand was right: people who need people are the luckiest people in the world.


Published by Bytech Services and available on Amazon.com.
Thanks to NetGalley for the preview.

Goodbye to All That

What happens when a wife decides, after 42 years of marriage, that she's had enough and wants a change? That is the focus of Judith Arnold's Good-bye to All That.

Ruth Bendel is over it. She is tired of her husband Richard leaving his beard shavings in the sink, tired of him channel surfing, and tired of taking care of other people. Her three grown children - Doug, an eye doctor married to a hot blonde wife; Jill, a work-from-home mother whose husband is a school teacher and who writes catalog copy; and Melissa, a 31-year-old single attorney dating a hairdresser - are shocked when Ruth decides to up and leave Richard. Richard is a tad nonplussed himself.

But Ruth wants freedom, and it starts with getting a job at First Rate, where she wears a red bib and operates a cash register, and where she makes a few new friends. On a night out with one of them and his soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend, she has an epiphany.

It occurred to her that she might have enjoyed doing things like this - going to clubs in Boston, drinking lousy wine and dancing until she was dripping with sweat - for years. But she'd never demanded that Richard take her dancing at clubs. She'd never even asked. He would have considered ti out of character for her, and inappropriate. She'd been a suburban wife and mother, for God's sake, not someone who was fly. And so she'd never fought for what she wanted. 

That, in essence, is why Ruth leaves her husband: she wants to fight for what she wants, even if she isn't completely sure what that is.

Doug reacts the most selfishly. Who will babysit his twin daughters while he and his wife head to Nevis for a romantic getaway? He even comes to look at his wife suspiciously. Will she get bored? Will she leave him? Doug realizes that his own marriage might need a re-examination.

The middle child and the rock of the family, Jill, also struggles. She begins to wonder if she will leave her husband. Will his beard shavings get on her nerves? Will she want to wear a red bib and make new friends?

If she could misread her parents' marriage so totally, how could she trust her judgment on any other issue? If Ruth and Richard Bendel could get a divorce after all these years, why shouldn't Jill also assume that gravity didn't exist, and chocolate-chip cookies lowered your cholesterol, and Abbie didn't need a bat mitzvah, and the shantung silk scarves being peddled by Black Pearl actually felt more like sandpaper than a waterfall against one's skin?

Then there is Melissa, who cries and weeps and reacts with great emotion. Melissa, however, lives in New York, separated from her Boston-based family, and it is easier for her to wallow with self-focus. She wants to buy an apartment, she wants to figure out if things are serious with the hairdresser boyfriend, and she wants to win her latest legal case.

Lastly, we get to know Richard. He quickly realizes that steady, calm Ruth is more than just a body or a wife. She is a person, and perhaps she has a point. But does Richard come to this realization too late?

Goodbye to All That is funny, touching, and ultimately inconclusive, but that's life, isn't it? Can we really solve our problems so easily? If we want freedom and we want something new, can we figure out why we want or need that within 300 pages? Probably not, as Judith Arnold apparently agrees. The problem, though, is that while Ruth's decisions may not be tidied up, the rest of the family's are, and that rings a little false. Ruth isn't the only one with a complex set of issues, yet hers are the only ones not easily solved.


Published by Bell Bridge Books and available on Amazon.com.
Thanks to NetGalley for the preview.