The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. Anchor Books (Penguin Random House), paperback with Hulu cover edition, 2017. Original publication, 1986. Adult fiction.


While this book has become a classic, the new Hulu series has sparked readers of a new generation. A reader friend and I agreed that we see the novel with new eyes as we read it as more aged adult women. While it may have just made us angry as youths, it now provides nuances about aging to us as well. I kept finding myself comparing it with Lois Lowry's The Giver, also set in an uncertain future.


The book is set in the future. Handmaids live in the homes of Commanders and their wives. They wear all red with white headgear. Their "jobs" are to have children for the Commander to whom they are assigned and his wife. Offred (of Fred) remembers life before the changes. She remembers her husband and their young daughter whom she will not see again. She dreams of escape and subversion. Totally believable, although alien to readers, the tale is unforgettable.


This edition has an introduction of several pages which was written by the author in February, 2017. These pages are fascinating and provide context to the appeal and longevity of the novel.

The Lying Game by Ruth Ware.

 The Lying Game by Ruth Ware. Scout Press (Simon & Schuster), 2017. Adult fiction.


Friends who were students at Salten, an English boarding school, are drawn back together by a message from one of their group. The girls had grown up lying to teachers and other students. But, did they lie to themselves, too? A human bones have just been discovered and perhaps the secrets the girls thought hidden have come back to haunt them.


The young women are well described and easy to keep straight. Their present lives are believable. The eerie atmosphere of the waters and cliffs near the English channel provide a compelling setting. Ware, author of two other thrillers, In a Dark, Dark Wood and The Woman in Cabin 10  is definitely on top of her game.

The Party by Robyn Harding

 The Party by Robyn Harding.  Gallery/Scout Press, 2017. Adult fiction.


Hannah seems like a good kid. She's turning  sixteen and wants to have a sleepover. Pizza and fun turn horrifying as a terrible accident takes place. The aftermath destroys her wealthy San Francisco family and changes everything for the teens involved. Nothing is as it seems as the reader learns more about each of them. There can really be no happy endings as the guilt and accusations build to the final conclusion.

The Dime by Kathleen Kent

 The Dime by Kathleen Kent. Mulholland Books (Little, Brown and Company), 2017. Adult fiction.


    When Dallas police detective Betty Rhyzyk and her life partner Jackie movie from New York City, the Mexican drug cartels and East Texas cults make life both dangerous and scary. Red-haired Betty is tall, fierce, and filled with Polish sayings from her uncle Benny who mentored her career. Her own policeman father and her deceased policeman brother's memory provide different kinds of motivations for Betty.


      Kathleen Kent hits all of the right stereotypic names (like the waitress Tammy Sue) and events (like a mechanical bull ride) in this Texas tale. She name drops Caddo Lake, Angelina County, and the restaurant atop Reunion Plaza, among others. But, the character of Betty is memorable herself. Betty, is sassy, feisty, and proud. Her opponents are strong, too, and the action is fast-paced. Part mystery, part crime fiction, all entertaining, the novel unfurls as the violence and deaths mount. Hollywood is bound to have tall, fit women vying for the role of Betty in any bound-to-come movie version.

No Saints in Kansas by Amy Brashear

 No Saints in Kansas: A Novel by Amy Brashear. Soho Teen (an imprint of Soho Press), November, 2017. Young adult historical fiction.




When Truman Capote penned the classic In Cold Blood about the murders of the Clutter family in 1959 Holcomb, Kansas, it launched a new genre of true crime writing. Brashear spent much of her childhood in nearby Garden City, Kansas and has chosen to set her debut novel in the area and to base it on the Clutter murders, the community of Holcomb, and characters who might have lived there then.




When Carly Fleming and her family move from New York to Kansas, she is an outsider who badly wants to fit in. She tutors Nancy Clutter. After Nancy is killed, Carly tries to defend Nancy's boyfriend, Bobby, who is a suspect at first. Carly does not like to be compared to Nancy Drew, but she does manage to find clues, the piece together evidence, to meet Truman Capote, Nelle Lee, and Richard Avedon, and even one of the real killers. She learns the importance of family, what it means to be a true friend, and that the wind in Kansas winters is not the only thing that can give a person chills.




The novel is full of high school students and their typical petty jealousy. It reads authentically though and will send generations of new readers to the Capote nonfiction book. Kudos to Amy Brashear.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

 The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Atria Books (an imprint of Simon & Schuster), 2017. Adult fiction.




If  you like stories of old Hollywood, this novel may be just the ticket for your summer reading! When Evelyn Hugo, legendary beauty, decides to tell her life's story, she chooses young writer Monique Grant to write it. No one is sure why, but Monique listens as Evelyn describes her marriages and the one great love of her life. Twists and foreshadowing do not give away plot details and readers will find that Evelyn's life story is as carefully orchestrated as her career.

See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt

 See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt. Forthcoming August, 2017.   Atlantic Monthly Press. Adult Historical Fiction.


We all know the rhyme: "Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, gave her father forty-one." The bloody and horrific murders of Andrew and Abby Borden in their home in Fall River, MA in August, 1892 has never been solved. Hundreds of books, movies, articles, and sleuthers have tried to examine the evidence and come to reasonable conclusions.

Schmidt, who lives in Australia, has written an insightful fictional account of the family, the deaths, and the aftermath. Told from varying viewpoints of Lizzie, her sister Emma, their uncle John's young acquaintance Benjamin, and their maid Bridget, the novel attempts to see inside the minds of the characters and piece together details about family life and events. It's fascinating reading and ultimately points a finger at Lizzie herself. A timeline and short excepts from each sister's will are included. Maps, photos, and trial testimony are available in other sources, but a complete bibliography is not included in the uncorrected  proof.