Book Review: "The Invisible Husband of Frick Island" by Colleen Oakley

The Invisible Husband of Frick Island is a beautiful, emotional story about love, loss, determination, family, and an unforgettable community.

I’ve made it a goal to read more backlist titles this year, so I’ve been reading books I bought and never got around to before. And when I read a book like this, I want to slap myself and say, “What took you so long?”

Piper’s husband Tom is a waterman, like his father and grandfather before him. They live on Frick Island, a small island in the Chesapeake Bay you can only get to by boat. (This is inspired by Maryland's Smith Island.) When Tom’s boat doesn’t come back one day and his body can’t be found, Piper and the 90+ residents of the island are devastated. But it’s not long after that Piper begins acting as if Tom is still alive—so everyone on the island follows suit.

"'If something is there, you can only see it with your eyes open, but if it isn't there, you can see it just as well with your eyes closed. That's why imaginary things are often easier to see than real ones.'"

Anders is a young reporter who has always dreamed of making a name for himself, as a reporter and podcaster, but that doesn’t seem to be happening. He’s sent to Frick Island to cover their annual Cake Walk event and he is intrigued by the unique community. And while he feels that there’s a story in the island’s residents staying put despite the effects of climate change on their home, he realizes the biggest story is the fact that the entire town is pretending that a dead man still exists.

The deeper Anders gets into the story, the more attached to Piper he becomes. Is he really just interested in helping her? And when his podcast goes viral—along with Piper’s story—he has to decide what’s more important to him, fame or the possibility of something more.

I loved this story. It reminded me a little of a movie with Ryan Gosling called Lars and the Real Girl. The Invisible Husband of Frick Island was a poignant and fascinating story with some interesting little twists, and I couldn’t get enough.

Book Review: "The Good Stranger" by Dete Meserve

Boy, we could all use a book like this right now!!

Kate Bradley is a television news reporter who has moved from LA to NYC for a gig at a national news channel. She has uprooted her life, and after a few days she’s not sure she made the right decision. She doesn’t feel at home in the city, and feels it’s harsh and cold.

One night after a massive blackout hits, Kate expects the story she’ll be covering is about the panic, the looting, the destruction that came afterward. But instead there seems to be a massive wave of generosity sweeping the city. Anonymous people are paying for strangers’ medical bills, sending gifts of clothing and food to homeless people, leaving gift cards on all cars in a parking lot, etc.

Who is behind this movement of good deeds? Is it a marketing gimmick for a company? Are people being set up? Kate teams up with a handsome program host to try and find the mysterious people responsible, chasing down every lead and leaving no stone unturned.

But someone doesn’t want Kate to find out the truth, and they send menacing letters and get closer and closer to her. As she deals with her own personal issues while trying to trace this path of kindness, she realizes that the connections it is fostering may be more important than the deeds themselves.

The Good Stranger was such a unique mystery—how often is someone trying to track someone down for doing something good? But beyond that, what a terrific concept this book was based on. In this chaotic time, we all could use some kindness, couldn’t we?

Although this is the third book featuring Kate Bradley, I didn’t feel as if I was missing anything having not read the previous books. But Dete Meserve did such a great job I’ll definitely go back and read the other two!!

I was honored to be part of the blog tour for this book. Thanks to Kate Rock Book Tours, Dete Meserve, and Lake Union Publishing for providing a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review!

Book Review: "Talk to Me" by John Kenney

"But deep down in places he rarely allowed himself to go, Ted knew he was a lie. A handsome, large-headed, reasonably intelligent lie. They had made him this thing, this...character, this cartoon, really, where once, long ago, Ted had been a reporter. A writer."

Ted Grayson is a well-respected television news anchor. At 59, he's one of the last bastions of the "old guard" of news media, as television networks battle with cable and internet for ratings and advertising dollars. The definition of what is "news" has also changed since he got his start, and at times he doesn't even recognize the industry he's working in.

But while he is well-regarded by the viewers, his family doesn't have the same opinions about Ted. He and his wife, Claire, have been estranged for some time (following a long period of time where they were estranged even while living in the same house). She is weary after years of neglect, infidelity, and Ted's need to chase a story instead of actively participate in his marriage. Ted's daughter, Franny, hates him. Nothing he does is not deserving of scorn, even if Franny has more than her own share of issues.

"Life changes. This was the essence of news. Why did it come as such a shock to an anchorman?"

One night, in the middle of a newscast, things go spectacularly awry. Ted loses his temper and goes on a profanity-laced and misogynistic rant. It's a momentary lapse, but it doesn't wind up on camera, so everyone is hoping it will blow over. But then it hits the internet, and then it's a matter of minutes before Ted, and everything he represents, wind up in big trouble. Everyone has an opinion, and none of them are anything less than career-ending.

Franny, who works for a popular "news" website, watches her father's downfall with bemusement. But when it is suggested that she interview Ted for an article to help bolster her somewhat-flagging prospects at the site, she isn't sure whether she really hates her father enough to make career hay at his expense. Ted, on the other hand, wonders if it matters at all what Franny writes. Maybe he does deserve everything that's coming to him. Or maybe it's an opportunity to gain some control of himself before it really is too late.

John Kenney's Talk to Me is the story of a man whose career—and his life—are in freefall. It's a look at what it's like to finally have to come to terms with the choices you've made and whether you would make them again, and at whose expense you've made them. Ted's problems aren't unique—we've seen this type of story play out many times in real life, both involving celebrities and "real" people.

At the same time, this is a book about our scandal-hungry society, how the media loves to put people up on a pedestal only to gleefully knock them down when they make a mistake. It's a commentary about how quickly bad news, errors, or misdeeds travel, and the ripples they cause. It's also a look at the balance between news and entertainment, and how easy it has become to confuse the latter for the former.

When the book focused on Ted and his downfall, and how clueless he really was about the ramifications of what he did, I really enjoyed Talk to Me. But the more it focused on the outrage caused by Ted's rant, the reactions of those in society and the media, and the machinations of Franny's boss, I didn't find the book as interesting. I guess I feel like we're living in that society right now, and I didn't need much more of an analysis of how angry and unforgiving we can be to those who do things we perceive to be egregious.

Kenney is a great writer, and he has achieved a tough feat of making you care about unlikable characters. Ted and Franny in particular were complex, flawed yet sympathetic characters whose trajectories I understood. I didn't feel as if Kenney gave Claire as much depth, and I found a tangential storyline with an old roommate of Franny's to be mostly unnecessary.

So while I wasn't head over heels for Talk to Me, there are enough redeeming qualities to recommend it. There's some real emotion here amidst the melee, and it is those moments that make this book worthwhile.

NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Putnam provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

Book Review: "The Cutaway" by Christina Kovac

Two words: Awe. Some.

Seriously, I was in the mood for a good thriller and this fit the bill perfectly.

Virginia Knightly was once a talented television news reporter with tremendous potential, until the harsh realities of what she was reporting became a little too much for her to handle. She transitioned into the role of news producer and proved this was the job she was born to do—determining what is newsworthy and how best to cover it, wrangling and sweet-talking the on- and off-air talent when necessary, maneuvering through station politics, being a cross between a den mother, a drill sergeant, and a magician. And she gets results.

One day, a notice of a missing person crosses her desk. While normally notices like this sadly get passed over in a city like Washington, DC, news of a beautiful young attorney gone missing definitely catches her attention. She swears she's seen this woman before, and is determined to give her case the coverage needed to hopefully find her.

In the midst of a power play happening at her station, leaving her job and those who work for her in jeopardy, Virginia decides she needs to pursue this case. The deeper she digs, the more she realizes that she must question every fact presented to her, every piece of information given to her by friends and colleagues of the missing woman, even the evidence and leads provided by law enforcement. But more than that, Virginia discovers that the young woman was caught in the middle of a vast number of secrets and lies, and she didn't know whom to trust—a lesson Virginia is learning once again, too.

Tangling with a former flame who is now in a position of authority, and teaming up with her news anchor, a man who means more to her than simply a mouthpiece reading the words she writes, Virginia must fight—for the perfect angle, the breaking news, the truth, her job, her romantic future, and her life. Sometimes no news really is good news, you know?

I enjoyed The Cutaway tremendously. Christina Kovac, a former television journalist and producer, is really one hell of a writer, and she knows how to craft a (nearly) perfect story. There are lots of twists and turns, blurred lines between the good guys and girls and the bad ones, some great action and suspense, and lots of behind-the-scenes looks at the world of television news, especially in an era where it fights for relevancy and ratings against internet sources.

As I've remarked in reviews of thrillers and crime novels before, I suspect nearly every character, so I'm rarely surprised. And while I wasn't here, it didn't matter because the plot had me hooked. These characters were passionate, funny, talented, and totally flawed, and I wanted to smack a few of them more than once for not saying what they were thinking. But I cared about what happened to them, and hope that Kovac may have another book featuring these characters in the works, because I'd love to know what comes next.

The plot is a little overfilled—there are a few tangential storylines that distract a bit more than they advance the story. But Kovac's talent reins you back in, and I always love a good book set here in the DC area. In the end, I would have devoured this book in a little more than one sitting if there weren't obligations like work, eating, personal hygiene, etc.

Ignore the hype that this is "The Newsroom meets Gone Girl," and pick it up because it's a great thriller. Even if it doesn't keep you guessing, it will keep you on the edge of your seat (or at least close to the edge), trying to figure out how everything will resolve itself.

Book Review: "News of the World" by Paulette Jiles

Yeah, I'm late to the party on this one.

I'm man enough to admit I didn't read this before now because I was misinformed. For some reason I mistakenly believed this book was another story which veered closely to True Grit—you know, cantankerous old man becomes the protector of a young-but-tough girl, and hijinks and friendships ensue. Having read the book, and seen both versions of the film, and also read a pretender or two, I really wasn't enamored of reading another similar story.

While there are perhaps a few similar elements, Paulette Jiles' News of the World is a story all its own, full of heart and beauty and simplicity and tenderness, and even a little poetry. It totally took me by surprise and I loved nearly every minute of it.

1870. The U.S. is starting to recover from the damages wrought by the Civil War. Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, a veteran of two wars (the first when he was just a teenager), is now an elderly widower, a former printer who now spends his days traveling throughout Texas, reading newspapers from all over the world to paying crowds anxious and interested to hear about what is happening both in places they know and places they might only have imagined. He is careful, however, to steer away from any news of Reconstruction and the Confederacy, knowing how it will inflame tempers.

While in one town, he is offered a job—and a $50 gold piece—to bring a young girl who had been taken from her family four years before by a band of Kiowa raiders. Her family was killed, but she survived, and was taken in to the Kiowa family, raised as one of them. But such things cannot be, and when she is recaptured, it is decreed that she should be returned to her closest living relatives, an aunt and uncle near San Antonio.

For 10-year-old Johanna, the only family she really knows are the Kiowa Indians who raised her, and she cannot understand why she has been taken away from them. She doesn't appear to know English, refuses to wear shoes or act in a "civilized" manner, will not eat with a fork and knife, and tries to find any opportunity to cross the river and hopefully return home.

But as Captain Kidd and Johanna travel through Texas, finding themselves in danger more often than they care to count, and trying to find common ground, the two begin building a relationship of sorts, with Kidd trying to find empathy for this young girl whose life has already been turned upside down twice, and by dint of his job, he will be party to this happening a third time.

"More than ever knowing in his fragile bones that it was the duty of men who aspired to the condition of humanity to protect children and kill for them if necessary."

As they draw closer and closer to San Antonio, and an uncertain fate for Johanna, Kidd is torn—he knows at his age, a widower living alone has no place raising a child, especially one so traumatized by life as Johanna has been. But can he really let her go, after he has become the only person she trusts and can communicate with? And if he doesn't deliver her to her aunt and uncle, does that make his as much a kidnapper as the Kiowa?

I've really simplified the plot of this book, but it is such a lovely story. Have we seen elements of this type of story before? Certainly. But even if you have suspicions of how the plot will unfold, and those suspicions may prove correct, Jiles' tells such a beautiful story, and has created two immensely memorable characters, characters which warm the heart and stay in the mind.

What struck me about this book is that Jiles was able to create a little bit of tension at every turn, which made the story move even a little faster, and she imbued her descriptions of their surroundings throughout their journey with such evocative imagery, it was lyrical, even poetic. I was fascinated by Kidd's reading the news to people—it's the first time I've ever heard of that happening.

I am not generally a fan of historical fiction, but this book really worked for me. If you're not one of the people who already has taken this book to your heart, add it to your list, because these characters will make you smile and, perhaps even cry a little.

More proof the world is going stone cold mad...

I've read about or seen a few things over the last few days that make me wonder if people in our world are just getting crazier, or if I'm just getting less tolerant. (I'm guessing it's somewhere in the middle of the two.)

Rich Manhattan mothers are hiring handicapped tour guides so their kids can cut lines at Disney. It's like something out of an episode of one of the Real Housewives shows, or even Arrested Development. Seriously. These women are hiring people with disabilities to pose as family members so they and their kids can jump to the front of lines. These so-called "black-market Disney guides" run $130 an hour, or $1,040 for an eight-hour day.

Now, I'm no fan of people who park in handicapped spots when they don't need to, forcing people with actual disabilities to walk further. But this seriously takes the cake. Although I guess it's just as pathetic that these individuals would be willing to rent themselves out for such a purpose. No better way to teach your kids values.

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She wanted to dance with somebody. On the plane. Think you've had to fly with annoying or crazy people? Well, folks on a recent flight from LAX to JFK win this battle hands down. Their flight had to make an emergency landing in Kansas City because a woman wouldn't stop singing Whitney Houston songs at the top of her lungs. (As American Idol has taught us, it's always the people who shouldn't be singing Whitney songs that do.)

The woman has apparently blamed her musical outburst on her diabetes. (I would have drawn the line at Rick Astley, but that's just me.) And as you'd imagine in this era of bystanders watching instead of helping, someone got video of the woman's swan song, I Will Always Love You on their cell phone.



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From the ridiculous to the, well, more ridiculous. This morning when I was walking to the Metro, I spied a car in the parking lot with a bumper sticker that read, "I'll get rid of my guns when God gets rid of the gays". Needless to say I had to remind myself (repeatedly) that slashing a car's tires or bashing in its windows would be a criminal act, and I'd probably not get to work on time.

Look, I'm not going to get into a debate about gun control now. I think I've made my feelings about that abundantly clear. But while you might have the right to amass an arsenal in your home, what gives you the right to hide behind your religion to preach bigotry and hate? It's always wonderful when people preach about what God hates or what God will destroy. I don't think God needs a spokesperson, no matter what religion you believe in.

Remember, guns don't kill people. Bigotry, prejudice, and ignorance kill people.

It's tough when they all look alike...

From kenneth in the (212):

As we've seen far too often, our 24-hour news cycle leads to unfortunate errors. Check out the photo that accompanies the story below.

I guess it's hard to tell Joan Collins and NBA player Jason Collins apart, huh?

It's almost as egregious as the closed captioning service used by local Fox affiliate KDFW a few weeks ago. During the manhunt for Boston bombing suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev, the service captioned the suspect as "19-year-old Zooey Deschanel."

"Whoa! Epic closed captioning FAIL!" Deschanel tweeted when she saw the screenshot. The blunder was the fault of Caption Solution, a Kansas-based company that provides real-time closed captioning services to local TV stations. The company's president, Kala Patterson, issued an apology, as the Associated Press reported on Wednesday. Gawker says it was the work of a "rogue employee."

Anyone who thinks proofreading and fact-checking are dying skills, I believe a change is gonna come.

Proof that proofreading is a lost art...

Yesterday on Facebook, I shared that when watching the local news in the morning, the anchor was leading into a story about someone who has been groping women in the Fairfax, VA area. Sadly, the caption teasing the story read, "Fairfax Grouper." I certainly wasn't making light of the situation, as I know women feel unsafe, but the caption was fairly funny.

Not as funny, however, as the following headline that ran in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, which was celebrating the dedication of a memorial in that city to President John F. Kennedy, as this was where he spent the last night of his life before his November 1963 assassination.

JKF, JFK, whatever...