Book Review: "Monday, Monday" by Elizabeth Crook

Life can change in a split second, and one's actions can have ramifications that ripple for years to come.

One August day in 1966, Charles Whitman climbed to the top of a clock tower at the University of Texas in Austin and began shooting at random people. He killed 16 people and wounded more than 30 others that day, striking fear into a quiet summer day on campus, and changing the lives of numerous people.

Shelly was one of the people shot by Whitman that day, as she was leaving one of her summer classes. She was lying in the middle of campus, wounded and bleeding, fearing that she would die, when she was rescued by two fellow students, no-nonsense Vietnam vet Jack Stone, and his art student cousin Wyatt Calvert. The split-second decision to rescue Shelly has tremendous ramifications for both young men, and it sets into motion a number of things—a secret affair, an unexpected pregnancy, and a life-changing decision—actions that link the three of them together for years to come. And then many years later, the three are brought together again, forced to confront the decisions they made and the secrets they and some of their loved ones have kept.

Monday, Monday is a moving story of the consequences of our decisions, some made in a split second, some made with significantly more consideration. It's a story about how love endures, even through time and distance, yet the shape of that love may change. It's the story of how tragedy can both wound and unite, and it's also the story of the myriad ways in which secrets can touch so many people in so many different ways.

Elizabeth Crook did a great job laying out this story and the ripple effects of both Whitman's shooting spree and the decisions the main characters made in its aftermath. She's a tremendously talented storyteller, because while so much of the plot seems inevitable and familiar, you feel truly engrossed in the characters' lives, so you want to keep reading even as you're fairly certain how the plot will proceed. At times it's a little more melodramatic than it needs to be, but Crook's ability to convey emotions and created layered characters keeps the book from being overly maudlin and sustains your interest.

I thought this was a really well-written, emotional book. Definitely worth a read.

Book Review: "Next Life Might Be Kinder" by Howard Norman

Full disclosure: I received an advance readers copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

"After my wife, Elizabeth Church, was murdered by the bellman Alfonse Padgett in the Essex Hotel, she did not leave me."

Sam Lattimore has been rocked by the death of his beloved wife, Elizabeth. Their marriage was brief but passionate, emotionally and sexually charged, and occasionally tempestuous, but Sam is unprepared for the depth of his grief. A novelist before their marriage, he is unable to move forward with his writing, and seems stuck in a state of emotional limbo. He finds himself blacking out from time to time, and has been seeing a therapist weekly, although their encounters are usually punctuated by bursts of anger.

Book Review: "The Other Language" by Francesca Marciano

Change can be difficult to deal with, and how we handle it defines us as a person. Whether it's a change in a relationship, career, location, age, even the death of a loved one, change is often unexpected and it can produce some tumultuous results.

The characters in Francesca Marciano's story collection, The Other Language, are all facing change of one sort or another. Marciano's stories take place in foreign countries—Italy, Greece, Tanzania, Kenya, India—but although the settings may be different from what we're used to, the themes are universal and many of the characters' struggles will seem familiar.

Book Review: "The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry" by Gabrielle Zevinn

This book, a tribute to a love of books and reading, as well as a tribute to love, is so warm and wonderful, it almost feels like a big hug. It put me in a wonderful but slightly sentimental mood, and the word "sweet" keeps coming to my mind for some reason.

"What, in this life, is more personal than books?"

A.J. Fikry is the cantankerous owner of Island Books on Massachusetts' Alice Island (a fictionalized version of Martha's Vineyard). Lonely since the sudden, tragic death of his wife a few months earlier, his business is struggling as much as he is. He's drinking a little too much (maybe a lot too much) and giving serious thought to closing the store, but that doesn't stop his definitive ideas about what types of books he should sell to his customers. (The list of the types of books he doesn't like fills nearly an entire page.)

Book Review: "Wonderland" by Stacey D'Erasmo

Full disclosure: I received an advance readers copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

Anna Brundage is a rock musician. While she never was an enormous star, her band's first album made an impact in the music world, and people still talk about it. The second album didn't do so well, and by the third album, she had thrown her chance away, lost in a haze of drugs, insecurity, and a lack of dedication. Her tempestuous affair with a married man she met on one of her tours ended badly, and she couldn't make her marriage work.

Anna now lives in a small apartment in New York City, teaching shop class to young girls at a private school. But she dreams of making it back into the music world. She recognizes that she has one more chance, and she'll do anything she can to make this time last. She sells a priceless piece of her famed artist father's work to fund one more album and a European tour. She's ready to pull out all of the stops.

Book Review: "The Steady Running of the Hour" by Justin Go

Tristan Campbell's life is fairly uneventful. He's not quite certain what he'd like to do with his future, and he's been drifting emotionally somewhat since the death of his mother to cancer. And then out of the blue, he receives a letter couriered from a prestigious law firm in London which says Tristan may be connected to the beneficiary of an estate, one which has yet to be distributed to its heirs. The law firm summons him to London (at their expense) as soon as possible.

From the attorneys, Tristan learns that in 1924, an Englishman named Ashley Walsingham died while on an expedition to climb Mount Everest. He had left his significant estate to a woman named Imogen Soames-Andersson, with whom he shared an brief yet intense love affair before he went off to fight in World War I. Despite the fact that Ashley hadn't seen Imogen in seven years, and the last time they saw each other they fought angrily, he was determined to leave Imogen his fortune.

Imogen never claimed Ashley's estate, and it has remained in trust for the past 80 years. As a result of new information, the attorneys representing the estate believe that Tristan may be related to Imogen and Ashley, and could very well be the legal heir to the estate, which would mean he would inherit millions of dollars. But time is growing short—the law firm swears Tristan to absolute confidentiality and bids him to find evidence that proves he is connected to this couple who lived 80 years ago. No mean feat there.

Book Review: "A Better World" by Marcus Sakey

Full disclosure: I received an advance readers copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

When you read a series of books, you always hope that the next book will be as strong if not stronger than the one that preceded it. Marcus Sakey's dazzling, creative Brilliance was one of the best books I read last year, so while I was tremendously excited to read A Better World, the second book in Sakey's Brilliance Saga, I was also a little hesitant. Could it live up to my (perhaps unrealistic) expectations? Would it remain true the story Sakey so deftly created?

Having torn through the book as quickly as life allowed me to, I can unequivocally say yes to both questions.