77. The Cliffs by J. Courtney Sullivan

listened on Libby

384 pgs.

2024
Adult Mystery
Finished 11/1/2024
Goodreads rating: 3.60
My rating: 4.25 
Setting: southern Maine coast community

My comments:   Ending seemed incomplete.  Loved all the historical facts that some readers considered "preachy." Took place in southern Maine with lots of social/feminist thinking.

Goodreads synopsis:  A novel of family, secrets, ghosts, and homecoming set on the seaside cliffs of Maine, by the New York Times best-selling author of Friends and Strangers.

On a secluded bluff overlooking the ocean sits a Victorian house, lavender with gingerbread trim, a home that contains a century’s worth of secrets. By the time Jane Flanagan discovers the house as a teenager, it has long been abandoned. The place is an irresistible mystery to Jane. There are still clothes in the closets, marbles rolling across the floors, and dishes in the cupboards, even though no one has set foot there in decades. The house becomes a hideaway for Jane, a place to escape her volatile mother.

Twenty years later, now a Harvard archivist, she returns home to Maine following a terrible mistake that threatens both her career and her marriage. Jane is horrified to find the Victorian is now barely recognizable. The new owner, Genevieve, a summer person from Beacon Hill, has gutted it, transforming the house into a glossy white monstrosity straight out of a shelter magazine. Strangely, Genevieve is convinced that the house is haunted—perhaps the product of something troubling Genevieve herself has done. She hires Jane to research the history of the place and the women who lived there. The story Jane uncovers—of lovers lost at sea, romantic longing, shattering loss, artistic awakening, historical artifacts stolen and sold, and the long shadow of colonialism—is even older than Maine itself.

Enthralling, richly imagined, filled with psychic mediums and charlatans, spirits and past lives, mothers, marriage, and the legacy of alcoholism, this is a deeply moving novel about the land we inhabit, the women who came before us, and the ways in which none of us will ever truly leave this earth.

76. Death at Morning House by Maureen Johnson

listened on Libby

384 pgs.

2024
YA Mystery
Finished 10/21/24
Goodreads rating: 3.78
My rating: 3
Setting: 1932 AND contemporary island on the St. Lawrence River

My comments: The story flip-flops back-and-forth between 1932 and current day.  The star of the story is a magnificent house on an island on the St. Lawrence River - in America, but close to Canada.  Six friends are going to spend the summer there giving tours and telling the tragic story of what happened n 1932 to a rich family of six adopted kids, all the same age and the deaths that happened there that summer.  Interesting story, but there was something amiss for me.  All 12 of the main characters are teenagers.  But there's something about the way the characters were developed that didn't work for me.  At least I think that's my problem - because unfortunately I do have a problem with the story, but I can't put my finger right on it.

Goodreads synopsis:  

Goodreads Choice Award

Nominee for Readers' Favorite Young Adult Fiction (2024)   From the bestselling author of the Truly Devious books, Maureen Johnson, comes a new stand-alone YA about a teen who uncovers a mystery while working as a tour guide on an island and must solve it before history repeats itself.

The fire wasn’t Marlowe Wexler’s fault. Dates should be hot, but not hot enough to warrant literal firefighters. Akilah, the girl Marlowe has been in love with for years, will never go out with her again. No one dates an accidental arsonist.

With her house-sitting career up in flames, it seems the universe owes Marlowe a new summer job, and that’s how she ends up at Morning House, a mansion built on an island in the 1920s and abandoned shortly thereafter. It’s easy enough, giving tours. Low risk of fire. High chance of getting bored talking about stained glass and nut cutlets and Prohibition.

Oh, and the deaths. Did anyone mention the deaths?

75. A Fall of Marigolds by Susan Meissner

listened on Libby

370 pgs.

2014
Adult Historical Fiction
Finished 10/9/2024
Goodreads rating: 4.09
My rating: 2.5
Setting: NYC 1911 & 9/11

My comments: Not a huge fan of this book, for a couple of reasons.  Told in two voices, one of a nurse, Clara, who survived the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 to "hide" on Ellis Island and a quilt shop fabric-lover, Taryn, who lost her husband on 9/11.  The majority of the story is told by nurse Clara ... whom I didn't like.  At all.  Her inconsistent personality (she flip-flops between a mamby-pamby-scared-everything watcher-of-the-world to a brazen in-your-face do-gooder) drove me nuts. A minority of the story was told by Taryn, ten years after 9/11, still bruised and barely living, which was more powerful and believable.  But not enough!  And the connection of this scarf was feeble, to say the least.  I didn't rate it lower because I enjoyed the history it shared and the 9/11 portion, but the 1911 lengthy section didn't work for me at all.

Goodreads synopsis:  A beautiful scarf, passed down through the generations, connects two women who learn that the weight of the world is made bearable by the love we give away....

September 1911. On Ellis Island in New York Harbor, nurse Clara Wood cannot face returning to Manhattan, where the man she loved fell to his death in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Then, while caring for a fevered immigrant whose own loss mirrors hers, she becomes intrigued by a name embroidered onto the scarf he carries …and finds herself caught in a dilemma that compels her to confront the truth about the assumptions she’s made. Will what she learns devastate her or free her? 

September 2011. On Manhattan’s Upper West Side, widow Taryn Michaels has convinced herself that she is living fully, working in a charming specialty fabric store and raising her daughter alone. Then a long-lost photograph appears in a national magazine, and she is forced to relive the terrible day her husband died in the collapse of the World Trade Towers …the same day a stranger reached out and saved her. Will a chance reconnection and a century-old scarf open Taryn’s eyes to the larger forces at work in her life?

59. The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters

listened on Audible

307 pgs.

2023
Adult Mystery
Finished 6/26/24
Goodreads rating: 4.13
My rating: 4
Setting: Rural Maine (Rt. 9 north of Bangor) and Nova Scotia

My comments: Two voices, 1960 and perhaps 2000?  A four-year-old Micmac girl is kidnapped by a woman who has had many miscarriages and of course is slightly off.  The family of the little girl, Ruthie, (both parents, two brothers and a sister) never get over the feeling that she is still alive.  She is raised by the kidnapper and her husband as their own child, the mother being an odd woman who's super afraid that something is going to happen to now-Norma.  The story keeps switching back-and-forth between Ruthie/Norma and Joe, her two year older brother, who blames himself for her disappearance and has had an unhappy life because of the guilt he feels.  He's a good person, they are a good family, but it takes them almost five decades to reunite.  Such a sad story, but a really good one, too...

Goodreads synopsis:  A four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a tragic mystery that haunts the survivors, unravels a community, and remains unsolved for nearly fifty years.

July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come.

In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.  

37. The Broken Girls by Simone St. James

listened on Libby
336 pgs.

2018
Adult Mystery 
Finished 4/2//2024
Goodreads rating: 4.07
My rating: 4.75
Setting: Two time periods:  1950 & 2014 Vermont

My comments: For some reason, it took me a long while to get into this book.  Maybe every time I started I was too tired to register what was going on because the first few vignettes were different people, different time periods.  And then, with some urging from a friend, I did get into it.  This is a wonderful, solid story with lots of surprises and a touch of magical realism.  A lot of mystery, a lot of sleuthing, and some very interesting characters made for a story that after that hard start I had a hard time putting down!

Goodreads synopsis:  Vermont, 1950. There's a place for the girls whom no one wants--the troublemakers, the illegitimate, the too smart for their own good. It's called Idlewild Hall. And in the small town where it's located, there are rumors that the boarding school is haunted. Four roommates bond over their whispered fears, their budding friendship blossoming--until one of them mysteriously disappears. . . .

Vermont, 2014. As much as she's tried, journalist Fiona Sheridan cannot stop revisiting the events surrounding her older sister's death. Twenty years ago, her body was found lying in the overgrown fields near the ruins of Idlewild Hall. And though her sister's boyfriend was tried and convicted of murder, Fiona can't shake the suspicion that something was never right about the case.

When Fiona discovers that Idlewild Hall is being restored by an anonymous benefactor, she decides to write a story about it. But a shocking discovery during the renovations will link the loss of her sister to secrets that were meant to stay hidden in the past--and a voice that won't be silenced. . . .

25. Signal Moon - Short story by Kate Quinn

listened on Audible
57 pgs.

2022
Adult Historical Fiction/SciFi Short Story
Finished 3/24/24
Goodreads rating: 4.33
My rating: 5
Setting: 1943 & 2023 London

My comments: Two time periods, two Navy radio operators.  One in 1943, one in 2023.  One British, one American.  Talk about long-distance relationships!  One saves the other.  SciFi....love it more and more each time I read one.

Goodreads synopsis:  A short story about an impossible connection across two centuries that could make the difference between peace or war.

Yorkshire, 1943. Lily Baines, a bright young debutante increasingly ground down by an endless war, has traded in her white gloves for a set of headphones. It’s her job to intercept enemy naval communications and send them to Bletchley Park for decryption.

One night, she picks up a transmission that isn’t code at all—it’s a cry for help.

An American ship is taking heavy fire in the North Atlantic—but no one else has reported an attack, and the information relayed by the young US officer, Matt Jackson, seems all wrong. The contact that Lily has made on the other end of the radio channel says it’s… 2023.

Across an eighty-year gap, Lily and Matt must find a way to help each other: Matt to convince her that the war she’s fighting can still be won, and Lily to help him stave off the war to come. As their connection grows stronger, they both know there’s no telling when time will run out on their inexplicable link.

15. The Matchmaker's Gift by Lynda Cohen Loigman

listened on Libby

2022
320 pgs.
Adult CRF/Hist Fict
Finished 2/14/2023
Goodreads rating: 4.21
My rating: 4.5
Setting: contemporary & early 20th century NYC

My comments: I very much enjoyed the metamorphosis that modern-day Abby went through, from learning the divorce-lawyer ropes from an unscrupulous mentor to trying to help divorcing partners come to the true reality of their situations.  The grandmother's story was also fascinating.  A truly memorable story.  Cool cover, too

Goodreads synopsis:  Even as a child in 1910, Sara Glikman knows her gift: she is a maker of matches and a seeker of soulmates. But among the pushcart-crowded streets of New York’s Lower East Side, Sara’s vocation is dominated by devout older men—men who see a talented female matchmaker as a dangerous threat to their traditions and livelihood. After making matches in secret for more than a decade, Sara must fight to take her rightful place among her peers, and to demand the recognition she deserves.

Two generations later, Sara’s granddaughter, Abby, is a successful Manhattan divorce attorney, representing the city’s wealthiest clients. When her beloved Grandma Sara dies, Abby inherits her collection of handwritten journals recording the details of Sara’s matches. But among the faded volumes, Abby finds more questions than answers. Why did Abby’s grandmother leave this library to her and what did she hope Abby would discover within its pages? Why does the work Abby once found so compelling suddenly feel inconsequential and flawed? Is Abby willing to sacrifice the career she’s worked so hard for in order to keep her grandmother’s mysterious promise to a stranger? And is there really such a thing as love at first sight?