Hidden by Catherine McKenzie - book review

Hidden
Author:  Catherine McKenzie
Publisher:  Harper Collins Publisher 
Published:  2013
Genre: General fiction
Source:  I won an ARC in a Facebook contest put on by the author.

When a married man suffers a sudden fatal accident, two women are shattered—his wife and someone else’s—and past secrets, desires and regrets are brought to light.

While walking home from work one evening, Jeff Manning is struck by a car and killed. Not one but two women fall to pieces at the news: his wife, Claire, and his co-worker Tish. Reeling from her loss, Claire must comfort her grieving son and contend with funeral arrangements, well-meaning family members and the arrival of Jeff’s estranged brother—her ex-boyfriend—Tim.

With Tish’s co-workers in the dark about her connection to Jeff outside the workplace, she volunteers to attend the funeral on the company’s behalf, but only she knows the true risk of inserting herself into the wreckage of Jeff’s life. Told through the three voices of Jeff, Tish and Claire, Hidden explores the complexity of relationships, our personal choices and the responsibilities we have to the ones we love.

My thoughts:

Beneath the surface, lies lay Hidden, truths distorted, and relationships complex.  The death of Jeff in a motor vehicle accident sends worlds colliding.  Hidden in told in three voices, by Jeff, his wife Claire, and a co-worker Tish.  Through their versions, we discover how easily twisted lives can become.  Somehow, through their telling, we find ourselves questioning whether we would want to know the truth, in whatever form it may come.  Could it be that ignorance is bliss?

We suspect, as Claire does, that there's more to Tish's attendance at the funeral.  Tish attends as a representative of the company Jeff worked for but Claire picks up on cues that make her question her marriage and she cannot leave it alone.

Hidden has a complex plot with the narrative told by three characters.  I enjoyed this effect as it allows us to see their lives much as a fly on a wall would.  The characterization is incredibly well done - the characters are three dimensional.  I dare you to read their portions without shedding a tear.

I had previously read Forgotten, my first of Catherine McKenzie's novels, which I thoroughly enjoyed but Hidden is better!  From the narrative, to the plot, to the characters; everything is well laid out and defined.  Hidden is a captivating novel about grief, secrets, and the lives affected.  Hard to put down.

Meet the author:

A graduate of McGill University in History and Law, Catherine practices law in Montreal, where she was born and raised. An avid skier and runner, Catherine’s novels, SPIN, ARRANGED and FORGOTTEN, are all international bestsellers. Her fourth novel, HIDDEN, will be released in June, 2013 in Canada and in Spring 2014 in the US. Her novels have been translated into French, German, Czech, Slovak and Polish. And if you want to know how she has time to do all that, the answer is: robots.

After I'm Gone by Laura LIppman

After I'm Gone
Author:  Laura Lippman
Published:  February 2014
Publisher: William Morrow
Pages: 352
Edition:  Hardcover
Source:  borrowed

Laura Lippman, the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of The Most Dangerous Thing, I’d Know You Anywhere, and What the Dead Know, returns with an addictive story that explores how one man’s disappearance echoes through the lives of the wife, mistress, and daughters he left behind.

When Felix Brewer meets Bernadette “Bambi” Gottschalk at a Valentine’s Dance in 1959, he charms her with wild promises, some of which he actually keeps. Thanks to his lucrative—if not all legal—businesses, she and their three little girls live in luxury. But on the Fourth of July, 1976, Bambi’s comfortable world implodes when Felix, newly convicted and facing prison, mysteriously vanishes.

Though Bambi has no idea where her husband—or his money—might be, she suspects one woman does: his mistress, Julie. When Julie disappears ten years to the day that Felix went on the lam, everyone assumes she’s left to join her old lover—until her remains are eventually found.

Now, twenty-six years after Julie went missing, Roberto “Sandy” Sanchez, a retired Baltimore detective working cold cases for some extra cash, is investigating her murder. What he discovers is a tangled web stretching over three decades that connects five intriguing women. And at the center is the missing man Felix Brewer.

Somewhere between the secrets and lies connecting past and present, Sandy will find the truth. And when he does, no one will ever be the same.

My thoughts:

After I'm Gone is quite unlike Lippman's previous works of mystery fiction.  A fictionalized missing person's story based loosely upon a Bostonian bookmaker, After I'm Gone explores not only the disappearance of a fictional Felix, but the lives of his wife, three daughters, and his mistress Julie.  

What Felix lacks in looks and stature, he makes up in charisma and drive.  Upon meeting his wife to be, Bambi, at a dance he and two buddies crash; he determines to make the beauty his wife, promising riches and an exciting life.  Felix, however, has a roaming eye and is often carrying on with another woman, Julie being his main interest beyond Bambi.

Felix and Bambi have three daughters and a beautiful home but the likelihood of jail time proves the cowardice of this man as he makes a run for it with Julie's help, disappearing with his fortune.  He left his only legitimate business, a little cafe, to Julie and very little for his wife and three daughters.

Then, almost ten  years to the date of Felix's disappearance, Julie disappears.  It is suspected she reunited with Felix and no one hears from her again.   Retired Baltimore detective "Sandy" Sanchez is commissioned by the police department to take on cold case crimes and the case of this missing bookmaker and subsequently his lover, become his focus.

It is when Julie's body is discovered that Sanchez delves into this investigation.  The scorned wife and now grown/almost grown daughters are of particular interest to him in Julie's death. They have very obvious motives for her possible murder but as jealous and destitute as they've become, are they murderers?  

Of course, I kept going back to Felix's "business."  In his line of work there are obviously sufficient people of interest to consider. The ladies of Felix's life may have motive as well, including jealousy.  

I've read and enjoyed Lippman's mysteries previously but After I'm Gone reads more like women's fiction with a twist.  I was looking forward to suspense and drama.  This book isn't that kind of book.  The focus is more on the family left behind following the disappearance of husband and father.  For that I was slightly disappointed.  But if I approach it as women's fiction, then Lippman has written a compelling character driven novel with a twist of an ending more in keeping with her reputation as a mystery writer.  Either way, you will be entertained because Lippman knows how to write a good tale.

Meet the Author:

Laura Lippman grew up in Baltimore and returned to her hometown in 1989 to work as a journalist. After writing seven books while still a full-time reporter, she left the Baltimore Sun to focus on fiction. The author of two New York Times bestsellers, What the Dead Know and Another Thing to Fall, she has won numerous awards for her work, including the Edgar, Quill, Anthony, Nero Wolfe, Agatha, Gumshoe, Barry, and Macavity.

To learn more about Laura’s work, visit her website or connect with her on Facebook.

Everything Was Good-bye by Gurjinder Basran (review & contest)

Everything Was Good-bye
Author:  Gurjinder Basran
Published:  December 2012
Publisher: Pintail Books
Pages:  272
ISBN13: 9780143186816
Source:  a complimentary copy was provided in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

THE YOUNGEST OF SIX daughters raised by a widowed mother, Meena is a young woman struggling to find her place in the world. Originally from India, her family still holds on to many old-world customs and traditions that seem stifling to a young North American woman. She knows that the freedom experienced by others is beyond her reach. But unlike her older sisters, Meena refuses to accept a life dictated by tradition. Against her mother’s wishes, she falls for a young man named Liam who asks her to run away with him. Meena must then make a painful choice—one that will lead to stunning and irrevocable consequences.

Heartbreaking and beautiful, Everything Was Good-bye is an unforgettable story about family, love, and loss, and the struggle to live in two different cultural worlds.  (from the cover)

My Review: 

Almost two years ago I read and fell in love with the story  Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda (see my post here) and now I have just completed another story of significant depth, love and sorrow that it belongs in that same cabinet in my mind...the cabinet reserved for books that impact me.

Meena's story is one of cultural diversity, of societal pressure, of understanding and the lack thereof, and of a young girl's desire to find herself.  Her heritage and upbringing dictate an arranged marriage, and though her heart belongs to another, a fact that she is not yet certain of, she abides and enters into the marital covenant with hope and yet with longing to be somewhere else.  Years pass and marriage has become a comfortable arena until Meena again meets the young man who stole her heart years before.  

Faced with decisions, a questionable future, an undeniable yearning; Meena must make a choice.  A choice that will impact the lives of so many for good or for worse.

Everything Was Good-bye, the title, forecasts the story within and  yet the reader hopes for Meena to find happiness, to find herself, and find the beginning of a happy ending.  I became so wrapped up in the telling of the story and the beautiful prose that painted pictures in my mind of scenes, of scents, and feelings.  Gurjinder Basran has a gift for words, for the language of the heart.  I felt the emotions, envisioned the setting, endured the brutal moments, only to cry in heartbreaking sobs with the protagonist and to breathe a breath of hope for her.

Everything Was Good-bye is an ideal book club selection, sure to inspire hours of conversation.

Favourite quotes:

"The smell of chai -- fennel, cloves and cinnamon -- tucked me into my blanket like a seed in a cardamom pod.  I steeped myself into the warmth of waking, listening to the sounds of Sunday morning."  (page 2, opening lines)

"I imagined climbing over the railing and jumping into the water, sinking into the shadowy depths; kelp forests entangling my body, pirate ghosts capturing me for an eternity until I was reborn and transformed into a water nymph with threaded wings of seaweed tasselled with golden coins.  I would be neither blue nor green, neither fish nor girl, but something magical and intensely beautiful." (page 35)

"After dinner we stood outside the restaurant beneath the ripped awning, watching the rain fall in all directions, the wind pushing it this way and that.  Liam flipped up the collar of his coat and inhaled to my exhale, our breath taking from each other." (page 175)

"The first snowfall held the city in its breath, casting a tinsel chill across the sky, a silvery glaze on windows and a rosy glow on children's cheeks.  The streets were lined with wreaths, the street corners dressed in charitable causes and the shop windows adorned with nostalgic scenes of foil-wrapped Christmas gifts beneath perfectly trimmed trees.  As I walked down Robson Street, past all the windows filled with packaged hopes, I knew that mine would go unopened...."(page 225)

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Gurjinder Basran's "Everything Was Good-bye" was earlier published by Mother Tongue Publishing in 2010 and is being released by Pintail Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing as a trade paperback in the latter part of 2012.

GIVEAWAY!!!!

Thanks to Pintail Books, I have a copy of this astounding book to give away to one lucky reader. Open to US and Canada, I will make a drawing from those who comment on this  post.  That's the only requirement, is a comment stating why you'd like to read Everything Was Good-bye. Contest opens today, December 31 2012 and ends January 19, 2013.  Good luck and thank you to all who enter!

Happy New Year!

Book Review: The Memory Thief by Emily Colin

The Memory Thief
Author:  Emily Colin
Published: 2012
Publisher: A Ballantine Books Trade Paperback Original (a division of Random House Publishing Group)
Pages: 420 (including epilogue and acknowledgments)
ISBN 9780345530394
ebook: 9780345535580
Category/genre:  Women's fiction/romance/paranormal
Source:  A complimentary copy was provided by JKS Communications and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

"Before Madeleine Kimble's mountaineer husband, Aidan, climbs Mount McKinley's south face, he makes her a solemn vow:  I will come back to you.  But late one night, Maddie gets the devastating news that Aidan has died in an avalanche, leaving her to care fore their son -- a small boy with a very big secret.  The call comes from J.C., Aidan's best friend and fellow climber, whose grief is seasoned with survivor's guilt ... and something more.  J.C. has loved Maddie for years, but he never wanted his chance with her to come at so terrible a cost.

Across the country, Nicholas Sullivan wakes from a motorcycle crash with his memory wiped clean.  yet his dreams are haunted by visions of a mysterious woman and a young boy, neither of whom he has ever met.  Convinced that these strangers hold the answers he seeks, Nicholas leaves everything behind to find them.  What he discovers will require a leap of faith that will change all of their lives forever."

My thoughts:

As a good friend and I were discussing books, she asked what I was reading to which I responded "The Memory Thief" and I explained the plot.  "That's not the kind of book you usually read," she said and she's right.

When I picked up Emily Colin's debut novel, I was expecting something like "Left Neglected" but this is totally different!  The Memory Thief is a consuming story about a mother and son who lose a husband/father in a mountain climbing accident.  Aidan had promised he'd return, trying to assuage Madeleine's fears that her unease about the trip meant pending disaster.  One night, though, her fears come to fruition as she receives a phone call from J.C., her husband's best friend and one of his climbing companions.  

The same day, Nicholas is in a motorcycle accident which puts him in the hospital in a coma and with partial amnesia.  He cannot remember anything about his personal life and yet he dreams vividly of being on a mountain, seeing the snow give way as an avalanche swallows him whole. Progressively his thoughts and dreams are consumed by images and memories that are ...... Aidan's. (shocker!)

The Memory Thief is an unusual story, more twisted than I imagined and yet so compelling that it was difficult to put down.  Emily Colin's characters live and breathe and love and lie and they draw you in to their lives.  Vivid physical and personality descriptions carve out each main character as a sculptor would carve a medium, be it wood, stone or clay.  They seem as real as you and I.  

The plot twists and, though the reader has a sense of what is happening, it is not until the end that we fully understand the magnitude of it all.  It isn't all tied up in a pretty bow, in the end, and yet, in a way it is complete. The Memory Thief is one of those stories that you will remember because it is different and the characters are so vivid that they leave an impression upon you after you read the last sentence, closing the book upon the story but not the feeling it leaves you with.

There are a lot of sexual situations in this novel, not gratuitous, but they don't leave much to the imagination.  They are in context with the story line but not what I'd consider necessary to the plot.  It is, however, what the reading audience seems to be enjoying right now if the success of Fifty Shades of ... (you know) is any indication.  The Memory Thief is also riddled with profanity, which too seems to be in context.  I just don't enjoy reading it, though.

I would rate this a 4/5 were it not for the explicit sex scenes and language, which makes it, for me, a 3/5.  Though a good story line, this one has not earned a place on my bookshelf.