Alias Emma by Ava Glass was an audiobook recommended by one of my favorite book bloggers, Anne Bogel. And, it was available from the library – the best! “Nothing about Emma Makepeace is real. Not even her name. A newly minted secret agent, Emma’s barely graduated from basic training when she gets the call for her first major assignment. Eager to serve her country and prove her worth, she dives in headfirst. Emma must covertly travel across one of the world’s most watched cities to bring the reluctant—and handsome—son of Russian dissidents into protective custody, so long as the assassins from the Motherland don’t find him first. With London’s famous Ring of Steel hacked by the Russian government, the two must cross the city without being seen by the hundreds of thousands of CCTV cameras that document every inch of the city’s streets, alleys, and gutters. Buses, subways, cars, and trains are out of the question. Traveling on foot, and operating without phones or bank cards that could reveal their location or identity, they have twelve hours to make it to safety. This will take all of Emma’s skills of disguise and subterfuge. But when Emma’s handler goes dark, there’s no one left to trust. And just one wrong move will get them both killed.” (Amazon) This was a good listen. Not amazing, but entertaining enough.

I have no idea (as is typical) how We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian landed on my list. I ought to keep better track. “Nick Russo has worked his way from a rough Brooklyn neighborhood to a reporting job at one of the city’s biggest newspapers. But the late 1950s are a hostile time for gay men, and Nick knows that he can’t let anyone into his life. He just never counted on meeting someone as impossible to say no to as Andy. Andy Fleming’s newspaper-tycoon father wants him to take over the family business. Andy, though, has no intention of running the paper. He’s barely able to run his life—he’s never paid a bill on time, routinely gets lost on the way to work, and would rather gouge out his own eyes than deal with office politics. Andy agrees to work for a year in the newsroom, knowing he’ll make an ass of himself and hate every second of it. Except, Nick Russo keeps rescuing Andy: showing him the ropes, tracking down his keys, freeing his tie when it gets stuck in the ancient filing cabinets. Their unlikely friendship soon sharpens into feelings they can’t deny. But what feels possible in secret—this fragile, tender thing between them—seems doomed in the light of day. Now Nick and Andy have to decide if, for the first time, they’re willing to fight.” (Amazon) I throughly enjoyed this romance, but didn’t LOVE it. Sometimes the near-misses over and over are too annoying. It was good, not great.

All That is Mine I Carry With Me by William Landay was a recommendation from the Everyday I Write the Book blog. I liked it, but after All The Sinners Bleed, it was a bit of a letdown. I also hated that there weren’t any quotation marks in the book – it just makes the reading more challenging for me. Amazon: “One afternoon in November 1975, ten-year-old Miranda Larkin comes home from school to find her house eerily quiet. Her mother is missing. Nothing else is out of place. There is no sign of struggle. Her mom’s pocketbook remains in the front hall, in its usual spot. So begins a mystery that will span a lifetime. What happened to Jane Larkin? Investigators suspect Jane’s husband. A criminal defense attorney, Dan Larkin would surely be an expert in outfoxing the police. But no evidence is found linking him to a crime, and the case fades from the public’s memory, a simmering, unresolved riddle. Jane’s three children—Alex, Jeff, and Miranda—are left to be raised by the man who may have murdered their mother. Two decades later, the remains of Jane Larkin are found. The investigation is awakened. The children, now grown, are forced to choose sides. With their father or against him? Guilty or innocent? And what happens if they are wrong? A tale about family—family secrets and vengeance, but also family love—All That Is Mine I Carry With Me masterfully grapples with a primal question: When does loyalty reach its limit?”

All the Sinners Bleed by S. A. Cosby was recommended by a colleague and I am so appreciative of that recommendation. I devoured this book. It’s a tough read in many ways, but so engrossing. Amazon: “Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, quiet Charon has had only two murders. But after years of working as an FBI agent, Titus knows better than anyone that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface. Then a year to the day after Titus’s election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies. As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes and a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight, haunting the dirt lanes and woodland clearings of Charon. With the killer’s possible connections to a local church and the town’s harrowing history weighing on him, Titus projects confidence about closing the case while concealing a painful secret from his own past. At the same time, he also has to contend with a far-right group that wants to hold a parade in celebration of the town’s Confederate history. Charon is Titus’s home and his heart. But where faith and violence meet, there will be a reckoning.” This is a great read unless you have a weak stomach. My only gripe (as usual) was that it was a smidge too long. Some of the backstory for some of the characters wasn’t altogether necessary.

Before We Were Strangers by Renee Carlino was another audiobook that was available when I was looking for one. It was decent, but not amazing…a good enough listen if you are searching for something available. Amazon: “To the Green-Eyed Lovebird:  We met 15 years ago, almost to the day, when I moved my stuff into the NYU dorm room next to yours at Senior House.  You called us fast friends. I like to think it was more. We lived on nothing but the excitement of finding ourselves through music (you were obsessed with Jeff Buckley), photography (I couldn’t stop taking pictures of you), hanging out in Washington Square Park, and all the weird things we did to make money. I learned more about myself that year than any other. Yet, somehow, it all fell apart. We lost touch the summer after graduation when I went to South America to work for National Geographic. When I came back, you were gone. A part of me still wonders if I pushed you too hard after the wedding….”

I LOVE Ann Patchett. I love her so much that it’s astonishing that I waited as long as I did to read her latest, Tom Lake. “In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family’s orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew. Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.” (Amazon) I wish I could say I loved this book. I liked the story and the idea of the story, but I didn’t love the pace. It picked up at the end, but I was disappointed overall.

Happy Labor Day – the weekend I publish my summer reading reviews. This summer, I held myself accountable to my summer reading list (published here). As usual, I kept a printout of the covers above my desk for reference and checked off each as I completed it.

So, now for the overall reviews and recommendations from those I had chosen for the summer:

The Wager – 4.5 stars
The House is on Fire – 4.5 stars
Small Mercies – 4 stars
Happy Place – 4 stars
Romantic Comedy – 4 stars
Did You Hear about Kitty Karr? – 4 stars
The Soulmate – 3.5 stars
Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club – 3.5 stars
All My Knotted Up Life – 3 stars
Babel – Abandoned (magical realism)

I also read a bunch of books “off the list” with NO 5-stars. Bummer summer.
I’m always in need of good recommendations, so if you read anything amazing this summer, let me know! Happy school year!

Yellowface by R. F. Kuang has been on a lot of lists this summer, including Reese’s. I can’t get enough of Reese’s recs, as you know. “Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena’s a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I. So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn’t this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That’s what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree. But June can’t get away from Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June’s (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.” (Amazon) I listened to this on audio. The suspense was excellent and the narrating was terrific. And, while I enjoyed it, it was too similar to The Plot for me. Had I not read both, I would have liked Yellowface much better.

I was gifted a personally autographed copy of Swimming with Ghosts by local author, Michelle Brafman (thanks, Mike and Kelly) and enjoyed finally surfacing (no pun intended) from all my kindle library reads and summer reading lists. Amazon: “It’s June 2012. The magical and slightly cultish River Run swim club is alive with the spirit of fun competition when a perfect storm brews between team moms and best friends, Gillian Cloud and Kristy Weinstein. The ghost of family addiction has turned up, looming over their carefully planned pasta parties, tie-dye nights, and pep rallies, forcing them to face their unresolved childhood trauma. Gillian responds by trying to control everyone around her, while Kristy relapses into her dangerous addiction to love. Real sparks fly on the night of the derecho—a freak land hurricane—which sweeps through Northern Virginia, knocking out power for days. The storm ignites a tinder box of secrets, leaving Gillian and Kristy alone in the hot dark—their shame their only company.” The local references were fun and the story was entertaining and intriguing. I only was annoyed that the secret that came out at the beginning was kept secret for as long as it was. If you are into swimming and swim-team culture and enjoy reading local authors, you should grab this read.