Review of Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, by Jesse Q. Sutanto, read by Eunice Wong

Audiobooks, Fiction Review, Mystery, Starred Review 0

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers

by Jesse Q. Sutanto
read by Eunice Wong

Books on Tape, 2023. 10 hours, 40 minutes.
Review written July 26, 2023, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review

Here’s a delightful cozy murder mystery with a modern Miss Marple as the sleuth. But instead of knitting, Vera Wong is an expert in teas. She lives alone in San Francisco’s Chinatown above the tea shop she established with her late husband, “Vera Wang’s World-Famous Tea House.” She gets up at 4:30 every morning, texts her lawyer son, and goes for a brisk walk before spending her day in the shop. Unfortunately, Vera only ever has one customer, a lonely old man whose wife is bedridden. But Vera always concocts the perfect tea for him.

Then, one morning, there’s a dead body in her shop, with the shop window broken. Vera calls the police and leaves things as she finds them — well, aside from cleaning up the broken glass. And drawing an outline around the body. And, well, taking a flash drive out of the dead man’s hand.

The police don’t do anything like Vera has seen happen on CSI. They don’t seem to take the murder seriously at all. They don’t even take fingerprints or look for DNA evidence! So Vera figures she’s going to have to investigate herself. She cleverly puts an obituary in the paper right away, being sure to mention that the body was found at Vera Wang’s World-Famous Tea Shop. Sure enough — the next day four people show up at the tea shop, and Vera has her suspects.

This is where the unsolicited advice comes in. Vera meets the dead man’s wife and daughter, as well as his twin brother. And two young people who claim to be journalists. And, naturally, she gets to know them, serves them tea, and gives them unsolicited advice.

What follows is a delightful story as a lonely and interfering old lady investigates a murder – and finds a family. Except there’s that little problem that one member of her new family is likely the murderer. Which one? Vera is certainly clever enough to find out!

I had given up expecting murder mysteries to be amazingly heartwarming! This one’s delightful.

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Review of The Lost Year, by Katherine Marsh

Audiobooks, Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 2

The Lost Year

by Katherine Marsh
read by Anna Fikhman, Christopher Gebauer, and Jesse Vilinsky

Macmillan Young Listeners, 2023. 9 hours, 5 minutes.
Review written July 9, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

This book begins with Matthew, a boy bored at home during the start of the Covid pandemic. His 100-year-old great-grandmother, Gee-Gee, has come to stay with him and his mother, so they are being extra careful to keep the virus away.

Yes, that’s a slow start. But when Matthew’s mother takes away his video games and assigns him to help Gee-Gee go through boxes, he uncovers the stories of two other girls from 1933. And an old picture of two little girls makes Gee-Gee start crying — because she says there should have been three girls.

And what unfolds is a story of Ukraine during the Holodomor — a famine during which millions of Ukrainians died. We get this story from the perspective of Mila, whose father is a high-ranking Communist party member, and from Helen — a Ukrainian girl living in America.

Mila lives a life of privilege, believing that Papa Stalin and her own Papa will take care of her. And believes the stories her father tells her that any problems are caused by the dirty peasants in the countryside who refuse to collectivize their farms. So when a malnourished girl shows up at their doorstep claiming to be her cousin who says her whole family starved to death, Mila doesn’t want to believe her.

Meanwhile, in class in America, Helen’s teacher reads an article from the New York Times from a correspondent in Moscow saying that no one is starving in Ukraine. But Helen’s family has gotten a letter from their Ukrainian cousin begging for help, and she knows other Ukrainian American families who have received similar letters. So she collects stories and writes to the Times, but they tell her she needs first-hand accounts. That her reporting isn’t good enough.

Of course, one of these three girls is Gee-Gee, and we also know that one of the three is not going to make it to America. The book snowballs in tension as it progresses, telling the gripping story of a tragedy the Soviet Union covered up for decades, one that readers won’t know much about. (I certainly didn’t.) It’s unfortunate how timely it is, as the author had this book written before the attack on Ukraine brought the country back into the headlines. I hope that will lead more kids to pick up this book.

katherinemarsh.com

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Review of The Minus-One Club, by Kekla Magoon

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Minus-One Club

by Kekla Magoon
read by Dion Graham

Recorded Books, 2023. 7 hours, 7 minutes.
Review written July 11, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

The Minus-One Club is a book about grief, about bullying, and about coming out.

It begins with grief. Fifteen-year-old Kermit’s older sister Sheila, who had gone off to her first year of college, recently died in a car accident caused by a drunk driver. When Kermit finally manages to make it back to school, he gets invited to the “Minus-One Club,” a secret group of fellow students who all lost someone close to them. The club members are all there for one another, but they don’t talk about those deaths.

Also in the club is the guy Kermit’s long had a crush on. Matt is the only gay person in their high school who’s out. Kermit is very much not out, but as he starts doing things with Matt, they very clearly fall in love with each other. And since Kermit’s parents are happy he’s doing things with friends again, he can spend the night at Matt’s — as long as he doesn’t miss church in the morning.

Kermit used to be as involved in church youth group as you can get. But since Sheila’s death, he’s full of questions — and it’s all magnified by the way his parents and youth group leaders talk about how gay people are sinning. He knows it’s not safe to come out to them.

And as time goes on, Kermit starts to think Matt isn’t perhaps as happy and well-adjusted as he has always appeared. Navigating all of this makes a compelling story, which does end on a hopeful note.

I do appreciate that being Black was not one of the difficult issues Kermit was navigating. I’m sad that coming out to Christian parents was a big issue. And I have to admit that it’s still going to be an issue for many LGBTQ teens. I like that Matt told Kermit about the church he used to attend (before his mother died) that was fully accepting of LGBTQ folks — so it was correctly not presented as something every Christian church will be against.

This audiobook was compelling, and I found reasons to be able to keep listening. I may have spent a little more time on a jigsaw puzzle in order to finish the book.

keklamagoon.com

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Review of Zero Days, by Ruth Ware

Audiobooks, Fiction Review, Mystery, Starred Review 0

Zero Days

by Ruth Ware
read by Imogen Church

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2023. 14 hours, 10 minutes.
Review written July 17, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Okay, if you like thrillers at all, this is one of the best I’ve read. I started finding excuses to keep listening to the audiobook (which I usually do while doing chores) because I was completely invested in the story.

It begins with a young woman named Jack breaking into a large office building. And it takes subtlety, strength, planning, and attention to detail. I found myself hoping it was like the beginning of the Scarlett & Browne books, showing a successful heist to start off, so that we’d understand how capable our main characters are. Because it was super tense, and I was already afraid she was going to get caught.

Speaking to her through her earpiece, helping direct her movements and evade security, was her husband Gabe. They clearly have a great working relationship and deep fondness for one another, with a little flirting along with the danger. I found myself thinking that it’s very unusual for a main character to be in a great marriage right at the start of the book. I had a bad feeling that situation wouldn’t last.

I won’t even tell you how those gut feelings were fulfilled or not fulfilled. If you read a description you’ll find out, because it’s the very beginning — but I did enjoy the suspense right from the start.

What I will tell you is that Jack ends up being on the run from the police while trying to solve a mystery — and pretty much everything is against her and she doesn’t know whom she can trust.

And she’s a character I couldn’t help but admire, incredibly good at tight situations, so I was invested in her making it, but not at all sure how or if she would. The tension doesn’t ever let up.

I have to say that Imogen Church is the perfect narrator for a young British woman in a tense situation. I’ve listened to quite a few of her audiobooks by now and she adds to my enjoyment. I’d had the audio sped up with the previous audiobook I’d listened to, and had to slow it back down to normal, because she speaks quickly and keeps the tension going.

I’m currently on the Morris Award Committee for YA debut novels, so only have time to “read” novels for adults in audio form, and the only problem with this thriller is it made me want to spend all my time with it, not reading the award-eligible books I needed to read. So good! Give it a try!

ruthware.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver

Audiobooks, Award Winners, Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 2

Demon Copperhead

by Barbara Kingsolver
read by Charlie Thurston

HarperAudio, 2022. 21 hours, 3 minutes.
Review written June 30, 2023, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review
2023 Pulitzer Prize Winner
2023 Women’s Prize for Fiction Winner

I’ll be honest: When I was in the middle of this long audiobook, I wasn’t enjoying it much. It tells the story of Demon Copperhead — a kid named Damon, who, like the father who died before he was born, had red hair. He was born in the very rural Lee County, Virginia, to an addict Mom, and bad things just kept happening to him, so the book was somewhat depressing. I kept listening, because it was written by Barbara Kingsolver, who is a truly amazing author.

There was abuse from a stepdad, overdose death of his mother, terrible foster home situations, and eventually getting addicted himself. The narrator had such an authentic rural Virginia accent, I was surprised when he spoke at the end of the book in the “thank you for reading this book” section without the accent.

Something the author does to make all this terrible stuff tolerable is telling the story from the perspective of an older Demon telling about his life. So we know he’s going to survive and get through these awful things. And when things take a particularly bad turn, there’s plenty of foreshadowing, with him wondering if he had done things differently in the events leading up to the disaster, if that would have helped. Or talking about how he didn’t fully appreciate it when things were good — so you know his troubles aren’t over.

When I was in the middle thinking I was tired of listening to it and that I don’t enjoy listening to a rural southern accent as much as a British one — that was when the kids in the story noticed that the media portrays to the world that rural southerners and hillbillies are stupid. Touché! As I began thinking I didn’t really like spending all that time in Demon’s life — then he naturally in the story pointed out that’s how the media wants me to think.

The book also showed the opioid crisis and how it gained full steam. (I’m going to call it Historical because it begins in the 1990s.) The drug companies actually looked for populations likely to get hooked and sent their representatives there, giving doctors kickbacks if they prescribed the addictive painkillers. Damon got hooked after a football injury — beginning by only taking exactly what was prescribed. The whole awful situation is told in a way that reminds the reader that these are people’s lives that were destroyed, not some kind of lazy subhumans who deserved their fate.

And yes, by the time I’d listened to all 21 hours of this book, I was glad I did. I ended up having a much higher view of the folks in the communities portrayed, and I was pleased and proud to have spent so much of my time with a kid who got way more than his share of tough breaks in life, but whose heart shines like gold.

barbarakingsolver.net

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Review of The Notorious Scarlett and Browne, by Jonathan Stroud, read by Sophie Aldred

Adventure, Audiobooks, Children's Fiction Review, Science Fiction, Starred Review 0

The Notorious Scarlett and Browne

by Jonathan Stroud
read by Sophie Aldred

Listening Library, 2023. 12 hours, 17 minutes.
Review written May 24, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

This is the second book about outlaws Scarlett McLain and Albert Browne, set in a future England after the Cataclysm, when people are huddled into towns for safety against animals that have evolved in dangerous ways and zombie-like once-human “tainted” cannibals.

The book reminds me of the author’s wonderful Lockwood & Co. series. As in the earlier series, you’ve got a feisty and capable girl teaming up with a boy to do daring exploits. They’re of indeterminate age – somewhere in their teens, but living on their own and using their wits to get by.

In this case, Scarlett is using Albert’s mind-reading abilities to help them rob banks — and now they’re taking on the antiquities in the Faith Houses. But in this book, both their pasts catch up with them. For Scarlett, the Brothers of the Hand catch up with her and use some powerful leverage to get her to do one more dangerous job for them. In Albert’s case, a Faith House Operative with powers like Albert’s own comes after them. Albert’s going to have to learn to control and use his powers to be able to get past him.

This book is billed for kids, but let me warn you that there are heavy topics. We learn more about Scarlett’s back story, and there are some horrific things. And when she went to a Faith House for help, they turned a crowd against her. Oh, and there’s plenty of shooting, killing, dumping rocks on people, and letting loose the tainted to eat people. But no sex! So maybe that’s why it’s considered a children’s book?

And there’s lots and lots of tension, too. There are several deadlines in the course of this book — and they’re literally deadlines, when if not met, someone’s going to die. And every time, a solution comes at the very last minute. This warning is to lean toward giving it to older kids — you should have an idea what your kids can handle — but I for one love the series so much.

Of course, Sophie Aldred’s English accent adds to my enjoyment, and the voices she uses for Scarlett and Albert are perfect. I love these characters and hope for a five-book series, like Lockwood & Co. so I can spend much more time with them. Enjoy two kids getting out of horribly tight situations with cleverness and skill. Enjoy Albert’s irrepressible looks on the bright side along with Scarlett’s sarcastic retorts and amazing skill with a gun. In this book, they gain notoriety indeed, and it ends with a definite direction for future books. Hooray! May they come soon.

jonathanstroud.com
listeninglibrary.com

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Review of The Summer of Bitter and Sweet, by Jen Ferguson

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Summer of Bitter and Sweet

by Jen Ferguson
read by Julie Lumsden

Heartdrum, 2022. 10 hours, 8 minutes.
Review written May 5, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2023 William Morris Award Finalist
2023 Stonewall Honor Book
2022 Cybils Award Winner, Young Adult Fiction

I try to read the winners I miss during the year of publication, and this one took me a long time to get around to listening to. I think the cover put me off, honestly — maybe they could have done something with ice cream? But as soon as I started listening, I was captivated.

The story is of the summer after high school of a Métis girl named Louisa who lives with her mother and uncles in the prairies of Alberta, Canada. They’ve got a dairy farm, and her uncle makes ice cream, experimenting with a wide variety of natural flavors. Bits at the start of each chapter talk about the ice cream and the flavors and colors and how to create them, and oh my goodness, it made me want some ice cream, preferably from Salt & Straw, which also uses natural local flavorings (for the most part).

This summer, Lou is working with her best friend and boyfriend at the ice cream shack. And then she learns that her uncle has hired King Nathan, her best friend from four years ago, who fled to his mother in Toronto after a big bust-up between them.

But right at the start, Lou breaks up with her boyfriend. Their relationship has been all about Louisa giving him oral sex, and she isn’t feeling it. (The book isn’t even that delicate about saying what’s been going on.) Because she didn’t enjoy anything they did together, she’s worried something’s wrong with her and afraid to start a relationship with King because of that.

But a much bigger drama comes into her life when she starts getting letters from her biological father — the white guy who raped her mother and left her for dead eighteen years ago. He’s gotten out of prison, and now wants his name on her birth certificate. And gets more and more threatening about it.

Lou’s mother is out of town, selling her beadwork on the powwow circuit, and Lou wants to protect her from knowing her rapist is out of prison and in their town. But at the same time, Lou wishes her mother were there when her life is getting so complicated.

I hope my summary of these problems doesn’t make you think, Why would anyone want to read something with so many problems? But, oh, the writing is so beautiful! And yes, Lou is a flawed character — but she learns to face her issues, and the growing relationship with King is beautifully portrayed. I especially like that they have setbacks and get mad at one another — but then take steps to make it right and really listen.

Now, there’s talk about being asexual or demisexual — and I’m not sure I like the idea that not enjoying even kissing someone whom you don’t know well and who’s pressuring you to have oral sex with him makes you remotely out of the ordinary. But on the other hand, yes, this may be what a teen would think, so all the more power to having this situation shown on the pages of a wonderful book. (Lou says she gave her consent until she broke up with him. But all the more reason to look for enthusiastic consent.)

There are also many instances of racism portrayed in this book. And things aren’t tied up in a tidy bow at the end of it. But again, let me stress that I came away from listening to this audiobook simply overwhelmed by the wonderful experience of being pulled into Lou’s world.

jenfergusonwrites.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of The Sinister Booksellers of Bath, by Garth Nix

Audiobooks, Historical, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Sinister Booksellers of Bath

by Garth Nix
read by Marisa Calin

Listening Library, 2023. 9 hours, 49 minutes.
Review written April 10, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

The Sinister Booksellers of Bath is the sequel to The Left-Handed Booksellers of London (which is the best title ever). I didn’t remember very well what happened in the first book, but was quickly brought up to speed and delighted with this new adventure. Both books feel complete in themselves, which I always appreciate in a series. I’m not sure if there will be more, but I enjoyed the adventures.

Both books are set in an alternate-reality Britain of 1983. In the first book, Susan Arkshaw discovered a force of left-handed and right-handed booksellers who deal with powerful magical entities from the Old World, trying to keep ordinary mortals safe. But Susan discovered she’s not exactly an ordinary mortal.

This book begins as Susan’s friend Merlin (a left-handed bookseller) gets pulled by a magical map into a place outside of our world and our time. Merlin’s sister Vivian (a right-handed bookseller) tells Susan she needs her help, and Susan and Vivian go to get Merlin, using Susan’s power to bring them back to our world.

But that exercise of power stirs up powers in Susan. She starts getting vivid dreams as her powers seem to be awaking. At the same time, the entity who made the original map is now aware of Susan and all signs point to Susan being the target of the next Wild Hunt to happen on the Winter Solstice. All Susan wants is to live an ordinary life as an art student.

It all makes for a fun adventure, complete with magic and danger and surprising characters. This world has shades of Arthurian myth, but has a unique take on magic that makes it not your typical fantasy novel. And the characters are folks I was delighted to spend time with.

garthnix.com

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Review of Horse, by Geraldine Brooks

Audiobooks, Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

Horse

by Geraldine Brooks
read by James Fouhey, Lisa Flanagan, Graham Halstead, Katherine Littrell, and Michael Oblora

Penguin Audio, 2022. 14 hours, 6 minutes.
Review written March 18, 2023, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review

A big thank you to my friend Keith, who persistently recommended this book to me. When he first recommended it, I was reading for the Cybils and didn’t get to it. Then at the start of the year when he said it was the best book he’d read in 2022, I put the audiobook on hold again, and this time when it came in a couple months later, I made a point of listening, and was glad I did.

This book is a rich tapestry. It’s set in 2019 and also in the 1850s. The two viewpoint characters in 2019 are working behind the scenes at the Smithsonian. One of those is an African American grad student writing an article for Smithsonian magazine on restoring a painting he found when his neighbor put it out in the trash. And his dissertation is about the depiction of African Americans in 19th century American equestrian art. Those two things come together.

And along the way he meets Jess, who works behind the scenes at the Smithsonian with animal skeletons. A British researcher has come to examine a particular skeleton, and Jess has to do some research to find it. The label just says “Horse,” but records show it’s the skeleton of Lexington, one of the greatest thoroughbreds of all time.

This book is the story of Lexington. The main viewpoint character from the past is Jarret, an enslaved boy who was present when Lexington was foaled. He manages to stay with Lexington for the horse’s whole life, and this book tells that story, mixed in with the story of restoring the painting and the skeleton in 2019.

The story is wonderfully told. And this audio production, using different readers for all the different viewpoint characters, makes it all the more immersive.

I was very surprised at the end to learn that Lexington was a real horse with an actual stellar career as a racer and as a sire. I had assumed she’d have to make up a fictional horse. His skeleton actually did spend time in the Smithsonian labeled as “Horse.” Most of the historical characters were real people, but the author brought them to life through the eyes of Jarret, the African American groom who loved him and knew him best. Jarret’s life is the fictional part, though with enough plausibility, you can tell yourself this is what really happened.

As she says in the afterword, because African Americans were so crucial to American racing in the nineteenth century, her story of a racehorse had to become a story of race. I have to say that I completely hated some things that happened toward the end of the book, though I see why she put them in. But I sure would have liked the story to go a different way. However, even with that reservation, this was an amazing book that I won’t forget any time soon.

geraldinebrooks.com

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Review of The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne, by Jonathan Stroud

Adventure, Audiobooks, Children's Fiction Review, Science Fiction, Starred Review 0

The Outlaws Scarlett and Browne

by Jonathan Stroud
read by Sophie Aldred

Listening Library, 2021. 12 hours, 19 minutes.
Review written February 26, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Hooray! Jonathan Stroud has a new series out about teens doing exploits in a world not quite like our own. I was already a devoted fan of his Lockwood & Co. series, which is now a Netflix series and gaining new fans. (Hooray!) This one has much the same feel, the same cleverness and banter between the characters and is wonderful in every way. I’m kind of glad I didn’t get this first book read as soon as it came out, because now I only need to wait a couple months for the next one.

Scarlett McCain lives in Britain in the far distant future, after the Cataclysm and the Great Dying. Britain is now a set of islands with fortified towns and a wilderness in between. There’s a lagoon where London used to be.

The book begins as Scarlett pulls off a bank robbery. She needs the money to pay back some folks who will kill her if she fails. Everything goes smoothly, but in the wilderness she comes across a bus that has met with a horrific accident, and all the passengers were eaten by wild beasts. She stops to see if they left any valuables, planning to leave before dark.

In the bus, she hears a sound coming from the toilet. Sure enough, a boy comes out. He’d locked himself in while the others were being eaten. His name’s Albert Browne and he’s naive and awkward, and Scarlett doesn’t quite have the heart to leave him to try to make it to a town on his own. So she takes him into her care, planning to get him to the nearest town.

The next day, though, they get chased by men with dogs and guns. Scarlett’s never known anyone to be so persistent after a bank robbery. But just before she escapes by jumping into a river (after pushing Albert in), one of the gunmen laughs and asks why she thinks they’re chasing after her. Turns out there’s much more to Albert than meets the eye.

The book is full of more exploits. And danger. Albert has heard that the Free Isles — which lie in the London Lagoon — will take anyone, despite blemishes or oddities. But it’s not easy to get there, and they’re still being chased.

Fair warning: The book is full of violence and gore. Another terror is the zombie-like “tainted” who eat human flesh. The animals are all more fearsome than in our day, too. One of the terrors of the Thames is the river otters that can devour the unwary. Scarlett does some killing, but it does feel warranted.

Also in that future day, instead of individual religions, there are Faith Houses that offer all religions humans have ever observed. And they are wary of the evolution that has happened to the animals and have strict rules against any blemishes or deviations in people in order to live in the towns. I’m never thrilled to read a book where the villains are powerful religious people, because that’s not how religion should be. However, then I had to reflect that in the Gospels themselves, the villains are powerful religious people. Scarlett and Browne are being tracked by the most powerful people of their society, and the reader is rooting for them.

Sophie Aldred does a wonderful job reading this one. I always love an English accent, but on top of that, she puts so much personality into Albert’s voice. We hear his naivete and his earnestness, his wonder at the wider world and just how annoying he must be to Scarlett. Though I’m tempted to preorder the next book, I think I’m going to check out another audiobook instead. This is just wonderful.

jonathanstroud.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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