The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde

Oldest on TBR

Years ago I gave the Thursday Next series a try and I think I gave up too soon! I deviled back into Mr. Fforde's works with the 1st in the 2 part series of the nursery crimes. It was a cracking good time! I poached my scrambled memory of childhood nursery rhymes and fairy tales throughout the entire novel and marveled at Fforde's egg-cellent imagination.

Quirky and fun and has me looking forward to not only the 2nd course - The Fourth Bear, but also yolks me into trying the Thursday Next series again!

Summary from Goodreads: Humpty Stuyvesant Van Dumpty III, minor baronet, ex-convict, and former millionaire philanthropist, is found shattered to death beneath a wall in a shabby area of town. All the evidence points to his ex-wife, who has conveniently shot herself.

But Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his assistant Mary Mary remain unconvinced,  though still smarting over their failure to convict the Three Pigs of murdering Mr. Wolff. Before long Jack and Mary find themselves grappling with a sinister plot involving cross-border money laundering, bullion smuggling, beanstalks, titans seeking asylum, and the cut and thrust world of international chiropody.

Quotes:  "I collect ex-boyfriends."

"...[he] might have been a life raft of normality that she could somehow cling to for sanity..."

"We're pressured to expend so much money and effort to be the 'perfect' shape, when that shape is physically attainable by only one woman in a million.  It's the cold face of capitalism...preying on misguided expectations."

     The Undertaker's Assistant - Amanda Skenandore
                Newest on TBR

New Orleans - 1875

 Effie remembers nothing of her life before showing up at the Union camp  at the age of 7. After being raised by an Union army surgeon and his wife, Effie returns to the South as a freedwoman.  There she earns her living as an embalmer for a local white undertaker.

Political turmoil, snippets of Effie's memories as she learns about her past, and work of an embalmer, all meld together to make another very good book by Ms. Skenandore.  An even more moving novel by this author is "Beneath Earth and Sky"

Goodreads says:

Tall and serious, Effie keeps her distance from the other girls in her boarding house, holding tight to the satisfaction she finds in her work. But despite her reticence, two encounters-with a charismatic state legislator named Samson Greene, and a beautiful young Creole, Adeline-introduce her to new worlds of protests and activism, of soirees and social ambition. Effie decides to seek out the past she has blocked from her memory and try to trace her kin. As her hopes are tested by betrayal, and New Orleans grapples with violence and growing racial turmoil, Effie faces loss and heartache, but also a chance to finally find her place . . .

Last Know Victim - Erica Spindler
         New Author

This is the 3rd in the Stacy Killian series and 4th in the Malone series but the 1st for me.

I would call this a good old-fashion detective story.  Patty O'Shay is a police captain who is trying to track down a serial killer called "The Handyman". The killer cuts off the right hand of his female victims.

Captain O'Shay's husband is found murdered but more startling is that 3 years later his right hand is found in a shallow grave of a young woman who's right hand is missing also.
Patti becomes obsessed with finding this killer.  Good detective book with a twist at the end that I did not see coming.   I may try to read more in this series.

Goodreads says:

Amid death and destruction, hurricane-savaged New Orleans has a new dark force to fear. As the recue efforts unfold, a grisly discovery is made at one of the massive refrigerator graveyards. One of these metal hulks contains six human hands - all female, all right hands. the press has dubbed the unknown perpetrator 'The Handyman'.

   The Other Side of Everything - Lauren D. Owens
                     Debut

The premise of this story is that 3 elderly women have been murdered.  We are going to be told about this by 3 different narrators who will be somehow connected. 

Bernard - a widowed gentleman who knew the ladies and rallies his senior friends to work on how to keep everyone safe,

Amy, - a neighbor to one of the victims who has vivid dreams of that murder and paints her visions.

Maddie - a 15 yr old waitress who doesn't seem to have anything to do with the other two.  Nor sure why she is even a narrator.

This was not a riveting mystery for me, just 3 okay stories that the author tried to tie together.

Goodreads:

Laura Lippman meets Megan Abbott in this suspenseful literary debut about three generations of neighbors whose lives intersect in the aftermath of a crime.

   Island of the Mad - Laurie R. King
              Series

I seem to be working on a couple of series,  John Connolly and Laurie King.
This one of Ms King's brings me up to date with Mary Russell until a new book comes out.   So......

 In this caper, we travel to Venice where we don our masks and costumes to attend balls that last all night.  We are in pursuit of a missing woman while traversing the canals of Venice.  Be sure to watch out for the fascist Blackshirts and Mussolini.  We  even spend some time with Cole Porter, talk about interesting !!!!
'
As usual Ms. King's beautiful writing and research puts the reader right in the thick of things.  I always enjoy a wonderfully created journey with Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes.

Goodreads says it better::

A June summer's evening, on the Sussex Downs, in 1925. Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes are strolling across their orchard when the telephone rings: an old friend's beloved aunt has failed to return following a supervised outing from Bedlam. After the previous few weeks--with a bloody murder, a terrible loss, and startling revelations about Holmes--Russell is feeling a bit unbalanced herself. The last thing she wants is to deal with the mad, and yet, she can't say no.

The Lady Vivian Beaconsfield has spent most of her adult life in one asylum after another, yet he seemed to be improving--or at least, finding a point of balance in her madness. So why did she disappear? Did she take the family's jewels with her, or did someone else? The Bedlam nurse, perhaps?

The trail leads Russell and Holmes through Bedlam's stony halls to the warm Venice lagoon, where ethereal beauty is jarred by Mussolini's Blackshirts, where the gilded Lido set may be tempting a madwoman, and where Cole Porter sits at a piano, playing with ideas..

     Off the Grid - P.J.Tracy
           (T author)

It was nice to be back in Minneapolis with the Monkeewrench misfits. Even though the gang didn't show up to much in the first half of the book.

Grace came back to help on a case where someone is killing would-be terrorists.  That can't be all bad , right??

This was the 6th in the Monkeewrench series.   I enjoy reading about these misfits, Grace, Harley, Roadrunner and Annie.

Goodreads:

On a sailboat ten miles off the Florida coast, Grace MacBride, partner in Monkeewrench Software, thwarts an assassination attempt on retired FBI agent John Smith. A few hours later, in Minneapolis, a fifteen-year-old girl is discovered in a vacant lot, her throat slashed. Later that day, two young men are found in their home a few blocks away, killed execution-style. The next morning, the dead bodies of three more men turn up, savagely murdered in the same neighborhood. 

As Minneapolis homicide detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth struggle to link the three crimes, they learn that there have been similar murders in other cities around the United States. Piece by piece, evidence accumulates, pointing to a suspect that shocks them to the core, uncovering a motive that puts the entire Midwest on high alert and Monkeewrench in the direct line of fire. Before it's all over, Grace and her partners, Annie, Roadrunner, and Harley Davidson, find themselves in the middle of a shocking collision of violence on a remote northern Minnesota reservation, fighting for their lives.

     The Sun-Down Motel by Simone St. James
                     (Guilty Pleasure)

Carly's Aunt Viv disappeared 35 years ago and no one would ever say anything about her. So Carly leaves college and goes to the small town where Viv was last seen.  She even gets the same job at the same creepy motel where her aunt worked.

Strange things happen at the motel,  flickering lights, doors that open and close on their own, footsteps are heard but no one is there and the smell of cigarette smoke.   Is the motel haunted, by who??

Chapters alternate between Viv in 1982 and Carly 2017.   This is a really creepy book and it didn't help that I was traveling and stayed at the Baymont Hotel that had a flickering light near our room.  I just hoped that the lights didn't go out nor would I smell cigarette smoke!!!!

Goodreads::

The secrets lurking in a rundown roadside motel ensnare a young woman, just as they did her aunt thirty-five years before, in this new atmospheric suspense novel from the national bestselling and award-winning author of The Broken Girls.

Upstate NY, 1982. Every small town like Fell, New York, has a place like the Sun Down Motel. Some customers are from out of town, passing through on their way to someplace better. Some are locals, trying to hide their secrets. Viv Delaney works as the night clerk to pay for her move to New York City. But something isn't right at the Sun Down, and before long she's determined to uncover all of the secrets hidden
 

    Fluke - Christopher Moore
        Oldest on my TBR

First I must say that Mr. Moore is  very strange, funny and weird.  The inside of his brain must be very scary. 

Anyway, Nate is a whale behavior scientist.  He studies the song of the humpback whale.  But he suspects something fishy (he,he) is going on because he sees a whale with 'bite me' on its tail..  So while trying to investigate this unusual sighting,  Nate gets swallowed by a whale!!!!
I will tell you no more.

I think I learned new things about whales but I am not sure because the author says " when in doubt, assume I made it up".  Told you funny and weird!!!

So I would classify this book as sci-fi from the view point of a 13 yr old boy.

Goodreads:
Just why do humpback whales sing? That's the question that has marine behavioral biologist Nate Quinn and his crew poking, charting, recording, and photographing very big, wet, gray marine mammals. Until the extraordinary day when a whale lifts its tail into the air to display a cryptic message spelled out in foot-high letters: Bite me.

Trouble is, Nate's beginning to wonder if he hasn't spent just a little too much time in the sun. 'Cause no one else on his team saw a thing -- not his longtime partner, Clay Demodocus; not their saucy young research assistant; not even the spliff-puffing white-boy Rastaman Kona (né Preston Applebaum). But later, when a roll of film returns from the lab missing the crucial tail shot -- and his research facility is trashed -- Nate realizes something very fishy indeed is going on.

By turns witty, irreverent, fascinating, puzzling, and surprising, Fluke is Christopher Moore at his outrageous best.

The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick

Newest Book on TBR

This was my second book by Ms. Patrick (I previously read The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper) and she again creates quirky characters I fall in love with! I want to jump in the book and hang out at the library with them all!

A story to remind you that we are responsible for our own happiness: we are not responsible for others' happiness nor are they responsible for ours. We can be generous and kind and giving to others but we must remember to also be that way to our own selves.

A reminder that if its not too late, we can reconnect with people we have lost, we can forgive, we can let past mistakes go. I love the sentiment of this, but in realty I also know that it requires a real effort from both people and it will only work if those same mistakes are not being repeated.

It also inspired me to clean out my clutter!

Summary from Goodreads: Librarian Martha Storm has always found it easier to connect with books than people--though not for lack of trying. She keeps careful lists of how to help others in her superhero-themed notebook. And yet, sometimes it feels like she's invisible.

All of that changes when a book of fairy tales arrives on her doorstep. Inside, Martha finds a dedication written to her by her best friend--her grandmother Zelda--who died under mysterious circumstances years earlier. When Martha discovers a clue within the book that her grandmother may still be alive, she becomes determined to discover the truth. As she delves deeper into Zelda's past, she unwittingly reveals a family secret that will change her life forever.
Quote: "'We loved books more than we loved boys. Which probably explains why I'm still single.'"

     Sold on a Monday - Kristina McMorris
                    (Historical Fiction)

What I thought was going to be a book about families selling their kids in the 1930's was really more about truth in journalism. 

Ellis prints a photo and a story about a family in  need.  It launches his career but has dire consequences for the family,  because the story and photo are not true. The photo is true  and the story is true for the devastating times of the depression but that particular photo does not go with his story.

So like the readers of newspapers,  I too judged this book by the photo and I was wrong. 
It did start out like a romance novel  but developed into a book with some suspense, some romance and some heart.  It was simplistic and predictable , at times.  All is all, a good chick-lit book.

Goodreads says:

The scrawled sign, peddling young siblings on a farmhouse porch, captures the desperation sweeping the country in 1931. It’s an era of breadlines, bank runs, and impossible choices.

For struggling reporter Ellis Reed, the gut-wrenching scene evokes memories of his family’s dark past. He snaps a photograph of the children, not meant for publication. But when the image leads to his big break, the consequences are devastating in ways he never imagined.

Haunted by secrets of her own, secretary Lillian Palmer sees more in the picture than a good story and is soon drawn into the fray. Together, the two set out to right a wrongdoing and mend a fractured family, at the risk of everything they value.

Inspired by an actual newspaper photo that stunned readers across the nation

Henry VI, Part 2 by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare 2020 Project

Now we get to see King Henry the VI in all his, um, glory? Poor King Henry - who just wants everyone to get along and can't make a decision for himself let alone his realm! I think he would pull a Harry & Megan if he could and flee England!
    "Was never subject long'd to be a king
      As do I long and wish to be a subject."

But alas, he wears the crown. Though there are plenty who think he shouldn't and that the crown rightfully belongs to them instead.  So, let the fighting began! Even between the ladies! The Duchess to the Queen:
     "Could I come near your beauty with my nails,
      I could set my ten commandments in your face"

And all the beheadings!!  It was like Lewis Carroll's Queen of Hearts was in town!

Yet one famous line I myself have uttered (as a paralegal for 25 years) was when villainous Jack Cade is proclaiming all the rights he will bestow under his reign as King, a loyal commoner shouts:
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers!"  LOL!

Part 2 ends with a good ole cliff hanger with the King fleeing for his life!

Snow Blind by P.J. Tracy

"T" Author

It had been awhile since I read a Monkeewrench novel by the duo P.J. Tracy. This is the 4th in the series of 10 novels.  While this one did not have the nerdy and quirky Monkeewrench crew front and center, it did have the ever entertaining detectives Gino and Magozzi as the pivotal characters.

Overall the suspense/thriller plot was good with enough suspects to keep you guessing, but not so many that you lost track. I appreciated the humor, one-liners and the strong female characters.

Interesting quote in the book by one of the characters: "'...new way to pose bodies. Mark my words, snowmen will start cropping up all over the place, then somebody'll write a book, and then they'll make a TV movie of the week.'"  Snow Blind is published in 2006; Jo Nesbo publishes The Snowman in 2010 and then the movie "The Snowman" based on Nesbo's book is released 2017.  Hmmmmm.

Summary from Goodreads: The Dead of Winter...Minneapolis, winter's first white flakes; a park full of snowmen. But the layers of packed snow hide a goulish surprise ...First, the bodies of two cops are found inside the snowmen and then a day later, in the countryside to the north, newly elected Sheriff Iris Rikker makes a similarly shocking discovery. Soon Detectives Gino and Magozzi are sent north through a Minnesota blizzard to find what else links the investigations.

Quote: "That...was the secret to communicating with men. Whenever possible, use signals instead of words. Words just confused them."

Lights on the Sea by Miquel Reina

Once Upon a Book Club - December 2018
Debut

One needs to suspend their rational mind as they journey along with the Grapes as they are unwittingly set off to sea. This wasn't a favorite book of mine, as I felt it dragged in parts and there was a little repetition, but I appreciate and value the important message behind the story. A book that makes you ask yourself: What risks have you avoided? What dreams have you given up? What past guilt/blame/heartbreak/tragedy/loss/failure/fear has prevented you from taking those risks, living those dreams?

Summary from Goodreads: On the highest point of an island, in a house clinging to the edge of a cliff, live Mary Rose and Harold Grapes, a retired couple still mourning the death of their son 35 years before. Weighed down by decades of grief and memories, the Grapes have never moved past the tragedy. Then, on the eve of eviction from their house, they’re uprooted by a violent storm. The disbelieving Grapes and their home take a free-fall slide into the white-capped sea and float away.

Quotes: "Life is a movement. A precarious equilibrium that can change in an instant."

"I can't waste the life I've been given by standing still and lamenting the past until my days run out....The only reason we are given life is to live it."

Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney

Guilty Pleasure

Warning:  Unless you can finish this book before going to bed, do not read it if you are a long-suffering insomniac (such as me) or really if you need to sleep at all or if you must work the next morning!

I went to bed with about 50 pages left to finish in the book (this was my 1st mistake). I had a typical night of insomnia and was too tired to actually get up, turn on lights, etc. (this was my 2nd mistake) so I tried to refocus my mind and fall asleep (HA!). My mind had other plans (insert diabolical laugh) - such as trying to figure out the complex mystery of Sometimes I Lie. About 3:00 a.m. I was sure I had it solved!! When I arose at 6:30 a.m. I promptly made coffee and settled in to finish the book and see if my middle of the night deductions were correct (even though I should have been getting ready to go to work). The first sentence I read confirmed that I had solved NOTHING in my tossing & turning!! WHAT? WHO? WHAT (again)?

I was a little frustrated throughout the book, but probably because I knew there was a major twist at the end so I was being hyper-vigilant in my reading trying to figure it out instead of just sitting back and letting the story unfold. Though it unfolds like a well-crafted piece of origami; so the reader thinks they are looking at a traditional paper crane but discovers it really is an elaborate paper dragon - good luck not getting paper cuts!!

Summary from Goodreads:  Amber wakes up in a hospital. She can’t move. She can’t speak. She can’t open her eyes. She can hear everyone around her, but they have no idea. Amber doesn’t remember what happened, but she has a suspicion her husband had something to do with it. Alternating between her paralyzed present, the week before her accident, and a series of childhood diaries from twenty years ago, this brilliant psychological thriller asks: Is something really a lie if you believe it's the truth?

Quotes: "Celebrity ceases to impress when you subtract humility."

"There are different kinds of love - one word could never accurately describe them all.  Some are easier to feel than others, some are more dangerous."

"Some people appear happy on the outside and you only know they're broken inside if you listen as well as look."

Henry VI, Part 1 by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare 2020 Project

I was really unsure about tackling Shakespeare's histories.  My original intent was to skip over them, but then it seemed only fair to give them a shot.  I was pleasantly surprised by Henry VI, Part 1!  Mainly because of the unexpected portrayal of Joan of Arc!  I had no idea she was a character in this!

Though I must thank Arkangel Shakespeare which is the audio recording of the play done by the Royal Shakespeare Company.  I've always read Shakespeare's plays aloud so as to slow down the reading, to get the tempo of the lines, etc. but what a huge difference it makes to be able to follow the lines along with listening to the variety of voices of the characters.  Skilled actors with the proper inflections and emotions (there's a lot of dying in this one).  Plus it is SO much easier to keep straight (well kinda) all the Dukes and Earls, English and French, white rose/red rose supporters!

There is a lot of controversy and a lot of questions about Henry VI, Part 1:  whether Shakespeare collaborated with other playwrights such as Marlowe and Nashe (most likely); the chronology of the play as it was written after Parts 2 & 3 (consider it a prequel to give context to Henry's rise as King and the War of the Roses), but before Henry IV Parts 1&2 and Henry V; and the historical inaccuracies.

I guess I just take it for the entertainment value that it is, though admittedly I am not completely familiar with the history of that time, so I couldn't tell you what was accurate or not.  I know that I enjoyed this more than I thought I would and am actually looking forward to Parts 2 & 3 which are up next!

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare 2020 Project

This kicks off the daunting challenge I undertook this year to read Shakespeare. While the hosted project will include Shakespeare's sonnets, I am only going to do the plays.

Twelfth Night happens to be one of my favorite plays, not only because it is my birthday (January 6), but also because I think it is a cleverly constructed comic play of mistaken identities. This is one that not only have I read before, but I was fortunate enough to see it performed by the Globe Theater players when they toured the U.S.  They performed the play in traditional Shakespeare fashion with the men assuming ALL the roles, male and female alike.

I find with much of Shakespeare that I miss ALOT of the word play and nuances simply reading the plays (even though I do read them aloud much to the chagrin of my dog). They are written with little stage direction so producers of his plays have quite a bit of leeway and through the actors' inflections, facial expressions and such I feel you can understand so much more - as Shakespeare truly intended.

What I had not remembered from prior readings and play attendance was that Shakespeare coined the following phrase in this play:
          "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, some have greatness thrust upon them."

While there were many parts of the play I enjoyed, it was this by the Clown, Feste that I appreciated for its insight into human nature:

"...the better for my foes and the worse for my friends....they [friends] praise me and make an ass of me; now my foes tell me plainly I am an ass: so that by my foes, sir I profit in the knowledge of my self, and by my friends, I am abused..."

Water Witches by Chris Bohjalian

2020 Key Word Challenge - January (Water, This, Hello, Sun, New, Six)

It was rather tough narrowing down which book to read for the Key Word Challenge, but I settled on a tried and trued author (for me anyway).

Who can take essentially a political debate between progress/capitalism (expanding a ski resort) and environmentalism (tapping drought stricken rivers and cutting down mountainside trees for ski trails) and make it a captivating novel? Chris Bohjalian can. The book was not what I expected as I got into it, but Bohjalian writes in such a way that you are eager to find out how the debate gets resolved, regardless of which you side you think you are on. I think the term "magic" is a little misleading in the book jacket/summary, but it is full of heart, passion and beautiful Vermont.

Summary from Goodreads: Set in the Vermont countryside, a tale of the clash between progress and tradition, science and magic. In the midst of a drought, ski industry lobbyist Scottie Winston is trying to get a large ski resort the permits it needs to tap rivers for snow. His wife, his daughter, and his sister-in-law-dowsers or "water witches" all-hope to stop him, however, in this gentle, comic, life-affirming novel.

Quote: "Water is everything, and - someday, if we are not careful - it will become more precious than gold....already we buy water in bottles, paying premium prices for that which we once took for granted. That which was meant to be free. That which is the source of all life."

#MonthlyKeyWordGXO
https://www.girlxoxo.com/monthly-key-word-reading-challenge-2020/

The Space Between by Dete Meserve

Once Upon a Book Club - August 2018
New Author

I surprised myself by liking this book as it had a Hallmark Mystery Movie feel to it.  (Makes sense once I discovered the author is also a film and television producer)  The mystery was intriguing, short chapters kept you wanting to read "just one more" and the romance wasn't too over the top, close, but I think I may have only rolled my eyes one (or twice).  I enjoyed the stars, constellations and space references especially after recently being introduced to a star gazing app so I was familiar with some of the astronomical items she mentioned.

Summary from Goodreads: After presenting a major scientific breakthrough to a rapt audience across the country, renowned astronomer Sarah Mayfield returns home to a disturbing discovery. Her husband, Ben, a Los Angeles restaurateur, has disappeared, leaving behind an unexplained bank deposit of a million dollars, a loaded Glock in the nightstand, and a video security system that’s been wiped clean. The only answers their son, Zack, can offer are the last words his father said to him: keep the doors locked and set the alarm.

Quotes:  "...attraction is purposeful. We are in control over it."

    The Family Upstairs - Lisa Jewell
                 (NEWEST on TBR)

Libby receives a letter near her 25th birthday telling her that she has inherited a house.  A house that she never knew of.

We are then taken on a journey with a disjointed timeline told by 3 different people - Libby, Lucy, and Henry.

At times the story was suspenseful, at times creepy, and several times questionable.  Like the development of one character that seemed to go nowhere. ( no spoiler)  And the ending seem to be undeveloped, maybe to rushed?  Not sure,  I just did not like how Ms. Jewell ended the book.

So I was not super impressed with my 1st novel by Lisa Jewell but I will give her another try.

GoodReads summary:

Be careful who you let in.

Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones returns home from work to find the letter she’s been waiting for her entire life. She rips it open with one driving thought: I am finally going to know who I am.

She soon learns not only the identity of her birth parents, but also that she is the sole inheritor of their abandoned mansion on the banks of the Thames in London’s fashionable Chelsea neighborhood, worth millions. Everything in Libby’s life is about to change. But what she can’t possibly know is that others have been waiting for this day as well—and she is on a collision course to meet them.

A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore

Oldest Book on TBR

Quirky, weird, bawdy, laugh-out-loud funny, eye-rolling 13-year old boy (also 36-year old man) humor, poignant, disturbing, heart-felt.  Just some of the many ways to describe Moore's works and A Dirty Job fits that bill.

A unique take on death that will have you wondering where would your soul reside once you shed your mortal coil.

Summary from GoodReads: Charlie Asher is a pretty normal guy with a normal life, married to a bright and pretty woman who actually loves him for his normalcy. They're even about to have their first child. Yes, Charlie's doing okay—until people start dropping dead around him, and everywhere he goes a dark presence whispers to him from under the streets. Charlie Asher, it seems, has been recruited for a new position: as Death.  It's a dirty job, but hey! Somebody's got to do it

Quotes: "There's a fine edge to new grief, it severs nerves, disconnects reality...Only with time, as the edge wears, does the real ache begin."

"Everyone is happier if they have someone to look down on, as well as someone to look up to, especially if they resent both."

"...hospice worker...seen in the homes of the dying, helping to deliver them into the next world with as much comfort and dignity and even joy as they could gather...rather than become detached from, or callous to their job, they become involved with every patient and every family. They were present."

"Most of us don't live our lives with one, integrated self that meets the world, we're a whole bunch of selves."

    Haunting Paris - Mamta Chaudry
                Debut

I am struggling with this review, although I liked the premise of the book.

    Sylvie is grieving for her deceased lover of 30 years and finds a mysterious envelope in his desk with the letter "M" written on it. She then tries to find out what the envelope means and why Julian never told her about it.
             
 Her lover, Julian, is a ghost who is watching over her.

What I had a difficult time with was the writing style of this author.
Her timeline did not always flow for me, she interjected French words with no translation and characters were added with no introduction.

A lot of French history was mentioned but since I don't have much knowledge of that history,  I felt lost quite a bit of the time.  The main history that was in the book was about the horrible Jewish round-up by the French people in July of 1942.  I first learned of that atrocity in "Sarah's Key"by
Tatiana de Rosnay which for me, was a better told story.

GoodReads summary:

In the summer of 1989, while all of Paris is poised to celebrate the bicentennial of the French Revolution, Sylvie mourns the loss of her lover, Julien, and is unable to find solace in the music that has always been her refuge. But when she accidentally dislodges an envelope hidden in Julien's desk, she finds an enigmatic note from a stranger and feels compelled to meet this woman who might hold the key to Julien's past and to the story of the missing child he could not find in his lifetime. Julien's sister and one of her daughters perished in the Holocaust; but Julien held out hope that the other daughter managed to escape. Julien had secretly devoted years to tracking his niece, and now Sylvie picks up where he left off.