Author: James McBride

A great book about the struggles the African Americans and Jewish people had in small-town Pottstown, PA during the 1930’s. There are so many wonderful characters in the book and any one of them might have been the focus of the story. As it happens, all the characters take a central role in uncovering the mystery of a skeleton found at the bottom of a well in 1972.

Goodreads Rating: * * * *

Author: Claudia Dey

I’m wish I could remember which Facebook group recommended this book because I might not take their next recommend seriously.

I found the story to be a real “downer”. Written mostly from the perspective of Mona it chronicles several years of a dysfunctional family. Her father, Paul, keeps Mona and her sister at a distance, unless he needs something. Mona’s stepmother makes it clear she doesn’t like Mona or her sister and Eva, Mona’s half-sister, has written them both out of her life.

Goodreads Rating: * *

Author: Joann Ross

I picked this book up at a yard sale this past summer. For $1 it promised a lot of reading; whether it was good or bad was yet to be seen. Because I had a short-term loan from the library I didn’t get past the first story but I will continue on eventually.

Blue Bayou

Bad boy, Jake Callahan served as an undercover agent before losing his best friend in an operation in Columbia. He returned home to Louisiana and began a very successful writing career. He purchased the antebellum home of his former girlfriend. When the girlfriend, Danielle, also returns to Blue Bayou things begin to heat up. Long kept secrets are revealed but, of course, the two end up in a “happy ever after” ending.

River Road

Finn, the eldest of the Callahan brothers and an FBI Special Agent, has returned to Blue Bayou while he serves out a suspension from the FBI. As a favour to his younger brother he accepts an assignment as a bodyguard to a soap-opera star who is about to become the latest Bond girl. Boy meets girl, boy and girl dislike one another from the start, yada, yada, yada.

Magnolia Moon

Nate is the youngest of the Callahan brothers. Unlike his older siblings Nate has remained in Blue Bayou and is the mayor. He is well known in the area for his restoration work on the heritage buildings. While clearing out some old files from the sheriff’s office he comes across some very valuable stock certificates and sets out to find not only the current owner of them but also to solve a cold case – the murder of the original owner. Boy meets girl, falls in love, but the girl is less than enthusiastic until she eventually succumbs to Nate’s charms.

Goodreads Rating: * *

Author: Edwidge Danticat

Seven-year old Claire is celebrating her birthday the night a local fisherman goes missing. The search for him brings the whole town to the beach. Claire’s mother died when she was born and Claire’s father finds a wet nurse in the village for her first few days. Claire went to live with relatives for three years and then came back to her father. On the night of her birthday the woman who nursed her finally agrees with the father, after he has asked many times over the years, that she will take the child. The rest of the book is more or less a collection of connecting short stories that revolve around various characters from the village.

This was a recommendation from a Facebook group I follow.

Goodreads Rating: * *