In The Cutting Season, we meet Caren Gray, a young single mother working as the manager of a crumbling Louisiana antebellum plantation that’s been turned in to a wedding and banquet facility. She and her nine year old daughter live on the property, spending their days in the same buildings where Caren’s mother once worked as a cook, and where her three times great grandfather was a slave. The plantation sits up against a sugar cane field, and when one of the cane workers is […]
Elin’s gotta get better names
Note: There will be spoilers in this review. In general, I like Elin Hildebrand. Sometimes she’s a little schlocky and a little too saccharine, and I feel like all her characters probably wear Lily Pulitzer all the time, but overall, I consider her a pretty good writer. If I see something of hers haven’t read, I usually pick it up, because she’s generally a sure thing. Except this one. I just couldn’t fall in love with it. Set on the island of Nantucket, The Matchmaker […]
Needs a little more Grandma Mazur
I love Stephanie Plum, and sometimes I go back and read Janet Evanovich’s earlier works. It’s fun to see where she started out, and her “red-hot screwball comedies” are fluff in the purest form. And sometimes, between science projects and history projects and volleyball games and basketball practice and, you know, my stuff too, this mama needs some mindless fluff. Manhunt finds us in the wilds of Alaska in a tiny town outside of Fairbanks, where Alexandra Scott, her giant dog Bruno, and her tiny […]
Don’t You…Forget About Me
Sometimes I look at parents who have missing children and I wonder how they can continue. How can you sit at your desk, answering the phone or dealing with a client or paying the bills when you have no idea where your child is? How can you take seriously the complaint of your co-worker that someone is stinking up the kitchen when you don’t know if your child is hungry somewhere? How can you plan, work, drive, eat, sleep – do anything – when that […]