FALLING HOME (Karen White)

Some of my friends reads Karen White, so I thought I'd take a chance and find out why.  This was actually Ms. White's first book, reworked years later and republished.  The author herself points to the difference all of those years of writing experience have made in the quality of her novel!

The story seemed a little bit familiar when I started the book and I remember thinking, Sweet Home Alabama!  A southern girl runs away to New York City when events in the small town of her youth threaten to overwhelm her.  She reinvents herself, achieves success, becomes engaged to a sophisticated successful man, and loses her accent.  When she returns home after years away she is resistant to being drawn in to the bucolic, unsophisticated life she left behind, but strangely drawn to the past she has worked relentlessly to erase.

This isn't Sweet Home Alabama, although it is definitely romantic and a tear-jerker, just what we look for in women's fiction.  I found Sam's undying love for Cassie a bit too predictable (duh, what is the inevitable ending?) and Harriet to be just a bit too saintly (does the woman EVER get angry at anything or anyone?), and the town was just a bit too supportive and respectful of pretty much everyone and everything.  But, you know what?  This is fiction.  Most of us want to escape into a book, to experience vicariously emotions and situations that we might fear, avoid, or long for in our real lives.  Who wouldn't want to return to their hometown to discover that people from the past are still willing to embrace and forgive?  Who wouldn't want to discover that the nerdy yet compassionate boy that they barely noticed has grown into a successful, hunky man with the patience of a saint and relentless devotion to his first love?  Who wouldn't want to be able to look at their life through a different lens and see it for what it really is?  I think that White has given most readers exactly what they want, a story about overcoming the worst that life can dish out and still being able to enjoy a happy ending.  This is a great book for a rainy day.  Just be sure to have a few tissues handy for the second half!

A WEE DOSE OF DEATH (Fran Stewart)

I'm not really sure why I love these Peggy Winn ScotShop mysteries, but I do!  I can't wait for the next one!  Maybe it's Ms. Stewart's crisp writing style, the Scottish theme, the friendships, or the ghost (who wouldn't want someone like MacBeath (a.k.a Dirk) in their lives?), but it all comes together into a delightfully funny mystery series.  I have to admit that I thought the end of this one was a bit abrupt and I'm still not sure why Emily Wantstring seemed so neurotic and unable to communicate normally with her children, but the sheer enjoyment of the reading makes up for that.  Let me put it this way: if characters and setting are of prime importance to you, you will adore the ScotShop mysteries, but if you are one of those mystery readers that needs to follow the clues and try to solve the crime before the end or who needs to trace back the clues to justify the conclusion, you might feel that there is a bit lacking.  This is not meant as criticism, just an observation.

This series has everything a cozy series needs: close friends, an interesting business/profession (one of my favorite things in any novel), a not-quite-there-yet budding romance, and a heroine who's not a wimp.  The addition of a 14th century Scottish ghost intent on learning all he can about 21st century life add a wonderful twist.  Read this!

DEATH IN LACQUER RED (Jeanne Dams)

This book was the April selection for the Christie Capers.  For those of you aren't familiar with Jeanne Dams, she writes the wonderful Dorothy Martin series, contemporary mysteries set in England and featuring an 60-something American ex-pat and her retired policeman husband.

This series is historical, set in South Bend, Indiana around 1900, and it portrays very vividly the life of a servant at that time.  Hilda Johansson works as a maid in the Studebaker mansion for the fictionalized real-life Studebaker family of automobile fame.  She, along with her two sisters, has been in America for several years, toiling in the homes of the very wealthy with the goal of bringing the rest of their family over from Sweden.  Hilda has a gentleman friend, Patrick, an Irish Catholic fireman, an equally hard-working immigrant who is obviously head-over-heels in love with her.

When Hilda discovers a body in the hedge behind the Studebaker house she is, naturally shocked, even more so when it is discovered that the victim is the newly returned missionary sister of the the judge next door.  Despite her minimal free time (as we know from Downton Abbey, servants had little opportunity for personal lives back in those days), Hilda feels compelled to investigate the crime, especially after someone else is murdered. Hilda is relentless in her pursuit of justice and takes quite a few chances that, quite frankly, seem a little over-the-top considering the era and her station in life.  She does, however, remain appropriately modest and moral throughout!

While I like the Dorothy Martin series better, Hilda is an enjoyable character to get to know. She is headstrong and impulsive, yet respectful and socially correct in all ways.  There are, I think, 6 books in this series and the last I heard ms. dams was looking for a new publisher.  Hopefully, she'll find one and continue on with the adventures of Hilda Johansson.  If you have read and enjoyed any of Rhys Bowen's Molly Murphy mysteries, you will definite enjoy this series as well.