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Category Archives: Adult fiction

Booked for Death by Victoria Gilbert

04 Friday Mar 2022

Posted by truebooktalks in Adult fiction, Mystery and Suspense

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mystery, United States

This is the first of a new mystery series entitled A Booklover’s B&B. It is well-written and will keep the reader wrapped up in the mystery of a murder which occurs during a Tey mystery book club discussion. The discussion takes places a bed and breakfast named Chapters in Beaufort, North Carolina.

The reader will learn about North Carolina and about a Scottish mystery writer named Josephine Tey. Tey is actually a pseudonym for author Elizabeth MacIntosh, but that is never revealed in the story. I had never heard of Tey, so naturally I began to research her to see if she actually existed or if Gilbert had invented her. MacIntosh, herself, is an interesting character who wrote non-fiction under her own name and wrote plays under the name of Gordon Daviot. As Josephine Tey, she wrote mystery novels. Perhaps she felt that keeping the three genres under different names added to the credibility of each one.

This is a squeaky-clean story also about a widow named Charlotte Reed who inherits a bed and breakfast from an aunt she barely knew after her husband’s untimely death. Charlotte sets out to reinvent herself and finds that the aunt who had left her the bed and breakfast had a similar journey in life. What she discovers about her Aunt Isabella, though, also makes her a suspect in the murder.

Gilbert weaves a very believable story about each character, but she leaves little clues as to the identity of the murderer and the true story of Aunt Isabella along the way. At the end, I figured out who the murderer was just before I read the reveal scene. This book obviously sets the stage for the rest of the series. I shall be looking forward to reading more in this series. I recommend it for all ages of mystery readers.

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The Letter Keeper

09 Wednesday Feb 2022

Posted by truebooktalks in Adult, Adult fiction, Social Issues, Uncategorized, Young Adult

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sacrificial love, sex trade

by Charles Martin

I almost didn’t pick this book up in my library. The cover didn’t impress me. I had never read anything by this author, and it was marked as number two of a series. But I am very glad that I did take it out anyway. It was on the NEW shelf. It has a copyright date of 2021, but I suppose it was new to my library.

It is the most moving tale I have ever read of sex-trafficked children and the effort it sometimes takes to free them–not just from the clutches of their abusers, but also from the prisons that abuse has made in their minds and hearts. It is also a tale of sacrificial love by a man who was trained as a military special operator, who became a priest and a writer. This man is Murphy Shepherd, an author, who spends all of his money to rescue children in sexually slavery and to restore them to normalcy.

In doing this he is nearly killed several times, yet he does not kill those who attacked him. He turns them over to law-enforcement. He loses two of his sanctuaries to someone who are trying to stop him from destroying their business.

He has his own personal problems. He seems to lose those he loves. Consequently, he has trouble opening himself up to love, and when he finally does his life is turned upside down. Like the Great Shepherd who goes to search for the lost sheep, he drops whatever he is doing and goes to look for those who are lost.

The psychological trauma these victims endure is clearly spelled out in the pages of this book. It not for the squeamish reader, but it will open your mind to what others may be enduring. It also gets the reader thinking about what life is worth, and whether or not sacrificing your life for another is worth the cost.

I highly recommend this book for mature teens and for adults. It does have a Christian message, but it is not fake or preachy. It is the most honest book I have read in a long time. I fully intend to find other books written by Martin.

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The Librarian of Saint-Malo

01 Tuesday Feb 2022

Posted by truebooktalks in Adult fiction, Historical Fiction, Political fiction, Uncategorized

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Fiction, political fiction

by Mario Escobar

In these days of books on World War II and the holocaust being questioned and, in some cases, banned, I would like to suggest this novel. Escobar has given us a view of the French Resistance that is very unique. Although there are instances of sex, and of violence, the reader is not bombarded by them. We clearly see they exist, but the emphasis is on the growth of a young woman in spite of what she has to endure.

We see the events of World War II through the eyes of a French librarian, Jocelyn, who is tasked with the job of protecting the library of her town. We see her passion for protecting all texts, and we also see how the war changes her for the better.

Many Frenchmen went along with the demands of Germany to try to keep the Germans at bay and to save their own lives. Others tried passive resistance. While still others became an active part of resistance. Through Jocelyn’s eyes we meet her husband, Antoine, a policeman for Saint-Malo, who is forced to become a soldier for the French army. We see Jewish shopkeepers like Denis, who lose their businesses and in many cases their lives. We see Catholics, Protestants and Jews working together to try to save their country. We see others, like Mrs. Fave, who turns people into the German occupiers to gain extra food or favors.

We also see two different sides of the German army. One is Adolf Bauman, an S.S. officer who is assigned to live in her house. He is a rabid Nazi who wants to destroy the old history which Jocelyn is determined to protect. Bauman lives for cruelty. The other is Hermann von Choltiz, who is part of the military police of the Wermacht. His job is to find valuable art and books and to see that they are properly cared for and protected, usually by hauling things off to Berlin. He is a Nazi, but he is not interested in killing and enslaving people. He is really doing his job to the best of his ability without causing pain.

Jocelyn tells her story mostly through letters that she writes to the author Marcel Zola, not knowing if he would ever see them and respond. She begins by telling about her wedding and her lack of faith in God. By the end of the book, that has changed and she actually has a deep faith in God. This is NOT a preachy book. It simply shows you Jocelyn and her doubts and questions. Jocelyn takes drastic measures to save the most valuable books. She goes to Paris and becomes a member of the underground with an eye to passive resistance. Once, she is even captured and tortured.

In the end, it was the saviors of France, the Allies, who destroy the library in an effort to root out the Nazis in the area. Even as she is grieving for the loss of her town and her books, Jocelyn speaks the hard truth, “For four years, France had sold its soul to the devil, and he always requires full payment of a debt.”

Escobar tells us this: “Everything is made of words. We would not understand a thing without them. They define our feelings, fuel our ideas, and inspire our faith. Without them the world would be in silence.”

Although this book was written for adult readers, I would not have any reservations about giving it to a teenager who is wanting to learn about World War II. I highly recommend it for all high school and public libraries.

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The Murdstone Trilogy by Mal Peet

30 Saturday Apr 2016

Posted by truebooktalks in Adult fiction, Fantasy

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Adult fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Mal Peet

murdstone

I had read Tamar by Mal Peet, and I loved the story.  When I saw this book show up on our review list, I was glad that I could review it, thinking that it would be as good as the one I had read.  I was VERY wrong.  I read the entire thing, hoping against hope, that I would find something to like about it. The only thing I can say is that it was the biggest piece of twaddle I have ever read.

The main character is a writer of sentimental coming-of-age books for boys.  His agent convinces him that he needs to write a fantasy, because “fantasy sells.”  He can’t bring himself to do it, but in a very Faustian move, he does sell his soul to a “greme” named Pocket Wellfair, who actually writes a fantasy for him. After he becomes a sensation in the fantasy market, his agent tells him that he has to expand his work into a trilogy.  Many unbelievable things occur between the writing of the first book and that of the third book – one of which is that he goes off to an island in the Mediterranean to avoid having to write the thing at all.

I totally get it that Peet is thumbing his nose at writers who are looking out for their own “pocket wellfair.”  I do know that he thinks that writers who write to please their agents – no matter how pleasing or pretty those agents might be – will not be happy nor successful in the long run.  Hats off to Peet for that.

However, the book is loaded with so many British phrases and phonetic pronunciations that no high school student will ever take time to read it.  I’m not sure that many adult readers in the U.S. would choose to read it.  There is no way I could ever recommend the expenditure of limited library funds for this.

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