Rogue Wave by Boyd Morrison

Rogue Wave by Boyd Morrison

Kai Tanaka, the Assistant Director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Honolulu, thinks he’s going to have a rather boring Memorial Day at work. His wife is at work hosting a Memorial Day brunch for Veterans. His daughter, his wife’s best friend and her daughter are spending the day at the beach in Waikiki. And his brother has decided to stop by and annoy him. Typical holiday on the island. Until an earthquake is detected in the middle of the Pacific, in a place not known to experience quakes. And the buoys in the area seem to be malfunctioning. And no one is answering the phones on Christmas Island. Kai Tanaka makes a gut decision to issue a tsunami warning and evacuate the island to higher ground. But the waves headed for Hawaii are like nothing anyone has ever experienced, or dreamed of in their worst nightmares.

This is a great edge-of-your-seat scientific thriller. It’s based on real research with a few twists the author added (he explains it all in the afterward) which makes the scenarios even scarier than if he just made the calculations up. It’s got a great cinematic feel and there is never a lull in the action. DON’T read this if you are planning a tropical beach vacation…

Clara and Mr. Tiffany by Susan Vreeland

Clara and Mr. Tiffany by Susan Vreeland

Clara Driscoll is an artist. She designs panels and lamps for Louis Comfort Tiffany. Her story was all but unknown, until now. Loosely based on recent research showing that Tiffany hired unmarried women to choose the glass for his esteemed projects, and had a few female designers on staff as well, lends an authenticity to the book. (Thankfully the author explains what is truth and what is fiction in her afterward.)

This is a study in character and the time period. The reader experiences the artist’s temperament in its many forms, as well as the turbulent times of labor unions and the fight for women’s rights. It is also a story of the art. Tiffany didn’t continue his father’s work in silver and diamonds; he turned to glass and light and made his own legacy. Items of intense color which are easily recognized by people everywhere almost a hundred years later.

Word of advice: Do a search online for pictures of Tiffany lamps and glass panels before reading the book; you’ll have a greater appreciation for what these artists accomplished.

The Popular Fiction Book Discussion Group will be meeting at the Bridgewater Library on Tuesday, April 26^th at 7pm to discuss Clara and Mr. Tiffany.

Left Neglected by Lisa Genova

Left Neglected by Lisa Genova

Life is high octane for Sarah, mother of three and a successful businesswoman; she’s always on the go and always multitasking. Until a traumatic brain injury makes her slow down and relearn how to function in the world she had all but mastered. After a car accident Sarah has left neglect, a condition where the left of everything suddenly no longer exists.

First, this is a cautionary tale about fiddling around with your cell phone while driving. Secondly, this is a really interesting way to learn how someone with traumatic brain injury learns to rejoin the world outside a hospital. Genova does a great job making her readers understand what Sarah is experiencing. In my favorite description, just after her husband is getting frustrated because she can’t turn her head to the left because it’s not there for her, she tells her husband to look all around the room. Then she tells him he missed something and asks where he would look to find the rest. The author’s explanations really help Sarah, and her injury, understandable.

By the author of Still Alice, the first-person account of a woman with early onset Alzheimer’s, this is another winner about the complexities of the human brain.

Secrets to the Grave by Tami Hoag

Secrets to the Grave by Tami Hoag

A woman is savagely murdered and the only witness is her four year old daughter, a little girl who was strangled and left for dead. Why was this attractive single mother and successful artist murdered? Who would do such a thing? How can a small town survive yet another tragedy on the heels of a rampaging serial killer only the year before?

This is the typical fast-paced thriller, but it is set in 1986. Characters in this story lament about budgets prohibiting their police office from purchasing a computer. Their first and only computer. A tech-savvy detective tells his co-workers that one day there will be a DNA database and DNA is the way of the future of law enforcement. His colleagues think he’s a little bit crazy. This is an interesting look at the birth of modern crime scene techniques.

Most thrillers can be read in any order, but I suggest reading the prequel Deeper than the Dead before reading this one. I didn’t do this myself, but I feel like I know everything that happened in that book after listening to Secrets to the Grave and it sounds like it was a great story!

Broken by Karin Slaughter

Broken by Karin Slaughter

I heard Karin Slaughter speak at a conference last year and she was one of the best speakers I’ve ever heard. And she loves libraries, so you have to like her! Finally I’ve gotten around to listening to one of her novels and yet again I’ve found a suspense author I wish I had started reading sooner.

In Broken a girl’s body is found in the lake with a suicide note on the shore. But wait! She was actually murdered! The local small town police department arrests a suspect, he confesses, and later commits suicide in his cell. But wait! He couldn’t have done it! And so it goes…to its very interesting conclusion.

She’s really great at keeping you guessing. I listened to this book and I was on disc nine of eleven when I finally got an inkling of the motive behind the murders. And that was okay since the GBI agent investigating the case didn’t catch on until I did either.

It Only Takes a Moment by Mary Jane Clark

It Only Takes a Moment by Mary Jane Clark

There are three famous Clarks that write mysteries and suspense. Mary Jane isn’t related to either the mother or daughter of the Higgins Clark family, but she is a great suspense writer.

In this book, Eliza Blake, the hostess of a famous national morning show, is devastated when her daughter, Janie, and her housekeeper, Mrs. Garcia, never return home to Ho-Ho-Kus from Janie’s day camp in upstate New York. Eliza is certain that Janie and Mrs. Garcia must have been kidnapped, but without a ransom demand all lines of suspicion are open for scrutiny.

Clark does a great job with red herrings throwing in details that confuse and enlighten. I didn’t see the truth until the very end; and the truth was there the whole time. In my opinion, that’s the sign of a good suspense author. I enjoyed this audiobook and would give Clark another listen.

I Still Dream About You by Fannie Flagg

I Still Dream About You by Fannie Flagg

The premise of the book seems depressing. A former Miss Alabama has decided she’s done and it’s time for her to go away…forever. She’s putting her life and her home in order and has a very detailed plan for her exit that will not inconvenience anyone. On her way to start her final journey she receives a phone call that delays her departure and starts a serious of events that makes her realize that life is good and worth sticking around for. I’m not ruining anything because you know going in that this is a comedy. I was a little doubtful that a book where the main character is meticulously planning her own suicide could be laugh-out-loud funny, but Flagg manages and manages with style.

There are a number of zany, quirky characters in this book that you wish were your friends too. And the chapters are very short (no more than five pages) and tend to bop between updates on the three main characters lives, and events of the past. Birmingham comes to life as this bustling and lively very southern town.

Business savvy midgets, purple-haired octogenarians, skeletons in the attic and cheaters of Overeaters Anonymous fill these pages and will make you laugh. By the author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle-Stop Café, this is a romp to keep your spirits up on a cold icy day.

Open by Andre Agassi

Open by Andre Agassi

I was a little hesitant to read this memoir because I have no knowledge of tennis whatsoever. I don’t know how to keep score and I definitely don’t know how to hold a racket. Even with my limited tennis knowledge I found this memoir to be an intimate look into a lonely and exhausting sport.

This candid view into Agassi’s life makes you wonder if sports legends are born or made. He had a grueling childhood filled with daily regiments of tennis drills and grew up hating tennis. (By the end of the book it’s hard to know if there was ever a moment when he liked tennis.)

Equal parts personal life and professional life this memoir will give you the inside story of a tennis legend.