As Christmas approaches, there appears to be even more to Mrs. Miracle than meets the eye. In a classic tale of Debbie Macomber’s signature seasonal magic, Laurel, Zach, and Helen experience a holiday of heavenly proportions.
On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed. And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?
I really enjoyed this Agatha Christie-style mystery set on a remote Irish island for a destination wedding. This suspense novel has it all...remote location, stormy seas, characters you love to hate, an interesting cast of characters and an intriguing backstory. The audio version was great, with a full cast of narrators/characters.
Winterkill by CJ Box
Joe Pickett's pursuit of a killer through the rugged mountains of Wyoming takes a horrifying turn when his beloved foster daughter is kidnapped. Now it's personal.
If you're not familiar with CJ Box's Joe Pickett books, they are set in Wyoming with a mystery-solving game warden. Michael and I listened to one of these on our college visit road trip. I picked up the other one shortly after. Like John Grisham and Dan Brown, these are books that we both enjoy listening to on audio. If you're looking for an outdoorsy mystery for yourself or your husband, give these a try.
After uprooting her life in the States, Irene Steele has just settled in at the villa on St. John where her husband Russ had been living a double life. But a visit from the FBI shakes her foundations, and Irene once again learns just how little she knew about the man she loved. With help from their friends, Irene and her sons set up their lives while evidence mounts that the helicopter crash that killed Russ may not have been an accident.
A sparkling talent makes her fiction debut with this infectious novel that combines the charming pluck of Eloise, the poignant psychological quirks of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and the page-turning spirit of Where’d You Go, Bernadette. Reclusive literary legend M. M. “Mimi” Banning has been holed up in her Bel Air mansion for years. But after falling prey to a Bernie Madoff-style ponzi scheme, she’s flat broke. Now Mimi must write a new book for the first time in decades, and to ensure the timely delivery of her manuscript, her New York publisher sends an assistant to monitor her progress. When Alice Whitley arrives at the Banning mansion, she’s put to work right away—as a full-time companion to Frank, the writer’s eccentric nine-year-old, a boy with the wit of Noel Coward, the wardrobe of a 1930s movie star, and very little in common with his fellow fourth-graders.
This book was quirky, different, and touching. The audio was very well done, with the author voicing the autistic Frank in a realistic and moving way. I found myself cheering for the characters at times, and then saying "What were they thinking?!" in the next chapter. This book will stick with me for a long time, with the message that we all carry baggage in different ways. Our experiences, whether they are trivial to some or considered devastating by all, shape us and determine how we react to new situations. I didn't hear about this book when it was first published, and I'm glad it popped up on my radar now so I could read it!
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