Joyce's Choices

Fall in with Books

BY JOYCE B. WILCOX

With the leaves changing colors, the chill in the air, and Halloween and Thanksgiving on the horizon, it must be fall. And if it’s fall then it’s time to settle in with a cup of hot cider and cuddle up in your coziest reading chair. Or if you’re a snowbird, it’s time to start packing and making sure that you saved room for a good novel with which to travel. In either case, you’ll need to look no further for a good book than the fabulous five that I’ve selected for this issue’s Joyce’s Choices. Keep in mind that whether you physically stay in Michigan or not, just by turning the pages of these books you can travel to England, the island of Cyprus, or stay in the USA and journey to some interesting towns out west. Select one or read all five. Remember that if it’s autumn, it’s time to fall in love with books.

The Island of Missing Trees

by Elif Shafak

This novel is a love story within a love story within a love story. Beginning with a forbidden romance blossoming between two star-crossed teenagers on the war-torn island of Cyprus in the 1970s, the story continues as Kostas is forced to flee to England and Defne remains. Their romance ebbs and flows through the years and seems all but doomed to fail but hope springs

eternal as their lives are uprooted along with a Cyprus tree. This is a beautifully written twentieth century Romeo and Juliet tale without the balcony scene or poison. Instead, this story contains an intriguing tree, which leaves you pondering the depths of relationships, international conflicts, and the environment.

Having read, enjoyed, and previously reviewed my book club’s earlier summer pick of South of the Buttonwood Tree by Heather Webber, I was captivated, but still a little surprised when their very next selection was The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak. Award winning British-Turkish novelist, Shafak, takes the personification of a very special tree to a whole new level. She treats a Cyprus fig tree as one of the main characters, and constructs many of the chapters from this fig tree’s point of view. This unique omniscient viewpoint lends itself to some interesting perspectives regarding love, war, and nature. The end result makes for a delightful, enchanting, and mesmerizing storyline. Shortly after reading the fascinating prologue, I was hooked, and I think that you will be too.

Better Off Dead

by Lee Child & Andrew Child

If you haven’t read any of Lee Child’s books featuring action-thriller hero Jack Reacher, have no fear. You can start your Reacher journey with Better Off Dead, and then read the other books in any sequence because each of them can stand alone, and I guarantee you that you’ll be addicted. The action and pacing of this novel are fast, furious, and forceful while at the same time filled with twists, turns, and the talents of two Childs. With this astounding set of siblings storytellers you’ll find yourself not only wondering what can happen next to Reacher, but also what exactly can’t ever happen to Reacher?

Always his own man and always wandering the world, in this dramatic novel Reacher continues his rogue James Bond-Indiana Jones persona. While he’s out for a morning walk in the desert, he stumbles upon a woman slumped over a steering wheel of a Jeep. Apparently, Michaela Fenton has managed to crash into the only obstacle for miles around: a lone tree. When Reacher investigates further, he discovers the woman is an army veteran turned FBI agent who is being forced to act on her own. Fenton is trying to locate her missing twin brother by staging an accident in order to trap her pursuers. Of course, Reacher steps in to lend a hand. If it involves assisting a damsel in distress; finding someone impossible to be found; locating mysterious villains; and is filled with dangerous and action-packed heroics, then Reacher is the right man for the job. If you’re looking for the ultimate page turner of a thriller, then this is the right book for you.

Watching You

by Lisa Jewell

Thrillers or political suspense novels tend to move the plot along at an incredible pace in order to keep the reader reading. A good murder mystery thriller, however, crawls slowly across each page, slithering throughout your imagination and forcing you to analyze each clue and word carefully before you digest each chapter. Watching You is a good murder mystery. Beginning with the prologue when the victim is meticulously examined by the detective on the case, the reader becomes hooked. A body is found face down on the floor of a kitchen in one of the nicest neighborhoods in Bristol, England. It lies inside a kidney-shaped pool of blood. The victim received over twenty knife wounds to the neck, back, and shoulders. The knife used lies thoroughly washed in the kitchen sink. No handprints or spatters. A small red suede tassel, possibly from a shoe, is also found on the floor. And then chapter one begins.

Lisa Jewell is a clever writer who manages to not only present an interesting multitude of possible suspects for the murder; she intertwines their lives and stories. Jewell accomplishes this feat so well that readers aren’t even actually sure who has been murdered until they’re well into the story. It would seem many of the characters could have deserved to die, and many could have also committed the murder. Police interviews are conducted intermittently in such a way so as to keep the detectives and the reader guessing. Almost everyone has secrets, probable cause, and prying eyes which reveal dibs and dabs, but of course, never the entire story. That, dear readers, you’ll have to get from reading Watching You.

Half Broke Horses

by Jeannette Walls

Half Broke Horses captures growing up in the frontier towns of Texas and Arizona in the early 1900’s, where readers learn that Lily Casey Smith had to be resourceful, spirited, and hardy. She also had to be able to withstand the obstacles thrown at her by the weather, the land, the untamed environment, and the extreme social limitations for women in that era. Naturally she was also expected to somehow obtain an education, marry, raise a family, and assist in the business of ranching. Jeannette Walls’s grandmother, Lily, juggled all of these and more as she also became a mustang breaker, schoolteacher, bootlegger, poker player, racehorse rider, and bush pilot. This remarkable story is brought

to life in the first person as Walls manages to step into her grandmother’s era and her mind, giving this incredible woman a voice that you’ll remember. The reader truly experiences how life really was back in the day.

Even though through the years I’ve enjoyed two other books by gifted columnist and author, Jeanette Walls, Half Broke Horses was another jewel discovered by my book club. Walls is a very talented storyteller with a treasure trove of family and personal history from which to draw. Her dysfunctional relatives make for some delicious family stews while rendering a reader’s own eccentric family members quite palatable. Walls also has the ability to place readers in the heart of the action on each page, allowing them to experience the intensity of any drama, be it tragedy, comedy, or spectacle. Half Broke Horses is an exhilarating, emotional, and entertaining read.

The Forgotten Seamstress

by Liz Trenow

An historical novel about a seamstress working in the royal household at Buckingham Palace and set in the Edwardian era may not sound like your cup of tea, but given a chance, it may just become your favorite British cuppa. Just like the novel’s exquisite quilt of finest silks and superb craftsmanship found hidden in an attic years later, threads of this story slowly unravel. The mystery behind the quilt and the quilter are carefully, lovingly, and heartbreakingly revealed amidst the drama, romance, and betrayal. With a novel involving a quilt with hidden embroidered messages, events of World War I, a love story spanning decades and a relentless medical research student attempting to piece things all together, author Liz Trenow has stitched together a remarkable tale.

Trenow has crafted and mastered the art of foreshadowing and flashback by having a character utilize a tape recorder in the 1970s to interview and record some of the history revealed in this story. By safely storing these tapes away and having someone listen to them years later, the cassettes take the form of an historic time capsule of sorts. This permits characters who could have never met to actually reveal their stories to future generations, while simultaneously allowing the reader to discover the truth. Splicing and inserting these snippets of recorded history are a fabulous method to give a voice to the past and add tremendously to moving the story along. Trenow is a talented writer, but I think she’s made a mistake; The Forgotten Seamstress won’t be forgotten.

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Sue Kempton

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