Book of the Day Roundup: July 10-14, 2023
A Deathly Irish Secret
A Blanche Murninghan Mystery
Nancy Nau Sullivan
Light Messages
Softcover $16.99 (240pp)
978-1-61153-503-7
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
A journalist uncovers a bloody murder during a trip to Ireland in Nancy Nau Sullivan’s novel A Deathly Irish Secret.
Five years after her grandmother Maeve’s death, Blanche is still discovering items that Maeve left behind, including cryptic notes in her home. Following the trail of clues to Ireland, Blanche is caught up in a different kind of mystery: a murder in which Blanche herself is the prime suspect. With just two weeks to spend on the Emerald Isle, she has to work fast—and watch her back—to clear her name and catch a killer.
Blanche makes the trip to Ireland with her cousin Haasi, whose cool head makes her a fun foil for Blanche and her hot temper. Together, they comb a quaint village full of suspects and secrets to solve the recent murder and a case long gone cold. They stay in Dunfaedan, a centuries-old castle that Blanche inherited a small share of and from where they explore the beautiful scenery and partake of hearty Irish cuisine.
Dunfaedan is also the site of the smarmy castle agent’s demise. He was disliked by almost everyone, so his death, though mysterious, is not a surprise. With her own neck on the line, Blanche delves deeper into his unsavory history, unearthing information that someone would prefer stay buried. Along the way, she faces various dangers, including quicksand-evocative bogs, desperate suspects, and her own insatiable curiosity. As a journalist, she may have a nose for finding trouble, but getting out of it is another matter: Blanche and Haasi have to rely on each other’s loyalty and wits to solve both crimes.
Part of a series, A Deathly Irish Secret is a cozy mystery novel set in an idyllic yet treacherous Irish village.
EILEEN GONZALEZ (June 27, 2023)
Arca
Van Jensen
Jesse Lonergan, illustrator
IDW Publishing
Softcover $16.99 (176pp)
978-1-68405-998-0
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Age, class, and lies affect a space-borne society in the science fiction graphic novel Arca.
Effie will turn eighteen soon, at which point she’ll stop serving the “citizens”—the rich aristocracy of a large spaceship called Arca, launched to flee decaying Earth years earlier. She’ll soon take her place as a “settler,” preparing for the day the ship reaches a planet to colonize. A sinister discovery leads her to question what she’s been told, though, and sets her on a path toward revolution.
Mysterious and suspenseful, the book depicts a regimented, role-driven society maintained for the benefit of the wealthy. Effie is an appealing heroine whose secret pursuit of education differentiates her from her non-literate peers and thrusts her into a leadership role. Political commentary on power and justice is present, underlying Effie’s efforts to learn more about the system she’s grown up within and to change it.
The book’s art includes myriad details that enrich the story while keeping sharp focus on the narrative. For example, a confrontation between Effie and the Arca‘s leader takes place on the ship’s farm, in a setting that looks like a sunny day on Earth except for vent grates and some discolored panels in the “sky.” The inventive use of inset panels and borders helps to maintain a dynamic flow throughout the book, while allowing an awe-inspiring sense of scale, as when a flashback shows the Arca being built, or when a character falls from a great height inside the ship.
Set in outer space, Arca is a thoughtful graphic novel in which a young woman reshapes her unfair society.
PETER DABBENE (June 27, 2023)
The Proprietor’s Song
Janet Goldberg
Regal House Publishing
Softcover $18.95 (178pp)
978-1-64603-355-3
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
A couple and a motel owner whose paths only cross once a year process their grief via alternating perspectives in Janet Goldberg’s novel The Proprietor’s Song.
Every spring, Grace and Elwood Fisher drive the same route to Death Valley, retracing their missing son’s steps from his fateful spring break trip a few years before. They haunt the same lodgings every year, one of them being a grungy creekside motel owned by Stanley. They stay in the same room their son stayed in, going to any place he went in the hopes of learning more about his disappearance.
While the Fishers and Stanley pass by each other in a brief moment of time every year, their stories become connected. They all seek to find their footing in the aftermath of devastating loss. Stanley is no stranger to losing someone, having lost his sister Lorna the winter before. With an estranged wife, an adult son living his own life, and a father with dementia, Lorna was the closest family he had.
As Stanley and the Fishers move through their lives, they try to make sense of past events. They muse on how things come and go; Stanley calls such musings “The Proprietor’s Song.” Long and often winding, the prose is poetic in its wanderings, especially as people traverse the beautiful but desolate landscapes of Death Valley. Indeed, Stanley and Grace both form new relationships with hope at the very same place there, just hours apart.
Interwoven stories of grief and healing haunt the pages of the novel The Proprietor’s Song.
LEAH WEBSTER (June 27, 2023)
The Woods Are Waiting
Katherine Greene
Crooked Lane Books
Hardcover $28.99 (288pp)
978-1-63910-380-5
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
In Katherine Greene’s novel The Woods Are Waiting, cyclical tragedies haunt a small rural town.
Five years ago, three children disappeared in the woods near the isolated town of Blue Cliff. They never came back. Cheyenne, who found one of the bodies, grew sick of the fear and superstition plaguing Blue Cliff—and her mother in particular—and moved away, leaving her best friend, Natalie, and her boyfriend, Jack, behind without saying goodbye. But now, another disappearance compels Cheyenne to return. She finds herself getting closer to a terrible secret that has haunted the town since its beginnings.
Alternating between Cheyenne and Natalie’s voices, the story begins as Cheyenne reconnects with her eccentric mother, who believes that it is her duty to protect Blue Cliff from a malignant spirit. The townsfolk are an unforgiving lot who pride themselves on always looking out for each other, yet they turn away from inconvenient, uncomfortable truths—like the fact that the young man convicted of three past killings has been exonerated by new evidence. As an “outta-towner,” Jasper may be a convenient suspect, but targeting him only gives the real killer space to hide…and to take more lives.
Cheyenne’s return forces her to confront unpleasant memories and the consequences of her departure. Her efforts to reconcile with Jack and Natalie end up endangering their lives as the mystery builds to a skin-crawling climax in an isolated, run-down cabin where no help is forthcoming. With the truth revealed at last, the people of Blue Cliff have to grapple with their roles in creating an atmosphere where prejudice, violence, and irrationality could thrive—and Cheyenne is forced to decide where she really belongs.
The Woods Are Waiting is a mystery novel in which the most dangerous monsters are those that people create for themselves.
EILEEN GONZALEZ (June 27, 2023)
Molly, Olive, and Dexter Play Hide and Seek
Catherine Rayner
Candlewick
Hardcover $17.99 (32pp)
978-1-5362-2841-0
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Richly pigmented watercolor illustrations make this story of friendship seem plucked from a dream. Molly attempts to teach her friends Olive and Dexter how to play her favorite game, but their hiding leaves something to be desired. After telling them to “go away and really hide,” Molly opens her eyes to find herself alone; she fears her friends have gone too far to be found. When Olive and Dexter’s hiding place is revealed, they assure her they will “NEVER go far, far away.”
DANIELLE BALLANTYNE (June 27, 2023)
Barbara Hodge
