Book of the Day Roundup July 29-August 2, 2024
A Misfortune of Lake Monsters
Nicole M. Wolverton
CamCat Books
Hardcover $19.99 (304pp)
978-0-7443-0958-4
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
In Nicole M. Wolverton’s hair-raising thriller A Misfortune of Lake Monsters, a teenager who fakes cryptid sightings confronts a monster from her nightmares.
Lemon knows that Old Lucy isn’t real. Her family has been responsible for impersonating the cryptid that lives in Devil’s Elbow Lake for decades in secret to draw in tourist money. When she witnesses a toothy monster erupt from the lake and eat her dog, she is shocked. Though her friends Troy and Darrin are loyal, no one in her family believes that she saw a real monster—until people start dying, earthquakes shake the town, and the federal forces roll in. Lemon, Troy, and Darrin endeavor to prevent the monster from killing more people, placing Lemon’s family’s legacy at risk in the process.
Devil’s Elbow’s inhabitants speak with rustic accents and have a propensity for gossip, fleshing out the intimate, rural atmosphere of Lemon’s youth. The trio’s pulse-pounding ventures onto the lake in kayaks to place cameras to catch the monster are suspenseful. But the tension is balanced by earnest conversations between Lemon and her grandmother, while Lemon and Troy’s alternating narrations fill in gaps of the monster mystery. There’s romantic tension between Lemon and Troy, too, that sustains interest. Meanwhile, cocky Darrin is a source of comedic relief, delivering clever one-liners with regularity. The three form a magnetic trio: in addition to the monster, they’re on the verge of adulthood and have to reckon with decisions about their future.
High stakes and an endearing romance rocket the thriller A Misfortune of Lake Monsters to mythical heights.
AIMEE JODOIN (June 10, 2024)
No Funeral for Nazia
Taha Kehar
Neem Tree Press
Softcover $16.99 (272pp)
978-1-911107-74-3
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
A woman’s death brings grief, anger, and eventual peace to her loved ones in Taha Kehar’s novel No Funeral for Nazia.
In life, Nazia always insisted on going her own way. In death, she continues that tradition, leaving scandalous instructions for her loved ones to throw a party instead of a funeral in her honor. Former friends and estranged relatives gather for an evening they will never forget. It renders irrevocable changes in their memories of, and relationships to, the deceased.
While each attendee cared for Nazia, they also have good reasons for holding grudges. Nazia’s romantic affairs disrupted the lives of her sister Naureen, her friends Parveen and Dolly, and her daughter Sabeen. Yet their senses of victimhood prove fleeting. On instructions from Nazia, they undergo individual hypnotherapy sessions that shed harsh light on everyone.
A delicious series of petty squabbles and boisterous tantrums lead the suspenseful interactions. Though the party includes only six guests, their feuds fill Naureen’s house with salacious secrets and whispered schemes that put Nazia’s last wishes at risk. Everyone, even the hypnotherapist, brings their own baggage to the proceedings, further jeopardizing Nazia’s and Naureen’s plans.
The therapy sessions build up to the moment when Parveen, the most antagonistic of the group, and Saleem, the ex-lover at the heart of so many rumors and so much pain, bare their souls in return for their inheritance—with explosive results that forever alter the group’s dynamics.
For all her real and imagined faults, a deceased heroine cared for those closest to her, finding clever ways to help them heal from beyond the grave in No Funeral for Nazia, a riveting domestic novel in which every life story contains more facets than individuals can understand.
EILEEN GONZALEZ (June 10, 2024)
Irreverent Prayers
Talking to God When You’re Seriously Sick
Elizabeth Felicetti
Samantha Vincent-Alexander
Eerdmans
Softcover $21.99 (180pp)
978-0-8028-8263-9
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Episcopal priests Elizabeth Felicetti and Samantha Vincent-Alexander’s authentic, atypical devotional Irreverent Prayers includes petitions for permission to be “pissed off” and to be rescued from the “platitudes of well-meaning loved ones.”
Emphasizing that the Bible includes innumerable examples of pious people telling God just how they feel (as with the despairing psalmist, the angry Hebrew Bible prophets, and an exasperated Jesus in the gospels), this book declares that those facing serious illnesses should also feel free to express their anger and anxiety to God. Thus, Felicetti and Vincent-Alexander, having faced severe illnesses themselves, share resonant, fearless, and discerning meditations borne of personal knowledge. Their brief, barbed prayers address difficult topics including cancer, life-threatening infections, and the loneliness of long hospitalizations. Their prayers, emphasizing resilience, also include dry humor, as when they ask God to please “tell whoever is praying for patience to stop. Just stop. I am set with patience.”
Irreverent Prayers is a cheeky text whose entries demonstrate the healing power of brave, honest faith.
KRISTEN RABE (June 10, 2024)
Between the Sound and Sea
Amanda Cox
Revell
Softcover $17.99 (336pp)
978-0-8007-4274-4
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
A lighthouse and its storied secrets feature in Amanda Cox’s engrossing novel Between the Sound and Sea, in which a woman helms a restoration project and meets a widower who longs for atonement.
Joey was an event planner in Copper Creek until a lawsuit involving her father’s former business caused her neighbors to shun her. On the heels of a breakup, she accepts a job in project management to renovate an island lighthouse that was decommissioned in the 1940s. Intrigued by its history—which includes rumors of a haunting after the disappearance of its keeper, Callum, and his daughter, Cathleen—Joey meets its new owner, Walt, an octogenarian bound by memories of wartime love whose adult grandson, Finn, worries about him.
The book’s alternating perspectives reveal the characters’ curiosity about each other. And as the remaking of the lighthouse continues, Walt discloses his connection to Cathleen. Nostalgia takes hold, forming a touching backdrop for Joey’s discovery of journals and log book entries detailing remarkable rescues. There are subtle parallels between these stories and Joey’s family’s own situation at home. Locally, Callum and Cathleen’s story is also met with suspicion—in part because of German U-boat attacks near the Eastern seaboard. As history and personal estrangements wind with light suspense about an interloper on the island, romance grows: Joey and Finn each find inspiration in Walt’s story, learning to be fearless and take chances while there’s still time.
Rich in themes of bittersweet regret, fresh beginnings, and the secrets that families keep to protect each other, Between the Sound and Sea is a charming novel in which romance blooms from misunderstanding and loss.
KAREN RIGBY (June 10, 2024)
Wanjiku, Child of Mine
Ciiku Ndung’u-Case
Karen Vermeulen, illustrator
Catalyst Press
Hardcover $17.99 (32pp)
978-1-960803-01-6
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Vibrant, textured illustrations accompany this eloquent picture book about embracing your identity. Wanjiku grows up in a Kikuyu village in Kenya. She helps her grandmother tend to the goats and cows and learns about the origin of her people and her name. When her family moves to Nairobi, she becomes “Catherine”; though she wonders at the city, she feels disconnected from home. At boarding school, though, she bonds with women from different cultures and is thankful for a place to be Wanjiku once again.
DANIELLE BALLANTYNE (June 10, 2024)
Kathy Young
