Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End

If you like the wildly popular Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy by Stieg Larsson, but may be slightly turned off by some of the overt sexual violence in the books, then it's worth taking a look at this crime thriller by fellow Swedish author Leif Persson. In it you get a lot of the suspense and drama that you will find in the Larsson books, but with more of an emphasis on the criminal investigative process, and how that process may not always work so smoothly.  Persson's knowledge of the criminal justice system is very clear, and you learn a lot of how it works, from top to bottom. This novel follows the path of Swedish police superintendent Lars Johansson, who begins investigating a supposed suicide of an American journalist, which exposes deeper and deeper intrigue with links to the CIA and Sweden's secret police force, leading to a tragedy which could have ultimately been averted, if not for the corruption within the system. Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End is a very detailed and informed criminal drama, which will keep you reading until the final suspenseful conclusion.

Last summer, I attendedthe 2011 American Library Association Convention in my new favorite city, New Orleans.One afternoon, I was pleased to happen upon a reading by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler from his new novel, A Small Hotel. Aside from being pretty stoked at being able to meet such an esteemed writer, I was genuinely intrigued by the passage that he read. In fact, I was so intrigued that I bought the book, had him sign it, and...only just recently...finally read it. Believe me, it was worth waiting for. A Small Hotel is a beautifully written andrichly layered exploration of a relationship coming to an end.

Kelly and Michael Hays, upper-crust residents of Pensacola, Florida, are about to be divorced. Yet neither of them shows up for the final hearing. Michael, a 50-something attorney who has left this task to his lawyer, attends a cotillion at Oak Alley, an antebellum mansion in Louisiana, with his new, much-younger love interest, Laurie. Kelly, who needs to sign the papers in order to finalize the divorce,also blows off the hearing and drives to the Olivier House, the titular small hotel in the the New Orleans French Quarter where her relationship with Michael began 25 years earlier. Ominously, all she brings with her are a bottle of scotch and a bottle of percocet.Having set this stage, the novel then follows the ruminations of both Michael and Kelly as they contemplate the events in their relationship that brought each of them to this place.

Though the story that unfolds through numerous flashbacks is an engaging one, the primary focus of A Small Hotel is character development. We learn that both Michael and Kelly were raised by detached, emotionally-unavailable fathers and that this history profoundly affected them in differing ways. As their relationship unfolds, the series of events are far less important than their private reactions to these events. The author conveys to the reader a great deal about the interior lives of both characters while the characters themselves,as a result of their childhood conditioning, reveal tragically little to each other. This gulf in communication leads to serious consequences, though the particulars of this might be surprising, given the expectations the author sets up at the outset of the book.

Robert Olen Butler loves Louisiana and that love permeates every page of this book. There is a well-defined sense of placeand this is achieved through the author's rambling, lyrical prose style. Here isKelly's reaction to the French Quarter: "The smell of the place is always the same. Old wood and old rugs and fresh sheets and from the open balcony doors the sweet but tainted smell of the Quarter, jasmine and roux and shellfish brine, beer and piss and mildew, and something of the river too, and the swamp, and a hard rain that passed by, and ozone and coffee and sex, Michael's smells and her smells: can all of this be inside her in this room in this moment? Probably. She is weeping." For anyone that has evervisited the French Quarter, you'll instantly recognize the truth of thisdescription.

A Small Hotel is a mature book for lovers of literary fiction and The South. Check it out!

The Family Fang

Upon adulthood, Annie and Buster find their own creative calling. Annie stars in independent, quirky films, and Buster discoveres his own literary talent. But when both of their careers crash and burn, they reunite when moving back home to their parents' house. But their parents are so consumed with their art, that they fail to see their own children as individuals, only as contributors to the family mission. Is art more vital than family?

Wilson's characters are delightful damaged and emotionally distraught. A humorous portrayal of family dynamics and the critical value of art.

In The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton, Nell grows up not knowing the mystery of her early childhood, until Hughreveals the secreton her twenty-first birthday. Nell is devastated and feels as if her entire life has been a lie. Yet she has no clue to finding out about her past. It's not until Hugh's death many years later, that she discovers the little suitcase she was carrying in 1913.One of the clues inside is a book of fairy tales written in 1913 by Eliza Makepeace, and illustrated by Nathaniel Walker.Could this book contain the secrets to help unlock the mystery of Nell's childhood?

Nell's search for her childhood roots extends across two generations, as her granddaughter Cassandra seeks for the truth after Nell's death in 2005. Cassandra was taken in by her grandmother at age ten when her mother dropped her off and never returned. Cassandrais surprised to find that Nellhas lefther a cottage in England as her inheritance.When she journeys to Blackhurst Manor in Cornwall, once the home of the Mountrachet family, she begins toput together the puzzleof her grandmother's life. She also discovers her long lost love of painting, a talent she gave up when tragedy struck in her life several years ago.

Multiple stories are interwoven in the novel, which takes us back and forth in time from Eliza'slife of cruel poverty in London, to Rose Mountrachet's childhood at Blackhurst, to Nell'slife in Brisbane, and to Cassandra'sjourneys to untangle the web of mysteries in her past. It'sa tale full ofmystery and magic, poverty and grandeur,loss and discovery. British author Kate Mortonhas also written the bestseller The House at Riverton.

These are characters I would not want to meet, or even pass by on the street. Their disturbing nature oozes out of the pores and makes me sick.

Willard Russell is a soulful man. In his manic prayer state, he's convinced the Lord will save his wife, who is dying a painful, slow death from untreatable cancer. Willard forces his young son, Arvin, to pray with him for hours on his sacrificial prayer log, while killing a rash of local strays in the process.

Carl and Sandy like to take road trips. Carl likes to photograph other men with his wife. They also like to murder hitchhikers.

Roy and Theodore consider themselve preachers They travel town-to-town to escape the law and to entice young girls.

There is perversion, there is adultery, there is child abuse, there is whoring and drinking. There is poverty and uneducated people making really, really, really bad decisions.

While some of the stories were horrific,The Devil allthe Timeis so vibrant, sincere and powerful, Pollock has been compared to Flannery O'Connor and Cormac. I hope he writes more soon, very soon.

Do you know the feeling when you start reading a new book before the membrane of the last one has had time to close behind you? You leave the previous book with ideas and themes-characters even-caught in the fibers of your clothes, and when you open the new book, they are still with you.