Archive for the ‘California’ Category

A STRANGER LIKE YOU by Elizabeth Brundage

Elizabeth Brundage’s third novel A STRANGER LIKE YOU is her darkest to date. Her first novel THE DOCTOR’S WIFE is a tale of a woman married to a doctor who works a women’s clinic and performs abortions. The couple runs foul of anti-abortion activists in this tale which examines marital obligations against the backdrop of larger social issues. SOMEBODY ELSE’S DAUGHTER is set in an exclusive school for the children of the wealthy, but when the protected, elite environment is breeched, various ugly realities seep in. A STRANGER LIKE YOU is a post-9-11 tale: unrelentingly bleak and merciless in its examination of a decaying society of damaged people.

September 12, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , ,  Â· Posted in: California, Character Driven, Contemporary, Reading Guide, Thriller/Spy/Caper

THE COOKBOOK COLLECTOR by Allegra Goodman

One of Goodman’s favorite authors is Jane Austen and it shows in her subtle, wryly witty social comedies. This latest takes place on both coasts between 1999 and 2002 and centers on two California sisters: responsible, ambitious, principled Emily and flighty, vegan, philosophical Jess. The title character, though deceased, plays a beguiling role in the plot.

August 21, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , , , ,  Â· Posted in: 2010 Favorites, California

SAVAGES by Don Winslow

SAVAGES is a unique romp on the wild side. Its anti-heroes, Ben, Chon and O (or multiple O as she’s fondly known) are a cast of characters you gotta love. Ben and Chon are the greatest developers and suppliers of hydroponic weed in Laguna Beach and they have a loyal following. Their weed can be custom made for just the kind of high you want. They provide for the rich and famous. They live well and have been happily supplying their customers for years.

July 31, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , ,  Â· Posted in: California, Humorous, Unique Narrative, y Award Winning Author

THE NOBODIES ALBUM by Carolyn Parkhurst

THE NOBODIES ALBUM is about pondering those things said that might have been stated differently. Specifically, the protagonist, Octavia Frost, is a prolific author who is rewriting the last chapters of all her novels. Each final chapter – the original one and the rewritten one – tells us more about the writer’s life and her spectacular griefs and losses. We enter a free-fall with her and watch her life wash away before our eyes.

July 2, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: ,  Â· Posted in: 2010 Favorites, California, Contemporary, Family Matters, Reading Guide, Unique Narrative

PRIVATE LIFE by Jane Smiley

After I read Jane Smiley’s non-fiction 13 WAYS OF LOOKING AT THE NOVEL, I valued her choices as a writer who takes enterprising risks, who jiggles out of her comfort zone or creates a wider berth within her artistic province. She retains some of her fixtures–horses, solipsistic academicians, and thwarted women–as she creates this period piece of wedded UN-bliss. In this latest, a novel of a marriage during fin de siecle America, Private Life spans from Missouri to the California Naval Observatory in Villejo, California, from the end of American Victorianism to the Japanese internment of 1942.

June 25, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , ,  Â· Posted in: California, Facing History, Family Matters, Reading Guide, US Midwest, y Award Winning Author

IRON RIVER by T. Jefferson Parker

In LA Sheriff’s Deputy Charlie Hood’s third adventure, set in the California desert border town of Buenavista, Hood joins an ATF operation to stem gunrunning to Mexico. When an ATF weapons-buy ends in the accidental death of a cartel leader’s son, the bad guys take revenge, abducting and torturing the agent responsible. Naturally a rescue is in the offing.

April 17, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags:  Â· Posted in: California, Character Driven, Mexico, Sleuths Series, Wild West, y Award Winning Author