Ponder: Tranquility Falls

Tranquility Falls ©2020 is the fourth book in the Miramar Bay series by Davis Bunn. I have read books 1, 2, and 3 and have rated them three or four stars in my post dated 1/12/20. I read Book 5 and rated it three stars in my post for 7/25/21. Tranquility Falls is another one I rated 4 stars. In order for me to read several books in a series, I need to like the author's style in addition to some common thread... sometimes the characters and sometimes the setting. The Miramar Series has a peaceful common beach type setting on the mid-California Coast, fictitious but imaginatively close to San Luis Obispo. There is minimal character overlap and those inter-relations are more convenient than necessary. I read the books out of order and it did not matter. The text on the cover of Tranquility Falls asks the question.

 What's more difficult? Holding on or letting go?

Daniel is in Miramar Bay recuperating from the fast life of Los Angeles where he was a well renown television news anchor. He is recovering from alcohol addiction and the death of his fiancé in an auto accident. This information is presented early on in the book to set the stage; this background data explains the Daniel's reactions and behavior but is not the focus of the book's plot. Good. I dislike reading about situations that are too depressing. A certain amount of bad is needed to create tension and suspense; too much bad makes for a bummer of a read. Daniel fears a return to the LA area will tempt him to succumb to his past weaknesses. Daniel has a 17 year old niece, Nicole, who is staying with him after her heartless mother unceremoniously dumped her and her possessions off. Daniel and Nicole share the affection and attentions of a yellow Labradoodle named Goldie who had been rescued from a shelter by Daniel's fiancé. The following photo is of a group of Labradoodle assistance dogs from Wikipedia. 

A second major character in the book is Jennifer, a divorced mother raising an 11 year old daughter, Amber, whose twin sister died of a disease several years prior. Her husband deserted her, leaving her to cope on her own, claiming her life was "too full of sorrow" and he could not bear it. Jennifer's is a sad situation but the novel does not dwell on it. The focus is on how past experiences affect her actions in her present and future life. Jennifer fears trusting any man who will merely leave when the going gets tough.

Both main characters Daniel and Jennifer are coping in their present lives, having survived the tragedies of the past. Can Daniel trust himself to return to his career, a field where he is very talented? Can Jennifer allow herself to place trust in anyone other than herself? These quandaries brings to my mind the lyrics of the 1993 Garth Brooks song Standing Outside the Fire.

Life is not tried it is merely survived

If you're standing outside the fire

Off course there needs to be nasty characters to create tension and conflict in the book: Lisa, Daniel's self-centered and heartless sister; co-workers where Jennifer works at the city hall who are embezzling funds and setting Jennifer up as the scape goat; a district attorney out to win a case, oblivious to whether or not justice is being served. I found this book very uplifting in the way people truly cared and pulled for each other. Daniel's AA sponsor Travis and his wife Ricki are selfless, supportive, and loyal. Connections Daniel had from his reckless LA days see through to the good, decent man within and reach out a helping hand. Sol, the defense attorney, is willing to take risks to exonerate Jennifer from false accusations. Even the unseen but quirky character of Sergei, a Ukranian-style heavily accented hacker in Alabama, enters the battle for the good guy. Per Wikipedia, "Bunn is writer of historical fiction and legal thrillers, in which Christian faith plays a major part."  Christian in his books is Christian in the best way. It is not the scripture quoting, bible thumping, mannerisms of the bible belt, but rather a true effort to treat others well and help them when and however possible. Reading one of Bunn's books is like watching a Hallmark movie but with the sappiness extracted and some real meaty suspense injected.

Per Kensington book publishers "Davis Bunn is an internationally bestselling author with more than seven million books in print in twenty languages." His number of reviews on Amazon is relatively small, only 158 for Tranquility Falls. Just out of curiosity, I poked around Amazon to see what quantity of reviews is typical. The Brenda Novak series Whisky Creek and Silver Springs had hundreds of reviews per book, while authors like Jodi Picoult and Louise Penny had thousands of reviews. For Tranquility Falls, 75% of Amazon reviewers rated it 5 stars for an overall rating 4.6 stars. I give it 4 stars and intend to read more Bunn books of the Miramar Bay series. The Emerald Tide is due out in August of 2022.

★★★★☆ Really good; maybe only one weak aspect or limited audience

Ponder: When I Found You

When I Found You ©2021 is the 8th book in the Silver Springs series by Brenda Novak. It is a romance novel and by that association not grandiose literature. I like this series as a comfortable read with a familiar cast of characters. Silver Springs is an area far enough from Los Angles to be quiet country and close enough to the metropolitan are to draw on it for city excitement. In a similar genre, Brenda Novak writes a series set in Whiskey Creek (post for 5/5/18), an area on the outskirts of Sacramento in gold country, that draws on its big city offerings when needed. In When I Found You there is a crossover between the characters from both series, an aspect that was serendipitous and made for further enjoyment..

The plot takes the reader eight years back in time. The heroine, teenage Natasha and her mother, were living in a household with twenty-six year old Mack and his four older brothers in Whiskey Creek as related in Discovering You,  the tenth book of that series, my post dated 5/5/18. She was attracted to him at that time but, although he was drawn to her, he felt that she was off limits to him due to her young age. He nobly stayed away so as not to thwart her going off to college. Fast forward eight years and she is a pediatrician and reappears in this eighth book of the Silver Springs series. An incident with one of her child patients destroyed her practice and her marriage. Divorced, penniless, with a six-year old young son, Lucas, she relocates to the Silver Springs region to start anew. Mack hears of her troubles and steps in to help her with the move. The pull and tug and push of them getting back together is entertaining and the antics of the young boy cannot help but make the reader smile.

I rated When I Found You relative to other books in the series since on an absolute literary scale romance novels are not considered intellectual literature. As romance novels go though, the woman is not a ditz and the man is not a chauvinistic pig; working a child into the relationship is refreshing, too.  It was a fun – and very quick – read; but,  I do admit, this audience is most likely limited to Brenda Novak fans or fans of romance novels. Amazon readers gave it 4.7 stars out of 5. I gave it 4 stars which translates in my rating system to

★★★★☆ Really good; maybe only one weak aspect or limited audience.

The following list summarizes my ratings for the Brenda Novak's books in the Silver Springs Series. Each is followed by the date of my blog post review of that particular title.

1) Finding Our Forever ©2017 3 stars (post for 12/4/17)

2) No One But You ©2017 4 stars (post for 11/10/17)

3) Until You Loved Me ©2017 5 stars (post for 11/2/17 )

4) Right Where We Belong 3 stars (post for 2/15/18 )

5) Unforgettable You ©2019 4 stars (post for 5/12/19 )

6) Christmas in Silver Springs ©2019 2 stars (post for 5/21/20)

7) A California Christmas ©2020 3 stars (post on 12/26/20)

8) When I Found You ©2021 4 stars (this post on 7/26/21)

Ponder: The Cottage on Lighthouse Lane

The Cottage on Lighthouse Lane © 2021 is the fifth book in Miramar series by Davis Bunn. I have read three of the others and have rated them three or four stars in my post dated 1/12/20. Although not stellar, they were reasonably entertaining reads. The back cover of The Cottage on Lighthouse Lane praises Davis Bunn's writing, but I did not notice until just now that those kudos are for three books in the Miramar series, not this one. My opinion is consistently true for The Cottage On Lighthouse Lane which I give three stars. I stayed up until 5:30 am a couple nights ago to finish the book. True, insomnia played a role in my being awake, but even so, the book was good enough it did not put me to sleep. 

The common threads in the Miramar series are the setting near the San Luis Obispo area where my son went to college at Cal Poly, the beach ambience, and the inner workings of the film-making industry. These aspects keep me interested in the Miramar series. There is some character crossover among the books but not so much so that it is a selling feature in the series or reading them in order is needed.

The Cottage on Lighthouse Lane achieves mystery and sustains interest by interleaving chapters on the main characters Billy, an upcoming actor, and Mimi, a teacher with a unique ESP-like ability. I kept wondering how these two people were going to become related and interactive. About one third of the way through the book, the two storylines join and the bonding between the two main characters begins. To reveal how would be a spoiler so I will refrain from doing so. Both Billy and Mimi had endured childhood trauma, not physical but having strong psychological impact, and so their draw to each other seemed natural and beyond circumstantial. The middle of the book had the typical stressors of a budding relationship but I found immersing myself in it very enjoyable. 

This novel was a potpourri of sorts. Discovering the interrelation among Hollywood stardom, lightning strikes, undiagnosed illnesses, grief comforting, cultural/political prejudices, and computer scams made for page turning curiosity, despite being illogical juxtapositions. Curious? The final third of the book was totally unrealistic and highly improbable, but in fiction there does need to be some suspension of disbelief. If it were not for the disappointing final chapters I would have rated The Cottage on Lighthouse Lane four stars. Not to be dissuaded by the weakest chapters of the book, I still intend to pursue reading the fourth book in the series Tranquility Falls and just checked it out of the library. However I am demoting The Cottage on Lighthouse Lane to a still respectable three-star rating which translate as

★★★☆☆ Better than average; not a waste of time.

Related Past and Future Reads: As a counterpoint, I read Unscripted, another Davis Bunn book, and scored it only two stars in my post dated 1/25/20, stating that its subtitle should have been "and unedited". I also erroneously thought it was part of the Miramar series. True, you cannot judge a book by its cover, but I have also learned that you can't judge a book by its author either, no matter how many awards he has won, even if he has won four Christy Awards. In looking up Christy awards I think I now want to read the book that is the awards namesake, Christy, in addition to the previously mentioned Davis Bunn novel Tranquility Falls.

Ponder: Anxious People

Anxious People ©2019 was written by Fredrik Bachman, the same author of A Man Called Ove, a book I loved, gave five stars, and wrote a post dated 10/31/17.  I initially had been unable to get into the book A Man Called Ove and read the first two chapters three times before I finally engaged. With this novel, Anxious People, having the same author, I expected a similar slow start. However, after 110 pages into this 341 page book, I quit. I was not enjoying it at all.

The plot involves an attempted bank robbery and hostage situation that occurs during a showing of an apartment. Through interviews with the hostages by a father/son policeman duo, and a jumbled, out-of-order telling of the story, the quirky personalities of the characters are presented. The overall style is quick, disjointed, banter; it is also true that there are many quotes that could provide food for thought if my thoughts were not so preoccupied trying to figure out what the heck was going on:

In talking about father/son relationships:

That's an impossible thing for sons to grasp, and a source of shame for fathers to have to admit: that we don't want our children to pursue their own dreams or walk in our footsteps. We want to walk in their footsteps while they pursue our dreams.

A perspective on married couples

The older couple had been married for a long time, but the younger couple seemed to have only gotten married recently. You can always tell by the way people who love each other argue: the longer they've been together, the fewer words they need to start a fight.

It seems there is a tendency today, in TV shows and movies and books, to substitute fast, zing-zing, back and forth, ping-pong table banter, for sane, normal-paced conversations – and not just occasionally for effect, but all the time. Closed captions are not just for the hard of hearing but also for the hard of following. This novel was an effort to read, and I decide it definitely was not worth my effort. I begrudgingly give it one star. After all, I did quote from it.

★☆☆☆☆ Awful but I read most or maybe even all of it

Ponder: Midnight Library

The Midnight Library ©2020 by Matt Haig is #7 on the New York Times Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers list (June 27, 2021). I infer from that fact that a lot of people want to read it. It is very, very different and imaginative, I will give it that, but I found it fell short of being enjoyable for me. I trudged through the early, thankfully short, chapters, wherein a litany of misfortunes and disappointments befall the main character Nora Seed. These revelations are not a spoiler since they all occur the first 24 pages of the hardcover book: her pet dies, she is fired from her job, she regrets breaking up with her fiancé two days before the wedding, and she contemplates overdosing herself on her anti-depressants. These occurrences merely set a very, very sad stage.

The premise it that at the stroke of midnight, when Nora is contemplating suicide, she finds herself in a library with seemingly endless shelves of green books of various shades and thicknesses none of which have a title on its spine. Each contains an alternative future life she could have if her choices in this life were different. It seemed to me like a high tech "choose your own adventure" book, but it keeps cycling back to the same decision point and does not progress farther. It read like a book of short stories or a list of outline ideas the author had created before deciding to write a novel. Reviews praised it for delving into different aspects of human emotion and perceptions. That may be so but it did not delve very deeply. The back cover of the version I read praised the book highly. Don't believe it. Whenever does a back cover not praise a book?

Nora's guide in the library was Mrs. Elm, a school librarian from her grade school. She meets people in other lives that teach her something in general or something about herself. Here are a few examples of the many, many words of wisdom bestowed on the reader.

Chapter The Chessboard (spoken by Mrs Elm)

Mrs Elm studied Nora hard, as if reading a passage in a book she had read before but had just found it contained new meaning. "Want," she told her, in a measured tone, "is an interesting word. It means lack. Sometimes if we fill that lack with something else the original want disappears entirely. Maybe you have a lack problem rather than a want problem. Maybe there is a life that you really want to live."

Chapter The Successful Life (spoken by Nora in a successful life)

"If you aim to be something you are not, you will always fail. Aim to be you. Aim to look and act and think like you. Aim to be the truest version of you. Embrace the you-ness. Endorse it. Love it. Work hard at it. And don't give a second thought when people mock it or ridicule it." [and the line that gave me most pause for thought] "Most gossip is envy in disguise."

I suppose if I had read the book slowly, taking time to ponder each tidbit of advice, I might have grown wiser. Instead I grew bored. The chapters are short, there is much advice, making the book disjointed. I would have preferred a novel with depth of personality of the characters rather than vignettes from a self help book. The setting is imaginative and enjoyable once the reader suspends disbelief. The concept of a Book of Regrets made me consider what my own Book of Regrets might contain. I kept reading because I was curious what life Nora would choose or if she would she choose suicide. Reading this book will  not be an action in my Book of Regrets since I now know what all the hubbub was about; but I would not recommend it to others. I rate The Midnight Library

★★☆☆☆   Ok, not great; some redeeming features; I finished it