October 2016 Reads

Oct	57	Tortilla Curtain	T. C. Boyle
	58	One of Us	Tawni O'Dell
	59	All The Missing Girls	Megan Miranda
	60	The Girl in the Well is Me	Karen Rivers
	61	Setting Free The Kites	Alex George
	62	Among the Living	Jonathan Rabb
	63	Darktown	Thomas Mullen
	64	Storm Front	John Sandford

Twenty years after it was published and I can't tell you how many times I shelved it, I've finally read Tortilla Curtain and wish it hadn't taken me so long!  On the other hand, in today's political climate, it was a perfect read. It succeeds in stealing the front page news and bringing it home to the great American tradition of the social novel.

I highly recommend All the Missing Girls. "All the Missing Girls is a smart, suspenseful, and emotionally complex thriller. Told in reverse, this story will make you want to lock the doors, turn off the phone, and read until the last satisfying page." - Alafair Burke

The Girl in the Well is Me is a YA novel.  I read before passing it on to one of my favorite teens, Sophia.  Her Mom tells me she's loving it. “Superb . . . acrobatic . . . Karen Rivers is able to dive so seamlessly into the darker themes of growing up . . . Because of the tone and persistence of [protagonist] Kammie, the reader never loses faith that, although times may seem impossibly tough, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.”—Cleaver Magazine

Setting Free the Kites will be published in February 2017.  I think you should put it on your wish list, so you won't forget about it.  It's a touching, well-written novel; a poignant and moving exploration of the pain, joy, and glories of young friendship.  I'm currently passing it around my Tai Chi class.

Darktown by Thomas Mullen is an eye-opening look at racism in post-WWII Atlanta. "One incendiary image ignites the next in this highly combustible procedural, set in the city’s rigidly segregated black neighborhoods during the pre-civil-rights era and written with a ferocious passion that’ll knock the wind out of you." - New York Times Book Review

I love John Sanford's writing and my favorite character of Virgil Flowers.  Storm Front is a fun, fast-paced police procedural.  If you haven't read Sanford, I recommend him.  If you want to start a new series, start with Dark of the Moon.

What are you reading?