I picked up Lost by Jacqueline Davies based on a recommendation by Melissa Wiley via Twitter. I really loved this book and haven’t seen it anywhere, so am happy to give it some airtime it rightfully deserves.

(I need to tell you that it’s hard to tell you the plot without giving something away, so I’ll do my best.)

Lost is about Essie, a 17-year-old Jewish girl who lives in Manhattan in 1911. She works at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, which means she can’t take care of her 6-year-old sister, Zelda, quite so much, but Essie promises to make it up to Zelda.

Essie is tasked with helping one of the new girls, Harriet, at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, and they quickly become friends. There’s something about Harriet that Essie relates to, something tragic and sorrowful. Something about her that’s lost.

As you dig deeper into Lost, you learn that Essie’s mental state might not be all that stable. The author wonderfully goes back and forth between the present and the past, putting a puzzle together that slowly takes shape.

Essie has to navigate through loss and despair so she can get to acceptance and move forward with her life. Woven in with Essie’s journey is the fictionalized account of the disappearance of Dorothy Harriet Camille Arnold, a wealthy heiress.

And I know I don’t have a lot to say about Lost, but it was really good! I love the historical aspect of the book, and the author’s imagining of what happened to Dorothy Arnold. This book reminds us how far we’ve come in so little time. It’s terrible what wages used to be, how hard employers were allowed to work their employees, and in what conditions those employees were expected to work. I would offer this book to a young adult so they could get a glimpse of how things used to be, and how important and amazing it is that we’ve come so far. I ate this book up, and I’m sure young adults will as well.

Rating: 90 out of 100

Check out Jacqueline Davies website.

No other blogger has read and reviewed this book.

Book source: I checked this book out from the library.

And one more thing? If you click on one of the Lost links and buy something from Amazon, I’ll make a commission! Mwahahahaha!! Maybe with the pennies I make I’ll be able to call someone who cares.

You can thank the FTC for this disclosure!

Today I’m part of the blog tour that will give you suggestions, ideas, tips, and tricks about BEA. I’m sure everyone else will tell you to wear comfortable shoes, wear comfortable clothes, don’t be a book hoarder (because you will regret it), etc. And those are all FANTASTIC suggestions. I’m going to tell you what no one else will tell you.

Are you listening?

Are you really listening?

1. Move heaven and earth to go to BEA (and the book blogger convention). I guarantee you will regret it if you don’t make every effort to go. I’m not encouraging you to put the expenses on your credit card, because goodness knows I’m working on paying those off myself. I’d rather poke my eye with a stick than put something on a credit card these days. But before you think you can’t afford it, make sure you check out where Amanda is staying (hint: she’s only paying $35 per night).
2. Don’t overbook yourself. The hands-down best time I had last year at BEA was when everyone else was at some party, and me and Jenn and Nicole went our to dinner together, just the three of us. We talked for FOUR HOURS. Sure, you can hang with cool people at parties and stuff, and maybe that’s totally your thing. But me? I like to connect with people, to become friends with them, and (for me) that doesn’t happen at a party. Not overbooking yourself will give you the chance to be spontaneous.
3. Along the lines of #2, don’t worry if you don’t get invited to something. I PROMISE that there will still be people to hang with. This is small stuff. Don’t sweat it.
4. Those books you get at BEA? READ THEM. I know. I’m so smart to be making a suggestion like that. Next thing you know I’ll be telling you to turn your lights off to conserve energy. But seriously. I got THE UNNAMED by Joshua Ferris, which will be a favorite of 2010. It probably would have languished if I hadn’t had motivation to read it. I’m now wondering what other gems I picked up and didn’t even realize it.
5. Map out your plan. There is so much going on at BEA between author signings and panels that you’ll need to have a plan. You might miss a few things due to conflicting times, but such is life. Figure things out ahead of time (i.e. as soon as BEA releases a schedule, which should be sometime in April) so that you have time to move things around, plot with other bloggers, and maximize the time.
6. Plan on being sleep deprived. YOU CAN SLEEP WHEN YOU’RE DEAD. Attending BEA is not conducive to lots of sleep. Be forewarned.
7. That blogger/publisher/author you’ve always wanted to meet in person? Reach out to them! They probably will be over the moon to grab coffee, lunch, or just take a few minutes out to meet you. I know I said to not overbook yourself, but I’m also telling you to not leave everything to chance.
8. Create a landing page. You’ll be handing your business card to lots of people, but so will lots of other folks. On the off chance they check out your blog, make sure it’s worth their while. I think Heather did a really good landing page for when she moderated a panel at the Baltimore Book Festival.

I know, only 8 tips is SO UNSATISFYING. Sorry.

So, who’s going to BEA? Can I get a holla?

I don’t read mystery/suspense/thrillers all that often anymore, though I have to admit they’re one of my guilty pleasures. It’s like watching an action movie: it doesn’t get too deep, usually has great action, and the best will keep your heart racing most of the way through. I’m trying to read more of this genre, though, because I think they make a great palate cleanser between literary fiction. With this in mind, I picked up The Gatekeeper by Michelle Gagnon because I had just finished Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.

The Gatekeeper opens with Madison Grant, a 16-year-old girl who’s met a man on the Internet, who she’s flying out to meet. Before she knows it, she’s been kidnapped and is being held prisoner. So her dad, Randall, calls up an old friend, Syd, who’s just opened a new company called The Longhorn Group, which deals with kidnap and ransom. Syd’s partner, Jake, gets started on trying to locate Madison and extricate her before the kidnappers kill her.

Meanwhile, Jake’s fiance, Kelly, who works for the FBI, has been assigned a case that involves the brutal murder of a senator. HER case takes her to all these hate groups, and eventually Jake and Kelly find that their cases might be connected.

This book was exactly what I needed. It had the perfect amount of setup (read: not the whole book) with more scenes that left my heart racing than I could have hoped for. I loved that at least three times I double checked the page count because she was wrapping up things I didn’t expect to be wrapped up until the end of the book.

I’m oftentimes put off by love stories within mysteries. If I wanted a love story, I’d read another kind of book. But Kelly and Jake’s relationship is so real, and just when I was like, Oh, I see where she’s going with this, Gagnon surprised me. Gagnon really has a knack for characters, and I’d like to see future books feature Syd, and delve more into Syd’s motivations and intentions.

My only squabble with this book was that the person who calls himself “the gatekeeper” was never actually called “the gatekeeper”. It’s possible I missed the reference, though.

I know this is silly, but I loved her Author’s Note at the end. Having a great author’s note is like finding one more M&M in a bag of M&Ms that you thought was empty. It’s like, “Oh! I’m not quite done yet!” Yes, I want to know who helped you. I want to know who answered your questions, who your awesome agent is; I want to know all of that. It’s not like I know those people, it’s just…satisfying.

But best of all? I loved where she went in the ending.

Rating: 90 out of 100

No other reviews.

Book source: I received this book from the author. Don’t think I won’t tell you what I really think just because I receive a book from the author.

And one more thing? If you click on one of The Gatekeeper  links and buy something from Amazon, I’ll make a commission! Mwahahahaha!! Maybe with the pennies I make I’ll be able to call someone who cares.

You can thank the FTC for this disclosure!

Good books — they just never stop coming. Here’s what I’ve got my eye on this week.

Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

• Hardcover: 304 pages 
• Publisher: Amistad (January 5, 2010)

From Publisher’s Weekly:

In her debut, Perkins-Valdez eloquently plunges into a dark period of American history, chronicling the lives of four slave women—Lizzie, Reenie, Sweet and Mawu—who are their masters’ mistresses. The women meet when their owners vacation at the same summer resort in Ohio. There, they see free blacks for the first time and hear rumors of abolition, sparking their own desires to be free. For everyone but Lizzie, that is, who believes she is really in love with her master, and he with her. An extended flashback in the middle of the novel delves into Lizzie’s life and vividly explores the complicated psychological dynamic between master and slave. Jumping back to the final summer in Ohio, the women all have a decision to make—will they run? Heart-wrenching, intriguing, original and suspenseful, this novel showcases Perkins-Valdez’s ability to bring the unfortunate past to life.

Doesn’t that sound fantastic?! Can’t wait to get my hands on this book.

Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes

• Hardcover: 592 pages 
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press; 1 edition (April 1, 2010)

From Publisher’s Weekly:

Thirty years in the making, Marlantes’s epic debut is a dense, vivid narrative spanning many months in the lives of American troops in Vietnam as they trudge across enemy lines, encountering danger from opposing forces as well as on their home turf. Marine lieutenant and platoon commander Waino Mellas is braving a 13-month tour in Quang-Tri province, where he is assigned to a fire-support base and befriends Hawke, older at 22; both learn about life, loss, and the horrors of war. Jungle rot, leeches dropping from tree branches, malnourishment, drenching monsoons, mudslides, exposure to Agent Orange, and wild animals wreak havoc as brigade members face punishing combat and grapple with bitterness, rage, disease, alcoholism, and hubris. A decorated Vietnam veteran, the author clearly understands his playing field (including military jargon that can get lost in translation), and by examining both the internal and external struggles of the battalion, he brings a long, torturous war back to life with realistic characters and authentic, thrilling combat sequences. Marlantes’s debut may be daunting in length, but it remains a grand, distinctive accomplishment.

What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman was picked by my in real life book club. I knew nothing about it going in, but within a few pages I was hooked and excitedly tweeting how much I was loving this book.

I guess you could say this is a murder mystery, since that is the premise, but I would argue it’s much more than that. Basically, 30 years ago two girls, sisters, Heather and Sunny, disappeared, and the murder was never solved. The parents, Dave and Miriam, of the sisters ultimately divorced, and Miriam moved down to Mexico while Dave passed away in his 50s. The reason the case is brought up again is because a woman who is involved in a car accident tells one of the officers that she’s one of the missing girls. And she knows things about the area that you could only know if you’d lived there, and she knows details about the case that you could only know if you’d been involved, but she’s being awfully cagey and doesn’t really want to see her mom so what the heck is going on and maybe this girl is an imposter?

The story unfolds in alternating chapters, some in the present, and some unfolding the story from the past.

Lippman does a fantastic job at character development, but treats the reader to some humor while she’s at it:

But over time Kay came to realize that she preferred her books to other people’s company. Reading was not a fallback position for her but an ideal state of being.

Kay sometimes thought she should get a little custom-made button: I’m not gay, I just like read.

In particular there was a lot of development about the parents and their marriage. The point of view changes from various people throughout the book (the sisters (Heather and Sunny), the social worker (Kay), the parents (Dave and Miriam), etc), so you sometimes see the same incident through both eyes, say, a scene with the two parents, and it really gives you a deeper understanding of the complexities of a marriage.

(Dave is thinking about Miriam letting him open his own business) Lately he had begun to wonder if Miriam figured that she would benefit either way. The store would make them rich or provide her with something to hold over Dave’s head the rest of their lives. She had given him his chance, and he had blown it. Now every disagreement between them was rooted in that unspoken context: I believed in you / You blew it.  Had she hoped all along that he would fail?

And the way Lippman touches on the grief of the parents just ripped my heart out. Miriam chooses to move on, while Dave chooses not to. Can you really criticize either choice? Particularly after Miriam observes:

“But if I don’t accept the probability of their deaths at this point, how do I live? How do I go on?”

…

“It’s hard,” she said. “Remaining open to hope, yet needing to grieve. Whatever I do or say, I feel as if I’m betraying my daughters. We just want to know.”

I’m sure many people could figure out the ending within the first 50 pages. But this book is so much more than the plot. The author had so much more to say than to tell you whodunit. The complexities of marriage, guilt, grief, and responsibility are just a few of the subjects that Lippman touches on, and touches on well.

I was disappointed that only myself and one other book club member really enjoyed the book. In fact, after the other members left, I lingered with the other person who enjoyed the book and we discussed passages we loved, passages that touched us for one reason or another. But maybe that’s what makes books so special: not every book is important or profound to everyone else, so it holds a little bit of magic for those of us who it does touch.

Rating: 92 out of 100

Laura Lippman’s website

Other reviews:

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Book source: I checked this book out from the library, and ended up paying like $3.00 in overdue fines, so I should probably be irritated and give it a bad review, but alas, I liked it too much.

And one more thing? If you click on one of the What the Dead Know links and buy something from Amazon, I’ll make a commission! Mwahahahaha!! Maybe with the pennies I make I’ll be able to call someone who cares.

You can thank the FTC for this disclosure!