The Secrets of Ohnita Harbor by Patricia Crisafulli (TLC Book Tours)

 

What types of books do you like to read in the fall?

One type of book I love to read in the fall is a good cozy mystery.  The Secrets of Ohnita Harbor by Patricia Crisafulli fit the bill.   I was riveted by the story as soon as I started reading this one.  It is one of the best cozy mysteries that I have read.

Gabriela Domenici returned to her home town of Ohnita Harbor after her divorce to help care for her mother’s failing health.  She is a single mother who left her dream job working at the New York City Public Library to now work at the Ohnita Harbor Public Library.  It is in a beautiful historic building, but it desperately needs funding.  As the library crew puts together a rummage sale to earn funds, they come across a strange cross.  As they look more into the cross, they realize it may be linked to a medieval saint and very valuable.  As one of the library workers starts to experience stigmata, is there more to this cross then it seems?  A library patron also mysteriously dies right after the cross is found.  Is the murder linked with the cross? 

I loved the characters in this book.  Gabriela was very relatable. She’s a busy mother trying to do her best with work, raising her child, taking care of her elderly mother, trying to have a social life of some sort, and also solving a mystery on the side.  I loved her.  I also enjoyed everyone she knows in her small town and wanted to get to know them more.  I hope that this series continues.  I loved the setting in upstate New York on the shores of Lake Ontario.  I also love libraries and enjoyed the details and politics of trying to get the library going.  The storyline and mystery were very engaging.  I did not guess the ending on this one!

I highly recommend this book if you are looking for a new cozy mystery.

Review Copy from author Patricia Crisafulli as part of the TLC Book Tour.  Thank-you! I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

 

What is your favorite book that you’ve read this year?  I’ve read a lot of good books, but Lessons in Chemistry is my favorite this year.

Elizabeth Zott is a chemist, and this has been her passion and her dream.  She is the lone chemist at the Hastings Research Institute in the 1950s.  Most of her colleagues don’t believe she belongs there except for the top scientist at the institute, Calvin Evans.  Evans is a young genius and already Nobel Prize nominated while in his twenties.  He falls in love with Elizabeth’s mind and sparks fly when they get together.  When tragedy strikes, Elizabeth finds herself teaching America how to cook with chemistry in a cooking show.  Will she be able to fulfill her dream of being a chemist and also how to deal with her grief?

Lessons in Chemistry was a unique story that gripped me from the first page.  I had a hard time putting it down.  The characters were interesting and unique.  I loved their viewpoints.  I also love how the dog, Six-Thirty, narrated sections as well. The book shines a light on how hard it was for a woman, even a very gifted woman, to make a living in science in the past and to receive the same respect and pay as her male colleagues.  The hurdles that Elizabeth faced were quite high.  I’d like to say that things have completely changed from that time, but some of the hurdles were the same for me as a woman in engineering.    The book had a mystery throughout about Calvin’s past and I liked that it was tied up in a very satisfying way at the end of the novel.  It was overall an uplifting novel.  I also loved that Elizabeth found a family with her motley crew of friends.

Favorite Quotes:

“Elizabeth Zott held grudges too.   Except her grudges were mainly reserved for a patriarchal society founded on the idea that women were less.  Less capable.  Less intelligent.  Less inventive.  A society that believed men went to work and did important things – discovered planets, developed products, created laws – and women stayed at home and raised children.  She didn’t want children – she knew this about herself- but she also knew that plenty of other women did want children and a career.  And what was wrong with that?  Nothing.  It was exactly what men got.”

“She saw herself living in such a society.  A place that didn’t always automatically mistake her for a secretary, a place where, when she presented her findings at a meeting, she didn’t have to brace herself for the men who would invariably talk over her, or worse, take credit for her work.  Elizabeth shook her head.  When it came to equality, 1952 was a real disappointment.”

“With the exception of Calvin, her dead brother, John, Dr. Mason, and maybe Walter Pine, she only ever seemed to bring out the worst in men.  They either wanted to control her, touch her, dominate her, silence her, correct her, or tell her what to do.  She didn’t understand why they couldn’t just treat her as a fellow human being, as a colleague, a friend, an equal, or even a stranger on the street, someone to whom one is automatically respectful until you find out they’ve buried a bunch of bodies in the backyard.”

“Imagine if all men took women seriously.  Education would change.  The workforce would revolutionize.  Marriage counselors would go out of business.  Do you see my point?”

“Although he would never be a chemist, he was a dog.  And as a dog he knew a permanent bond when he saw one.”

Book Source:  The Kewaunee Public Library.  Thank-you!

The Guncle by Steven Rowley

 

Did you ever have a favorite relative you would stay with as a child?  I used to spend a week in the summer with my Great Grandpa and Grandma Kile in Indiana and I loved it.  We built some special memories together.

Special memories are built between Patrick and his niece and nephew, Maisie and Grant, when they come to visit him for the summer in Palm Springs.  Maisie and Grant have recently lost their mother to cancer and their father is in rehab.  Gay Uncle Patrick, or Guncle, takes the kids and teaches them his Guncle rules for life.  When Patrick’s sister comes to take the children away, will he be able to keep them for the rest of the summer?  Does he want to?

I came into The Guncle thinking it was just a comedy book.  Patrick is very witty and a fun character, but this book is so much more.  It’s a realistic and thoughtful look at death and loss.  The book flashes back to Patrick’s great love, Joe, who died in a terrible car accident that Patrick survived.  Although they were partners, Joe’s  family didn’t recognize their relationship and wouldn’t allow Patrick to be with him at the end.  Patrick has spent the past years closed down, not allowing himself to move on and live his life.  As he helps the children through their own grief, it allows him to work though his own. 

I loved this book.  It was heart warming and a great unique story.  The writing was smart and funny.

Book Source:  Purchased at Prose and Politics in Washington DC.  Thank-you!