Mary E. Trimble

I loved this novel! Big Little Lies by Australian novelist Liane Moriarty is one of those books I might have overlooked had it not been a library-sponsored book club selection.

Big Little Lies takes place in Pirriwee, a fictitious small town in Australia. The story centers on three women: funny, vivacious Madeline; beautiful, wealthy Celeste; and young, single, introverted Jane whose son is accused of bullying. Madeline and Celeste are already friends, and they befriend Jane on their children’s kindergarten orientation day. Each woman has her mystery. Madeline still fumes about her first husband’s behavior, Celeste carries a dark secret, and Jane bears a sadness about her past.

From the beginning, the reader knows that something bad happened on the school’s traditional Trivia Night. Dialogs appear throughout the story between a group of people who speculate on the various causes and perpetrators of the incident.

As the story develops, we delve into the three women’s families. We learn how the little lies we tell ourselves in order to survive can backfire, that what appears to be a perfect family can dissipate before our eyes. Violence can lurk where you least expect it.

Big Little Lies is a funny book—at times I laughed right out loud. But it’s also a story of depth and perception. For an insightful book on family dynamics, I highly recommend this novel.

Book Review: The Boy in the Photo

Posted on April 5, 2021 by Mary

The Boy in the Photo by Nicole Trope is a highly suspenseful, engrossing present-day novel that takes place in Australia.

Megan takes her six-year-old son Daniel to school, but at the end of the school day when she goes to pick him up, he isn’t there. Megan frantically goes into the school to search for him, but learns his father has picked him up. The arrangement is that Greg, her abusive, former husband, only has supervised visits with his son. A search begins, but with no success.

Six years later, her current husband Michael, a police detective, calls from work to tell her they’ve found Daniel. The twelve-year old boy seemingly wandered into a police station, dirty, disheveled and confused.

When Daniel, now twelve, is returned to Megan he is full of hate and anger. Slowly, the story of living with his bitter, controlling father surfaces. Megan and Michael patiently try to work with the boy, but there is always something strange and sinister hovering over them.

The story toggles through the years in time from the anniversary date of Daniel’s disappearance to the present day, both from the boy and his mother’s point of view.

The Boy in the Photo is a psychological read that kept me eagerly turning the pages. I could feel Megan’s pain, sadness and desperation both before Daniel’s disappearance and after he is returned to her. To have a child kidnapped by an estranged parent is uncommon but not unheard of, and as I read this novel, I realized that much of the story is probably realistic. This novel shows the strong bond between mother and child, and the confusion and trauma that occurs when that union is threatened.

Book Review: The Gates of Eden

Posted on March 29, 2021 by Mary

Nadene LeCheminant’s novel, The Gates of Eden, is a moving story that takes place in the mid-1800s and is based on the life of the author’s grandmother when she was a teen.

When Josephine Bell’s father died, the family plummeted from a life of middle-class Victorian comfort to overwhelming debt and dire poverty. After paying off his debts, losing their home and most of their possessions, Josephine and her mother live in a scrubby Liverpool flat, working in a clothing manufacturing shop under deplorable conditions.

Josephine and her mother are befriended by missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and accept their offer to cross the ocean and journey overland to a Mormon community in Utah. Eighteen people die on the treacherous six-week ocean passage, but Josephine and her mother survive to arrive in New York. The group then travels by train in cattle cars to Iowa City. From there they travel by foot, using handcarts to haul their personal goods.

By the time the group reaches their Utah destination, the survivors have walked 1,200 miles, all the while remembering and believing Brigham Young’s promise, “The Lord will provide. You shall come in safety.” In their new community, the members are assigned jobs, most of them living with existing families, working in whatever areas their talents support.

When Josephine, then 16, is pressed into a polygamous marriage to a much older man, her faith begins to waver.

The Gates of Eden is a well-written account of the historical Mormon Handcart Migration. For a taste of history seen through a teen’s eyes, I highly recommend this novel.

Book Review: Sold on a Monday

Posted on March 22, 2021 by Mary

Sold on a Monday: A Novel by Kristina McMorris was inspired by an actual newspaper photograph that stunned the nation. Set in New Jersey during the Depression Era of 1931, the story is a stark reminder of the desperation felt during those bleak years.

Ellis Reed, a struggling Examiner reporter, aimlessly wanders around while his over-heated car engine cools. He spots a board with a handwritten sign propped on the step of a run-down porch:

2 children
for sale

He takes a photograph of the sign along with two children he sees playing in the yard. It’s a gut-wrenching scene, but not all that uncommon. Times were cruel in America. People were out of work, banks were closing. Families with children often couldn’t afford to feed them. Some parents sent their children to farms where they could work for food. Others gave up their children thinking they would have a better life.

Ellis writes a story to go with the picture and it’s picked up by national newspapers. But the story backfires and spins out of control.

Lily Palmer also works for the Examiner. Not many people know it, but she has a young son who lives with her parents in a nearby town. She’s the boss’s secretary, but hopes one day to have a column of her own. She gets involved in the story of the children for sale and, together with Ellis Reed, tries to salvage the wreck his article has wrought.

Sold on a Monday is a powerful novel that not only shows the desperation many people experienced during the Depression, but also conveys the power of love and of family. Author Kristina McMorris’s research is impressive as it delves into the mind-set of the era and the fortitude and grace it took to survive those years.

Book Review: The Survival of Margaret Thomas

Posted on March 15, 2021 by Mary

Set in the 19th century west, The Survival of Margaret Thomas by Del Howison is a gritty, mesmerizing novel of determination and justice.

Margaret Thomas still grieves over the death of her husband, Sheriff James Thomas, shot by bank robbers. She bears guilt, too. If he hadn’t tried to protect her during the shooting, he likely would not have been killed.

Two years after her husband was killed, Margaret receives a telegram from the sheriff in San Pueblo, Arizona saying that the man believed to be the bank robber and her husband’s killer had been captured and is awaiting trial. He suggests that she might be willing to testify at the trial.

Margaret sets out on horseback with her dog trailing alongside. It’s a long way from Missouri to Arizona, but she’s determined to go, even if it means two days on horseback, then a series of three trains, then horseback again. Along the way she meets up with a dwarf, a man whom her husband arrested some time back, and who is now redeemed. He decides to join her. Later they meet up with a Gypsy woman, down on her luck, with noticeable bruises and a ruined wagon. She unhitches her horse and joins them. Later, another woman joins the group, a former “woman of the night” who seeks a new life, or at least a different one than she has now.

The Survival of Margaret Thomas is a vividly told story of courage, wit, and a sense of the true wild west. Plan to settle back with this book for a wild ride.

Book Review: Tender Victory

Posted on March 8, 2021 by Mary

It had been years since I’d read anything by Taylor Caldwell (1900 – 1985). Reading Tender Victory brought me back to my past admiration for this author.

Tender Victory, a novel first published in 1956, is about a former military chaplain, Reverend Johnny Fletcher, who served in Europe during World War II. It is now 1946 and Reverend Fletcher is seeking to pastor a church. He meets with resistance when members of prospective churches learn he has brought back from Europe five orphan children. The children, two Protestants, two Catholic, and one Jew, not only can’t speak English, they have been so traumatized by the horrors inflected upon them that they appear to be like wild animals.

Reverend Fletcher accepts a position in the small mining town of Barrymore, PA. He immediately finds friends and supporters, but many in the town are against him, not only because of his children, but they fear he will be instrumental in disturbing their status-quo. As it stands, the rich who live up in the hills, are getting even richer from the mining operations, but the average citizen who lives in town on lower elevations suffers from the dirty industrial air the mines produce.

As he continues to serve, Reverend Fletcher is challenged on many counts, but he firmly believes in the goodness of man, despite obvious evidence to the contrary.

I found Tender Victory an uplifting, inspirational read rich with the timeless themes of hope, faith and compassion.

Book Review: When We Believed in Mermaids

Posted on March 1, 2021 by Mary

When We Believed in Mermaids: a novel by Barbara O’Neal, is an emotion-packed story of a family gone awry.

The Bianci home sat high on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean in the township of Eden, near San Francisco. The family restaurant was right next door. It would seem idyllic, but in this home there was always tension, always underlying currents of strife.

The youngest of two daughters, Kit, becomes an ER doctor in a Santa Cruz hospital where she capably treats the results of horrible accidents. In her spare time she surfs where she can lose herself as she glides over the water. She doesn’t have to think, to remember; she can just be one with the sea. One night while watching the evening news on TV she sees coverage of a burning nightclub in Auckland, New Zealand, and thinks she sees her older sister, Josie, among the onlookers. It can’t be! Josie has been dead fifteen years, killed in a terrorist train explosion in France.

Mari is an exceptionally capable wife and mother. The family lives an opulent life in New Zealand with a beautiful home overlooking the sea. Her husband is a successful businessman, and her son and daughter are bright, well-adjusted children. Mari has a secret though and should it be revealed, the life she loves would disintegrate.

The story alternates between the two main characters, Kit and Mari, both in the same present-day time period, but with vivid and often painful flashbacks. I cringed when the children had unlimited freedom and were left to fend for themselves, I rode the waves when they surfed.. I grieved with the pain caused by reckless lives.

When We Believed in Mermaids is a gripping, engrossing story of two sisters, their relationship with each other and with the family. It’s about successful people who allow their passions to rule. It’s about lives shattered by their own excesses. It’s also about the healing effects of love and forgiveness.

Book Review: The Return

Posted on February 22, 2021 by Mary

A violent explosion in Afghanistan blew away Trevor Benson’s career as an orthopedic surgeon. His extensive injuries—blinded in one eye, missing fingers, and a missing ear—required several surgeries. Trevor also suffers from PTSD, though he now has a pretty good handle on that. He plans to go back to school to study psychiatry.

The Return, a novel by Nicholas Sparks stirred my heart. I am generally not a romance reader, but was in the mood for a change of pace. The Return is not your standard romance, though there is definitely a thread of romantic interest throughout the story.

The hospital staff notifies Trevor that his beloved grandfather is dying and that the old man hasn’t long to live. His grandfather’s last words are a plea for help, but the conversation is so jumbled, Trevor can’t understand what his grandfather is trying to tell him.

Trevor temporarily stays in his grandfather’s old house in New Bern, North Carolina, and tends the old man’s bees. While there he meets two women: Callie, a girl who looks to be in her late teens, apparently lives alone in a close-by trailer park. She mentions to Trevor that she and his grandfather were friends. The other woman, Natalie, is a deputy sheriff who stops by to see if the person staying at the old man’s house is doing so legitimately. Both Callie and Natalie have their own stories, their own heartbreaks.

The Return held many threads of interest to me. By now, we’re all familiar with PTSD, but the author revealed new insights of the condition, how it cannot be cured, but at least managed. I was also fascinated to learn about the grandfather’s apiary and the details involved in the art of beekeeping. Then there’s the emotional side of the story involving a bit of romance and mystery.

Nicholas Sparks is a successful author of many books. The Return is the second of his that I’ve read and enjoyed. I appreciate his gentle humor, and he does a good job of instilling a sense of small-town life and values, and of showing characters’ personalities with their quirks and emotions. I enthusiastically recommend The Return.

Book Review: West with Giraffes

Posted on February 15, 2021 by Mary

West with Giraffes, a novel by Lynda Rutledge, gripped my attention from beginning to end.

Woodrow Wilson Nickel, aka Woody Nickel, almost 18, happens to be on a New York dock in 1938 when the hurricane-battered SS Robin Goodfellow limps into the harbor. Two huge broken-up crates are lifted off containing amazing cargo: two Baringo giraffes. They are alive, but the female has a broken leg. An old man, Riley Jones, steps up to take charge of the strange cargo. He calls a veterinarian who bandages and splints the female’s leg.

The man originally hired to drive the animals doesn’t work out. Because of a crippled hand, Mr. Jones can’t shift gears, so he recruits Woody to drive them all in an old truck equipped for the occasion. The giraffes are destined for the San Diego Zoo, a haven for them after being rescued from imminent danger in Africa. Mr. Jones knows how to care for giraffes; in fact, he works at the famous San Diego Zoo for Mrs. Belle Benchley, the world’s first female zoo director.

Along the way Mr. Jones inquires about Woody’s background, but Woody deftly dodges the old man’s questions. Woody is a dust-bowl survivor from the Texas panhandle. He buried his mother and baby sister, both of whom died of “dust pneumonia.” Woody doesn’t mention his father; that’s obviously part of the story he’s unwilling to tell.

As they drive coast to coast, one near-disaster after another threatens to slow them down, if not end the journey in tragedy. Naturally they draw attention–you don’t see two-ton giraffes with their heads peering over the top of a truck every day. Among the persistent tagalongs is a female photographer, much to the delight of Woody, but the consternation of Mr. Jones.

I loved this book. The story is told in first person in Woody’s voice at a much later time. Vivid detail of the 1930s countryside is fascinating, as are the attitudes of the people caught in those desperate years. If you’re looking for a fast-paced, entertaining read, and especially if you love to learn about exotic animals, read West with Giraffes.

Book Review: Tender Mercies

Posted on February 8, 2021 by Mary

Tender Mercies by Lauraine Snelling is the fifth novel of the “Red River of the North” series. As with the others, I thoroughly enjoyed this account of the founders of Blessing, Dakota Territory.

The series describes the lives of Norwegian immigrants who first homesteaded Dakota Territory in 1880. Their courage, sacrifices and dedication paved the way for those to follow. In Tender Mercies the town of Blessing has been founded. The town now has a general store that also serves as post office, a bank, blacksmith, grain shed, church and school.

Some homes are built of wood, but many are built of sod—brick-like slabs of soil with grass roots still attached. In 1887, when Tender Mercies takes place, both the school and the pastor’s house are soddies.

Pastor John Solberg was heartbroken when Katy Bjorklund married Zeb MacCallister, a man with an irritating Missouri drawl, so different from the soft Norwegian/English language common in Blessing. Pastor Solberg is also the teacher of the one-room school. When Zeb’s sister Mary Martha comes to visit, she decides to stay and offers to help at the school. At first he hesitates to accept her offer—her southern accent is an unwelcome reminder of his lost love. But as the school year progresses, he’s not only impressed with her help with the children, he finds himself strongly attracted to her. When a family emergency calls her back to Missouri, both John and Mary Martha realize how precious they have become to one another.

Lauraine Snelling’s fascinating account of Dakota Territory’s arduous beginning and gradual growth is the crux of the “Red River of the North” series. By this fifth novel, the different family names are not only familiar to me, they’re like old friends. Each book concentrates on one family, but includes the others in their struggles and triumphs.

One of the reasons I love this series is to learn how our early immigrants managed from such meager beginnings. When they slaughter a pig, for instance, every part of the animal is used–the meat to eat and preserve for later use, the skull boiled for head cheese, the feet pickled, the fat rendered to lard, the intestines used to make sausage, the hide used for leather reins and shoes. Cold storage was a root cellar, an underground structure that kept food cool in the summer and from freezing in the winter.

Another delight for me was learning about the new invention of Singer Sewing machine, a machine run by a foot treadle. Up to that time, all clothes were made by hand. With the new machine seams were stronger and garments could be made in a fraction of the time. I am a long-time Singer user and it was fun to read of its early history.

If you’re looking for a good story of our nation’s early years, I strongly recommend Tender Mercies of the “Red River of the North” series. Better yet, start with the first one, An Untamed Land.