An absurd premise … but it somehow weirdly works.

Details.

Holly is an Aussie game designer, now living in London. This is her 1st book. A hit.

When Lauren returns home to her flat in London late one night, she is greeted at the door by her husband, Michael. There’s only one problem—she’s not married. She’s never seen this man before in her life. But according to her friends, her much-improved decor, and the photos on her phone, they’ve been together for years.

As Lauren tries to puzzle out how she could be married to someone she can’t remember meeting, Michael goes to the attic to change a lightbulb and abruptly disappears. In his place, a new man emerges, and a new, slightly altered life re-forms around her. Realizing that her attic is creating an infinite supply of husbands, Lauren confronts the question: If swapping lives is as easy as changing a lightbulb, how do you know you’ve taken the right path? When do you stop trying to do better and start actually living?

Audio book narrator Shaina Summerville made me want to quit the book about 5% of the way in …

BUT, I’d say her voice is very reflective of the flawed, weird character Dr. Nora.

This is an odd book, written in something of simplistic style. Yet I got hooked on that originality.

My Mom read it too. It’s memorable.

Some doors are locked for a reason….

While 11-year-old Nora Davis was up in her bedroom doing homework, she had no idea her father was killing women in the basement.

Until the day the police arrived at their front door.

Decades later, Nora’s father is spending his life behind bars, and Nora is a successful surgeon with a quiet, solitary existence. Nobody knows her father was a notorious serial killer. And she intends to keep it that way.

Then Nora discovers one of her young female patients has been murdered. In the same unique and horrific manner that her father used to kill his victims.

Somebody knows who Nora is. Somebody wants her to take the fall for this unthinkable crime. But she’s not a killer like her father. The police can’t pin anything on her.

As long as they don’t look in her basement.

Better written than The Plot, in my opinion.

But her storytelling is too slow for me. The book would be far better if it was half as long.

Not much happens.

I understand the very end of the LONG book gets better. But I quit at 50%. 😀

Critic love Jean Hanff Korelitz. This is her 8th book.

But it has all the characteristics of books I don’t like:

• rich people, inexplicably miserable
• ponderously TELLS instead of simply showing details
• no characters to cheer for
• everyone lies needlessly — resulting in the unneccessary conflicts

If you ignore plot and characters, there are some interesting discussions on:

• In vitro fertilization
• Jews
• Mormons
• College life
• Art
• mocking extreme liberal schools
• mocking extreme conservative thinking

I’d say Lucy Foley is one of our best contemporary authors.

Skillful.

For me this book was very good, but not “great“.

Most people consider The Guest List (2020) to be better.

She’s moved from historical fiction to “mysteries” over her career.

Midnight Feast is her 2024 book.

It’s the opening night of The Manor, the newest and hottest luxury resort, and no expense, small or large, has been spared. The infinity pool sparkles; the “Manor Mule” cocktail (grapefruit, ginger, vodka, and a dash of CBD oil) is being poured with a heavy hand. Everyone is wearing linen.

But under the burning midsummer sun, darkness stirs. Old friends and enemies circulate among the guests. Just outside the Manor’s immaculately kept grounds, an ancient forest bristles with secrets. And it’s not too long before the local police are called. …

This story is told over 3 time frames, yet isn’t confusing. She did that well.

Chapters are told from the first person point of view of a number of characters. This worked, keeping a somewhat complicated plot from getting mixed up.

It includes (possibly) a supernatural element. Also good.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The most recent (2023), as I post, in the Ruth Galloway series. Set during Covid.

Quite good.

Some issues are finally resolved in the complicated life of Ruth.

When builders renovating a café in find a human skeleton behind a wall, they call for DCI Harry Nelson and Dr Ruth Galloway, Head of Archaeology at the nearby University of North Norfolk.  …

Ruth sees at once that the bones are modern. They are identified as the remains of Emily Pickering, a young archaeology student who went missing in the 1990s. Emily attended a course run by her Cambridge tutor. Suspicion falls on him and also on another course member – Ruth’s friend Cathbad, who is still frail following his near death from Covid.

… just when the team seem to be making progress, Cathbad disappears. Was it guilt that led him to flee?

EllyGriffiths.com

The 6th book in the Virgil Flowers series ➙ Mad River.

Not one of the best — but I did appreciate the ending.

Jimmy Sharp, Becky Welsh, Tom McCall. They were Bonnie and Clyde, they thought, and what’s-his-name, the sidekick. Three teenagers with dead-end lives, and chips on their shoulders, and guns.

The first person they killed was a girl, during a robbery. The second was a man whose car they needed. The third and fourth, well, those were personal. Then, hell, why not keep on going?

As their crime spree cuts a swath through rural Minnesota, Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigator Virgil Flowers joins the growing army of cops trying to run them down. But something doesn’t feel quite right to him about the whole thing. The kids, the victims, the people chasing them — something’s off.