June 2022 Picks

Litani by Jess Lourey. I feel so lucky that I stumbled upon this author, starting with the great Unspeakable Things and now moving on to Litani. Litani is a small rural town in Minnesota where our protagonist fourteen-year-old Francesca is sent to live. She must now reside with her estranged mother after her beloved botanist father in California dies. Francesca is sure that she is the one that killed her father but the reader doesn’t learn about those circumstances until later in the novel. Litani proves to be a strange place. It is the 1980’s and amongst the swirling hype and rumors in the nation over satanic worship Francesca is confronted by three young girls in local wooded area that invite her to play “the game” and then proceed to beat her up. Not long after this encounter one of the girls goes missing. As if that wasn’t weird enough there never seem to be any children playing outside and Francesca learns from the one friend she makes, Crane, that her prosecutor mother is working on uncovering an alleged child sex abuse ring in the town. The tension builds as Francesca finds out more about her father and her mother who grew up in this town and what happened to her father’s younger brother when they were all young.

Mrs. Fletcher by Tom Perotta. This absorbing novel features single divorced mom Eve and her son Brendan who part ways as Eve drops Brendan off to begin college. Eve must come to terms with living her life without her son around and hilariously delves into mom-themed porn to assuage her loneliness. Eve is the executive director of a senior center and the story sweetly and deftly moves between Eve‘s relationships with her friends, her ex- husband, and her son. This while her own Mrs. Robinson inspired foray into her sexuality reinforces her confidence in herself and eventually gives way to the unexpected happiness that Eve finally finds. I really like Tom Perotta’s diverse array of novels!

Long Bright River by Liz Moore. This novel follows the paths of two sisters who wind up following two divergent paths. Michaela “Mickey” Fitzpatrick is a police officer in the Philadelphia area and her younger sister Kacey has followed a life of drugs and prostitution. When a string of murders prompts Mickey to check on the welfare of her estranged sister, she discovers that Kacey’s been missing for quite some time. Next follows the harrowing story of Mickey tracking down her sister amongst the opioid addled city all while trying to take care of her four- year-old son as a single mother. Secrets from the troubled past of the two sisters are uncovered, characters who fall either into the good guy category or the bad guy category are exposed, and the reader learns twists that reveal just what heroism is.

Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell. This is a page- turning novel of psychological suspense! Golden girl Ellie has gone missing and her mother Laurel must deal with the abyss of not knowing what really happened to her. Ten years has gone by and Laurel meets a charming, handsome stranger who begins to open up a seed of happiness in her. But when Laurel meets his nine-year-old daughter Poppy she is struck by the resemblance to her own missing daughter. The book goes back to tell Ellie’s story and the reader learns the shocking and disturbing truth about what happened to her. The story is full of twists as the reader tries to figure out who Floyd really is, whether Ellie ran away or if something much darker has happened to her. Unputdownable!