The Princess of Las Vegas

The Princess of Las Vegas by Chris Bohjalian 400 pages

 

There is nothing more exciting than getting my hands on the latest Chris Bohjalian novel.  I love to sink down into my favorite chair and enter another compelling and entertaining world that this master storyteller creates. In this outing, “The Princess is fake, but the murders are real.”

 

The main character, Crissy Dowling, is a sensation on the Las Vegas stage. In a town full of impersonators, Crissy stands out as a Princess Diana look-alike, which draws British royals fans from, all over the world. However, it’s not “The Strip,” but the seedy portion of the strip where the casinos are down on their luck, looking rundown and out of date. But the tickets to shows are cheaper, so that’s some consolation.

 

By day, Crissy lounges in her private cabana, enjoys an Adderall and Valium cocktail, eats until her heart’s content, then purges so as not to gain weight.

 

Crissy’s life is the same, day after day. That is until Betsy, her estranged sister who could be her twin, blows into town with a newly adopted daughter and a rich boyfriend. Betsy has barely made her presence known when then bodies start to pile up.

 

First, it’s the two co-owners of the Buckingham Palace Casino where Crissy pretends to be a long-dead princess. Then things start to twist and turn. The mob (What’s a Las Vegas tale without the mob?) is trying to bring cryptocurrency to Vegas, but it is not without its price tags. Sometimes I felt as if I was in a James Bond novel.

 

A lot of the action takes place around cryptocurrency that I admit I don’t understand. Therefore, The Princess of Las Vegas receives 4 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

 

Now comes the hard part, waiting until March 2025 when Bohjalian’s next novel is due to be released. It sounds more my cup of tea: historical fiction set during the American Civil War.

 

 

 

The Photographer

The Photographer by Mary Dixie Carter 304 pages

For fans of Tarryn Fisher’s ‘The Wrong Family.”

Delta Dawn is the children’s photographer to New York City’s elite. She specializes in children’s birthday parties. She is magic behind the camera, thanks in part to a boatload of editing software. She can make the most disastrous party look like fun was had by all. For the most part, she is just a fly on the wall, unseen and unnoticed.

Then Delta is hired by Amelia and Fritz Straub to shoot eleven-year-old Natalie’s party. It’s there that she realizes this is the perfect family and longs to be noticed, to play an important role in their lives.

She develops a plan that will integrate her into their lives and becomes indispensable to the Straub’s. The plan begins with Delta taking an interest in the neglected little girl. She begins babysitting on Friday nights when Amelia and Fritz have to go out. The Straub’s are famous architects who have clients around the world. Delta tries to seem like a friend who can help. She runs errands for Amelia; talks with Fritz about a myriad of subjects.

When Delta isn’t at the Straub family home, she is in her apartment, manipulating photos to include herself. The pictures are of her and Fritz…in bed and naked; of her and Amelia…laughing and drinking wine, standing extremely close together…photos of her and Natalie having fun.

Delta learns Amelia deepest desire, and how that desire has been thwarted over the years. But Delta knows how to help make her dream come true.

Carter, a first-time novelist, has created a super-duper creepy thriller that will have readers looking twice at anyone who comes into their homes. I read it in one day! There was only one problem in this pageturner. There is no explanation as to why Delta needs this family so much. What triggered this obsessive need to fit in with the Straub’s. Not that it impedes the creep factor, but as I read the last page, I wondered what was Delta’s motive?

I was going to give “The Photographer” 6 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world. However, due to the lack of motive, “The Photographer” received 5 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

 

The Talented Miss Farwell

The Talented Miss Farwell by Emily Gray Tedrowe   352 pages

Two hours south of Chicago is the small town of Pierson, Illinois. Becky Farwell is a quiet, single woman who is the town’s treasurer and accountant.  She knows the books by heart. She is always able to find some money by juggling the books to fund whatever project the town needs funding. Her one outlet is art, and soon she begins collecting it.

However, Becky doesn’t want to be quiet intelligent Becky. She wants to be sophisticated, well versed in the art of conversation, especially art. So she re-invents herself, going by the name Reba Farwell.  She has a different wardrobe and a completely differently personality than Becky.

Becky/Reba becomes obsessed with collecting art and making as much money as she can. She is tired of struggling in her small farming community and trying to run the family farm-equipment business. The problem is, Becky/Reba needs money to feed her new obsession.  She begins siphoning money from Pierson’s different account.

This goes on for years. She buys and sells art all the while replacing what she has “borrowed” from Pierson. However, at one point, she is almost three million dollars behind returning the money.

Readers don’t have to be accountants to understand what Becky is doing, nor do they have to know art to understand Reba’s mania. This heist thriller had me on the edge of my seat for most of it.

 The Talented Miss Farwell receives 5 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world. 

 

They Say Sarah

They Say Sarah by Pauline Delabroy-Allard (Translated from the French by Adriana Hunter) 176 pages 

The unnamed narrator of this novella is a single mother living in Paris. Although she has a boyfriend, the narrator feels something is missing.

On New Year’s Eve of an undisclosed year, the narrator attends a party. She isn’t having a very good time until the loud, obnoxious Sarah makes an appearance. The narrator is fascinated with this woman who is the total opposite of herself.

Although they start out as friends, it isn’t long before they wind up in bed, something they narrator says has never happened before---for either of them.

I saw this story as one about love, not about being gay. But as with many relationships, one of the parties becomes obsessed with the other.

I have to say that I did not like this book.  I was annoyed with the author; why the narrator couldn’t named---unless of course, the reader was supposed to insert herself into that role. That’s asking a lot from the reader. There was too much angst, mostly on Sarah’s part, for me. The plot is almost non-existent: two women obsessed with each other

“They Say Sarah” receives 2 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

The Orchid Thief

The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession by Susan Orlean, 284 pages


Susan Orlean is a journalist. She came across a story about man who was arrested for stealing endangered orchids from a Florida swamp. Orlean goes to Florida to follow the case and ends up meeting the man. John Laroche had been hired by the Seminoles to set up a nursery and he came up with a scheme to obtain the rare orchids, clone them and sell them to make a lot of money.

Laroche is the central character in the narrative but Orlean also profiles several other people and investigates related subjects. Laroche is a fascinating man who begins exploring a subject and then becomes engrossed in it. He may spend years collecting items but then decides he is done with it and stops, never to do it again. She delves into the world of obsessive orchid collectors and producers. She also explores the history of orchid collecting, the history of Florida and the history of the Seminoles.

It does get a little slow in the middle but it is worth it to go through to the end. This was a re-read for me and I found it as compelling as I did the first time. I would recommend this to people who like narrative nonfiction.

This Messy Magnificent Life:

This Messy Magnificent Life: A Field Guide by Geneen Roth      Audio Book:  4 hours, 19 mins.    Hardback Book:  223 pages                 

The first ¾ of this book was like delving into someone’s inner thoughts who is so totally depressed you can feel their despair.   It was really hard for me to wade through most of this book, because all I could get out of it was how burnt out the writer seemed to be.   It’s like she is spent, she has told these stories so often now, she can’t work up any real compassion to continue giving of herself.    It definitely comes across she is needy and requiring her therapist’s help more at this point in her life.    Everything she says during the first part of the book seems like verbal vomiting.    She is regurgitating things she has said so often that she is tired of hearing herself say them.    To be fair she tells a lot of stories about people she has helped over the years, she talks about her own  past and how horrible her life was at home and the things she has tried over the years to heal the hurt that doesn’t go away, so, it is understandable when you come to the last quarter of the book maybe where she was going or at least where her summations arrive in the later chapters.    The last quarter of the book make up for the incredibly depressing first three quarters but it honestly was a big struggle to get there.   I kept on with her story because I knew there had to be a point to it, and, I was determined to push on to find it.   If you have ever watched a film that is so bad you want to turn it off or leave the theater but, feel committed to try to seek something worthwhile in it that was my feeling with this book.    I felt like I was listening to someone who has overmedicated themselves go on and on talking covering many topics but not really making a point from any of the talking they are doing.    I was glad to get to the summation (at last) and honestly she brings up a lot of good things throughout, it is just that you feel like you want to say, “and then?” but by that time she has drifted off sort of leaving the thought dangling in space or she completely moves on to another topic entirely not completing that train of thought either before drifting off again.   Like I said the first three quarters of this book was agony to get through for me, it was like a rehash of something she had said before and she was so bored from talking about it so often or else she was so out of it that she couldn’t keep on topic herself.   Clarity won out in the last quarter and it is as if she had a strong cup of coffee and began to speak clearer and stayed the course to the end.   I wouldn’t recommend this one, personally. 

Bring Me Back

Bring Me Back by B.A. Paris.  336 pages  Read a galley

Layla has vanished and Finn's sure she's never coming back. However, ten years later, someone is leaving signs that she has returned. Now, Finn's worried because he's kept the truth about Layla hidden. And just because he's moved on with his life doesn't mean the past isn't catching up with him now. This suspenseful, intense story demonstrates how love can be so strong that it can twist people into things they don't recognize. Psychological suspense at its best!

When Finn and Layla are on holiday and stop for gas, he gets out of the car and comes back to find her gone. He tells the police the truth (well, mostly) and after ten years he's moved on with his life. Actually, he's moved on with Ellen, Layla's sister. While his past is a tiny part of his life, Layla is never too far from his mind. When he comes home from work one day and finds Ellen sitting, turning something over in her fingers that she's found on their doorstep, he knows his past has now come roaring back; this object is something that only he would truly understand the meaning of.

Now, things start unraveling. As the story reveals more details about Finn and his past, you realize that perhaps he's not the man everyone things he is. After all, he has an awful temper. Is that what happened to Layla? And what part may other people around Finn, including Ellen, play in all of this?  B.A. Paris keeps you guessing until the very end of the book, which meant I was whip-reading this book, engrossed and turning the pages well into the night. I felt like after I finished the book, I wanted to go back and re-read it and see if I could find hints of things that I had missed the first time through. This is a quality work of psychological suspense, but it's also a statement about obsessive love, which I found pretty interesting.

The Year of Fog

The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond     432 pages

When I go on vacation, I like to read books that place in that locale. This year my destination was San Francisco, and I happened upon this wonderful novel about memory, obsession, and one woman’s search for a missing child.

I don’t know about you, but when I hear about a child who has gone missing without a single trace, I shake my head, say a quick prayer, and tell others that I cannot imagine what the parents are feeling. Michelle Richmond did an amazing job in keep the character in one place yet moving forward at the same time, all the while letting readers be voyeurs of this horrific happening.

Freelance photographer Abby Mason is the step-mother-to-be to six-year-old Emma. Abby loves her new role as fiancée and as friend and mom. Abby and Emma go to the foggy Ocean Beach almost every day. Today it may be summer, but it’s almost always cold and foggy at this remote beach. Emma twists her tiny hand from Abby’s and runs ahead. Momentarily distracted by a dead seal pup, when Abby turns back to Emma, she has disappeared in the fog. Literally, she is gone.

Readers will get a behind-the-scenes look at a search for a missing child. The police and volunteers who comb the area, the flyers, the reward posting, the sleepless nights, the inability to choke down more than a few morsels of food, the fear that grips Abby and Jake, Emma’s father.

Police at first believe she has drowned. Then they look at the Jake and Abby as possible suspects. Jake goes on national television to plead with anyone who may have seen Emma, especially her mother, Lisbeth, who abandoned Jake and Emma three years earlier.

As the minutes turn to hours to days to weeks to months, the police give up as new, more solvable cases capture their attention. After months, Jake wants to hold a memorial service and move on with life. But not Abby, she refuses to believe that Emma cannot be found.

Readers go with her on her travels through the Bay area, shoving flyers into strangers’ hands, practically begging for help. Readers go with Abby on her quest to locate any memory of their surroundings on the beach that day.

I don’t often have a need to peek at a novel’s ending, but the tension is so great that it was all I could do not to peep at the ending.

I give The Year of Fog 6 out of 5 stars.

If He Had Been With Me

If He Had Been With Me by Laura Nowlin, 330 pages

Have you ever just... gone into the bathroom and punched yourself in the chest 330 times? No? Well... me either, but I'm pretty sure I know what that feels like now. But this is a positive review! And I promise I'm not a masochist!

Almost from the title alone, you can tell where this book is headed. I feel like I can only diminish it by going into too much detail. Instead, I'll say this: while the story is simple, the writing is superb. Being able to sneak incredible insight (almost unnoticed) into scenes that feel perfectly real is a rare skill, and Nowlin does it flawlessly on many occasions here.

There's a four-page chapter almost squarely in the middle of the book that perfectly encapsulates not only what the book is about, but also why it's great. As much as I'd like to block quote all four pages, I'll just say "sometimes sad things are beautiful." This story is an experience that is often difficult to push through - for the most part, I read it in small pieces - but is worth the struggle.

It should be stated that this book fails the Bechdel test about as badly as it is possible to fail. But in a story about obsessive unrequited introvert love, it's understandable.

This would never be a novel I could recommend to everyone. But if you're wearing a breastplate, then you might be okay.