“The Five Wishes of Mr. Murray McBride” by Joe Siple (Black Rose Writing, 2018)
This is the touching story of recently widowed 100-year-old Murray McBride. He finds a new purpose in life when he meets 10-year-old Jason Cashman, who is suffering from heart disease and needs a heart transplant. Jason has five final wishes and Murray is determined to help him fulfill each one. The wish brightens Murray’s life as he simultaneously relives his professional baseball career and his life with his beloved wife Jenny. The reader gets to know the characters, including Jason’s divorced mother and his friend Tiegan. Parts of the novel are hard to believe, particularly a mother who allows her sick son to ride in a car driven by a very old man without a license! But the gift Jason receives at the end of the book is both shocking and joyful. — 3 stars (out of 4); Diana Doner, Lafayette
“Shakespeare’s Sisters: How Women Wrote the Renaissance,” by Ramie Targoff (Knopf, 2024)
The subtitle should really be “How Privileged White Women Wrote the Renaissance,” because only that subset of women in Elizabethan England had the time, education, and even materials to write. Targoff draws on recently discovered diaries, letters, poems, and even plays written by four different women (plus Queen Elizabeth I herself) to describe life in Renaissance England, with its societal expectations, legal constraints, political intrigue, everyday boredoms, and personal joys and sorrows. You’ll discover countless trivial but fascinating tidbits of information that you just have to share. — 3 1/2 stars (out of 4); Kathleen Lance, Denver
“Table for Two” by Amor Towles (Viking, 2024)
This riveting short story collection begins in Russia, moves on to New York, and ends with a novella set in Hollywood’s Golden Age. The book begins in the final days of the Tsarist regime with the kindhearted Pushkin, a man who finally finds some success in his homeland, but then leaves Russia and sails to New York with his clever wife, who doesn’t appreciate his good nature and generosity (and actually has her own gruesome plans for a new life). Subsequent stories delve into the darker sides of human nature, each with the possibility of betrayal or even unexpected loyalty. The final entry is a 215-page novella that brings back a familiar character: Eve from Towles’ first book, Rules of Civility, who uses her charm to infiltrate the elite Hollywood clique she befriends. When she comes up with the idea that two washed-up photographers are trying to blackmail several well-known and vulnerable actresses of the 1930s, a race begins to cleverly thwart their business plan, earn her place in Hollywood and give a few aging friends one last triumph. — 4 stars (out of 4); Karen Hartman, Westminster
“I cheerfully decline” by Leif Enger (Grove Press, 2024)
Set in the near future, I Cheerfully Refuse is a mythical saga for the present. Rainy, a bass guitarist and all-around good guy, sails around Lake Superior on an odyssey as eventful as Odysseus’. He encounters villains and heroes, betrayal, beauty, grief and hope. This story can be very dark, but as much as I don’t want to see that possible future, I hope that people like Rainy and his wife Lark will live in it. Enger’s literary gift is such that he writes even horrific scenes with grace. — 3 1/2 stars (out of 4); Neva Gronert, Parker
“In a Lonely Place” by Dorothy B. Hughes (New York Review Books, 1947)
From the Atlantic’s 2024 list of the best novels of the last 100 years. Hughes turns the classic detective noir story on its head, shifting the narrative perspective from the typically cynical, marginalized and sinister detective to the serial killer himself. Will the hapless detective ever find out? Will the killer’s friends finally see him for who he really is? A true page-turner. — 3 1/2 stars (out of 4); Kathleen Lance, Denver
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