Peachy Reads

This is one of those books that when it came out in 2014 was very difficult to find a copy to lend from the library.  Now it’s more readily available.  I started with the hardcover during our beach week and then switched to an electronic copy downloaded from the library when we returned (easier to read on the treadmill this way).  This is historical fiction, based on characters that actually existed—the Grimke sisters who were born as daughters of a privileged slaveholding family in Charleston, SC, and later became abolitionists; and Denmark Vesey, a freeman who organized a thwarted slave rebellion.  It was rather fascinating delving into the dark history behind the beautiful streets and mansions of Charleston.  It’s easy to forget that the wealth and prosperity of the town that you see today was largely built on the backs of slaves.

Mary is a very upper-crusty native of London.  When Britain and France declare war against Germany in 1939, she immediately shushes off the ski slopes of her posh finishing school in Switzerland, gets on a train back to England, and signs up for volunteer war service.  She fancies herself in the role of a wartime spy, but instead is put in charge of a class of school children to fill in for male teachers called to active duty.  This lasts for only a few days at which point the children are evacuated to the countryside and she is let go because she identifies a little too closely with her young pupils.  In particular, she bonds with an American boy whose father is employed by a minstrel show at the London Lyceum, and this bond lasts throughout the novel. Mary first views the war as an adventure, but is nearly done in by it.  Her large family home in Pimlico survives seemingly untouched with its servants and staid butler, almost preserved like a relic from ...

 It becomes clear that Irenie needs to save herself and her son from an emotionally and physically abusive relationship.  A representative from the USDA offers a solution, first for her son, and soon for Irenie as well. Brodis, her husband, farmer and fundamentalist preacher, looks askance at any kind of assistance from the government outsiders and comes to see the intervention as part of a diabolical plot… quite literally. Set in the Appalachians of western North Carolina in the late 1930s, the author creates a wonderful sense of place and of history.  This was a time when the virgin forests were still being violently scraped off the mountainsides, and farmers were encouraged to turn their fields over to a crop they could not eat-- tobacco.  A way of life families had followed for generations was suddenly upended. The reader is immersed in the world of the novel-- the description of the tortured hills and mountain peaks is exquisite, revealing an insider's kno...

Will is a travel writer for a publication that has him jetting off to luxurious locations and delivering mysterious packages marked “personal and confidential”.  When he finds himself spying on his own office, things start to get interesting. A post Cold War thriller that introduces so many characters and jumps around so much, that it left my head spinning.   I finished it, but in the final analysis it just wasn’t that compelling.  Pavone’s previous efforts were better, and the ending seems to hint at a series, but I’m not sure I’m up for it.   (Now that I look at my reviews of Pavone's previous books, I see that I made similar criticisms, so that may be the end for me)