TOP TEN TUESDAY: Books I Enjoyed, but Have Never Mentioned On My Blog in 2021

 

I was pretty negligent last year with my blog, so here's a list of books that I really enjoyed but never mentioned at all last year. I didn't even do a 'best of 2021' list but if I had, these would be some of the novels I would have talked about.

Mexican Gothic - Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Nice creepy, gothic book. It's not clear what is going on for quite a while, but there are interesting characters and relationships as you wait to figure out. 

The Child by Fiona Barton

The Child is part of a series that includes The Widow, and The Suspect and main character is a reporter. I read these three books out of order, but they are mostly stand-alones. There is a baby skeleton found during a renovation, and who is the baby?

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey; Giver of Stars by JoJo Moyes

I read Giver of Stars by JoJo Moyes, based on a real story about women who carried books in Kentucky as a form of bookmobiles. Real early feminism, providing isolated families with books and the information women might need to survive. So, with that background, Upright Women Wanted was also about women providing books to isolated families. But, this one is in the future so we get a futuristic take on this idea. Still, women helping women, and both books also have LGBTQ characters. Both were good. I couldn't believe I read two books that were the same but so different!

Because of You by Dawn French

Dawn French is a British actress known for The Vicar of Dibley is also an author. I read her book A Tiny Bit Marvelous and found it quite amusing. Because of You is a bit more serious, but was very good. A baby is stolen from a hospital and both stories - the stolen and the stolee, are told and it was heartbreaking.

The Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz

Great mystery described as an homage to Agatha Christie, it is actually two books in one. A sequel to The Magpie Murders, both books star a literary agent whose author turns up dead, and as she tries to figure it out, it turns out the clues are left in the last manuscript left by the author. So, we read the beginning, then we read the manuscript which is a full mystery book, and then the original story wraps up.

The Searcher by Tana French

My memory of this book is doing a puzzle over March Break last year, and nonstop listening to this book. This is one of Tana French's stand-alone books, and it was really good. An American detective has retired to the Irish countryside to get away, but gets caught up in a mystery. Terrific characters and story telling, but then, I'm a huge fan of Tana French.

Piranesi by Susannah Clarke

Probably my top fiction book from last year, just for the world-building that happened, and the immersion into the unknown place, and trying to figure it out. A book like none I've read that kept me very engaged and interested,

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty

Can't go wrong with a Liane Moriarty. She's become my Maeve Binchy of the 2020s. (That's a big compliment). Apples Never Fall follows a tennis family from Australia. The mom goes missing and her husband is suspected, and their adult children are divided on if he was involved. In true Moriarty fashion, their lives are all messy, with secrets that will inevitably come out. 

The Wheel on the School by Meindert deJong

I must have bought this book many years ago, knowing that it was a Newbery Medal winning book from 1954. It ended up being delightful! A group of six children in a small village in Holland wonder why storks don't nest there anymore. In their quest to bring back the storks, by putting a wheel on the roof, the entire village gets caught up in their plan. A little bit of adventure, a little bit of history, and working together to achieve a goal. Wonderful.

The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny

Book number 17 in the Three Pines series was one of the better ones to me. The pandemic is now a part of the story, and the idea of eugenics from an outspoken professor gets our gang of police officer providing security to a lecture. It's mostly the same ole Three Pines characters and opining by Gamauche, but something about this one was better than average. I was hoping they'd left his idiot son-in-law in France, but no such luck. The narrator, Robert Bathurst does his usual excellent job.