REVIEW: The Great Dane by Suanne Laqueur

 

OUR REVIEW:

I feel like so many of us are intimidated about writing a review for Suanne Laqueur's latest, The Great Dane, because how, exactly, do you write about it in any way that captures its many layers and do it any kind of justice? I truly don't know. 

Here's what I do know. 

I know that I recognized the bone deep grief that Dane and Liko carried with them. The way Laqueur conveyed that through Liko and Dane was so convincing that I could feel it in the back of my throat and the tremble of my lip as I'd flip to the next page. I've felt that grief. I feel that grief now as my mortality seems to be constantly flashing before my face these days.

I know that I recognized that feeling of pure happiness and joy that somehow sneaks in and settles in between the ribs of grief. As Dane and Liko recounted their pasts and their present, the relief that those happy moments provided were sweet and tender, edged with a little sad, which only made the happy that much more, well, happy.

I know that I recognized how painful and yet steadying it was/is to feel like you're living from breath to breath only to eventually realize you've somehow made it days or months and you're still here, somehow surviving. Liko was living that and the depiction of it was so accurate that I felt the phantom pains that it seemed like he was feeling.

I know that the world Laqueur created was so vivid that I wanted to live on that farm and read and write and plant and weed and sink to the bottom of the pool and hike around the property and soak in the tub and go to the pub and see all the things and feel all the feels. 

I know that a few years ago over a Christmas break, I found and fell in love with Suanne Laqueur's writing and am so glad that she gifted us with the treasure that is The Great Dane.

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SYNOPSIS:

This book is dedicated to all of us.
At one point or another, all of us have wondered who we are.
All of us have scratched at a label put on us, feeling it didn't quite fit.
All of us have felt pressured to be something we're not.
All of us have wished we were someone else.
All of us have looked in a mirror and been confused at what we see.
All of us don armor to do brave things: a change in voice, a different accent, a favorite sweater, high heels, a good luck charm.
All of us are fluid.
I used to think all of us hear a voice when we talk to ourselves but I've since learned this is only some of us. But whether or not you have an inner monologue, the book is for you. The journey is for you. The quest and the game and the mystery and the solution: all for you.
And also for me.

THE GREAT DANE

After the sudden death of his only child, Liko Greenman is looking for any way to pass, waste or kill time. He becomes obsessed with a compelling mystery within his son's favorite video game, Three Hares, and is determined to solve it. The game travels along the Old Silk Road, following the triskelion motif of the Three Hares in art and architecture. The player's journey ends abruptly at Paderborn Cathedral in Germany, but fans are certain the game isn't over.

Liko receives a condolence letter from the gaming company, with a single clue that leads him to the rural town of Birch Island, New York and a farm called Schoenfeld's. There, Liko comes face-to-face with Danelaw Strong, who has one blue eye, one brown eye, and a compelling, dual personality.

For 22 years, Dane was intimately involved with Ethan Hasen, the creator of Three Hares, and Ethan's wife, Nomi. As three deeply bonded lovers, they made a life together at Schoenfeld's that defied convention. Now only Dane is left to work the farm, a single hare grieving the loss of soulmates and simply concentrating on doing the next thing.

Recognizing they're both killing time and each has something to give the other, Liko agrees to move to New York for the summer and Dane will guide him in solving the video game's mystery. So begins a journey of friendship, love and belonging that will show Liko there's more to the Three Hares game and more to Danelaw Strong than he could possibly imagine.

Suanne Laqueur's newest novel is a chimerical blend of romance, drama, identity, power and hope. Combining legend and folklore with her signature depth and understanding of the human experience, The Great Dane explores how we view the most profound human connection in pairs, when three is often love's most magical number.

REVIEW: Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth

 

OUR REVIEW:

I've seen Sally Hepworth's books floating around the book-verse for a while now and I've been curious, but it was the first sentence of this novel that grabbed my attention. In chapters that alternate between the present and the past, we learn why she's called "Mad Mabel" and how she's become the grouchy old woman she is. Spoiler alert: she's completely entitled to be grouchy and yet she's really not-she really has a soft heart-the heart of someone who desperately wants to love and be loved. Her backstory is grisly and the experiences she had, nightmarish, and yet she lived to become a beloved member of her street and, eventually, her world. 

While not earthshatteringly revelatory, it was an interesting read.

BUY IT: https://amzn.to/49iAJLV

SYNOPSIS:There are two kinds of people no one ever expects to be: little girls and old ladies.

Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick is eighty-one years old. She's lived on her idyllic street for sixty years—longer than anyone else. Aside from being a curmudgeon who minds everyone else's business, few would suspect that Elsie has a past she's worked exceedingly hard at concealing—because when it comes to murder, no one ever suspects little girls or old ladies. And Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick, once a little girl and now an old lady, has a strange history of people in her life coming to a foul end.

REVIEW: If Only You Knew by Ellie K Wilde

OUR REVIEW:

I have only read one other book in this series and I can confirm that I adore this series. I loved Summer and Parker's stories and how the love they've always felt, but suppressed or hidden behind the veil of friendship. I mean we all knew they were inevitable, right? Right. So seeing them struggle with admitting the feelings, then feeling the feelings, then hurt while trying to do the 'right' thing was grueling and yet the ending felt immensely satisfying. Now that I've read the last two books in this series, I really really really want to read book one and then read every single thing she's written. 

It's a good one, y'all.

BUY IT:https://amzn.to/3Xu2UQG

SYNOPSIS:

In the highly anticipated final installment of the Oakwood Bay series—“packed with sizzling tension, heat, and sweet, swoon-worthy moments” (Peyton Corinne, USA TODAY bestselling author)—childhood best friends Parker and Summer agree to matchmake each other, to disastrous results, all while fighting the fact that they’ve been each other’s soulmate all along.

Summer Prescott and Parker Woods have been best friends since they were three years old. Now thirty, neither of them feels like they have a good handle on adulthood. While their friends are coupled up and thriving, they’re struggling through career crises and disastrous dates, and frequenting the same old bars and surf spots they’ve been going to for years—until, on a whim, Summer decides to hand over her love life to Parker. After all, who better to help find her soulmate than the person who knows her best?

But when the date Parker introduces her to goes from husband material to dead end in one publicly humiliating swoop, Summer is so devastated that she breaks up with both men. And she decides to embrace a fresh start away from home by entering a surf competition that’ll have her chasing waves around the world.

Parker soon realizes the troubling truth—he’s spent nearly thirty years by Summer’s side and has only just realized that he’s in love with her. Now he’s on a mission to win back not just her trust but her heart, before she slips away for good.

 

REVIEW: The Book Club for Troublesome Women by Marie Bostwick

 

OUR REVIEW:

This read was one I read for the book club I'm in and everyone in the club enjoyed it. I liked the alternating perspectives and how each of the women had different challenges and view of how being a woman in the 1960s felt--they weren't all in agreement, all the time, as it should be. We aren't a monolith, we have different experiences that color the way we see things and help define what we think is right and just. What was interesting is that they were on the cusp of so much change and I feel like we are too; but instead of progressing, we're regressing. Definitely a topic for another day.

All in all, an interesting historical fiction novel that gave us a chance to explore the worlds of four very different female characters who, despite their differences, really grow to love and support each other for the rest of their lives. Truly, who could ask for more?

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SYNOPSIS:

Four dissatisfied sixties-era housewives form a book club turned sisterhood that will hold fast amid the turmoil of a rapidly changing world and alter the course of each of their lives.

By early 1960s standards, Margaret Ryan, Viv Buschetti, and Bitsy Cobb, suburban housewives in a brand-new "planned community" in Northern Virginia, appear to have it all. The fact that "all" doesn't feel like enough leaves them feeling confused and guilty, certain the fault must lie with them. Things begin to change when they form a book club with Charlotte Gustafson--the eccentric and artsy "new neighbor" from Manhattan--and read Betty Friedan's just-released book, The Feminine Mystique.

Controversial and groundbreaking, the book struck a chord with an entire generation of women, helping them realize that they weren't alone in their dissatisfactions, or their longings, lifting their eyes to new horizons of possibility and achievement. Margaret, Charlotte, Bitsy, and Viv are among them. But is it really the book that alters the lives of these four very different women? Or is it the bond of sisterhood that helps them find courage to confront the past, navigate turmoil in a rapidly changing world, and see themselves in a new and limitless light?

REVIEW: Bitter Burn by Sierra Simone

OUR REVIEW:

It's been a long time coming and was well worth the wait. The resolution to this series had all the things, action, emotion, conflict, and an ending that felt complete. By the end of it all, they'd all been villains and heroes and found a way to get through the distrust and hurt to an understanding and realization that what may have started out like a game of pawns on a chess board ended in all of those carefully laid plans upended for a new and better reality. 

After reading this series, I think I've learned that I either need to do a full rereading of prior linked texts or just hold off on reading everything until its all released because as much as I loved and adored this series, and everything Sierra Simone has written, I feel like I didn't fully appreciate all of the Easter eggs because it had been so long since I'd read the series that led into this one and the first two books of this series felt like a pleasant but hazy memory. That's a me problem and not an author problem--I realize she writes as quickly as she writes; I also know that my memory isn't what it used to be and I want to really get the full experience.

All of that being said, I wholeheartedly recommend this series, and everything else she's done.

BUY IT: https://amzn.to/3JNttgE

SYNOPSIS:

I think it's important that you know this about me, that you understand this: I'm not sorry. I'd do it again.

After Mark Trevena's husband died eight years ago, he made vengeance his only purpose, his religion, his destiny. But to get to his enemy, he had to make himself like his enemy. Mortimer Cashel had a kingdom of secrets? Then Mark would make an empire. Mortimer Cashel had blood on his hands? Then Mark would bathe in it.

But Tristan and Isolde changed everything. Mark hadn't counted on wanting them, needing them; he hadn't counted on how it felt to watch the two of them fall in love. He'd thought he had everything under control―he'd thought he was safe from his own long-dead heart. He'd never imagined that the wronged husband, the jealous king from his childhood fairy tales, would be played by none other than himself.

It no longer matters what he used to believe. His enemy is ready to finish the game, and for the first time in eight years, Mark has pieces on the board he can't afford to lose. He'll burn the entire world to keep Tristan and Isolde safe. He'll scorch the earth―but as any good assassin will tell you, fire will only get a man so far, because there's always something left in the ashes. And for Tristan and Isolde, what's left in the ashes is the cold, bitter bones of the truth: their story begins and ends with Mark.

And every story needs a villain…