Three very special picture books about kindness and compassion

/ Pamela Kramer

Picture books — quality picture books — send strong messages to children. Maybe even to the adults reading the books to children. Don’t get me wrong, picture books that are written purely for humor have their place, and kids adore them, but a picture book with a message can be essential when presenting ideas like kindness and compassion to young children and older children. These three recently published picture books are very different from each other, but all share that basic quality: they demonstrate kindness and compassion.

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‘Lady of Uncanny Charms’ by Charlie N. Holmberg is part of her Whimbrel House series.

/ Pamela Kramer

Charlie N. Holmberg continues her fantastical and compelling fantasy series that began with an enchanted house (think haunted house) and turned into a lovely series filled with magic, an admirable woman, an author, an alternate 19th Century world, some romance, and plenty of evil. Now, in her newest addition to the Whimbrel House series, “Lady of Uncanny Charms,” we travel across the pond to where Owein, originally the soul occupying the haunted house, is due to be married.

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‘Until She Dies’ by Kendra Elliot is the third novel in this mystery series

/ Pamela Kramer

Noelle Marshall, of the eponymous series, is a main character readers come to admire. In this series, Kendra Elliot features a main character who was a minor character in her “Colombia River” series. But if, like me, you didn’t read that prior series, don’t worry. You’ll be drawn into this new set of characters and events right away. Noelle Marshall is a fascinating complex main character, but there’s an equal amount of focus on Max, the FBI agent who met her while investigating her in the first book in the series.

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“Not a Word” is an unusual, tightly knit mystery novel by Linwood Barclay

/ Pamela Kramer

Author Linwood Barclay’s “Not a Word” is a mystery/murder/suspense novel featuring a most unusual plot structure, relatively little blood and gore, and a small but fascinating family of main characters who are all flawed products of a psychologically disturbed past. The narrative structure of the novel cleverly wraps our minds inside a developing story of mental illness, obsession, deadly secrets, love, and hatred.

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‘The Three Graces of Pearl Street’ by Elizabeth Wellington Rollins is a story of love, generosity, grace, and family

/ Pamela Kramer

At the heart of “The Three Graces of Pearl Street” is the concept of family, as Elizabeth Wellington Rollins introduces us to the three titular Graces, the matriarch Graziella, her daughter Grace, and her granddaughter Ella, all three being Graziellas with different nicknames to differentiate them from each other. Graziella is ninety-six when the novel begins, so it’s clear she is at the end of her rather prodigious life.

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‘Hollow Bones’ by Jodi Picoult is a beautiful story of family and sacrifice

/ Pamela Kramer

What lengths will a mother go to in order to keep her child safe? In “Hollow Bones,” prolific author Jodi Picoult demonstrates both what a mother’s love can mean in terms of a loving parent and self-sacrifice, and the polar opposite, what happens when a mother abdicates all responsibility for a daughter’s welfare. And along the way in this emotionally fraught novel, we come to see different types of love and the life-changing results that emanate from flawed humans making mistakes.

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‘Think Like a Dog: How Positive Psychology Can Help Your Dog Thrive’ by Dr. Jen Golbeck, Phd

/ Pamela Kramer

Perhaps it’s quite appropriate that I’m having a hard time writing this review because one of my dogs, Milo, is on the couch nudging me to pet him and not taking “no” for an answer, thus making it impossible to type on my computer. I believe he’s exhibiting what the author of “Think Like a Dog: How Positive Psychology Can Help your Dog Thrive” would consider the positive trait “persistence.”

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‘The Pirate Queen’ by Ariel Lawhon is thrilling, fascinating, informative, and touching — fabulous historical fiction

/ Pamela Kramer

My favorite kind of historical fiction is one in which the story is based on real facts, and thus while enjoying a great story, I am also learning about history. Ariel Lawhon is perhaps the queen of historical fiction, so it seems quite fitting that her newest novel is titled, “The Pirate Queen.” It’s a complex novel about Ireland in the 16th Century, a country consisting of clans and chieftains, rivals and infighting, but above all, a refusal to surrender to England.

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‘The Secrets We Hide’ by Karin Slaughter is the second in her thrilling new ‘North Falls’ series

/ Pamela Kramer

While “The Secrets We Hide” might be the second thriller in Karin Slaughter’s new series, “North Falls,” you’d really never know from her careful plotting and reveal of information. Of course, with an extremely experienced writer of successful series like the “Will Trent” series, you’d expect nothing less, and Slaughter delivers. The first novel, “We Are All Guilty Here,” introduces the main characters and explains just some of the many secrets surrounding those in Clifton County, Georgia.

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‘The Shadow Friends’ is the third book in ‘The Martini Club’ series by Tess Gerritsen — retired spies of a certain age can’t stay idle for long

/ Pamela Kramer

It makes sense that authors are creating novels in which the main character(s) are “of a certain age,” and in Tess Gerritsen’s series “The Martini Club,” she has not only embraced that concept, she has flown with it. In “The Shadow Friends,” the third novel in the series, the usual crew are assembled for a conference on global catastrophes in their small town in Maine, when a catastrophe actually occurs. It’s not of a global nature, and it appears, at first glance, to be a simple case of food poisoning. But with this group, we know there’s more.

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‘Under the Ghost Moon’ by Lyn Liao Butler is a historical saga about the ties that bind us

/ Pamela Kramer

In her latest novel, “Under the Ghost Moon,” Lyn Liao Butler shares her cultural heritage with readers as we meet Joey, the daughter of two Taiwanese physicians. It’s through Joey’s narrative that we learn about Taiwan’s oft-violent history, and the sacrifices that many made to ensure a democratic government. Joey’s journey begins when her last living relative, her brother, dies.

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