‘The River We Remember’ by William Kent Krueger is about midcentury, midwest values—the good and the bad

October 1, 2023 / Pamela Kramer

Most people reading “The River We Remember” will not really remember the year 1958. And even fewer will be able to relate to small-town Minnesota as William Kent Krueger depicts it. In the rural town of Jewel, many of the inhabitants are either farmers or those in town who support farmers by providing food at the local diner or teaching their children at the local school. Sheriff Brody Dern protects people, but his job is usually dealing with drunks. That changes on Memorial Day when the body of local wealthy farmer Jimmy Quinn is found in the river.

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‘Crow Mary’ by Kathleen Grissom is a brilliant melding of history and fiction

June 11, 2023 / Pamela Kramer

Kathleen Grissom consistently exhibits her brilliant ability to meld historical facts with immersive fiction, and in “Crow Mary” she brings to life an actual historical figure whose bravery and strength inspire us as the beautiful narrative brings that era and its inhabitants to life. Grissom spent years researching Crow Mary’s story, including talking to her descendants. This is one of those rare novels that not only has a gripping story line, a strong protagonist, and a fascinating setting, it also teaches us about history. We learn about “Indian reservations” and their ever-changing boundaries (not in favor of the Indians). We see the blatant racism (no surprises, there), and just one small example of the brutal massacres to which Native Americans were subject.

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Two children’s picture books that would be banned in Florida — each one powerful and important

April 13, 2023April 13, 2023 / Pamela Kramer

Perhaps the threat of certain books being banned makes it even more important that those books be shared and read. Two books that certainly fit the bill are “That Flag” by Tameka Fryer Brown and Nikkolas Smith and “Love is Loud: How Diane Nash Led the Civil Rights Movement” by Sandra Neil Wallace and Bryan Collier. While the books are very different—one is a very touching story about the Confederate flag and its effect on the friendship of two girls, while the other is a nonfiction account of a valiant woman whom few have heard of. Both are books about topics that would certainly damage the fragile sensibilities of those who cringe at any reference to our racist past and our often-uncomfortable current racist reality.

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‘Not So Perfect Strangers’ by L. S. Stratton is a story of abuse, revenge, and the lengths we go to for those we love

April 13, 2023 / Pamela Kramer

There’s a saying that no good deed goes unpunished, and in “Not So Perfect Strangers,” L. S. Stratton takes that adage to the max by showing how Tasha Jenkins suffers from the good deed she does late one night when she gives a stranger a ride. Tasha has been planning to leave her abusive husband, and she and her teenage son are staying in a hotel just prior to getting on a plane and going back South, where Tasha has family, to live. She is determined to leave D.C. and Kordell Jenkins, whose abusive tendencies have kept her basically a prisoner in her own home. To “punish” her, he took away Tasha’s car keys, her phone, her credit cards. And he hasn’t let her work. So when she finally makes plans to get away, she is shocked when her son disappears and she finds a note in their hotel room that he doesn’t want to leave his dad or his girlfriend.

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‘The Woman with the Cure’ by Lynn Cullen is a fascinating look at the eradication of polio that celebrates the women who were instrumental in that success

March 3, 2023March 3, 2023 / Pamela Kramer

In “The Woman with the Cure,” Lynn Cullen’s masterful historical fiction, she focuses on Dr. Dorothy Horstmann, a little-known woman scientist, who made important contributions in the race to find a way to eradicate polio. Cullen also brings to life familiar figures in the race against polio such as Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin. We learn much about both men, and of course, they are the scientists who come to mind when we think of those who created polio vaccines that saved so many lives. Cullen brings to the forefront the women who also performed important work, work that enabled these two famous men to create their vaccines. But as with so many brilliant women in history, the real women we meet in this story, especially Dorothy Horstmann, have remained largely invisible until Cullen’s research demonstrates their dedication, their determination, and their desperate attempts to destroy this horrific disease.

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‘The House of Eve’ is a stunning historical fiction novel about Black history and two women’s lives

February 27, 2023 / Pamela Kramer

In “The House of Eve,” we read about three years in the lives of two young but very different Black women, Ruby and Eleanor, and we learn great deal about their situations. We also learn not only about life in the early 1950s, but about the abusive and sometimes misogynistic treatment of women in those times before any real emphasis on women’s rights. And that on the ladder of social ills and mistreatment of women, Black women were on the lowest of the rungs. A college student at Howard University, Eleanor learns right at the start of the story, after being denied admittance into the desirable ABC (Alpha Beta Chi) sorority, “that Negroes separated themselves by color.” There is an irony that being Black and attending a Black university did not exempt the students from being subject to cruel prejudice based on the color of their skin. Eleanor’s roommate, Nadine, is from a wealthy Washington, DC family, unlike Eleanor, whose family comes from very modest roots in a small town in Ohio. Eleanor’s parents scraped and saved, and her mother baked and sold pastries to help Eleanor go to Howard University.

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‘A World of Curiosities’ by Louise Penny is a brilliant and gripping mystery with many twists

December 8, 2022 / Pamela Kramer / 1 Comment

Louise Penny’s latest entry in her Chief Inspector Gamache series is brilliant and addictive. While it begins slowly as Penny is creating the backstory, that narrative becomes all-important later in the novel when the action and the connections are so fast and furious that it’s almost impossible to put the book down. We feel compelled to keep reading to see what clues will be uncovered next, who will die or be in danger, and what connection to the past an item or person has that we are just learning about.

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