The Gates of Evangeline by Hester Young

by:  Hester Young
published by:  G.P. Putnam's Sons
publish date:  September 1, 2015

When New York journalist and recently bereaved mother Charlotte “Charlie” Cates begins to experience vivid dreams about children she’s sure that she’s lost her mind. Yet these are not the nightmares of a grieving parent, she soon realizes. They are messages and warnings that will help Charlie and the children she sees, if only she can make sense of them.

After a little boy in a boat appears in Charlie’s dreams asking for her help, Charlie finds herself entangled in a thirty-year-old missing-child case that has never ceased to haunt Louisiana’s prestigious Deveau family. Armed with an invitation to Evangeline, the family’s sprawling estate, Charlie heads south, where new friendships and an unlikely romance bring healing. But as she uncovers long-buried secrets of love, money, betrayal, and murder, the facts begin to implicate those she most wants to trust—and her visions reveal an evil closer than she could’ve imagined.

First, I had some issues.  I listened to the audiobook.  Evangeline in Louisiana is pronounced Evange-Lynn or in some rare cases Evange-Line (with a long I).  I've never heard anyone pronouncing it Evange-LEEN.  It was aggravating me.  The author also apparently had some kind of idea that people in Louisiana/Texas are just toting around guns all willy-nilly.  It was a really frustrating bias.  However, if I didn't live here, I probably wouldn't have picked up on.

The story is about Charlie who begins to experience psychic visions after she tragically loses her son.  She is presented with an opportunity to write a true crime novel about the infamous disappearance of the son of a wealthy Louisiana couple.  She decides to take the job when she begins to have dreams about a little boy asking her for help.  She moves onto the family estate and begins investigating the family and turns up more than she bargained for.

Other than the few issues I had, I did enjoy the story.  It was a well written mystery that had me engaged until the very end.  It looks like there will be more books featuring Charlie Cates in the future.  I will be looking forward to them.

The All Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg

by:  Fannie Flagg
published by:  Random House
publish date:  November 5, 2013

Mrs. Sookie Poole of Point Clear, Alabama, has just married off the last of her daughters and is looking forward to relaxing and perhaps traveling with her husband, Earle. The only thing left to contend with is her mother, the formidable Lenore Simmons Krackenberry. Lenore may be a lot of fun for other people, but is, for the most part, an overbearing presence for her daughter. Then one day, quite by accident, Sookie discovers a secret about her mother's past that knocks her for a loop and suddenly calls into question everything she ever thought she knew about herself, her family, and her future.

Confession time:  This is the first Fannie Flagg book I've read.  I've seen the movie Fried Green Tomatoes, but I've never read the book.  This book was very good.  It was touching but it was also very funny.  
Sookie has lived her entire life under the thumb of her overbearing Southern mother.  Lenore Simmons comes from a long line of Simmons and she can tell you each and every one of them.  Sookie has put up with her larger than life mother for 60 years until she finds out that she isn't even her mother.  She was adopted and never knew about it.  Now, Sookie calls her entire life into question and begins to wonder who she is?  She starts to research her family and learns what a remarkable family she comes from.

I really loved this book.  Firstly, it was a really good story.  I love quirky little southern stories with all their weird characters.  Secondly, this book had some great little nuggets of history in it.  I learned some really fascinating bits of historical trivia like nurses traveling the country inspecting bathrooms and the first female pilots.  I will definitely be looking for Fannie Flagg!

Throwback Thursday: Burial Ground by Alan Shuman

by:  Alan Shuman
published by:  Avon Books
publish date:  1998 originally, republished July 14, 2014 Open Road Press

Hired to find an ancient Tunica Indian burial site on a recently purchased Louisiana plantation, Alan Graham and his associate, P. E. Courtney, realize that a killer is on the loose when their client is murdered and the tenant is nowhere to be found.

I was surprised I had never heard of Alan Shuman before.  He's a local author and he writes about archaeology.    I'm glad that I have come across his books, because they're quite good.  He does a good joy portraying the local culture and customs.  His story is also clear and well written.

Burial Ground tells the story of Alan Graham, a contract archaeologist being hired to check out some private land.  The owner believes that there is an Indian burial site on his land that could be very valuable.  However, the owner very quickly ends up dead.  Alan is dogged every step of the way by a new archaeologist in town trying to horn in on his business.  They can either fight over the job or join forces.  

I would definitely recommend this series to mystery readers, people with an interest in historical artifacts, and people with an interest in Louisiana.  I was excited to find this new to me writer.

Dollbaby by Laura Lane McNeal

by:  Laura Lane McNeal
published by:  Pamela Dorman Books
publish date:  July 3, 2014

When Ibby Bell’s father dies unexpectedly in the summer of 1964, her mother unceremoniously deposits Ibby with her eccentric grandmother Fannie and throws in her father’s urn for good measure. Fannie’s New Orleans house is like no place Ibby has ever been—and Fannie, who has a tendency to end up in the local asylum—is like no one she has ever met. Fortunately, Fannie’s black cook, Queenie, and her smart-mouthed daughter, Dollbaby, take it upon themselves to initiate Ibby into the ways of the South, both its grand traditions and its darkest secrets.

When I read Dollbaby, I felt like Laura Lane McNeal had grown up watching all the same movies I did and reading all the same books I had.  Looking at her bio, she grew up in New Orleans and she looks to be roughly the same age as me, so it's likely to be true.  

When Liberty Bell's father suddenly dies, her mother drops her off at her grandmother's house in New Orleans.  They've been estranged from Fannie because she didn't think her son was good enough to marry Ibby's mother.  After her father's death, Ibby is thrust into a world she doesn't know with people she doesn't know, grieving her father and not understanding why her mother left her there.  Queenie and Dollbaby do their best to help Ibby adjust to her new surrounding.

The whole time I was reading this book I kept wondering why it was titled Dollbaby and not something else.  It didn't really feel like Dollbaby was the main character.  She was A main character, but not THE main character.  In the end, it made more sense, but I'm not going to give that away.  I thought this was a strong debut novel.  I'm always excited to read books from authors of my home state of Louisiana and Laura Lane McNeal did us proud!

Caring is Creepy by David Zimmerman

by:  David Zimmerman
published by:  Soho Press
publish date:  April 3, 2013

Fifteen-year-old Lynn Marie Sugrue is doing her best to make it through a difficult summer. Her mother works long hours as a nurse, and Lynn suspects that her mother’s pill-popping boyfriend has enlisted her in his petty criminal enterprises. Lynn finds refuge in online flirtations, eventually meeting up with a troubled young soldier, Logan Loy, and inviting him home. When he’s forced to stay over in a storage space accessible through her closet, and the Army subsequently lists him as AWOL, she realizes that he’s the one thing in her life that she can control. Meanwhile, her mother’s boyfriend is on the receiving end of a series of increasingly violent threats, which places Lynn squarely in the cross-hairs.

Lynn Marie lives with her single mother that doesn't seem to notice that her daughter spends all her time drinking, smoking and messing with people's heads online.  Lynn Marie's mom is getting both of them involved in a narcotics deal that's going to go terribly wrong.  However, Lynn has plenty of problems of her own.  She hooks up with a soldier online and meets him in person.  When he decides to go AWOL, Lynn takes him in and realizes that he has some serious problems and she likes taking care of him a little too much.

This book is one of the more seriously messed up stories I've listened to this year.  That said, it was a pretty great book, if you like that kinda thing.   Lynn Marie and her friends are weird and do crazy things.  Her mom is a mess and is never around.  Logan is suffering from some kind of mental breakdown and the idea of Lynn holding him captive in her closet is so bizarre.   Listening to the audiobook, I kept thinking it sounds like a really freaky Joshilyn Jackson book, like that real good Southern fiction, but dark in a Gillian Flynn kinda way.  Like if those two got together and had a book baby.

Obviously this book won't be for everybody.  It's dark and really weird, but if that's what you're into, this book is for you.  

The Tilted World by Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly

by:  Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly
published by:  William Morrow
publish date:  October 1, 2013

Set against the backdrop of the historic 1927 Mississippi Flood, a story of murder and moonshine, sandbagging and saboteurs, dynamite and deluge-and a man and a woman who find unexpected love.

Ingersoll and Ham are on the hunt for missing Revenue agents and moonshiners when they happen upon an abandoned baby at a crime scene.  Being an orphan himself, Ingersoll takes a liking to the baby and despite telling Ham that he brought the baby to an orphanage he keeps little Junior for a few days.  Ing and Ham are assigned to look for the missing agents and the notorious moonshiner they were investigating in Hob Nob, Mississippi.  Ing knows he can't keep the baby any longer so he drops him off with a nice looking woman in Hob Nob by the name of Dixie Clay.  Ing and Ham are closing in on their man, who just so happens to be Dixie Clay's husband, and just in time, because the levees are going to hold back the flood waters much longer.  

I loved this book.  The characters were fantastic.  Ingersoll and Ham were colorful and fun and Dixie Clay was beautiful and tragic.  The setting was perfect.  I learned so much about the flood of 1927 that I never knew and it made me go research it more.  It was so fascinating.  Definitely check out some of the pictures, they're amazing.

This will be one of those books that I will recommend this upcoming holiday season.  The southern fiction fans will love it.  The historical fiction fans will love it.  I think it will have broad appeal.  

Review: Someone Else's Love Story by Joshilyn Jackson

by:  Joshilyn Jackson
published by:  William Morrow
publish date:  November 19, 2013

At twenty-one Shandi Pierce is juggling finishing college, raising her delightful three-year-old genius son Nathan, aka Natty Bumppo, and keeping the peace between her eternally warring, long-divorced Christian mother and Jewish father. She's got enough complications without getting caught in the middle of a stick-up in a gas station mini-mart and falling in love with a great wall of a man named William Ashe, who willingly steps between the armed robber and her son.

There's a long time between now and when this book actually comes out, but once I got a copy in my hands I just couldn't wait.  Joshilyn Jackson is one of my all time favorite writers.  

Someone Else's Love Story had a little bit different feel to it than JJ's other books.  It had more serious undertones.  The book dealt with topics like rape and the lengths some women will go to deny that violence has been done against them.  Another topic in this book was Asperger's Syndrome.  I wondered if Joshilyn was inspired by her friend Lydia Netzer and her book Shine, Shine, Shine.  Another great book btw.

While this book leaned a bit more towards the serious, it still had all the quirky language that makes Joshilyn Jackson books so fun to read.  Her books just keep getting better and better.  If you haven't read one yet, I so highly recommend all of them.

The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow by Rita Leganski

by:  Rita Leganski
published by:  Harper Paperbacks
publish date:  February 26, 2013

Conceived in love and possibility, Bonaventure Arrow didn’t make a peep when he was born, and the doctor nearly took him for dead. No one knows Bonaventure's silence is filled with resonance - a miraculous gift of rarified hearing that encompasses the Universe of Every Single Sound. Growing up in the big house on Christopher Street in Bayou Cymbaline, Bonaventure can hear flowers grow, a thousand shades of blue, and the miniature tempests that rage inside raindrops. He can also hear the gentle voice of his father, William Arrow, shot dead before Bonaventure was born by a mysterious stranger known only as the Wanderer.
I live in Louisiana so I'm always ready to read books that take place in Louisiana.  This book was a great example of Southern literature.  I really enjoyed this book.

Bonaventure never says a word, but he can hear every sound that was ever made.  His father William was murdered before he was born, but he can hear his father's ghost and maintains a relationship with his father while William works out how to get to heaven.  Bonaventure's mother and grandmother spend their time coping with William's death and learning how to survive without him. 

Personally, I thought it was a beautiful book.  However, this book was heavy on religion so I can understand how it might come across as preachy or heavy-handed.  So if that sort of thing doesn't bother you, then this book might be for you, but if it does then you might want to give it a pass.