Reviews

I've been quite negligent about posting reviews of the books that I've read recently, so here's my effort to begin to catch up.

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I find that Elin Hilderbrand's books are generally good for a light summer read and this one certainly falls into that category.

The setting is Nantucket (of course!) and the main character is Hollis Shaw. Hollis has recently lost her husband and as a grieving widow, she is lonely and searching for a focus and purpose for her life. 

Hollis has a summer home on Nantucket and she comes up with the idea of inviting a friend from each decade of her life to spend a weekend with her at that home. Accordingly, she invites Tatum, who was her childhood best friend; Dru-Ann, her best friend from college; Brooke, a friend from when their children were growing up together; and Gigi, who is her favorite internet friend. (Hollis is a blogger and Gigi follows her blog.) Little does Hollis know that she and Gigi share another connection and grief at a loss.

Hollis asks her daughter, Caroline, to interview and film each of the women as they discuss how they know Hollis. Of course, they each have their own problems and concerns and these are revealed through the interviews. The weekend becomes something of a therapy session for each of them.

Overall, I found this to be an enjoyable, non-taxing read. I've read Hilderbrand books before so I knew what to expect and I was not disappointed. If you are looking for a good beach read, here it is!

My rating: 3 of 5 stars  

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Long, long ago in another hot summer not unlike this one, I read the Agatha Christie classic And Then There Were None.  If I wasn't hooked on reading murder mysteries before, that book sealed my fate. I searched out more books like that and especially more Christie books. I think, over time, I finally read all of her books, and some of them, like The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, I read more than once. Apparently, Alice Feeney is a Christie fan as well.

In Daisy Darker, Feeney has written a kind of homage to Christie's And Then There Were None. Feeney's story takes place on a tidal island that is cut off from the rest of the world once the tide rolls in.  At that point, it will be eight long hours until the island reconnects with the mainland.

The title character, Daisy Darker, is the granddaughter of the woman who lives on that tidal island. Nana is turning eighty years old and the family is gathering on the island to help her celebrate. Naturally, all of those family members have their own secrets and concerns, so it is a prickly assembly. 

It's made a bit more prickly by the fact that a storm is gathering which threatens to isolate the island even more. As the storm rages at midnight, Nana's body is discovered. It was not a natural death. In an hour, another family member is found dead. Someone is killing them off, one by one. But who? Is there anyone on the island besides family members?

So, what we have here is the classic locked-room mystery, and kudos to Feeney; she handles it quite well. She's no Christie but then nobody is but hers is a creditable effort.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars