Pieces of Happiness by Anne Otsby

There's a certain kind of book that appeals to readers who are stuck in the daily grind. They feature characters who are of a certain age who are tired of life passing them by. 

NPR has called it "late life reinvention," and that is an apt description for these titles:

Backman, Frederik. Britt-Marie was Here. (2016)
Davis, Brooke. Lost and Found. (2014).
Evison, Jonathan. This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance. (2015).
Tyler, Anne. Ladder of Years (2010). 

Now, here's a new book that fits that theme, Pieces of Happiness by Anne Otsby. In Otsby's novel, a group of friends in their sixties move to a Fiji island and start a chocolate business. 

The Dark Dividing by Sarah Rayne

This hypnotic novel tells the story of a house, Mortmain House, located in the Welsh Marches, and the people whose lives intersect with its sad history.

Mortmain, means "dead hand," because the house was protected from taxation for its so-called charitable purposes. The house served as a workhouse and orphanage before it fell into disrepair.

When Melissa Anderson gives birth to conjoined twins in the 1980's, the prognosis for their separation is good. Since they are only joined at the shoulder and side, doctors expect they will be able to separate them. 

Their story is intertwined with another set of conjoined twins who lived at the turn-of-the-century, Viola and Sorrel, who faced vastly different prospects. 

Hopelessly entwined, Viola and Sorrel, are sent to Mortmain, the house for unwanted children. From there they are sold to Tom Dancy's freak show. 

The novel moves back and forth from the present to the past. Readers are given glimpses of  the the twins from the eighties, Simone and Sonia, and contrasted with their turn-of-the-century counterparts.

In one fateful moment, Simone meets her twin at Mortmain, whom she has never met before. After the eighties twins are separated, one of the twins, Sonia, is kidnapped by a woman who feels she is "owed a child."

She has an odd reason for believing that Melissa owes her a child--and its all goes back to Mortmain House.

A thriller, a mystery, and a gothic horror story, this is an intriguing novel about the power of secrets, telepathy and ghostly occurrences.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Tom Sweterlitsch

In the future,  everything, even murders, will be recorded in an Archive that researchers can search for clues.  

This sounds like CCTV, which already exists, except its more of a virtual reality experience. Individuals, like John Dominic, who lost his wife, can relive moments with their loved ones in an endless loop.  

All of the wiring for internet streaming is surgically implanted in their skulls, so no one needs a computer or device. 

John Dominic is not only obsessed with his deceased wife. He's also obsessed with solving a cold case, Hannah Massey, a woman whose body he finds in the Archive. 

Poetry, criticism, Adware, Internet streaming are all part of this eerie cyberworld. 

Framed for a crime, Dominic is forced to switch doctors and treatment plans. Previously, he had been a substance abuse addict. He is referred to a new doctor, Dr. Reynolds, who may be hiding a shady past. 

John Dominic has also been entrusted to find another woman who has disappeared from the Archive--the elusive Albion. Pursuing her will prove dangerous.

Soon to become a feature film, this exciting science fiction novel will please mystery fans and fans of Hugh Howey's Wool. 

The Gone World is Tom Sweterlitsch's latest novel. 

The Shell Collector by Anthony Doerr

The Shell Collector is a rich collection of stories by Anthony Doerr, winner of the Pulitzer prize.

These stories preceded All The Light We Cannot See yet the were crafted with the same level of meticulous care. Characters have strange obsessions with shells ("Shell Collector") or magic and hunting ("The Hunter's Wife") or fishing ("A Tangle By the Rapid River.")

Often Doerr writes about disabled characters who can understand the world more deeply than everyone else. The blind shell seeker, for instance, discovers that the deadly cone snail can cure illness; this turns him, for a time, into a miracle worker. 

Twyman's deaf daughter, Belle,  in "Caretaker" develops a friendship with another outcast, a war refugee from Liberia, Joseph Saleeby. She's the only one who can see him clearly; that's he is not a criminal or poacher but someone chasing a dream like her.

Two stories have couples that become estrange from each other. In "The Hunter's Wife," a hunter hunts a shy magician's assistant as he would any other prey. He doesn't know her secret: "I have magic inside me."

She had the gift of being able to see visions, the sights animals and people see right before they die. Though she becomes something of a celebrity, her gift frightens the hunter so much that he avoids her for twenty years. 

In "Mkondo," a man chases a woman until she becomes his wife. He is a paleontologist looking for a rare bird artifact to take back to his museum. He weds an African woman, Naima, and takes her to Ohio. He becomes estranged from her. He like the hunter in the last story doesn't understand her.

Maybe the most empowering heroine arc is the one found in "For a Long Time This Was Griselda's Story."

For years, Rosemary lived in the shadow of her sister who performed circus acts with a metal eater. After a long period of estrangement, Griselda comes to visit her hometown but Rosemary has had enough.

"But--and this is what we remember later--she was the one we looked at:  her hair trembling on her head like flames, her shoulders back, her chest quaking--an image of power and fury. She burned, magnificent, in the snow, barefoot, in a T-shirt and green sweatpants, shouting at us."

Power and fury, indeed. These are all stories of outcasts who come powerful and furious, glorious in their gifts. 

The Year of Cozy by Adrianna Adarme

The Year of Cozy by Adrianna Adarme is a beautiful book with some outstanding recipes.

Divided into seasons and months, this recipe books also contains helpful advice and crafts.

In the Winter section, the "Crab Grapefruit Granita Salad" and the "Orange-Thyme Upside-Down Cake" look superb. The author is from LA; thus, there's a lot of citrus recipes. 

In the Summer section look for "Aguas Frescas."

http://www.acozykitchen.com/

A Dark Dividing by Sarah Rayne.

This 2011 novel by Sarah Rayne is wonderfully strange and gothic.

At outset, a reporter has a mission to uncover a mystery surrounding a family. He becomes compelled by the photographs that Simone Anderson displays at the Thorne gallery. 

Somehow the journalist can detect Simone's dark secret:

"She had been four years old when she became aware of this inner darkness, and she had been a bit over five when she began to understand where it came from.

The other little girl, The unseen, unheard child whom no one else

could see or hear, but who lay coiled and invisible inside Simone's mind. Simone did not know her name so she just called her the little girl."

The Dark: a Netflix original series

Some have referred this as a more grown up "Stranger Things." The kids in this series are in high school rather than middle school. Other than that, it shares many characteristics with the other series: a small town (this one in Germany), a government facility(a nuclear power plant), woods for kids to disappear in. 

Louis Hofman (Land of Mine) stars in this series as Jonas Kahnwald. 

Best books of 2017

An easy to use database (app) for finding best books by NPR. Use the filters on the left to narrow lists down:

https://apps.npr.org/best-books-2017/

The app features 374 books. 

Publisher's Weekly Top Ten,
https://best-books.publishersweekly.com/pw/best-books/2017/top-10#book/book-10

Kirkus Review,
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/issue/best-of-2017/