Redwood Court by DéLana R. A. Dameron

REDWOOD COURT by DéLana R. A. Dameron has a creative cover and was chosen as a Reese’s Book Club Pick, plus it has received accolades from talented writers like Ann Napolitano (Hello Beautiful), Renee Watson (Piecing Me Together) and Jacqueline Woodson (Red at the Bone). And, Dameron’s series of stories about multiple generations of a Black family living at Redwood Court in Columbia, South Carolina is in some ways reminiscent of their family novels. But Dameron’s work seemed more complicated. For example, she finds it necessary to introduce her many characters in a list which became a handy reference for me because I found it difficult to clearly picture the characters and to remember how they were originally connected to each other. It was also a challenge to relate to a suburban enclave where (perhaps reflecting the 1960s time period, or the culture, or even the sheer determination of one woman named Weesie) neighbors seemed to be overly involved in each other’s business. The publisher says that this text from an established poet “is a celebration of extraordinary, ordinary people striving to achieve their own American dreams.” Perhaps something will strike a chord with you?

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

THE TAINTED CUP by award-winning author Robert Jackson Bennett (Foundryside) is a LibraryReads selection for February. It is a very entertaining mix of mystery and fantasy. A military guest of a wealthy family has been killed and an eccentric investigator, Ana, and her new assistant, Din, seek to solve the murder and the puzzle of how it is connected to the threat on the territorial defenses after an alarming breach, for “it took every bit of cunning and planning to survive what came from the seas to the east each wet season.” There is a sense of Holmes-Watson interplay here since Ana seems capable of truly intuitive analysis while Din, engineered to have a prodigious memory, is still learning and developing confidence. The world building is immersive and impressive, too. It will be fun to see more in this series. THE TAINTED CUP received starred reviews from Booklist, Library Journal and Publishers Weekly (“Readers will be wowed.”).

A Wild and Heavenly Place by Robin Oliveira

A WILD AND HEAVENLY PLACE by Robin Oliveira (My Name is Mary Sutter) is an historical fiction novel which spans the late 1870s to the early 1880s and begins in Scotland, but ends up on the West coast of America near Seattle. The main characters are a young, very privileged woman, Hailey MacIntyre, and a destitute teenage orphan, Samuel Fiddes. They meet and are attracted to each other, but circumstances separate them for years, as told in chapters that alternate between the two. This is a tale of broken hearts (due to poor business practices and to the thwarted romance which is a main focus) and the hardships associated with poverty. Oliveira readily conveys class differences in Scotland as well as the dirt and clamor of Seattle, essentially a frontier town in that era. Although the characters and their choices seem unrealistic at times, this story is uplifting in that it shows how hard work (Samuel wants to build ships despite no formal training; Hailey struggles to support her younger brother) plus the courage to pursue a dream and the kindness of others often combine to a positive end. Overall, this novel offers an escape to a different time and place, with a fairly predictable plot. Oliveira purposefully acknowledges the many people – librarians included – who assisted in her extensive research. And she writes, “A WILD AND HEAVENLY PLACE is less a summary of historical events than it is a chronicling of human desire - the impossible, the terrible, and the beautiful - in a time before Amazon, Microsoft, and Starbucks, when coal, timber, and shipbuilding ruled a rollicking raucous town of immigrants on the make, hungry for profit, but mostly hungry for home.”