Mystery and Suspense Novels: Sunday Salon

 

The Fair Weather Friend by Jessie Garcia, Jan. 20, 2025; St. Martin's Press, NetGalley

Description: The next gripping domestic suspense novel from Jessie Garcia, author of The Business Trip.

It's always sunny in Detroit for Faith Richards. The popular TV meteorologist, endearingly referred to as "The Fair Weather Friend" by her viewers, has the world by the tail. But one night, Faith leaves work on a dinner break and never returns. Her body is found the next morning. 

The Business Trip by Jessie Garcia, Jan. 14, 2025; St. Martin's Press, NetGalley

I enjoyed the narrative told in several voices, notably those of Jasmine and Stephanie, two women who meet on a plane with startling results. Jasmine's clever way of escaping from a controlling and abusive boyfriend includes stealing Stephanie's ID on the plane, and then her complete identity later. Friends of theirs back home try to keep up by emails and text messages with the two women. Stephanie seems to have become a different person with an unbelievable reason for why she is not back at work. 

The entire suspense plot rests on the machinations of Jessica to plot and get away with stealing Stephanie's identity so that she can escape to Mexico, her ideal final destination. Stephanie's next door neighbor and cat sitter, Robert, is a main character too, who even tries to fly to San Diego to find Stephanie. 

 Showing unbelievable ways to fool people, this is a great book for travelers on what to look for to protect themselves from scammers and thieves. Jasmine is a truly Machiavellian character. 

Great plotting and character development.

Books from the Library

I borrowed quite a few books this time, being tired of reading only ebooks and wanting to have a physical book in hand for a change. 

The Rivals by Jane Pek, Dec. 3, 2024; Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor

Description

ONE OF THE WASHINGTON POST'S 10 BEST MYSTERY NOVELS OF 2024 • A witty and thought-provoking mystery that reimagines the spy story to explore the nature of relationships in a digital age: the follow-up to Jane Pek’s “thoroughly modern twist on classic detective fiction,” The Verifiers (New York Times Book Review)

“Jane Pek’s writing is really fun and will keep you hooked.” —Emily Henry, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Claudia Lin has scored her dream job: co-running Veracity, a dating detective agency for online New Yorkers who want to know if their prospective partners are telling the truth. She and her colleagues uncover a far-reaching AI conspiracy. And the corporate matchmakers may be resorting to murder to protect their secrets.

Peking Duck and Cover: A Noodle Shop Mystery by Vivien Chien, July 23, 2024; St. Martin's Press

Description:

Chinese New Year is supposed to be a time of fresh beginnings and celebrations of good fortune to come. Naturally, the shop owners of Asia Village jump at the chance to create a memorable holiday event for all. 

However, when a member of the Lion Dance performance group is found shot, festival planner Lana Lee agrees to solve the murder before anyone else gets hurt. 

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday, Book Blogger Hop

Sunday Salon: Three Chinese-American Novels ( two serious, one rom com)

 

 Book Comments/Reviews

Bad Bad Girl  by Gish Jen, Oct. 25, 2025, Knopf, NetGalley

 This novel, in which the author speaks candidly with her deceased mother,  is roughly based on the life of the author's Shanghainese mother, who had left war torn Shanghai in the late 1930s just before the Communist take over of the city. The story also covers the extended family who had stayed behind in China, how they fared and what they experienced after the Communist takeover and the different stages of that era, including the great land reform and the Cultural Revolution. 

The author's tense relationship with her mother is the major theme. A mother who calls her Bad Bad Girl! whenever the mother is dismayed by the things that her outspoken and curious daughter will say. Far from being a traditionally obedient daughter, who defers to her parents and her traditional Chinese culture, the author asks too many "Why Why Why" questions, and is too opinionated and unorthodox in her views. "No one will marry you" is her mother's constant chant. 

History, culture, immigration, mother-daughter relationships - just some of the topics handled with humor and also with some sadness, nostalgia, and regret. 

What We Left Unsaid by Winnie M. Li, Aug. 19, 2025, Atria, NetGalley

This book is by another Chinese-American writer, about a family in America.  In 2015, three adult children make a cross country road trip to visit their sick mother in California. The mother has asked them to make a detour to see the Grand Canyon on the way. 

The urgent call from their father in California had the three siblings meeting up in Chicago to begin the long drive. The mother's wish is for them to see the Grand Canyon on the way to California, to complete a family trip that was cut short in 1991, when the family abruptly turned around in Arizona before reaching their destination.

This nostalgic trip for the three at the request of their mom raises questions about what had happened in 1991 to end the original family vacation. Along the route, they put together their memories of a remote gas station stop in Arizona in 1991 and why that triggered a decision to end the drive to the Grand Canyon. 

Family relationships, family secrets, and Asian immigrant experiences are all under a microscope in this telling and revealing novel.  Another eye opening and dramatic view of an American family. 

Next on the reading list

Alice Chen's Reality Check by Kara Loo and Jennifer Young, June 3, 2025; Quirk Books, NetGalley

A reality TV contestant fake dates her rival and begins solving a real murder that happens on set. Romantic comedy with a murder mystery twist. 

“Fake dating + reality TV drama + murder mystery = an absolutely addictive read.”—Mia P. Manansala, author of the award-winning Arsenic and Adobo. 

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday, Book Blogger Hop

Last Boat by Helen Zia, and Other Books: Sunday Salon

 My review of this historical account of the people of Shanghai during and before WWII

Last Boat Out of Shanghai: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Fled Mao's Revolution by Helen Zia

The life stories of four young people in Shanghai during the 1930s - Benny, Ho, Annuo, and Bing - are told in historical detail by the author, whose research and intensive interviewing made this history so poignant, informative, and moving.

The four young people share their families' fates during the Japanese invasion, and then during the Nationalists and Communists fighting for control of all of China. Fleeing from Shanghai to Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the U.S., many people left Shanghai in a mass exodus during this time.

The author also shows the four as new immigrants to other countries, how they were received and their later accomplishments to fit into their new lives. She also shows how the Chinese are not a monolithic group as they differ in lifestyle and language and experience depending on the different parts of China they come from.

I am impressed by the amount of research and interviews that went into the telling of this history, and the amount of people who contributed information about their lives in Shanghai during wartime and after.

Daily Life  in the Summer Heat

 

I count the days till autumn weather, being tired of the extreme heat and dryness, the elevated air pollution from wildfires all over in Alaska, Seattle, British Columbia. All these make me more of a shut-in than I would like - there goes the garden, dry as a bone and needing a lot of tending, alas. There go my daily walking and outdoor activities.  I like being in air conditioning but only tolerate being in the house most of the time! 

Now, I'll be forced to finish the downsizing we started over a year ago, slowly  giving away all we no longer use or need. It's a chore, as I don't want to get rid of things I like, but then..... I also have to get back to the family history and family trees that are my current projects. There are so many things to do outdoors too, as who wants to be inside all the time! And travel? Where is there decent weather and no fires or floods or tornado watches? This is a terrible summer for me, as I'm not ready to head for Iceland as yet.

How about you? How are you weathering this summer? Watching a lot of Netflix? 

New Books Downloaded 

Notice they are all thrillers, except for the last book - romance and adventure in the South of France. 

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday, Book Blogger Hop

Poetry and Books: Sunday Salon

The Best American Poetry 2025 is a landmark edition that not only showcases the finest contemporary American poetry but also honors David Lehman’s achievement as the anthology’s founding editor. 

Familial Hungers: Poems by Christine Wu

Description

Poems that reckon with identity, race, and fractured relationships through the lens of food.

Bittersweet, numbingly spicy, herbal and milky, Familial Hungers is a lyric feast. Ginger scallion fish, Sichuan peppercorns, ginseng tea, Chinese school and white chefs - the reader's appetite is satiated with these poems' complex palate. 

There are the bubbling expectations for immigrant daughters, the chewy strands of colonial critique, and dissolving crystals of language loss. Wu relentlessly searches the grocery shelves for the hard-to-digest ingredients of identity and belonging, offering us her nourishing honesty and courage pulled from the marrow.

In 2023, she was the winner of the RBC PEN Canada New Voices Award

The Master Jeweler by Weina Dai Randel, June 24, 2025; Lake Union Publishing, NetGalley

Genre: historical fiction, Shanghai, WWII

Review: 

Captivating story of a 15 year old girl, Anyu, who leaves home in the north of China for the glittering world of Shanghai, where she learns the art of jewelry making from a family of Jewish artisans. She becomes a master jeweler with her designs and artwork and rewards the family by making their name famous in the city. The detailed descriptions of the work that went into making fine necklaces, rings, tiaras, bracelets and more using basic materials from scratch make the novel particularly interesting. 

The plot itself of a young girl who is trained to become a top artisan in her field is intriguing. The somewhat sad ending as China is invaded by the Japanese pre-WWII makes the story realistic and puts in historical context. The descriptions of Faberge eggs designed for the tsars in pre revolutionary Russia is detailed, as is Anyu's efforts to reproduce the intricacy of the jeweled eggs for her own work.

Informative and well written, an enjoyable novel of historical fiction.

Audiobooks on my list

  

Transplants

by Daniel Tam-Claiborne

A novel following two young women in pursuit of kinship and self-discovery.

On a university campus in rural Qixian, Lin and Liz make an improbable pair: Lin, a retiring Chinese student, and Liz, a Chinese American teacher grieving her mother’s sudden death. They each meet with hostility on campus for several reasons and forge a friendship.

They then swap places. Lin goes to Liz's Ohio hometown, and Liz searches for answers in China re what drove her parents to leave China before she was born. 

Transplants is a story of migration, belonging, and the parts of ourselves that get lost in translation. Alternating between Liz and Lin’s perspectives, it is an exploration of race, love, power, and freedom that illuminates the limits and possibilities of what can happen when we open ourselves to the unknown.

Se my review in Goodreads.

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday, Book Blogger Hop

To Be Read Books: The Break In; I Did Warn Her; Wanting

 TBR List

The Break In by Katherine Faulkner, Aug. 26, 2025; Gallery Books, NetGalley.  Mystery, thriller, suspense

After killing an intruder in self-defense, a wealthy London mother must unravel a terrifying mystery filled with twists and turns, from the author of the “deliciously twisted thriller” (People) The Other Mothers.

I Did Warn Her by Sian Gilbert, June 17, 2025; William Morrow, NetGalley, thriller

A superyacht in the middle of the Atlantic.
A stewardess running away from her past.
A fatal secret.

Below deck, nothing stays hidden for long. (publisher)

Book beginning:

SASHA:

I don't deserve it: the sparkling sea lapping against the pier, the smell of salt and petrol, the freedom that awaits me. I don't deserve any of it. 

Wanting by Claire Jia, July 1, 2025; Tin House Books, NetGalley, contemporary, multicultural

A searing novel of envy, longing, and regret across three lives and two countries that asks how far we’ll go for a friendship, a romance, a dream.

Ye Lian is thriving in Beijing and wants for nothing – until her childhood best friend, Luo Wenyu, comes back after a decade in California. Luo has a successful career, a millionaire American fiancé, and a mansion in the Beijing suburbs–throwing Lian’s own reliable choices into high relief.

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday, Book Blogger Hop

Meme: book beginnings by Rose City Reader

Booking Through Thursday: What Makes a Good Book

 

Join Booking Through Thursday: 

Everybody needs a change now and again, so what new topics or authors are you interested in these days? Or what new kinds of books do you wish you had time for?

I'm looking for good writing in the books I read these days, and if the first page or pages don't grab my interest right off, I move on to the next book. First person narratives are interesting, as are the voices of adolescents or children, or struggling personalities, female or male. 

Books with in depth characterizations, complex individuals, and teasing ideas are just as important or even more important as the plot per se. Of course, an intriguing and unusual plot that leads you on becomes just as important as the characters sometimes. 

Have you found any books lately that fit the bill for you? 

Here are a few books that kept and are keeping my interest throughout:

Foreign Fruit: A Personal History of the Orange by Katie Goh, May 6, 2025; Tin House, NetGalle

The Master Jeweler by Weina Dai Randel

Pick a Color by Souvankham Thammavongsa, (September 30, 2025; Knopf Canada; NetGalley

The Water Lies (October 2025; NetGalley)

What books are you reading that have you staying up at night? 

Re gardening: the storms and rains have prevented much gardening but the yard looks bright and green though overgrown. I replanted red lilies from the back to the front flowerbeds, but the winds and rain uprooted them, so I'm back to digging and fixing this morning.

How about you? 

We'll Prescribe You Another Cat and Other Reviews

 

Multiple Book Genres

I've been jumping around genres recently, from Japanese literary fiction to thrillers and cozy mysteries, to historical fiction. 

We'll Prescribe You Another Cat by Syou Ishida, Sept. 2, 2025, Berkley, NetGalley

Genre: magical realism, contemporary Japanese fiction

The doctor and nurse at The Healing Clinic for the Soul lends out Bengal cats for a week, prescribing a cat for those with problems at home that could be fixed with a cat in the house. The stories are clever and cute, and I loved the magical and fantasy aspects of both cats and clinic, and the doctor who does the prescribing. If I did not have allergies, I'd prescribe myself a cat!

 

Look in the Mirror by Catherine Steadman, July 30, 2024; Ballantine

Genre: thriller, suspense

Two women, Nina and Maria, are caught up in a house that they cannot fathom, it's secret so huge literally and figuratively. Both women are warned not to enter the basement or enter any of its doors, but they don't comply, being too curious and overly adventurous.

Maria's ordeals in the basement and Nina's bewilderment at the house that her dead father bequeathed her, turn out to be a puzzle the women must play and win. The author's plot around this house as the scene for a dangerous game is intriguing and original.

Thrilling and suspenseful, the story is surprising and the ending shocking.

 

Currently reading

The Master Jeweler by Weina Dai Randel, June 24, 2025; Lake Union Publishing, NetGalley

Genre: historical fiction, Shanghai

Description: the epic story of a brilliant young woman’s rise to fame in the perilous world of jewelry in 1920s Shanghai.

Harbin, China, 1925. Fifteen-year-old Anyu Zhang discovers a priceless Fabergé egg in the snow and returns it to the owner, Isaac Mandelburg, a fugitive former master jeweler for Russia’s imperial palace. In gratitude, he leaves her his address in Shanghai and a promise of hospitality, forever altering her fate.

Memes:  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, , and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday

Sunday Salon: Swallows: A Novel by Natsuo Kirino, and Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman

 Two reviews

Swallows by Natsuo Kirino

Genre: Japanese literature, adult fiction, contemporary fiction


Riki comes to Tokyo not knowing anyone and needing to find a job, but the only thing she can find is a job as a surrogate for famous ballet dancer Motoi and his wife, Yuko, who cannot have children. Riki provides the egg, and she is artificially inseminated with Motoi's sperm. The dancer and his wife agree to take care of all Riki's surrogacy expenses and to raise the child as their own.

However, when Riki discovers she is carrying twins who may not have been fathered by Motoi but possibly by one of two other men with whom she had brief affairs just before insemination, things become complicated for all concerned. And especially for Riki whose maternal instincts kick in later in her pregnance, leading her to maybe consider the idea of raising the twins by herself.

The complications of surrogacy is explored in this novel, not only the physical demands and procedures, but the emotions of the people involved. Changes of mind by all three, from one state to another, make this novel a study in personalities and characters in a difficult situation. I read on, mesmerized by the story and the final resolution. It was not a disappointment.

Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman

Genre: thriller, mystery set in Bora Bora

Erin and Mark on their honeymoon and sailing in Bora, Bora, find a heavy, bulky bag floating in the water far away from land. They decide to turn it in to their hotel front desk, but Erin, ever the curious one, tears open the bag and makes an irresistable find. They try to keep the bag for themselves, but Erin digs into the background of the possible owners by powering up a cell phone left in the bag and talking to someone on the other end.

Scuba diving in the same area, they had also found the sunken wreckage of a small plane, with people inside.

This starts a cat and mouse game, with Erin digging herself deeper into the mystery and getting both herself and Mark in danger from the unknown persons connected to plane and the bag. They both decide to keep the information to themselves and return home to England with the bag's contents.

Needless to say, danger follows them, and the reader is left with a plot twist that is as mind boggling as it is unexpected. Excellent thriller.

 

Authors coming to our local library

June 17, 2025; William Morrow, NetGalley

Laura Lippman, mystery author visits our main library for her talk on June 26 featuring her books and most recent mystery novel.

Description: Muriel Blossom, a former PI and a middle-aged widow, takes a vacation on a Parisian river cruise, and finds a deadly international mystery only she can solve.

 

May 20, 2025; Sourcebooks, NetGalley

Kristina McMorris will discuss her historical fiction novels on July 22 at the library

Description: Portland, 1888. In the notorious Shanghai Tunnels in underground Portland, a drugged woman finds herself "shanghaied" and being shipped off as forced labor. She serves as a maid for the family of a dubious mayor and becomes entwined in a goldminers' massacre. Being half-Chinese, passing as white during an era of anti-Chinese sentiment, Celia must find a way to escape a place of unearthed secrets more dangerous than the dark recesses of Chinatown.  

In my mailbox

Thanks to Soho Press for a hard copy of the new mystery by Zoe B. Wallbrook, History Lessons, publication July 1, 2025.

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday, Book Blogger Hop

Book Reviews: Sunday Salon

 

The House Guest by Hank Phillippi Ryan

Feb. 3, 2023; Forge Books

Genre: thriller

My thoughts: The plot was clever and the characters unusual.  I was however disappointed in the personality of deceived wife, Alyssa, separated from unfaithful husband Bill. Alyssa feels Bill is playing tricks on her from afar, testing and harassing her from wherever he is hiding out.

Her new house guest, Bree, is a strange one, and I was suspicious of her from the beginning, especially as she seems to be planning with her friend Dez, to maybe trick Alyssa in her home. Alyssa seems so clueless at times, unaware, and often too dense to take in her situation and dealing with the cops and Bree and Dez

There are plot twists that show the reader may not be always correct in making assumptions right off the bat. Yet Alyssa is naive enough that you have to root for her as the novel goes on.

Audiobook 

Mr. Nobody by Catherine Steadman,  published January 7, 2020, Ballantine Books 

Genre: psychological thriller

Setting: Britain 

I reviewed this book on another blog five years ago and gave it a solid five stars. Now on listening to the audiobook, I'm just as impressed as I was when I first read the book.

Mr. Nobody is suffering from fugue, retrograde amnesia due to psychological trauma, which means he does not remember anything from his life before he found himself wandering on a beach in the north of England. Neuropsychiatrist, Emma Lewis, is called in to the hospital to diagnose and treat the patient, which becomes one of the most challenging cases in her career.

Mr. Nobody seems to know Emma, however, and maybe even her secrets from her past. Mr. Nobody may be a military man who has lost his memory. Nobody knows for sure. I don't recall the ending of the novel and am enjoying the audio and anticipating a dramatic ending.

Finished reading

The Mysterious Case of the Missing Crime Writer; Sept. 9, 2025; Minotaur Books, NetGalley

This novel is about the disappearance of a famous Icelandic crime writer, Elin S. Jonsdottir, whose sudden absence is investigated by a young detective, Helgi.  

The story is reminiscent of Agatha Christie's famous disappearance and reappearance, but the fictitious story of Elin is quite different. Elin's private life and the people involved in her life are key to the mystery, and the result of Helgi's search then becomes plausible. 

Helgi's own private romantic life is a side story added to the main plot. It makes the detective more human, and contributes to the novel's interest. 

This mystery is a traditional mystery and not noir, as so many Nordic mysteries are, but it was an enjoyable read, nevertheless.

Pick a Color by Souvankham Thammavongsa, (September 30, 2025; Knopf Canada; NetGalley

Genre: adult fiction, Canadian fiction, Laotian 

I enjoyed the realistic portrayal of a nail salon owner, Ning, how she deals with her staff and clients, and how she achieves the smooth running of her shop. Nings's observances of people and situations puts her on top of all possible scenarios that might crop up, and rewards the reader with astute and discerning commentary in this first person narration.

Ning is acutely aware of the biases and the stereotypes that the public makes of her occupation, even by her very own clients. This character driven novel is informative, giving us an inside look into a workplace and the staff and customers and their interactions or noninteractions as the case may be.

A highly recommended and unusual book.

About the author: Souvankham Thammavongsa is the author of four poetry books, and the award winning short story collection HOW TO PRONOUNCE KNIFE. She was born in the Lao refugee camp in Nong Khai, Thailand, and resides in Toronto.

What are you reading these days? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves