When District Attorney Rachel Knight witnesses a homicide case she really knows nothing about being dismissed because of an ill prepared prosecutor she jumps up and tells the judge that the People will be refiling the case.    She has a feeling about the case but also wonders why she opened her big mouth.  She enlists the aid of her friend Bailey, who is an LAPD detective.

As Rachel and Bailey investigate the homicide – the murder of the homeless man, they discover he’s the brother of a cop who was brutally murdered the year before.  Things don’t quite add up, though, and they struggle to find the one person who can give them answers.  They need to act fast, because someone is on their trail and that someone doesn’t want them to find the answer.

Guilt by Degrees, by Marcia Clark, is the second in her Rachel Knight series (the first is Guilt by Association) and it is fantastic!  There’s no sophomore slump here – I think this book might be even better than the first.

Rachel Knight is a fabulous character.  She’s smart, funny, and just a little bit snarky.  She’s tenacious, determined, and good at her job.  She’s loyal to her girlfriends but a little cautious in relationships because of some things from her past.  She works hard but knows how to play hard too.

The book is full of action and the mystery is solid – it kept me guessing until the end and I was satisfied with the conclusion.  I was drawn into the book from the beginning and it kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time.  Don’t let Clark’s celebrity keep you from reading these books – she writes very entertaining mysteries and her experience in the district attorney’s office gives them the feel of authenticity.   I look forward to reading her next book and hope it features Rachel Knight.   If you enjoy mysteries and/or thrillers, be sure to pick up Guilt by Degrees!

Review copy provided by Mulholland Books.  I am an Indiebound Affiliate.

I’m very excited to welcome Jillian Medoff here today since she’ll be in the upstate for a Book Your Lunch event on July 19.  I’ll be there and hope you’ll join me if you’re in the area.  Jillian’s third book, I Couldn’t Love You More was released on May 5 and it’s getting great reviews.  Jillian was kind enough to tell us a little bit about the book’s background.

I Couldn’t Love You More is about a stepmother who is forced to decide which of her children she’ll save in a freak accident. People have been asking what inspired me to write this book, wondering, I guess, how much of my novel is autobiographical. Here is the short answer: none of the events that occur in I Couldn’t Love You More actually happened; however, everything in this story is true. In other words, I personally have never experienced a Sophie’s Choice moment, nor do I know anyone who has. However, if I have done my job correctly, every detail in this novel, including how the characters look, feel, act and react will be consistent; that is, true to the way that I, the writer, envision them and you, the reader, experience them. So if you believe the whole book, then I have in fact written a true story.

Many years ago, in graduate school, I took a master class with Grace Paley who said, “Write what you don’t know about what you know.” It didn’t occur to me until a few years ago that this is exactly what I do. I’ll take moments from my own life, from my family’s life, from strangers’ lives and I’ll look at what would normally happen—what I know—and then I’ll consider everything I don’t know, the big “what if’s.”

Like my other two novels, Hunger Point and Good Girls Gone Bad, I Couldn’t Love You More evolved in this way. Here’s what I knew: I’m a mother and stepmother. I have three children. I love them each equally but all differently. I’ve always been a writer who tackles complex themes and risky subjects—I write about the things that people think but never say aloud. So I was looking for a challenge. If a book has a predictable storyline or familiar situations, there’s little satisfaction in writing it. A woman deciding which man she’ll spend her life with? I’ve read that story a million times, but a stepmother deciding which of her children she’ll save in a freak accident? Now that’s a challenge.

I had no idea how I would react if forced to choose between my daughters, and figuring that out became my obsession for the next decade. In fact, even though the novel is finished and published, I still grapple with the question. I mean, how can any of us know what we would do in that situation?

About the author:

The eldest daughter of a traveling salesman, Jillian moved 17 times by age 17, ultimately ending up in Atlanta, where her new novel is set. She has a BA from Barnard and an MFA from NYU, and is grateful for having studied with such luminary writers as Mona Simpson, Jonathan Dee, Robert Coover, and Alice Walker. She also attended Master Classes with Toni Morrison, Joyce Carol Oates, and Grace Paley. Although these authors continue to influence her work in powerful and diverse ways, she suspects few of them, if any, remember her. A former fellow at the MacDowell Colony, Blue Mountain Center, VCCA and Fundacion Valparaiso in Spain, Jillian taught at NYU and the University of Georgia, but for only, like, five minutes. She currently lives in New York with her family, and has no plans to move anytime soon.

Connect with Jillian: Facebook · Twitter · Website

Susan M of Newfoundland, Canada is the winner of Ten Beach Road by Wendy Wax!  Congratulations Susan and thanks to all who entered.  Don’t despair if you didn’t win, there’s still time to enter to win:

The Beach House and Beach House Memories by Mary Alice Monroe.

Welcome to Mailbox Monday, a meme started by Marcia and hosted by Martha of Martha’s Bookshelf in May.   Last week was another busy week but I didn’t do anything all that exciting.  I did, however, find some exciting things in my mailbox.  Here’s what I got last week:

Monday

• A Hundred Flowers by Gail Tsukiyama was a win from St. Martin’s Press

Tuesday

• I Love Corn by Lisa Skye came from Andrews McMeel Publishing

Wednesday

• Sea Change by Karen White came from Penguin
• Wallflower in Bloom by Claire Cook came from Simon & Schuster

Thursday

• City of Women by David R. Gillham came from Penguin
• The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafon came from Harper Collins
• People Who Eat Darkness by Richard Lloyd Parry came from Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Did you find any goodies in your mailbox last week?

Eddie Pettit was a sweet, gentle man known for his ability to work with difficult horses.  He was a little slow, but everyone loved him because of his kind spirit.  When Eddie dies in an accident his friends are sure he was murdered but the police think otherwise and don’t investigate.

Since Maisie Dobbs came from the same neighborhood Eddie did, his friends look to her for answers.  Maisie was fond of Eddie and is determined to solve the case.

I’ve heard so much about Maisie Dobbs that I almost had myself worked up into a tizzy before I listened to Elegy for Eddie by Jacqueline Winspear.  I couldn’t wait to see what all the fuss was about and, I’m sad to admit, it didn’t live up to my lofty expectations.  I’m not sure if my expectations were too high or if coming into the series this late was the problem but I didn’t adore this book the way I thought I would.  I don’t want to give the impression that I thought the book was bad because I didn’t – I just didn’t love it.

Elegy for Eddie is set in the years before World War II and there’s plenty of talk of war and Hitler.  At times the war talk seemed to overshadow the mystery to me.   It also seemed that there was more talk than action in the book.  I’m not sure I really understood the relationship between Maisie and James and wondered if I’d missed something as I listened.

I did enjoy the setting – both time and place – and the characters.  I can definitely see the appeal in Maisie.  She’s smart and loyal and hasn’t forgotten where she came from.   I thought a few of her conclusions were a little odd, but going into details might spoil things.

The audio version of this book was narrated by Orlagh Cassidy and she does a marvelous job, especially when she was reading dialogue.  Her accents sounded so good to me I was surprised to discover she’s American.  The audio version runs just over ten hours.

Review copy provided by Harper Collins. I am an Indiebound Affiliate.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books.  It’s easy to participate – just post a picture that was taken by you, a friend, or a family member and add your link on Alyce’s site.

Turtle Summer, by Mary Alice Monroe, is a scrapbook of sorts celebrating a summer a “turtle lady” and her young daughter spend at the beach.   The focus is on sea turtles and how they lay their eggs high up on the beach, but other sea creatures are highlighted as well.  The book presents facts in a fun way that young readers will enjoy.  I think the way it’s written as a scrapbook makes it very accessible and I loved the fact that it includes photographs instead of drawings.  I was particularly fascinated by the photos of a turtle laying its eggs, a bucket full of turtle eggs that were being moved to a safer spot, and young hatchlings making their way to the sea.  I really hope to witness hatchlings emerging from their nest after reading this book.

The back of the book has some interesting facts and also some activities for young readers.  I actually learned quite a bit as I read it.  As a fun aside, if you look closely, you can spot Mary Alice Monroe in a few of the photos.  If you have a trip to the beach planned with your little ones this summer, you need to pick up a copy of Turtle Summer to read before you go.   This great trailer gives you an idea of what the interior of the book looks like:

For more children’s books reviews, go to Booking Mama’s feature, Kid Konnection. If you’d like to participate in Kid Konnection and share a post about anything related to children’s books (picture, middle grade, or young adult) from the past week, leave a comment as well as a link on her site.

I am an Indiebound Affiliate.

Author Joyce Carol Oates and her husband, Raymond Smith, were married for forty-eight years when he came down with pneumonia.  When he suggested that he might want to see his doctor the next day, Oates insisted on taking him to the emergency room, where he was admitted to the hospital.  He succumed to an infection in the hospital and unexpectedly died, leaving Oates devastated and unsure of how to carry on.

A Widow’s Story is Joyce Carol Oates’ deeply personal memoir of her husband’s death and the grief that gripped her afterward.  I admire Oates for putting it all out there -  it wasn’t always easy to read, so I know it must have been painful to write.  I’ve had this book for a while – it came shortly before my father passed away – but didn’t think I could handle it when my own grief was so raw.  I’m sure it would have been upsetting at the time, but I do think reading it earlier might have helped me understand better what my mother was going through.  Of course, everyone grieves differently, but many of the stages of grief are similar for most people.

This was my first experience with Oates writing and I found it to be quiet and introspective.  The narrative shifts from the first person “I” to the third person “the widow” fairly often and I found that a little odd, but thought it was supposed to represent the out of body feeling Oates was feeling at the time.  It was a little jarring at first, but I adjusted to it quickly.

This is not a book that will leave you with a good feeling as you finish it, but it will help readers feel empathy for their friends and relatives who are grieving the loss of a spouse.  It’s difficult to say anything negative about a book that is as emotionally open and raw as this one, but I did find it to be repetitive after a while.  This is probably an accurate portrayal of a widow’s feelings, especially when the death is unexpected, but it did make the book drag in a few places.

I listened to the audio version of A Widow’s Story – it’s narrated by Ellen Parker who was the perfect fit for this book.  In my mind, her voice was the voice of Joyce Carol Oates.  The audio book runs approximately 15 hours.

Review copy provided by Harper Collins. I am an Indiebound Affiliate.

I’m such a big fan of the Reagan Arthur imprint that I co-host the Reagan Arthur Books Challenge with Julie of Booking Mama.  I have to admit that, here lately, I haven’t kept up with the books as much as I’d like to, so I want to spotlight one that you won’t want to miss.  The 500 by Matthew Quirk will be published on June 5 and the early buzz is outstanding.  Here’s the publisher’s description:

A gripping thriller debut, set deep in the heart of the world’s most powerful political arena

A year ago, fresh out of Harvard Law School, Mike Ford landed his dream job at the Davies Group, Washington’s most powerful consulting firm. Now, he’s staring down the barrel of a gun, pursued by two of the world’s most dangerous men. To get out, he’ll have to do all the things he thought he’d never do again: lie, cheat, steal-and this time, maybe even kill.

Mike grew up in a world of small-stakes con men, learning lessons at his father’s knee. His hard-won success in college and law school was his ticket out. As the Davies Group’s rising star, he rubs shoulders with “The 500,” the elite men and women who really run Washington — and the world. But peddling influence, he soon learns, is familiar work: even with a pedigree, a con is still a con.

Combining the best elements of political intrigue and heart-stopping action, THE 500 is an explosive debut, one that calls to mind classic thrillers like The Firm and Presumed Innocent. In Mike Ford, readers will discover a new hero who learns that the higher the climb, the harder — and deadlier — the fall.

Doesn’t that sound good?  Be sure to check out the exciting trailer!