Genre: Fiction

News of the World

News of the World

News of the World by Paulette Jiles, Grover Gardner
Published by Brilliance Audio on June 20th 2017
See it @ Goodreads


Synopsis

National Book Award Finalist—Fiction
It is 1870 and Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings to paying audiences hungry for news of the world. An elderly widower who has lived through three wars and fought in two of them, the captain enjoys his rootless, solitary existence.
In Wichita Falls, he is offered a $50 gold piece to deliver a young orphan to her relatives in San Antonio. Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders killed Johanna’s parents and sister; sparing the little girl, they raised her as one of their own. Recently rescued by the U.S. army, the ten-year-old has once again been torn away from the only home she knows.
Their 400-mile journey south through unsettled territory and unforgiving terrain proves difficult and at times dangerous. Johanna has forgotten the English language, tries to escape at every opportunity, throws away her shoes, and refuses to act “civilized.” Yet as the miles pass, the two lonely survivors tentatively begin to trust each other, forging a bond that marks the difference between life and death in this treacherous land.
Arriving in San Antonio, the reunion is neither happy nor welcome. The captain must hand Johanna over to an aunt and uncle she does not remember—strangers who regard her as an unwanted burden. A respectable man, Captain Kidd is faced with a terrible choice: abandon the girl to her fate or become—in the eyes of the law—a kidnapper himself. Exquisitely rendered and morally complex, News of the World is a brilliant work of historical fiction that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor, and trust.

News of the World, a National Book Award nominee is a delight.  Janet Maslin in her New York Times review  of  News of the World called it a painfully simple story.

Capt. Jefferson Kyle Kidd is an older gentleman, who travels around Texas reading the news.  A friend asks Kidd to take a 10 year girl who the indians kidnapped when she was 6 years old and return to her family in Southern Texas.  What ensues is a trek fraught with danger from highwaymen, raiding Kiowa and the unforgiving desert. As Kidd and Johanna, as the Captain has named her, travel together they grow closer. 

In this 24/7 news cycle world, it is hard to image that a traveling news reader, the wonder of it all. I was enchanted by this book and would highly recommend it.

White Gold

White Gold

White Gold by Caitlin O'Connell
Published by Alibi on February 7th 2017
Series: Catherine Sohon #2
Pages: 347
See it @ Goodreads


Synopsis

In this pulse-pounding follow-up to Ivory Ghosts—hailed by Jodi Picoult as “a win for any animal lover or reader with a conservationist’s heart”—wildlife biologist Catherine Sohon ventures into the darkest corners of China to hunt the world’s deadliest poachers.
Catherine Sohon has gone undercover in the Chinese underworld, where the illegal ivory trade is at an all-time high. Posing as a foreign buyer in the backroom of the Beijing Antique Market, she’s closing in on the smuggler who has eluded her since Namibia. Then ruthless gunmen burst in, leaving death in their wake and turning Catherine into a suspect in a triad turf war.
After a close call with a king cobra on a boat full of endangered wildlife, new clues propel her across the country, from open markets to an ivory carving factory in Guangzhou to the forests of southern Yunnan, home to the precious few remaining Chinese-Asian elephants. Her quest pits her against the same vicious trafficking kingpin—only now it’s clear that even high-level officials are looking the other way as the world’s endangered species flood into China from all across Asia and Africa. And when an old lover pays a surprise visit, Catherine is forced to confront the agonizing choices that still haunt her.
As Catherine races to execute a daring sting operation along the mountainous border of Myanmar, a shocking betrayal sends her into a tailspin. Now her life depends on the bond forged with an elephant named Lu Lu. Meanwhile, in the shadows awaits a powerful new adversary—someone with far more at stake than Catherine could possibly know.

White Gold is the second book in the Catherine Sohon Elephant Mysteries. Catherine has recently moved from Namibia to China in hopes of capturing, Nigel Lofty,  a big time endangered animal smuggler (worst type of person in the world). With the help of her college roommate, Ling Ru who after college returned to China and became a customs agent. Catherine and Ling Ru find themselves in some pretty tight spots which they manage to find a way out off. The book brings to light how brutal the illegal animal trade is, at times it was not enjoyable reading about how we mutilate animals.

The best part of the book was the descriptions of the elephants and their interactions with one another and humans. Elephants are fascinating animals.
Elephants with baby
Thanks to Alibi and NetGalley for the opportunity to read White Gold.

The Cutaway

The Cutaway

The Cutaway by Christina Kovac
Published by Atria / 37 Ink on March 21st 2017
Pages: 320
See it @ Goodreads


Synopsis

The Cutaway draws you into the tangled world of corruption and cover-up as a young television producer investigates the disappearance of a beautiful Georgetown lawyer in this stunning psychological thriller, perfect for fans of Paula Hawkins and Gillian Flynn.
When brilliant TV news producer Virginia Knightly receives a disturbing “MISSING” notice on her desk related to the disappearance of a beautiful young attorney, she can’t seem to shake the image from her head. Despite skepticism from her colleagues, Knightly suspects this ambitious young lawyer may be at the heart of something far more sinister, especially since she was last seen leaving an upscale restaurant after a domestic dispute. Yet, as the only woman of power at her station, Knightly quickly finds herself investigating on her own.
Risking her career, her life, and perhaps even her own sanity, Knightly dives deep into the dark underbelly of Washington, DC business and politics in an investigation that will drag her mercilessly through the inextricable webs of corruption that bind the press, the police, and politics in our nation’s capital.
Harkening to dark thrillers such as Gone Girl, Luckiest Girl Alive, and Big Little Lies, The Cutaway is a striking debut that will haunt you long after you reach the last page.

Thanks to Atria Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to review The Cutway.

If you are looking for a good mystery then I would recommend The Cutway, Virginia Knightly, a nightly news producer for a Georgetown television station, intrigued by a missing person report that comes across her news desk begins looking into the disappearance. With a new news editor trying to edge her out of her job and an anchorman, whom she has mixed emotions about, Knightly finds herself getting involved in more than just a young and beautiful missing lawyer.

“O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!”[1.Marmion is an epic poem by Sir Walter Scott about the Battle of Flodden (1513). Published in 1808.] I am sure that we wish our real news media were as intent on getting to the truth of the matter, as this TV producer. Despite the lack of support from her staff, a police detective, and powerful political opponents Knightly doggedly keeps searching for answers.

The plot is good, I felt the author did a good job of moving the story along. At times the characters are a little flat but, I really didn’t mind so much cause I was enjoying the story.

El Paso

El Paso

El Paso by Winston Groom
Published by Recorded Books on October 4, 2016
See it @ Goodreads


Synopsis

Three decades after the first publication of Forrest Gump, Winston Groom returns to fiction with this sweeping American epic.
Long fascinated with the Mexican Revolution and the vicious border wars of the early 20th century, Winston Groom brings to life a much-forgotten period of history in this sprawling saga of heroism, injustice, and love. An episodic novel set in six parts, El Paso pits the legendary Pancho Villa, a much-feared outlaw and revolutionary, against a thrill-seeking railroad tycoon known as the Colonel, whose fading fortune is tied up in a colossal ranch in Chihuahua, Mexico.
But when Villa kidnaps the Colonel's grandchildren in the midst of a cattle drive and absconds into the Sierra Madre, the aging New England patriarch and his adopted son head to El Paso, hoping to find a group of cowboys brave enough to hunt the generalissimo down.
Replete with gunfights, daring escapes, and an unforgettable bullfight, El Paso, with its textured blend of history and legend, becomes an indelible portrait of the American Southwest in the waning days of the frontier.

I have to say I love the cover for this book. It really draws you in, I could hardly wait to listen to this book. Expecting the second coming of Edna Ferber’s Giant I settled in for a good listen.

Take a fading railroad tycoon from Boston, an adopted son trying to hold together his fathers railroad,two small children and Mexican Revolutionary and you have the makings for EL Paso. I have to say it is a great story line, rich gringos with their multi million acre ranches with hundreds of thousands head of cattle and one desperado out to prove to the world just how notorious he is should make a great read. I just couldn’t take the book seriously, there wasn’t the depth needed to make this a serious work of historical fiction. Simply put the characters lacked depth, and that detracted from the story.