Monica Nolan's hilarious LGBT parody of the hard boiled crime fiction of the '40s and '50s, "Maxie Mainwaring, Lesbian Dilettante" was a bit outside my normal fiction tastes, but it had such a fun cover I couldn't resist. Maxie is an ex-deb living in Bay City in the late 1960s. She survives on an allowance from her trust fund, until her society matron mom catches her kissing a girl in the country club bathroom and cuts off her funds. Maxie flits from job to job, angering her budget conscious girlfriend, Pamela, and eventually they break up. Maxie sees some mob activity and gets caught up investigating, trying to get to the bottom of it, especially since it seems like her parents are caught up in it and her trust fund is at stake. It was light and fun.
On the opposite end of "light and fun" was "This House is Haunted" by John Boyne. I really liked this one, it was spooky and creepy. Written in Dicksonian style of the 1800s, Eliza takes a job as a governess in the country after her father dies unexpectedly. When she arrives at Gaudlin Hall, there are no adults in residence, just two precocious kids, Eustace and his older sister Isabelle. Eliza presses everyone in the village for answers, like what in the heck happened to their parents, and finally gets their lawyer to explain: a year earlier, their father hired a governess, greatly upsetting his wife. She killed the governess one night and almost killed her husband, too. She hanged for her crime, but her spirit is back, protecting her children. Eliza is the sixth governess in a year, the first four are dead and the fifth barely managed to escape with her life. It was very, very good and I loved the chilling ending.
Graham Joyce's "The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit" was a bit of a ghost story as well, but not as dark as Boyne. David, a college student, takes a summer job at a beach resort that happens to be in the seaside town where his father committed suicide when he was three. All around town, David keeps seeing a man in a suit, holding a little boy's hand. David gets involved with a married woman, despite being terrified of her violent and abusive husband. It was a good story.
Lois Duncan's "Daughters of Eve" was really dated, but I enjoyed it. Written in the '70s, a group of girls in a high school are feeling oppressed by the men in their lives. Ruth's older brothers don't have to help out after school, but Ruth has to come straight home everyday to clean up, start dinner, and babysit. Bambi's boyfriend is overly controlling. Jane's dad beats her mom. The girls are part of an exclusive club known as the Daughters of Eve. Their faculty adviser, Irene Stark, encourages the girls to get revenge on the men that are keeping them down. I guess it was supposed to be a warning tale of feminism run amok, but honestly, the men were pretty darn awful in this book. I thought they all got what they deserved :)
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