I enjoyed the heck out of S.K.'s latest, "Finders Keepers", a sequel to "
Mr. Mercedes". Back in the 1970s, Morris Bellamy is entranced with an author named John Rothstein, who stopped publishing abruptly after having his signature character, Jimmy Gold, sell out. Morris goes to Mr. Rothstein's house, robs him off his unpublished manuscripts and some cash, and kills him. He takes the notebooks back home, intending to read them and someday sell them and make a fortune, but before he can he's arrested for an unrelated crime and sentenced to prison. Many, many years in prison. He buried a trunk with the money and the notebooks before he goes away and intends to dig it up once he finally gets out.
In the intervening years, a boy named Pete happens across the trunk. The money is a lifesaver: his dad was seriously injured when some idiot in a Mercedes mowed down an innocent group of people waiting in line at a job fair, and his family is in danger of falling apart. Pete's a smart boy, and he reads the manuscripts and realizes what a treasure he has.
Meanwhile, Morris has gotten out of prison and goes back to his hometown to retrieve what's rightfully his, only to discover someone's beaten him to it. It was tense and suspenseful and great, I really enjoyed it.
I also really liked Diane Chamberlain's "Silent Sister". Riley has grown up believing her seventeen year old sister, Lisa, committed suicide back when Riley was just a baby. When her father unexpectedly dies, Riley returns home to pack up his things and take care of his estate, and starts discovering the truth: Lisa was going on trial for killing her violin teacher when she disappeared, her body never to be found. The more Riley pokes around, the more it seems like Lisa didn't really kill herself. I saw the big surprise twist coming a mile away, which always delights me because it happens so rarely, but it didn't lessen my enjoyment of getting to it any.
I love Jenny Han. I wish she would have been around when I was a teen, I would have *adored* this book. As it is, even as an adult of advanced age, I still enjoyed it. The sequel to "
To All the Boys I've Loved Before" finds Lara Jean dating her dream crush, Peter. Peter still seems pretty caught up on his ex, Genevieve, though, Lara Jean keeps catching them embracing and texting. Peter swears it's all innocent, and Lara Jean wants desperately to believe him. Meanwhile, her last letter that Kitty sent off to John finally gets delivered and John writes back. They start writing to each other and John comes back for a visit, surprised that Lara Jean and Peter are dating. Lara Jean and John start growing closer as they spend more time with each other, since they have a lot in common and Peter seems so distant with Genevieve. It was such a great, touching, honest portrayal of teenage love, how absolutely final and tragic it all seems sometimes. She has a great way with characters, they seem quite real.
And finishing off this round of excellent books: pure trashy fluff. Enjoyable, but not nearly as good as the others. "Secret Brother" is the story of how Cory Dollanganger came to live with the Arnold family: young Willie was struck and killed by a drunk driver, and while in the ER Willie's grandfather, William Arnold, discovers a young boy of similar age as his dead grandson has been dropped off, showing signs of arsenic poisoning. No one knows who the boy belongs to, detectives are trying to hunt down the boy's family with no luck. Rich and powerful, William brings the young boy home and installs him in his dead grandson's room, much to the chagrin of his granddaughter and Willie's older sister, Clara Sue. At first Clara Sue tries to ignore the boy, but that just puts her on her granddad's shitlist. So then she tries to win his trust so she can figure out who he is and send him home. There were quite a few things that bothered me about this book, for instance, even though it's supposed to take place in the 1960s ("Flowers in the Attic" was vague on dates), at one point one of the characters fist bumps the other. Um, huh? At least they weren't all running around on cell phones...
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