The Peach Keeper

*****
I love Sarah Addison Allen.  I love the bitter and the sweet of her stories.  The Peach Keeper is another light and lovely story.  Her heroines are always strong and always quirky and I love that.   I love the sprinkling of  supernatural weaved into the story.  This story centers around the restoration of the Blue Ridge Madam.  Willa Jackson's ancestors once owned and lived in the Madam until financial ruin forced them out.  Socialite and former classmate Paxton Osgood is in charge of the restoration.  During the restoration a secret is unearthed under the lone peach tree at the Madam.  This secret changes everything.  The story is about friendship, loyalty and love.  I can't wait for Allen's next story.

Defending Jacob

*****

I loved this book.  This is the story of Jacob a misfit high school student who is accused of murdering another student who bullied him at school.  Jacob's father is an ADA and is put in charge of the murder case until Jacob becomes the prime suspect.  It is not an easy story.  What makes this story different from the usual Dad defends son story is the fact that Jacob might actually have done it.  Throughout the trial Andrew and Laurie, Jacob's parents, must face certain truths about themselves and their family and more tragically about their son.  Andrew must face the demons of his past and revisit the family he thought he had left behind.  Is there such a thing as a murder gene?  Can murder be hereditary?  This fact is explored by the prosecution.  After the trial I thought the story would be over, but it's not.  The ending is a surprise and I actually gasped.  If you enjoy crime dramas you will enjoy this story. 

The Handmaid's Tale

*** I love dystopian literature almost as much as I love my beach reads and maybe as much as I like sci-fi, mysteries and true crime. I think what I like best is a good story with good strong characters in any genre. The Handmaid's Tale was on my list of books that "every one else but me read" so I'm glad I made time for it. I didn't love it and that could be because I did love When She Woke. It also might be because I read it 30 years after everyone else. I didn't like the Handmaid so I found myself always annoyed at her and I wished she had more fight in her. I suppose I understand that she was afraid and had almost no support but I felt like she gave up the fight before it started. The Commander was a coward and his wife a bitter woman in her own private hell. They were all prisoners of their own situation. While on the surface it might have seemed that the Handmaid was the only one held captive in her circumstance; they were all prisoners of this new regime. I'm glad I read it just to get it off my list but I didn't go seeking out any other of Ms. Atwood's works right after. I may at some point but not today.