Every month we let you know what we’ve been reading and our monthly recommendations. You’ll get to see new titles with fabulous reviews from the Bay Books team. We’re sure you’ll love these fantastic books just as much as we do. We recommend a wide range of genres and themes. So get ready to explore more books!
Friends of Bay Books Picks
Review written by Karin J.
Have you ever had the feeling that parts of your life are humming along fine and at the same time other parts are spinning out of control? In All Fours, July’s protagonist, a 45-year old Angelena, a “woman who had success in several mediums at a young age.” tries desperately to discover who she is at this stage in her life. She finds herself veering off what she thought was her path in ways that surprise and amaze her, almost as if she were a character in one of her works. But because she is a writer, she is unflinching about describing her confused state of mind, and her clarity about being confused (amazingly) allows us, as readers, to be swept up in her tumult.
This book is frank about sexuality and desire, belonging, and finding one’s own idiosyncratically-patterned path. Its willingness to look at self-becoming in all of its messiness engages us if we are willing to look with open eyes.
Tina Staff Picks
Can’t we talk about something more Pleasant? by Roz Chast
This wonderful book details, in Chast’s signature visual style, her struggles dealing with her aging parents and their end-of-life issues. Yes, her writing is humorous and the topic is heart wrenching but her practical ways of looking at this subject make this an engaging and valuable book. Highly recommend it!
10 Marchfield Square by Nicola Whyte
Set in Modern-Day London, elderly heiress and landlady Celeste van Duren is determined to prove that she has vetted each apartment dweller carefully and cautiously but when a murder occurs within the small residential square, she knows she may have made a mistake allowing one tenant in with his nasty ways. So with her faithful butler, and two chosen tenants, she investigates on her own. Well, of course, we soon see, everyone is hiding something!
Tell Them You Lied by Laura Leffler
What a beginning! Pranking a friend with a mugging attack, accidently on the same day as the 9-11 attacks, comes about and where have the main characters planned this prank to take place? Near the Twin Towers and when Anna and her friends don’t hear from Willow, they don’t know if this is a prank gone badly wrong, one that really happened, or is she a victim of 9-11? Beneath this is some serious emotional and obsessive angst. Figuring out who dunnit, as well as what was done, makes this a fast and fascinating read. How do people think up these plots that are so nerve wracking and nail biting?!!
Wendy’s Staff Pick
City of Night Birds by Juhea Kim
Former prima ballerina, Natalia Leonora, returns to her home city of St Petersburg and the complex world of Russian ballet that was her ticket out of poverty to fame, her personal passion, and quite nearly her very un-doing. Natalia left ballet after an accident that ended her career, leading her to turn to pills and alcohol to numb the pain of her past. Now, she has an opportunity to dance again – if her body and her mental health will allow it. Natalia must face her past – her complicated relationship with her mother, the father who abandoned her, her former lovers, rivals and friends. The author transports us to the world of professional ballet, with all of it’s inherent glamor, politics and pain. This is a stunning commentary on personal strength, love, forgiveness, and the sacrifices required to work as an artist at the top of your craft.
