By Marjorie Preston
This week, it’s a redemptive tale with a country accent; a charming winter romance; a bio of legendary newswoman Barbara Walters; a new horror novel; and a look at Alfred Hitchcock’s famous blondes. Be sure to take a book to the beach.
Colton Gentry’s Third Act
By Jeff Zentner
Grand Central Press
Like a great country song, this blockbuster has it all: tragic loss, love gone wrong, and a rough-hewn hero-with-a-heart who drowns his sorrows in a bottle of Jim Beam.
Country music star Colton Gentry has reasons to celebrate: he’s married to Nashville hitmaker Maisy Martin, and his newest single is climbing the charts. But after his best friend dies in a mass shooting, Colton takes the stage in a drunken rant against guns, alienating his fans, his record company and his wife.
Career and marriage in tatters, Colton limps back to his hometown to dry out and lay low until the dust settles. There he encounters high school sweetheart Luann, who loved him when he was a varsity football star, and loved him after an injury ended his NFL dreams. But Colton, fearing he would hold her back, broke it off when Luann went off to college. This is his chance to heal that long rift, and also mend fences with Derrick, a boyhood buddy left in the dust of his fame.
“Colton Gentry’s Third Act” is a big, fat, testosterone-heavy romance, rich with feeling and gorgeously written. It’s not preachy about gun control, and demonstrates that the two sides can find common ground, if only they try.
The Book Club Hotel
By Sarah Morgan
Canary Street Press
Each year, three old friends meet in a different city for their annual book club reunion. This year will be special, as the 40-somethings all grapple with change.
Anna, once a contented wife and mom, is distraught at the prospect of being an empty-nester. Chef Claudia is at loose ends after being fired from her restaurant job and dumped by her boyfriend at the same time. Their leader, Erica, is a globe-trotting CEO—all business, no spontaneity or romance. She has such cosmopolitan tastes, her besties wonder why she chose snowy Vermont for this year’s rendezvous. Her selection: a storybook B&B, the Maple Sugar Inn, run by a struggling young widow and single mom named Hattie.
Like a perfect cup of cocoa, “The Book Club Hotel” is sweet, comforting, but never treacly. Its characters are beautifully wrought, and cope with loss, loneliness, fear, and betrayal through the power of friendship. A little bit of mystery makes the story even more compelling.
Think of this novel as Christmas in July—a holiday gift in the midst of summer.
Rulebreaker: The Life and Times of Barbara Walters
By Susan Page
Simon & Schuster
Here’s a biography equal to its subject.
Barbara Walters was a broadcasting legend who powered her way to the top by any means necessary, fair and unfair. She was also a complicated woman, driven by fears of both failure and poverty.
It’s no wonder. Her father was nightclub impresario Lou Walters, who built several empires only to gamble them away, moving his family from mansions and penthouses to tiny apartments and back again. Even at the height of her success, Barbara was terrified of losing it all.
Shaped by troubled relationships with Lou, her dependent mother, Dena, and her mentally challenged sister, Jackie, Barbara clawed her way to success, despite contempt from the old boys, like Frank McGee and Harry Reasoner, and ultimately became the highest-paying broadcaster in history. Though she’s often held up as a standard-bearer for women in TV news, Barbara saw female colleagues as rivals, and undermined anyone she perceived as a threat, particularly Diane Sawyer.
“Rulebreaker” is an absorbing portrait of the woman who redefined the celebrity interview, achieved world-wide fame and fortune, but could never outrun her demons.
Hemlock Island
By Kelley Armstrong
St. Martin’s Press
Six people are stranded on an island, with no phone service and no way back to shore. Before long, severed body parts start popping up, and what began as a simple day trip turns into a bloody scream-fest.
English teacher Laney Kilpatrick got Hemlock Island in her divorce settlement, and grudgingly rents it out to pay the bills and care for her orphaned niece, Madison.
When angry renters complain of blood and claw marks in a closet, she heads by boat to the island with her wealthy ex-husband Kit, his sister Jayla, niece Madison and onetime friends Sadie and Garrett. First, they discover that handyman Nate has met a violent end. Next, their boat disappears, along with every other boat on the island. Soon, what’s been shaping up as a murder mystery morphs into a supernatural thriller.
Laney is an overwrought narrator, even before she starts finding disembodied limbs and bloody hex circles. No spoilers, but the plot twists—including an angry entity with a literal ax to grind—become truly far-fetched at the end.
Hitchcock’s Blondes
By Laurence Leamer
G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Alfred Hitchcock’s fascination with women in jeopardy has become a film genre unto itself. And he was particularly drawn to blondes, cool Scandinavian beauties who always looked good, even mid-scream or post-mortem.
Take “Psycho,” which made mincemeat of a shrieking Janet Leigh. Or “The Birds,” which pitted Tippi Hedren against flocks of vicious ravens and gulls. Or “Vertigo,” in which a brunette Kim Novak was transformed into a shimmering blonde, then took a short walk off a tall belltower.
“Hitchcock’s Blondes” depicts these and other screen goddesses who worked with the rotund English director. He adored some (Grace Kelly, Ingrid Bergman), sought to punish others (Hedren, Novak), and was obsessed with them all, as his masterful body of work demonstrates. This is essential reading for movie lovers.
Marjorie Preston is a business writer, editor, ghostwriter and compulsive reader, who gobbles up books like potato chips. For more information (and more book reviews), visit marjorieprestonwriting.com.
