Favorite Author: Julia Spencer-Fleming

Julia Spencer-Fleming published In the Bleak Midwinter, the first book in her Clare Fergusson series, in 2002. Fergusson is a former army pilot, now Episcopalian priest and the first female priest at St. Albans in the small Adirondack town of Millers Kill. (Kill is the old Dutch word for river, but it sounds spooky, doesn't it?)

Now up to eight books with another due in 2020, the series is called the Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne series, as Clare’s police chief love interest gets double billing. Electricity sparked between pastor and cop from the get go. While Episcopalian priests can date and marry, they are definitely not supposed to date married men, especially high profile citizens like the police chief. The development of their relationship is one of the best parts of the series.

Spencer-Fleming has won several awards for her books and was nominated at least once for the coveted Edgar. She deserves the acclaim. This is one of the best-written, most intelligent mystery series going. The plots are creative and intricate. The pacing is solid, with exciting scenes that are actually exciting. The characters are complex -- Fergusson is one of the most interesting sleuths out solving mysteries. Spencer-Fleming does a masterful job of having Clare maintain her spiritual role while wrestling with human issues.

A big difficulty with amateur sleuth series is how to get the amateur sleuth involved in so many murder investigations. Spencer-Fleming handles this well, usually by having Fergusson face a minor problem in the beginning -- something a small town priest could believably have to deal with -- and then only throwing in the dead body after Fergusson is well involved. There are enough "stay out of this; I told you to wait in the car" conversations with Van Alstyne as necessary, but not annoyingly many.

I've read the first seven. All the titles are the names of hymns:

In the Bleak Midwinter (2002)

A Fountain Filled With Blood (2003)

Out of the Deep I Cry (2004)

To Darkness and to Death (2005) (reviewed here)

All Mortal Flesh (2007) (reviewed here)

I Shall Not Want (2008)

One Was a Soldier (2011) (reviewed here)

Through the Evil Days (2013)

Hid from Our Eyes (2020 - available for pre-order only)

NOTES

Last updated on September 2, 2019.

OTHER FANS

If you have reviews of Julia Spencer-Fleming's books, or other posts about this author, and would like them listed here, please leave comments with a links and I will add them here.

Teaser Tuesday: Big Sky by Kate Atkinson

Crystal was hovering around thirty-nine years old and it took a lot of work to stay in this holding pattern. She was a construction, made from artificial materials – the acrylic nails, the silicone breasts, the polymer eyelashes.

– Big Sky by Kate Atkinson, the new Jackson Brodie novel. This is the fifth in Atkinson's Jackson Brodie series, my favorite mystery series.

I've only just started this one. I'm reading it with my ears because my library has it available on Overdrive for instant download with no wait list (unbelievable). And -- what a treat -- it is read by Jason Isaacs, the cutie patootie who plays Jackson Brodie in Case Histories, the tv adaptation of the first three books.

All the Brodie books have involved several disparate stories that more or less come together. Like with her literary fiction, Atkinson's droll commentary and crackling wit make every page a delight. These are in no way conventional mysteries. They are stories about people facing conflict, struggling with relationships, finding their place, and trying to understand life. That they have a few dead bodies thrown in make them "mysteries," but they are literature.

PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

Jackson Brodie has relocated to a quiet seaside village, in the occasional company of his recalcitrant teenage son and an aging Labrador, both at the discretion of his ex-partner Julia. It's picturesque, but there's something darker lurking behind the scenes.

Jackson's current job, gathering proof of an unfaithful husband for his suspicious wife, is fairly standard-issue, but a chance encounter with a desperate man on a crumbling cliff leads him into a sinister network-and back across the path of his old friend Reggie. Old secrets and new lies intersect in this breathtaking novel by one of the most dazzling and surprising writers at work today.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by The Purple Booker, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

Mailbox Labor Day Monday

Happy Labor Day! At least for those celebrating this long holiday weekend.

Indie authors and publishers work mighty hard to get their books into the hands of readers, so this stack of new releases from small presses is well-suited for Labor Day.

Here’s the stack (my souvenir mug from Positano has nothing to go with the theme):

Celibate by Maria Giura, a memoir by a woman who fell in love with a priest only to find her true calling. From Apprentice House Press, a student-managed book publisher at Loyola University Maryland.

Listening at Lookout Creek: Nature in Spiritual Practice by Gretel Van Wieren, another memoir, this one by a woman who retreats to an Oregon forest to try to recapture her sense of deep connection with the natural world, a feeling she thought she had lost while living a super busy, high-tech life with kids. From OSU Press at Oregon State University.

The Woman in the Park by Teresa Sorkin and Tullan Holmqvist, a new “domestic thriller” that is getting a bit of buzz. From Beaufort Books in New York City.

Winded: A Memoir in Four Stages by Dawn Newton, which, as the title suggests, is about the author’s cancer fight and her final gift to her family. Also from Apprentice House Books.

The Melon by Amy Goldman, photos by Victor Schrager, a luscious new book celebrating all thing melonicious. It is part garden book, part seed-saver primer, part food porn, and all gorgeous. From City Point Press.

Generation Share: The Change-Makers Building the Sharing Economy by Benita Matofska and Sophie Sheinwald, featuring interviews and photos of 200 people at the forefront of the sharing movement. From Policy Press.

What new books came into your house last week?

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday, a weekly "show & tell" blog event where participants share the books they acquired the week before. Visit the Mailbox Monday website to find links to all the participants' posts and read more about Books that Caught our Eye.

Mailbox Monday is graciously hosted by Leslie of Under My Apple Tree, Serena of Savvy Verse & Wit, and Martha of Reviews by Martha's Bookshelf.

Book Review: Trove by Sandra A. Miller

Trove: A Woman's Search for Truth and Buried Treasure by Sandra A. Miller, from Brown Paper Press

As a child, Sandra A. Miller gathered treasure. Stray buttons, pretty stones, even paper clips caught her magpie eye and found their way to her shoebox treasure chests. She carried her scavenger hunting habits into adulthood, finding herself one day, sometime in her forties, digging for pirate treasure in Brooklyn with a sexy man named David.

But Trove is memoir, not fiction. So reality nudges in to explain that the “pirate treasure” was buried by a couple of entrepreneurial puppeteers as a marketing stunt. Miller lives in Boston, a five-hour drive from Brooklyn, where her two kids wonder why their mom is not home with them. And her husband is getting exasperated with her buddy David now that this armchair treasure hunt has turned into an actual road trip. Is she searching for buried treasure or running away?

Miller explores these ideas and how her search for treasure has always been “an instinct born of yearning.” Her parents were volatile, often angry with each other and their two daughters, although always happy and popular with outsiders. Her father died when she was 19, before she felt a connection between them. Now Miller’s elderly mother is reaching her end, having never connected with Miller’s children or shown Miller motherly love.

Miller summed up her feelings like this:

Maybe it had to do with growing up lonely in a middle-class, Catholic family, being a fiery young girl forced to endure a home life as empty as that hollowed-out tree stump, with no promise of treasure underneath. And maybe that girl grew into a passionate woman who still obsessively believed her only chance for happiness was buried in some unknowable place.

The narrative flows effortlessly with a casual style that is introspective but never maudlin. Just when it was starting to feel exasperating that she didn’t tell her husband exactly what was on her mind, Miller brought her story to a conclusion most satisfyingly, even with a bit of a twist.

All in all, Trove is an excellent memoir. It would make a good book club pick. I would recommend it in particular for sandwich generation readers, women facing middle age, and those dealing with aging parents.


NOTES

This review will appear in the October 2019 edition of Midwest Book Review.

Book Beginning: Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS
THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON FRIDAYS FOR BOOK BEGINNING FUN!

MY BOOK BEGINNING

"That doesn't sound like a school trivia night," said Mrs. Patty Ponder to Marie Antoinette. "That sounds like a riot."

-- Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty. I was slow to climb onto this bandwagon and now I regret it. I love this Big Little Lies book! Now I want to read Moriarty's other books. What should I start with?

This is the cover on the audiobook edition I got from the library. It's so striking that I like it better than the tv show tie-in cover I usually see.

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

EARLY BIRDS & SLOWPOKES: This weekly post goes up Thursday evening for those who like to get their posts up and linked early on. But feel free to add a link all week.

SOCIAL MEDIA: If you are on Twitter, Instagram, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I try to follow all Book Beginnings participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up. Please find me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING




TIE IN: The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice is a natural tie in with this event and there is a lot of cross over, so many people combine the two. The idea is to post a teaser from page 56 of the book you are reading and share a link to your post. Find details and the Linky for your Friday 56 post on Freda’s Voice.

MY FRIDAY 56

"I'll pay you a thousand dollars if you stop that sound right now," said Ed. He put his pillow over his face. For a very nice man, he was surprisingly cruel about her singing.