Three Reviews to Finish up 2018

by Susan Roberts

I have three books to finish up my reviews for the year.  If you read my reviews, you know that I like to group similar books together in a review post.  These three books are very different from each other and there weren't similar groups to add them to so I'll just give you reviews of three very eclectic books.

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In the Company of Like-Minded Women by Elaine Russell 

Oct. 2018; Belles Histoires; 978-1732499409
ebook, print (366 pages); historical fiction

"It was simply the strength and love of like-minded women supporting one another and working for a better world."

This historical fiction novel takes place in 1901 in Colorado. It's a book about women's rights - the right to vote, the right to go to college and get training for the job that they want and the right to make their own decisions. This book is full of interesting characters who will grab your interest from day 1. It has

• Lida, a widow with two children who has been trained to be a doctor but meets discrimination everywhere from college to her attempts to practice her profession as a doctor.
• Sarah Jane - Lida's daughter, who at 14 is learning from her mother how to fight for what she wants out of life.
• Eva - Lida's sister from St Louis who has come to spend the summer and bonds with Sarah Jane.  Her family is opposed to the man she wants to marry.
• Mildred - Lida's other sister, also visiting for the summer but a bitter woman who thinks that women should stay at home where they belong.

Can the three totally different sisters become close again and realize the need to fight together for the betterment of women in the new century?

I loved this book. The author gave us a lot of information about the suffragette movement as well as the temperance movement as part of the storyline. The women were very well written and are a good reflection of the women who fought for women's rights long before it was politically correct to do so.

Buy In the Company of Like-Minded Women at Amazon

Never Again by Harvey A Schwartz

Nov. 2018; Koehler Books; 978-1633937338
ebook, print (458 pages); thriller

"Ask yourself, if I were a character in this book, what would I do?  Would I do nothing?  How far would I go?  There's no right answer. But there are right questions to be asked."

This is a well written political thriller about the US in the not so distant future. At one time, the events in this book would have seemed impossible to happen but with the current political climate in this country, it begins to seem even more possible that these events could happen.

Israel is destroyed by an atom bomb. Neighboring armies overrun the country. Two ships jammed with thousands of homeless Israeli Jews limp into Boston Harbor. America slams its doors. Before the ships can be sent back to the new nation of Palestine, the refugees are violently freed, killing ten coast guardsmen. Arrests of thousands of these new "enemy combatants" are met with marches and bombings as American Jews struggle to balance their loyalty to America with the realization that the atrocities that inspired the phrase "never again" have become possible in the here and now. American Jews must decide where their loyalties lie: with a government they view as heartless, or with fellow Jews whose lives are at stake. They fail in court, fail at applying political pressure, and finally resort to increasingly violent acts of terrorism. When they acquire one of Israel's missing atomic bombs, they must decide how far they will go to convince their country to change its course. How far will the government go to stop what it brands as American traitors? NEVER AGAIN presents a shockingly believable nightmare and compels readers to consider what they would do to stop it.

If you are keeping up with current events, parts of this book are way too believable. I enjoyed the book but it frightened me to think that we could end up in this situation or something similar.

Buy Never Again at Amazon

Charlesgate Confidential by Scott Von Doviak

Sept. 2018; Hard Case Crime
978-1785657177; ebook, print (383 pages)
hard-boiled mystery

If you enjoy a hard-boiled mystery, this will be the book for you.  The reviews on Amazon are very high and the book is getting a lot of good press.

An ingenious debut-novel unraveling the heist of the century, in 1946, 1986 and present-day Boston

A group of criminals in 1946 pull off the heist of the century, stealing a dozen priceless works of art from a Boston museum. But while the thieves get caught, the art is never found. Forty years later, the last surviving thief gets out of jail and goes hunting for the loot, involving some innocent college students in his dangerous plan - and thirty years after that, in the present day, the former college kids, now all grown up, are drawn back into danger as the still-missing art tempts a deadly new generation of treasure hunters. A breathtakingly clever, twist-filled narrative that moves from 1946 to 1988 to 2014 and back again, CHARLESGATE CONFIDENTIAL establishes Scott Von Doviak as a storyteller of the first order, and will leave you guessing until the very last page.

Buy Charlesgate Confidential at Amazon


Susan Roberts lives in North Carolina when she isn't traveling. She and her husband enjoy traveling, gardening and spending time with their family and friends. She reads almost anything (and the piles of books in her house prove that) but her favorite genres are Southern fiction, women's fiction, and thrillers. Susan is a top 1% Goodreads Reviewer. You can connect with Susan on Facebook, Goodreads, or Twitter.

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