The Only One Left by Riley Sager
Excuse me while I clean the bits of my brain off the walls. Riley Sager has done it again. In this one Kit is a visiting nurse who takes an assignment caring for an old lady who lives in that big mansion on the cliff. When The old lady was younger her parents and sister were murdered and of course she was accused of killing them because she wasn’t also killed. She was accused but never convicted. So she’s been living as a disabled shut in due to a stroke. The lady can’t speak, but she has a typewriter and wants to tell Kit what really happened on the night that her family was killed. Of course the head housekeeper keeps a tight fist on what goes on with the old lady, but nobody seems to know why the previous nurse left all of a sudden in the middle of the night. Like, her belongings are still in the room adjoining to the old lady’s room. Bit by bit Kit gets the story, and the twist was twisty AF.
The Women by Kristin Hannah
All the reading groups on Facebook that I belong to go absolutely bonkers when Kristin Hannah releases something new. And for good reason! This one is about a woman who goes off to be a combat nurse during the Vietnam war. This is the war when we first started paying attention to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder caused by being in combat. She did 2 tours in Vietnam working in front line hospitals, where she saw an incredible amount of traumatizing things. Then she went home, back to her privileged life on Coronado Island in San Diego, where the wealthy live. She can’t fit back into that life. She’s a traumatized combat veteran in a world where nobody thinks that women actually went to war. She goes to the VA to get help only to be turned away because “no women served in Vietnam.” She leans closely on her two friends that she served with, who also understand everything she’d gone through as she had gone through it too. It’s a very detailed view into when women first started to serve in combat and how poorly she, as a veteran, was treated when she returned.
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
This is the memoir of Trevor Noah, he’s a comedian and talk show host, I think? Anyway, he grew up under apartheid in South Africa. His father was white and his mother was black, and mixing races was strictly prohibited and against the law. So, his existence was literally against the law. He talks about growing up with a black mother in a time when it was basically a crime to be black, and talks about the massive discrepancies between black life and white life. All the while his mother is an absolute badass and raises him to be the best man he can be despite poverty and violence surrounding him at all times. Fascinating read.
BJ Knapp is the author of Beside the Music, available for purchase here. Please sign up for the Backstage with BJ Knapp mailing list to get updates on events, signings, dog pictures and so much more.