Diffenbaugh’s debut novel opens on Victoria Jones’s 18th birthday, which coincides with her emancipation from California’s foster care system. Abandoned at birth, Victoria has grown up in a string of bad foster homes, except for the one year she spent with Elizabeth, a vineyard owner who taught her the meaning of flowers. Alternating between Victoria’s brief time with Elizabeth and her unsteady attempt to face life as an adult with little education and less experience, Diffenbaugh weaves together the two narratives using the Victorian language of flowers that ultimately helps shape Victoria’s future as she grapples with a painful decision from her past. Summary BPL

I didn’t expect to like this one. Lots of internet hype and holds at the library usually mean that it’s not my type of novel.  But this one is different in many ways.

The Victorian (nice pun, by the way) floral language of flirting and romance is the driving concept for this coming-of-age novel. It—and the cover—contrast sharply with the two main narratives listed above.  Victoria is a damaged and dangerous young woman.  Her “upbringing” was deficient in so many ways from food to love that she is missing keys to a happy, productive adulthood.  I found The Language of Flowers most gripping when it showed these parts of Victoria’s life: foster care fiascos, living in a park, subsisting on food snatched from restaurant tables, stealing plants, working at the florist’s….  Her subsequent rise to fame as the florist who predicts the viability of the marriages for whose weddings she designs the floral displays seemed less realistic but still interesting.

Ms Diffenbaugh gives the reader more than flowers to think about: this is a serious story about foster care and emancipation and homelessness and abandonment and support systems. The author wraps these core truths in sensuous descriptions of flowers, grapes and food (Victoria’s appetite is epic). I admired and liked Renata, the florist and her mother, Ruby: their interactions with unshowered, unfed and unhoused Victoria show us how to help responsibly and respectfully.

9 out of 10  Recommended to readers who enjoy thought-provoking content with their bestsellers.

British forensic anthropologist Ruth Galloway is called to investigate the headless skeleton of a child, found beneath the doorway of an old mansion, once an orphanage, which is now a target for redevelopment. Could the body be a part of the Roman ruins being excavated nearby or could it be the remains of one of two siblings who disappeared from the orphanage 40 years ago? Summary BPL

My first Ruth Galloway mystery and my first Elly Griffiths.  Well written and researched with requisite cranky yet attractive British detective inspectors.  Seemed rather quaint to me: character rather than technology driven and in this aspect is on the other side of the world from Kathy Reichs’ Temperance Brennan stories. 

7 out of 10 Not quite a thriller.  Recommended to Celtic and Roman history fans.

As lyrical, beautiful, and uncomplicated as the classic ballads of Appalachia, Cash’s first novel is a tragic story of misplaced faith and love gone wrong, set in the mountains of North Carolina. The River Road Church of Christ in Signs Following is a secretive place, with newspapers taped over the windows so you can’t see in, and the minister, Carson Chambliss, is often seen on a Sunday morning carrying cages made of wood and chicken-wire into the building. Still, the neighbors pay little attention until an autistic child becomes the victim of a special healing service, and the local sheriff launches an investigation. Told in three voices-of the sheriff; the child’s younger brother, Jess; and an elderly church member, Adelaide Lyle-the tragedy unfolds and compounds upon itself as the backgrounds of the major players are revealed and each reacts as conscience and faith demand. Summary BPL

My usual complaint: over 300 pages to tell what is essentially one of those dark short stories from the South. A lot of (gratuitous, in my opinion) creepiness with pyromaniacal Pastor Carson Chambliss and his snakes puts the story over the top. It strained my credulity and made it challenging to connect to characters who would put up with Chambliss’ carney-style religion/frenzy.

Having said that, I would welcome another opportunity to read something in a different genre by Wiley Cash. In A Land More Kind Than Home, he achieves a colloquial style that is so pleasant—elegantly styled?—to read: both natural and a heightened reality style at the same time—somewhat like Tennessee Williams, whose dialogue could be quite simple on the surface, but like an iceberg, most of the substance is below the water. However, I could do without the shifting POVs whose only purpose seemed to defer the reader’s knowledge of the book’s inevitable tragedy. This is a useful technique in short stories but annoying/jarring when deployed in a full length novel. 

Young protagonist Jess Hall is a beautifully drawn character: he deserves another/better story.

6.5 out 10 Recommended to Flannery O’Connor and Walker Percy fans.

The Internet is everywhere now, but Ray Valentine saw it first explode.

CIRCUITS OF THE WIND is the story of Ray’s quest to find himself as he grows up wandering the computer underground—the wild, global outback that existed before the net went mainstream. How else does an end-of-century slacker reach out to the world from Sohola, that northern state that’s a little more Midwest than it is New England? The net holds the key to what he’s after—but even as he pioneers this virtual world, the veneer of his real life begins to crack. From book jacket.

This was an Advance Reader Copy from LibraryThing.  More journal than novel, Circuits of the Wind revisits the big bang of the internet through the main character Ray Valentine.  He is a young boy at the time of the first PCs and video games on cassette and floppy disks. Ray grows up along with the internet, listing  each new component or programming language as it is unveiled.  The “story” is long-winded (apologies for the pun) and lacking in action—imagine a magazine article about the history of computers and the internet, only it’s 254 pages instead of 4 or 5—and this is only Volume 1!  Ray Valentine does little more than chronicle each stage of the computer’s evolution.  

When I try to imagine who would enjoy this book, the only people I can think of are those weird but funny guys who share a house with Amanda Bynes in the movie Sydney White….

No rating for this one.  I had to review it to be eligible for more ARCs.

Another “Going Bovine” quote

Stupid people,

out of the gene pool!

by Libba Bray

???

A gripping and unusual procedural focusing more on the characters’ complex lives than the crimes. The disappearance of a small boy disorders the lives of many people. DCI Simon Serrailler (The Various Haunts of Man, 2007, etc.) is recalled from his Venetian sketching holiday by his father. His younger sister Martha, physically and mentally challenged from birth, is dying. Martha recovers only to die suddenly in her sleep, leaving Simon bereft.  His attention shifts when a young boy goes missing while waiting for his ride to school. The whole force work night and day searching for a lead. The stresses on artistic, introspective Simon, who’s obviously modeled on Adam Dalgleish, mount as his team continues to search for the boy they fear is dead while pursuing their other cases. Summary BPL

Exposition is slow in this new-to-me Simon Serailler series.  The story (#2) unfolds in character arcs much like a crime investigation TV show and as many of the key characters are related either by blood or marriage, there is considerable and intentional focus on familial relationships. Action is scarce, particularly at the conclusion.  More cannot be said without spoiling the end of The Pure in Heart.

Simon Serailler compels the reader’s interest without actually doing much.  Ms Hill draws his inner life in wonderful detail; a troubled, talented and complex man who happens to be a police detective. 

6.5 out of 10. Took marks off for the unsatisfying nature of the conclusion. Recommended to readers who prefer their mysteries character-driven by attractive, intellectual English detectives.