Lori & Julia STILL LOUD

We loved this dark twisted book!

BOOK BLURBS…. “A dark, delicious tale that will creep its way into your brain and leave you examining your own soul for signs of moral rot. I downed it in one greedy shot.” —Jade Chang, author of The Wangs vs. the World and “Tiffany Tsao’s visceral debut…reads a bit like Crazy Rich Asians if the book began with familicide instead of romance. . . Why not start off the new year with the perfect tear-it-all-down read?” —CrimeReads

“In this riveting tale about the secrets and betrayals that can accompany exorbitant wealth, two sisters from a Chinese-Indonesian family grapple with the past after one of them poisons their entire family. Gwendolyn and Estella have always been as close as sisters can be. Growing up in a wealthy, eminent, and sometimes deceitful family, they’ve relied on each other for support and confidence. But now Gwendolyn is lying in a coma, the sole survivor of Estella’s poisoning of their whole clan.

As Gwendolyn struggles to regain consciousness, she desperately retraces her memories, trying to uncover the moment that led to this shocking and brutal act. Was it her sister’s husbands abusive ways? Were the shifting loyalties and unspoken resentments at the heart of their opulent world too much to bear? Can Gwendolyn, at last, confront the carefully buried mysteries in their family’s past and the truth about who she and her sister really are?”….summary courtesy of Goodreads.

A mystery thriller from a first time novelist that kept us turning the pages as fast as we could!

“It’s 1941 in small-town Alaska and Elisabeth Pfautz is alone. She’s living far from home, struggling through an unhappy marriage, and she spends her days tutoring her precocious young daughter. Elisabeth’s twin sister disappeared without a trace twenty years earlier, and Elisabeth’s life has never recovered. Cryptic visions of her sister haunt her dreams, and Elisabeth’s crushing loneliness grows more intense by the day. But through it all, she clings to one belief: That her sister is still alive, and that they’ll be reunited one day.

And that day may be coming soon. Elisabeth’s world is upended when Alfred Seidel — an enigmatic German bush pilot — arrives in town and murders a local man in cold blood. Sitting in his cell in the wake of his crime, Alfred refuses to speak to anyone except for Elisabeth. He has something to tell her: He knows exactly what happened to her long-missing sister, but he’ll reveal this truth only if Elisabeth fulfills three requests.”…synopsis courtesy of Goodreads.

We loved this book so much. A drama and a mystery with incredible storytelling from one of our favorite authors.

“North Carolina, 2018: Morgan Christopher's life has been derailed. Taking the fall for a crime she did not commit, she finds herself serving a three-year stint in the North Carolina Women's Correctional Center. Her dream of a career in art is put on hold—until a mysterious visitor makes her an offer that will see her released immediately. Her assignment: restore an old post office mural in a sleepy southern town. Morgan knows nothing about art restoration, but desperate to leave prison, she accepts. What she finds under the layers of grime is a painting that tells the story of madness, violence, and a conspiracy of small town secrets.

North Carolina, 1940: Anna Dale, an artist from New Jersey, wins a national contest to paint a mural for the post office in Edenton, North Carolina. Alone in the world and desperate for work, she accepts. But what she doesn't expect is to find herself immersed in a town where prejudices run deep, where people are hiding secrets behind closed doors, and where the price of being different might just end in murder.

What happened to Anna Dale? Are the clues hidden in the decrepit mural? Can Morgan overcome her own demons to discover what exists beneath the layers of lies?” - summary courtesy of Goodreads.

One of the most vivid first person accounts of wilderness survival we have read. The tale of six young men on a canoeing expedition in northern Canada—and the bear attack that almost killed one of them.

“Messenger was 17 when he embarked on a journey with his comrades on a remote stretch of rivers and lakes in Nunavut, Canada. From the beginning, this chronicle is populated by original observations and salutes to a landscape rich with possibilities. The group spent the first few days getting used to the rhythm of outdoor life on the water, discovering a shortage in their food supplies, contending with heavy weather and swarms of insects, and making all the fundamental errors that mark the beginning of a trip. Messenger is equally comfortable describing flat water and rapids, great recycling whorls and standing waves of water studded with jagged rocks. It’s clear that the author and his buddies were immersed in the sheer effort of the undertaking. “We lost ourselves in the labor and exertion,” he writes. “We plodded on.” One day, while out walking the high ridges of the tundra alone, Messenger was attacked by a grizzly bear, a harrowing encounter that the author recounts in a highly compelling fashion. A shimmering account both as a travelogue of the deep north and vivid portrayal of a grizzly bear attack.” Kirkus Review

Definitely one of our top 10 books of 2019. This coming of age story takes place in mid-1970’s Missouri and has been described as “Stand By Me” meets “To Kill A Mockingbird” (and we agree with that description)! Racism, class and a murder mystery are all explored in this very poignant story

The title comes from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. quote “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity”. Now we want Michael B. Jordan to option this book and make a movie!