Cool Ghouls Book Club

I took a slightly different approach to choosing which books to add to the May book club selection poll. Usually I pick a bunch of books that I’ve accumulated through Amazon’s First Reads. I figured it’s a safe bet because lots of people have Amazon Prime, therefore have access to these books. And if they don’t have them, the kindle versions are always sold for $5 or less. Plus, libraries are a thing. Granted these books are not widely purchased by libraries, but I happen to know from my 20+ years of library work experience that libraries do take patron requests and if they aren’t in a position to purchase, they will try to find it via interlibrary loan. This month someone commented that she is unable to join book club because it isn’t available on Nook and I just shook my head. Come on. I’m doing my best to pick things that anyone can access. Fucking Nook…I bought one when they first came out, hated it, and returned it.

Anyway. This time I looked at bestseller lists and went as far as to make sure they were available at multiple libraries. Turns out that the one I added to my poll was also an Amazon First Reads from a while back. It isn’t one I own, but it is available on KU.

I’m rambling.

The book I chose was The Keeper of Happy Endings, by Barbara Davis. It is a cross between historical fiction and chick lit, two genres that are generally not my jam. A glance at my previous reviews or my Goodreads profile makes that pretty clear. But the book club loves this stuff, so here we are. I checked it out on KU and downloaded the Audible companion because when I’m reading genres that don’t usually keep my attention, I like to listen and follow along in the book. Keeps me focused. And boy did this one need the help in the beginning. Slow start. But when it picked up, it was so engaging that I didn’t want to put it down.

At first I didn’t care for the narration. This story is told from two different POVs, a young woman in the 1980s and an older French woman recollecting her work with the resistance and her lost love. The narrator for the latter chose to take on an accent and two different pitches to signify young Soline and current Soline. The accent was grating. The high pitched “youthful” voice was irritating. But the story was wonderful, so I sped up the audio to match my visual reading speed and plowed forward. I became so absorbed in the story that the things that bothered me about the narration no longer did.

I want to say that I figured out the twist fairy early on. The clues were there and I put it together as the story progressed. But it wasn’t so obvious that it ruined the journey. I went into this expecting happy endings and got them. Everything wrapped up in a neat little package, which usually annoys me, but in this case…I’m not mad. I loved it.

Maybe historical fiction/chick lit is my jam after all.

You can find The Keeper of Happy Endings on Amazon in print, ebook, and audio, all major retailers, or at one of many libraries in the country.