Mary E. Trimble

Beach Music, a novel by Pat Conroy (1945 – 2016) is an expansive contemporary story of a richly described Southern family. The story takes place in Rome, Italy and South Carolina.

Widowed Jack McCall, an American, lives in Rome with his eight-year-old daughter, Leah. Although the darkness of the tragedy of his wife’s suicide is always with him, Jack and Leah live a good life. Jack’s occupation as a travel and cookbook writer keeps his life interesting and active.

When Jack is notified that his mother is dying, he and Leah return to South Carolina. For Jack, the trip home is rife with hard feelings and dread, though he wants to bring comfort to his mother and four brothers. He has nothing but disgust for his alcoholic father, though tolerates his mother’s new husband. What he would like to avoid is seeing his wife’s parents who, distraught after their daughter’s suicide, fought desperately for custody of their granddaughter, Leah.

Throughout the story, Jack’s mother is either in the hospital, or on respite at home. The banter between the five brothers is often humorous though rough, but they always show great love for their mother and each other, and disdain for their father.

Beach Music has several lengthy flashbacks to Jack’s childhood, particularly his teen years and his group of close friends (one of whom was his deceased wife). Another flashback is of his Jewish in-laws and the terrors of their experience in the Holocaust. His mother’s abusive childhood is also told in flashback. Another covers the turmoil of the Vietnam War which took place when Jack and his friends were in college. These recollections give credence to the attitudes, dark memories, and actions of the present-day story.

Beach Music draws on a wide range of emotions: love, envy, fear, hate, regret, and deep sadness. The characters are well developed and by the end of the book, I felt I personally knew the various people in Jack McCall’s life. It’s a long story (800 pages) that covers a wide range of a large family’s life. Pat Conroy was a superb writer with several successful books to his credit. Beach Music is right up there as one of my favorites.

Book Review: The Work of Wolves

Posted on April 27, 2026 by Mary

The Work of Wolves, a richly woven contemporary novel by Kent Meyers, takes place in South Dakota’s ranch country.

Carson Fielding, 14, buys his first horse from a neighboring rancher, Magnus Yarborough. Carson grew up around horses, but this is the first one he’s purchased on his own. Eight years later he is known as a skilled and respected horse trainer. Magnus Yarborough hires Carson to train three horses, and in addition requests that Carson teach Yarborough’s young wife to ride.

While on Yarborough’s property Carson observes that the rancher is not only power-hungry, but is actually cruel to animals. The horse training goes well, and eventually the horses can be used to give riding lessons to Yarbarrow’s wife, Rebecca. As they become more acquainted, they form an attraction to one another. Carson learns she is disenchanted with her controlling husband and, in fact, is afraid of him.

Some time later, while at an outdoor gathering with some of the local fellows, Carson and a couple of friends discover the three horses Carson trained in a small fenced-in pen, without fresh water and apparently starving. Is this some kind of retribution toward Carson, possibly a preconceived notion of attraction betweenYarborough’s wife and the young man? Whatever the reason, Carson cannot tolerate cruelty toward these fine horses. The three young men take action setting off a chain of events that profoundly affects them all.

Included in this group of concerned young men are Earl Walks Alone, a Lakota Indian, an exceptionally bright young man who is studying to get into college, and Willi, originally from Germany who came to the area as an exchange student. Willi’s German family has a dark history that troubles the young man. Later, Earl Walks Alone’s Uncle Ted joins the group of concerned young men. Ted is a colorful, wise man who apparently has no concerns about material things but has a big heart toward animals.

I loved this novel. The characters are finely drawn, with each unique characteristic shown through action and crisp dialog. South Dakota’s vast land is well described, both in its beauty and its bleakness. The plot keeps up a tense pace. I recommend this novel to those who enjoy reading about ranch life, and who appreciate an engaging, vividly described story.

Book Review: The Whip

Posted on April 20, 2026 by Mary

“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.”
—Louis L’Amour

The Whip, a novel by Karen Kondazian was inspired by the true story of Charlotte “Charley” Parkhurst (1812-1879) who lived most of her extraordinary life as a man. The story takes place in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and finally California.

When just a baby, Charlotte Parkhurst was left on the doorstep of an orphanage in Boston, Massachusetts. Growing up in a harsh environment took its toll on Charlotte. She didn’t fit in with the other girls. She hated sewing and other work expected of girls. Lee, an older boy at the orphanage, became her protector and the two of them became friends. As Charlotte grew older she refused to perform the feminine duties expected of her, and as a punishment was sent to the stables to care for the horses. However, as it happened, she loved caring for the horses and blissfully worked with their Black stablehand. She learned how to drive a wagon and handle reins for multiple horses.

Later, Charlotte fell in love with a runaway slave and together they had a precious baby girl. For a while they lived in peace in Rhode Island, but one day her life was shattered when her family was murdered. She made her way to California in search of the killer.

In California, Clarlotte became “Charlie” when she realized what she knew best was horses. Dressed as a man, she hired on as a stagecoach driver, called a “whip,” for Wells Fargo, and became known as a man. She had friends among other men, chewed tobacco, smoked cigars, swore, and swaggered like a man, and became an expert whip handling a six-horse team. Charlie even killed a famous outlaw on one of her stagecoach runs. When an actress and her daughter fell on hard times, Charlie took them in. But life became complicated when the woman fell in love with Charlie.

Charley was the first known woman (as a man) to vote in America in 1868. Her grave lies in Watsonville, California.

I loved this story of Charley Parkhurst. The author transported me to a time when women had set expectations and duties; when men got to have dreams, but women didn’t. Charlotte’s life defied all those rules. It was a time when stage coaches played an important part in the West, transporting people, money, mail, and goods to destinations not yet served by trains. Charlie expertly filled a need and earned the respect from those who met and worked with her.

Book Review: Leaving Time

Posted on April 13, 2026 by Mary

Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult kept me engrossed throughout this intense novel. The contemporary story takes place in New Hampshire, Africa and a short time in Tennessee. The story rotates between four characters.

Jenna Metcalf, thirteen, has never stopped thinking of and searching for her mother who disappeared after a mysterious accident when Jenna was three years old. Jenna lives with her grandmother who has met her responsibilities in substituting her daughter’s duties as a mother, but resents this extra responsibility. Jenna’s father is in a mental institution. She constantly searches the internet for any clues relating to her mother, and pours over her mother’s journals hoping to find clues.

Serenity Jones, a psychic, at first rejects Jenna’s plea to help find the girl’s mother. Serenity at one time was a well-known personality and was frequently called upon by police to help solve cases, and often appeared on television. But she fell from grace and now is reluctant to use her talents to help this desperate girl.

Virgil Stanhope, an ex-cop and now a private detective, is approached by an insistent girl, Jenna, to help find her mother. Virgil, jaded from past experiences, at first resists helping, but then learns he was the detective on a murder case that might relate to Alice’s whereabouts.

Alice, Jenna’s mother, spent several years in Africa studying elephant behavior. She made keen observations as she journaled extended elephant families—how they nurture and protect their young, how they show love, fear and grief, and their habits when searching for food and water.

The book alternates chapters featuring Jenna, Serenity, Virgil and Alice. As the three work together to find Alice they come to surprising and sometimes dismaying discoveries and conclusions about themselves as well as learning about the lessons Alice discovered years before.

This book also includes a novella, Larger Than Life, about Alice’s early years researching elephants. I also appreciated this story and learning even more about elephants and their strong family relationships.

I very much enjoyed Leaving Time, and Larger Than Life, especially the sections about Africa. I’ve always loved elephants and this novel is rich with elephant culture. Elephants and humans have experienced a troubled, even tragic, co-existence and both stories expand on these problems and the steps taken to reduce conflicts.

Book Review: Roots

Posted on April 6, 2026 by Mary

Roots: The Saga of an American Family, a novel by Alex Haley (1921 – 1992) is an extraordinary story of the author’s ancestry beginning in Africa and continuing in the United States.

In West Africa’s The Gambia, a baby boy named Kunta Kinte was born in the spring of 1750 in the village of Juffure. He grew up in the traditional manner, learning how to be a man, following Mankinka tribal traditions.

At the age of 16, Kunta wandered a little farther than usual, looking for wood to make a drum. While inspecting a tree trunk for his project, he was suddenly overcome, captured, forced aboard a ship among 140 other men and women captives, and bound by chains to other men for an excruciating, seemingly endless voyage of suffering, pain and sickness. Arriving in Maryland, he was sold for $850 and taken by wagon to a plantation. He didn’t know the language, didn’t understand what was expected of him, and resisted every effort to conform to his new environment. Kunta was actually a novelty, coming directly from Africa. At the time, most slaves were born in the United States. Kunta, named Toby by his white master, ran away several times. The last time he ran away and was caught, the front half of his foot was chopped off. Finally, he was taken to a plantation where he was treated for his injury, and where he would stay for many years under comparatively humane treatment.

Eventually, Kunta became a wagon driver for his master, a doctor, as he made his rounds. By talking to drivers and slaves from other plantations, Kunta had opportunities to learn not only of local happenings but also United States and even world news. Although he resented being owned by someone and having no rights at all, Kunta’s life was far better than many slaves. He eventually married and had one daughter, Kizzy. Kunta felt it important that she knew her heritage, so he often told her of Africa, naming African places and people, a tradition that was passed down to following generations.

And so it went throughout the family’s subsequent descendants, toiling under the white man’s whims, unable to own their own land, living in shacks. Although teaching a slave to read and write was against the law, there were readers, even those who could write, within the extended family. They learned of their family lineage beginning with Kunta from The Gambia and following generations, and finally to Alex Haley in Tennessee who traced his family’s history. Roots, a Pulitzer Prize winner, is an amazing chronicle of a family’s struggle for human rights. The novel, together with the television mini-series, helped open the minds of Americans to a new way of thinking of America’s past to today’s more enlightened viewpoints.

When I first read Roots soon after it was published in 1976, I didn’t dream that one day I’d walk the dusty paths of Kunta Kinte’s homeland. My husband and I served for two years with the Peace Corps in The Gambia. During the three-month in-country language and cross-cultural training, we learned that one of our language teachers was part of the Alex Haley team who helped him find his roots. While reading the African portion of the book, I could almost hear the drums as they “spoke” the local news. Living in The Gambia was one of the highlights of my life. Reading Roots this second time made it come alive again for me.

Book Review: A Woman of No Importance

Posted on March 30, 2026 by Mary

A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell is an intriguing, detailed account of Virginia Hall, an allied spy.

Born in Baltimore,1906, Virginia Hall came from money, but she wasn’t to follow the pattern of most girls of means. She attended private schools, and in college excelled in French and mathematics. In 1926 she moved to Europe, loved France, and when she returned to the United States she could speak five foreign languages.

Although her mother hoped she would finally settle down, marry, and lead a genteel life,
her mother’s wish was not to be. While on a bird hunting trip, Virginia, 27, stumbled, her rifle accidently went off, and she shot her left foot. The foot became infected, then the leg, gangrene set in, and she consequently lost her leg from just below the knee. She acquired a hollow wooden prosthetic, but for the rest of her life she had a swinging gate to her walk, and often suffered pain.

In 1940 France was being overrun by Germany. In the United States, Virginia applied for work at the State Department, but being a woman was rejected. Later, in England, she worked in the French section of British secret service, in the Special Operations Executive (SOE) as a secret liaison officer, and was sent to France. As a spy, Virginia coordinated the work of local Resistance leaders and future SOE agents. With her prosthetic leg, she often worked at a disadvantage, but she powered on, helping to turn the tide of history. Virginia was driven not by recognition or reward, but by a profound sense of duty to humanity. She frequently changed apartments to avoid being caught. In 1942, the Gestapo sent out an urgent transmission: “She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her.” But Virginia pressed on, and refused order after order to evacuate.

A Woman of No Importance is a story of personal triumph over shocking adversity. Virginia Hall was never satisfied being placed in a “woman’s role,” but used her femininity to her advantage. She was a master at looking natural and ordinary while doing unnatural and extraordinary things. Virginia had a knack for recruiting people and gaining their trust. She was glamorous, but also authoritative and decisive.

With the detailed facts and accounts of spy activity, this book would be of special interest to World War II buffs. People who are familiar with France would no doubt enjoy this book with its references to many well-known landmarks. I appreciated learning about Virginia Hall and her inspiring life as a World War II secret agent.

Book Review: Shooting Up

Posted on March 23, 2026 by Mary

Shooting Up: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Addiction by Jonathan Tepper, is a remarkable memoir written by the son of an American Presbyterian missionary family who lived in San Blas, a drug ravaged slum in Madrid.

In 1985 Elliott and Mary Tepper, together with their four sons, arrived in Madrid during the midst of one of Europe’s worst heroin epidemics. Jonathan was the second oldest of four boys, and the story is told from his prospective. The Tepper’s early meetings were held in their living room, helping drug addicts, then expanded into an organization called Betel. As time went on, Betel wasn’t in just one place—they worked in shops, farms, even chicken barns. It became an international organization that has helped more than 200,000 addicts. Betel’s international headquarters is still in Madrid.

This story is about Betel’s beginnings and one family’s struggle and ultimate success in bringing hope and love to people ravaged by HIV and AIDS. (While HIV is a virus that may cause an infection, AIDS, which is short for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, is a disease. Contracting HIV can lead to the development of AIDS, or stage 3 HIV, a complex condition with varying symptoms.) Many of Jonathan’s friends were ex-addicts who transformed their lives as a result of the Teppers missionary work. Jonathan was especially close to two of these friends, Raúl and Jambri, charismatic ex-addicts twice his age from whom he learned many of life’s lessons.

Growing up among drug addicts influenced Jonathan, as did his father’s love of literature’s classics. Jonathan and his family experienced many tragic losses, even within their own family, but they rallied and relied on their faith to bring love and encouragement to others.

Shooting Up is an extraordinary memoir of hope and promise. It’s a brutally honest story about an oppressively cruel disease. It’s also about love, love of God and subsequently love of all people, not just those like us, but people who despair, who need help even when they don’t want it, or who can’t see their way clear to ask for it. Jonathan’s story spans from 1985 through the 1990s, from his childhood to his college experience in North Carolina. It’s a memoir of a unique childhood, of the horror of addiction, and of the power of love. Shooting Up is not a particularly religious story, but rather a story borne of love for our fellow man, a precept of Christian beliefs.

Book Review: My Name is Lucy Barton

Posted on March 15, 2026 by Mary

My Name Is Lucy Barton: A Novel by Elizabeth Strout is a compelling narrative that reads like a memoir. The first-person story takes place in New York in the 1980s, with reminisces of Lucy Barton’s childhood in Amgash, Illinois.

Lucy was in a New York hospital for nine weeks. It started with a routine appendectomy, followed by complications and various infections. Lucy’s husband, who hated hospitals, called her mother and paid for her to fly to New York to be with Lucy. While in the hospital Lucy desperately misses her two daughters, five and six years old, but is thankful to have her mother there. The mother never seems to rest but sits in a chair at the foot of Lucy’s bed, always ready for conversation.

Lucy had a difficult childhood. The dysfunctional family—mother, father, and two older siblings—was not only poor but devoid of love and laughter. The children went to school unclean, in ill-fitting, dirty clothes. Classmates did not want to sit near them because they smelled bad. The family of five lived in a garage on property next to a large house. This information comes out in between conversations with her mother while in the hospital.

Although Lucy loves her mother, love isn’t something they talk about. Their conversations consist of gossiping about other people; sometimes with humor, at times evoking awkwardness between the two. They rarely speak of Lucy’s childhood, only about people they knew during those years.

Lucy’s dream is to become a writer, and as that becomes a reality other parts of her life shatter. Longings from childhood surface and become part of the fabric that is her new life.

I loved this unusual, riveting novel. Although I came from a middle-class family, I knew of families similar to what the author described. In third grade, I sat next to a girl who smelled bad. I didn’t really understand it then, but I imagine her childhood was much like Lucy Barton’s. When I was about ten, a family in our neighborhood had a new baby and I used to visit them and hold that sweet baby girl, the youngest of four siblings. Their run-down house was in shambles, with dirty clothes, food, and trash scattered everywhere. When I’d come home my mother complained I smelled bad! This book reminded me of that experience. My Name Is Lucy Barton is a compelling, thought-provoking novel that made me thankful for my childhood. I intend to read more of Elizabeth Strout’s work. I hope I enjoy it as much as I did this novel.

Book Review: The Plot

Posted on March 9, 2026 by Mary

The Plot, a novel by Joan Hariff Koreltz held me captive from beginning to end. The contemporary story mostly takes place in New York.

Novelist Jake Bonner’s first book was met with a fair amount of success. His second novel, not so much. Now he’s reluctantly teaching in a third-rate Master of Fine Arts program. Jake dreads the school term, interacting with dreary colleagues, and not looking forward to another batch of eager students. Jake is tired of pretending he is still a great writer when he knows he hasn’t written anything worthwhile in years.

One of Jake’s students, arrogant Evan Parker, claims he doesn’t really need help because his book in progress is a sure thing. Jake assumes Evan’s boasts are the imaginations of an amateur. That is, until he hears the plot and reads the first few pages.

As Jake plugs along he frequently checks to see if Parker’s novel is published. But it never happens. In researching further, he learns that Evan Parker has died, apparently without finishing his novel. What should he do? The story needs to be told, and he’s just the one who should do it. Jake writes the story and the novel is a sensation beyond his wildest dreams.

But not all is hunky-dory. He starts getting dark messages on social media: “You are a thief,” “You are a fraud.” Then his publisher starts receiving them. Jake has a meeting with the publisher and they determine the messages are just a prank. Forget about it. But Jake cannot ignore it.

While on tour Jake is interviewed on a radio station. While there he meets Anna Williams and they eventually marry. Anna, too, encourages him to forget about the ever-increasing dark remarks.

But the accusations become more threatening and he can no longer ignore the insidious statements. He travels to his former student’s home town to try to get to the bottom of the source. Jake finds what he believes to be key to the accusations.

The Plot is a very cleverly written novel that takes surprising turns. As a writer, I very much enjoyed this story and recommend it to not only writers, but to anyone who enjoys a good nail-biting tale.

Book Review: Heaven Adjacent

Posted on March 2, 2026 by Mary

Heaven Adjacent is another heart-felt novel by one of my favorite authors, Catherine Ryan Hyde. The present-day story takes place in the foothills of the Adirondacks, New York.

When her best friend and business partner suddenly dies, Roseanna Chaldecott realizes how futile it is to spend a lifetime working without really enjoying life, putting all your dreams and hopes into an uncertain future. Her friend had worked hard and had been looking forward to retirement in two years. Roseanna suddenly quits her job as a high-powered lawyer in Manhattan and heads upstate with no plans to return.

Almost by accident, Roseanna happens upon a ramshackle seventy-six acre farm. It’s a perfect hideout. The tiny house isn’t much, but who cares? Apparently no one has lived there for some time, but wait—it appears there are squatters, a mother and young daughter. Roseanna reluctantly lets them stay. But others find their way to the farm, including her estranged son, a stray dog, and an ancient horse named Ernest.

Roseanna’s life has taken a drastic turn. But is it for the better, or has she just traded one set of worries for another?

Heaven Adjacent is yet another heart-warming, uplifting story by an author who writes a wide range of novels, always with a subtle lesson. This is the tenth book of Catherine Ryan Hyde’s that I have read and reviewed. Can’t wait for the next one.