Jill Hedgecock

Fiction Writer

#bookrecommendations

Book Review: The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

Review by Jill Hedgecock


The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware (2017, Gallery/Scout Press; Reprint edition, paperback, 384 pages $9.99) is the perfect book for edge-of-your-seat tension junkies who enjoy sorting through facts with an unreliable narrator at the helm. The mystery of who exactly is that mysterious woman that briefly occupied a cruise liner cabin and then suddenly disappeared provides further intrigue in this twist-and-turn plot that keeps readers guessing until the end.
Laura “Lo” Blacklock has a problem. Actually, she’s facing quite a few challenges: her apartment in England was burgled while she was at home sending her into an emotional tailspin. On top of that, she drinks too much, she’s on anti-depressants, she’s broken up with her boyfriend—though she’s not sure about that—and now her dream assignment on a posh luxury yacht as a reporter for a travel magazine is turning into the trip from hell. Because of Lo’s penchant for excessive alcohol consumption and her fragile state from the trauma of encountering a thief in her home, immediately sets the stage for readers to rally behind this confused young woman. But this also makes it unclear if her account of events that involved a body tossed overboard really happened.
In the spirit of Agatha Christie’s closed room who-dun-its, the lists of suspects is limited to the Scandinavian staff and the ship’s passengers because the person who committed a possible murder is at sea. The perpetrator could be anyone, fellow journalists, photographers, and wealthy people paying for the privilege of participating in the The Aurora’s maiden voyage through the Norwegian fjords. But the list seems to narrow as clues point in the direction of Lo’s former boyfriend, Ben, a dashing photographer named Cole Lederer who’s having problems with his wife, or the ship’s head of security, Johann Nilsson. Still, there are enough red herrings to keep readers scratching their heads.
Ruth Ware brilliantly foretells snippets of future events in the story at chapter conclusions using social media in the form of emails and chat rooms of amateur detectives. She also has a talent for keeping readers wondering if our narrator is a drunken fool or a broken woman prone to hallucinations. It is no surprise that The Woman in Cabin 10 was an Instant New York Times and USA Today bestseller.
Ruth Ware grew up in Sussex, on the south coast of England. After graduating from Manchester University, she moved to Paris before settling in North London. She is the internationally bestselling author of In a Dark, Dark Wood and The Lying Game (2017). She is married with two small children. The Death of Mrs. Westaway, is due to be released at the end of the month. Fans of The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins and Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn will probably enjoy this book.

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Book Review: A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Review by Jill Hedgecock

A secret key, a young girl’s curiosity, and a man under house arrest lead to an unlikely pair sleuthing through the bowels of a Russian hotel. These elements make A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (Penguin, paperback, 496 pages, $13.10) an intriguing premise. Towles’ inclusion of Russian history further lay the groundwork for an epic reading experience. It is a lengthy tome spanning three decades and requires readers to pay careful attention. Rest assured, it’s worth the effort. According to Towles, “Bit characters, passing remarks, incidental objects come swirling together and play essential roles in bringing the narrative to its sharply pointed conclusion.”

Count Alexander Rostov is an aristocrat survivor of the bloody aftermath of the Russian Revolution. Although spared death, he must live within the confines of the Metropol Hotel, situated near the Kremlin. While all the characters in the book are imagined, the Metropol is based on an existing historic hotel located in central Moscow. In addition to its intriguing setting and main character, Towles infuses the story with a compelling supporting cast. In contrast to the stiff, yet genteel, Rostov, movie star, Anna Urbanova, and her two borzois, bring levity and glamour to lighten the pages. Anna also brings romance into housebound Rostov’s life. Equally compelling are Rustov’s male friendships from the ne’er-do-well American vending machine salesman to Mishka, Rostov’s boyhood chum provide insights into the extent of Rostov’s charm. When young Sophia enters his life, Rostov is jolted from his comfortable routines as he embraces fatherly responsibilities. Of course, no good book is without its villain and the incompetent waiter, Bishop Leplevshy with his antagonistic personality and a penchant for snooping into Rostov’s affairs, fills that literary role quite well. Like many accomplished novelists, Towles interweaves elements of other great creative works into his story—in this case, the movie, Casablanca. The book also has an inherent quirkiness to its structure. All of the chapter titles begin with the letter “A.”

A Gentleman in Moscow is a New York Times bestseller and was ranked as one of the best books of 2016 by the Chicago Tribune, the Miami Herald and others. Amor Towles graduated from Yale College and received an MA in English from Stanford University. His first novel, Rules of Civility, published in 2011, was a New York Times bestseller and ranked by the Wall Street Journal as one of the best books of 2011. Both of Towles’ novels have been translated into over fifteen languages. This hefty read is the perfect book to escape into on a cold, rainy January day.

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Book Review: Spoonbenders by Daryl Gregory

Review by Jill Hedgecock


Imagine having a daughter who can tell if you’re lying. Imagine your son, Buddy, can see the future, but not all the details. Imagine your other son, Frankie, can move things with his mind, but because he is a chronic failure as an entrepreneur, he has gotten involved with the mob to solve his business investment debts. These are just a few of the issues that the patriarch of the family, Teddy Telemachus, must grapple with in Spoonbenders by Daryl Gregory (2017, Random House LLC, paperback, 416 pages $24.54).


Teddy, a card shark and con man who married Maureen – the real deal when it comes to supernatural powers – fathered three children with special gifts. His children’s unique talents are both a blessing and a curse. His daughter and eldest child, Irene, has also passed psychic traits on to her child (Teddy’s grandchild), Matt. Matt is 14, though his family seems to have forgotten a year and constantly calls him a 13 year-old, is a typical preteen boy in many ways. But when he accidentally discovers that his consciousness can travel outside his body and confides in his Uncle Frankie, he’s soon recruited into Frankie’s plot to steal mob money from a safe in a nearby tavern.


Meanwhile, Buddy, a grown man of few words, can’t see the whole future is trying to control the future to avoid a disastrous event called “The Zap.” As a widower, Teddy spends his free time trolling grocery stores for lady friends. Enter Graciella, a mob wife and object of Teddy’s latest infatuation. But it soon becomes apparent there’s more to this story—a lot more, and the reader soon discovers that Buddy’s visions and mobsters are inexplicably intertwined.


Amid exploring all these varied characters and their unusual lives, the backstory of how Teddy met his wife and how the government recruited her to spy on the Russians round out the story. Enormously creative and crafted, Spoonbenders, is a one-of-a-kind read filled with humor, and despite all its quirkiness manages to explore the depths of family bonds and the extraordinary resilience of humanity amid chaos.


Spoonbenders was a Nebula Award Finalist, one of NPR’s Best Books of the Year, and an Amazon Best Book. Paramount and Anonymous Content are developing it for television.


Daryl Gregory lives and writes full-time in Oakland. He is an award-winning writer of genre-mixing novels, stories, comics and even a video game. Some of his other works include a young adult novel Harrison Squared (Tor, March 2015), a Locus Award finalist, Afterparty which was an NPR and Kirkus Best Fiction book and Pandemonium, a finalist for the World Fantasy award. His novella, We are All Completely Fine, won the World Fantasy award and the Shirley Jackson award.

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Book Review: The Lake House by Kate Morton

Review by Jill Hedgecock

What happened to little Theo? Was the toddler kidnapped? Murdered? This is the major premise of The Lake House by Kate Morton (2016, Atria Books; Reprint edition, paperback, 512 pages $11.88). Theo had disappeared from the Edevane estate in Cornwall, England during their annual Midsummer party in June 1933. The case has remained unsolved for 70 years.


Fast forward to 2003 in London when Sarah, a former policewoman who has been put on leave and returned to Cornwall to stay with her grandfather, stumbles upon the abandoned Edevane property while out running. The derelict house intrigues Sarah because it appears that the former occupants up and left without packing a single possession. When Sarah learns about the tragedy of Theo’s disappearance, her detective skills kick in. She contacts one of Theo’s sisters, Alice. But Theo’s sister wants to bury the past, but through Sarah’s prodding, Alice learns that one of her assumptions about what happened on that fateful evening in 1933 has been wrong.


The story unfolds in pieces between Alice’s childhood and the Edevane family saga in 1933 and Sarah and Alice’s current lives. Red herrings tucked into this novel keep the reader guessing on Theo’s fate. Several nannies, a retired medical doctor, and a handsome young groundskeeper could have played a role in Theo’s disappearance. Then there’s the backstory of Theo’s and Alice’s parents. Eleanor, a fiercely devoted wife and Anthony, a nature lover, war veteran, and loving father.


The Lake House received a a Woman & Home Reader’s Choice Award for Best Historical Thriller (2016) and a Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Historical Fiction (2015). Readers who enjoy a compelling mystery, learning about the effects of World War I on servicemen, and poetic prose will love this book. The mystery of what happened to Theo launches this otherwise quiet book into a page-turning frenzy.
Kate Morton is an award-winning, New York Times bestselling author. Her five novels are published in over 40 countries, in 34 languages, and have all been number one bestsellers around the world. Kate grew up in Queensland and now splits her time between London and Australia. She has degrees in dramatic art and English literature with a focus in nineteenth-century tragedy and contemporary Gothic novels. Morton says of her experiences as a reader and novelist, “I fell deeply in love with books as a child and believe that reading is freedom; that to read is to live a thousand lives in one; that fiction is a magical conversation between two people – you and me – in which our minds meet across time and space.”

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Book Review: The Guest Room

The Guest Room

Review by Jill Hedgecock


The Guest Room by Chris Bohjalian (2016, Doubleday, paperback, 336 pages, $6.79) is the story of the fallout after a happily married man, Richard Chapman, makes the unfortunate mistake of hosting his brother’s bachelor party. Things spiral out of control when the hired entertainment—two young Russian sex slave girls—rebel against their captors and kill the two thugs during the party. Bohjalian’s heart-wrenching story is told primarily from two perspectives: Richard and Alexandra, one of the Russian girls at the party. While Richard’s comfortable life as an investment banker is turned upside down because of the murders, his woes are less intense compared to Alexandra’s. Her tale of abduction and imprisonment into a life of whoring catapults this novel into an edge-of-your-seat page turner. Somehow Alexandra’s kind heart and indomitable spirit makes reading this difficult subject matter easier.

Bohjalian’s narrative goes beyond describing the post-party calamity for the two main characters. From Richard’s brother-in-law’s (Philip’s) fiancé, to Philip’s best friend, Spencer, to Richard’s wife and daughter, the bachelor party mayhem leaves loved ones and acquaintances with difficult choices. The theme of Barbie dolls, perhaps an ultimate symbol of objectifying women, serves to add a disquieting depth to this story.

The Guest Room is Bohjalian’s eighteenth and far from his only great read. He has a penchant for taking ordinary people going about their normal lives and shoving them into impossible situations. He has mastered the art of seducing readers to question how they might act in a similar situation. From the New York Times bestsellers, The Sandcastle Girls (Armenian genocide) to Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands (aftermath of a nuclear meltdown on a teen girl in Vermont), Bohjalian’s diversity of socially- and morally-engaging topics is impressive. Three of his books have been turned into movies (Secrets of Eden, Past the Bleachers and Midwives).

The accolades for The Guest Room go beyond being a New York Times Bestseller and include such honors as becoming A Publishers Weekly Bestseller, A USA Today Bestseller and a Los Angeles Times Bestseller. Although uncomfortable to read at times, the novel brings to light horrendous business practices and heinous crimes against women. Yet, Bohjalian writes with compassion. In his acknowledgements, Bohjalian applauds the Los Angeles-based Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (www.castla.org) for their work in assisting victims of sex slavery. He has humanized sex slave trafficking in a way that could act as an agent for change. Bravo!

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Book Review: When Breathe Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

Review by Jill Hedgecock


When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi (2016, Vintage, paperback, 229 pages, $12.78) is the memoir of a young neurosurgeon at the tail end of his residency who is diagnosed with, and eventually succumbs to, lung cancer at the age of 37. This is a book about a student turned doctor, a neurosurgeon turned patient, a vibrant soul turned feeble. This is the story about a man who’s quest for life’s meaning launched him out of clinical textbooks into the real life role of a compassionate human being, who described his role as a doctor as mirroring the responsibilities of a religious pastor. In addition, to insight into the insidious ways diseases disrupt his patient’s and their family’s lives, readers get a glimpse of the grueling hours it takes to be a neurosurgeon.

It has been said that readers of novels tend to be more empathetic, so perhaps it is because Paul obtained a BA and MA in English Literature before pursuing a medical degree that his writing has a truth and compassion that most medically-trained people couldn’t invoke through mere words. As Paul’s narrative unfolds, readers are taken on a philosophical journey on the meaning of life. His vibrant, almost poetical, writing style is bound to captivate and maybe even distract readers from the heavy nature of the subject matter.

Kalanithi faced many dilemmas as he navigated the repercussions of cancer. Should I return to live as a neurosurgeon? Should I write the book? Should I give over treatment decisions to my doctor or continue to be involved? The book tackles a question that few married couples would want to face: should I bring a child into this world when I know I’m going to die? I respected that Paul gave his wife, Lucy, the power to make the final decision.

Kalanithi embarked on the book after he was ill and was not able to complete the manuscript before his death in March 2015 His wife, Lucy, describes how her husband coped with his illness. But perhaps, more importantly, how she and the family rallied to make the best of an impossibly sad situation. Her narrative is as just as compelling as her husband’s. Paul’s last day is a testament to the grace and fortitude, not because he tried to rally for a cure, but because he accepted his fate with dignity. When it was time to go, he was ready. I’d be lying if I said this was an easy read. Most people are not comfortable thinking about death. But the author’s outlook is infused with thought-provoking questions, not so much about the mechanics of death, but with how to life your life regardless of when you might end up traversing the hurdle that we all must face. One thing that rings true—we should all be so lucky to face death with such dignity.

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