Review of "Someone Else's Shoes: A Novel" by JoJo Moyes

London printing company saleswoman Sam Kemp was given a one-day gift pass to a high-end gym. Since the pass is about to expire, Sam decides to use it one morning before a series of sales calls.



At the facility, there's a mix-up in the locker room, and Sam grabs a lookalike gym bag on her way out, leaving her own gym bag behind.



Riding to to her first meeting with several colleagues, Sam reaches into the gym bag for her shoes, and instead of her sensible black pumps, Sam finds red Louboutin sling-backs with four inch heels. Sam can't go to a sales meeting in flip-flops, so she dons the Louboutins and finds that the sexy shoes fascinate clients and help with sales.



This is important to Sam because she has a new boss, a nasty misogynist named Simon who's ALWAYS on Sam's case.



Simon constantly says Sam can't do anything right and insinuates she's dispensable. Sam can't lose her job because she's currently the family's sole breadwinner. Sam's husband Phil - who recently lost his father and his job - just sits on the sofa and watches television. Phil is clinically depressed, but he refuses to take medication or get help.



Thus Sam has to do EVERYTHING: support herself, Phil, and their teenage daughter; walk and feed the family dog; keep up the house; shop for groceries; prepare meals; pay the bills; and so on.



Sam also has to help her retired parents, who expect her to clean their house; shop for them; and see to all their eccentric whims. On top of all that, Sam's best friend Andrea has been diagnosed with cancer, and is currently undergoing treatment.



Though Sam is overwhelmed with worries and responsibilities, she plans to return the gym bag - and the Louboutins - as soon as she gets a chance

On the morning of the gym bag switch, the owner of the Louboutins, an American woman named Nisha Cantor, is horrified to be stuck with Sam's bag, which Nisha thinks is full of germs; nasty skin cells; bad smells; and the like. And that's just the beginning of Nisha's horrible day.



Nisha has been married to wealthy business executive Carl Cantor for eighteen years, and for the entire time, Nisha has been the 'perfect wife.'



Nisha is beautiful, elegant, cultured, and goes everywhere with Carl, whose business interests require constant travel.



As a result, Nisha and Carl's troubled teenage son is at a boarding school in America, where he's lonely and unhappy. Boarding school was Carl's idea, and Nisha reluctantly agreed, since keeping Carl happy is always her first priority.

While Nisha and Carl are in London, they reside in the penthouse of an elegant hotel.



On the day of the gym bag switch, Nisha returns to the hotel and finds that her life is about to be completely upended. Carl has informed the hotel staff that Nisha is not permitted to enter the penthouse under any circumstances, not even to get her clothes (all designer labels of course). In addition, Carl has cancelled all Nisha's credit cards and completely blocked her access to funds. In short, Nisha has NOTHING. It's clear Carl has decided to divorce Nisha, and has been planning this move for a long time.



As the story unfolds we follow Sam and Nisha's arcs.

Sam struggles along with her awful boss, who makes her feel completely cowed at work. Sam does get support from her co-workers, especially a sympathetic man named Joel, which results in an emotional affair.



As for Sam's home situation, she tries hard to pull her husband Phil out of the doldrums. However Phil doesn't respond to Sam's entreaties, and he can't seem to understand how badly he's damaging the marriage.



In the meanwhile, disenfranchised Nisha accidently gets a cleaning job in the hotel where Carl still resides.



As Nisha goes about her work she makes friends with some fellow hotel employees, especially a maid called Jasmine.....



.....and a hotel chef called Alex. Both Jasmine and Alex help Nisha in her darkest days.



Eventually Sam and Nisha's storylines come together, and all the ladies - Sam, Nisha, cancer patient Andrea, and hotel maid Jasmine - cooperate to rectify some wrongs. 🙂





I enjoyed the novel, which has drama, comedy, and interesting characters.

I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Daisy Ridley, who does a fine job.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Review of "The Women: A Historical Novel" by Kristin Hannah

Television viewers familiar with the TV show 'MASH' (1972 -1983) - a comedy about an American army hospital in South Korea during the Korean War (1950-1953) - know that female nurses were present in combat zones. In other words, women contributed to the war effort.



The Vietnam War (1955 -1975) largely took place before MASH was on the air, and most people at the time dismissed the notion that American women were in Vietnam. So females that returned from that war-torn country - traumatized and suffering from PTSD - were ignored, dismissed, brushed off, etc.

That reality is at the heart of Kristin Hannah's novel 'The Women.'

*****

As the story opens, the year is 1965 and 20-year-old Frances Grace McGrath (Frankie) lives on Coronado Island in California, home to many proud Navy families.



Frankie's father has a 'heroes wall' in his study, which contains photos of men in uniform, medals for valor and injury, a triangle-folded American flag, and other memorabilia of family members who served their country.



Now Frankie's beloved older brother Finley, who graduated from the Naval Academy, is shipping out to Vietnam, and their dad is as proud as punch.



Frankie, who recently graduated from nursing school, decides to follow Finley overseas and joins the Army Nurse Corps.



Frankie is quickly shipped to the Thirty-Sixth Evac Hospital in Vietnam, where she's one of nine female nurses on staff. The facility smells like jet fuel, smoke, fish, rotting vegetation, and excrement, and Frankie is told she'll see, "very seriously injured....everything from leprosy, to amputations to rat bites to what's left of a soldier after a land mine."





As a new inexperienced nurse, Frankie is initially overwhelmed at the Thirty-Sixth Evac, but is helped to acclimatize by her hooch-mates, Barb and Ethel, who soon become her best friends.







Frankie is also taught the ropes by a kind older doctor in the Neuro ward, which houses paraplegics, patients with pelvic fractures, burn patients, and other men who can't stand much manipulation. Once Frankie gets her feet under her in Neuro, she can move on to triage, first aid, treatment, surgery, and other things.



Author Kristin Hannah provides a vivid picture of Frankie's experiences at the Evac hospital: the heat; being constantly drenched in sweat; the sour-smelling sheets; the boonie hats; the mud; the pounding headaches; the nurses latrines; the outdoor showers; the gunfire and explosions; the sound of incoming helicopters; running to get the injured off the choppers; the horribly mutilated soldiers who have limbs blown off; faces half gone; guts hanging out; and other horrible injuries.



Frankie and her colleagues also treat injured Vietnamese civilians, including babies and children, who are burned by napalm, sick, and hurt.



There's some relief from the horror of the medical wards in a 'recreational' Quonset hut with a plywood bar, a stereo system, and tables to sit at. Here hospital personnel smoke, drink, sing, dance, and socialize.



There are also occasional movies on the grounds, and spontaneous games of football and the like. Of course men vastly outnumber women in the Evac hospital, the doctors think they're gods, and Frankie is warned to to be careful because "Over here, the men lie and they die."



The first part of the book follows Frankie's experiences in-country, at the Thirty-Sixth Evac and then at the Seventy-First Evac, which is smack in the middle of a combat zone. In the midst of war Frankie soon becomes a skilled surgical nurse, able to close up and perform simple operations herself. Frankie also meets all manner of soldiers, helicopter pilots, drivers, doctors, nurses, Donut Dollies (female Red Cross volunteers), and others involved in the war effort. Frankie tries to heed the "men lie" dictum, but things happen when lives can be snuffed out in an instant.





After two tours in Vietnam, Frankie returns home to a country where people are against the war and take it out on the men (and women) who served. Veterans are maligned and disrespected and Frankie's parents - who disapproved of her enlisting - won't even let her talk about Vietnam.



Meanwhile, Frankie is anxious and depressed; she has frequent nightmares; she constantly wakes up on the floor beside her bed; she has PTSD and hits the ground when she hears fireworks; she learns distressing news that sends her into a spiral; and more.



To cope, Frankie smokes cigarettes, drinks alcohol (lots and lots of alcohol), and takes pills (lots and lots of pills). And when Frankie tries to get help from the Veterans Administration, she's told women didn't serve in Vietnam and shooed away. Things get worse and worse for Frankie until a crisis occurs and drastic steps are necessary.

We follow Frankie's struggles throughout the book. Frankie gets little support from people in her home region of Coronado Island/San Diego, but she can count on Barb - who lives in Virginia, and Ethel - who lives in Georgia, to show up when she needs help.



Eventually, the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial is erected in 1982, and Vietnam veterans are accorded the respect they deserve. However Frankie and others who served in Vietnam have to deal with a great deal of contempt first.



As I read the book, I felt completely immersed in Frankie's life, and was dismayed by the treatment she received when she returned to the United States. I was especially annoyed with Frankie's father, who refused to put her picture on the 'heroes wall', because only male veterans were allowed up there. (Can you imagine?)

I empathized with Frankie, but was bothered by her extreme naïvety about men. That said, I understand the need for drama in a novel.

One thing I really like about the book are the songs and lyrics that punctuate many of Frankie's activities. These include ditties like: I Wanna Hold Your Hand; Come On Baby Light My Fire; Like a Rolling Stone; We Gotta Get Outta This Place; Born To Be Wild; I Am Woman; and more.



This is an excellent book that should appeal to men and women alike. Highly recommended.

Thanks to Netgalley, Kristin Hannah, and St. Martin's Press for a copy of the book.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Review of "Her Deadly Game: A Novel of Suspense" by Robert Dugoni

Former Seattle prosecutor Keera Duggan.......



.......left her job after she broke off an affair with her boss, prosecutor Miller Ambrose, who then stalked and harassed her.



Keera now works for her father's law firm, Patrick Duggan & Associates, which has a fine reputation in Seattle.



In addition to Keera, personnel at Patrick Duggan & Associates include Keera's father Patrick (Patsy) - an attorney whose prodigious skills are fading because of his long-term alcoholism;



Keera's sister Ella - an attorney who functions as the firm's managing partner;



Keera's sister Maggie - the office administrator;



and JP Harrison - the firm's private investigator.



Keera gets her first big court case when affluent wealth manager Vincent LaRussa is accused of killing his wheelchair-bound wife Anne LaRussa.



The police, led by Violent Crimes Detective Frank Rossi......



......believe they have a strong case. CCTV footage from the LaRussa mansion show that, on the night of the murder, a lawyer and a friend visited Anne shortly before her husband Vince came home. And the husband is ALWAYS the prime suspect.



Vince CLAIMS he was at a fund raiser and found his wife dead in the kitchen when he entered his house. Vince engages Patrick Duggan & Associates to defend him, and Keera becomes his attorney, with her dad Patsy (who promises to stay sober) as second chair.

When Keera and her investigator JP Harrison examine the crime scene they find a burn mark on the door of the oven, water on the kitchen counter, and a few cotton fibers - evidence the police dismissed as unimportant. However JP, who was a Seattle detective for 25 years before he became a PI, thinks these are significant clues.



In any case, Keera, in consultation with her colleagues, plans a SODDI defense (some other dude did it), and hopes at least one juror will have reasonable doubt.



As it happens, Keera was a chess whiz when she was a youngster, and still plays anonymous opponents online. While Keera is preparing her defense of Vince LaRussa, she's playing a skillful opponent called Darkknight - and Keera's chess strategy helps with her defense strategy.



Keera is also aided by anonymous emails from a mysterious person called Jack Worthing, who points Keera to people who knew Vince in previous years.

Keera knows the trial will be a battle, since prosecuting attorney Ambrose Miller resents Keera for ending their relationship AND has lofty political ambitions. The courtroom scenes are compelling, with 'Perry Mason' moments I enjoyed.





I also liked the family interactions among the Duggans: the alcoholic father; the enabling, protective mother; the sibling rivalry among Keera, Ella, and Maggie - all add interest to the story.

This is a fine legal thriller, recommended to fans of the genre.

Rating: 3.5 stars