Dragony Rising: A Frank Nagler Novel

Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 38 seconds

Dragony Rising: A Frank Nagler Novel by Michael Stephen Daigle is the fifth and best Frank Nagler Novel.

Like many of us living in the Garden State, Detective Frank Nagler has seen his hometown of Ironton, NJ, undergo many changes over the past several years. Although I want to believe the level of scandal in Ironton is more fictional than typical. The author describes the scandals within the city’s government, the stench of its corruption embedded deep, rivaling the dank stagnant stench emanating from the old bog just outside town.

From the opening sentence, Dragony Rising was a page-turner. Every time I thought I could put the book down, it beckoned me to keep reading.

I highly recommend this book, especially if you like mysteries with a unique New Jersey focus. My only recommendation would be for the series to be named the Lauren Fox/Frank Nagler novels. Lauren is as much the brains of the operation as Frank.

I have read several Frank Nagler novels-A Game Called Dead, The Swamps of Jersey-and have been waiting for this one to be published.

The author’s summary provides a good overview.

Detective Frank Nagler is recalled from medical leave to lead an investigation into the bombing.

He finds a shadowy organization called by its members The Dragony, whose roots go back to the early days of Ironton’s manufacturing and mining history, a history involving Nagler’s family in strange ways.

He also finds a decades-old conspiracy designed not just to enrich the Dragony leaders but to threaten the existence of Ironton itself.


The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Normal Rules Don't Apply: Stories

Read: September 2023

Normal Rules Don’t Apply: Stories

by Kate Atkinson

Today, I commended reading Normal Rules Don’t Apply: Stories by Kate Atkinson, is a dazzling collection of eleven interconnected stories from the bestselling, award-winning author of Shrines of Gaiety and Life After Life, with everything that readers love about her novels—the inventiveness, the verbal felicity, the sharp observations on human nature, and the deeply satisfying emotional wallop.

Nothing is quite as it seems in this collection of eleven dazzling stories. We meet a queen who makes a bargain she cannot keep, a secretary who watches over the life she has just left, and a man who bets on a horse that may—or may not—have spoken to him. Everything that readers love about the novels of Kate Atkinson is here—the inventiveness, the verbal felicity, the sharp observations on human nature, and the deeply satisfying emotional wallop.

A startling and funny feast for the imagination, these stories conjure a multiverse of subtly connected worlds while illuminating the webs of chance and connection among us all.


The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Followers

Read: December 2021

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Followers

by Megan Angelo

Followers by Megan Angelo is one of NPR’s Books We Love from 2020. Goodreads describes this as an electrifying story of two ambitious friends, the dark choices they make, and the stunning moment that changes the world as we know it forever.

Followers is a novel, but it could easily be read as history with all that has occurred with technology and social media. With the increased discussion of the Metaverse, how close are we to a significant spill of personal information? With the focus on followers defining our culture, how close are we to being manipulated by social media?

As a wannabe blogger, I am impressed by a handful of likes on social media and two comments on my posts. Although I can understand the temptation of Orla and Floss to manipulate the system for their benefit, it is something I know I would not do even if I had the skills.

The spill of personal information is described in a very plausible way. It is not just credit card data but private conversations, photos, and secrets that are spilled and alter the world as we know it. Is this possible? Hopefully not, but without adequate privacy regulations, we may all wake up one day to know that our most private secrets become known by everyone.

Marlow, the daughter of two mothers, along with Orla, provides an option of how we might all leave with less reliance on blue screens. As a secessionist nation in NJ, Atlantis was an interesting alternate reality.

Goodreads provides this overview if you are not convinced to read this book.

Orla Cadden is a budding novelist stuck in a dead-end job, writing clickbait about movie-star hookups and influencer yoga moves. Then Orla meets Floss ― a striving wannabe A-lister ― who comes up with a plan for launching them both into the high-profile lives they dream about. So what if Orla and Floss’s methods are a little shady and sometimes people get hurt? Their legions of followers can’t be wrong.

Thirty-five years later, in a closed California village where government-appointed celebrities live every moment of the day on camera, a woman named Marlow discovers a shattering secret about her past. Despite her massive popularity ― twelve million loyal followers ― Marlow dreams of fleeing the corporate sponsors who would do anything to keep her on-screen. When she learns that her whole family history is based on a lie, Marlow finally summons the courage to run in search of the truth, no matter the risks.

Followers traces the paths of Orla, Floss and Marlow as they wind through time toward each other, and toward a cataclysmic event that sends America into lasting upheaval. At turns wry and tender, bleak and hopeful, this darkly funny story reminds us that even if we obsess over famous people we’ll never meet, what we really crave is genuine human connection.

I recommend Followers as not only a good read but an allegory of our technology-dominated culture.

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A Feather in the Water

Read: July 2022

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A Feather on the Water

by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

A Feather on the Water by Lindsay Jayne Ashford is an excellent historical fiction of the post-was era for displaced people. I highly recommend it. The tagline reads, “for three women in postwar Germany, 1945 is a time of hope—lost and found.” I have always enjoyed historical fiction, and A Feather on the Water seemed like a perfect choice.

The opening paragraphs confirmed my decision, as Martha, one of the three women, escapes from her abusive husband in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Martha and the two other characters, Delphine and Kitty, come to life with Ms. Ashford’s gifted pen.

Like a feather in the water, our lives continue despite the trials and tribulations we must confront.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview.

Just weeks after World War II ends, three women from different corners of the world arrive in Germany to run a displaced-persons camp. They long to help rebuild shattered lives—including their own.

For Martha, going to Germany provides an opportunity to escape Brooklyn and a violent marriage. Arriving from England is orphaned Kitty. She hopes working at the camp will bring her closer to her parents, last seen before the war began. For Delphine, Paris has been a city of ghosts after her husband and son died in Dachau. Working at the camp is her chance to find meaning again by helping other victims of Hitler’s regime.

Charged with the care of more than two thousand camp residents, Martha, Delphine, and Kitty draw on each other’s strength to endure and to give hope when all seems lost. Among these strangers and survivors, they might find the love and closure they need to heal their hearts and leave their troubled pasts behind.


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Can You Feel This?

Read: January 2023

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Can You Feel This?

by Julie Orringer

Today I read Can You Feel This? by Julie Orringer. This short story rekindled so many memories. In the chaos of a maternity ward, memories of tragedy and grief come flooding back for an anxious mother-to-be as she struggles to balance her child’s needs with her healing. Although Jan and I did not have the shadows of tragedy and grief when our sons were born, this short story was more than a page-turner. Can You Feel This? reminded me of the power of the love Jan and I shared.

When our second son was born, we almost had him at home or in the as we waited too long. In Can, You Feel This? , that was not the case. Both children had two loving parents but also grandparents.

When Jan had the first of several hospitalizations, she was in the hospital where her mother died. Jan told me her feelings, and I comforted her, but I could not fully comprehend her angst.

Can You Feel This? is part of Inheritance, a collection of five stories about secrets, unspoken desires, and dangerous revelations between loved ones. Each Inheritance piece can be read or listened to in a single setting. By yourself, behind closed doors, or shared with someone you trust. This is the second one in the series I have read. The previous one was Everything That my Mother Taught Me.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

Rushed into an emergency cesarean section, a woman finds herself in the same hospital where her suicidal mother died. She’s buried the trauma of her mother’s last hours—and also the dread that she might be just as vulnerable to breaking. As the new mother relives one crisis in the midst of another, prize-winning author Julie Orringer turns the joyous event of birth into a harrowing, poignant short story.


The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Reluctantly Home

Read: June 2022

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Reluctantly Home

by Imogen Clark

Reluctantly Home by Imogen Clark is about dealing with the past—and finally facing the future-a topic that was appealing to me. Thirteen months into my grief journey, I live between a perfect past and an unknowable future. Will Reluctantly Home by Imogen Clark help me manage these two worlds?

Surprisingly it did. Unlike the two protagonists, I am mourning losing Jan, the love of my life. However, the neuro mapping in my brain made it impossible to understand how to continue to love Jan and separate that from the time and space connections that made me believe she would return at any moment.

Reluctantly Home by Imogen Clark helped me understand that grief should and cannot define us forever. I recommend this book to all readers, not only those on a grief journey like mine.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview.

Pip Appleby seems to have it all, with her prestigious job as a human rights lawyer and her enviable London home. But then a tragic accident stops her life in its tracks, and everything changes instantly. Retreating to her family’s rural farm and the humble origins she has been trying to hide, Pip is haunted by what she has done.

When she discovers the diary of actress Evelyn Mountcastle in a box of old books, Pip revels in the opportunity to lose herself in someone else’s life rather than focus on the disaster that is her own. But soon, she sees parallels—Evelyn’s life was also beset by tragedy, and, like Pip, she returned to Southwold under a dark cloud.

When Pip and Evelyn’s paths cross in real life, they slowly begin to reveal the hidden stories holding them back. Can they help each other forgive what happened in the past and, perhaps, find happiness in the future?


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Remarkably Bright Creatures

Read: January 2024

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Remarkably Bright Creatures

by Shelby Van Pelt

Today, I recommended reading “Remarkably Bright Creatures” by Shelby Van Pelt. It’s a charming, witty, and compulsively readable exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope. The novel traces the unlikely connection of a widow with a giant Pacific octopus, making it perfect for fans of “A Man Called Ove.” Shelby Van Pelt’s debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes, looking at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.

The story follows Tova Sullivan, who works the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium after her husband dies. Tova has been coping with loss since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.

While at the aquarium, Tova becomes acquainted with Marcellus, a grumpy giant Pacific octopus who refuses to cooperate with his human captors. However, Marcellus forms a remarkable friendship with Tova and helps her uncover the truth about her son’s disappearance.

As a detective, Marcellus uses his invertebrate body to deduce what happened when Tova’s son disappeared. Together, they embark on a journey to unearth the truth before it’s too late.


The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.



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