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 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.

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I started reading Anna Quindlen‘s “After Annie: A Novel” today. Forty years ago, my wife Jan and I used to read Ms. Quindlen’s column “Life in the Thirties” in The New York Times, even if we didn’t have time to read anything else. We clipped and saved each column, which helped us manage getting older with children. I am reading “After Annie,” which is about how love can overcome loss.

Anna Quindlen, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Still Life with Bread Crumbs and One True Thing, is known for her insightful wisdom on family, friendship, and the bonds that unite us. Her latest novel explores the power of love to overcome loss and adversity.

The story centers around the Brown family and their matriarch, Annie. When Annie suddenly passes away, the family is forced to navigate life without their beloved wife, mother, and friend. Bill, Annie’s husband, struggles to cope with the loss, while Annemarie, her best friend, must confront the bad habits she once overcame with Annie’s help. Ali, Annie’s eldest child, must take on new responsibilities to care for her younger brothers and father.

Although Annie is no longer physically present, her memory continues to guide and inspire those who love her. Her voice resonates in their minds, offering them comfort, wisdom, and clarity. Through the power of her love, Annie gives her family the strength they need to move on without her. They learn that even though their beloved Annie is gone, she will always be with them in spirit.

“After Annie” is a poignant and touching story exploring the unanticipated ways adversity can transform our lives. With her signature style that strikes an emotional chord, Quindlen delivers a heartwarming tale about the tenacity of love and how it can triumph over even the most formidable obstacles. This story of hope is a testament to the enduring strength of the human spirit and its ability to rise above life’s challenges. It inspires us to believe in the power of love and its capacity to reshape our lives for the better.

Shiner: A Novel by Amy Jo Burns was my twenty-second of the year, and I achieved my Goodreads 2022 Reading Challenge. An hour from the closest West Virginia mining town, fifteen-year-old Wren Bird lives in a secluded mountain cabin with her parents. They have no car, mailbox, or visitors- except for her mother’s lifelong best friend.

Wren’s narration of her discoveries of the secrets of the past over one summer drives the novel and makes it a page-turner. Her mother, Ruby, and her best friend, Ivy, are two strong women who dreamed of escaping the West Virginia mountains. The male characters play secondary roles in the novel, as they should. Shiner is a feminist book about how women can and must take back their stories and lives from men whose power is an illusion.

I highly recommend this novel and look forward to reading other books by Amy Jo Burns. It was the perfect book to finish my reading challenge. As I continue to read this year, I hope to find another of her books on my shelf.

Goodreads provides an overview.

Every Sunday, Wren’s father delivers winding sermons in an abandoned gas station. He takes up serpents and praises the Lord for his blighted white eye, proof of his divinity and key to his hold over the community, Wren, and her mother.

But over the course of one summer, a miracle performed by Wren’s father quickly turns to tragedy. As the order of her world begins to shatter, Wren must uncover the truth of her father’s mysterious legend and her mother’s harrowing history and complex bond with her best friend. And with that newfound knowledge, Wren can imagine a different future for herself than she has been told to expect.

Rich with epic love and epic loss, and diving deep into a world that is often forgotten but still part of America, Shiner reveals the hidden story behind two generations’ worth of Appalachian heartbreak and resolve. Amy Jo Burns brings us a smoldering, taut debut novel about modern female myth-making in a land of men-and one young girl who must ultimately open her eyes.

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Today, I started reading “Good Material: A Novel” by Dolly Alderton, the bestselling author of “Ghosts” and “Everything I Know About Love.” This book has been listed as one of The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2024 and is among their 10 Best Books of 2024. So far, I have read three of the top five fiction books of 2024: “All Fours,” “James,” and “Martyr!.” I plan to read the fifth book, “You Dreamed of Empires,” next.

“Good Material” has received widespread acclaim for exploring heartbreak, friendship, and the various ways to cope with these experiences.

Andy loves Jen. Jen loved Andy. And he can’t work out why she stopped.

Now he is. . .

Without a home

Waiting for his stand-up career to take off

Wondering why everyone else around him seemed to have grown up while he wasn’t looking

Set adrift in the sea of heartbreak, Andy clings to the idea of solving the puzzle of his ruined relationship. Because if he can find the answer, Jen may find her way back to him. But Andy still has much to learn, not least his ex-girlfriend’s side of the story…

In this sharply funny and exquisitely relatable story of romantic disaster and friendship, Dolly Alderton offers up a love story with two endings, demonstrating again why she is one of the most exciting writers today and the authentic voice of a generation. Her writing feels like a conversation with a close friend, making you feel understood and seen.

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A Train to Moscow by Elena Gorokhova is set in post–World War II Russia; a girl, must reconcile a tragic past with her hope for the future in this powerful and poignant novel about family secrets, passion, loss, perseverance, and ambition. In a small, provincial town behind the Iron Curtain, Sasha lives in a house full of secrets, one of which is her dream of becoming an actress.

When she leaves for Moscow to audition for drama school, she defies her mother and grandparents and abandons her first love, Andrei.

Before she leaves, Sasha discovers the hidden war journal of her uncle Kolya, an artist still missing in action years after the war has ended. His pages expose the official lies and the forbidden truth of Stalin’s brutality. Kolya’s revelations and tragic love story guide Sasha through drama school and cement her determination to live a thousand lives onstage.

After graduation, she begins acting in Leningrad, where Andrei, now a Communist Party apparatchik, becomes a censor of her work. As a past secret comes to light, Sasha’s ambitions converge with Andrei’s duties, and Sasha must decide if her dreams are genuinely worth the necessary sacrifice and if, as her grandmother likes to say, all will indeed be well.

This was a page-turner, as I held my breath to find out the next steps that Sasha would take. Her ambition combined with the secrets she learns keeps the reader focused on the next page.

I recommend this book.

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When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole is a novel where the gentrification of a Brooklyn neighborhood takes on a sinister new meaning.

Sydney Green is Brooklyn-born and raised, but her beloved neighborhood seems to change every time she blinks. Condos are sprouting like weeds, FOR SALE signs are popping up overnight, and the neighbors she’s known all her life are disappearing. To hold onto her community’s past and present, Sydney channels her frustration into a walking tour and finds an unlikely and unwanted assistant in one of the new arrivals to the block—her neighbor Theo.

But Sydney and Theo’s deep dive into history quickly becomes a dizzying descent into paranoia and fear. After all, their neighbors may not have moved to the suburbs, and the push to revitalize the community may be more deadly than advertised.

When does coincidence become a conspiracy? Where do people go when gentrification pushes them out? Can Sydney and Theo trust each other—or themselves—long enough to find out before they too disappear?

Having lived in Brooklyn and seen the impacts of gentrification, redlining, and other practices, I found this book one that I truly enjoyed. The book will provide a detailed history lesson if you are like Theo and have no thought of these issues.

I enjoyed the visit to Weeksville, as I have been there on several professional occasions. The history of that community needs to be told.

I recommend this book.

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