Review: It’s One of Us by J.T. Ellison

Fellow Nashvillian J.T. Ellison publishes her latest stand-alone thriller, It’s One of Us today. I was pleased to receive an ARC of Ellison’s latest novel so I could participate in her blog tour for the book.  Details on the book and how to purchase it are included after my review.

After years of struggling with infertility, Olivia and Park Bender’s marriage is showing signs of strain. On the morning that Olivia experiences a miscarriage, the police arrive at their Nashville home with shocking news – Park’s DNA has been linked to a series of crimes. The implication is that either Park is a suspect or one of his children is.

So begins J.T. Ellison’s latest thriller, It’s One of Us.

Park has things in his past he’s not exactly been forthcoming with Olivia about, including his donation to a sperm bank that used his sample far more than the documentation said they should or would. Turns out Park has multiple children by different mothers and these children have all connected on a Discord server. There are also questions about Park’s past related to the disappearance of his college girlfriend.

Ellison piles on twist after twist to the story, shifting through multiple points of view during the story. Whether it’s one of the women who used Park’s sample, Park’s daughter, the suspect, Olivia, Park, or Park’s twin brother Perry, each narrator provides an interesting piece of the puzzle as the story of what happened starts to unfold. Ellison even puts in an interesting twist or two to a love triangle that developed between Olivia, Park, and his twin brother Perry back in their college days and one that threatens to resurface again now.

Seeing Ellison reference various areas of Nashville and our local television station is an added bonus for this reader as a resident of middle Tennessee. Thankfully, she doesn’t pull a 24 and has every destination in the area be only five minutes from each other as the plot or latest twist needs various players in various places at a certain time.

The premise of a marriage already under strain due to infertility and then tested by the wildest of external forces is an intriguing one. Ellison’s exploration of Olivia’s struggle and emotions with infertility hits home with raw power and emotion. Be warned that if this is something you or someone you love struggles with, this book may hit you in all the right and wrong ways. The afterward reveals Ellison’s own struggles and how they led to Olivia’s creation.

But as twist after twist arrives, the story begins to lose a bit of its focus and intensity in the second half. As I said earlier, there is a love triangle that emerges between Olivia and the Bender twins – one that gets exacerbated as secrets come to light and Park’s twin brother Perry arrives back in town at precisely the wrong moment. White the story works hard to establish the long-simmering tension, but the payoff isn’t as solid as it could or should have been.

It ends up taking the story down a peg or two in the final pages and left me feeling a bit unsatisfied with It’s One Of Us in the final pages.

About the Book:

From the New York Times bestselling author comes this twisting, emotionally layered thriller about a marriage torn apart when the police arrive at an infertile couple’s door and reveal the husband’s son is the prime suspect in a murder. The perfect blend of exhilarating suspense and issue-driven book club fiction.

Everybody lies. Even the ones you think you know best of all . . .

Olivia Bender designs exquisite home interiors that satisfy the most demanding clients. But her own deepest desire can’t be fulfilled by marble counters or the perfect rug. She desperately wants to be a mother. Fertility treatments and IVF keep failing. And just when she feels she’s at her lowest point, the police deliver shocking news to Olivia and her husband, Park.

DNA results show that the prime suspect in a murder investigation is Park’s son. Olivia is relieved, knowing this is a mistake. Despite their desire, the Benders don’t have any children. Then comes the confession. Many years ago, Park donated sperm to a clinic. He has no idea how many times it was sold—or how many children he has sired.

As the murder investigation goes deeper, more terrible truths come to light. With every revelation, Olivia must face the unthinkable. The man she married has fathered a killer. But can she hold that against him when she keeps such dark secrets of her own?

This twisting, emotionally layered thriller explores the lies we tell to keep a marriage together–or break each other apart . . .

About the Author:

J.T. Ellison is the NYT and USA Today bestselling author of more than 20 novels, and the EMMY-award winning co-host of A WORD ON WORDS, Nashville’s premier literary show. With millions of books in print, her work has won critical acclaim, prestigious awards, and has been published in 26 countries. Ellison lives in Nashville with her husband and twin kittens.

Social Links:

Author website: https://www.jtellison.com/ 

Facebook: http://facebook.com/jtellison14  

Twitter: https://twitter.com/thrillerchick 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thrillerchick 

Buy Links:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Its-One-Us-Novel-Suspense-ebook/dp/B09ZLGLKH9/ref=sr_1_1?crid=222QCNJW8SCPI&keywords=it%27s+one+of+us&qid=1673560699&sprefix=it%27s+one+of+us%2Caps%2C74&sr=8-1  

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/its-one-of-us-j-t-ellison/1141813790?ean=9780778311768  

Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/book/9780778311768 

IndieBound: https://www.indiebound.org/buy-local/9780778311768 

Books-A-Million: https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Its-One-Us/J-T-Ellison/9780778311768?id=8292090795540 

Audiobook Review: Class Mom by Laurie Gelman

Jen Dixon isn’t your typical kindergarten-class mom. She already has two daughters in college from her days wandering the globe as a music groupie and a son who is entering his first year of kindergarten with her (relatively) new husband. Despite her protests, Jen’s best friend talks her into being a class mom for her son’s class — and hijinks ensue.

In her attempts to inject a bit of humor and personality into the class parent’s emails, Jen opens herself up to all types of criticism and judgment from her fellow parents. Never mind that she’s trying to get the job done and figure out the quirks of her son’s teacher (for example, she doesn’t believe in “Hallmark holiday” parties, making planning for said events problematic). She also can’t help that one set of parents uses a parental cocktail party to have a friend pedal her jewelry — and the assumption this was Jen’s idea.

Laurie Gelman’s Class Mom is equal parts hilarious and eye-opening. Seeing Jen navigate the class parent waters is entertaining — even if some of the situations she finds herself in are seemingly over the top. Gelman’s performance of her book is spot and helps you feel for Jen and her self-created issues, including the innocent flirting with her former high school crush that slowly gets out of hand and threatens her marriage.

Jen feels entirely authentic, even as some events spiral out of control. The delight she and other class parents find in trying to delve into their children’s teacher is one of the highlights of the novel.

Audiobook Review: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Diper Överlöde by Jeff Kinney

Most of the entries in Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series are a lot like the Zucker/Abrams/Zucker movies of my younger days — throwing a lot of jokes and seeing what’s going to stick. This leads to some absolutely hilarious moments on the perils of growing up and to some mainly other forgettable moments. And I suppose I shouldn’t scoff at anything this is encouraging young people to crack the cover of a book.

But as I listened to the seventeenth installment, Diper Overlode, I couldn’t help but think that either the formula is wearing a bit thin or that maybe it’s time to have Greg grow up a bit.

Some of that may stem that instead of putting Greg front and center this time around, the focus is his older brother Rodrick and his dreams of having his garage band become the next big thing. Yes, Greg is there to relate most of the exploits that Rodrick and his band engage in while trying to win the upcoming Battle of the Bands, but I can’t help but feel like a lot of the story is happening without Greg being a vital character to things. Much of it is Greg relating things Rodrick has told hi or the story stretching to find ways to include Greg as part of Loaded Diaper.

Yes, there are so amusing moments including Greg and a band member stealing a drumstick from an animatronic gorilla at the local equivalent of Chuck E.. Cheese. But there are moments where Rodrick and the band get to meet their band heroes that ring a bit more hollow than usual because Greg has little or no investment in the band beyond his big brother being a fan. I can’t help but wonder if deviating from the formula by having Rodrick narrate things might have helped a bit here.

All this isn’t to say this is a terrible book. It’s just one that feels like a lackluster entry in what has been an enjoyable series — and one that I’m reliving with my daughter, who is fully enthralled with the exploits of Greg and company.

Review: The Winds of Change and Other Stories by Issac Asimov

Even though Isaac Asimov published prolifically across multiple decades, his stories feel like they should fall under the #vintagescifi umbrella. So it is that each year for #vintagescifimonth, I always want to pick up an Asimov collection to try and gain some headway on the sheer volume of short stories he published

The Winds of Change is a collection that dates from the mid-’80s and while it only has one or two stories that would be considered “vintage” by their publication date, the entire collection feels like it’s “vintage Asimov.”

My favorite story from the collection is “Fair Exchange,” in which two Gilbert and Sullivan enthusiasts meet, fall in love, and marry around their shared love of the duos plays, including the lost score to a Thespis. The premise is that our narrator is given the chance to leap back into the mind of an ordinary person from the era and ends up saving the score from being lost, but there’s a Twilight Zone-like twist/price to doing so. As a fan of classic Doctor Who, I often wonder what price would be too high to have a full catalog of the last episodes from the program’s earliest days in the archives and/or sitting on my shelf on whatever physical media of the moment is. This story made me stop and ponder the question and its implications in greater depth.

Of the twenty-one stories in the book, some are hits, and others are misses. Asimov includes several stories that serve as long versions of “dad jokes” complete with the groan-inducing pun at the end. The only story that qualifies as “vintage” is “Belief,” about a man who is slowly levitating but apparently can’t control it. In the introduction, Asimov notes that the publisher asked for a revision to the original ending, which was apparently a bit darker. The note made me curious about his original intentions for the story in light of the happier ending. Apparently, Asimov didn’t have a copy of the original ending for publication here.

Each story comes with a short introduction by Asimov, which offers some insight into the creation and/or publication of each story. The peek inside the mind of the writer is a fascinating one — and one that I kind of wish we’d got a bit more of. I foresee myself seeking out Asimov’s autobiography at some point in the near future based on these introductions.

As with any short story collection, mileage varies from story to story. I will say the first half feels a bit stronger than the second half, though I do like Asimov’s decision to include the stories alphabetically.

Audiobook Review: Doctor Who: The Romans by Donald Cotton

As Doctor Who celebrates its sixtieth anniversary later this year, the Target audiobooks line looks to complete the range that began a decade and a half ago. For the first seven months of the year, the range is releasing one story from each classic series Doctor that hasn’t seen the audio light of day until now.

And honestly, the range may not get a better classic Who release than the first novel of the year, “The Romans.”

After a recent diet of novels did little more than translate the shooting script to the printed page, “The Romans” is a delightful breath of fresh air. Told in epistolatory style, the varying first-person viewpoints are well-done and delightful. Whether it’s the Doctor believing that the slave he keeps seeing looks an awful lot like Barbara to Ian wondering if an alternate timeline through his actions and writings to Nero’s uncertainty as to whether he rules Britain or not, the shifting perspectives keep you on your toes — and laughing all the way.

This may be one of the wittiest and laugh-filled entries from the Target line, with Cotton clearly not giving two figs and going for the gusto. This may not please the strictest of fans who want the novel to mimic the story we got on-screen. However, this one falls into that canon of later Target books that enhanced and deepened the enjoyment of the TV stories. (I can’t wait to get to this serial in my current rewatch of the classic series if only to recall the various thought processes and reflections Cotton gives us here).

The audiobook only enhances the enjoyment of this novel, featuring a wide range of talented narrators bringing each person’s section delightful to life. The cover gives away which actors appear, though the version I purchased didn’t detail who narrated which part (or at least if it did, I didn’t look), thus ensuring some smiles and pleasant surprise over the all-too-brief running time of the audiobook.

My only disappointment comes that the audio range couldn’t lure William Russell out of retirement to read the portions of the story told from Ian’s point of view. But that is just nitpicking what is one of the more enjoyable and delightful entries in this range.

Listening to “The Romans,” I now feel I have to listen to Cotton’s other two books for the range, though I may take a bit of a gap between them. Right now, most other Target books are going to pale in comparison to this one.

A superb beginning to celebrating sixty years of Doctor Who.

Review: Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Carrie Soto rules the tennis court during her career, stacking up wins, earning the nickname “The Battle Axe,” and setting a record for most Grand Slam wins. But while she collected trophies, she didn’t collect many friends and even fired her father as her tennis coach.

Six years into her retirement, a new tennis phenom is setting the world on fire in Nicki Chen. When Chen ties Soto’s record for Grand Slam wins, Carrie decides it’s time to come out of retirement and win back her record. With bridges repaired with her father, the Sotos embark on a mission to take the tennis world by storm. But will Carrie’s now-thirty-seven-year-old body allow her to dominate the way she did in her youth and can she win the elusive next title?

Taylor Jenkins Reid takes us inside Carrie’s head for the journey in her masterful Carrie Soto Is Back. Reid has been on the must-read list for a couple of years now with Daisy Jones and the Six and Malibu Rising. But there’s something about Carrie Soto that feels like Reid is taking us to the next level. It could be the singular focus on Carrie’s story as related by her. Or it could be the story of redemption and ambition tempered with being inside Carrie’s mind as she doubts herself and whether she’s doing the right thing or not.

But most of the novel’s success comes down to the superlatively drawn father/daughter relationship. Carrie’s father introduces her to the world of tennis and is an early guide to her career and then helps her find her way back for a comeback. I didn’t realize how invested I’d become in the relationship between Carrie and her father until certain events unfold late in the story and I found myself getting a bit of a lump in my throat — while reading at the dentist’s office as I waited on a family member.

Of all the books I’ve read by Reid, this is the one that sticks the landing the best. It’s bittersweet that the story ends for the characters involved exactly when it needs to, answering most of the big questions but leaving a few things for us to wonder about and fill in the gaps with our own imaginations.

Given that Reid inserts Easter eggs from other novels into other works, I wouldn’t be shocked to get an update on Carrie in a future story — and it’s something I will look forward to reading.

For now, Carrie Soto Is Back is an utterly satisfying story, steeped heavily in personal and professional redemptions for a compelling first-person narrator. I can’t recommend this one enough. Try it. I think you’ll like it.

Review: Alas Babylon by Pat Frank

My consumption of sci-fi and fantasy dwindled a bit in 2022. Part of this stems from the ongoing feeling that many of the books hitting the shelves are part of some of a series. I’m either a book or two behind or because George R.R. Martin and Patrick Rothfuss burned me not delivering new installments after I got invested in a series and I’m scared to dip my toes into something new for fear of further abandonment.

For years, my real-world book club started off the year by dipping our toes into the past and reading an older science-fiction novel. This tied well into #VintageSciFiMonth when it started up a few years ago.

And while my real-world book club has gone dormant, as 2023 dawned, I found myself wanting to make a more concerted effort to sci-fi and fantasy and to check a few books off my to-be-read pile.

Enter Alas, Babylon, a novel that I picked up a few years ago for the #VintageSciFiMonth but never quite got around to reading. It’s been a while since I read a post-apocalyptic story and I felt like it was time for the “end of the world as we know it” to happen in the fictional world.

Published in 1959, Alas, Babylon recounts the days leading up to a nuclear war between the United States and the days, months, and years following said attack. Pat Frank spends the first quarter of the novel introducing us to Randy Bragg and the people in his Florida small-town world. Randy lives an aimless life in the small town until he receives a telegram from his brother with their secret code of “Alas, Babylon” which signifies a massive shift coming in the world. In this case, it’s the Soviet Union seizing an opportunity to strike the United States with tactical nuclear weapons.

The first quarter of the novel at times feels like a thriller by Tom Clancy, with tensions escalating due to moves made by each side until an accidental bombing of an ammunition depot in the Middle East by an American jet pilot sets off a chain reaction that leads to nuclear war.

Randy’s town is far enough from major population centers and military installations to not be bombed out of existence. However, it does face major changes in the world on The Day when the bombs fall and afterward.

At times, Alas, Babylon is chillingly effective, especially the chapter the details how the day the bombs fall becomes The Day and spends twenty-four hours detailing what happen — from the initial shockwaves to the run on supplies to the power finally and permanently failing. Hauntingly told, the chapter alone is one reason that this novel has survived and remained part of the literary consciousness all the years.

Frank also creates a haunting portrait of the world post-bombing and the impact is has on his characters. It’s probably strange that I’m reading the new Jack Reacher book as I finish this one because I feel like Randy and Jack are cut from the same literary cloth — the man who always has the answers and is rarely phased by much. Give Randy a travel toothbrush and he probably is a bit more like Reacher. Seeing how differently things are valued in the pre-and post-attack world is one of the more intriguing aspects of the story. It certainly made me wonder how long I might survive in the new world order described.

The parts that don’t work as well now are the blatant racism and sexism that exist. If you’re looking for a book with strong characters of color and strong females, you’re probably going to want to skip this one. (Though it is interesting that once the news starts filtering in about the world beyond the scope of Randy’s small town that the balance of power has shifted to Asia).

The other big drawback of the story is the ending feels a bit anti-climatic. Early on, Randy’s brother, Mark, sends his family to live with Randy to get them out of harm’s way. Mark is a high-ranking military official, so he’s near one of the areas that would be one of the first targets in the attacks. I kept getting a feeling that Mark would somehow magically survive the first wave of attacks and enter the story again in the later stages. Thankfully, Frank doesn’t allow this to happen though there is some drama centering on his wife coming on to Randy and later becoming romantically entangled with the town’s doctor.

All of this leads up to an ending that feels like it’s trying too hard to give us a bit of hope when the past hundred or so pages don’t really support it. Seeing the world struggle to put itself back together is compelling but the last chapter undermines it a bit. I wonder if Frank struggled to find a way to end the story and couldn’t quite find a way that satisfied him to stick the landing.

Stil, I can see why this one is among the more cited stories of the post-apocalyptic genre. When the novel is working, it’s firing on all cylinders. There are just a couple of speed bumps in there.

Review: The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series by Jessica Radloff

As an early adopter of The Big Bang Theory, it seems strange that the series not only thrived but is also ubiquitous in syndication today. And while I may not love it in quite the same way I do Seinfeld, I was intrigued by the opportunity to peak behind the scenes with this oral history of the show’s twelve seasons.

The first half of the book which details the early days of the show and examines how the show came together and developed is fascinating reading. Hearing the various parties offer little tidbits and bombshells of what happened in the early days (the network originally wanted Raj’s character recast and/or cut) makes for fascinating reading, as well as how the original cold open is dropped from syndication these days makes me want to fire up HBO Max and revisit the early days of the series. However, as with many DVD commentaries, I find that the more time has passed, the greater the perspective of those involved to critically examine their creative process and output. Once we get to chapters on later seasons and the decisions to end the series and it feels a bit more like everyone saying “Oh, we were so good” and doing a victory lap.

It made the second half of the book a little less intriguing than the first half, but overall, it’s still worth reading.

Jessica Radloff assembles just about everyone who ever worked on the show for interviews here and weaves their reflections together into an imminently readable story about one of the most popular sitcoms of the last two decades. I have a feeling that my grandkids may be watching this one and asking me to explain some of the pop-culture references at some point. And I’ll probably be trying to convince them that Seinfeld is better (it is, but that’s not the point of this review).

I will warn you that a lot of the more intriguing tidbits of this oral history have been given away by various industry outlets when the book was first published. This just reinforces my sadness that pop culture these days is treated more like a contest with who can spill the biggest details first and forget about the ordinary mere mortals out here who can’t or don’t have time to consume everything within the first two hours of it being out on the market. However, there are still some details and context those kiss-and-tell articles didn’t get into or spoil.

If you love The Big Bang Theory, you’ll love this book. I did walk away from it feeling like an oral history of Two and a Half Men might also be intriguing, given the references to that show peppered in this book and the differences between the two. But I have a feeling all the participants from that one aren’t as likely to get together and spill the beans as the participants from this one are.

Holiday Audiobook Reviews: The Twelve Dates of Christmas and The Upside Down Christmas

The Twelve Dates of Christmas by Jenny Bayliss

With the title The Twelve Dates of Christmas, I expected Jenny Bayliss to do more with each of the holiday-themed blind dates than this novel ended up doing. Instead, it’s a friends-to-lovers romance between a local coffee shop owner and the girl who moved back to town to take care of her father.

Bayliss earns all the tension and undercurrent of attraction between coffee-shop owner Matt and newly returned to town Kate. She even throws in a few speed bumps for the two — they slept together once in their teens but never talked about it, Matt has a girlfriend, Kate is meeting twelve potential suitors that could steal her heart away. My big issue with the book is that the speed bumps are easily removed with little or not subtlety of foreshadowing. The biggest is when Kate goes on a date with Matt’s girlfriend’s ex and he admits he still loves his ex. So, we can all see where that is heading.

And yet despite being somewhat predictable, I still kept listening. Odds are that was due to the English accent of the narrator Elizabeth Knoweledon (the irony that her name sounds like Noel and this is a holiday romance isn’t lost on me).

Overall, a predictable romance that doesn’t quite live up the promise or premise of the title.

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The Upside Down Christmas by Kate Forster

Following the death of her mother and her father remarrying, Marlo moved from England to Australia to start her life again.

Five years later, she’s living with flatmate Alex, working as a legal secretary, and dating a nice enough guy. Well, until the guy leaves a Halloween party with someone else, and Marlo is suddenly left questioning all her life choices.

Oh, and she’s also seeing a growing romantic interest in her flatmate, Alex, rearings it’s head.

The Upside Down Christmas is light and frothy enough –and that may be the biggest issue I have with the story. Marlo feels like she’s just sitting back, waiting for things to happen in life, rather than having any kind of motivation to make strides herself. Even when she decides to go back to school and pursue her dream of becoming a lawyer, it feels like good things just fall into her lap because she’s a nice person.

And while the roommates to more storyline is solid enough, it just’s a hair too predictable for its own good.

All in all, this is one that should have taken a queue from the title and maybe made Marlo’s life a little more upside down before giving her (inevitable) happy ending.

Review: Something to Hide by Elizabeth George

After twenty-plus books and more pages than I care to think about, any new offering by Elizabeth George in her Inspector Lynley series is going to garner my attention. As I’ve said before, it’s not only the solid mysteries that hook me, but it’s also the opportunity to check in on my old friends in the universe and see what’s happening in their lives.

An unusually warm summer in London is creating all kinds of tension and drama for Thomas Lynley and the usual inhabitants of this universe. Lynley is acting as superintendent while Barbara Havers continues to fend off Dorothea Harriman’s well-intentioned desire to find Barabra a significant other. When a female detective from the police force is discovered to have been murdered instead of died accidently, Lynley, Havers, and Nkata are assigned the complex case.

The complexity comes from questions about the detective’s private life and her history, much of it stemmed from an immigrant community that practices FGM. George introduces readers to another family facing questions about FGM and its potential impact on a young girl — her father wants to improve her value for marriage while her brother violently objects.

Throw in a subplot with Deborah St. James freelance photographic subjects for an upcoming documentary and book on FGM, and things quickly come to a boil.

As with much of George’s prolific output, Something to Hide is equally interested in solving the mystery of who killed the police detective (and there are plenty of suspects, as usual) and understanding the root causes of the crime. George’s attempts to look inside the minds of characters who find the process of FGM to be simply part of their lives and the raising of girls to be married is troubling and chilling at times and eye-opening at others.

Of course, there are also the typical character-building elements of the previous novels as Lynley struggles with the nature of his new relationship with Deidre. Much of what takes place here echoes other elements of the central mystery as various sides question expectations of a relationship and the impact that not being entirely forthcoming can be on various parties. Of course, there are some more profound than others — while Lynley struggles with if Deidra will ever love him in the way he wants/needs and if he’s really moved on from the death of his wife and unborn child, others in the story struggle with the expectations of their culture and the impact it has on young girls’ lives.

All in all, it’s another winning novel from George. I’ve seen reviews that complain the story is a bit slow, though I think these criticisms miss a bit of the point of the novel and the series. And given that it takes several years between installments as George researches and writes her novels, I am not going to complain about the extra time I get to spend in this world.