Book Review: The Shadow Box by Luanne Rice

Rice’s The Shadow Box is a thriller and a fast-paced page turner. I’ve never read one of her novels, only reading this one for a book club and it was worth it.

Claire, an artist, is married to dashing attorney Griffin who is also running for governor. They are a beautiful couple but their are cracks in the relationship. His fabulous lifestyle hides a dark secret. In order to confront him, she plans to reveal her knowledge through an art piece which will be exhibited at her new show. But, will that ever happen?

As the book opens, she is being attack. But, she and the reader don’t know who attacked her. In her search to find out who wants to kill her, she finds a web of others who are connected to a plot to save Griffin’s secret.

“Protection came in many forms. My love of nature and my father, and their love for me, had made me strong and brave, and I had survived.”

Luanne Rice, The Shadow Box

Book Review: The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris

Nella, a young editorial assistant, loves her job but feels isolated as the only Black person in her department. She actively works to promote and educate her company about diversity. But, things don’t change very quickly until Hazel is hired.

Hazel is a dynamic young woman who quickly embeds herself into the office culture. She also befriends Nella by promoting a hair product that she says really works. What so special about this product? Just wait. She manages to make friends and create allies among co-workers that Nella couldn’t crack. What does she do? How has she assimilated into the office so easily?

In what starts off as a long-winded narrative of office politics, the narrative slowly maneuvers into a potboiler. Hazel invites Nella to Curl Central. Who are all these people? Will this friendship be healthy or toxic? It’s anybody’s guess until the last paragraph.

“With heightened awareness of cultural sensitivity comes great responsibility. If we’re not careful, ‘diversity’ might become an item people start checking off a list and nothing more—a shallow, shadowy thing with but one dimension.”

Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl

Book Review: In the Woods by Tana French

A young detective, Adam Ryan, relives his horrific past when a young girl is found in the woods. Years before, Ryan was part of a group involved in another horrible crime.

This book, volume one, features Ryan and co-investigator Cassie Maddox. When the young girl is found murdered in the same place as his friends’ disappearance, he confides in Cassie. She is the only one who knows he was part of the 1984 incident, the only one to survive.

French creates a fine debut thriller. Set in a suburb of Dublin, the reader gets a sense of the dreary and macabre scene that left a young girl dead and the events that still haunt Adam.

“Human beings, as I know better than most, can get used to anything. Over time, even the unthinkable gradually wears a little niche for itself in your mind and becomes just something that happened.”

― Tana French, In the Woods

The Push by Ashley Audrain

Etta is a woman who tried to be a good wife and mother, but she is unhappy and also cruel to her daughter. The cycle continues with Etta’s daughter Cecelia who leaves her daughter Blythe. It’s hard to read about the women in Blythe’s narrative. She continues the dysfunctional mother daughter relationship.

After the birth of Blythe and Fox’s first child, Blythe feels overwhelmed and disconnected from her child. Are these feelings postpartum depression? Is she wanting independence or her old life back? Who was she before motherhood? These feelings are shared by all new moms. We feel the rawness of Blythe’s struggle.

But, her daughter’s behavior is different. He husband says she’s just tired, needs to spend more time with their daughter. It touches on elements of patriarchy. Her husband and mother in law dismiss her for not being enough. Another child is born and leads to more tension.

Will their marriage survive this tension? Will Blythe survive? Audrain has created a psychological thriller, at times quite creepy, that left me turning the pages and wanting to know more.

“I don’t want you learning to be like me. But I don’t know how to teach you to be anyone different.”

― Ashley Audrain, The Push