Transitions: A Mother's Journey

Transitions: A Mother's Journey by Élodie Durand

This English translation of a French graphic novel deals with a parent's learning that their child is a transgender man. Told from a mother's point of view, it portrays a lot of the questions and concerns that parents of transgender offspring often face while their child is transitioning. It will be useful to heteronormative adults, especially family members, who want to understand the transition process.

Still Life

Still Life by Louise Penny

Still Life is the first of a long series of mystery novels by Louise Penny that feature Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surêté du Québec. In it a secretive artist living in a small rural village is killed after entering a painting for the first time in a local art competition and Gamache is called in to investigate. The village is full of quirky characters and many may have a motive ond the opportunity to have comminnted murder. Gamache and his team leave no stone unturned in seeking to find out what happened and by whom. As a fan of Agatha Christie's mysteries, I found that Louise Penny is a worthy heir to the Christie legacy.

Run, Rose, Run

Run, Rose, Run by James Patterson and Dolly Parton

This is the story of a young woman on the run from her past, seeking to make it as a singer/songwriter in Country Music. She meets a man with an equally dark past who is also a singer/songwriter and just happens to be a studio musician for the most famous woman performer in Nashville history. As she starts to make it, she fears the demons of her past will catch up with her.
I enjoyed the audiobook edition where the famous female performer is read by Dolly Parton herself. This is the first book I have ever read that is accompanied by a soundtrack CD. With three singer/songwriters turning out the lyrics and chords to song after song in the book, Dolly Parton records all the songs and has put out a Run, Rose, Run CD.

Queer: A Graphic History

Queer: A Graphic History by Meg-John Barker & Jules Scheele

Activist/academic Meg-John Barker and cartoonist Jules Scheele provide a history of Queer Theory and action in this illustrated guide to this new and controversial area of study. Providing a history of Queerness as it has evolved and is currently thought of, the book introduces the reader to the leading thinkers and theories that will provide a grounding in the meaning of queer Theory and its place in modern thought.

Back to the Garden

Back to the Garden by Laurie R. King

Laurie King creates a new detective, Raquel Laing, to work on a cold case murder that may be related to a string of unsolved murders. Human remains are found under the cement base when the Trustees of the Gardener Estate have a statue with a failing foundation moved. Fifty years ago when the statue was placed at the Estate, it was home to a countercultural commune.
Detective Laing has been working on a series of unsolved murders of young women whose bodies were found under poured cement foundations in the San Francisco area, all linked to a serial killer known as The Highwayman. The alleged killer is dying of cancer and she is trying to get him to help identify the remains of his victims.
With chapters titled THEN and NOW, the author delves into the backstory of the commune, leading up to the day the cement foundation was poured, while she interviews the few members of the group remaining. All the while trying to coax a dying serial killer to identifying his victims.
It is nice to see a new character emerge from the imagination of this gifted writer. Hopefully this book will become the first volume of another succesful detective series for Laurie R. King.

Riviera Gold by Laurie R. King

Riviera Gold by Laurie R. King

Riviera Gold is the 16th in the Mary Russell series of mystery novels that are based around the growing relationship between the young Mary Russell and a much older Sherlock Holmes after he moves from London to a rural Sussex cottage to take up beekeeping. In this installment set in the summer of 1925, Russell takes advantage of Holmes visit to Romania to go to Monte Carlo looking for Mrs. Hudson. Hudson, who left her employment as Holmes housekeeper and did not leave a forwarding address, has gone to live in Monte Carlo to be close to her old friend Lily Langtree and to live in her favorite city. In this novel we learn a lot about Hudson's backstory before she met Holmes, including a mysterious inheritance from her father that draws Hudson and Russell into contact with Monte Carlo's underworld.
I am very fond of Laurie King's writing style and this book is a worthy addition to this long running series.

No-No Boy

No-No Boy by John Okada

No-No Boy tells the story of Ichiro, a Japanese-American young man from Seattle, after he is let out of prison at the end of World War II. Before the war started he was in college studying to be an engineer, but when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, he was sent to a series of Japanese internment camps for two years. At that point, he and many other young male Japanese-Americans were asked two questions by the US government: would they swear allegiance to the United States, and would they serve in the US armed forces. Those, like Ichiro, who answered no to both questions were sent to jail for an additional two years and became known as No-No Boys.
This book portrays what it was like for these resisters when they returned home and faced discrimination for their choice. He is surrounded by a Japanese community that is trying to fit back into American life and does not want to dwell on the unjust treatment they received during the war. And yet his No-No status does not allow him to put the past behind him. He needs to come to terms with it. Which is what he does in this book.
Originally published in 1957 No-No Boy was ignored by a country that did not want to come to terms with the injustice of the internment and its effect on the Japanese-American community. Only later in the 1970s did people start to take notice, leading to its republication in 1976. It has been in print ever since and is a seminal work on the Japanese-American internment and its effects on the people of Japanese heritage living on the West Coast. I bought my copy of this book during a visit to Seattle's Wing Luke Museum, which is dedicated to preserving Asian-American art and history.