Over The Fence by Mary Monroe (A Book Review)

Milton and Yvonne Hamilton are former convicts who met each other at a time each of them were trying to turn over a new leaf in life. Fresh out of prison, Yvonne moves in with her man, Lester, who supported her while she was in prison. One night she goes home and discovers that Lester and her best friend Katy is having an affair. After she heaps revenge on the two, she moves forward in her life with Milton. They marry and he gets her a job as a waitress at the restaurant where he is the head cook. Milton’s friend, Willie Frank, gets them into the bootlegging business. The combination of their salaries and profits earned from their bootlegging operation, helped the Hamiltons move to a well-to-do neighborhood. Their business topples out the competition and they do exceedingly well in their new neighborhood.

They meet their next door neighbors, Odell and Joyce Watson. They are upstanding citizens in the neighborhood. Joyce and Odell are role models for Milton and Yvonne. They’re friendly and neighborly with the Watsons. When Milton discovers that Odell is living a double life, he starts blackmailing Odell, simultaneously keeping secrets of his own.

In a drunken stupor one night, he spills the beans of Odell’s double life to Yvonne. She tips her hand to Odell and starts getting paid from him due to her own blackmailing scheme. Things come to a head when the Hamiltons are raided during one of their parties on trumped up charges. Who is responsible for toppling the Hamilton’s bootlegging operation?

What I loved about reading this book is the immediate way it grabbed my attention. The story was entertaining and the pace moved right along without dragging out. I wanted to read more and more to see what was going to happen next. Once again, this is what I love about reading Mary Monroe’s books. This is a great formula and I’m glad she sticks with it. This story ends with a major cliffhanger. I’m ready to read the next installment in the series to see if everything gets revealed. I’m so ready for that.

Rating: 9/10

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw (A Book Review)

These collection of stories are complex, deep, and reflective. Eula touches on a young woman who blurs the line between basking in her fleshly desires and living as a devout Christian. She’s in total denial of the reality of her relationship with her best friend, Caroletta. In Not Daniel, a married man and a single woman whose mothers are both in hospice care engages in an affair of convenience and provides a temporary reprieve of the heaviness of imminent death lurking around the corner. Peach Cobbler is told from a young girl’s perspective about her mother’s affair with the pastor.

I enjoyed the personal and nuanced touches that Philyaw painted each story with. It is the realization that the face of a thing is not necessarily an absolute truth. The characters were raw, real, and rich in their complexities. My favorites were Dear Sister, Peach Cobbler, How to Make Love to a Physicist, and When Eddie Levert Comes.

My Rating: 8/10

Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough (A Book Review)

Louise is a single mother of a young son. She lives a self-proclaimed non-eventful life. One night she goes to a local pub and meets a handsome stranger, who she flirts with to the point of a kiss. The stranger admits he’s married and they go their separate ways. When she goes to work the next morning, she discovers that the stranger, is her new boss, David. She later runs into his wife Adele. They strike up a conversation and a friendship. Adele forces Louise to keep their friendship a secret from David. As time goes on, Louise and David act on their attraction with one another and enters into an affair. Louise is caught in the middle of the husband and wife’s sadistic marriage.

I was excited to read this book. However, it became exhausting after awhile. It was very lengthy, which is not necessarily a bad thing. The story just felt like it dragged through a huge portion of the book. It took beyond the halfway mark for the mystery to unfold. The ending was a twister that I didn’t see coming; which I did enjoy. I only wished that I wasn’t dragged along for this long ride to get to the mystery of it all.

My Rating 7/10