Author Spotlight: Heather Gudenkauf

Author Diane Duane once said “Reading one book is like eating one potato chip;” a truer statement has never been uttered. Whenever I find a book I love, my first instinct is always to quickly find that author’s previous works or their next. Finding a great book is easy, but finding a great author that reliably, book after book, delivers an edge of your seat suspense, heart-melting romance or a page-turning thriller isn’t such an easy feat; so when I do find such an author, I love to share them with you, my family and friends, which was the rationale behind my author spotlight posts.

This month I selected Heather Gudenkauf, the New York Times best-selling author of the book I’m currently reading, Little Mercies, as well as three older novels which I had previously read, making her a perfect spotlight candidate. As you’ll note from my previous author spotlights, my reading preferences lean toward gripping suspense novels or spine-tingling thrillers and Gudenkauf’s novels are no exception. Not only do her novels deliver on the tension, drama and the always requisite twist and turns you’d expect from the genre, but she offers compelling and insightful character development for each of her protagonists, ensuring moving, poignant and always memorable stories you’ll carry with you long after you’ve finished the last page.

All three of Gudenkauf’s novels (The Weight of Silence, These Things Hidden, and One Breath Away) are set in Iowa, where she’s supposedly lived nearly all of her life and you can readily see in each why it pays to write what you know, because she perfectly captures the local color, people and culture. She also conveys with seeming ease the sense of family and close-knit bonds found in those small towns, while never overlooking the fact that human frailties – weakness, evil and sin – are found in rich and poor families, and large cities and small towns alike.

A key feature in all of Gudenkauf’s novels is the fact that she uses multiple narrators, written in both the first or third person. Gudenkauf’s talent is notable here in the fact that despite the sometimes obvious similarities in gender and age between her multiple narrators, she manages to create characters that for all their commonality still remain uniquely different from one another with singular voices, including their own hopes, fears, and longings. Gudenkauf has equal ease in finding the voice of a child – their innocence, fear, and sometimes blind courage (in an author interview I read, she credits this ease with the fact that she was a classroom teacher and in education for 20+ years), as she has in conveying the heartfelt gratitude and love of an adoptive mother (“You were a wish that we made every morning when we woke up and a prayer we said before we went to bed each night;” Claire’s beautiful words to Joshua in These Things Hidden).

In short, I love Gudenkauf’s novels because while her stories show the darkness present in many human hearts; tackling subjects sometimes ripped from the headlines, like child abandonment, child abuse or school violence; she also hopefully reminds us that at heart we are all flawed individuals trying to do our best and sometimes we deliver on that innate potential for good. So without further ado, here's a brief summary of each novel, from oldest to newest.

The Weight of Silence. It happens quietly one August morning. As dawn's shimmering light drenches the humid Iowa air, two families awaken to find their little girls have gone missing in the night. Seven-year-old Calli Clark is sweet, gentle, a dreamer who suffers from selective mutism brought on by tragedy that pulled her deep into silence as a toddler. Calli's mother, Antonia, tried to be the best mother she could within the confines of marriage to a mostly absent, often angry husband. Now, though she denies that her husband could be involved in the possible abductions, she fears her decision to stay in her marriage has cost her more than her daughter's voice. Petra Gregory is Calli's best friend, her soul mate and her voice. But neither Petra nor Calli has been heard from since their disappearance was discovered. Desperate to find his child, Martin Gregory is forced to confront a side of himself he did not know existed beneath his intellectual, professorial demeanor. Now these families are tied by the question of what happened to their children. And the answer is trapped in the silence of unspoken family secrets.

These Things Hidden. When teenager Allison Glenn is sent to prison for a heinous crime, she leaves behind her reputation as Linden Falls' golden girl forever. Her parents deny the existence of their once-perfect child. Her former friends exult her downfall. Her sister, Brynn, faces whispered rumors every day in the hallways of their small Iowa high school. It's Brynn—shy, quiet Brynn—who carries the burden of what really happened that night. All she wants is to forget Allison and the past that haunts her. But then Allison is released to a halfway house, and is more determined than ever to speak with her estranged sister. Now their legacy of secrets is focused on one little boy. And if the truth is revealed, the consequences will be unimaginable for the adoptive mother who loves him, the girl who tried to protect him and the two sisters who hold the key to all that is hidden.

One Breath Away. In the midst of a sudden spring snowstorm, an unknown man armed with a gun walks into an elementary school classroom. Outside the school, the town of Broken Branch watches and waits. Officer Meg Barrett holds the responsibility for the town's children in her hands. Will Thwaite, reluctantly entrusted with the care of his two grandchildren by the daughter who left home years earlier, stands by helplessly and wonders if he has failed his child again. Trapped in her classroom, Evelyn Oliver watches for an opportunity to rescue the children in her care. And thirteen-year-old Augie Baker, already struggling with the aftermath of a terrible accident that has brought her to Broken Branch, will risk her own safety to protect her little brother. As tension mounts with each passing minute, the hidden fears and grudges of the small town are revealed as the people of Broken Branch race to uncover the identity of the stranger who holds their children hostage.

Why not give one of these three novels a try? You won’t be disappointed.

McKenzie's Hope

You know those chain letters you'd sometimes get in your mailbox which threatened dire consequences if you didn't pass them on, which you sometimes begrudgingly did just because there was just the teensiest bit of doubt in your mind that you'd drop dead the next day if you didn't? (I hated those!), well sometimes equally abhorrent is receiving at work a link to a tear-jerking video you can’t help yourself but view. You click on the link, view it, and then look like a total loser as tears run down your face, your nose starts to drip, and if you’re like me, your face gets all red and splotchy.

Well, don’t hate me, but I’m going to share just one of those videos with you, which dummy that I am I viewed to the expected results. Nonetheless, though I’m sorry to do it to you, this is just too beautiful not to share. Be prepared to cry but please watch this incredibly moving video. It epitomizes what it means to be a great dad. OMG, it is such a knot in your throat-type of beautiful, that I’m tearing up just typing this.

In the video, Mike Carney lifts his 12-year-old daughter McKenzie from her wheelchair and performs a heartwarming dance set during a summer pageant.



Now here is where all your tears will have been worth it. You see McKenzie has been diagnosed with a type of mitochondrial disease, which is life threatening, and the family travels more than 500 miles to Florida from Georgia for specialized treatments, which she has been responding to well. Unfortunately her insurance doesn't cover those treatments, but you can help out by making a donation at McKenzie’s Hope on Go Fund Me.

The Rosie Project

OMG…I loved The Rosie Project! I know I said The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry was my favorite book so far this year, but they say it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind and I’m exercising said right. The Rosie Project by Australian author Graeme Simsion was sweet, endearing, and funny (I was laughing out loud in parts) and unlike The Storied Life - no tears - only a silly happy grin left as proof of the experience. I loved everything about it; from its original story, to its uplifting message, but most of all, its lovably quirky romantic hero, Don Tillman.

Don Tillman is a 39-year old socially-challenged yet brilliant genetics professor, quite possibly somewhere in the autism spectrum, though Don seems oblivious to the fact. With a strict schedule for every part of his life (workouts, showers, and lest I forget, the requisite 94 minutes for bathroom cleaning on Tuesdays) as well as a standardized meal system (a set meal for each day of the week) thereby reducing the need for cookbooks and shopping, Don’s life runs like a well-oiled machine.

Don’s a quirky guy but fully aware of his social limitations, as he says given he’s tall, fit, intelligent with a relatively high status and above-average income, he should be attractive to a wide range of women. “in the animal kingdom, (he) would succeed in reproducing,” but with women, not so much; whether it’s women or making friends, both have proven a difficult feat for Don, hence his limited list of friends (only two) and the need for the Wife Project. The Wife Project involves a carefully thought out 16-page questionnaire designed to find his perfect mate (vegetarians and smokers need not apply); as for punctuality, well, apparently when it pertains to appointments, answering (b) a little early would be patently incorrect, the correct answer is (c) on time.

Don isn’t having much luck with his questionnaire, online or speed dating (his friends Gene and Claudia say he needs to practice his social skills), but then by pure happenstance he meets Rosie. Rosie is in all ways the “world’s most incompatible woman. A barmaid. Late, vegetarian, disorganized, irrational, unhealthy, smoker – smoker! – psychological problems, can’t cook, mathematically incompetent, unnatural hair color.” Yet, despite the fact that to see her again would defy all logic, he does, offering his expertise on DNA to help her identify her biological father aka the Father Project.

As the two spend more time together, Don begins to see Rosie for the beautiful and intelligent women she is, as she forces him out of his comfort zone and into the big bad world. With one madcap caper after another, including the Mass DNA Collection Subproject, a trip to New York and scaling a building, Don draws ever closer to doing the most illogical thing in the world, falling in love.

This was such an incredibly fun read; one which once started, I could not put down. A perfect love story filled with hijinks, laughs, and a teensy bit of science thrown in for good measure, featuring two vulnerable people, polar opposites in every way, that charmingly remind us that love can conquer all. A story of hope for all of us that feel a little different, with a simple reminder to grasp our dreams and face our challenges bravely, for sometimes with great risk comes great rewards.

Simsion’s characters were each so wonderfully fleshed out. I loved Don, not in spite of his quirks and awkwardness, but because of them. As for Rosie, for all of her tough girl persona, you could see her vulnerabilities, the doubts and fears carried with her since childhood. I loved that they each made the other’s life better for being in it; sure Rosie’s impact on Don’s life was more readily apparent by the end of the book, but the mere fact that (spoiler alert)…Rosie returned Don’s love, conveyed a trust she’d previously never been able to give to another man.

The Rosie Project is a MUST (yes, I’m putting it in all caps people) read!; an original, upbeat, and unforgettable book with soooooo much heart.

P.S. Since I know you’ll love The Rosie Project as much as I do, I thought I’d let you know that there is a sequel coming in the near future. Woo-hoo!! Our beloved couple is back again in The Rosie Effect, which based on Amazon will be published December 2014.

The Black Hour

Lori Rader-Day’s debut novel, The Black Hour, was a compelling page-turning mystery, aptly described as “a terrific whydunnit!” since the crime’s culprit is a known entity from the onset and we've been tasked instead with determining the motive. Smart and suspenseful, I was riveted to its every page and suspicious of every character.

Set in Chicago, the tale focuses on Dr. Amelia Emmet, a 38-year old sociology professor and unpublished author of a manuscript titled “Silent Witness: The Sociology of Violence in the American Midwest” who teaches at Rothbert University. The research topic of her life’s work hit a little too close to home ten months ago when Amelia was shot by a student, who then took his own life. Still coping with the physical aftereffects of the attack (the unending pain, a limp, and a growing dependence on painkillers), Amelia is returning to work against her supervisor’s advice and her own better judgment in hopes of getting her life back to normal.

Nathaniel Barber is a grad student more than a little intrigued by Chicago’s violent history. Nath faced some dark personal moments of his own recently (a broken engagement, his mother’s death), but he’s focused on building a brand new start. Assigned as Amelia’s teaching assistant, Nath becomes a quasi-friend and buffer between Amelia and the questioning and dubious stares of students and fellow teachers alike who still wonder about her role in the attack, despite her insistence that she'd never even met Leonard Lehane before the day of the shooting. Despite their growing bond, Nath hasn’t been exactly forthcoming about his true reason for choosing Rothbert University or the topic of his dissertation, namely the attack on Amelia.

Each facing their own dark demons and fears, the two will slowly and separately dig for the truth behind the why; making new friends, allies and quiet possibly enemies in their determined pursuit of finding out what led Leonard Lehane to that darkened hallway 10 months ago, and in doing so face each of their respective black hours, possibly putting their very lives in danger.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I loved that the author kept you on your toes, always guessing as to each characters respective agenda and ultimately showing that not everyone was exactly as they seem. As I stated above, the shooter's identity is a known factor which only left the why; though having that information could have put a damper on the tale's suspense, the author wrote an intelligent narrative filled with lies and intrigue, which made the protagonist's (and by extension the readers) search for the motive still reliably absorbing.

The story is told through two alternating first person narrators, Nath and Amelia. The narrative featured a pervasive feeling of fear and apprehension, as friend and foe alike fell under Amelia and Nath's scrutiny, helping the reader to empathize with a victim's feelings of paranoia after an attack, where the boogey man is seemingly hiding behind every shadow. The Black Hour featured not only great storytelling, but also a great ending that I really didn't see coming (I had an inkling, but it was minute and passing). Kudos to any author that can put it all out there for their readers, and still somehow leave us in the dark.

The Black Hour's twist on your usual suspense novel made it original and engrossing. A tale that readers can plow through with equal parts excitement and trepidation as they make their angst-filled way through a minefield of complex characters and lies.

Frog Music

Frog Music is the latest novel from Emma Donoghue, the acclaimed Irish author of 2010’s best-seller Room. Based on a true unsolved murder in 1870s San Francisco, the author drew from countless newspaper articles, legal documents and more to write the novel, offering a fictional resolution to this long-forgotten crime. Frog Music revolves around the enigmatic Jenny Bonnet, an independent young woman unafraid of bucking the strictures placed on women by society at the time.

It’s the summer of 1876 and San Francisco is dealing with a heat wave and smallpox epidemic when 27-year old Jenny Bonnet, a gun-toting frog catcher and bike riding free spirit who dared to fight the norms of the day by wearing men’s suits (even if it meant being thrown in jail), is shot to death. Blanche Beunon, a French burlesque dancer, prostitute and ex-circus performer was Jenny’s friend and survives the attack unscathed. Determined to do right by her friend and bring her murderer to justice, Blanche sets off to find the truth, firmly convinced she was the shootings true intended victim and that the finger of blame will point directly at Arthur Deneve, her French lover and the father of her child, and his “friend” Ernest Girard.

As Blanche begins to ask questions in search not only for the truth but for her young son’s whereabouts, we learn not only about Jenny’s past but also about Blanche herself and the circumstances which lead up to the fateful night at the Eight Mile House in San Miguel Station when Jenny’s life was cut short. Through flashbacks in Blanche's narration we bear witness to her role at the House of Mirrors in San Francisco’s Chinatown where she performed, the illicit rendezvous she regularly had after performances with rich clients willing to meet her price, the complicated ménage à trois arrangement she had with Arthur and Ernest, and the poor forgotten child whom, thanks to Jenny, she finally saw fit to save.

I was really looking forward to reading this book, given the amazing job Donoghue had done on Room, but while I found the book offered a true sense of the time (the location, the people, the social issues faced by the citizenry, including discrimination and baby farms), the characters left a lot to be desired. Sadly, whether not fully fleshed out, like Jenny who wasn’t in the story enough and became just a compilation of contradictory facts and memories, or else downright unlikable like our main protagonist Blanche, they offered no reason to care or feel invested in their plight. It’s an interesting albeit gritty story, but one with very little heart, perfectly defined by the author herself as “a murder mystery among lowlifes.”

Frog Music is a sordid tale featuring lurid sex scenes and as I said characters lacking many redeeming qualities. Arthur and Ernest were leeches feeding off Blanche, using her body for their personal sexual pleasure, as well as using the money she earned on her back as a piggybank for their gambling habit. As for Blanche, it wasn’t the fact that she loved sex or was OK with being used by those two cretins that tainted my opinion of her, hey to each their own; instead her greatest sin was that she'd turned her back on her child and not because of need or for his greater good, but out of pure convenience. As the Madame from the House of Mirrors throws in Blanche's face, she could not play the innocent victim kept in the dark as to the condition of P’tit’s care while being farmed out; the truth was that “she was happy to be relieved of the burden of his care,” and until she met Jenny she hadn’t asked questions because she hadn’t really wanted to know, preferring instead the luxury of a carefree life.

Despite the mystery aspect of the book, I found no tension-filled suspense as we drew closer to the story's resolution, which could be because I also felt no overwhelming concern for Blanche's well-being. In truth, the most gripping and compelling parts of the tale were Donoghue’s depictions of the time’s social issues; both the discrimination of Chinese immigrants, including them being singled out and blamed by the Health Department as the source of the smallpox epidemic or being targeted in riots and their properties destroyed out of pure ignorance, but more horrifying still was the truth about the city’s baby farms, which I had never even heard about, described as infanticide in the guise of day care, where children withered and suffered as a direct result of neglect.

Frog Music was a passably tolerable read; nothing to write home about, but at times a nonetheless informative and captivating look at a long-gone time in our American history.

Mr. Mercedes

Mr. Mercedes is the latest thriller from Stephen King and let me tell you that though King is best known as the “King of Horror”, he’s proven he’s got a real claim on the title “Master of Suspense” as well, as he clearly shows he can do no wrong no matter the genre; whether horror, thriller, or heck even romance (he does a credible job with it in some of the plot points in this novel). The truth is Mr. Mercedes is an incredibly gripping, edge of your seat crime novel with memorable characters, both protagonist and antagonist, featuring a story that easily strikes fear in the human heart without relying on supernatural powers or scary clowns, instead doing so by evoking the all too real evil present in our own society.

Mr. Mercedes starts with the gruesome and all too familiar scene of a mass killing by a deranged assailant. Hundreds of people lined up in the pre-dawn hours awaiting guaranteed jobs at a local job fair become the direct targets of a stolen gray Mercedes driven by a masked driver intent on running over as many bodies as possible. Dubbed Mr. Mercedes by the press, the killer escapes. Recently retired detective Bill Hodges, previously assigned to the case, is struggling with his newfound free time. Lonely, overweight and hooked on reality TV, Hodges now spends his time reminiscing about the good old days, obsessing over the one that got away, and as of late playing with his late father’s gun and giving serious consideration to ending it all.

It was another day of the same when Hodges receives a letter from someone identifying themselves as the perk (perp), and taunting him with his knowledge of the crime; clearly instigating Hodges to end his miserable life. Despite Mr. Mercedes’ clear hopes of pushing the depressed detective over the edge, his letter only serves to fuel Hodges and give him a purpose and goal to catch the sicko and prevent a future tragedy. Brady Hartsfield, an IT consultant for an electronics store by day and ice cream man by night, lives with his doting alcoholic mother. Brady got a pure thrill from not only killing all of those people with the car and getting away with it, but unbeknownst to the police, also playing a role in the suicide of the stolen car’s owner, and is now positively giddy at the possibility of pushing just the right buttons to get the old man to kill himself as well.

Brady is smart (though thoroughly insane) and at an advantage with his knowledge of today’s technology, but his downfall just might be that he’s underestimated his opponent, for Bill Hodges is a great cop, who with the help of two of the unlikeliest partners, will do everything in his power to hunt down this evil and stop him before he has the chance to strike again.

I had never been a Stephen King fan in the past; the only book of his which I read prior to this year was The Green Mile, but I must say these last two novels – both Doctor Sleep and Mr. Mercedes - have won me over and made me a loyal reader. Though different in genre, I loved Mr. Mercedes no less than Doctor Sleep and like with that book I was completely enthralled by this tale’s battle between good and evil. From the first page to the last, King has delivered a riveting cat and mouse chase between a police officer as smart and insightful as any of the famous PI’s found in fiction (Mike Hammer, Phillip Marlowe, or Sam Spade) and a maniacal killer whose deranged mind proves to be the detective's perfect counterbalance.

Alternately narrated by Hodges and Brady, the plot delivers in both pacing, smarts, and action, but it really is the cast of characters that raises the quality another notch. Hodges is likeable and smart and his flaws and vices only serve to make him more human, but it’s his two allies that deliver the perfect emotional punch for me; Jerome, a young African American teenager who cuts Hodges’ lawn and also provides the technology know-how to navigate online chat rooms and computer kill programs, and Holly, a single 40-something year old, emotionally stunted by an overbearing mother who is coping with psychological and emotional problems including OCD and anxiety which have her popping Lexapro like tic tacs. Of course, there’s also Brady, who gives us a scary look at the darkness found in the mind of a twisted individual; from his stomach turning mommy issues, to his hate of the world and everyone in it.

Mr. Mercedes was a suspenseful must-read that was all the more chilling thanks to a spine-tingling villain who proves to be a believable real-life monster with boy next door good looks; the kind of psychopath we hear about in the news way too often lately.