Tuesday, February 21, 2023

WWW.WEDNESDAY

WWW. WEDNESDAY asks three questions to prompt you to speak bookishly. To participate, and to see how other book lovers responded, click here

PS I can no longer participate in WWW.WEDNESDAY via that link because her blog won't accept Blogger comments. I mention this only to save you the frustration I experienced trying to link up.

1. What are you currently reading? Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Rayburn. Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie have been friends and coworkers for decades. Now it's time for retirement. The organization they work for has rewarded them for their years of service with an all-expenses-paid cruise. The thing of it is: it's a trap. These lovely 60-something friends are highly-trained assassins, and there are some jobs you simply can't walk away from.

It's a fascinating premise and so far, every page is dripping with girl power. Or perhaps I mean granny power.

PS Thanks to Kwizgiver for turning me onto this book.

2. What did you recently finish reading? Who Is Maud Dixon by Alexandra Andrews. Florence is a low-level publishing employee who believes she's destined for great things. She's convinced she must be talented because God wouldn't put such a burning desire to be an author in someone who can't write. When she loses her job and finds herself with few resources, she's not worried. The universe is looking out for her, she just knows it. For a while it looks like she's right. The mysterious, best-selling author Maud Dixon offers her a personal assistant job and they're off to Morocco. She realizes Maud is living the life Florence wants.
 
Florence does that a lot: imagining herself in some other woman's life. First there was a highly respected stage and screen based out of New York that Florence followed and began dressing like. Now there's Maud Dixon. It's not a healthy way to live.

This twisty book has more than one character who seems to believe she's absolutely fine, but as readers we see they are most emphatically not. Their behaviors are neither normal nor justified, no matter what they seem to think. This story is about what happens when two such people find themselves in the same orbit. Reminds me of The Great Gatsby. Jordan told Nick she didn't have to be a careful driver because she was sure other drivers would watch out for her. Later, when life doesn't go her way, Jordan says, "I met another bad driver, didn't I?" In Who Is Maud Dixon, two "bad drivers" collide and the results are explosive!

3. What will read next? I don't know.