Best Books of 2024 – Chapter 3

It is rather unusual for one author to make my “best of list” with three different books in a single calendar year but Rebecca Serle has done it.  Before I finished reading One Italian Summer, which I just wrote about last week, I learned that she was releasing her newest book in March of 2024.  The title, Expiration Dates, intrigued me as in my professional career working in R&D Stability, establishing an expiration date for our drug products was the main purpose of our research.  And when it was offered at a discounted price less than a month after its release, I snatched it up.

As background to our story, Daphne, our protagonist, has an unusual dating life.  Not long after meeting her latest beau, she finds a piece of paper with his name and a number reflecting how long they will be together—three weeks in one case, five months in another—but always with a time limit, an expiration date so to speak.  And ever since she was an adolescent with her first boyfriend, this has been going on for over 20 years, so she knows to trust these little slips of paper.  But then on the very first page of the book, she receives a slip with just a name and no expiration.

At the time that she discovers this latest slip of paper, she is still friends with her last ex-boyfriend, Hugo, now turned her best-friend.  As Daphne’s life is told, chapters alternate between her current interactions with Hugo and her past boyfriends that she had.  We learn more about Daphne with each of these past brief love affairs.  Then with a shocking reveal, things get turned upside down and conclude with the most surprising ending.  In fact, I had to reread the last three chapters just to make sure I didn’t miss the WOW of how the book ended.

This is truly a third book of Serle’s that I can recommend especially if you enjoy a warm love story.

It has been a number of years since one of the novels by author Robin Cook has made my “Best of” list.  Manner of Death is the 14^th in Cook’s series featuring two married medical examiners in New York city, Jack Stapleton and Laurie Montgomery.  I have enjoyed reading about their lives through all fourteen of the books, but this one definitely stuck out for me as noteworthy.

In this latest book, there are a number of suicides occurring in New York City that upon investigation and autopsy by medical examiner (ME) staff, pose some conflicting details about whether or not the manner of death was a suicide or a homicide.  While all are ultimately signed out as suicides, a pathology resident on rotation through the ME office who loathes to perform autopsies is allowed to investigate the numerous cases looking for commonalities.  Once he discovers a common factor, as the saying goes, “all hell breaks loose.”  The climax of the book is amazing and very exciting!

I have grown to love these two fictional characters over the books that I have read and feel like I have gotten to know them well.  While not all of the fourteen books would make my “Best of” category, I feel it is important to read them in order to understand how they behave and grow together as a married couple.  If you have not read any of these books, it may seem like quite a commitment to read all fourteen.  But if you love to read a series of books that feature the same characters where each book reveals more about their character, then I think you will enjoy these.

I have read and thoroughly enjoyed many of Erik Larson’s books over the years.  Larson has an amazing ability to weave a nonfiction story into one that reads like an intriguing fictional account.  But they are nonfiction books.  When I learned he had published his latest, The Demon of Unrest, I knew I had to read it as well.  Only this time I dd not have to buy it as my eldest sister gave it to me.

This story covers the events leading up to the beginning of the Civil War.  Anyone who has studied American History knows that the war essentially began with the Confederate bombing of Fort Sumter, the US Army fort strategically located on an artificial island at the mouth of the Charleston Harbor (South Carolina).

With Larson’s book, I now knew the backstory of events leading up to that shelling.  Thanks to preserved letters, diaries and written accounts, Larson was able to actually quote comments and feeling about many of the individuals on both sides of the conflict.  Today an author would have to rely on e-mails, text messages, and possibly recorded conversations since little is written down by hand.

South Carolina was the first state to secede and thus it was natural that it should all begin there.  What I did not know was the order of other states seceding from the Union and how those factored into the start of hostilities.  I even learned the name of the individual who fired the first shot at Fort Sumter.  And leading up to that fateful moment, it was incredible to read the back-and-forth correspondence and conversations between Union and Confederate participants that could have possibly prevented the bombing.

I had previously read a book about the assassination plot against Lincoln on his journey to Washington for the inauguration.  Larson’s book included that as well but told so much more of the story before and afterwards.  If you have never read a book by Erik Larson, I would recommend starting with The Devil in the White City and then enjoy reading many after that including this book.

     To be continued…