After losing her husband, Rosie Lee could easily have become one of Singapore’s “tai tai,” an idle rich lady devoted to mah-jongg and luxury shopping. Instead, she threw herself into building a culinary empire from her restaurant, Aunty Lee’s Delights, where spicy Singaporean home cooking is graciously served to locals and tourists alike. But when a body is found in one of Singapore’s beautiful tourist havens, and when one of her wealthy guests fails to show at a dinner party, Aunty Lee knows that the two are likely connected.
Caution some spoilers ahead…..
Auntie Lee’s Delights very much, at least for me, hearkens back to a type of golden age mystery. We have the clever Aunty Lee, an older observant woman with her trust sidekick maid, along with a good cast of characters, each one who might have motive to have killed one of our victims. As the story develops our victim turns out to have had some unsavory habits including the modern-day equivalent of the poison pen letter- writing bad reviews of Aunty Lee’s restaurant along well as other letter writing endeavors. It did become clear to me after one incident who the murderer had to be, but it did not diminish my enjoyment of watching Aunty Lee put all the pieces together and then gently guide the detective to the correct answer. Unlike golden age mysteries it also inserts the moral dilemma of whether LGBTQ folk should be accepted or not and I am happy to say Aunty Lee’s opinion is on the acceptance side. Overall, this was a quick fun read. It will make the reader hungry and looking for some good food afterwards! I look forward to reading more from this author.
Nora Seed has decided to kill herself. Her parents are gone, her cat has died, she broke off her engagement, she has lost her job and she and her brother do not have a great relationship. As she hovers between life and death she finds herself in the Midnight Library, where, with the help of her school librarian, she has a chance to rethink her regrets. The books in the Midnight Library allow Nora to make different choices in her life and she “lives” that life to see if it is the correct “perfect” one.
First let us just stop and contemplate how much readerly catnip is involved in the premise of this books? A book can change our lives and a librarian can guide us? Is this not every reader’s dream? Find me the right books and all will be well. Have some of us not survived parts of our life by reading? Second, I’m sure everyone has had thoughts of “if I had done this instead of that my life would now be….”
I had such high expectations for the book based on the premise and, unfortunately, I ended up being disappointed. I can’t quite put my finger on why, but I think it partially has to do with the fact that I never really got to know Nora pre depression despite the flashbacks to her youth. We are told she really enjoyed music for example but not really shown this. Nora comes across as being one note for her entire life, a sad, disappointed person but no one is like that in their entirety. I felt a disconnect to her and felt no real emotions towards her. I also felt that some of the things she learned were a bit simplistic and depression treated too lightly. Sometimes changing your mind set isn’t going to help, it is far more complex than – hey your boyfriend was a bit of a jerk, you dodged a bullet there type of thing… Considering the subject matter the overall feeling of the book was just a shallow Hallmark card – perfectly fine but forgettable.
What I’m reading now
I’ve just started Red Widow by Alma Katsu. Evidently she spent 30 years in intelligence and has decided to write a book with that theme. Soviet assests are dropping dead and her heroine needs to find out if there is a mole in the CIA. I love her horror so I have expectations for this one.
Hope you are all having a good reading week! PS any spelling errors are due directly to cat on lap.
Eclectic reads for an Eclectic Frump 