Trust Comes to TV, Turn Every Page Movie, Dune Part 2 Delayed, The Paris Showroom by Juliet Blackwell, The Prison Healer by Lynette Noni, The Lost Talisman by K.A. Gandy, and One Percent of You by Michelle Gross

 I can't believe it's July already! We're halfway through summer, and I'm looking forward to streaming some shows in August on the usual channels, like Netflix, HBO and Hulu and Disney+. Meanwhile, I've started on some new medications for PCOS, and I'm trying some new supplements that should help me get up and move a bit more during the day. May your July days be warm and sunny, and your grill never run out of fuel. Hot dogs are on me!

This looks fascinating, and as I'm a big fan of Kate Winslet, I will be keeping an eye out for the premier.

 TV: Trust

Two-time Emmy winner Kate Winslet (Mare of Easttown) will star in and produce an adaptation of Hernan Diaz's novel Trust https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAKOxuwI6ao0IhsjSw~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jFXMekpoMLg-gVdw, Deadline reported, adding that HBO "acquired the recent bestseller from Riverhead Books in a competitive situation." Diaz will also executive produce the project.

The logline: "When a wealthy financier reads a novel based on his own life and is dissatisfied by his and his wife's portrayal, he asks a secretary to ghostwrite his memoir and set the record straight. She, however, grows uncomfortably aware that he is rewriting history--and his wife's place in it. Told in four different voices and genres, Trust is a narrative puzzle that subverts the notion of truth and who gets to define it."

This is another movie that sounds like a winner, and I can hardly wait to stream it when this film debuts.

Movies: Turn Every Page

Sony Pictures Classics acquired worldwide rights to the documentary Turn Every Page--The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb https://www.shelfawareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAKAkb4I6ao0JRxwGQ~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jFUpD2poMLg-gVdw>, which premiered at Tribeca Festival as part of its spotlight documentary programming, Variety reported. Gottlieb's daughter Lizzie Gottlieb  (Today's Man, Romeo Romeo) directed, while Joanne Nerenberg and Jen Small produced with Topic Studios. The documentary was made in association with Left/Right.

Turn Every Page explores legendary editor Gottlieb's creative collaboration with Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Caro. Sony noted: "They have worked and fought together for 50 years, forging one of publishing's most iconic and productive partnerships. Now 86, Caro is working to complete the final volume of his masterwork, The Years of Lyndon Johnson; Gottlieb, 91, waits to edit it. The task of finishing their life's work looms before them."

Lizzie Gottlieb said: "I was incredibly fortunate to discover the true meaning of collaboration while making this film, through witnessing the extraordinary partnership of Robert Caro and my father Robert Gottlieb, who have, individually and together, brought the world literary works of remarkable influence and endurance. My understanding of the power of collaboration deepened as I worked closely with the film's exceptional producers, including Joanne, Jen and the team at Topic Studios, who so vigorously championed my vision for the film and were a constant source of support. And with Sony Pictures Classics on board, we have a brilliant new team of collaborators whose unmatched expertise and boundless dedication will help bring the film to the widest possible audience. I couldn't be more thrilled."

Alas! I loved Dune Part I, so now I'm bummed that I have to wait an extra month for my Arrakis fix!

Movies: Dune Part II

"The journey back to the desert planet of Arrakis may take longer than expected," according to Variety, which reported that Dune: Part Two https://www.shelfawareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAKAxeUI6ao0JRB0TA~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jFUsStpoMLg-gVdw, the second chapter in the Warner Bros. and Legendary sci-fi epic based on Frank Herbert's classic sci-fi novel, has been postponed and will now open in theaters on November 17, 2023, instead of October 20, 2023.

Timothee Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem are returning for Dune: Part Two, with Florence Pugh, Austin Butler and Christopher Walken joining the cast. Director Denis Villeneuve is expected to start filming the sequel later this year.

 REVIEWS:

The Paris Showroom by Juliet Blackwell is a riveting historical fiction novel about a Parisian dept store turned work camp during WWII. The prose was a bit overblown and the plot slowed down every time that the author decided to info-dump historical facts about Paris and the Nazi occupation (and the French Resistance), but the ending was poignant and well done, and the story itself woven from actual accounts of the department store where slave labor was kept for several years, sorting antiques and art stripped from Jewish homes for the Nazis. Here's the blurb:

In Nazi-occupied Paris, a talented artisan must fight for her life by designing for her enemies. From New York Times bestselling author Juliet Blackwell comes an extraordinary story about holding on to hope when all seems lost.

Capucine Benoit works alongside her father to produce fans of rare feathers, beads, and intricate pleating for the haute couture fashion houses. But after the Germans invade Paris in June 1940, Capucine and her father must focus on mere survival—until they are betrayed to the secret police and arrested for his political beliefs. When Capucine saves herself from deportation to Auschwitz by highlighting her connections to Parisian design houses, she is sent to a little-known prison camp located in the heart of Paris, within the Lévitan department store.
 
There, hundreds of prisoners work to sort through, repair, and put on display the massive quantities of art, furniture, and household goods looted from Jewish homes and businesses. Forced to wait on German officials and their wives and mistresses, Capucine struggles to hold her tongue in order to survive, remembering happier days spent in the art salons, ateliers, and jazz clubs of Montmartre in the 1920s.
 
Capucine’s estranged daughter, Mathilde, remains in the care of her conservative paternal grandparents, who are prospering under the Nazi occupation. But after her mother is arrested and then a childhood friend goes missing, the usually obedient Mathilde finds herself drawn into the shadowy world of Paris’s Résistance fighters. As her mind opens to new ways of looking at the world, Mathilde also begins to see her unconventional mother in a different light.
 
When an old acquaintance arrives to go “shopping” at the Lévitan department store on the arm of a Nazi officer and secretly offers to help Capucine get in touch with Mathilde, this seeming act of kindness could have dangerous consequences.

I liked Capucine, and found her resilience inspiring, but Mathilde, who was spoiled and too much of a coward to stand up to her Nazi sympathizer/collaborator grandparents (until the last minute when she rebels when they try to make her marry another Nazi collaborator), was a real crappy character that I had little sympathy for...she was too wide eyed and naive to see what was happening around her, and even when she wised up a little, she didn't have the backbone to really give herself to the resistance. I also liked Charlie, Capucine's black lover who was a Jazz musician and forgives her way too eaily for her own lack of spine for standing up to racists about their relationship. But this was most definitely a novel that could have used a good editor with a red pen to slash at least 100 pages of deadwood from the narrative. Still, I'd give the novel a B+ and recommend it to anyone who is interested in Paris prison camps during WWII.

The Prison Healer by Lynette Noni is a YA fantasy novel that is unique in that it takes place in a horrible prison that is more like a concentration camp, in that few of the prisoners emerge alive, and in fact the protagonist spends a lot of time sending bodies to the morgue, rather than healing prisoners who've been worked to death or beaten by guards. I was surprised that this book wasn't put into the horror fiction genre, as there was an endless parade of human misery and despair for at least the first few chapters. Here's the blurb:

Seventeen-year-old Kiva Meridan has spent the last ten years fighting for survival in the notorious death prison, Zalindov, working as the prison healer.

When the Rebel Queen is captured, Kiva is charged with keeping the terminally ill woman alive long enough for her to undergo the Trial by Ordeal: a series of elemental challenges against the torments of air, fire, water, and earth, assigned to only the most dangerous of criminals.

Then a coded message from Kiva’s family arrives, containing a single order: “Don’t let her die. We are coming.” Aware that the Trials will kill the sickly queen, Kiva risks her own life to volunteer in her place. If she succeeds, both she and the queen will be granted their freedom.

But no one has ever survived.

With an incurable plague sweeping Zalindov, a mysterious new inmate fighting for Kiva’s heart, and a prison rebellion brewing, Kiva can’t escape the terrible feeling that her trials have only just begun.

From bestselling author Lynette Noni comes a dark, thrilling YA fantasy perfect for fans of Sarah J. Maas, and Sabaa Tahir

 

Noni's prose is surprisingly deft and engrossing, and once we learn that Kiva has supporters and those willing to help her behind the scenes, the plot picks up speed and runs it's course like a thoroughbred racehorse. SPOILER ALERT: Though I'm aware Kiva is the heroine, and therefore is required to risk her life for others, I don't understand why we were kept from the fact that the rebel queen is her mother until the very end of the book....it would have made her ridiculous agreement to do the Trial by Ordeal for her mother's sake make so much more sense than she was just doing it to save the rebellion. I will be interested to see what her family's excuse is for leaving a young child in a horrible prison run by sadistic guards when I read the second book in the series. Meanwhile, I'd give this book an A-, and recommend it to anyone with a strong stomach who likes books about women/girls triumphing under the harshest circumstances.

The Lost Talisman by K.A. Gandy was a YA fantasy ebook that I was offered for free from the publisher, that unfortunately wouldn't load on my Kindle, so I had to read the PDF on my computer, which is one of my least favorite ways to read a novel. The prose is simplistic and more suitable for younger teens than young adults, so I'd be sure to put it into the hands of 12 and 13 year olds, rather than 18-20 year olds. The plot also reads like a standard boilerplate fantasy, cobbled together from bits of Tolkien, Harry Potter and Anne McCaffrey, among others. It could almost be fan fiction, and it wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that the author has written some fanfic in the past. Here's the blurb:

The girl who never fit in just might be the mage who changes it all.

Calida is a constant screwup in her small town of Rockvale. Mayhem dogs her every step, and her family pays the price to keep her off the mage guard's radar and out of trouble with the citadel.

However, everything's about to change. Now that she's twenty-two, it's time for her Awakening Ceremony, where she'll be tethered to her talisman, and finally have access to her magic.

There's just one problem . . . she's pretty sure she doesn't have any. When the day finally comes, will she humiliate her family—her entire village—by being a magical dud?

Only one thing is for certain; after her Awakening, nothing will ever be the same again.

The Lost Talisman is the first full-length entry in the An'Loran Chronicles. Reading the prequel short Aerthen Sight is recommended, but not at all required to fully enjoy the story.

Unfortunately I knew nothing about the prequel short story, so I didn't read it before reading the Lost Talisman, but the book was such a simple tale with an easy plot that rambles along like a cart down a short path, I really didn't need to read anything else to understand where these characters were coming from. That said, the characters are sweet and almost two dimensional, and they provide just the right amount of fun and interesting light romance that you can read this book in a few hours and still have time to start on something more dense and sturdy. However, if you're looking for a distraction, like while you're flying to somewhere far away, or if you're in the hospital and want some light reading, this is the book for you. A beach read for those into epic sojourn fantasy. I'd give it a B+ and recommend it to those mentioned above.

One Percent of You by Michelle Gross was another cheap ebook, a "slow burn romance" that sounded like it had some interesting characters, so I figured I'd give it a whirl. the main character is a single mom, but she's so young that I gather the author assumes she is terribly stupid and naive. Her 4 year old daughter turns out to be more savvy and street smart than her mom, which is pathetic and infantilizing toward women, especially mothers. But YM (young mom) is a full cliche-ridden trope here, being slight (almost child sized, to appeal to the pedophilic male fantasy of "big strong man" has sex with a  virginal innocent child, truly disgusting) short, blonde and beautiful, (even without makeup! Wow, like that's the most amazing accomplishment ever!) with big, milk-filled breasts that are given plenty of description in every chapter and are, apparently, a huge turn-on to big guys who are all tattooed up and can't wait to breastfeed during sex. (If this isn't turning your stomach right now, you need therapy, badly). For some bizarre reason little Lucy can't get enough of this grumpy asshole, who initially treats her and her mother like crap, all the while eyeing them like a predator (under the guise of wanting to "care" for them, and "make them safe." Yeah, sure, buddy...who is keeping them safe from you?) So of course eventually YM succumbs to tattoo guy, Elijah's "charms" of being a butthead with a supposedly soft heart beneath his inky, rude and creepy exterior.

Here's the blurb: Make no mistakes about it. I know what I look like to others. Young, government-aided, pregnant mom. They see Lucy on my hip, and they see a mistake. I mean, why else would someone have a child so young, right? They couldn’t be more wrong. I’m too busy most days between parenting, work, and finishing up my last year of nursing school to let their judging gaze tear me down until he moves into the vacant house next to the apartments I live in.
His cold, blunt observation of us doesn’t differ from any other stranger. He doesn’t know me, but he’s already painting a picture of who he thinks I am in his mind. He judges my very round belly, Lucy’s inability to leave him alone, the bags under my eyes, and the fact that I couldn’t care less what I look like anymore.
He’s a rude guy. Stays that way for months too. Then something happens, I’m not even sure what. Judgmental Guy decides Lucy and me—as well as baby Eli, are worth his friendship.
Turns out, Judgmental Guy isn’t too mean—okay, he kind of still is. But he graduates to Elijah. I build an unlikely friendship with him which deems it necessary for him to start smiling around me and my kids.
I’m wrong again. Elijah isn’t rude. He’s terrifying. His strange acts of kindness are unraveling me. Elijah is only my friend.
Right?
Oh, fudge. I think I’m wrong.
Again.

So pregnant for the second time and barely scraping by (this woman needs to learn about birth control and abortion, STAT. Why would you bring yet another child into the world when you can barely feed your first one? What an idiot!) YM is "saved" from starvation and living in a crappy apartment that is surrounded by scumbags who harass her day and night, (because of course she's irresistible to all men, being small, blonde and having big breasts full of milk!) by Elijah, who has mind-blowing sex with her and then, of course, falls in love with her because she's not only f-ed him, she's fed him breastmilk. Shudder. Somehow this deviance and pedophilic creepyness is made to seem like it's a normal part of adult attraction, when it's not. Seriously. The prose is skippy and zippy while the plot is pretty much paint-by-numbers easy, so anyone who has this particular kink will find it easy to get through the book within a day. I was horrified and disgusted and would give the book a D, and not really recommend it to anyone, because I don't know any perverts who, as adults, get sexually excited by breastfeeding. But, as with anything, YMMV.