On Her Own, a Novel set in Tel Aviv, Israel; and Cherry Blossom Wishes set in Japan

 Book Review

On Her Own by Lihi Lapid; March 19, 2024: HarperVia, NetGalley

Genre: new adult, women's fiction, multicultural

In Tel Aviv, Israel, Nina escapes her abusive, married hoodlum boyfriend Johnny, after witnessing a murder he committed. Scared for her life and beaten up, she hides inside an apartment building, with nowhere to go and too scared to ask her single mom for help.

This is the story of Nina and her friendship with a lonely old woman, Carmela, who finds Nina cowering on the steps inside  the apartment building and takes her in, effectively giving Nina a secure hiding place from Johnny. Nina and Carmela's relationship grows when Nina realizes that Carmela has creeping dementia and thinks that Nina is her beloved granddaughter from America. Carmela, living alone, desperately needs a caretaker, housekeeper, a cook.

Nina deals subtly with Carmela's longing for her only surviving son, Itamar, who had left Tel Aviv for America with his family six years before and delaying attention to his aged mother who was unwilling to join him in America.

I found it interesting that the novel is also a love story to Israel, intended for those who opt to stay in the country and even for those who leave it for a different, more opulent life in the U.S. or Europe. 

The national and religious celebrations in Israel, which include Passover, Memorial Day and Independence Day, are described very clearly and well integrated into the plot. The novel is well written, informational about Israel, and the family conflicts and resolutions are quite moving.

I like that the novel does not include political situations or controversial politics. 

I read and reviewed this book in 2023, and have just reread it not realizing I had already posted a review on NetGalley. Here it is now on my blog.  

Currently Reading 

Publication: March 24, 2026; Harper 360, NetGalley 

Genre: sci fi, fantasy, adult fiction

I'm reading this fantasy where dreams come true, wishes are fulfilled, and the past is rectified. Thanks to a magical bookshop with a large blooming cherry tree overhanging it, and a young woman who gives out the right books to the right people who need it, and also thanks to a large calico cat that gives hints to visitors with meows and blinks.

Each chapter has different books to recommend and different people with their own unique regrets and wishes to fulfill. The book begins in spring when the cherry blossom tree is in full bloom and continues through all the seasons of the year

I finished the first chapter, in which a young manga artist gets comfort and inspiration from a visit with her dead mother, whose words of advice help her carry on. In the second chapter, a retired railway man battling increased forgetfulness keeps a promise to his wife, who died before he could show her the magnificent cherry blossom trees near an old, now disused railway line. 

The stories are more than just fantasy. They incorporate wise sayings and ways of looking at life, the past, and coping with the present and the future. 

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday, 

The Final Work of Mario Vargas Llosa: I Give You My Silence

 Reviewed

I Give You My Silence by Mario Vargas Llosa (Feb. 24, 2026 publication). The last work of Nobel Prize winning author, who died in April 2025, after his final novel, I Give You My Silence, was written.

It's a love song and a farewell to Peru, where the author was born; throughout his life, he lived in the capital city of Lima, in London, and in Spain. The novel follows the life of Tono Alpizqueta, a fictional character who is an expert on the Peruvian vals/waltz, a guitar music born in the early 20th Century in the streets of Peru, which became popular among all social classes throughout the country. 

Tono hoped that the music would break the barriers of race and class in Peru and would cause all Peruvians to feel as one. This may not have happened, but it was a lofty and very optimistic, if an unrealistic and perhaps simplistic view held by Tono of the complexities of discrimination and the lasting effects of past Spanish colonialism in that country. 

Tono followed the sad and tragic life of Peru's greatest guitarist, Lalo Molfino, who took his life at a young age.

Vargas Llosa's novel is moving as he pays tribute to the Peruvian waltz and the people of the streets who first created and developed it.  His love of his people and his culture is evident in his final story of the people of Peru.

Thanks to the publisher, FS&G, and NetGalley for an advance reading of this book.  

Currently reading

Hidden in Memories by Viveca Sten, translated from the Swedish; Nov. 18, 2025; Amazon Crossing, NetGalley

The slaying of a hotel developer in the Swedish mountains casts a shadow over a blissful vacation paradise in a chilling novel of suspense by the acclaimed author of Hidden in Shadows. See my goodreads review.

One of my favorite mystery and thriller writers, Viveca Sten has written the third in the Are murder series.

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday, 

Flesh, Booker Prize Winner; and Two Women's Fiction Books

 Borrowed from the library: 

**WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025**

The British book cover

North American book cover

'A masterpiece, told with virtuosic economy… Pure brilliance from the first to the (devastating) last sentence’ India Knight
'Brilliance on every page' Samantha Harvey
'Spare, visceral, urgent, compelling. This book doesn't f**k around' Gary Stevenson
‘So brilliant and wise on chance, love, sex, money' David Nicholls

Through chance, luck and choice, one man’s life takes him from a modest apartment in Hungary to the elite society of London – in this captivating new novel about the forces that make and break our lives (from The Booker Prizes)

I haven't started reading it as yet, but the novel has gotten so much good publicity, I'm eager to begin reading my library copy.

Finished Reading

Jan. 13, 2026; Berkley, NetGalley

Genre: women's fiction

Poppy is still so influenced by her deceased older sister, Dandelion, that she copies her life, her choices, way of dressing, as Poppy wants to follow in her sister's footsteps. How Poppy finds out the truth about the real Dandelion, not the one in her head, and how she breaks free and finds her own self is the crux of the novel.

I gave it five stars, I was so impressed by the writing style, the humor, the pathos, the characters, and the story. 

May 26, 2026, Harper, NetGalley

Genre: mystery, women's fiction 

American sommelier, Olivia Beech, a wine connoisseur has lost her sense of taste due to Covid and has lost her job as a result. She travels to Paris, where she hopes her enhanced sense of smell will allow her to still identify types of red wine and possibly the vineyard of origin. 

When two men die after ingesting wine samples in glasses that have been handled or been in close proximity to Olivia, she becomes a suspect in their murders. Arsenic had been added to the wine the men drank. 

This was an unusual plot with unusual characters, and interesting information on wines both vintage and new. The murder mystery was intriguing as well, as it had to do with the value, both monetary and aesthetic, of good and aged wines. 

I read the above two books as ARCs or unpublished galleys on NetGalley. Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity. 

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday, 

Asian Authors and a Brad Meltzer Thriller: Sunday Salon

 Now Reading

NetGalley ebooks

Boring Asian Female by Canwen Xu, April 26, 2026; Berkley, NetGalley

Book Description: One woman's drastic fight to be seen as an Interesting Asian Female versus a Boring/Stereotypical Asian Female. With dramatic and tragic consequences.....See my review

The Social Circle by Sophie Wan, March 3, 2026; Harlequin, NetGalley

Book description: Maggie Tang and friends create Circle, the world’s first major social media platform. But when her creative ambitions alongside love and friendship collide, Maggie leaves Circle in dramatic fashion. Until the friends meet again a decade later....

Jan. 6, 2026; William Morrow, NetGalley

Feb. 17, 2026; Henry Holt &Co., NetGalley 

Book Description: 

A tale of friendship and family: "Can the same people who made you who you are end up keeping you from who you’re meant to be?"

Finished Reading

March 3, 2026; HarperVia, NetGalley

Book description: A beautifully told tale about the magic and mysteries of familial love, from one of Japan's most acclaimed writers. At the heart of the family is Sakura, the dog who keeps them together in several ways.

April 28, 2026; Berkley, NetGalley

Review:  Mebel's husband in Indonesia leaves her for another woman. To win him back, she enrolls in a culinary school, not in Paris as she thought, but in England, just outside of Oxford. Can she follow this path to become a chef, and does she change in the process to find a new, independent self? 

I enjoyed Mebel's journey to new hobbies and career and independence. I cheered her on all the way, through all her self doubts and angst. 

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday, 

Like a Wave We Break: a Memoir by Jane Chen - Sunday Salon

 

Like a Wave We Break: A Memoir of Falling Apart and Finding Myself by Jane Chen, Oct. 14, 2025; Rodale, NetGalley

A memoir of a woman trying to heal from a father with unreasonable expectations for his child and who routinely dealt out physical punishment, slapping and hitting her for any mistakes.

Themes: - surviving the emotional consequences of unusually harsh treatment of a father to a child

           - ways the author tried to compensate for her lack of self-worth in her adult life        

           - what worked temporarily for healing, and what seemed to work finally, in the end

I was moved by the writer trying so hard in different places, countries, to find some way to put her mind at ease. Meditation, retreats, visits with various gurus and persons who claimed to be able to cleanse - all these helped only a little, and only for a while. 

The accomplishments that gave her joy were a new found love of surfing, in many different places and countries. And her very worthwhile work in developing and distributing an incubator for at risk newborns in third world countries.

Her journey of self discovery and self healing took a while. I admired her grit and determination, and the way she handled her terrible childhood memories. So well written, this book was read in almost one sitting, as I became more and more intrigued and caught up in her story.

ARC from Soho Press

What Boys Learn by Andromeda Romano-Lax

Not yet published

Expected Jan. 6, 2026, Soho Press

A twisty, jaw-dropping psychological thriller that unravels a mother's worst nightmare—that her child is capable of terrible violence—when her teenage son becomes a suspect in the murder of two classmates, from the author of The Deepest Lake
Over one terrible weekend, two teenage girls are found dead in a wealthy Chicago suburb. As the community mourns, Abby Rosso, the girls’ high school counselor, begins to suspect that her son was secretly involved in their lives—and possibly, their deaths. (publisher)

I have heard of films and other books with the same theme: when a parent or parents suspect their child of murder, how do they cope?

Have you read books with this theme?

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday,