Book 47 (of 52) – Someone Else’s Secret

Someone Else’s Secret – Julia Spiro

After graduating college with no job prospects, Lindsey, who has very large breasts, agrees to spend the summer on Martha’s Vineyard as a nanny in the hopes of meeting the right people and securing a job in the art world.  With the summer winding down and having landed the job she was hoping for, everything comes crashing down when something happens to Lindsey, who, again, has large breasts, and is witnessed by Georgie, daughter of the family she has been nannying for.  10 years later, Georgie finds she can no longer keep what she saw secret, reconnecting with Lindsey and trying to right the wrongs of a summer that impacted them both.

Someone Else’s Secret, the debut novel from Julia Spiro, must have been part of Amazon’s First Reads program at some point, so at least I know I didn’t pay anything for it.  She could have paid more heed to the Chekov’s gun principle, which states that every element in a story must be necessary, and irrelevant elements should be removed.  Irrelevant elements like the size of the protagonist’s breasts, which was mentioned numerous times throughout the book, only to learn in the time jump that she had undergone a reduction.  Had you dropped the entire plotline, if you can call it that, of her breasts, you’d have the exact same story told in probably 5-10 fewer pages.  I think what she was going for was the thought that large breasts were inherently sexualized, and, as a result of the <spoilers> rape, Lindsey’s character had turned away from that part of her life and reducing her breasts thus reduced the sexual part of her life.  But, that is contradicted by the numerous thoughts the Lindsey character had about her breasts prior to the rape. </spoilers>

At the end of the day, Spiro put together a perfectly readable tale, but not one that puts her on the “must check out again” list.  There is certainly talent here, but I don’t know that I’ll see if it gets focused into something better her next time out.

Book 18 (of 52) – The Watcher Girl

The Watcher Girl – Minka Kent

In The Watcher Girl, Minka Kent’s latest, a young woman, who has avoided her family for years, returns home to apologize to an old boyfriend, whom she believes to still be hung up on her.  When she accidentally runs into his wife, literally, she finds that he may not be the man she remembers.  Can she help her newfound friend escape before things go too far?  Or is the man she once loved still there somewhere, ready to return when she least expects it?

Minka Kent is a writer whose work has circled my awareness for some time now, but, thanks to the Amazon’s First Reads program, I was able to get this one early and free.  She doesn’t waste many words, with the book clocking in at under 240 pages, and the plot moves along quickly.  I found out after that many of these characters show up in a different novel, the story of which is touched upon here, and I was able to pick that up cheaply, so I will be revisiting Kent, and these set of characters, some time in the future.