On Turpentine Lane by Eleanor Lipman

I have read a few books by this author and always enjoy them. They are light, funny, entertaining and fast to read. I read this one in a weekend. And it was a weekend that I did a lot of work, too!  The book was a breeze.
Here's the NYTimes review:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/books/review/on-turpentine-lane-elinor-lipman.html?mcubz=3&_r=0

Thoroughly enjoyable.......

You Belong to Me by Colin Harrison

I had not read a book by Colin Harrison in SO many years, but he wrote a book, Bodies Electric, that I remember  LOVING when I read it way back when. So when his new book came out, I ordered it from the Library and waited for it. Worth the wait! I had not read a thriller in a while and it was the perfect summer read.
It has this interesting component - old maps - that I found fascinating. The protagonist, Paul Reeves, collects maps and will do anything to get the ones he wants.  Here's an excerpt from Kirkus to describe the tenor of this book.

...an elaborate story with many moving parts, some of them involving large piles of money, hit men of a decidedly murderous bent, wealthy expats and players from shadowy sultanates, map thieves, drug dealers and crackheads, and an assortment of other people you probably wouldn’t want to know. When the body count starts to rise, it’s up to Paul to save his skin while trying to figure out how to grab the object of his dreams, to say nothing of luscious Jennifer Mehraz. Harrison’s story moves nimbly across a populous, MacGuffin-strewn landscape, and though it doesn’t paint a nice picture of rural America, it doesn’t spare the worst of New York, either.

I will say that some of the characters are not really explained too well; you can't really figure out who they are and why they do the things that they do. this is especially true of Wilkerson, but the pace is fast and furious and Harrison tells a good story.

The Good Country by Laleh Khadivi

This was such an interesting and important book.  How does a upper middle class AMERICAN young man of Iranian descent become radicalized?  He has everything going for him. Good looks, excellent academics, acceptance into UC Berkeley, a beautiful girlfriend, and great parents who love him and give him everything he wants.

From Kirkus: 

At first, Rez is a “typical” American teenager, blissfully numbing himself with surfing and drugs to the complexities of his life and world. But after the Boston Marathon and another massacre closer to home, Rez can’t ignore the fact that he is treated with suspicion and prejudice by the same white community with which he has spent his entire life.

His girlfriend is first attracted to some friends who are becoming fundamentalist and draws Rez into it. But he is the one who takes them on a journey to Syria to join the movement.

More from Kirkus:

His radicalization takes place gradually, the result of a countless number of small intertwining factors rather than one overwhelming reason. That makes Rez’s journey believable, his psychological transition vivid and real. You’ll sympathize with Rez even as you find yourself devastated by his ultimate choices. Khadivi’s feat is a crucial one, especially at this moment in time, when young Muslim men are dehumanized by white Americans far more often than they are understood to be complicated, and individual, human beings.

It's such a powerful book with such an important message. I highly recommend it. She's an excellent writer, too!

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

After reading Anything is Possible, I felt that I HAD to ready Lucy Barton again and I just did. Now I feel like I have to ready Anything is Possible again
She is an amazing writer! Theses two books are interconnected in really interesting ways.

Anything Is Possible by Elizabeth Strout

What a beautiful book!  As soon as I finished it, I started My Name Is Lucy Barton all over again. This novel, Anything is Possible has the same characters as Lucy Barton. I just HAD to go back and remind myself about who they are, how they are connected, etc.
So, that is what I will write about next!

The Leavers by Lisa Ko

I heard about this book on my beloved podcast, All the Books by Liberty and Rebecca. They are so much fun and I like a lot of the books they recommend.
So, I reserved this from the Library and read it in just a few days!
Here is the Kirkus Review:

A Chinese woman who works in a New York nail salon doesn’t come home one day; her young son is raised by well-meaning strangers who cannot heal his broken heart.
We meet Bronx fifth-grader Deming Guo on the day his mother disappears without a trace. From there, the story moves both forward and backward, intercutting between the narrative of his bumpy path to adulthood and his mother’s testimony. Gradually the picture comes together—Deming was conceived in China and born in America because his unmarried mother, Peilan, decided she would rather borrow the $50,000 to be smuggled to America than live out her life in her rural village. After her baby is born she tries to hide him underneath her sewing machine at work, but clearly she cannot care for him and work enough to repay the loan shark. She sends him back to China to be raised by her aging father. When Deming is 6, Yi Ba dies, and the boy rejoins his mother, who now has a boyfriend and lives with him; his sister, Vivian; and her son, Michael. After Peilan disappears, Deming is shuffled into foster care—his new parents are a pair of white academics upstate. Ten years later, it is Michael who tracks down a college dropout with a gambling problem named Daniel Wilkinson and sends a message that, if he is Deming Guo, he has information about his mother. The twists and turns continue, with the answers about Peilan’s disappearance withheld until the final pages. Daniel’s involvement in the alternative music scene is painted in unnecessary detail, but otherwise the specificity of the intertwined stories is the novel’s strength. Ko’s debut is the winner of the 2016 Pen/Bellwether Prize for Fiction for a novel that addresses issues of social justice, chosen by Barbara Kingsolver.
This timely novel depicts the heart- and spirit-breaking difficulties faced by illegal immigrants with meticulous specificity.

The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

I had heard of this book and had seen it around so when it came up on Overdrive, I checked it out and I enjoyed it a lot!
It deals with an inheritance to be divided between four siblings and it's a riot! It's not the greatest literary giant, but it's just a fast and fun look into four dysfunctional siblings and their particular foibles and fancies.