Because I enjoyed Tess Hudson’s Double Down so well, I wanted to read this one. If you remember, Double Down was a romance about a young woman overcoming her addiction to gambling. There were some darker images in it involving uncovering a mystery about drugging a football player (her new romance) in order to predict a game.

I don’t know what I expected from Invisible Girl. Perhaps it was something psychological about a teen? It was not what I expected.

Invisible Girl’s prologue starts in the middle of the story. It unfolds in flashbacks to Vietnam and the Vietnam War, not chronological, superimposed on present day. It is very well written. I finished it pretty much in one sitting. I couldn’t put it down.

I think Hudson captures the time of the war, as well as the feeling that there are a lot of things we will never know about or that are deliberately hidden from us. She tells us that she was befriended by a Vietnam-era veteran who taught her about writing, art, and faith and showed her a side of the war she hadn’t glimpsed in the news broadcasts from her childhood.

She uses that to good advantage here. I cannot check her facts, but I can attest that she captures the feel of that time of war perfectly. And the feel of many of the returning soldiers.

She moves effortlessly from the battlefield to deep love; from rape to the babylift; from the soldiers to the highest echelons of politics and a powerful family; from the family of soldiers to the family of one of them; from the harshest of betrayals to the depths of trust and love. Along the way she mingles Catholicism and Buddhism, as Maggie’s mother covers all the bases to protect her family. She succeeds in a way not foreseen, including her own death and the solving of a puzzle from the past wherein only bits of the puzzle are held by individuals in order to afford protection to her children.

I find myself thinking if only, if only she had taken others into her confidence, others that loved her, she would be alive and reunited with her daughter.

For those who are touched by the Vietnam babylift, this book offers a small insight into the pain corruption adds to adoption. At the same time, the woman who was adopted as a baby was deeply loved by her adoptive mother (and loved her too.) There is also reunion of the half-siblings.

Additionally, it was interesting to me how the young Vietnamese woman who gave birth after being raped by an American soldier named her daughter Tam, which means heart. She felt that when she prayed to Buddha, he conceived this child through her heart on her own, not through rape. I don’t know how realistic this is, but it was very touching to me. Having biological (and adopted) children of my own, I know how deep is the mother love, and how it is very often our heart.

I give it a 5.

Karin

• Double Down by Tess Hudson

• Visible or invisible

• Kids are so funny, they keep you on your toes

• Difficult birthdays

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Suzanne Brockmann writes interesting books, and this is no exception. I stumbled across one of her books a few years ago. She writes military fiction (Navy Seals) with characters you enjoy, rolled up with passion for work and each other, as well as the requisite love story, a little danger and a lot of action. I haven’t read her books in any particular order, but each book concentrates more on one of the characters than another in a continuing saga of sorts.

This book is a love story about a hero and a hero. It is not heterosexual. She writes with compassion and understanding. Her son Jason is gay, she tells us in an addendum, and she lives in Massachusetts with her husband, author Ed Gaffney.

The book is set in Boston where Jules and Robin are going to be married, taking each other as life partners. Along the way, both of their lives are endangered — Jules because of his work and Robin because he is (they are) peripherally stalked.

I wouldn’t say this is the best of her books. There is less action, though what there is takes place in Afghanistan. For the most part, it is a love story. She ties present feelings and actions to past and childhood events. She makes you care for her characters’ hurts, which is a skill in itself.

Have you read any of her books?

Karin

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