Library: ‘Ghosting’ and relationship issues

In contemporary slang, “ghosted” is when someone you have dated completely avoids any communication with you via telephone, social media, or in any other way. In Rosie Walsh’s new thriller “Ghosted”, that’s what Sarah’s friends tell her is happening to her. She had six wonderful days with a new boyfriend, Eddie, but then he doesn’t return from a vacation. Sarah doesn’t buy that she’s being ghosted. When she tries to find Eddie, she starts getting warning texts and someone starts following her. What has she gotten herself into?
Robin is a recently widowed young mother in “Surviving Cyril” by Ramsey Hootman, her husband Tavis having died in Afghanistan. She thinks at least she will have the satisfaction of cutting ties with her husband’s best friend, Cyril. The 500 pound computer hacker is verbally cruel—although he does have a hilarious list of 20 ways to describe a fat person such as himself without using that word. Unfortunately for Robin, her three-year-old son Seth now latches onto Cyril as his own best buddy. She can’t make Seth give up that tie while dealing with his grief over his father’s death. She finds Cyril to be a better role model than she imagined and enters an uneasy alliance with him, a benefit when unsettling questions arise about Tavis’ death.
In 1965, Peter Raskin is the acclaimed chef of Masha’s, his New York City restaurant in “The Lost Family” by Jenna Blum. He is regarded as a highly eligible and desirable bachelor, but has no interest in romance. An Auschwitz survivor, Peter is haunted by the loss of his wife Masha and their twin girls to the Nazis. When the lovely June Bouquet whirls into his life and pierces his guard, he decides he may be able finally to let go of the horror of his past. They marry and have a child, but his past continues to cast its shadow over their present.
A couple of new biographies deserve some attention. Each answers a question which may arise in the reader’s mind.
How did a 19-year old come to write a dark story which still resonates two centuries later? An answer is attempted by Fiona Sampson with “In Search of Mary Shelley.” With the 200th anniversary of her classic book “Frankenstein” this year, and the book being next winter’s Iola Reads selection, now might be a good time to pick this book up.
And how did a small-town Kansas editor come to be a major political and journalistic influence on the nation? A new biography of William Allen White, “Crusader for Democracy” by Charles Delgadillo, can help answer that question.