Laura McBride (1)Besprekingen

A raw and emotional book. This book contained so much sadness, yet the moral of the story is in the title -- "We are called to rise." We get hurt, our lives get shattered, we do things that we know will hurt others, we do things not knowing their full implications. One gut punch comes, and then another. We can give into defeat, or we can rise, but we can't do it alone. Our lives are interconnected and we need each other.

4 solid stars.

Very readable and enjoyable for the most part. I thought that it ended rather abruptly and parts of the ending were a little too pat.

It was interesting. I'm not normally interested in the glitz of Los Vegas, and this book didn't change that, but it wasn't a problem like I thought it might be going in. It's all character, all the time, so the more you are interested in the people, the better you'll like the book. I maybe would have preferred a little more outside plot of some sort, just to balance out the 'watching someone's life go by' feeling.

I read this book on a strong recommendation - and it lived up to its hype. I was surprised to learn it is a first book - it seems very accomplished for a debut. It used the technique of chapters rotating between the 4 main characters. At its core it's a story of relationships - a marriage falling apart & the grown son struggling with PTSD, a young immigrant boy trying to figure out how to survive a sudden tragedy, a damaged soldier trying to find meaning in his life on his return home, and a CPS woman trying to make the world better for shattered families and hurt children. The 2 storylines I really enjoyed were the damaged soldier and the lovable young boy - Each of the characters was well developed (except maybe the CPS woman) and had distinctive voices. It's a sad, distressing, almost depressing book, but with moments of care and love that save it. I found many insightful passages; here's a fave:

"But if, sometimes, an unspeakable horror arises from the smallest error, I choose to believe that it's possible for an equally unimaginable grandeur to grow from the tiniest gesture of love. I choose to believe that it works both ways. That great terror is the result of a thousand small but evil choices, and great good is the outcome of another thousand tiny acts of care."

Highly recommended - I think this book would lend itself well for bookclubs.....

This is a well-written first novel, lots of great discussion points for a book club. I would have given it 5 stars if not for the predictability of the outcome. Loved it and highly recommend it! Not the most upbeat beach read though, ladies....

It’s hard to deal with all of the tragedy in the world right now. Reading We Are Called To Rise was cathartic for me. I cried and cried. I was relieved at the “happy” ending, even if it was unrealistic. Who picked this book?

It was not the easiest story to read, one that covers the gamut of domestic violence, immigration, racism, war, post- traumatic stress, death, grief, foster care, suicide, and addiction…

Interestingly, all those who “rise” are women. There’s Avis, the mother of the war veteran Nate. There’s Roberta, the Court Appointed Services Advocate and defender of children; the abueula (grandmother) of Luis a traumatized war vet; Mrs. Monaghan, Baskim’s teacher, Dr. Moore, the elementary school principal, Mrs. Delain, the foster mother; and, even the victim, Bashkim’s mother.

Following four women spanning over five decades, In the Midnight Room tells a tale of struggle, independence, fortune and change. As the story progresses, you see how these four unique women build their lives in Las Vegas, all tied together by June, a fiercely independent wife of a casino owner with a secret she’s lived with for over 50 years.

The story is heartfelt, earnest, sincere, but it did feel a bit too slow at times and heavy handed in other places. The fourth woman, Engracia, felt like an afterthought, someone meant to bookend one of the story’s themes, but served as more of a plot device than an actual fleshed out character. The end was a beautiful gut punch, a long time coming but well worth the time it took to get there.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This contemporary debut is told in the first-person voices of four people who never should have met--Bashkim, a child of struggling immigrants; Luis, a young, wounded soldier; Avis, a mid-fifties suburban wife whose husband has just asked for a divorce; and Roberta, a children's Court Appointed Special Advocate. The plot is, essentially, a domino of events that bring these characters together. The author paints Las Vegas as a character no less vivid than the people who live there, giving memorable texture to this character-driven story.

WE ARE CALLED TO RISE is a strangely uneven offering that presents several symptoms of the debut novel. Most notably, the author doesn't seem to trust the intelligence of her readers, especially with regard to her themes: paying it forward, random acts of kindness, the butterfly effect, the resiliency of human nature. All of these are hammered into us until Bashkim's final-page epiphany holds less punch than it should. Really, though, Bashkim (and Avis and Roberta) don't need to think these profound thoughts in the first place. The events and the characters' choices would have led us to the profound thoughts for ourselves, if they had been allowed to do so. Hopefully, Ms. McBride's next novel will be written with greater faith in her readers and therefore greater subtlety.

As for the characters themselves, maybe other readers will latch onto Roberta and/or Avis. I never did. Roberta especially has no depth of character; she exists mostly to give the reader information or to opine about the themes and the personality of Las Vegas (the latter of which is interesting). More happens to Avis, but she still frequently comes across as a theme megaphone for the author. And when she's human, her willful blindness to her son's problems is frustrating. Sure, there are parents who delude themselves this far, but I could never feel sorry for her. Ironically, given the themes of reaching out to others, Avis seems abnormally self-centered. Maybe that was the point--a theme mirror of sorts? But I never found her all that unique or compelling as a character.

The boys, though. Eight-year-old Bashkim is a marvelous, realistic kid. His teachers call him a worrier, and his explosively angry father has given him good cause to be. He's somber and conscientious, longs to play sports at school but knows his family doesn't have the money, enjoys watching the sharks in the marine lab. His voice is authentic, perceiving more than the adults realize but convincingly immature when he should be. The things he wonders about, the things he misinterprets--poignant and sweet. Then there's Luis, a Las Vegas native deployed to Iraq, who we meet in a DC hospital after a head injury he can't remember. His voice starts out almost as childlike as Bashkim's (if more profane, appropriately), struggling to remember and even to compose thoughts. The reader learns what happened to Luis as he learns to process and cope with both PTSD and his brain injury. The letters written back and forth between him and Bashkim demonstrate his struggle to regain his verbal skills. He and Bashkim are well written characters, with more detailed personalities than Avis or Roberta's.

The plot moves along at a suitable pace, and I was engaged throughout. The climax/conclusion, however (the final act is both of these), jumps right off the plausibility cliff. I don't believe this would ever, ever happen. I simply don't. The author could have wrapped up her theme in several other ways that would have been hopeful yet still believable. Of course, I'm referring to the judge granting custody of Bashkim and Tirana to Luis's grandmother. Who doesn't know them. Whom they do not know. Who has never been a foster parent before, as far as we're told. And who is also housing/caring for a physically challenged (for now, at least) adult male with PTSD and TBI and the expected mood issues attending both these conditions. How does this judge's decision make any sense whatsoever?

In addition, quite a bit of the dialogue feels more "informational" than human in its content, often stilted. It's also spotted with unnecessary "yeses" and "nos" and character naming with every new speaker (general examples, not exact quotes: "Roberta, I think we should ..." "Well, Marty, I don't agree..." "But, Roberta..." "I said no, Marty...").

Had the conclusion been a bit more plausible, the dialogue more natural, and the themes less spoon-fed, this would have been a four-star book for me. I found myself invested in the plights of Bashkim and Luis. I wanted them to find safety and healing. I even wonder what will happen to them next and would read a sequel about them. This novel is an unusual mix of things that work and things that don't, but on the whole, I'm glad to have met Bashkim and Luis and Laura McBride's Las Vegas.

Thanks to Touchstone publisher and Silver's Review (Elizabeth Silver's blog) for this book.

I love reading about Las Vegas and especially in the 1950's/1960s. This brings together so many people who all have something in common. Del Gibb, the owner of El Capitan, the casino on the strip and his wife June and the other characters represented in this book.

It was a okay book for me. Nothing especially boring nor exciting. I probably would have picked it up if I saw it in a bookstore since the Vegas theme was intriguing to me.

While visiting an indie bookstore in Las Vegas, I picked up We Are Called to Rise based on a bookseller recommendation. Having never heard of author Laura McBride, it was a leap of reading faith. And neither the author nor the book let me down!

McBride writes the novel through the voices of four people with distinct life experiences. My favorite was the eight-year-old boy whose Albanian immigrant parents are struggling to assimilate in boomtown Las Vegas. It turns out he was the author’s favorite character also, and I felt that in how deftly she portrayed his thoughts and feelings.

Two other characters are women living in Las Vegas, with very different roles in the story. While they seem to be about the same age, one is confident and sure of her place in the world and the other is finding her way after a few unexpected changes. The final main character is an Army veteran just returning stateside. Through him, McBride shows us the physical toll that emotional upheaval takes on our bodies. And vice versa.

Read the full review at TheBibliophage.com.

Each chapter of this book is told from a different point of view. The thing they all have in common is that they live in Las Vegas and as the book unfolds, we learn how they all become connected.
Avis has spent her whole life in constant fear that something would happen to her beloved son, Nate. She lost daughter, Emily, at a very young age and it has a huge effect on the rest of her life. When the book opens, Avis is standing naked in front of her husband thinking of ways she can spice up their marriage when he tells her that he is in love with someone else. Avis is faced with the heartbreak of losing her house and her husband.
Avis had a rough childhood, living with a drunk mother who moved from one abusive relationship to another and moved into one run down hotel to another, sometimes even living in the back of a car. She has spent her whole life trying to not be anything like her mother.
Nate is Avis’s son. He recently came back from serving time in Iraq and has just begun his career as a police officer. His mother notices he isn’t quite right when he returns home from the war and his PTSD gets worse and worse until something tragic happens.
Bashkim is a young Albanian boy in Las Vegas. His father was put in an Albanian prison for protesting an act of the government. He applied for political asylum with the United States and his family was sent to live in Vegas. Bashkim’s mother is lonely in US. She misses her family and their homeland.
Bashkim’s father is often violent and angry. Bashkim worries a lot. He lives in a state of fear that he will get in trouble at school, which will get him into trouble with his father. As a school project, Bashkim begins writing letters to a soldier in Iraq.
Luis is Bashkim’s pen pal. After three years in Iraq (or hell as he called it) he shoots his own self in the head and winds up in the hospital instead of dead. He wanted more than anything to be a good soldier and make his grandmother, who raised him, proud of him. Luis blames himself for everything. He is full of anger and guilt and self-loathing. He lays in bed and wonders, “Will I ever be a man again? Will I always be this crippled fuck?” At 22 years old, Luis feels he has nothing left to hope for, he doesn’t know what to do with so much pain and failure and he has no idea what to do with his life if he’s not a soldier.
The letters he receives and writes to Bashkim begin to wake him up and bring him back around. They make him want to do something right. Bashkim really gives Luis the will to live again.
Roberta is a court appointed Special Advocate who takes her job very seriously. She puts all her heart in soul into her job and wants to make recommendations for the children she helps that she would make if the child were her own. She learns everything she can about each child so she can make the best decision possible for the future.
Las Vegas, in my opinion, is also a character in the book. “It’s not a small town anymore. For decades, people have been streaming in from all over the world, from every country on the planet; stateless people, desperate people, eager people, ambitious people. They came for easy work, the ability to pay someone off, for the chance to start over. They come because they are rich, they come because they are poor, and someday soon, all these hundreds of thousands, millions, of newcomers may even wipe clean the slate drawn by Vegas’s earliest dreamers.”
These three quotes sum up everything the book was about:
“Coincidences can be powerful. The strangest coincidences are opportunities.”
“Things happen to us that are more than we can take. And we break. We break for a moment, for a while. But that break is not who we are. It’s not the sum total of who we are.”
“One small thing changes everything. The tiniest act, the smallest space of time, the most inconsequential of decisions, changes a life. Whole lives are born out of the most fragile of happenstance.”½

Digital audio performed by Joy Osmanski with Will Damron.

From the book jacket In a choreographic tour de force, Laura McBride twirls four women through a Las Vegas nightclub, turning their separate lives into a suspenseful, intricate dance of mothers, daughters, wives, and lovers. … June hires a charismatic black man to sing at her club. … Honorata leaves the Philippines as a mail-order bride. … Engracia finds bad luck in the Midnight Room. … Coral struggles with her mysterious past.

My reactions
I loved McBride’s debut novel - We Are Called to Rise. She uses a similar writing technique here – telling the stories of four different characters with little apparent connection, and then finally meshing them together in one specific event. The reader gets a pretty clear idea of the connection of at least two of these women early on but must wait for events to unfold over several decades before the characters will catch on.

In general, I find this sort of multiple-narrator, multiple-timeline frame challenging but interesting in novels. However, I was listening to the audio version and this made it decidedly more difficult to follow. I would get interested in one character’s story and then be yanked into a different timeframe to learn about a different character. I think I may have enjoyed this more if I had read it in a text version.

Joy Osmanski and Will Damron do a fine job of narrating the audio book. I think my difficulty in following the plot was not the narrators’ fault, so much as it was due to the structure of the work.½

I loved this book. I loved the diversity, the women, the setting....This was a perfect book for my girls getaway at a casino. I was desperate in the end to see how everything would conclude and I can't think of a better compliment for a book.

I became more interested in the story when I could see how all the characters were important to each other. I enjoyed the stories about people who make their home in Las Vegas. It was not a joyful read but I liked the way the author gave us the situation throught the eyes of many characters.

June, Honorata, Engracia, and Coral made very unexpected choices as their desires lead them to the Midnight Room in Las Vegas. Their stories speak to the changes encountered over six decade of civil liberties, immigration, and women’s freedom to act independently of their spouses. The four stories include many challenges and tragedies faced by the down trot and paycheck to paycheck life. As with real life, there is not magic cure for these four women. The battle each fought was fatiguing and it was a relief to reach the end.

I liked reading this book told from four viewpoints, but was very disappointed in the unrealistic ending, hence the four star rating - Misunderstanding cultural differences caused a tragedy for an immigrant family, and children suffered hugely as result. There were many heroes in the story -many who went above and beyond to protect the children - the father of the family suffered extreme ptsd as did a returning soldier, and so much of the tragic outcome was affected by their internal traumas.

I read most of the book on a long plane ride and it certainly kept me involved - I look forward to reading other works by this author.

Round Midnight, Laura McBride
This is a tale about characters that led unconventional lives, following their hearts more often than their heads. It is a powerful story about four women who came from completely different backgrounds, backgrounds charged with controversy and conflict. As young women they made drastic decisions that altered their lives completely. Each one lived in Las Vegas, a city they hoped would allow them to realize their dreams and forgive their own sins.
I recommend that the book be read as if it was four separate novellas. It covers many decades. Each story can really stand on its own; each one is riveting, except perhaps for Engracia’s, the final character introduced, because she is not as fully developed, but she is very important since she is the catalyst that unites them all, in the end. I found that treating each character as separate and apart from the other, it was easier to keep track of who they were and easier to follow the thread of their lives that eventually knitted them all together.
June Stein was a young Jewish girl who was both non-traditional and non-conventional. When she was 19 she entered into an unsuccessful marriage. After a year, she left him. At 21, she ran to Las Vegas to seek a new life. She liked excitement. When she met Odell Dibb, her life took a turn in a different direction. They married and ran his casino, the El Capitan, together. When Del hired Eddie Knox to sing in his casino, her life turned full circle, sucking her into a scandal Del hoped to squelch before it got out. Del and June both loved each other and both accepted each other’s idiosyncratic ways. Both loved Eddie Knox. In the 1940’s, a relationship between a white woman and black man was illegal in Las Vegas.
Coral was an illegitimate child. She was brought up in Las Vegas by Augusta. She wanted to know her true parentage but could not discover anything. She made all sorts of assumptions about her mother and father, but none were realized. Her non-biological family was loving and so she survived the confusion and the “not knowing”. She was of mixed heritage in a time when black/white relationships were forbidden. The woman who raised her, and became her one true mother, was strong and defied the stares of others as she pretended that Coral was her own dear child. Her siblings accepted her and loved her unconditionally. Eventually, Coral fell in love with Koji, a man who was Japanese. Their relationship eventually flourished producing children of mixed race, but the times had changed, and in some places, society accepted their marriage and their offspring.
Honorata was from the Philippines. As a teenager, she fell in love with Kidlat. She ran off with him. He betrayed her, refusing to marry her, and further, he influenced her to make a porn film that brought shame to her and her family. Because of the humiliation, she was forced to leave her home. Her uncle betrayed her. He basically sold her to a man in America named Jimbo. He made Jimbo believe that “Rita” wanted to come to him, that she had been the one corresponding with him, instead of the uncle who was pretending to be her. Jimbo believed that she had been complicit, although she had known nothing of her uncle’s schemes. At first, he had been kind to her and intended to marry her, but when he found out about her past he felt betrayed; he became cruel and would no longer honor his pledge. One day, he decided to take her with him on a visit to Las Vegas. While there, lady luck smiled upon Honorata and she won a major jackpot at the El Capitan. Now Jimbo wanted to marry her, but June explained her rights to her. If they were not married, the money was hers alone. She escaped from Jimbo’s control to begin a new life. When she discovered she was pregnant with his child, she kept it a secret. She believed that he was evil. She did not love him. She wanted to begin again.
Engracia Montoya loved Juan. He loved her, as well. They entered America illegally. They moved to Las Vegas. He was arrested and served time in prison. They had a child, Diego. Juan felt unsafe in America and returned to Mexico, but Engracia wanted a better life for her son and remained in Las Vegas where tragedy struck their lives.
There are several common themes expressed in the narrative. Women’s rights, civil rights, family, infidelity, illegitimate children, civil disobedience, immigration issues, affairs of the heart, secrets and betrayals appear throughout. No life was perfect, but each developed with its own purpose and character. All four women were brave, in their own way. They had dreams and forged their futures independently.
Although the reviews seem to emphasize the importance of the Midnight Room at the club, I thought the women’s backgrounds, choices, decisions and lifestyles spoke far more to me. I have both an ARC and digital version of the book.

Actual Rating: 4.0

This was one of the most unique books I've ever read, in terms of style. 'Round Midnight follows the lives of four women, who lead very different lives over the span of sixty years. There's June, who falls in love - not with the wrong person, but during the wrong time. There's Honorata, who is forced to leave her homeland to marry, but fortunately gets lucky and wins the jackpot; for the first time, she can do things on her own. There's Engracia, who unluckily gets her heart broken. And there's Coral, who doesn't know anything about her own past, but one day hopes she finally will.

This story was absolutely beautiful. I'm usually not one for historical fiction, but the setting was described very powerfully, which really added to an atmosphere of nostalgia the book had; there was a meshing of different cultures during an older time period that both made me realize how far we'd come as a society, but also reminded me that there was so much more to do.

Now, I'm typically not one for multiple perspectives either, but one very unique thing about this book is that it focuses more on the stories than on the characters, and though each woman had their own journey, it all came together. I wasn't that into Engracia's story (hence my four star), and Honorata's story was perhaps my favorite, but of course none of the stories would be the same if not for the others.

The writing style was, without a doubt, beautiful. Overall, this was a very compelling novel; hopeful and tragic, it might be one of my favorites of 2017 so far.

This is a multi ethnic, multi generational story that will have something for everybody. The novel takes place primarily in Las Vegas and starts when a couple buys the El Capitan Casino one of the least profitable ones on the Strip. There is a Black singer, a Filipina mail order bride and a young Mexican immigrant that will be major characters over decades. Although the book is epic in scope it is a little over 350 pages so it moves at a fast pace. A mini series maybe?

Set in the Las Vegas where people live, rather than in the casinos filled with tourists, McBride’s debut novel tells the story of four different people whose lives intersect as the result of one split-second choice. Avis is a woman whose marriage is crumbling after 29 years. Bashkim is the nine-year-old son of Albanian immigrants who struggle to make do while isolated from all family and friends. Luis is a veteran, waking up in Walter Reed hospital from nightmares that hint at something awful that happened. Roberta is a social worker and volunteer, who tries to help the lost and disillusioned, the emotionally wounded and mentally fragile people who wind up in court, especially the kids.

The novel is told by each of these four characters in turn, letting the reader get to know their various hopes, dreams, disappointments, joys, failures, and triumphs. I was immediately drawn into their personal stories. I wanted to know how they got to where they are, where they hoped to go, how they planned to get there. And, having been teased by the book jacket, I was curious about how their lives would intersect.

McBride does a great job of writing these characters, making them real to the reader. I thought Roberta’s story was the least developed, and she has little role in the central plot until close to the end of the book. I also felt the ending was a little too contrived. But those are really my only complaints about the book.

I also really liked the way she described life in Las Vegas. One of my best friends used to live there, and she commented how most residents lead typical lives; kids go to school, adults go to work, the casinos may be the major employers, but there are other employers and other jobs. The story really could have been set anywhere in America and still ring true.

It’s a great debut, and I look forward to reading McBride’s next work.

It's always gratifying to see a second novel live up to the promise of the debut novel. This one does that without repeating the characters and plot of the first
(We Are Called to Rise). This one is also set in Las Vegas and, like the first, brings together a set of diverse characters and deals with immigrants and family problems. But the main characters are fresh and this one spans a long time period (about 1960-2010) as Vegas booms and busts. The four main characters are strong women in difficult circumstances. An absorbing read.

Advance review copy.½

Review can also be found in https://chillandreadblog.wordpress.com/2017/05/04/round-midnight-by-laura-mcbrid...

Laura McBride has done a marvelous job creating the characters in her latest book “‘Round Midnight”! These four women will stick with you for a long time after finishing the book!

It is the fifties in Las Vegas, when June meets Dib and they end up running El Capitan casino. The casino nightclub, Midnight Room, hits it when the two of them hire Eddie, a charismatic African-American singer. His voice is that of an angel, his moves are the ones that bring all the women. June knows that in order to succeed in this business, they need to focus on the entertainment.

Honorata is from Philippines. She arrives in Chicago as an ordered bride to a businessman she never met. It was not her choice, so when she wins the Jackpot in El Capitan Midnight Room, she does not spend another minute thinking about it. With June’s help, the casino owner, she abandons the man she was forced to marry before even getting to the chapel. She is now free to live her life and see to her mother’s needs, without having to suffer.

Engracia is a Mexican immigrant. She had come to the States with her husband seeking for a better life, while she ends up alone working in Midnight Room, at the El Capitan casino in Vegas. After a heartbreak, she ends up doing housekeeping for Honorata. One day, as she answers the door, the Chicago businessman is there with a gun.

Coral is an African-American music teacher. She lives in the same street with Honorata. When Honorata asks her for a favor, she finds herself in the Midnight Room, where she finds the answer to a long lasting question.

The whole 50s atmosphere is described so vividly in the first part of the story. The location is Las Vegas. The attributes we get is the whole racism that was not really there in the beginning, but how it evolved as southerners came to work in the casino and hotel constructions. All the racism that was so tense in the south, is transferred in Vegas, where we see Black people singing in the nightclubs, worshiped in there, but not allowed to stay in the hotel rooms, not allowed to own a house in a decent area. There is also this mafia thing that existing in gambling business and how it affected the whole city life.

Then there is human trafficking some decades later. Girls that are shipped to US, as brides to men they never met. Not even agreeing to this whole transaction, but being blackmailed to do so. Grooms that actually believe they had a mail correspondence with the bride to be, when they were actually writing to the dealer. So much decay in this world and still nothing happens about it.

Then there are the poor immigrants, dreamers of a better life. Those still exist as well. The people that have to work several hours in a raw that exhaust them and they end up with very little time to spend with their families, to get some rest, to be good parents and look after their children.

Laura McBride is an amazing storyteller! There is more on to how the story ends, but there is no need to spoil the ending by providing insights on Coral’s story. Just go through it and you will realize the greatness of the book and the talent of the author!

'Round Midnight by Laura McBride is an enjoyable but, for me, somewhat disappointing read. To be fair, the disappointment has more to do with my expectations being high than with there being anything flawed in the book.

As with many novels that use different overlapping narratives there will usually be a thread that seems to shine and one that seems dull in comparison. In this case I found the first narrative the most complete and the most compelling. This did, however, raise my already high expectations and those were not met. The other narratives were good and certainly interesting but I never felt the same investment in the characters as I did with the first one. I also found the moment when the narratives converged to be less than I had hoped for.

The writing is quite good and while I felt the characters could have been fleshed out a bit more they were still far from being cardboard cut-outs. What I have also found is that as time has passed since finishing the book I have thought about the story and it gets better even after it ends. I think a book that can stay with a reader and generate more thought is a successful book.

I would recommend this to readers of historical fiction of the 1950s and 60s era as well as readers who like to have a plot driven by characters and their foibles rather than simply action and reaction.

Reviewed from a copy made available through Goodreads' First Reads.

This is Laura McBride’s second novel, following her very successful We Are Called to Rise. In ‘Round Midnight , McBride focuses on four women whose lives intersect at the El Capitán hotel and casino in Las Vegas. There is June Dibb, a white woman whose husband is the casino owner and who falls disastrously in love with Eddie, the star singer at the casino’s Midnight Room. There is Honorata, a Filipina mail-order bride whose husband-to-be takes her to the casino before they will presumably be married, until she wins the Megabucks slot machine. There is Coral, an bi-racial woman who believes June’s husband Del is her father and who was raised by the widow of Del’s best friend. Then there is Engracia, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who works at the casino as a maid and who is tied to Las Vegas by tragedy.

These women connect in multiple and surprising ways. In many ways, they save each other. June recognizes the untenable situation Honorata is in and intervenes on her behalf. Coral befriends Honorata’s daughter, hiring her to babysit and fostering her friendship with her children. Engracia works for Honorata and saves her by sharing her own heartbreak in a tense stand off that happens when that abandoned would-be husband shows up years later. Honorata sends Coral to help Engracia, concerned that she might be in danger–an action that finally reveals the truth to Coral.

‘Round Midnight is one of those books that wrench your heart, stomp on it, break it, and then mend it again. With so much coincidence, it would be easy for the book to feel inauthentic and false, but somehow McBride makes them all feel like happenstance, as though the world really can fall into place like that.

She makes people who are humane and decent. Even Jimbo, the man who buys a woman he never met seems more a hapless, lonely man just searching for love and family rather than a trafficking rapist. It is the one thing I disliked. When he realized that Honorata was not the eager mail order bride he had expected, rather than recognizing she was the victim, he was angry with her, even abusive and violent. There was too much empathy for poor Jimbo. Yes, he was lonely, but loneliness does not excuse his actions, not in the past and not in the present when he confronts Honorata. Of course, we live in a world when the abuses and violence and privilege of white men are forgiven very easily.

The rest of the characters are so much more sympathetic. There is June’s husband, Del, struggling to do the best he can in a world that has no room for him. He is a man with a deep capacity for love and compassion. Throughout the book, from the priest at the Catholic church to Coral’s mother and siblings, there are just so many wonderful, warm, and loving people. The world may be hostile and the struggle may be real, but a world with these people in it must be good.

‘Round Midnight will be released May 2nd. I received an advance reading copy from the publisher through Shelf Awareness.

★★★★
http://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2017/04/17/9781501157783/

3.5 As in her previous book, McBride returns to Las Vegas, this time in the fifties when it was a smaller town, with smaller casinos. June marries Del a man who owns a casino and works with him to make it a popular place by hiring outstanding talent. Eddie, a black singer helps make the casino the place to be and will have a huge impact on June and Del's future.

This first part was my favorite part, the atmosphere of the time wonderfully portrayed, June the most fleshed out character. The racism of the time, blacks could sing in the casinos but not stay in the rooms, lived in their own part of town and were not welcome in others. The mob backing the casinos, and having a huge say in how the town was run.

Eventually we meet three other women, but we never learn a huge amount about these women, just the parts necessary to impel the story forward. June would appear in and out of these parts and we will follow this story and the changing city of Vegas for sixty years. A book that highlights the changing face of racism, things may improve for one group but another group, another culture will take its place. This is where I felt the author was being too obvious, included too much to make her point. She includes an Asian, a woman from the Philippines, and an illegal Hispanic. The stories of all were well done but the parts with June remained my favorites. I did like that this was a book about not only Vegas but about women, showing that regardless of color we all have many of the same concerns. It all ties together in the end and though the ending was a bit predictable, I did like how it was brought around and found it fit well with the story. Somali in all a good if at times imperfect read.

ARC from publisher
Publishes May 2nd by Touchstone.½