Critic Oline Cogdill recently review Lori Rader-Day’s novel, Wreck Your Heart in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. We’re grateful she shares those reviews with us. You can order copies of Wreck Your Heart through The Poisoned Pen’s Webstore, https://tinyurl.com/2nk72u7f.
Book review: ‘Wreck Your Heart’ hits all the right notes (and tropes of country music)
‘Wreck Your Heart’ by Lori Rader-Day; Minotaur; $29; 352 pages
Chicago could hardly be confused with Nashville as the country music capital, but the Windy City does have a thriving music scene, and award-winning author Lori Rader-Day hits all the right notes in her rhythmic “Wreck Your Heart.”
Rader-Day keeps the breezy plot of “Wreck Your Heart” in key with all the tropes of country music — lost love, family, a good bar, cowboy boots and more. There’s probably a dog and a truck somewhere in “Wreck Your Heart.” Yet, Rader-Day never makes the book feel gimmicky, using those references to enhance and set the mood in her solid story.
Readers will believe they hear a familiar twang in this brisk, highly entertaining tale of Dahlia “Doll” Devine, who has pinned her dreams on being a country music star. She just needs a break. But like in any good country song, Dahlia first must hit her lowest time.
In the middle of a Chicago winter, Dahlia is evicted because Joey, her boyfriend of three years, ran off with the little bit of savings the couple had. For some reason, their landlord frowned on the rent being behind months. (Another country motif.) Dahlia is used to a hard-knock life that began in her childhood with a mother addicted to drugs.
Dahlia heads back to McPhee’s Tavern, a place where she practically grew up and whose owner, Alex, has been like a father to her. At least at McPhee’s, Dahlia has a steady gig singing with her band, can earn extra money bartending and can always stay in the upstairs apartment. Of course, along the way to McPhee’s, she falls in a snowdrift, almost loses one of her boots while carrying her few meager belongings in a torn garbage bag (country song alert!) that the landlord allowed her to gather in 10 minutes. Of course, she had to take her glittery and fringed dresses.
Dahlia finds comfort in country music, which is “three chords and the truth. The truth, like a gong inside your soul,” she says. But then her estranged mother shows up, a young woman claiming to be a younger sister she has never met arrives, and there’s a dead body in the alley behind McPhee’s. Naturally, Dahlia knows the deceased. At least she has the makings for a country song.
Rader-Day keeps “Wreck Your Heart” loaded with Chicago atmosphere and lore. McPhee’s is an old-fashioned Chicago bar, still standing despite being surrounded by development. The bar also is rumored to be one of the places where Al Capone and his mobsters hid their loot, which may — if it ever existed — still be there.
Rader-Day’s award-winning novels are standalones, each featuring unique and different appealing characters. Dahlia is a survivor, refusing to give up her dreams, no matter how her heart breaks. Readers will root for her and hope, somehow, she gets a recording contract.
“Wreck Your Heart” sings. One expects Reba McEntire to show up to cheer on Dahlia.