4★
“When the cops found Mr. Marfeo, he was bleeding out on the back seat of a yellow Mercury parked behind a windbreak down the airport road.
. . .
This happened in 1985, the year I turned thirteen. Mr. Marfeo was my father’s accountant.”

Zinnia and Zenobia Zompa sound like a comedy duo, but they are sisters, growing up in the usually quiet suburb of Maple Bay when this shooting takes place. But it’s not a murder mystery either. It’s a character study, a coming-of-age, and the growing realisation that grown-ups don’t have all the fun.

Zinnia’s story goes back to the time before Mr Marfeo’s shooting to when she was beginning to see her parents as adults relating to other adults, rather than just parents. She gives a bit of history.

“My grandfather—an immigrant with an old-country name so forbiddingly consonantal that everyone just called him Skeets—had opened the factory in the 1950s, and over time he transformed a modest button shop into a leading regional supplier of plastic beads to manufacturers of costume jewelry, a booming industry in those days.”

Zinnia’s mother is happy that Impeccable Pearl makes money but she feels herself a bit above wearing plastic beads. She likes having a regular handyman, Freddy, with whom she shares coffee and cookies before he even starts work.

Freddy uses some slightly crude slang, but he comes from a part of the state Zinnia’s mother comes from. She’s a Clairol blonde who I’m sure feels she was made for better things.

“My mother says we have to be patient with Freddy. She refers to something called ‘noblesse,’ something else called ‘ooo-bleege’..She means we have to put up with him. We may not be wealthy like the Marfeos—who have a swimming pool they pay good money to maintain all summer long, even while they are away on vacations in Europe—but we still have Freddy. More precisely: In lieu of swimming pools and fancy trips, my mother has Freddy, and she intends to keep him.”

This is a short novel, a novella really, and like the best short stories, it manages to show all the nuances of family life without pages of padding. Remembering the contentment of traditions bumping up against the desperate wish to seek new experiences with new people in new places.

“I return to the den and curl into the recliner. Sunk into the pit left by my father’s body, I knock my chin against my kneecap, pleased by the newly risen bone. He’ll be back. Or he won’t. I’m waiting for something—but then what teenager isn’t waiting for something?”

Cars feature throughout. She has fetched some car keys for a teacher on whom she happens to have a crush.

“On the way back, I hold Mr. Kresge’s key wallet so tightly the pointy edges of the keys pinch my palm through the leather, which leaves behind a faint smell of Mr. Kresge’s aftershave. I don’t wash my hands again that day, I just keep sniffing. Even then I must have understood, on some deep level, that our banal automotive obsessions screened others, less tame: when to leave, where to go, how to get there.”

The to-and-fro between her parents – arguing for a while, then flirtatious on their holidays – comes across as real, certainly from a young teen’s point of view. She explains what she saw and realises now that she probably misunderstood some of what happened.

Kids pick up a lot, even when adults are whispering or trying to talk in code, but they don’t always pick up the truth. Later, as we get older, we may recall the undertones and subtleties. I enjoyed watching her watch herself and her family.

Thanks to #NetGalley and Regal House Publishing for a copy of #LAirduTemps for review.

This story is a brief glimpse into the microcosm of a thirteen year old girl while the world and its problems loom on the periphery.

There was a nostalgic quality to this story that I enjoyed. It takes place four decades ago-when I was also a child-and so many of the pop culture references and musings of Zinnia were relatable. I to was in a world where the adults in my life had an unspoken language and whispers that hinted at heavier cares.

I would recommend this story to a more mature audience due to the exactitude of the pop culture references, yet the message can be applied across generations.

Thank you Regal House Publishing for the opportunity to respond to this story. All opinions are my own.

n 1985, the shooting of Mr. Marfeo disrupts the quiet suburban neighborhood of Maple Bay and prompts thirteen-year-old Zinnia Zompa to reorganize everything she knows about her parents—their preoccupations, obsessions, and above all, their battles with each other. As her understanding of the world grows, Zinnia sees how the violence she witnesses is part of a larger pattern of domination, one that shadows the world far beyond her neighborhood, and that coming of age means reckoning with this darkness

A quick read about a girl's life as she navigates and a murder mystery happening. I read it in one sitting and had a pleasant time. Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the arc.

A quick read about a mature young girl's life and the the lives of those who surround her. The characters are interesting and well written. While the story itself is short, the plot has some depth to it.

Interesting coming of age story. Very realistic characters. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book

An intensely imagined story of a teenage girl's coming of age against the backdrop of a murder and the repressive mysteries of her parent's marriage. Eerie, strong and beautifully realised this had elements of The Virgin Suicides in tone at least. She is particularly good at the unknown acreage of the teen condition and the boredom, intensity and fascination that it can engender.

L'Air du Temps (1985) is a book with a unique concept. While it's a murder mystery the actual crime is almost a background story, the real tale is of coming of age and the darkness that can lurk beneath the facade of the neatly kept lawns,shiny cars and seemingly perfect families of the suburban America of the mid 1980's.

As 13 year-old Zinnia Zompa sees life around her with increasingly mature eyes, leaving most of her childhood certainties behind her, the facade is lifted on the reality of her parent's relationship,aspirations and the adult world in general.

This is a great book, not much appears to happening while in reality a great deal is happening in Zinnia's world.