Foreign Circus Library

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

2011-12-15T13:44:00.001-05:00

Book Description:
What if you only had one day to live? What would you do? Who would you kiss? And how far would you go to save your own life?

Samantha Kingston has it all: looks, popularity, the perfect boyfriend. Friday, February 12, should be just another day in her charmed life. Instead, it turns out to be her last.

The catch: Samantha still wakes up the next morning. Living the last day of her life seven times during one miraculous week, she will untangle the mystery surrounding her death—and discover the true value of everything she is in danger of losing.

This book is young adult fiction at its best- a serious message presented as an incredibly engaging story. Sam is one of the queen bees of her high school- pretty, popular and seemingly perfect. And then she dies and she can't figure out why. As she relives the last day of her life over and over, trying different tactics to change the ultimate outcome, she reveals an astonishing depth of character and understanding for both her family, friends and those outsiders whose lives have touched on hers. It is difficult to go into much detail without spoiling this wonderful story, but trust me that once you start this book, you won't be able to put it down.

Samantha has an incredibly authentic voice, one capable of speaking to adults and teens alike. Her revelations about bullying, eating disorders, sex, and peer pressure are sure to strike a chord with any reader. This engaging novel also shares some powerful insights into the sometimes heartbreaking realities of teen life. Highly recommended- the best young adult book I read all year!

How the Mistakes Were Made by Tyler McMahon

2011-12-05T04:02:00.002-05:00

Book description:
Laura Loss came of age in the hardcore punk scene of the early 1980s. The jailbait bass player in her brother Anthony’s band, she grew up traveling the country, playing her heart out in a tight network of show venues to crowds soaked in blood and sweat. The band became notorious, the stars of a shadow music industry. But when Laura was 18, it all fell apart. Anthony’s own fans destroyed him, something which Laura never forgot.

Ten years later, Laura finds her true fame with the formation of The Mistakes, a gifted rock band that bursts out of ‘90s Seattle to god-like celebrity. When she discovered Nathan and Sean, the two flannel-clad misfits who, along with her, composed the band, she instantly understood that Sean’s synesthesia—a blending of the senses that allows him to “see” the music— infused his playing with an edge that would take them to the top. And it did. But it, along with his love for Laura, would also be their downfall.

At the moment of their greatest fame, the volatile bonds between the three explode in a mushroom cloud of betrayal, deceit, and untimely endings. The world blames Laura for destroying its rock heroes. Hated by the fans she’s spent her life serving, she finally tells her side of the story, the “true” story, of the rise and fall of The Mistakes.

This wonderful book tells the tale of Laura Loss who grew up in the punk rock scene in the 1980s then lost it all when that scene turned on her brother and their band. Now working in a coffee shop in Seattle and still playing music, she meets two young musicians in Montana and sees a spark. When they turn up at her door and fall into a gig, they accidentally become the hottest new indie band in the country. When the band implodes, torn apart by drugs, sex, and rock & roll, Laura finds herself blamed by the world- this book is her story of how the Mistakes were made.

Told in spare prose from Laura's perspective, this novel is raw and moving. As the band spirals out of control, Laura is forced to look at her life and her history and her music. Caught between the fans, the record companies, and her feelings for her bandmates, Laura has to confront the reality that success is fleeting and that sometimes the music itself just isn't enough. Well-written and ultimately heartbreaking, this novel is an excellent look at the music industry and life and love. Highly recommended.

A Sound Among the Trees by Susan Meissner

2011-10-28T14:05:00.000-04:00

Book Description:
A house shrouded in time.
A line of women with a heritage of loss.

As a young bride, Susannah Page was rumored to be a Civil War spy for the North, a traitor to her Virginian roots. Her great-granddaughter Adelaide, the current matriarch of Holly Oak, doesn’t believe that Susannah’s ghost haunts the antebellum mansion looking for a pardon, but rather the house itself bears a grudge toward its tragic past.

When Marielle Bishop marries into the family and is transplanted from the arid west to her husband’s home, it isn’t long before she is led to believe that the house she just settled into brings misfortune to the women who live there. With Adelaide’s richly peppered superstitions and deep family roots at stake, Marielle must sort out the truth about Susannah Page and Holly Oak— and make peace with the sacrifices she has made for love.

Marielle Bishop met Carson online and married him, moving across the country and into Holly Oak, the historic home he and his children shared with her grandmother Adelaide. Adelaide thinks the house is stuck, her friends insist the house is haunted- the bottom line is this house has a history that dates back to the Civil War and the battles fought in Fredricksburg, VA. The book tells the tale of Marielle's efforts to cope with the house, her new family, and the shadow of the past.

This book was very hard to get into, and never really captured my interest. The narrative improved dramatically halfway through the books when Susannah's Civil War correspondence came to light, allowing her story to be told. I certainly felt more emotional connection to Susannah than to any of the modern-day characters. Marielle was too undeveloped, Adelaide too cryptic, Pearl too annoying, Carson too absent- the most interesting modern character was Caroline and she didn't enter until halfway through the novel. Susannah and her war-time experiences would have made an excellent stand-alone story freed from the unsatisfying frame of Marielle's story. The historical part was 4 stars but the contemporary portion barely hit 2 stars so 3 overall for this promising but frustrating novel.

A Thousand Lives by Julia Scheeres

2011-10-09T12:21:00.006-04:00

Book description:
“I love socialism, and I’m willing to die to bring it about, but if I did, I’d take a thousand with me.” —Jim Jones, September 6, 1975

In 1954, a pastor named Jim Jones opened a church in Indianapolis called Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church. He was a charismatic preacher with idealistic beliefs, and he quickly filled his pews with an audience eager to hear his sermons on social justice. After Jones moved his church to Northern California in 1965, he became a major player in Northern California politics; he provided vital support in electing friendly political candidates to office, and they in turn offered him a protective shield that kept stories of abuse and fraud out of the papers. Even as Jones’s behavior became erratic and his message more ominous, his followers found it increasingly difficult to pull away from the church. By the time Jones relocated the Peoples Temple a final time to a remote jungle in Guyana and the U.S. Government decided to investigate allegations of abuse and false imprisonment in Jonestown, it was too late.

A Thousand Lives follows the experiences of five Peoples Temple members who went to Jonestown: a middle-class English teacher from Colorado, an elderly African American woman raised in Jim Crow Alabama, a troubled young black man from Oakland, and a working-class father and his teenage son. These people joined Jones’s church for vastly different reasons. Some, such as eighteen-year-old Stanley Clayton, appreciated Jones’s message of racial equality and empowering the dispossessed. Others, like Hyacinth Thrash and her sister Zipporah, were dazzled by his claims of being a faith healer—Hyacinth believed Jones had healed a cancerous tumor in her breast. Edith Roller, a well-educated white progressive, joined Peoples Temple because she wanted to help the less fortunate. Tommy Bogue, a teen, hated Jones’s church, but was forced to attend services—and move to Jonestown—because his parents were members.

The people who built Jonestown wanted to forge a better life for themselves and their children. They sought to create a truly egalitarian society. In South America, however, they found themselves trapped in Jonestown and cut off from the outside world as their leader goaded them toward committing “revolutionary suicide” and deprived them of food, sleep, and hope. Yet even as Jones resorted to lies and psychological warfare, Jonestown residents fought for their community, struggling to maintain their gardens, their school, their families, and their grip on reality.

Working from recently released documents and tapes seized in Guyana after the mass murder/suicide in Jonestown, Scheeres has created a moving account of the People's Temple by focusing on several individuals who followed Jim Jones (some to their deaths). Scheeres treats this tragedy with acute sensitivity and a remarkable lack of judgmental rhetoric. She clearly spells out how Jim Jones initially drew people to his church and how his message shifted over the years from one of openness and integration to one of megalomania and paranoia. Scheeres also reveals a disturbing lack of action on the part of both the US and Guyanese governments whose dismissive attitude towards Jones' public threats of "revolutionary suicide" helped set the scene for his final solution.

As the narrative wound toward its tragic conclusion, Scheeres did a wonderful job of showing how Jones worked his followers, using drugs, violence, and starvation to keep them compliant and apathetic to his discussions of mass suicide. Scheeres' research makes it clear that Jones had a long range plan to kill all his followers and that he used drugs, threats, and both physical and psychological torture (beatings, sensory deprivation boxes, sleep deprivation, and a constant barrage of Jones' rantings broadcast day and night) to desensitize his followers to that danger. Ultimately, Scheeres did a wonderful job of placing the blame on Jones and on the upper levels of the People's Temple leadership, those who saw Jones unraveling and yet either did nothing or actively abetted his insanity. Using their own words (from interviews with survivors and from journals recovered from Guyana), Scheeres portrays the hundreds who dies in Jonestown as victims, horribly betrayed by a man who, through deception on every level, had gradually taken over every aspect of their lives.

Highly recommended!

The Very Picture of You by Isabel Wolff

2011-10-08T14:18:00.000-04:00

Book description:
At thirty-five, Gabriella Graham—“Ella” to her family and friends—has already made a name for herself as a successful portrait artist in London. She can capture the essential truth in each of her subjects’ faces—a tilt of the chin, a glint in the eye—and immortalize it on canvas. This gift has earned Ella commissions from royals and regular folks alike.

But closer to home, Ella finds the truth more elusive. Her father abandoned the family when she was five, and her mother has remained silent on the subject ever since. Ella’s sister, Chloe, is engaged to Nate, an American working in London, but Ella suspects that he may not be so committed. Then, at Chloe’s behest, Ella agrees to paint Nate’s portrait.

From session to session, Ella begins to see Nate in a different light, which gives rise to conflicted feelings. In fact, through the various people she paints—an elderly client reflecting on her life, another woman dreading the prospect of turning forty, a young cyclist (from a photograph) who met a tragic end—Ella realizes that there is so much more to a person’s life than what is seen on the surface, a notion made even clearer when an unexpected email arrives from the other side of the world. And as her portraits of Nate and the others progress, they begin to reveal less about their subjects than the artist herself.

This story of a portrait painter working on three portraits that ultimately change her life had all the ingredients of a great read but unfortunately never really came together. Though Ella was a sympathetic character, she was also woefully incapable of seeing things that were right before her eyes. As a reader, I was frustrated that the twists that so shocked Ella were things I had figured out ages before. I also thought that the plot devices of visits and stories from clients were too similar to that of Wolff's enjoyable A Vintage Affair.

Given how much I loved A Vintage Affair, I really wanted to like this book but my overall impression after finishing was "meh". Because there were no real surprises, it was hard to share Ella's sense of surprise at every turn. It was also hard to believe Ella was able to see deeply into her clients in order to paint their portraits given her general inability to see the truth about those close to her.

These Things Hidden by Heather Gudenkauf

2011-09-23T10:17:00.005-04:00

Book description:
When teenager Allison Glenn is sent to prison for a heinous crime, she leaves behind her reputation as Linden Falls' golden girl forever. Her parents deny the existence of their once-perfect child. Her former friends exult her downfall. Her sister, Brynn, faces whispered rumors every day in the hallways of their small Iowa high school. It's Brynn—shy, quiet Brynn—who carries the burden of what really happened that night. All she wants is to forget Allison and the past that haunts her.

But then Allison is released to a halfway house, and is more determined than ever to speak with her estranged sister.

Now their legacy of secrets is focused on one little boy. And if the truth is revealed, the consequences will be unimaginable for the adoptive mother who loves him, the girl who tried to protect him and the two sisters who hold the key to all that is hidden.

This wonderful novel that traces the life of young Allison after she is released from prison for an unspeakable crime. As she tried to rebuild a life, she is desperate to reconnect with her parents (who have no desire to let her back into their lives) and her younger sister (who steadfastly refuses to speak to her). As this former golden girl gets a job and starts to find her footing, she unexpectedly finds herself on a collision course with the past, one that will have shocking consequences. The characters are well-drawn and the raw emotions had a ring of truth. A wonderful story which unfolds layer by layer, this book builds to an impressively powerful ending. Highly recommended.

The End of Everything by Megan E. Abbott

2011-09-22T11:20:00.004-04:00

Book description:
Thirteen-year old Lizzie Hood and her next door neighbor Evie Verver are inseparable. They are best friends who swap bathing suits and field-hockey sticks, and share everything that's happened to them. Together they live in the shadow of Evie's glamorous older sister Dusty, who provides a window on the exotic, intoxicating possibilities of their own teenage horizons. To Lizzie, the Verver household, presided over by Evie's big-hearted father, is the world's most perfect place.

And then, one afternoon, Evie disappears. The only clue: a maroon sedan Lizzie spotted driving past the two girls earlier in the day. As a rabid, giddy panic spreads through the Midwestern suburban community, everyone looks to Lizzie for answers. Was Evie unhappy, troubled, upset? Had she mentioned being followed? Would she have gotten into the car of a stranger?

Lizzie takes up her own furtive pursuit of the truth, prowling nights through backyards, peering through windows, pushing herself to the dark center of Evie's world. Haunted by dreams of her lost friend and titillated by her own new power at the center of the disappearance, Lizzie uncovers secrets and lies that make her wonder if she knew her best friend at all.

This novel is a well-written look at the girls transitioning into young women, trying for the first time to understand what it means to be growing up. Lizzie and Evie are best friend who share everything until one day they don't, one day when Evie goes missing and Lizzie is the last person to see her. As Lizzie tries to understand what she knows, she delves deeper and deeper into Evie's family and Evie's disappearance, and slowly comes to realize that everything is not as it seems even in Evie's perfect family. An excellent look at a time of transition, a time when innocence is lost (one way or another), a time when childhood is finally left behind. This book captures those delicately posed moments and every one of the characters rings true.

Other People's Money by Justin Cartwright

2011-09-21T07:23:00.001-04:00

Book description:
In a world still uneasy after the financial turmoil of 2008, Justin Cartwright puts a human face on the dishonesties and misdeeds of the bankers who imperiled us. Tubal and Co. is a small, privately owned bank in England. As the company's longtime leader, Sir Harry Tubal, slips into senility, his son Julian takes over the reins-and not all is well. The company's hedge fund now owns innumerable toxic assets, and Julian fears what will happen when their real value is discovered.

Artair Macleod, an actor manager whose ex-wife, Fleur, was all but stolen by Sir Harry, discovers that his company's monthly grant has not been paid by Tubal. Getting no answers from Julian, he goes to the local press, and an eager young reporter begins asking questions. Bit by bit, the reporter discovers that the grant money is in fact a payoff from Fleur, written off by the bank as a charitable donation, and a scandal breaks. Julian's temperament and judgment prove a bad fit for the economic forces of the era, and the family business plunges into chaos as he tries to hide the losses and massage the balance sheet.

This novel tells the tale of a family, a banking family, caught in the web of a pending financial collapse. At heart this is a family drama rather than a deep look at the ills that helped cause the recent financial crisis. An incapacitated father, a son trying to stave off the collapse, a stepmother trying to rediscover her lost youth, a young journalist trying to make her mark, an aging editor desperate for one last story- all make this character-driven story a delight to read. The writing is magnificent, the characters finely drawn, and the situation realistic; this novel is a tuly excellent read. Highly recommended work of literary fiction.

A Thousand Lives by Julia Scheeres

2011-09-20T09:49:00.001-04:00

Book Description:
In 1954, a pastor named Jim Jones opened a church in Indianapolis called Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church. He was a charismatic preacher with idealistic beliefs, and he quickly filled his pews with an audience eager to hear his sermons on social justice. After Jones moved his church to Northern California in 1965, he became a major player in Northern California politics; he provided vital support in electing friendly political candidates to office, and they in turn offered him a protective shield that kept stories of abuse and fraud out of the papers. Even as Jones’s behavior became erratic and his message more ominous, his followers found it increasingly difficult to pull away from the church. By the time Jones relocated the Peoples Temple a final time to a remote jungle in Guyana and the U.S. Government decided to investigate allegations of abuse and false imprisonment in Jonestown, it was too late.

A Thousand Lives follows the experiences of five Peoples Temple members who went to Jonestown: a middle-class English teacher from Colorado, an elderly African American woman raised in Jim Crow Alabama, a troubled young black man from Oakland, and a working-class father and his teenage son. These people joined Jones’s church for vastly different reasons. Some, such as eighteen-year-old Stanley Clayton, appreciated Jones’s message of racial equality and empowering the dispossessed. Others, like Hyacinth Thrash and her sister Zipporah, were dazzled by his claims of being a faith healer—Hyacinth believed Jones had healed a cancerous tumor in her breast. Edith Roller, a well-educated white progressive, joined Peoples Temple because she wanted to help the less fortunate. Tommy Bogue, a teen, hated Jones’s church, but was forced to attend services—and move to Jonestown—because his parents were members.

Working from recently released documents and tapes seized in Guyana after the mass murder/suicide in Jonestown, Scheeres has created a moving account of the People's Temple by focusing on several individuals who followed Jim Jones (some to their deaths). Scheeres treats this tragedy with acute sensitivity and a remarkable lack of judgmental rhetoric. She clearly spells out how Jim Jones initially drew people to his church and how his message shifted over the years from one of openness and integration to one of megalomania and paranoia. Scheeres also reveals a disturbing lack of action on the part of both the US and Guyanese governments whose dismissive attitude towards Jones' public threats of "revolutionary suicide" helped set the scene for his final solution.

As the narrative wound toward its tragic conclusion, Scheeres did a wonderful job of showing how Jones worked his followers, using drugs, violence, and starvation to keep them compliant and apathetic to his discussions of mass suicide. Scheeres' research makes it clear that Jones had a long range plan to kill all his followers and that he used drugs, threats, and both physical and psychological torture (beatings, sensory deprivation boxes, sleep deprivation, and a constant barrage of Jones' rantings broadcast day and night) to desensitize his followers to that danger. Ultimately, Scheeres did a wonderful job of placing the blame on Jones and on the upper levels of the People's Temple leadership, those who saw Jones unraveling and yet either did nothing or actively abetted his insanity. Using their own words (from interviews with survivors and from journals recovered from Guyana), Scheeres portrays the hundreds who dies in Jonestown as victims, horribly betrayed by a man who, through deception on every level, had gradually taken over every aspect of their lives.

Highly recommended!

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi Durrow

2011-09-19T14:10:00.000-04:00

Book Description:
Rachel, the daughter of a danish mother and a black G.I., becomes the sole survivor of a family tragedy after a fateful morning on their Chicago rooftop.

Forced to move to a new city, with her strict African American grandmother as her guardian, Rachel is thrust for the first time into a mostly black community, where her light brown skin, blue eyes, and beauty bring a constant stream of attention her way. It’s there, as she grows up and tries to swallow her grief, that she comes to understand how the mystery and tragedy of her mother might be connected to her own uncertain identity.

This well-written novel tells the story of Rachel, the daughter of a black US serviceman and a white Danish mother. Growing up in Europe, Rachel and her family had a very different experience with race than they encountered on their return to the US. As the story of how Rachel came to live with her grandmother and aunt unfolds, the terrible central tragedy of Rachel's life is revealed. As Rachel grows up trying to reconcile what she knows about herself and her family with the life her grandmother wants her to lead, she is torn by conflicting demands and the pressures of developing her own self identity. A powerful and moving narrative.

Summer Rental by Mary Kay Andrews

2011-08-24T10:30:00.000-04:00

Book Description:
Sometimes, when you need a change in your life, the tide just happens to pull you in the right direction….

Ellis, Julia, and Dorie. Best friends since Catholic grade school, they now find themselves, in their mid-thirties, at the crossroads of life and love. Ellis, recently fired from a job she gave everything to, is rudderless and now beginning to question the choices she's made over the past decade of her life. Julia—whose caustic wit covers up her wounds--has a man who loves her and is offering her the world, but she can't hide from how deeply insecure she feels about her looks, her brains, her life. And Dorie has just been shockingly betrayed by the man she loved and trusted the most in the world…though this is just the tip of the iceberg of her problems and secrets. A month in North Carolina's Outer Banks is just what they each of them needs.

Ty Bazemore is their landlord, though he's hanging on to the rambling old beach house by a thin thread. After an inauspicious first meeting with Ellis, the two find themselves disturbingly attracted to one another, even as Ty is about to lose everything he's ever cared about.

Maryn Shackleford is a stranger, and a woman on the run. Maryn needs just a few things in life: no questions, a good hiding place, and a new identity. Show More Ellis, Julia, and Dorie can provide what Maryn wants; can they also provide what she needs?

Five people questioning everything they ever thought they knew about life. Five people on a journey that will uncover their secrets and point them on the path to forgiveness. Five people who each need a sea change, and one month in a summer rental that might just give it to them.

This story of three best friends and a summer rental is a wonderful beach read. Nothing here is a surprise, but despite the formulaic plot, the writing elevates this otherwise predictable beach read. The sub-plot with the woman on the run felt like a bit of an add-on and was certainly wrapped up a little too easily. All in all though, a decent addition to the Andrews canon and certainly a great book to help wrap up your summer vacation.

Foxy's Tale: The Reluctant Vampire by Karen Fraunfelder Cantwell & L B Gschwandtner

2011-08-23T09:57:00.002-04:00

Book Description:
A comic, chick lit tale wherein former beauty queen Foxy Anders, who's fallen on hard times, rents an apartment to mysterious, bumbling Myron Standlish who’s arrived in the city looking for a long lost trunk containing who knows what. When Foxy’s teenage daughter, Amanda hooks up with Nick, a cute guy at school, while getting cooking lessons from Foxy's new assistant Knot, they’re all in for some romance with a dash of suspense and a sprinkle of supernatural.

I wasn't sure what to expect with this book- after all, the whole vampire thing is getting to be a bit much. At its heart though, this is a story about families and relationships not about blood sucking creatuers of the night. Foxy is a former beauty queen recently dumped by her former NFL-star husband and struggling to parent her daughter when she is barely a real grownup herself. She's a shopaholic who worries constantly about her daughter Amanda's goth style and only has a decent business because of the work of Knot Knudsen, a guy who basically wandered in off the street to rent a room only to become her antique store's savior. Add in a third boarder, weird Myron who keeps blood in the fridge, and Amanda's wish that her Mom was more like June Cleaver, and you have an amusing cast of quirky characters that are surprisingly compelling.

The book is well-written and funny, and I enjoyed it more than I anticipated. The book resonates because it has heart, and the oddball characters all have a pathos that make their stories compelling. All in all an excellent summer read; I look forward to the next installment in this unusual series. 4 stars.

The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb by Melanie Benjamin

2011-08-22T09:09:00.006-04:00

Book Description:
“Never would I allow my size to define me. Instead, I would define it.”

She was only two-foot eight-inches tall, but her legend reaches out to us more than a century later. As a child, Mercy Lavinia “Vinnie” Bump was encouraged to live a life hidden away from the public. Instead, she reached out to the immortal impresario P. T. Barnum, married the tiny superstar General Tom Thumb in the wedding of the century, and transformed into the world’s most unexpected celebrity.

Here, in Vinnie’s singular and spirited voice, is her amazing adventure—from a showboat “freak” revue where she endured jeering mobs to her fateful meeting with the two men who would change her life: P. T. Barnum and Charles Stratton, AKA Tom Thumb. Their wedding would captivate the nation, preempt coverage of the Civil War, and usher them into the White House and the company of presidents and queens. Show More But Vinnie’s fame would also endanger the person she prized most: her similarly-sized sister, Minnie, a gentle soul unable to escape the glare of Vinnie’s spotlight.

Before reading this book, I knew very little about Lavinia Warren other than the fact that she was married to General Tom Thumb. In this well-imagined look at her life, Melanie Benjamin recreates a unique time in American history populated by larger-than-life characters (no matter what their size). Once I started this engaging book, I simply couldn't put it down. Combining historical fact with well-researched creative license, Benjamin crafted a highly enjoyable work of historical fiction. This book is a must-read for anyone who enjoyed Alice I Have Been or who enjoys the early history of the circus.

Herb 'n' Lorna by Eric Kraft

2011-08-21T15:07:00.001-04:00

Book Description:
Herb Piper lives with his clever and vivacious wife Lorna in the tranquil, seaside Long Island town of Babbington. Herb sells Studebakers, putters in his basement, fancies himself an inventor, and struggles against his habit of making bad investments. Bright afternoons and well-tended lawns fill the couple’s quiet, unassuming life, the very picture of Norman Rockwell’s America. But Herb and Lorna have concealed from each other a pair of curious secrets, deceptions at the heart of a marriage that register the delightful, universal mystique of human sexuality.

Presented as the biography of the grandparents of a well-known fictional character, this lovely novel is a strangely engaging read. Though the book starts off slow and is a little difficult to really sink into, once the story takes off, it is difficult to put down. Well-written, sweet, funny, and a little naughty, this novel was an unexpectedly enjoyable offering. Herb and Lorna are wonderful characters that I found myself totally invested in- the grandparents any of us would love to have. This story of an ordinary family, its place in history, and its quirky secrets offers hours of enjoyment that you will want to share with your friends and family. 4 stars (would have been 5 if I hadn't started and stopped a couple of times before I finally got hooked).

Clara and Mr. Tiffany by Susan Vreeland

2011-06-18T08:38:00.001-04:00

Book description:
It’s 1893, and at the Chicago World’s Fair, Louis Comfort Tiffany makes his debut with a luminous exhibition of innovative stained-glass windows, which he hopes will honor his family business and earn him a place on the international artistic stage. But behind the scenes in his New York studio is the freethinking Clara Driscoll, head of his women’s division. Publicly unrecognized by Tiffany, Clara conceives of and designs nearly all of the iconic leaded-glass lamps for which he is long remembered.

Clara struggles with her desire for artistic recognition and the seemingly insurmountable challenges that she faces as a professional woman, which ultimately force her to protest against the company she has worked so hard to cultivate. She also yearns for love and companionship, and is devoted in different ways to five men, including Tiffany, who enforces to a strict policy: he does not hire married women, and any who do marry while under his employ must resign immediately. Eventually, like many women, Clara must decide what makes her happiest—the professional world of her hands or the personal world of her heart.

This is a tough review for me because despite the fact that I really wanted to love this book, I just couldn't. I found Clara a strangely flat character despite the interesting times in which she lived; it was hard for me to feel an emotional connection to her. I always felt that Clara was remote and found myself more interested in the other women and the glassware than in Clara herself.

The writing was wonderful and I love that the story was inspired by true events, but I guess I think Vreeland tried too hard to tread the fine line between fact and fiction and so missed the mark on both. 3.5 stars even though I feel bad saying that...

The Ninth Wife by Amy Stolls

2011-06-17T10:09:00.004-04:00

Book Description:
What sane woman would consider becoming any man's ninth wife?

Bess Gray is a thirty-five-year-old folklorist and amateur martial artist living in Washington, DC. Just as she's about to give up all hope of marriage, she meets Rory, a charming Irish musician, and they fall in love. But Rory is a man with a secret, which he confesses to Bess when he asks for her hand: He's been married eight times before. Shocked, Bess embarks on a quest she feels she must undertake before she can give him an answer. With her bickering grandparents (married sixty-five years), her gay neighbor (himself a mystery), a shar-pei named Stella, and a mannequin named Peace, Bess sets out on a cross-country journey—unbeknownst to Rory—to seek out and question the wives who came before. What she discovers about her own past is far more than she bargained for.

When Bess finally finds that special someone who wants to share his life with her, Rory has just one small surprise- he has been married 8 times before! As she tried to work through her feelings about his past and theor future, she embarks on a cross country road trip from DC to take her grandparents to their new home in AZ, stopping along the way to meet as many of Rory's former wives as she can find.

From the description and flap copy, I expected a standard chick-lit book, full of humor and froth. What I got instead was a well-crafted family drama that explores love in all its different incarnations. The backstories here are poignant and complicated, giving the book a depth that I did not expect. Bess and Rory are great characters, as are Bess' friends and grandparents (who sounds quirky in the flap copy but are actually quite tragic in their way). I found it hard to put this excellent novel down and highly recommend it.

Grave Surprise by Charlaine Harris

2011-06-16T11:14:00.003-04:00

Book Description:
While in Memphis, psychic Harper Connelly senses-and finds-two bodies in a grave. One of a man centuries-dead. The other, a girl, recently deceased. Harper's investigation yields another surprise: the next morning, a third body is found-in the very same grave.

An outstanding follow-up to the series opener, this offering continues the story of Harper (the lightning-struck girl who can see dead people) and Tolliver (the step-brother that manages the business they built on her skills). Once again the murderer isn't hard to figure out early on in the story, but once again it doesn't really matter- the gradual sharing of information about Harper and Tolliver's lives and their past is more than enough to capture reader interest. I can't wait to read the next book in the series!

Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris

2011-06-15T10:13:00.002-04:00

Book Description:
Harper Connelly has what you might call a strange job: she finds dead people. The way Harper sees it, she's providing a service to the dead while bringing some closure to the living-but she's used to most people treating her like a blood-sucking leech. Traveling with her stepbrother Tolliver as her manager and sometime-bodyguard, she's become an expert at getting in, getting paid, and getting out fast. Because for the living it's always urgent-even if the dead can wait forever.

The start of a new series, this paranormal mystery about a young woman struck by lighting who can now locate the dead and see the moment of their passing is surprisingly good. Though it doesn't take long for the reader to figure out the mystery, it really doesn't matter- it is the characters that carry this book along amd make it impossible to put down. I've read other books by Harris and enjoyed them, but this is head and shoulders above The Southern Vampire Series or the Aurora Teagarden mysteries. Highly recommended even if you don't normally enjoy Charlaine Harris.

Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson

2011-06-14T10:17:00.002-04:00

Book Description:
Every day Christine wakes up not knowing where she is. Her memories disappear every time she falls asleep. Her husband, Ben, is a stranger to her, and he's obligated to explain their life together on a daily basis--all the result of a mysterious accident that made Christine an amnesiac. With the encouragement of her doctor, Christine starts a journal to help jog her memory every day. One morning, she opens it and sees that she's written three unexpected and terrifying words: "Don't trust Ben." Suddenly everything her husband has told her falls under suspicion. What kind of accident caused her condition? Who can she trust? Why is Ben lying to her? And, for the reader: Can Christine’s story be trusted?

In this well-written "thriller", Christine wakes up every day unsure of who she is, unable to believe she is the middle-aged woman in the mirror. She can't remember her husband or the life they led together. She can't remember anything. Eventually she finds a journal and learns she has been seeking answers and then the book builds to an interesting climax that I won't reveal here.

This story is solid and engaging, but I just never got the spine-tingling thrill I had expected. It was an interesting read, and I did enjoy it, buthe lack of real tension as the book moved towarded the big denouement made it easy to put down when interrupted. I was left feeling vaguely let down and dissatisfied which is why I'm only giving it 3.5 stars.

The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin

2011-06-13T08:19:00.002-04:00

Book Description:
Be careful what you wish for. Traveling abroad with her mother at the turn of the twentieth century to seek a titled husband, beautiful, vivacious Cora Cash, whose family mansion in Newport dwarfs the Vanderbilts’, suddenly finds herself Duchess of Wareham, married to Ivo, the most eligible bachelor in England. Nothing is quite as it seems, however: Ivo is withdrawn and secretive, and the English social scene is full of traps and betrayals. Money, Cora soon learns, cannot buy everything, as she must decide what is truly worth the price in her life and her marriage.

Though I found this book slow going for the first 50 or so pages, I eventually found myself pulled into the story. The improbably named American heiress Cora Cash is wealthy enough to be the prime catch of the season, and her mother is determined to use that status to marry into a titled English family. Cora is determined to get married to escape from her overbearing mother, especially after her first love turns down her proposal to dedicate himself to art.

Though there was nothing unexpected about the plot, I did find the characters engaging, and welcomed the few glances into the life and views of the servants involved in all these family machinations. Cora's naivete can be annoying at times, and she certainly isn't the brightest heroine, but she is nevertheless a well-meaning girl who does attract the reader's sympathy as the story develops.

A good summer read once you sink into the story.

Tassy Morgan's Bluff by Jim Stinson

2011-06-12T15:37:00.002-04:00

Book Description:
San Andreas, California. It may be a quaint town, but its residents have high hopes for its future as a tourist destination. There's Bill the Fixer, the handyman who sidelines in chain-saw sculpted redwood totem poles; real estate agent Margaret Nam, who plans to make a mint rehabbing beach shacks; and Jimi, the well-to-do hairstylist whose chair is the epicenter of town gossip. Amid their town's growing pains, widower Lincoln Ellis and Tassy Morgan, a recently divorced painter, meet and-much to their surprise-sparks begin to fly.

This light read filled with quirky characters thrown together by improbable circumstances was a delightful summer read. The setting is great, the small town politics accurate, and the cast of characters is truly original. Tassy and Linc make a great couple and I loved reading about their efforts to maintain Tassy's dilapidated cottage in the face of machinations by the town council.

My only quibble is that the end of the book seems rather sudden and doesn't tie up all the lose ends for the characters other than Tassy and Linc. If this is the start of a series with more books to follow that flesh out the rest of the oddballs introduced here, then I would bump it up to 5 stars.

Revenge of the Radioactive Lady by Elizabeth Stuckey-French

2011-06-03T08:42:00.000-04:00

Book description:
Seventy-seven-year-old Marylou Ahearn is going to kill Dr. Wilson Spriggs come hell or high water. In 1953, he gave her a radioactive cocktail without her consent as part of a secret government study that had horrible consequences.

Marylou has been plotting her revenge for fifty years. When she accidentally discovers his whereabouts in Florida, her plans finally snap into action. She high tails it to hot and humid Tallahassee, moves in down the block from where a now senile Spriggs lives with his daughter’s family, and begins the tricky work of insinuating herself into their lives. But she has no idea what a nest of yellow jackets she is stumbling into.

Before the novel is through, someone will be kidnapped, an unlikely couple will get engaged, someone will nearly die from eating a pineapple upside-down cake laced with anti-freeze, and that’s not all...

Despite a wonderful title, entertaining premise, and funny opening, this book ultimately fell flat for me. Billed as a comedy, this book takes too many dark turns for me to find it amusing. Plotting and maybe even carrying out revenge on the doctor that tricked you into participating in secret government research- perfectly fine and potentially funny. Turning your attentions to ruining the lives of his already fragile grandchildren when you discover he is afflicted with Alzheimers- not OK and not at all funny.

This read like two separate stories to me- one a serious and interesting look at family disfunction, one an amusing tale of revenge. When combined into one book though, neither story as allowed to live up to its potential. 3 stars.

Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones

2011-05-08T18:24:00.002-04:00

Book description:
Set in a middle-class neighborhood in Atlanta in the 1980s, the novel revolves around James Witherspoon’s two families—the public one and the secret one. When the daughters from each family meet and form a friendship, only one of them knows they are sisters. It is a relationship destined to explode when secrets are revealed and illusions shattered. As Jones explores the backstories of her rich yet flawed characters—the father, the two mothers, the grandmother, and the uncle—she also reveals the joy, as well as the destruction, they brought to one another’s lives.

This book was not what I expected when I picked it up- but in the end the story delivered more than I anticipated. This story, told from the points of view of the two daughters of a man with two families (one open, one secret) was dark and rather heartbreaking. I was appalled by the actions of the adults in this story, especially the father, who had no redeeming qualities that I could see. The life of secret daughter Dana was so sad that I found it hard to relate to Chaurisse when her turn came even though she had no idea how much impact her wants and needs had on the life of her secret sister.

The writing was excellent, and I suppose if the story had a different ending I would likely have gone for five stars, but the epilogue made me sad and cast a pall over the story for me (though other readers may disagree).

The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus by Sonya Sones

2011-04-05T03:30:00.002-04:00

Book description:
My name is Holly.
This story is about me—
a writer who's way behind
on her deadline.

But, honestly,
how can I concentrate on my work
when my fiftieth birthday's
rushing at me like a freight train,

my hormones are making me feel
like a Szechuan flambÉ,
and my eighty-year-old mother's
biting her nurses?

Not to mention the fact that my daughter's
just begun applying to colleges
(none of which are within
a thousand-mile radius of home),

and lately my husband's been
such an irritating, finger-pointing stinker
that I've found myself dreaming of ways
to spend his insurance money . . .

My name is Holly.
This book
tells my story—
a coming-of-middle-age story.

I was both intrigued and frightened when I discovered this entire novel is actually written in verse. Though at first it was strange to read, I quickly found myself immersed in the story and unable to put the book down. It is truly remarkable how vibrant and packed with detail this story is despite the spare poems that convey the meaning in dramatically fewer words than a normal prose novel. I can't say anything else except that this book is a definite must-read that I am recommending to all my family and friends.

Mothers and Other Liars by Amy Bourret

2011-04-04T03:26:00.002-04:00

Book description:
How far will a mother go to save her child?

Ten years ago, Ruby Leander was a drifting nineteen-year-old who made a split-second decision at an Oklahoma rest stop. Fast forward nine years: Ruby and her daughter Lark live in New Mexico. Lark is a precocious, animal loving imp, and Ruby has built a family for them with a wonderful community of friends and her boyfriend of three years. Life is good. Until the day Ruby reads a magazine article about parents searching for an infant kidnapped by car-jackers. Then Ruby faces a choice no mother should have to make. A choice that will change both her and Lark's lives forever.

This is the latest in a series of books I've read about abducted children, but one that certainly dealt with the problem of a child torn between two families in a unique way. When orphaned 19-year old Ruby finds a baby in the trash at a rest stop, she makes the impulsive decision to take the baby with her on a cross country adventure. Years later, Ruby and Lark are a happy family of two, about to become four thanks to Ruby's boyfriend Chaz and their baby onboard. That happiness is shattered when Ruby sees a newspaper article that reveals that baby Taylor (now Lark) was stolen and dumped all those years ago, and has parents still searching for her.

Without revealing too much of the twist, I will say that though it was a surprise at the time, the actaul outcome quickly became predictable, and the ending itself was very disappointing in the way it negated so much of the story that came before.

Finding Nouf by Zoe Ferraris

2011-04-03T03:11:00.001-04:00

Book description:
When sixteen-year-old Nouf goes missing, her prominent family calls on Nayir al-Sharqi, a pious desert guide, to lead the search party. Ten days later, just as Nayir is about to give up in frustration, her body is discovered by anonymous desert travelers. But when the coroner’s office determines that Nouf died not of dehydration but from drowning, and her family seems suspiciously uninterested in getting at the truth, Nayir takes it upon himself to find out what really happened.

He quickly realizes that if he wants to gain access to the hidden world of women, he will have to join forces with Katya Hijazi, a lab worker at the coroner’s office who is bold enough to bare her face and to work in public. Their partnership challenges Nayir, as he confronts his desire for female companionship and the limitations imposed by his beliefs.

I picked up this mystery based in Jeddah because I am currently living in Dhahran KSA and was intrigued. The author lived in Saudi Arabia and certainly has an understanding of the complexities of life here.

The mystery itself wasn't that mysterious especially if you are familiar with the culture here, but the book itself was nevertheless engaging with its focus on a conservative male desert guide and a fairly liberal female employee of the morgue. It is these two characters and their growing understanding of each other that forms the backbone of the story; the search for the missing daughter of a wealthy family is simply the mechanism that brings them together. 4 stars for quality writing and an interesting & unusual theme.

Girl, Stolen by April Henry

2011-04-02T17:31:00.004-04:00

Book description:
Sixteen year-old Cheyenne Wilder is sleeping in the back of a car while her mom fills her prescription at the pharmacy. Before Cheyenne realizes what's happening, their car is being stolen--with her inside! Griffin hadn’t meant to kidnap Cheyenne, all he needed to do was steal a car for the others. But once Griffin's dad finds out that Cheyenne’s father is the president of a powerful corporation, everything changes—now there’s a reason to keep her. What Griffin doesn’t know is that Cheyenne is not only sick with pneumonia, she is blind. How will Cheyenne survive this nightmare, and if she does, at what price?

It could be this book suffered in my estimation because I read it immediately after Miles From Ordinary which was just exceptional, but I also thought it compared unfavorably to What Happened to Cass McBride? Though there are compelling elements to the story of the accidental kidnapping of a blind teenager who turns out to be the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, there are too many elements toward the end that do not pass the smell test. The book has a strong opening, and Henry does a great job portraying Cheyenne's experiences as a newly blind teen. Griffin is a strong character, though less compelling than Cheyenne, and the big revelation about his family history was no surprise to this reader. The first two-thirds of this novel made for a great read, but the last third was disappointing in its treatment of the characters.

Miles From Ordinary by Carol Lynch Williams

2011-03-22T18:02:00.004-04:00

Book Description:
Thirteen-year-old Lacey wakes to a beautiful summer morning excited to begin her new job at the library, just as her mother is supposed to start work at the grocery store. Lacey hopes that her mother's ghosts have finally been laid to rest; after all, she seems so much better these days, and they really do need the money. But as the hours tick by and memories come flooding back, a day full of hope spins terrifyingly out of control...

I chose this book because I read Carol Lynch Williams' The Chosen One a couple of years ago and thought it was wonderful. If anything, Miles from Ordinary surpasses that earlier work with its tender and haunting look at one daughter's effort to care for a mother spiralling into madness. 13 year old Lacey has simple desires for her summer- jobs for her and her mother, and the chance to make a friend. The book traces one day in Lacey's life, one day that starts out hopeful only to fall apart in every way when her mother goes missing. William's has a unique ability to convey the pain of adolescence and Lacey is a powerful character who is much harder on herself than any reader will ever be. Highly recommended for both YA and older readers.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson

2011-03-11T05:22:00.001-05:00

Book description:
In the small village of Edgecombe St. Mary in the English countryside lives Major Ernest Pettigrew (retired), the unlikely hero of Helen Simonson’s wondrous debut. Wry, courtly, opinionated, and completely endearing, the Major leads a quiet life valuing the proper things that Englishmen have lived by for generations: honor, duty, decorum, and a properly brewed cup of tea. But then his brother’s death sparks an unexpected friendship with Mrs. Jasmina Ali, the Pakistani shopkeeper from the village.

Drawn together by their shared love of literature and the loss of their spouses, the Major and Mrs. Ali soon find their friendship blossoming into something more. But village society insists on embracing him as the quintessential local and regarding her as the permanent foreigner. Can their relationship survive the risks one takes when pursuing happiness in the face of culture and tradition?

This book has been on my wishlist for months, and I finally got a paperback copy as a Christmas gift, and then of course I was reluctant to start the book because I was afraid it woudn't live up to the build-up. Thankfully, my fears were unfounded as this gem of a book more than lived up to the hype.

This beautiful story about finding love a second time around amid the complications of grown children, family businesses, and busybody neighbors also explores themes of racism, greed, loss and redemption. The characters are wonderfully drawn and the writing is flawless. Once I started reading, I simply couldn't put it down, and when the book ended, I was sorry to no longer be a part of that world. 5 stars for this wonderful book!

The Girl in the Green Raincoat by Laura Lippman

2011-03-10T08:00:00.001-05:00

Book description:
In the third trimester of her pregnancy, Baltimore private investigator Tess Monaghan is under doctor's orders to remain immobile. Bored and restless, reduced to watching the world go by outside her window, she takes small comfort in the mundane events she observes . . . like the young woman in a green raincoat who walks her dog at the same time every day.

Then one day the dog is running free and its owner is nowhere to be seen. Certain that something is terribly wrong, and incapable of leaving well enough alone, Tess is determined to get to the bottom of the dog walker's abrupt disappearance, even if she must do so from her own bedroom. But her inquisitiveness is about to fling open a dangerous Pandora's box of past crimes and troubling deaths . . . and she's not only putting her own life in jeopardy but also her unborn child's.

This light mystery novella is a far cry from Lippman's wonderful What the Dead Know which is truly unfortunate. Though the parallels with Rear Window are immediately obvious, this book had none of the suspense or thrill of the original. The plot could easily have been worked into a full length novel which would have given Lippman a chance to flesh out these characters enough to pull in the reader; as it was, I couldn't share Tess' obsession with the missing woman nor understand how or why Lloyd and May fit into things. The book was just too short in my opinion to pull me in; I finished it in just under two hours with no sense of satisfaction. 3 stars because the writing as always was good, there just wasn't enough of it.

Helen of Pasadena by Lian Dolan

2011-03-09T06:57:00.002-05:00

Book description:
Helen Fairchild is leading a privileged Pasadena existence: married to a pillar of the community; raising a water polo-playing son destined for the most select high school; volunteering her time on the most fashionable committees. It only bothers Helen a tiny bit the she has never quite fit in with the proper Pasadena crowd, never finished that graduate degree in Classics, and never had that second baby. But the rigid rules of society in Pasadena appeal to Helen, the daughter of Oregon "fiber artists," even if she'll never be on the inside. And then along comes a Rose Parade float, killing her philandering husband and leaving Helen broke, out of her "forever' house and scrambling to salvage her once-rarefied existence.

Enter Dr. Patrick O'Neill, noted archaeologist, excavator of Troy and wearer of nubby sweaters. A job as Dr. O'Neill's research assistant is the lifeline Helen needs to reinvent herself, both personally and professionally. Ancient mysteries to solve! Charity events to plan! School admissions advisors to charm! If Helen wasn't so distracted by her incredibly attractive boss, she might be able to pull off this new life.

Helen's world widens to include a Hollywood star, a local gossip columnist, an old college nemesis, a high-powered Neutron Mom, an unforgiving school headmistress , the best Armenian real state agent in the biz, and, of course, the intriguing Patrick O'Neill. While uncovering secrets about ancient Troy alongside her archaeologist boss, Helen discovers something much more: a new sense of self and a new love.

When Helen's husband is killed in a run-in with a parade float, she faces a new reality as a single mother forced to sell her home and look for a job, all the while trying to cope with the loss of everything she thought she knew about her life and her marriage.

Though the plot sounds like a standard chicklit offering, this book manages to steer a course as straight fiction. Helen is a wonderful character- well written and easy to relate to as a reader. She manages her situation as best she can and her evolving feelings seem to be reasonable developments rather than just plot points to move the story forward. The relationships in the book between friends and family are well drawn; for example, what appear to be stereotypical relationships between Helen and her in-laws actually unfold in unexpected and delightful ways. The romatic relationship was the weakest in the book in my opinion- hence the 4.5 stars rather than 5.

All in all a great read likely to appeal to a wide range of readers because of the quality of the prose. A great book to fill a few winter afternoons.

The Fates Will Find Their Way by Hannah Pittard

2011-03-08T02:11:00.001-05:00

Book description:
Sixteen-year-old Nora Lindell is missing. And the neighborhood boys she's left behind are caught forever in the heady current of her absence.

As the days and years pile up, the mystery of her disappearance grows kaleidoscopically. A collection of rumors, divergent suspicions, and tantalizing what-ifs, Nora Lindell's story is a shadowy projection of teenage lust, friendship, reverence, and regret, captured magically in the disembodied plural voice of the boys who still long for her.

Hannah Pittard's novel tracks the emotional progress of the sister Nora left behind, the other families in their leafy suburban enclave, and the individual fates of the boys in her thrall. Far more eager to imagine Nora's fate than to scrutinize their own, the boys sleepwalk into an adulthood of jobs, marriages, families, homes, and daughters of their own, all the while pining for a girl–and a life–that no longer exists, except in the imagination.

The central figure in this book, 16 year old Nora Liddell, never actually appears other than in the memories and speculations of the boys who were her friends. As they grow up and marry and have children of their own, they are always haunted by the memory of perfect Nora- she looms large over their psyches despite her long absence. As they debate whether or not she ran away or was abducted, whether she hopped a plane to AZ or was buried in a shallow grave it the woods, some part of them is always stuck in childhood in that focus on Nora and her family.

This is a wonderfully written book- truly original and an excellent read. Though at the beginning, I kept hoping to get some clarity on what actually happened to Nora, by the end it was clear that knowledge was unnecessary. Though Nora and her sister are in many ways the central chracters in this drama, it is the reactions of the boys around them that are the focus of this engaging novel. Highly recommended!

Saving Max by Antoinette van Heugten

2011-02-01T07:08:00.001-05:00

Book description:
Max Parkman—autistic and whip-smart, emotionally fragile and aggressive—is perfect in his mother's eyes. Until he's accused of murder.

Attorney Danielle Parkman knows her teenage son Max's behavior has been getting worse—using drugs and lashing out. But she can't accept the diagnosis she receives at a top-notch adolescent psychiatric facility that her son is deeply disturbed. Dangerous.

Until she finds Max, unconscious and bloodied, beside a patient who has been brutally stabbed to death.

Trapped in a world of doubt and fear, barred from contacting Max, Danielle clings to the belief that her son is innocent. But has she, too, lost touch with reality? Is her son really a killer?

With the justice system bearing down on them, Danielle steels herself to discover the truth, no matter what it is. She'll do whatever it takes to find the killer and to save her son from being destroyed by a system that's all too eager to convict him.

This novel about one mother's battle to save her son starts off like a typical family drama, but quickly (and unexpectedly) spirals into a taut thriller. When Dana's son Max requires hospitalization because his depression is taking over, Dana travels across the country to get him the best help possible. What starts out as a difficult family experience rapidly becomes a nightmare as Max becomes increasingly violent and is eventually charged with murdering another patient at the mental hospital. Dana's quest to find the truth nearly destroys them both as she finds herself at odds with the legal system she has sworn to uphold.

Well-written and engaging, this book was unexpectedly enjoyable. Though I did figure out the where the book was going fairly early on, the journey to completion was still well worth the effort.

The Finishing Touches by Hester Browne

2011-01-31T07:07:00.001-05:00

Book description:
A fading English finishing school gets a twenty-first-century makeover in this modern-day fairy tale. Twenty-seven years ago, an infant turned up on the doorstep of London’s esteemed Phillimore Academy for Young Ladies. Now, Betsy Phillimore returns to the place where she was lovingly raised by Lord and Lady Phillimore, only to find the Academy in disrepair and Lord P. desperate to save his legacy. Enter Betsy with a savvy business plan to replace dusty protocol with the essentials girls need today: cell phone etiquette, eating sushi properly, handling credit cards, choosing the perfect little black dress, negotiating a pre-nup, and other lessons in independent living. But returning to London also means crossing paths with her sexy girlhood crush . . . and stirring up the mystery of who her parents are and why they abandoned her. Will the puzzle pieces of her past fall into place while Betsy races to save the only home she’s ever known?

This story about a finishing school on its last legs and foundling determined to bring it back to glory was light and enjoyable, but could have been so much more. The underlying story was perfect for a British chick-lit book but had elements that could have been developed into a deeper more literary novel. The characters were likeable and well-written though some could have used more backstory and development. I was also disappointed that some promising plot twists (possible embezzlement for example) were raised then simply allowed to die.

All in all, this was an enjoyable book but I couldn't help shake the feeling that it was missing some spark.

The Other Family by Joanna Trollope

2011-01-30T07:06:00.002-05:00

Book description:
When Richie Rossiter, once a famous pianist, dies unexpectedly, Chrissie knows that she must now tell the truth to their three daughters: their parents were never married. Yet there is one more shock to come when Richie’s will is read. It seems he never forgot the wife and son he left behind years ago—Margaret, who lives a quiet life of routine and work, and Scott, who never knew his famous father. Now two families are left to confront their losses and each other, and none of them will ever be the same.

This novel is another stellar work by Trollope, who does so well delving into the heart of love and family. This book opens with a family returning home from the hospital incomplete, the head of the household now nothing but a memory. As the story unfolds, we learn more and more about him and his actions in the past and the impact those actions continue to have on his two separate families. As both his abandoned widow and the woman he left her for try to cope with his death, his four children are left struggling to understand what his loss means to them.

Wonderfully drawn characters and exquisite emotional tension make this book impossible to put down. An excellent winter read- 5 strong stars!

The Island of Lost Maps by Miles Harvey

2011-01-29T07:04:00.001-05:00

Book description:
The Island of Lost Maps tells the story of a curious crime spree: the theft of scores of valuable centuries-old maps from some of the most prominent research libraries in the United States and Canada. The perpetrator was Gilbert Joseph Bland, Jr., an enigmatic antiques dealer from South Florida, whose cross-country slash-and-dash operation had gone virtually undetected until he was caught in 1995–and was unmasked as the most prolific American map thief in history. As Miles Harvey unravels the mystery of Bland’s life, he maps out the world of cartography and cartographic crime, weaving together a fascinating story of exploration, craftsmanship, villainy, and the lure of the unknown.

It is hard to know what to say about this book which rather defies description. It purports to be about the prolifigate map thief Gilbert Bland, but really Bland's crimes are just the jumping off point for a book about maps, those who made them, and those who covet them. I thought this book would be more similar to The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession, but because Bland remained but a shadowy presence, the feel of the two books is completely different. That said, I still found myself pulled into this book and unable to put it down. I can't really explain why I enjoyed it so much, I just did, to the tune of five stars. If you love maps then you are likely to love this book, but if you are looking for a true crime caper, this might not be your cup of tea.

The Convent by Panos Karnezis

2011-01-28T07:03:00.001-05:00

Book description:
The crumbling convent of Our Lady of Mercy stands alone in an uninhabited part of the Spanish sierra, hidden on a hill among dense forest. Its inhabitants are devoted to God, to solitude and silence—six women cut off from a world they've chosen to leave behind. This all changes on the day that Mother Superior Maria Ines discovers a suitcase punctured with air holes at the entrance to the retreat: a baby, abandoned to its fate. Is it a miracle? Soon she will find that the baby's arrival has consequences beyond her imagining, and that even in her carefully protected sanctuary she is unable to keep the world, or her past, at bay.

This story about a foundling baby boy left on the doorstep of an isolated Spanish convent is a compelling and atmospheric read. The book is really more of a series of character studies that highlights the underlying tensions in a community of cloistered women. The reader will have no trouble figuring out the "miracle" of the the child's birth, but since this isn't really a plot-driven novel, the lack of mystery is less relevant than the author's ability to paint a vivid picture of the isolated life in the convent.

Not really an enjoyable read, at only 200 pages it is nevertheless a quick one. Wonderful use of language and a lyric style made this a four star read for me.

The Bikini Car Wash by Pamela Morsi

2011-01-27T10:02:00.001-05:00

Book description:
After Andrea Wolkowicz abandons corporate life to help care for her sister, she quickly wears out the want ads in their rust-belt hometown. Time to be her own boss.
Every mogul knows the best idea is an old idea with a new twist. So Andi proudly revives her father's business: an old-fashioned car wash…staffed entirely by bikini-clad women. That ought to get traffic—and blood—flowing on Grosvenor Street!

This gutsy gimmick soon has the whole town in a lather, and not necessarily in a good way. Scandalized citizens are howling, neighboring businesses are worried. But straitlaced grocery-store owner Pete Guthrie is definitely intrigued. He knows it's hard to run a small business in a big-box world. To him, Andi's brains and bravery are as alluring as the bikini she calls business attire.

The blurb for this book paints a picture of a light-hearted chick-lit book, but the book is surprisingly less amusing than expected. Though there were many strong elements of the book, ultimately the lackluster romance undermined the story, and i just never felt a real connection with Andi or Pete. They seemingly ended up together because neither had a better option in their small town which doesn't make for riveting fiction. Not a bad summer read but not as captivating as I had hoped. 3.5 stars.

Imperfect Birds by Anne Lamott

2011-01-26T08:13:00.001-05:00

Book description:
Rosie Ferguson is seventeen and ready to enjoy the summer before her senior year of high school. She's intelligent-she aced AP physics; athletic-a former state-ranked tennis doubles champion; and beautiful. She is, in short, everything her mother, Elizabeth, hoped she could be. The family's move to Landsdale, with stepfather James in tow, hadn't been as bumpy as Elizabeth feared.

But as the school year draws to a close, there are disturbing signs that the life Rosie claims to be leading is a sham, and that Elizabeth's hopes for her daughter to remain immune from the pull of the darker impulses of drugs and alcohol are dashed. Slowly and against their will, Elizabeth and James are forced to confront the fact that Rosie has been lying to them-and that her deceptions will have profound consequences.

Though this book starts out slow and is rather hard to sink into, eventually the story captured me and carried me along. Watching as Rosie slowly devolves in front of her parents' eyes is poignant and disturbing, and Lamott tells the story in lyrical prose. I did enjoy this book for its treatment of the mother-daughter relationship and the peek inside the mind of an addict. A good read once it grips you but definitely a slow starter.

Fragile by Lisa Unger

2011-01-25T09:00:00.001-05:00

Book description:
Everybody knows everybody in The Hollows, a quaint, charming town outside of New York City. It’s a place where neighbors keep an eye on one another’s kids, where people say hello in the grocery store, and where high school cliques and antics are never quite forgotten. As a child, Maggie found living under the microscope of small-town life stifling. But as a wife and mother, she has happily returned to The Hollows’s insular embrace. As a psychologist, her knowledge of family histories provides powerful insights into her patients’ lives. So when the girlfriend of her teenage son, Rick, disappears, Maggie’s intuitive gift proves useful to the case—and also dangerous.

Eerie parallels soon emerge between Charlene’s disappearance and the abduction of another local girl that shook the community years ago when Maggie was a teenager. The investigation has her husband, Jones, the lead detective on the case, acting strangely. Rick, already a brooding teenager, becomes even more withdrawn. In a town where the past is always present, nobody is above suspicion, not even a son in the eyes of his father.

“I know how a moment can spiral out of control,” Jones says to a shocked Maggie as he searches Rick’s room for incriminating evidence. “How the consequences of one careless action can cost you everything.”

As she tries to reassure him that Rick embodies his father in all of the important ways, Maggie realizes this might be exactly what Jones fears most. Determined to uncover the truth, Maggie pursues her own leads into Charlene’s disappearance and exposes a long-buried town secret—one that could destroy everything she holds dear.

This is a hard book to review without giving away to many of the details that make teh story so good. When the police start asking guestions about Char and her troubled life, the town is forced to relive and reassess the facts of the disappearance 20 years ago of another high school girl, a disappearance that ended with the discovery of a body. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that the ripples from Sarah's death 20 years ago continue to impact the entire town today.

This novel explores the ties that bind people to each other and to a place, and reveals how strong yet fragile those ties can be when people are living with secrets. Excellent read!

Elizabeth's Women: Friends, Rivals, and Foes Who Shaped the Virgin Queen by Tracy Borman

2011-01-24T09:23:00.002-05:00

Book description:
So often viewed in her relationships with men, the Virgin Queen is portrayed here as the product of women—the mother she lost so tragically, the female subjects who worshipped her, and the peers and intimates who loved, raised, challenged, and sometimes opposed her.

Borman presents Elizabeth’s bewitching mother, Anne Boleyn, eager to nurture her new child, only to see her taken away and her own life destroyed by damning allegations—which taught Elizabeth never to mix politics and love. Kat Astley, the governess who attended and taught Elizabeth for almost thirty years, invited disaster by encouraging her charge into a dangerous liaison after Henry VIII’s death. Mary Tudor—“Bloody Mary”—envied her younger sister’s popularity and threatened to destroy her altogether. And animosity drove Elizabeth and her cousin Mary Queen of Scots into an intense thirty-year rivalry that could end only in death.

Elizabeth’s Women contains more than an indelible cast of characters. It is an unprecedented account of how the public posture of femininity figured into the English court, the meaning of costume and display, the power of fecundity and flirtation, and how Elizabeth herself—long viewed as the embodiment of feminism—shared popular views of female inferiority and scorned and schemed against her underlings’ marriages and pregnancies.

This is the second Tudor history book I've read this month, and this was by far the more enjoyable. I've read a lot of books (fiction and non-fiction) about Elizabeth but never one like this that focused on the women who surrounded the Virgin Queen and helped shape her views on life and leadership. Though the cast of characters is huge, and many of them share names, Borman did a good job of helping the reader keep track and differentiating between the Janes and Katherines that populated Elizabeth's world. One weakness that I see is that Borman assumes a level of knowledge about the history of the time that makes it clear this book is not for the uninitiated. That said, anyone who has read a couple of books about Elizabeth will have no problem following the action. All in all, an interesting and innovative treatment of a much analyzed figure in history.

The Naked Gardener by L.B. Gschwandtner

2011-01-11T16:18:00.006-05:00

Book description:
In a remote forest of northern Vermont, Katelyn Cross takes five women on a wilderness canoe trip where they hope to come up with ideas for saving their dying town. Although the river is not always what it seems and the women have not left their problems behind, a painting ritual creates a new way to look at the world - and themselves.

Artist Katelyn Cross loves Greg Mazur and he loves her. He wants to be married but a previous relationship that went sour has made Katelyn overly cautious about any permanent commitment. And what about Greg's first wife? He lost her to cancer and Katelyn worries that he's only looking for a replacement. What's a girl to do? Canoe down a river with five gal pals, camp out, catch fish, talk about life and men. The problem is, a river can be as unpredictable as any relationship and just as hard to manage. On their last day, when the river turns wild, the women face the challenge of a lifetime and find that staying alive means saving themselves first while being open to help from a most unlikely source. As Katelyn navigates the raging water, she learns how to overcome her fear of change in a world where nothing stays the same. When Katelyn returns to her garden, she'll face one more obstacle and the naked gardener will meet the real Greg Mazur.

This is an interesting tale about life and love and women and relationships, an unexpectedly appealing story with great characters. The story revolves around Katelyn, an artist trying hard to maintain her distance from her live-in lover Maze. As she works through the reasons why she feels the way she feels, she finds herself leading a group of inexperienced paddlers on a canoe trip through the wilderness. Each of these women has a problem and of course the trip becomes a bonding experience that helps them work through these problems.

Despite what seems like a hackneyed plot, this book is actually quite enjoyable. The characters are appealing, both as individuals and as a group, and I was quickly pulled into their story. My initial dislike of Maze was eventually tempered as more of his character is revealed, and the sub-plot about their Vermont town was equally engaging. The ending makes it clear a sequel is in the works, but the author does an admirable job of wrapping up the story, providing enough of a conclusion to satisfy readers while introducing a hook to help sell the sequel. 4 strong stars- a great way to ring in the new year!

Mary Tudor: Princess, Bastard, Queen by Anna Whitelock

2010-11-08T03:33:00.001-05:00

Book description:
Though often overshadowed by her long-reigning sister, Elizabeth I, Mary lived a life full of defiance, despair, and triumph. Born the daughter of the notorious King Henry VIII and the Spanish Katherine of Aragon, young Mary was a princess in every sense of the word—schooled in regal customs, educated by the best scholars, coveted by European royalty, and betrothed before she had reached the age of three. Yet in a decade’s time, in the wake of King Henry’s break with the pope, she was declared a bastard, disinherited, and demoted from “princess” to “lady.” Ever her deeply devout mother’s daughter, Mary refused to accept her new status or to recognize Henry’s new wife, Anne Boleyn, as queen. The fallout with her father and his counselors nearly destroyed the teenage Mary, who faced imprisonment and even death.

It would be an outright battle for Mary to work herself back into the king’s favor, claim her rightful place in the Tudor line, and ultimately become queen of England, but her coronation would not end her struggles. She flouted the opposition and married Philip of Spain, sought to restore Catholicism to the nation, and fiercely punished the resistance. But beneath her brave and regal exterior was a dependent woman prone to anxiety, whose private traumas of phantom pregnancies, debilitating illnesses, and unrequited love played out in the public glare of the fickle court.

My interest in Tudor history began early- I was booted off a tour of the Tower of London at age 13 for the running commentary I was sharing with my mother! Elizabeth has always been my focus, so I was very excited to see this book on Mary because she is so often treated as only a springboard to Gloriana. Unfortunately, this book just missed the mark for me.

Despite the wealth of information and historical references, this book never made Mary a person to me. The manuscript seemed disjointed, and at times contraditory in its assessment of possible motivations. Quite frankly, the portions about Katharine of Aragon were the most human; her daughter Mary still came off as a cardboard figure throughout the rest of the book.

I appreciated the effort to reveal more about this fascinating woman's story, but was left feeling as disconnected as ever from Mary Tudor. This book is a decent history, but reading it was not a particularly enjoyable experience.

Boozehound by Jason Wilson

2010-11-07T03:25:00.003-05:00

Book description:
While some may wonder, “Does the world really need another flavored vodka?” no one answers this question quite so memorably as spirits writer and raconteur Jason Wilson does in Boozehound. (By the way, the short answer is no.) A unique blend of travelogue, spirits history, and recipe collection, Boozehound explores the origins of what we drink and the often surprising reasons behind our choices.

In lieu of odorless, colorless, tasteless spirits, Wilson champions Old World liquors with hard-to-define flavors—a bitter and complex Italian amari, or the ancient, aromatic herbs of Chartreuse, as well as distinctive New World offerings like lively Peruvian pisco. With an eye for adventure, Wilson seeks out visceral experiences at the source of production—visiting fields of spiky agave in Jalisco, entering the heavily and reverently-guarded Jägermeister herb room in Wolfenbüttel, and journeying to the French Alps to determine if mustachioed men in berets really handpick blossoms to make elderflower liqueur.

In addition, Boozehound offers more than fifty drink recipes, from three riffs on the Manhattan to cocktail-geek favorites like the Aviation and the Last Word. These recipes are presented alongside a host of opinionated essays that cherish the rare, uncover the obscure, dethrone the overrated, and unravel the mysteries of taste, trends, and terroir. Through his far-flung, intrepid traveling and tasting, Wilson shows us that perhaps nothing else as entwined with the history of human culture is quite as much fun as booze.

This book would make an excellent gift for anyone who enjoys stepping outside of the box when it comes to imbibing. It is a wonderful introduction into a large variety of alternative beverages from the obscure and hard to find to the easily available but often under-rated. The drink recipes that follow each chapter help whet the appetite, and made me want to rush out to my local store to start picking up ingredients. Best of all, the narrative voice was friendly and approachable- I felt more like the author was sharing a love than teaching a lesson. 5 stars!

Corked by Kathryn Borel

2010-09-07T15:05:00.001-04:00

Book description:
Meet Kathryn Borel, bon vivant and undutiful daughter. Now meet her father, Philippe, former chef, eccentric genius, and wine aficionado extraordinaire. Kathryn is like her father in every way but one: she's totally ignorant when it comes to wine. And although Philippe has devoted untold parenting hours to delivering impassioned oenological orations, she has managed to remain unenlightened. But after an accident and a death, Kathryn realizes that by shutting herself off to her father's greatest passion, she will never really know him. Accordingly, she proposes a drunken father-daughter road trip. Corked is the uncensored account of their tour through the great wine regions of France.

This meandering memoir covered a father-daughter wine-tasting trip trip through France, but the location was the only appealing element of the book. Both the narraor and her fathercame across as selfish, self-involved, and immature. Between his tantrums, her childish sulks, and both of their inability to communicate like adults, the book was actually painful in places to read. The book seems to have no general purpose- no grand revelations or useful life messages or interesting stories emerge that would make spending time with these self-indulgent people worthwhile. I gave it 2 stars only for the bits of interesting wine trivia that popped up on occasion.

Priceless by Robert K. Pittman

2010-09-06T14:20:00.002-04:00

Book description:
The founder of the FBI’s Art Crime Team, pulls back the curtain on his remarkable career for the first time, offering a real-life international thriller to rival The Thomas Crown Affair.

Rising from humble roots as the son of an antique dealer, Wittman built a twenty-year career that was nothing short of extraordinary. He went undercover, usually unarmed, to catch art thieves, scammers, and black market traders in Paris and Philadelphia, Rio and Santa Fe, Miami and Madrid.

Wittman fascinates with the stories behind his recoveries of priceless art and antiquities: The golden armor of an ancient Peruvian warrior king. The Rodin sculpture that inspired the Impressionist movement. The headdress Geronimo wore at his final Pow-Wow. The rare Civil War battle flag carried into battle by one of the nation’s first African-American regiments.

The breadth of Wittman’s exploits is unmatched: He traveled the world to rescue paintings by Rockwell and Rembrandt, Pissarro, Monet and Picasso, often working undercover overseas at the whim of foreign governments. Closer to home, he recovered an original copy of the Bill of Rights and cracked the scam that rocked the PBS series Antiques Roadshow.

By the FBI’s accounting, Wittman saved hundreds of millions of dollars worth of art and antiquities. The art thieves and scammers Wittman caught run the gamut from rich to poor, smart to foolish, organized criminals to desperate loners. The smuggler who brought him a looted 6th-century treasure turned out to be a high-ranking diplomat. The appraiser who stole countless heirlooms from war heroes’ descendants was a slick, aristocratic con man. The museum janitor who made off with locks of George Washington's hair just wanted to make a few extra bucks, figuring no one would miss what he’d filched.

In his final case, Wittman called on every bit of knowledge and experience in his arsenal to take on his greatest challenge: working undercover to track the vicious criminals behind what might be the most audacious art theft of all.

What an excellent read! This memoir has all the action and adventure of a great thriller with the added kick that it all really happened. Wittman eloquently describes how he found himself pulled into the rough and tumble world of undercover operations designed to recover stolen works of art, and shares his frustration that the issue generates so little attention in the U.S. and at the FBI itself. Gangsters, museum thieves, art scholars- this book has a little bit about them all and makes for a great summer read, especially for anyone who has ever enjoyed an episode of Antiques Roadshow. Highly recommended!

Keep Sweet by Michele Dominguez Greene

2010-09-04T15:34:00.002-04:00

Book description:
Alva Jane has never questioned her parents, never questioned her faith, never questioned her future. She is content with the strict rules that define her life in Pineridge, the walled community where she lives with her father, his seven wives, and her twenty-eight siblings. This is the only world Alva has ever known, and she has never thought to challenge it.

But everything changes when Alva is caught giving her long-time crush an innocent first kiss. Beaten, scorned, and now facing a forced marriage to a violent, fifty-year old man, Alva suddenly realizes how much she has to lose--and how impossible it will be to escape.

I found this young adult novel about life in a polygamist cult to be an incredibly compelling read. Alva Jane is the oldest daughter of a favored wife, and has enjoyed her childhood on the compound, oblivious to the darker tones that underpin her life. She is looking foward to marrying a young man in her community until one innocent stolen kiss shatters all their dreams. Married off to a violent abusive older husband, Alva Jane is forced to take a new look at her life and the lives of those around her.

Alva Jane reads as a complete and believable character with a strong narrative voice. I read this book through in one sitting, unable to walk away from Alva Jane and her suffering. An excellent novel, this book does deal realistically with the darkness of child marriage and so includes sex scenes that may be disturbing to some readers. A highly recommend read.

Homicide in Hardcover by Kate Carlisle

2010-09-03T16:31:00.006-04:00

Book description:
The streets of San Francisco would be lined with hardcovers if rare book expert Brooklyn Wainwright had her way. And her mentor wouldn’t be lying in a pool of his own blood on the eve of a celebration for his latest book restoration.

With his final breath he leaves Brooklyn a cryptic message, and gives her a priceless—and supposedly cursed—copy of Goethe’s Faust for safekeeping.

Brooklyn suddenly finds herself accused of murder and theft, thanks to the humorless—but attractive—British security officer who finds her kneeling over the body. Now she has to read the clues left behind by her mentor if she is going to restore justice…

Since I love books, bookbinding, and mysteries, this should have been the perfect summer read. Unfortunately, though the characters are interesting and the plot was initially engaging, the whole book never quite snapped together for me. The characters were just a little too quirky all together (I mean, surely everyone knows at least a few normal people) and the solution to the mystery seemed completely out of nowhere to me (in terms of motive). I really wanted to like this book, but instead just found myself plodding through to get to the end.

Small Island by Andrea Levy

2010-08-13T17:01:00.004-04:00

Book Description:
Set mainly in the British Empire of 1948, this story of emigration, loss and love follows four characters—two Jamaicans and two Britons—as they struggle to find peace in postwar England. After serving in the RAF, Jamaican Gilbert Joseph finds life in his native country has become too small for him. But in order to return to England, he must marry Hortense Roberts—she's got enough money for his passage—and then set up house for them in London. The pair move in with Queenie Bligh, whose husband, Bernard, hasn't returned from his wartime post in India. But when does Bernard turn up, he is not pleased to find black immigrants living in his house. This deceptively simple plot poises the characters over a yawning abyss of colonialism, racism, war and the everyday pain that people inflict on one another.

This book was a hard one to review because I found it a hard one to read. I started this book at least three times but just couldn't sink into the character or the story. I finally read it when stuck indoors one weekend because of the weather- by the time I was about a third of the way through, I was caught up, but that slow start was hard to overcome. The writing is wonderful and the racial and relationship tensions deftly presented; this is another novel about the importance of the things we never say and the actions we don't take. Each of these characters was unhappy with the status quo, but none seemed to be prepared to truthfully confront the other people in the story. Still, though I didn't feel an emotional connection to the characters, I was eager to see how the story would play out. A good read, but one I recommend starting only when you have enough time to really get into it.

Still Missing by Chevy Stevens

2010-07-12T16:38:00.001-04:00

Book description:
On the day she was abducted, Annie O’Sullivan, a 32-year-old realtor, had three goals—sell a house, forget about a recent argument with her mother, and be on time for dinner with her ever-patient boyfriend. The open house is slow, but when her last visitor pulls up in a van as she's about to leave, Annie thinks it just might be her lucky day after all.

Interwoven with the story of the year Annie spent as the captive of a psychopath in a remote mountain cabin, which unfolds through sessions with her psychiatrist, is a second narrative recounting events following her escape—her struggle to piece her shattered life back together and the ongoing police investigation into the identity of her captor.

I really enjoyed the structure of this book- a kidnap victim talking to her therapist to work through her complicated fears and feelings in the aftermath of the abduction. The narrative voice was strong, and Annie was definitely a character that pulls the reader into the story. The majority of the book deals with Annie's quest to recapture some of the life she used to lead, and this portion of the narrative is definitely 5 stars. For me, the ongoing question of the identity of her captor was less compelling, and the plot twist that resolves this central mystery wasn't as shocking as I believe it was meant to be; it was this element of the story that made the overall book 4 stars for me. Still, a great summer read from a talented author!

Under The Blue Flag: My Mission in Kosovo by Philip Kearney

2010-06-22T22:48:00.004-04:00

Book description:
Seeking to escape the monotony he had come to endure in his job as assistant District Attorney in San Francisco, Philip Kearney needed a change. His solution came one day in a casual email from a friend: "U.N. has opening here for an international prosecutor doing war crimes stuff. You should apply, gotta go."

"Here" meant Pristina, Kosovo. And "stuff" - Kearney soon finds out, after landing the job despite his inexperience with international law and an inability to speak any foreign languages - meant a harrowing string of investigations involving the most brutal and devastating crimes imaginable. Abruptly removed from the comforts of home and the order and stability of America's justice system, Kearney finds himself the sole international prosecutor assigned to a region of nearly one million people. Welcome to the Balkans circa 2001.

Kearney is thrown headlong into a series of historic investigations that quickly land him under the protection of four armed security guards. Armed himself with only the region's archaic criminal justice code, Kearney is soon prosecuting local street thugs, shutting down a ring of international sex-traffickers and spearheading an investigation into secret death camps - a case that ultimately implicates local officials and inflames ethnic violence. He developed an urgent passion, stemming from devastating stories of torture, murder and slavery that dominate Kosovo's bleak landscape.

Though I haven't been to Kosovo, I did spend two years living in Bosnia which struggled with many of the same challenges in the aftermath of the breakup of Yugoslavia. Kearney does a good job of framing an incredibly complicated set of issues in order to make them palatable to readers unfamiliar with the complexities of war crimes tribunals. His picture of working for the UN as an American rings true and provides an excellent introduction into that lifestyle. Though I would have preferred more focus on the issues and less on his perception of them, the book was certainly a good strong read.

Model Home by Eric Puchner

2010-06-22T00:49:00.004-04:00

Book description:
Warren Ziller moved his family to California in search of a charmed life, and to all appearances, he found it: a gated community not far from the beach, amid the affluent splendor of Southern California in the 1980s. But his American dream has been rudely interrupted. Despite their affection for one another--the "slow, jokey, unrehearsed vaudeville" they share at home--Warren; his wife, Camille; and their three children have veered into separate lives, as distant as satellites. Worst of all, Warren has squandered the family's money on a failing real estate venture.
As Warren desperately tries to conceal his mistake, his family begins to sow deceptions of their own. Camille attributes Warren's erratic behavior to an affair and plots her secret revenge; seventeen-year-old Dustin falls for his girlfriend's troubled younger sister; teen misanthrope Lyle begins sleeping with a security guard who works at the gatehouse; and eleven-year-old Jonas becomes strangely obsessed with a kidnapped girl.

When tragedy strikes, the Zillers are forced to move into one of the houses in Warren's abandoned development in the middle of the desert. Marooned in a less-than-model home, each must reckon with what's led them there and who's to blame--and whether they can summon the forgiveness needed to hold the family together.

I thought this story of the American Dream gone horribly awry would have a wry humor, but instead it was just overwhelmingly depressing. Everything bad that could happen to this family did, and there was little joy to redeem the story. The book was well-written and the characters rang true, but reading it became a bit of an ordeal as the depressing events just piled up on one another. I would recommend this book for the vibrant literate writing, but definitely don't pick it up if you're in the mood for a light beach read because this novel is gloomy enough to depress any beach vacation. 3.5 stars.

Molly Fox's Birthday by Deirdre Madden

2010-06-21T16:40:00.004-04:00

Book description:
It is the height of summer, and celebrated actor Molly Fox has loaned her house in Dublin to a friend while she is away performing in New York. Alone among all of Molly's possessions, struggling to finish her latest play, she looks back on the many years and many phases of her friendship with Molly and their college friend Andrew, and comes to wonder whether they really knew each other at all. She revisits the intense closeness of their early days, the transformations they each made in the name of success and security, the lies they told each other, and betrayals they never acknowledged.

This wonderful literary novel may take place in one day, but encompasses 20 years of shared friendship. The narrator, a successful playwright battling a case of writer's block, is vacationing in the Dublin home of her friend, successful actor Molly Fox. What follows is an unexpectedly rich story of their friendship, as the narrator avoids thinking about the play she cannot write by thinking of the moments she and her friends have shared.

The book isn't really about anything at all, and yet I found it impossible to put down. The quiet beauty of the writing combined with the surprisingly complexity of the characters as the story develops made for a powerful novel. Though I haven't read any of Madden's previous work, she is defintitely going on my wishlist now. Highly recommended!

Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok

2010-06-02T15:43:00.004-04:00

Book description:
When Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrate from Hong Kong to Brooklyn squalor, she quickly begins a secret double life: exceptional schoolgirl during the day, Chinatown sweatshop worker in the evenings. Disguising the more difficult truths of her life-like the staggering degree of her poverty, the weight of her family's future resting on her shoulders, or her secret love for a factory boy who shares none of her talent or ambition-Kimberly learns to constantly translate not just her language but herself back and forth between the worlds she straddles.

This well-written and moving tale of immigration and exploitation is one of the best books I've read this year. When Ah-Kim and her mother immigrate legally to the U.S., they nonetheless find themselves working in a sweatshop to pay off the debt they owe to Kim's aunt (the owner of the factory). As Ah-Kim, a star student in Hong Kong, wrestles with English and the tribulations of school in Brooklyn, she is forced to re-evaluate her vision of herself and to assume a caretaker role over her mother whose lack of English skills keeps her isolated.

This extraordinary book explores the mindset of an immigrant child, and traces the lifelong impact that some choices can have on an individual and a family. The central story here is that of a mother and daughter fighting against the odds to succeed, and the love that keeps them strong in the face of overwhelming adversity. Highly recommended debut novel- I hope we see many more from author Jean Kwok!

The Hand that First Held Mine by Maggie O'Farrell

2010-05-29T12:41:00.002-04:00

Book description:
"Lexie Sinclair is plotting an extraordinary life for herself.

Hedged in by her parents' genteel country life, she plans her escape to London. There, she takes up with Innes Kent, a magazine editor who wears duck-egg blue ties and introduces her to the thrilling, underground world of bohemian, post-war Soho. She learns to be a reporter, to know art and artists, to embrace her life fully and with a deep love at the center of it. She creates many lives--all of them unconventional. And when she finds herself pregnant, she doesn't hesitate to have the baby on her own.

Later, in present-day London, a young painter named Elina dizzily navigates the first weeks of motherhood. She doesn't recognize herself: she finds herself walking outside with no shoes; she goes to the restaurant for lunch at nine in the morning; she can't recall the small matter of giving birth. But for her boyfriend, Ted, fatherhood is calling up lost memories, with images he cannot place.

As Ted's memories become more disconcerting and more frequent, it seems that something might connect these two stories-- these two women-- something that becomes all the more heartbreaking and beautiful as they all hurtle toward its revelation."

This stunning book tells the stories of two women- two mothers- whose lives are changed first by love and then by motherhood. These two separate stories highlight the differences between women's lives in the post-WWII and modern day eras and also the similarities of the ties that bind them. As Lexie and Elina struggle with love and loss, Elina's husband Ted struggles with the memories he can't escape (Elina almost dying in childbirth) and those he cannot call to mind (his entire childhood is a blank). As this book builds to its stunning conclusion, these two stories collide in an unexpectedly graceful way. Though the book was a little hard to sink into at first, by the time I hit page 30, I knew I couldn't put it down until finished. Highly recommended!

A Soft Place to Land by Susan Rebecca White

2010-05-28T13:44:00.001-04:00

Book description:
For more than ten years, Naomi and Phil Harrison enjoyed a marriage of heady romance, tempered only by the needs of their children. But on a vacation alone, the couple perishes in a flight over the Grand Canyon. After the funeral, their daughters, Ruthie and Julia, are shocked by the provisions in their will.

Spanning nearly two decades, the sisters journeys take them from their familiar home in Atlanta to sophisticated bohemian San Francisco, a mountain town in Virginia, the campus of Berkeley, and lofts in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. As they heal from loss, search for love, and begin careers, their sisterhood, once an oasis, becomes complicated by resentment, anger, and jealousy. It seems as though the echoes of their parents deaths will never stop reverberating until another shocking accident changes everything once again.

This was a marvelous story of sisterhood and the ties that bind siblings together. As Ruthie and Julia attempt to deal with the horror of their parents' deaths, they are struck again by the bizarre terms of their will. As these two sisters grow up separately, they are forced to make painful decisions about the nature of their relationship and their relation to the past. This book was moving, at times even heartbreaking- a definite must read for the summer. The writing was strong and the characterizations very true to life- a truly impressive effort. The novel was poignant and true to life, and deeply compassionate. Highly recommended!

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

2010-05-27T11:46:00.005-04:00

Book description:
"Set against the gorgeous backdrop of Rome, Tom Rachman’s debut follows the topsy-turvy private lives of the reporters, editors, and executives of an international English language newspaper as they struggle to keep it—and themselves—afloat.

Fifty years and many changes have ensued since the paper was founded by an enigmatic millionaire, and now, amid the stained carpeting and dingy office furniture, the staff’s personal dramas seem far more important than the daily headlines. Kathleen, the imperious editor in chief, is smarting from a betrayal in her open marriage; Arthur, the lazy obituary writer, is transformed by a personal tragedy; Abby, the embattled financial officer, discovers that her job cuts and her love life are intertwined in a most unexpected way. Out in the field, a veteran Paris freelancer goes to desperate lengths for his next byline, while the new Cairo stringer is mercilessly manipulated by an outrageous war correspondent with an outsize ego. And in the shadows is the isolated young publisher who pays more attention to his prized basset hound, Schopenhauer, than to the fate of his family’s quirky newspaper.

As the era of print news gives way to the Internet age and this imperfect crew stumbles toward an uncertain future, the paper’s rich history is revealed, including the surprising truth about its founder’s intentions."

I was suprised by how very much I enjoyed this wonderful debut novel. Revolving around the lives of the current staff of an English language daily published in Rome, the narrative is broken up by snippets from the past that give the reader greater insight into the paper than the characters themselves have. Each chapter is a short story about one of the characters; the way they weave together to tell the story of the paper itself is a delightful surprise.

Each of these vignettes has its own flavor, and while some are happy or redemptive, most highlight the feelings of futility that must haunt many newsrooms as newspapers are overtaken by the realities of the digital age. Regardless, this is an excellent debut novel with characters any reader is sure to remember. Highly recommended!

Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

2010-05-25T17:16:00.005-04:00

Book description:
Tawawa House in many respects is like any other American resort before the Civil War. Situated in Ohio, this idyllic retreat is particularly nice in the summer when the Southern humidity is too much to bear. The main building, with its luxurious finishes, is loftier than the white cottages that flank it, but then again, the smaller structures are better positioned to catch any breeze that may come off the pond. And they provide more privacy, which best suits the needs of the Southern white men who vacation there every summer with their black, enslaved mistresses. It's their open secret.

Lizzie, Reenie, and Sweet are regulars at Tawawa House. They have become friends over the years as they reunite and share developments in their own lives and on their respective plantations. They don't bother too much with questions of freedom, though the resort is situated in free territory–but when truth-telling Mawu comes to the resort and starts talking of running away, things change.

To run is to leave behind everything these women value most–friends and families still down South–and for some it also means escaping from the emotional and psychological bonds that bind them to their masters. When a fire on the resort sets off a string of tragedies, the women of Tawawa House soon learn that triumph and dehumanization are inseparable and that love exists even in the most inhuman, brutal of circumstances–all while they are bearing witness to the end of an era.

This well-written historical novel looks at the lives of four slave women accompanying their masters on a summer holiday to free Ohio. The novel focuses on the women, the relationships they form, and the way they deal with the possibility of escaping to freedom. I was drawn into the stories of the women, though would have liked more attention paid to the backstories of characters other than Lizzie. I do believe the author did an excellent job getting into the mindset of these characters, trying to show the conflicts between love, loyalty, and true freedom.

The Map of True Places by Brunonia Barry

2010-05-15T10:39:00.003-04:00

Book description:
Zee Finch has come a long way from a motherless childhood spent stealing boats—a talent that earned her the nickname Trouble. She's now a respected psychotherapist working with the world-famous Dr. Liz Mattei. She's also about to marry one of Boston's most eligible bachelors. But the suicide of Zee's patient Lilly Braedon throws Zee into emotional chaos and takes her back to places she though she'd left behind.

What starts as a brief visit home to Salem after Lilly's funeral becomes the beginning of a larger journey for Zee. Her father, Finch, long ago diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, has been hiding how sick he really is. His longtime companion, Melville, has moved out, and it now falls to Zee to help her father through this difficult time. Their relationship, marked by half-truths and the untimely death of her mother, is strained and awkward.

Overwhelmed by her new role, and uncertain about her future, Zee destroys the existing map of her life and begins a new journey, one that will take her not only into her future but into her past as well. Like the sailors of old Salem who navigated by looking at the stars, Zee has to learn to find her way through uncharted waters to the place she will ultimately call home.

This a another moving yet mysterious tale from Brunonia Barry, who returns to Salem and some familiar characters in this wonderful novel. I loved Zee, a therapist whose life was shaped by her own mother's suicide. When she returns to her childhood home to care for her father, a rapidly deteriorating Parkinson's patient, she is forced to assess her life and her understanding of herself and others. The underlying mysteries are not difficult to unravel, but it is in finding some level of truth that Zee also finds herself. Though this story was not as dark as The Lace Reader, it was no less emotionally compelling. Definitely a must read!

Breaking the Bank by Yona Zeldis McDonough

2010-05-14T12:32:00.006-04:00

Book description:
MONEY ISN'T EVERYTHING...
Mia Saul is down on her luck. Dumped by her husband, jettisoned from her job, and estranged from her adored older brother, she and her young daughter, Eden, have had to make a downscale move to a crummy apartment, where their neighbors include a tough young drug dealer and a widower who lets his dogs use the hallways as their own personal litter box. Juggling a series of temporary jobs, wrangling with her ex-husband over child support, and trying to keep pace with Eden's increasingly erratic behavior have left Mia weary and worn out.

EXCEPT WHEN IT IS...
So when a seemingly functional ATM starts handing Mia thousands and thousands of dollars -- and not deducting the money from her account, because it sure isn't in there -- she isn't about to give it back. Her newfound cash stash opens up a world of opportunity, and a whole lot of trouble. Worried friends, family, and in-laws start questioning her judgment about everything, and the cops really, really want to know where all that cash is coming from. And then there's Patrick, a man Mia most definitely would never have met if things hadn't spun out of control. Mia is beginning to think that maybe somebody, somewhere, is trying to teach her a lesson about what matters in life, and what doesn't....

I really wanted to like this book, and the characters within it, but I just couldn't find it in myself. I wanted to like the magic of an ATM dispensing free money, but I found the actions of Mia (the recipient) so irritating as the novel continued that I wasn't able to simply sink into the narrative. She made so many bad choices, and was just so generally wishy-washy that I found myself reading just to finish rather than to enjoy. Though it started our strong and had an interesting premise, this is definitely not a good example of escapist chick-lit.

A Vintage Affair by Isabel Wolff

2010-05-14T01:56:00.001-04:00

Book description:
Every dress has a history. And so does every woman.

Her friends are stunned when Phoebe Swift abruptly leaves a plum job at the prestigious Sotheby’s auction house to open her own vintage clothing shop in London—but to Phoebe, it’s the fulfillment of a dream. In the sunlight-flooded interior of Village Vintage, surrounded by Yves Saint Laurent silk scarves, Vivienne Westwood bustle skirts, cupcake dresses, and satin gowns, Phoebe hopes to make her store the hot new place to shop, even as she deals with two ardent suitors, her increasingly difficult mother, and a secret from her past that casts a shadow over her new venture.

For Phoebe, each vintage garment carries its own precious history. Digging for finds in attics and wardrobes, Phoebe is rewarded whenever she finds something truly unique, for she knows that when you buy a piece of vintage clothing, you’re not just buying fabric and thread—you’re buying a piece of someone’s past. But one particular article of clothing will soon unexpectedly change her life.

Thérèse Bell, an elderly Frenchwoman, has an impressive clothing collection. But among the array of smart suits and couture gowns, Phoebe finds a child’s sky-blue coat—an item with which Bell is stubbornly reluctant to part. As the two women become friends, Phoebe will learn the tale of that little blue coat. And she will discover an astonishing connection between herself and Thérèse Bell—one that will help her heal the pain of her own past and allow her to love again.

This well-written and moving book tells the story of the power of love and of friendship. Phoebe, struggling to overcome the loss of her best friend (and subsequently her fiance) uproots herself from the life she has known and follows her heart to start a business focused on her passion for vintage clothes. Therese is approaching the end of her life, and seeks to pass along her clothes and her stories, and to alleviate her guilt for an error committed long ago. These two stories intertwine in ways that are both surprising and emotionally compelling.

Even though I am not much of a clothes person myself, it was impossible not to be drawn into Phoebe's passion for vintage clothing and the glimpses it provides into bygone eras. The clothes are as much a character as anyone in the novel, and I was drawn to the impact the dresses had on the women who fell in love with them. As Phoebe and Therese draw closer to resolution of their individual problems, it is there friendship that allows them to face the difficult truths in their pasts and forgive themselves for the mistakes that harmed their beloved friends. This book was an excellent read, one that I recommend sharing with your friends and family.

The Wives of Henry Oades by Johanna Moran

2010-04-29T10:58:00.003-04:00

Book description:
When Henry Oades accepts an accountancy post in New Zealand, his wife, Margaret, and their children follow him to exotic Wellington. But while Henry is an adventurer, Margaret is not. Their new home is rougher and more rustic than they expected—and a single night of tragedy shatters the family when the native Maori stage an uprising, kidnapping Margaret and her children.

For months, Henry scours the surrounding wilderness, until all hope is lost and his wife and children are presumed dead. Grief-stricken, he books passage to California. There he marries Nancy Foreland, a young widow with a new baby, and it seems they’ve both found happiness in the midst of their mourning—until Henry’s first wife and children show up, alive and having finally escaped captivity.

This book is based on an actual legal case of a man legally (though unintentionally) married to two women at the same time. The story starts our strong with a detailed look at the fateful decision of Henry Oades to sail off to New Zealand with his family. The characters are well-introduced, and I looked forward to the gradual reveal of their deeper thoughts and motivations- unfortunately, such revelations never occured.

Though the facts of the case remained interesting, the lack of detail in the narrative was extremely frustrating. After all, this is a fictional account so some effort at character development (even if it wasn't supported by primary sources) would have made for a much more enjoyable read. There is no background given that might help explain why the Maori took the Oades captive, and much more attention is focused on Henry's reaction to the abduction than on the reactions of those abducted. The subsequent escape comes out of nowhere, the journey to America passes in a flash, and even the actual court case is just glossed over in the narrative.

The author had all the seeds necessary to create a strong dramatic piece, but ultimately failed to pull this reader into the narrative. Overall, I found this to be a very unsatisfying novel, lacking as it did any real emotional connection to any of the characters.

Greyhound by Steffan Piper

2010-04-28T09:54:00.001-04:00

Book description:
12-year-old Sebastien Ranes is taking a trip. He doesn't exactly understand why, but he accepts it. His mother often seems too emotionally detached to care for him. Her latest boyfriend Dick takes cruel pleasure in mimicking the boy’s stuttering, and wants to live his life without "somebody else's kid" getting in the way. So it's no surprise when they pack his bags to send him away. It is a surprise when they send him alone. Ushered from his Stockton, California home, Sebastien must fend for himself and travel two thousand miles across the country to live with his grandmother and sister in Pennsylvania. Along the way, he learns that sometimes caring, guidance and understanding can come from some unlikely people.

Marcus is a man who has been neglected more by society than his family. As a young black ex-con, he is not the epitome of the person most would pick as a chaperone for their child's cross country trip. Yet rather than be held apart by their differences, Marcus and Sebastien are drawn together by the things that make us all alike. As both guide and protector, Marcus imparts his own style of wisdom while showing Sebastien that, despite the darker side of the human condition, people can and do care for one another.

From the moment I started reading Greyhound, I was hooked by the main character, a 12 year old boy about to board a bus across America alone so that his mother's new husband wouldn't have to raise a child that wasn't his own. Sebastian is a wonderful character- naive and sensitive and astonishingly open-minded given his situation. It is so telling that is he surprised every time an adult reacts take-aback by his mother's decision to pack him off to PA on a bus; he apparently expects nothing better.

The characters Sebastian meets along the way are extremely colorful, but not outside the realm of possibility, especially on such a long bus ride. I know some reviewers have taken issue with the series of dramatic events on the journey, but I've known Greyhound bus trips involving a police reception, shootout and subsequent arrest, followed by bus breakdown due to engine fire (and that was just on a 5 hour ride!) In fact, for anyone who has ever ridden Greyhound for anything other than a DC-NY-Boston run, this story will bring a smile and a shudder for its accuracy.

There were some places where the prose was awkward, and some grammar errors that grated (not sure how the editor missed them) but these were niggling irritations that did not detract from the strength of the story. Sebastian is a wonderful character- flawed and vulnerable and oh-so-appealing. This book was an impressive debut effort; I hope we see more from this author.

Perfect Reader by Maggie Pouncey

2010-04-27T16:45:00.005-04:00

Book description:
Flora Dempsey is the headstrong and quick-witted only child of Lewis Dempsey, a beloved former college president and famous literary critic in the league of Harold Bloom. At the news of her father’s death, Flora quits her big-city magazine job and returns to Darwin, the quaint New England town where she grew up, to retreat into the house he has left her, filled as it is with reminders of him. Even weightier is her appointment as her father’s literary executor. It seems he was secretly writing poems at the end of his life—love poems to a girlfriend Flora didn’t know he had.

Flora soon discovers that this woman has her own claims on Lewis’s poetry and his memory, and in the righteousness of her loss and bafflement at her father’s secrets—his life so richly separate from her own in ways she never guessed—Flora is highly suspicious of her. Meanwhile, Flora is besieged by well-wishers and literary bloggers alike as she tries to figure out how to navigate it all: the fate of the poems, the girlfriend who wants a place in her life, her memories of her parents’ divorce, and her own uncertain future.

I really wanted to like this book more than I ultimately did. The writing was intelligent and nuanced, and the storyline, centered as it was around books and reading, was a strong draw. Unfortunately, I found a lot of promise that was never really fulfilled, making for a frustrating read in the end. I never felt emotionally invested in the characters or their lives; for a book with so few personalities, none of them were particularly well-developed except for Flora, and I found her hard to like. The glimpses of Flora's childhood were the most emotionally compelling portion of the narrative, and came too infrequently for my taste.

In the end, I found myself unable to make a connection to these characters. Though the writing was strong, the sense of detachment made it possible to walk away from the book without a qualm to do chores or run errands. When I came to the end, I was neither glad to be done nor sad to be finished- I didn't have a viceral enough reaction to the book to care one way or the other.

How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly by Connie May Fowler

2010-04-14T20:00:00.003-04:00

Flap copy from hardcover:
Set amidst the lush pine forests and rich savannahs of Florida's Northern Panhandle, this is the story of one woman whose existence until now has seemed fairly normal: she is thirtysomething, married, and goes about her daily routine as a writer. But we soon learn that ghosts, an indifferent husband, and a seemingly terminal case of writer's block are burdening Clarissa's life. She awakes on the summer solstice and, prodded by her own discontent and one ghost's righteous need for truth, commences upon a twenty-four-hour journey of self-discovery. Her harrowing, funny, and startling adventures lead Clarissa to a momentous decision: she must find a way to do the unthinkable. Her life and the well-being of a remarkable family of blithe spirits hang in the balance.

Let me say first of all that this was a good read, full of the details that make Southern gothic novels so enjoyable. I was delighted by Fowler's strong narrative voice, and lush descriptions of the Florida landscape. I even enjoyed the ghosts that populated the story- in many ways, their stories seemed much more compelling than Clarissa's ever could.

For me, the difficulty with this novel lay in Clarissa herself, and her enthroned status as a complete doormat. This woman is a successful novelist who tolerates a husband who belittles her and conducts affairs right under her nose even as he lives off of her earnings. He hasn't touched her in years, she is dying by inches inside, and yet she worries about making his lunch or angering him? I just couldn't accept that as realistic- she should have kicked his ass to the curb long ago! I always like to find some aspect of a character that I can relate to my own life and story, but with Clarissa, this was just impossible.

That said, I did enjoy the book. I would have liked more followup on the cemetary, and certainly more focus on the story of the house and its ghosts, but at least in the end Clarissa was able to break free (at least in her mind) on the magical longest day of the year. Four stars because I just didn't like Clarissa as much as I liked the writing itself.

Half Life by Roopa Farooki

2010-04-02T10:32:00.001-04:00

Book description:
On the morning that changes everything, Aruna Ahmed Jones walks out of her ground-floor Victorian apartment in London wearing only jeans and a t-shirt, carrying nothing more substantial than a handbag, and keeps on walking. Leaving behind the handsome Dr. Patrick Jones, her husband of less than a year, Aruna heads to Heathrow, where she boards a plane bound for Singapore and her old life. Educated and beautiful, Aruna has a desperate need to risk it all. But why? Waiting for her is a messy past and a perfect past lover she had once abandoned without even saying goodbye – a story left unfinished – until now.

Aruna is not running away from home, she is running back to the home she always had, before it became impossible for her to stay. Before her father, the only family she’d ever known, passed away. Before she tried, and failed, to create a life and a family with her best friend and lover, Jazz. Before her doctor delivered a complicated psychological diagnosis she’d rather forget. After years of fleeing the ghosts that continue to haunt her, Aruna is about to discover that running away is really the easy part; it is coming home—making peace with her past, with Jazz and those they have loved—that is hard.

I sat down with this book yesterday, intending to read just a few pages, and found myself unable to put it down. Though at first I was uncertain about Roooney and Jazz, as the novel progressed I grew to understand them and their unique and troubling situation. I thought the author's handling of the sensitive subject matter was masterful, and appreciated that she let the truth build slowly, revealing itself only gradually (both to the reader and to the main characters).

The prose flowed freely, and did an excellent job of capturing the essence of the shifting locales. Both Rooney and Jazz grew emotionally throughout the novel, and I found the ending quite satisfying and realistic. This book was not what I expected, but quickly became more than I could have hoped. Highly recommended!

The Search for God and Guinness by Stephen Mansfield

2010-04-01T12:38:00.002-04:00

Book description:
It began in Ireland in the late 1700s. The water in Ireland, indeed throughout Europe, was famously undrinkable, and the gin and whiskey that took its place was devastating civil society. It was a disease ridden, starvation plagued, alcoholic age, and Christians like Arthur Guinness-as well as monks and even evangelical churches-brewed beer that provided a healthier alternative to the poisonous waters and liquors of the times. This is where the Guinness tale began. Now, 246 years and 150 countries later, Guinness is a global brand, one of the most consumed beverages in the world. The tale that unfolds during those two and a half centuries has power to thrill audiences today: the generational drama, business adventure, industrial and social reforms, deep-felt faith, and the beer itself.

This book is a little bit history, a little bit morality play, and a little bit personal reflection. It is more focused than I expected on the religious legacy of the Guinness family, but was nonetheless an enjoyable read. There were a few places where I thought the religious rhetoric got a bit strong, but then the author always dialed it back a bit. Though I'm not sure I agree about beer being the savior of the working class, it was interesting to read about the social changes in Dublin that can be traced to the Guinness family. All in all, a great choice for anyone who loves stout.

Love in Mid Air by Kim Wright

2010-03-30T23:58:00.004-04:00

Book description:
A chance encounter with a stranger on an airplane sends Elyse Bearden into an emotional tailspin. Suddenly Elyse is willing to risk everything: her safe but stale marriage, her seemingly perfect life in an affluent Southern suburb, and her position in the community. She finds herself cutting through all the instincts that say "no" and instead lets "yes" happen. As Elyse embarks on a risky affair, her longtime friend Kelly and the other women in their book club begin to question their own decisions about love, sex, marriage, and freedom.

Though the underlying plot of a woman assessing her unhappy marriage is a common one, I found this treatment of it very unusual and original. I was delighted that the book focussed on a woman making decisions about her marriage rather than finding herself left behind for a younger woman. I mean, I'm married and so obviously frown upon the idea of adultery, but the thought of living in a marriage like Elyse's where your partner doesn't really see you or hear anything you say, and is content to be content (even knowing that you are not) is so crushing that I could understand why Elyse grasped at a relationship where she could at least feel a passionate connection to another person. I was also surprised that in a book about so many women, I couldn't really find a character that I thought I would like in real life, and yet still I enjoyed the book so much.

One thing I really enjoyed was Wright's use of old movies in the novel. Most of my friends also love watching old black and white movies for the romance of them, whereas most of our husbands love watching new action movies with lots of special effects. I found those scenes involving the movies very true to life.

This is one of those books I will recommend to my friends even though it is rather bleak in its look at relationships because I think it expresses some of the fear that so many of us have about where our marriages may end up. I didn't think the book itself was bleak, just the view of relationships as not one of the characters was truly happy. Of course, maybe none of us is ever really truly happy- maybe we just read too many books where it all ends happily ever after. I also thought the question of religion quite sensitively and accurately handled, a nice change from so many books I've read in the last couple of years.

Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton

2010-03-30T15:54:00.003-04:00

Book description:
When five young mothers– Frankie, Linda, Kath, Ally, and Brett– first meet in a neighborhood park in the late 1960s, their conversations center on marriage, raising children, and a shared love of books. Then one evening, as they gather to watch the Miss America Pageant, Linda admits that she aspires to write a novel herself, and the Wednesday Sisters Writing Society is born. The five women slowly, and often reluctantly, start filling journals, sliding pages into typewriters, and sharing their work. In the process, they explore the changing world around them: the Vietnam War, the race to the moon, and a women’s movement that challenges everything they believe about themselves. At the same time, the friends carry one another through more personal changes–ones brought about by infidelity, longing, illness, failure, and success. With one another’s support and encouragement, the Wednesday Sisters begin to embrace who they are and what they hope to become, welcoming readers to experience, along with them, the power of dreaming big.

This appealing book centers around a group of young women who become friends in the beginning of the tumultuous civil rights era. The California setting allows the author to explore a variety of issues but in the end I think there was just too much going on in this novel. I was impressed by how the author presented the mindset of these women- I thought it was a great mix of personalities and a realistic picture of a group of women just coming to grips with feminism. I liked these women, and the way they bonded over writing, but I felt like there were no real surprises and I never found myself making an emotional connection to any of them. In the end, this was an enjoyable read, but it felt rather undercooked.

Waking Up in the Land of Glitter by Kathy Cano-Murillo

2010-03-29T15:37:00.003-04:00

Book description:
One ill-fated evening, Star jeopardizes her family's business, her relationship with her boyfriend, and her future career. To redeem herself, she agrees to participate in a national craft competition, teaming up with her best friend, Ofelia-a secretly troubled mother whose love for crafting borders on obsession-and local celebrity Chloe Chavez-a determined television personality with more than one skeleton in her professional closet. If these unlikely allies can set aside their differences, they'll find strength they never knew they had, and learn that friendship, like crafting, is truly an art form.

I was pleasantly surprised by this light offering, which started out a little to frothy for my taste, but then developed into a truly interesting story. I was initially interested because I love crafts, and found the idea of a craft-related novel appealing. The characters as initially introduced are typical quirky chick-lit characters whose problems are entirely of their own making. Fortunately, as the novel progresses, these women become more like characters and less like caricatures, and I found myself truly invested in their adventures. They each achieve some believeable personal growth, and I was definitely rooting for them as the big craft competition approached. This would be a great book club offering, or a wonderful spring break beach read.

And Then Came the Evening by Brian Hart

2010-03-28T15:18:00.005-04:00

Book description:
Bandy Dorner, home from Vietnam, awakes with his car mired in a canal, his cabin reduced to ashes, and his pregnant wife preparing to leave town with her lover. Within moments, a cop lies bleeding on the road.

Eighteen years later, Bandy is released from prison. His parents are gone, but on the derelict family ranch, Bandy faces a different reunion. Tracy, his now teenaged son, has come to claim the father he’s never known. Iona, Bandy’s ex-wife, has returned on the heels of her son. All three are damaged, hardened, haunted. But warily, desperately, they move in a slow dance around each other, trying to piece back together a family that never was; trying to discover if they belong together at all.

This dark family drama is a riveting read I found hard to put down. The bleak landscape, so well-drawn, provides the perfect backdrop for the story of Bandy, Tracy, and Iona. Reading this book, I couldn't help but reflect on how if put me in mind of No Country for Old Men- it has that same deftly rendered cinematic feel to the background. I was surprised by how invested I felt in these characters, whose lives are far outside my realm of experience. I was sorry when the book ended, because despite that lack of personal connection, I was drawn into the world Hart created. I certainly hope to read more by this talented author in the future.

For All the Tea in China by Sarah Rose

2010-03-20T15:21:00.004-04:00

Flap copy from ARC:

In 1848, the British East India Company, having lost its monopoly on the tea trade, engaged Robert Fortune, a Scottish gardener, botanist, and plant hunter, to make a clandestine trip into the interior of China-territory forbidden to foreigners-to steal the closely guarded secrets of tea horticulture and manufacturing. For All the Tea in China is the remarkable account of Fortune's journeys into China-a thrilling narrative that combines history, geography, botany, natural science, and old-fashioned adventure.

Disguised in Mandarin robes, Fortune ventured deep into the country, confronting pirates, hostile climate, and his own untrustworthy men as he made his way to the epicenter of tea production, the remote Wu Yi Shan hills. One of the most daring acts of corporate espionage in history, Fortune's pursuit of China's ancient secret makes for a classic nineteenth-century adventure tale, one in which the fate of empires hinges on the feats of one extraordinary man.

This could have been a fascinating book about one of the most economically impactful thefts of intellectual property in history, but unfortunately. it was a little too light on details and data to be completely successful. Though I enjoyed reading this book, it left me wanting more- more information, more details, more history. As the book itself was fairly short, it could have included more of that missing information to make for a more satisfying read. I expected the details of Fortune's actual adventures in China to dominate the book, and was disappointed that they didn't make up a larger portion of the narrative.

The California Roll by John Vorhaus

2010-03-20T00:28:00.007-04:00

Book description:
Meet Radar Hoverlander, a witty, gifted con artist with the mind of David Mamet, the voice of Tom Robbins, and the morals of a sailor on shore leave.

What do the Merlin Game, the Penny Skim, the Doolally Snadoodle, and the Afterparty Snuke have in common? They’re all the work of world-class con artist and master bafflegabber Radar Hoverlander. Radar’s been “on the snuke” since childhood, but he’s still looking for his California Roll, the one big scam that’ll set him up in sushi for life.

Trouble arrives in the stunning, sassy package of Allie Quinn—either the last true innocent or a con artist so slick she makes Radar look like a Quaker. Radar’s hapless sidekick, Vic Mirplo, a lovable loser who couldn’t con a kid out of a candy cane, thinks Radar’s being played. But if love is blind, it’s also deaf, dumb and stupid, and before Radar knows it, he’s sucked into a vortex of double-, triple-, quadruple-crosses that’ll either net him his precious California Roll or put him in a hole in the ground.

This book was a fast moving, slick romp though the mysterious underworld of grifters and con men. The prose was colorful and convoluted, much like the patter of a street hustler running a game of three card monte- give the subject matter, completely appropriate! I found the book a little hard to get into at first, but gradually got the hang of Radar's speech and thoughts, and found myself just letting go to enjoy the ride. As the novel built to a complicated climax involving double cross on top of double cross, I found myself unable to put the book down. Well written and engaging, this book was a fast and enjoyable read.

The Bride Collector by Ted Dekker

2010-03-04T09:10:00.003-05:00

Flap copy from ARC:
"FBI Special Agent Brad Raines is facing his most complex case yet. A Denver serial killer has murdered a string of young women, leaving a bridal veil at each scene, and he's picking up his pace. Unable to crack the case, Raines appeals for help to a most unusual source: residents of the Center for Well-being and Intelligence, a private psychiatric institution for mentally ill people who are extraordinarily gifted.

It's there that he meets Paradise, a young woman who witnessed her father murder her family and barely escaped his hand. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, Paradise may also have an extra-sensory gift: the ability to experience the final moments of a person's life when she touches the dead body.

In a desperate attempt to find the killer, Raines enlists Paradise's help. Gradually he starts to question whether sanity resides outside the hospital walls...or inside."

This is the first Dekker book I've read, and I'm not sure I'll pick up another. Though the plot has lots of wonderful elements, they never really gel into a thriller in this book- I get more chills from an episode of Criminal Minds. Though Raines was an interesting and well-drawn character, I never really warmed to Paradise or bought into their interactions. The other patients at the hospital are interesting, more interesting than the spiritual questions they raise for Raines, but do seem to have been added almost as comic relief.

In the end, this book has too much religion and not enough suspense to truly hold my interest. The book was well-written, and there were certainly elements of each character that I enjoyed, but in the end it just didn't pull me in the way I need a thriller to- I was easily able to put down this book which is never a good sign.

Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven by Susan Jane Gilman

2010-02-23T08:25:00.003-05:00

Flap copy from paperback:
"In 1986, Susan Jane Gilman and a classmate embarked on a bold trek around the globe starting in the People's Republic of China. At that point, China had been open to independent backpackers for roughly ten minutes. Armed only with the collected works of Nietzsche and Linda Goodman's Love Signs, the two friends plunged into the dusty streets of Shanghai. Unsurprisingly, they quickly found themselves in over their heads--hungry, disoriented, stripped of everything familiar, and under constant government surveillance. Soon, they began to unravel--one physically, the other psychologically. As their journey became increasingly harrowing, they found themselves facing crises that Susan didn't think they'd survive. But by summoning strengths she never knew she had--and with help from unexpected friends--the two travelers found their way out of a Chinese heart of darkness. "

Now this is what a travel memoir should be- funny, poignant, and ultimately redemptive. Gilman's account of her travels through China are beautifully drawn. From her initial crisis of homesickness through her desperation to find something familiar in an alien environment, Gilman is painfully truthful and so her story resonates. Though today's mature reader will immediately see the warning signs in Claire's behavior, Gilman's narative voice is strong enough to carry the reader along, to make you view the story through her younger, infinitely more naive eyes. This book captures a snapshot of a China that no longer exists, and gently mocks a mindset that equates "true adventure" with sometimes life-threatening hardship. This trip had an enormous effect on Gilman, on her life and world view, and she shares those revelations with an admirable honesty and modesty. Truly a wonderful travel memoir- a must read 5 star adventure!

For more info, check out Susan Jane Gilman's blog.

Secrets of Eden by Chris Bohjalian

2010-02-22T12:30:00.005-05:00

Book description:
"There," says Alice Hayward to Reverend Stephen Drew, just after her baptism, and just before going home to the husband who will kill her that evening and then shoot himself. Drew, tortured by the cryptic finality of that short utterance, feels his faith in God slipping away and is saved from despair only by a meeting with Heather Laurent, the author of wildly successful, inspirational books about . . . angels.

Heather survived a childhood that culminated in her own parents' murder-suicide, so she identifies deeply with Alice’s daughter, Katie, offering herself as a mentor to the girl and a shoulder for Stephen – who flees the pulpit to be with Heather and see if there is anything to be salvaged from the spiritual wreckage around him.

But then the State's Attorney begins to suspect that Alice's husband may not have killed himself. . .and finds out that Alice had secrets only her minister knew.

This wonderful novel features Bohjalian's signature style. The dense yet lyrical prose carries the reader away and makes this book almost impossible to put down. The individual characters rise off the page and live, pulling the reader into an emotional investment with the story. Stephen, Heather, and Katie were the most successful and relatable narrators in this novel; I found neither Catherine's voice nor her story compelling which made for a disappointing midsection.

Without giving any spoilers, I will say the plot twist was something I speculated about early on which reduced its emotional impact as the story drew to a close. I also found it rather hard to relate to the angel theme that runs throughout the story; it never really connected emotionally for me despite Heather's personal experiences. Regardless, this a wonderful offering from a talented writer- highly recommended.

Love this mock PSA from Unbridled Books!

2010-02-17T11:36:00.001-05:00

Unbridled Books P.S.A. from Unbridled Books on Vimeo.

Never Tell Our Business to Strangers: A Memoir by Jennifer Mascia

2010-02-09T09:06:00.004-05:00

Book Description:
"When Jennifer Mascia is five years old, the FBI comes for her father. At that moment Jenny realizes that her family isn’t exactly normal. What follows are months of confusion marked by visits with her father through thick glass, talking to him over a telephone attached to the wall. She and her mother crisscross the country, from California to New York to Miami and back again. When her father finally returns home, months later, his absence is never explained—and Jenny is told that the family has a new last name. It’s only much later that Jenny discovers that theirs was a life spent on the lam, trying to outrun the law.

Thus begins the story of Jennifer Mascia’s bizarre but strangely magical childhood. An only child, she revels in her parents’ intense love for her—and rides the highs and lows of their equally passionate arguments. They are a tight-knit band, never allowing many outsiders in. And then there are the oddities that Jenny notices only as she gets older: the fact that her father had two names before he went away—in public he was Frank, but at home her mother called him Johnny; the neat, hidden hole in the carpet where her parents keep all their cash. The family sees wild swings in wealth—one year they’re shopping for Chanel and Louis Vuitton at posh shopping centers in Los Angeles, the next they’re living in one room and subsisting on food stamps.

What have her parents done? What was the reason for her father’s incarceration so many years ago? When Jenny, at twenty-two, uncovers her father’s criminal record during an Internet search, still more questions are raised. By then he is dying of cancer, so she presses her mother for answers, eliciting the first in a series of reluctant admissions about her father’s criminal past. Before her mother dies, four years later, Jenny is made privy to one final, riveting confession, which sets her on a search for the truth her mother fought to conceal for so many years. As Jenny unravels her family’s dark secrets, she must confront the grisly legacy she has inherited and the hard truth that her parents are not—and have never been—who they claimed to be."

This true tale of one woman's childhood on the run from her parents' criminal activities is deeply personal and poignant in parts, though ultimately the narrative voice kept me from sinking completely into the story. Jennifer Mascia, whose life was shaped by the activities of her parents and a past she didn't learn about until after her father's death, is certainly exorcising her fair share of demons here, and rightfully so.

I definitely felt for the lonely child so caught up in her parents dramas, though I thought the book itself could have been more tightly edited. It does get repetitive in places, and seemingly builds toward narrative peaks that then somehow are revealed as only plateaus. I also didn't appreciate Mascia's moments of self-loathing when she speaks of wearing size 14/16 pants; it was off-putting and didn't seem to fit into the narrative.

Though Mascia herself seems to have forgiven her parents for her unconventional upbringing, it is hard for the reader to do the same. Though her parents undoubtedly loved her, they certainly seemed to love themselves more, and gave little to no thought to the impact their actions would have on their young impressionable child. Well-written and even conversational in parts, this book certainly highlights the seamy side of life in the Mafia while demonstrating the painful effect parents can have on their children. Raw in parts, this memoir is nevertheless painfully honest- a solid offering from a novice writer.

Benjamin Pratt and the Keepers of the School: We the Children by Andrew Clements

2010-02-09T00:50:00.008-05:00

Book description:
"Benjamin Pratt's harbor-side school is going to be bulldozed to make room for an amusement park. It sounds like a dream come true...or is it more like a nightmare? Something about the plan seems fishy, and Lyman, the new assistant janitor, seems even fishier. When Ben and his friend Jill start digging for answers, they find things that the people with money and power don't want them to see. Could the history hidden deep within an old school building actually overthrow a thirty-million-dollar real-estate deal? And how far will the developers go to keep that from happening? Ben and Jill are about to discover just how dangerous a little knowledge can be."

I really enjoyed this introduction to Clements' new series that focuses on two kids' efforts to save their elementary school from an evil corporate takeover. Ben is a delightful character struggling to accept his parents' recent separation; his dislike of change finds a focus in the plans to tear down his school. His partner in crime is the brains of the operation, and her inclusion in the story helps make the book attractive to both boys and girls.

This first installment is a slim volume that serves to introduce the theme and main characters, and sets up the mystery by solving one set of clues and introducing the next. Clements writes with an authentic voice that will appeal to young readers but introduces mature themes that should spark discussions around the dinner table. All in all an excellent read.

Weekends at Bellevue by Julie Holland

2010-02-04T15:12:00.001-05:00

Book description:
"Julie Holland thought she knew what crazy was. Then she came to Bellevue.

New York City’s Bellevue Hospital, the oldest public hospital in the United States, has a tradition of “serving the underserved” that dates back to 1736. For nine eventful years, Dr. Holland was the weekend physician in charge of Bellevue’s psychiatric emergency room, a one-woman front line charged with assessing and treating some of the city’s most vulnerable and troubled citizens, its forgotten and forsaken—and its criminally insane. Deciding who gets locked up and who gets talked down would be an awesome responsibility for most people. For Julie Holland, it was just another day at the office.

Holland provides an unvarnished look at life in the psych ER, recounting stories from her vast case files that are alternately terrifying, tragically comic, and profoundly moving: the serial killer, the naked man barking like a dog in Times Square, the schizophrenic begging for an injection of club soda to quiet the voices in his head, the subway conductor who watched a young woman pushed into the path of his train. As Holland comes to understand, the degree to which someone can lose his or her mind is infinite, and each patient’s pain leaves a mark on her as well—as does the cancer battle of a fellow doctor who is both her best friend and her most trusted mentor."

In this admittedly disjointed memoir, Holland reveals just what it takes to run the weekend shift at one of America's most famous mental hospitals for almost a decade. Not one to sugarcoat reality, Holland paints a disturbing picture of our current mental healthcare priorities, and quite frankly of herself. I'll admit there were plenty of aspects of her life and personality which I found off-putting, but the raw honesty she displays is a testament to her commitment. I'm not sure I'd choose Holland as a friend or as a doctor, but suspect it was her ability to compartmentalize that made it possible for her to do her job and do it fairly well for 9 years.

Ultimately, I would have preferred a slightly more cohesive narrative structure; the book reads like a series of unrelated vignettes until close to the end. That said, this is certainly a book worth reading if you are in the mental health field. Though I could wish for a more sympathetic narrator, I suspect that Holland's rather grim portrayal of herself reflects the real truth about those battling on the front lines of the mental heathcare system- too little time, too few beds, and too little follow-up must wear down even the most optimistic of practitioners.

Knit, Purl, Die by Anne Canadeo

2010-01-21T18:34:00.004-05:00

Book description:
"Gloria Sterling had it all -- money, looks, and a new sexy young husband. So when she's found floating face down in her own swimming pool, shock waves ripple through tiny Plum Harbor. At the Black Sheep Knitting Shop, Maggie Messina and her circle are devastated to lose their dear friend -- a woman as colorful as her fabulous yarn creations.

The police are quick to call it an accident, but sorting out Gloria's final hours leaves too many loose ends to satisfy her friends. The vivacious, fiftysomething cougar had her French manicured tips in more than a few pots, and the threads of some inside deals stashed in her chic knitting tote.

Who was the last person to see Gloria alive on that quiet summer night? Two empty wine glasses suggest she wasn't home alone knitting the entire evening.... The Black Sheep need to know the truth and set out to unravel -- stitch by stitch -- the weighty secrets that pulled poor Gloria under."

This was a light and enjoyable cozy mystery centered on a group of women who share a love of knitting and detecting. Though I haven't read the first book in the Black Sheep Knitting series, I never felt the lack when reading this second installment (though now I'm eager to go back and read the first). Though the mystery and surrounding plot twist weren't hard to figure out, knowing whodunit didn't affect my enjoyment of the book, which is more character than plot driven. A great read for a rainy afternoon, and certainly a must-have for any knitters in your life.

Julie and Julia by Julie Powell

2010-01-18T00:24:00.001-05:00

Flap copy from paperback:
"Nearing thirty and trapped in a dead-end secretarial job, Julie Powell resolved to reclaim her life by cooking, in the span of a single year, every one of the 524 recipes in Julia Child's legendary 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking'. Her unexpected reward: not just a newfound respect for calves' livers and aspic, but a new life- lived with gusto."

I was surprised by this memoir/homage which I thought would be much more heavily food focused than it was. Obviously food (or its preparation) was the common tie between Julie and Julia, but the book is much more about Julia's quest to find herself through the admittedly odd project to cook her way through Julia Child's cookbook. The book is well-written though I often found myself frustrated with the author who seemed very immature in parts.

All in all a decent read for someone who was never exposed to the blog that sparked the novel. I wish I had found the author more sympathetic but as it was, my irritation with her colored my enjoyment of the book. 3 stars.

Enemies of the People by Kati Marton

2010-01-14T14:01:00.001-05:00

Book description:
"You are opening a Pandora's box," Marton was warned when she filed for her family's secret police files in Budapest. But her family history -- during both the Nazi and the Communist periods -- was too full of shadows. The files revealed terrifying truths: secret love affairs, betrayals inside the family circle, torture and brutalities alongside acts of stunning courage -- and, above all, deep family love.

In this true-life thriller, Kati Marton, an accomplished journalist, exposes the cruel mechanics of the Communist Terror State, using the secret police files on her journalist parents as well as dozens of interviews that reveal how her family was spied on and betrayed by friends and colleagues, and even their children's babysitter. In this moving and brave memoir, Marton searches for and finds her parents, and love.

Marton relates her eyewitness account of her mother's and father's arrests in Cold War Budapest and the terrible separation that followed. She describes the pain her parents endured in prison -- isolated from each other and their children. She reveals the secret war between Washington and Moscow, in which Marton and her family were pawns in a much larger game.

Kati Marton's parents were Hungarian journalists working for Western news outlets behind the Iron Curtain, a courageous choice that became reason enough for them to be declared enemies of the people by the Communists in Hungary. The story of their lives as revealed through personal memories and their secret police files makes for an engrossing read on many levels.

The book does a masterful job of peeling back the bare facts that are public knowledge about the Martons to reveal the deeper history of this extraordinary couple. The reader shares the author's sense of discovery as she learns of her Jewish heritage and the true facts of her parents' early lives. Marton's love for her parents combined with her frustration about their unwillingness to discuss the past rings through this memoir; it is the ultimate irony that she only came to know and understand her family history because of the massive secret police files maintained by the government that imprisoned her parents and ripped her family apart.

Well-written and fast-paced, this book was an obvious labor of love that will appeal to readers no matter their level of familiarity with Hungary in the post-war years. Highly recommended.

The Murderer's Daughters by Randy Susan Meyers

2010-01-13T13:47:00.006-05:00

Book description:
"Mama was “no macaroni-necklace-wearing kind of mother.” She was a lipstick and perfume-wearing mother, a flirt whose estranged husband still hungered for her. After Mama threw him out, she warned the girls to never let Daddy in the house, an admonition that tears at ten-year-old Lulu whenever she thinks about the day she opened the door for her drunken father, and watched as he killed her mother, stabbed her five-year-old sister Merry and tried to take his own life.

Effectively orphaned by their mother’s death and father’s imprisonment, Lulu and Merry, unwanted by family members and abandoned to a terrifying group home, spend their young lives carrying more than just the visible scars from the tragedy. Even as their plan to be taken in by a well-to-do foster family succeeds, they come to learn they’ll never really belong anywhere or to anyone—that all they have to hold onto is each other.

As they grow into women, Lulu holds fast to her anger, denies her father’s existence and forces Merry into a web of lies about his death that eventually ensnares her own husband and daughters. Merry, certain their safety rests on placating her needy father, dutifully visits him, seeking his approval and love at the expense of her own relationships. As they strive to carve lives of their own, the specter of their father, unrepentant and manipulative even from behind bars, haunts them. And when they learn he’s about to be paroled, the house of cards they’ve built their lives on teeters on the brink of collapse."

This debut novel tracks the lives of two sisters as they attempt to create lives in the shadow of a harrowing family tragedy. Older sister Lulu must cope with the guilt of opening the door to their father the day he stabbed their mother to death, while younger sister Merry lives with her memories of the murder and her father's failed attempt to kill her and himself. Forced into an orphange by the death of their maternal grandmother, the sisters are lucky enough to find a stable foster family who nonetheless fail them on an emotional level. Betrayed by everyone else, the two sisters form an unhealthy (but understandable) co-dependent relationship marred only by Merry's regular visits to her father and Lulu's refusal to admit he is alive.

I literally couldn't put this book down- it was powerful, heart-breaking, and ultimately redemptive all at the same time. The girls are wonderful characters whose voices and actions ring true without seeming stereotypical. I felt emotionally connected to these girls, invested in their well-being and frantic to try to keep them safe. The author's experience with the victims of violent crime serves her well and gives the reader a wonderful (and terrifying) insight into the lives these victims lead. Highly recommended!

Petropolis by Anya Ulinich

2010-01-11T07:21:00.001-05:00

Book description:
"After losing her father, her boyfriend, and her baby, Sasha Goldberg decides that getting herself to the United States is the surest path to deliverance. But she finds that life in Phoenix with her Red Lobster–loving fiancé isn’t much better than life in Siberia, and so she treks across America on a misadventure-filled search for her long- lost father."

This touching tale of one girl's journey from innocence to mail-order bride tells the story of Sasha Goldberg's quest to find a place for herself in the world. As she travels from Siberia to the United States, Sasha carries a dream of reuniting with her father, a man she has idealized since his departure from Russia years before. Unfortunately, the more time she spends in America, the more Sasha learns about her father and his new life, and the less she is able to maintain that childish vision of him.

I thought this was an excellent look what might drive a young girl to offer herself as a mail-order bride in search of a better life in America. It is definitely a better treatment of this subject than another book I read this year, Moonlight in Odessa. Sasha's situation is never romanticized and the reader definitely feels for her as betrayals build and her disillusionment grows. Well-written and sensitively portrayed, Sasha is a standout protagonist whose moving tale will stick with you long after you finish reading the book. Highly recommended.

When Skateboards Will Be Free by Saïd Sayrafiezadeh

2010-01-10T20:13:00.002-05:00

Book description:
"Saïd’s Iranian-born father and American Jewish mother had one thing in common: their unshakable conviction that the workers’ revolution was coming. Separated since their son was nine months old, they each pursued a dream of the perfect socialist society. Pinballing with his mother between makeshift Pittsburgh apartments, falling asleep at party meetings, longing for the luxuries he’s taught to despise, Said waits for the revolution that never, ever arrives. “Soon,” his mother assures him, while his long-absent father quixotically runs as a socialist candidate for president in an Iran about to fall under the ayatollahs. Then comes the hostage crisis. The uproar that follows is the first time Saïd hears the word “Iran” in school. There he is suddenly forced to confront the combustible stew of his identity: as an American, an Iranian, a Jew, a socialist... and a middle-school kid who loves football and video games."

This memoir was painfully honest and suprisingly rather bleak despite the amusing title. The story of young Said's life as the child of two Socialists was leavened by humor but this reader for one wondered how any adults could so selfishly ignore the needs of their own progeny in favor of the abstract needs of the people. Neither of Said's parents appeared to be fit caretakers for this sensitive child, and his ability to survive and even thrive in that environment is a testimony to his strength of personality. This book is full of hard truths about prejudice, political agitation, and family dysfunction. Highly recommended!

The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley

2010-01-10T18:31:00.006-05:00

Book description:
"Flavia thinks that her days of crime-solving in the bucolic English hamlet of Bishop’s Lacy are over—and then Rupert Porson has an unfortunate rendezvous with electricity. The beloved puppeteer has had his own strings sizzled, but who’d do such a thing and why? For Flavia, the questions are intriguing enough to make her put aside her chemistry experiments and schemes of vengeance against her insufferable big sisters. Astride Gladys, her trusty bicycle, Flavia sets out from the de Luces’ crumbling family mansion in search of Bishop’s Lacey’s deadliest secrets.

Does the madwoman who lives in Gibbet Wood know more than she’s letting on? What of the vicar’s odd ministrations to the catatonic woman in the dovecote? Then there’s a German pilot obsessed with the Brontë sisters, a reproachful spinster aunt, and even a box of poisoned chocolates. Most troubling of all is Porson’s assistant, the charming but erratic Nialla. All clues point toward a suspicious death years earlier and a case the local constables can’t solve—without Flavia’s help. But in getting so close to who’s secretly pulling the strings of this dance of death, has our precocious heroine finally gotten in way over her head?"

This second installment of the series is even more satisfying than the first; Flavia de Luce is without a doubt the most entertaining sleuth to make an appearance in decades. In this story, Flavia finds herself embroiled in the mysterious death of visiting puppeteer Rupert Porson, a BBC personality marooned in Bishop's Lacy by the breakdown of his van. As Flavia learns more about Rupert's many women, she is haunted as well by the bizarre hanging death of five year-old Robin Ingleby some years before.

Flavia remains her wonderful precocious self, using complicated chemical tests to analyze tears, create poisons, and (of course) ultimately solve the mysteries. Though Daffy, Feely and Father all have cameo roles, this story is more focused on other inhabitants of the perfect country town of Bishop's Lacy. The expanded cast of characters makes for an enjoyable read as more quirky personalities act as a foil to Flavia's quiet (and still disturbing) brilliance. The reader can't help but reflect on the likelihood that Flavia might one day find herself on the other side of the magnifying glass.

Once I started, I couldn't put this one down- Flavia and her quest for truth is just that compelling. Alan Bradley has another hit on his hands, and fans of Flavia have even more evidence to support their passion. My only regret is the time I will have to wait to read the third installment of Flavia's story...

Saving Cicadas by Nicole Seitz

2010-01-02T17:42:00.003-05:00

Book description:
"When single mother Priscilla Lynn Macy learns she's having another child unexpectedly, she packs the family into the car to escape. Eight-year-old Janie and Rainey Dae, her seventeen-year-old sister with special needs, embark on the last family vacation they'll ever take with Poppy and Grandma Mona in the back seat.

The trip seems aimless until Janie realizes they are searching for the father who left them years ago. When they can't find him, they make their way to Forest Pines, SC. Priscilla hasn't been to her family home in many years and finds it a mixed blessing of hope, buried secrets, and family ghosts.

Through eyes of innocence, Janie learns the hard realities of life and the difficult choices grownups make. And she must face disturbing truths about the people she loves in order to carry them in the moments that matter most."

I selected this book thinking it would be an appealing addition to my growing collection of Southern fiction. Nothing in the description prepared me for the overwhelming Christian elements and the heavy-handed anti-abortion message that form the basis for the narrative. Though the characters of Janie, Rainey and Priscilla are appealing and the folksy tone consistent, I was very disappointed by the way Priscilla's dilemma was treated. The talk of God and angels was off-putting and overly simplistic as was the treatment of Rainey's special needs. The surprise twist was so telegraphed that it lost any effect and just served to further increase my dissatisfaction with this book. A more even-handed treatment of Priscilla's choices and a greater understanding of why she made them could have made this a powerful book about the dilemma of an unplanned pregnancy; instead it reads as a shallow and preachy piece of propoganda. Disappointing read- the book description should definitely indicate that this is Christian fiction to help people make a more informed purchasing decision.

The Flying Troutmans by Miriam Toews

2009-12-31T21:09:00.007-05:00

Flap copy from hardcover:
"Some families appear destined for catastrophe: meet the Troutmans. Hattie's boyfriend has just dumped her, her sister Min is back in the psych ward, and Min's kids, Logan and Thebes, are not talking and talking way too much, respectively.

Then there's the past, in which Min tried to kill Hattie once, and to kill herself a lot, in which Min threw the kids' father out of the house, in which Hattie dropped out of school, in which Logan and his friends kidnapped a friend and in which Thebes frequently impersonated their troubled mom in order to cut class.

So, when Hattie returns to take care of her niece and nephew, she's rapidly freaked out by the realization that the responsibility is in fact far greater than she'd expected- cute as it may be, for example, that Logan is infatuated with acerbic New York Times Magazine interviewer Deborah Solomon, and charming as Thebes' hip-hop vernacular is, she's in danger of becoming their surrogate parent. She decides to take the kids in the family van (think Little Miss Sunshine) to go find their father, last heard to be running an idiosyncratic art gallery in South Dakota.

What ensues is a remarkable journey across the United States, as aunt and kids - through chaos as diverse as their personalities - discover one another to be both far crazier and far more normal than any of them thought."

This book was by turns funny and moving and tragic. The quirky character traits the children exhibit definitely spark a smile, but it is a sad smile as you realize why they were forced to develop these defense mechanisms. None of the adults in the books act actually like adults (most of the time) which is truly unfair to these children. Hattie is certainly not prepared to act as a parent; in their own way, Thebes and Logan are the most grown-up characters in the story.

I thought that Min's mental illness was handled with sensitivity and accuracy, especially as it impacted the lives of those around her. I was also impressed with Hattie's character development as the novel progressed. This novel doesn't present any answers to the questions raised in the narrative- it is just a story of a family trying to cope the best way they can. Impressive and enjoyable read.

The Crying Tree by Naseem Rakha

2009-12-31T20:09:00.001-05:00

Flap copy from ARC:
"Irene and Nate Stanley are living a quiet and contented life with their two children, Bliss and Shep, on their family farm in southern Illinois when Nate suddenly announces he’s been offered a job as a deputy sheriff in Oregon. Irene fights her husband. She doesn’t want to uproot her family and has deep misgivings about the move. Nevertheless, the family leaves, and they’re just settling into their life in Oregon’s high desert when the unthinkable happens. Fifteen-year-old Shep is shot and killed during an apparent robbery in their home. The murderer, a young mechanic with a history of assault, robbery, and drug-related offenses, is caught and sentenced to death.

Shep’s murder sends the Stanley family into a tailspin, with each member attempting to cope with the tragedy in his or her own way. Irene’s approach is to live, week after week, waiting for Daniel Robbin’s execution and the justice she feels she and her family deserve. Those weeks turn into months and then years. Ultimately, faced with a growing sense that Robbin’s death won’t stop her pain, Irene takes the extraordinary and clandestine step of reaching out to her son’s killer. The two forge an unlikely connection that remains a secret from her family and friends.

Then Irene receives the notice that she had craved for so long – Daniel Robbin has stopped his appeals and will be executed within a month. This announcement shakes the very core of the Stanley family. Irene, it turns out, isn’t the only one with a shocking secret. As the execution date nears, the Stanleys must face difficult truths and find a way to come to terms with the past."

This was without a doubt the most powerful book I read this year. This deeply moving family drama pulled me in from the first page- I just couldn't put it down. To me, this wasn't really a book about the death penalty but rather about family and love and the nature of forgiveness and of justice. Irene's journey through pain and suffering to a place of comfort was remarkable, and I don't mind admiting that this book reduced me to tears more than once. The ending was a surprise to me, one that only increased my respect for this author. This incredible novel is definitely a dark and yet wonderfully redemptive story; a highly recommended must-read!

Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell

2009-12-31T19:09:00.002-05:00

Flap copy from paperback:
"Dr. Peter Brown is an intern at Manhattan's worst hospital. He has a talent for medicine, a shift from hell, and a past he'd prefer to keep hidden. Pietro Brwna is a hit man for the mob, with a genius for violence, a well-earned fear of sharks, and an overly close relationship with the Federal Witness Protection Program. Nicolas LoBrutto is Dr. Brown's new patient, with three months to live and a very strange idea: that Peter Brown and Pietro Brwna might- just might- be the same person...

As goons, G-men, and death itself descend on the hospital, Dr. Brown must so whatever it takes to save his patients, himself, and his last shot at redemption. He just has to get through the next eight hours- and somehow beat the Reaper."

This book is a fast-paced, often terrifying ride, a literary marriage of House and the Sopranos. The main character is crude, frightening and cold-hearted, and yet he is one of the more appealing characters in the book! As the true story of his past unfolds, Peter/Pietro becomes a deeper, less stererotypical character (though no less terrifying). The dark humor and the sheer force and energy of the writing make this an excellent debut novel, though the language and the medicine are not for the faint-hearted! 4.5 stars.

Songs for the Missing by Stewart O'Nan

2009-12-31T18:09:00.001-05:00

Flap copy from paperback:
"It was the summer of her Chevette, of J.P., and letting her hair grow. It is also the summer when, without warning, college-bound Kim Larsen disappears from her quiet Lake Erie town. As time passes and local search parties give way to wider television appearances, private investigations unearth dirty secrets, those closest to Kim struggle to maintain hope and, finally, as the news cameras turn away, to hang onto both her and themselves."

This is a powerful novel about any parent's worst nightmare- the sudden dissapearance of a child. O'Nan focuses on the effect that disappearance has on the people left behind- the anxious parents, the bewildered sister, the guilt-ridden friends. As the police investigation and search stall, the Larsen family graducally faces the possibility that they might never find an answer to what happened to Kim on that summer afternoon. The story is both poignant and terrifying- a truly excellent read. Highly recommended!

True Colors by Kristin Hannah

2009-12-31T17:09:00.002-05:00

Book descrption:
"The Grey sisters have always been close. After their mother’s death, the girls banded together, becoming best friends. Their stern, disapproving father cares less about his children than about his reputation. To Henry Grey, appearances are everything, and years later, he still demands that his daughters reflect his standing in the community.

Winona, the oldest, needs her father’s approval most of all. An overweight bookworm who never felt at home on the sprawling horse ranch that has been in her family for three generations, she knows that she doesn’t have the qualities her father values. But as the best lawyer in town, she’s determined to someday find a way to prove her worth to him.

Aurora, the middle sister, is the family peacemaker. She brokers every dispute and tries to keep them all happy, even as she hides her own secret pain.

Vivi Ann is the undisputed star of the family. A stunningly beautiful dreamer with a heart as big as the ocean in front of her house, she is adored by all who know her. Everything comes easily for Vivi Ann, until a stranger comes to town. . . .

In a matter of moments, everything will change. The Grey sisters will be pitted against one another in ways that none could have imagined. Loyalties will be tested and secrets revealed, and a terrible, shocking crime will shatter both their family and their beloved town."

This enjoyable novel started out strong, but became too unbelieveable and melodramatic toward the end for my taste. Hannah does a good job of fully developing her characters and explaining their motivations, but I just couldn't understand why they all continued to interact with one another as the story developed- no family ties are that strong! I felt Aurora was definitely the middle child- she appeared to function more as a foil to her sisters than as a character in her own right. Winona had really no redeeming qualities that I could find, and her actions up until the very end of the novel were all reprehensible; I simply could not find it in me to empatize with her. The book is definitely a good read, but is not Hannah's best effort as it veered toward soap-opera territory at times.

What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman

2009-12-31T16:09:00.002-05:00

Flap copy from paperback:
"Thirty years ago, the Bethany girls, ages eleven and fifteen, disappeared from a Baltimore shopping mall. They never returned, their bodies were never recovered, and only painful questions remain. Now, in the aftermath of a rush-hour hit-and-run accident, a clearly disoriented woman is claiming to be Heather, the younger Bethany sister. Not a shred of evidence supports her story, and every lead she reluctantly offers takes the police to another dead end—a dying, incoherent man; a razed house; a missing grave. But she definitely knows something about that terrible day—and about the shocking fissures that the tragedy exposed in the foundation of a seemingly solid family."

This excellent novel about two missing girls kept me guessing all the way to the powerful and riveting conclusion. Lippman is a wonderful writer, and I found myself unable to put this book down until I read it all the way through. The tragic tale of two girls who disappeared one afternoon and the effect that disappearance had on the lives of those around them is wrapped up the gradual unraveling of the truth behind that afternoon, and the many shadings of guilt that surround Heather and Bethany's disappearance. Despite bouncing between perspectives and time, this novel never loses momentum; Lippman keeps the tension building as the story rockets toward the truth. Highly recommended.

The Last Will of Moira Leahy by Therese Walsh

2009-12-31T15:09:00.001-05:00

Book description:
"This haunting debut novel explores the intense bond of sisterhood as a grieving twin searches for her own identity in the ruins of her sister's past.

A LOST SHADOW
Moira Leahy struggled growing up in her prodigious twin's shadow; Maeve was always more talented, more daring, more fun. In the autumn of the girls' sixteenth year, a secret love tempted Moira, allowing her to have her own taste of adventure, but it also damaged the intimate, intuitive relationship she'd always shared with her sister. Though Moira's adolescent struggles came to a tragic end nearly a decade ago, her brief flirtation with independence will haunt her sister for years to come.

A LONE WOMAN
When Maeve Leahy lost her twin, she left home and buried her fun-loving spirit to become a workaholic professor of languages at a small college in upstate New York. She lives a solitary life now, controlling what she can and ignoring the rest–the recurring nightmares, hallucinations about a child with red hair, the unquiet sounds in her mind, her reflection in the mirror. It doesn't help that her mother avoids her, her best friend questions her sanity, and her not-quite boyfriend has left the country. But at least her life is ordered. Exactly how she wants it.

A SHARED PAST
Until one night at an auction when Maeve wins a keris,a Javanese dagger that reminds her of her lost youth and happier days playing pirates with Moira in their father's boat. Days later, a book on weaponry is nailed to her office door, followed by the arrival of anonymous notes, including one that invites her to Rome to learn more about the blade and its legendary properties. Opening her heart and mind to possibility, Maeve accepts the invitation and, with it, also opens a window into her past.

Ultimately, she will revisit the tragic November night that shaped her and Moira's destinies–and learn that nothing can be taken at face value–as one sister emerges whole and the other's score is finally settled."

This moving story of twin sisters Moira and Maeve and the ties that bind them together is an excellent debut novel. The story blends seamlessly Maeve's present-day quest to learn more about an antique knife that drew her at a local auction with her memories of sharing a colorful Maine childhood with her twin sister Moira. As Maeve unravels the mystery of the keris so does the reader unravel the truth of what happened between Moira and Maeve, a mystery so devastating it led Maeve to try to suppress every hint of her former self. The quality of the prose and the underlying feeling of the book itself reminded me of The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel. The mystical elements are subtle and add a unique ethereal feeling to this well-written and wonderful book- highly recommended!

One Amazing Thing by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

2009-12-31T13:57:00.007-05:00

Book description:
"Late afternoon sun sneaks through the windows of a passport and visa office in an unnamed American city. Most customers and even most office workers have come and gone, but nine people remain. A punky teenager with an unexpected gift. An upper-class Caucasian couple whose relationship is disintegrating. A young Muslim-American man struggling with the fallout of 9/11. A graduate student haunted by a question about love. An African-American ex-soldier searching for redemption. A Chinese grandmother with a secret past. And two visa office workers on the verge of an adulterous affair.

When an earthquake rips through the afternoon lull, trapping these nine characters together, their focus first jolts to their collective struggle to survive. There's little food. The office begins to flood. Then, at a moment when the psychological and emotional stress seems nearly too much for them to bear, the young graduate student suggests that each tell a personal tale, "one amazing thing" from their lives, which they have never told anyone before."

This well-written and well-imagined book offers readers a diverse collection of stories that help explain exactly how nine different individuals found themselves in the visa office of the Indian Consulate during an earthquake. The characters were certainly a group of unique individuals, but each could have been further fleshed-out to create a more satisfying experience for the reader. I would have appreciate more interaction and evidence of charcter growth in the present-day circumstances, rather than just the backstories presented in the narrative. I also wasn't too thrilled with the rather abrupt ending (nothing more on that to avoid any spoliers). All in all, an enjoyable read that left me feeling vaguely dissatisified because I feel it could have been so much more. 3.5 stars.

Saving Cee Cee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman

2009-12-17T12:50:00.003-05:00

Book description:
"Twelve-year-old CeeCee Honeycutt is in trouble. For years, she has been the caretaker of her psychotic mother, Camille-the tiara-toting, lipstick-smeared laughingstock of an entire town-a woman trapped in her long-ago moment of glory as the 1951 Vidalia Onion Queen. But when Camille is hit by a truck and killed, CeeCee is left to fend for herself. To the rescue comes her previously unknown great-aunt, Tootie Caldwell.

In her vintage Packard convertible, Tootie whisks CeeCee away to Savannah's perfumed world of prosperity and Southern eccentricity, a world that seems to be run entirely by women. From the exotic Miz Thelma Rae Goodpepper, who bathes in her backyard bathtub and uses garden slugs as her secret weapons, to Tootie's all-knowing housekeeper, Oletta Jones, to Violene Hobbs, who entertains a local police officer in her canary-yellow peignoir, the women of Gaston Street keep CeeCee entertained and enthralled for an entire summer. "

In this heartwarming Southern tale, CeeCee Honeycutt searches for a safe-haven from her troubled life with an absentee father and mentally-ill mother. When CeeCee's mother is killed, her father sends her to live with her mother's Aunt Tootie in Savannah. There she finds love and acceptance even as she faces racism, violence, and a series of crazy neighbors.

Though the story is fairly predictable and cliches of Southern literature abound, this book is still an enjoyable read. CeeCee is a well-fleshed character, one whose reactions and dialogue ring true. Aunt Tootie and her cook Oletta are also well-written and help ground the story. Even though there is little narrative tension and everyone is ready to live happily-ever-after by the last page, there are some elements of the novel that hint at bigger and better offerings from Beth Hoffman in the future.

This book makes for a light and pleasant read; 3.5 stars.

The Sweetheart of Prosper County by Jill Alexander

2009-12-16T15:08:00.001-05:00

Book description:
"Almost-15-year-old Austin Gray is tired of standing at the curb and watching the parade pass her by. Literally. She decides this is the year she’ll ride on the hood of a shiny pickup truck in the annual parade, waving to the crowd and finally showing the town bully that she’s got what it takes to be the Sweetheart of Prosper County.

But far from simply being a beauty contest, becoming Sweetheart involves participation in the Future Farmers of America (FFA), raising an animal, and hunting or fishing. Austin will do almost anything to become Sweetheart, and has the support of her oldest friend, Maribel, her new FFA friends (including the reigning Sweetheart, and a quiet, cute cowboy), an evangelical Elvis impersonator, a mysterious Cajun outcast, and a rooster named Charles Dickens. If only her momma would stop overprotecting her, and start letting Austin live her own life. But Austin can’t move on until Momma moves on, too—and lets the grief of losing Austin’s daddy several years before out into the open."

I really enjoyed this sweet and heartwarming book story; Austin is a great character who definitely tugs at the reader's heartstrings. Her quest to find acceptance through her town's annual Christmas parade leads her on a journey of discovery that ultimately helps move her life forward in wonderful and unexpected ways. I thought the relationship between Austin and her mother was compelling, especially given the loss of her father in a freak accident years ago; Austin's attempts to become more popular help bring her mother through the final stages of the grieving process. The themes of friendship, bullying, and even first love are sensitively handled by Alexander. My only complaint is that the book felt a bit light; it was short and sweet but could have been further fleshed out to make a longer deeper book that would have revealed more about Austin to the reader. Great read; highly recommended.

The Wrong Mother by Sophie Hannah

2009-12-02T16:33:00.003-05:00

Flap copy from paperback:
"Sally Thorning is watching the news with her her husband when she hears a name she never thought she'd hear again: Mark Bretherick. It's a name she shouldn't recognize. Last year, a work trip Sally had planned was canceled at the last minute. Desperate for a break from juggling her job and a young family, Sally didn't tell her husband that the trip had fallen through. Instead, she treated herself to a secret vacation in a remote hotel. While she was there, Sally met a man- Mark Bretherick.

All the details are the same: where he lives, his job, his wife Geraldine and daughter Lucy. Except that the photograph on the news is of a man Sally has never seen before. And Geraldine and Lucy Bretherick are both dead..."

This dark thriller starts out with a bang, quite literally, and keeps ratcheting up the suspense until the shocking end. Sally Thorning's life takes a turn toward the surreal when she discovers the man with whom she shared a weeklong affair is not in fact the man she thought he was. As she attempts to unravel that mystery, police are investigating the apparent murder-suicide of that man's wife and daughter. As the book alternates between Sally's deteriorating situation and the police investigation, the suspense and questions build toward a stunning crescendo.

This book kept me guessing until the very end, and left me eerily staring over my shoulder on the street. The story is quietly dark and I was impressed by the thrills the author achieved in this psychological drama. The writing was tight and the voice never faltered though it was sometimes hard to understand Sally's actions in light of developing events. The Wrong Mother was my first exposure to Sophie Hannah- I'm delighted to discover she has other books I can add to my wishlist. Highly recommended psychological thriller.

Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin

2009-12-01T22:50:00.005-05:00

Book description:
"But oh my dear, I am tired of being Alice in Wonderland. Does it sound ungrateful?"

Alice Liddell Hargreaves’s life has been a richly woven tapestry: As a young woman, wife, mother, and widow, she’s experienced intense passion, great privilege, and greater tragedy. But as she nears her eighty-first birthday, she knows that, to the world around her, she is and will always be only “Alice.” Her life was permanently dog-eared at one fateful moment in her tenth year–the golden summer day she urged a grown-up friend to write down one of his fanciful stories.

That story, a wild tale of rabbits, queens, and a precocious young child, becomes a sensation the world over. Its author, a shy, stuttering Oxford professor, does more than immortalize Alice–he changes her life forever. But even he cannot stop time, as much as he might like to. And as Alice’s childhood slips away, a peacetime of glittering balls and royal romances gives way to the urgent tide of war.

For Alice, the stakes could not be higher, for she is the mother of three grown sons, soldiers all. Yet even as she stands to lose everything she treasures, one part of her will always be the determined, undaunted Alice of the story, who discovered that life beyond the rabbit hole was an astonishing journey."

From the moment I started this engaging novel, I was pulled into the story, unable to put the book down until I finished. This well-imagined look at the life of Alice Liddell, the "real" Alice in Wonderland. Though I loved Alice in Wonderland, I had never read anything about the author or the inspiration before- this book has sparked a desire to pick up some non-fiction books on these fascinating characters.

I thought the author did a wonderful job with the voice and tone of the narrator- adult Alice looking back on a life lived in the shadow of her childhood self was both poignant and a little heartbreaking. Faced with a cold, even austere, mother and a manipulative, self-involved sister, Alice was obviously the odd child out from her behavior and dreams to her short bobbed hair. I can easily imagine that it was that difference, that sense that Alice was an adult in a child's body, that attracted and fixed the attention of a young Charles Dodgson with such split results (wonderful for literature, terrible for Alice).

Though the true story of what happened between Charles Dogson and Alice Liddell will likely never be known, this excellent novel by Melanie Benjamin rings true in both its ambivalence and its presentation of the motivations of the main characters. By far one of my favorite reads of the year, Alice I Have Been would be a welcome addition to any reader's library. Highly recommended!