November has come and gone!

Why is time going so fast?  Maybe because I did my October Reviews in the middle of November and now it's time for November reviews! It was a good month of reading for me, though I didn't read as much as I had hoped! So here goes:

1) All the Children Are Home by Patry Francis: This book was a surprise to me.  I bought it at a small bookstore in Webster Groves, MO (The Novel Neighbor-great store) without having ever heard of it.  It turned out that I really liked it!

It is about a couple who began fostering children and after eleven years, felt that their family was complete with the four children who lived with them. The mother had conditions for taking in children-no babies, delinquents, and especially no girls. But a six-year-old girl, who had been taken from her home for neglect and abuse, became available and the parents were asked to keep her just until another foster home was available.

Six-year-old Agnes won over the family and changed them over time in ways that were never expected. It is a very heartwarming story that won my heart! (By the way, has anyone else heard of the name Patry?)

2) Anxious People by Fredrik Bachman: This book has had a lot of critical acclaim and people loving it.  I just wasn't taken with it.

The story is about eight strangers who were looking at an apartment that was for sale and while there, a failed bank robber appeared at the apartment and then hold the people hostage.  There were some funny moments in the story, but I just never cared much about the characters.  It's odd because I really love a couple of his books.

3) Purgatory Ridge by William Kent Krueger: The third book of the Cork O'Connor series. And another good mystery that takes place up around the Boundary Waters. As I wrote last month-I recommend reading these. They are well-written stories!

4) Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler: Ms. Tyler is a longtime favorite of mine, but I just didn't care much for this story. It was about a middle-aged man who had his life routines disrupted by his "woman friend" and a young boy who showed up at his house. I was very disappointed with the book.

5) The Forest of Vanishing Stars by Kristen Harmel: Thankfully, because I have read a couple of Ms. Harmel's books, I stuck with this one.  I kept thinking it was too preposterous to be true. 

The story began with a young baby being stolen from her home one evening.  The woman who took the baby girl raised her in the wilderness of the forests in Poland teaching her everything when would need to know about survival. As the girl got older, she learned that there were groups of Jews hiding in the forests. She knew nothing about the war that was occurring and learned that a group of people called Nazis wanted to hunt down these people and kill them. Eventually, she began teaching a group that she had come across in the woods about survival techniques, etc. to help them live. She began to learn how to interact and socialize with others and they all became her family.

I just kept on reading the book, not sure where it was going and not especially happy that I was reading it. Until the end. I loved the ending and then was able to read the author's notes after the ending and learned that, of course, the story was based on real events. It is a book that I will read again and look at it differently. I should have trusted the author!!!

October Books Read

 

I'm extra late posting for October, but I was gone for the last two weeks, so I am just catching up now! I read seven books in October and I guess traveling and sitting poolside in Mexico is conducive to reading!

1+2) I read the first two of William Kent Krueger's Cork O'Connor mystery series: Iron Lake and Boundary Waters. Cork O'Connor was a former sheriff in upper Minnesota, who was hired to solve crimes up in the area that he had previously worked. I found these first two mysteries to be quite compelling to read. This series began 20 years ago and the 18th book of the series is just out! I've decided to read one of the books each month, so I don't burn out on the series! His books Ordinary Grace and This Tender Land are among my favorite books. I love his writing and these books are as well written as his other books!

3) The Ambassador's Daughter by Pam Jenoff. This author's historical writing never fails to hit the mark. This book takes place in 1919.  Margot was the daughter of a German ambassador who accompanied her father to Paris and was quite happy there, despite having a fiance who had been badly wounded in the war, and was waiting at home for her. When a peace conference began outside of Paris, Margot had to go there with her father and found a job there to pass her time working for Georg. As Margot was there, she began to question her loyalties and had to work through what she thought was right and wrong.  It was a good story.

4) The Survivors by Jane Harper. As readers of the blog know, I recently became a big fan of Jane Harper's novels.  This newest one was as good as the others! In the novel, Kieran Elliot brought his wife and young baby back to his hometown for a visit.  They stayed with Keiran's parents and Keiran's brother's death was always present. When his brother died it had changed Keiran's life forever.  While Keiran was visiting, a young girl's body was found on the beach one morning and as the investigation went on, long ago secrets began to reveal themselves. It is a really well-written book.  I enjoyed it!

5) The Unwilling by John Hart. Yes, another mystery.  I don't know why. Jason French had just been released from prison after serving 27 months for violence and drugs.  He wanted to reconnect with his family, so he and his young brother Gibby spent a day together, and then, as the day was ending, a young woman in their car began taunting a busload of prisoners.  A few days later she was found dead and Jason was the prime suspect.  Gibby got involved trying to prove his brother's innocence and soon he was also a suspect after another girl was found dead. This is a complicated, compelling story! I highly recommend it!

6) Oh William by Elizabeth Strout. Oh Elizabeth, how much I loved this book! If you recall, Ms. Strout had written a book called My Name is Lucy Barton a few years ago.  In Oh William, Lucy is telling the story of her ex-husband William.  William discovered/unearthed some startling results when he began studying his genealogy. He asked Lucy to go with him on a trip to investigate what he had found.

This novel was an absolutely beautiful story and completely unexpected! I read it in a few hours. 

7) Where the Forest Meets the Stars by Glendy Vanderah. This was probably my least favorite of the books that I read, but it was still a decent story. Joanne Teale was doing some graduate research and was living in a cabin in southern Illinois for the summer. One day, a girl who called herself Ursa showed up at the cabin. She reported that she had come from the stars and needed to witness five miracles. Joanne could not get any information about who she was, nor where she was from. Joanne enlisted her neighbor Gabe to help her find out about the child.  As the summer went on, the three of them became close, but Ursa's past still remained unknown.  Why was no one looking for her or reporting her missing? It was kind of a feel-good type of book in the end.

Goodbye September!

 Where did September go?  My goodness, but time is going by fast! I had some good reads this month, two in particular:  The Exiles and The Tie That Binds -both by authors who I have enjoyed reading in the past.

1) All the Ugly and Wonderful by Bryn Greenwood: I found this book to be incredibly disturbing.  There was plenty of "ugly", but I really didn't find any "wonderful" in the story. 

A grown man falls in love with an eight-year-old girl and the relationship continues through adulthood. I finished the book because I kept waiting for "wonderful" to happen, but nothing wonderful happened as far as I was concerned. So that's my very brief review of that book!

2) Raven Black by Ann Cleeves was a delightful surprise to me.  I didn't have very high expectations for this mystery, but it turned out to be quite intriguing. 

A young girl was found murdered on the Shetland Islands and the crime appeared to be similar to an old unsolved murder in which an old, lonely man was always considered to be the prime person of interest. As he is with the recent murder. This is the first of a series and I will continue on with it! I never suspected who the murderer was

3) The Tie That Binds by Kent Haruf was a delight.  He is one of my favorite authors and I couldn't believe that I hadn't read this one! It was written in 1984, the first of his novels, and like his later novels, takes place in Colorado.  His characters in all of his books are so well-developed that I always feel as if I may know them! 

This novel is about eighty-year-old Edith Goodnough.  It began with Edith in the hospital recovering with a police officer guarding her.  She had been charged with murder. This sweet old lady who never married and gave up her own chance of happiness to care for the family and their farm, living with her abusive father for years, whilst her brother took off one day, leaving her alone with their father. The brother didn't return for years.  This story of Edith is so beautifully told by her neighbor.  A lovely read.

4) When We Believed in Mermaids by Barbara O'Neal was quite a disappointment to me.  It began being quite interesting, but the end was really lacking for me.  

Two sisters, Kit and Josie, who grew up in California had spent most of their lives surfing when they could. When they became adults, Kit became an ER doctor, while Josie continued to search for the perfect wave.  Until one day, Kit learned that Josie had been killed in Europe by a terrorist attack. Fifteen years later, Kit sees Josie on television. She was leaving a club in New Zealand that had caught on fire. It was unmistakably Josie, so Kit went to New Zealand to find her. While searching for Josie, Kit recalls long-ago memories of secrets and traumas that the family had lived through.  It was a good read until near the end when everything went "chick read".

5) The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline was a great read! I am sorry that I let it sit for so long on my TBR pile.

This novel is about women in the1840s who were convicted of a crime (or crimes) in England and were sentenced to a penal colony in Australia. One of the main characters in the book was Evangaline the daughter of a minister, who was left penniless when he died so a position was found for her as a governess for a wealthy family.  She fell in love with the older son, who seduced her and gave her a family heirloom, a ruby ring.  The son left on a trip and the ring was discovered in Evangeline's room.  When the family learned that she was also pregnant, Evangeline was charged with theft and taken to prison.  A few months later she was sentenced to Australia. The women were put on an old slave ship and there Evangaline met others who she would be with for seven to fourteen years, depending on their sentence. The women helped each other, including when Evangeline gave birth to her daughter.

There were many notable characters in the book, including Hazel, a young girl who was also a midwife. Hazel had street smarts and helped Evangeline navigate Australia. And there was Mathinna, the daughter of a chief, who was taken by a wealthy English family to be raised as an example of what could be done with the heathens.

It's a long book, based on true events.  I learned a lot about the history of how women were treated (as slaves).  I enjoyed this book very much!

6) Another book by Kent Haruf that I had not read: Where You Once Belonged. It is interesting to me that I didn't like this book the way I have liked his others.  I wasn't satisfied with the ending, but I can't quite figure out why. I think I wanted more clarity, but I also think that is what the author intended!

The book began with a big red Cadillac coming into Holt, Colorado, and just parking in the spot where all the town could see. The driver never got out, just sat in the car.  Eventually, people in town learned that it was Jack Burnett.  Jack had left town eight years before, leaving his wife and children and many debts. No one had ever heard from him since that time.

This small novel described who Jack was growing up and all that he had going for him.  Until that one day when he left town. It is a good character study of a man who has it all and then his life goes bad. 

August reads

I read six books in August, with one of them being one of my very favorite reads of the year!

1) The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine: Amber was discontent with her life and decided that she deserved to be a rich and powerful woman like socialite Daphne Parrish.  Amber arranged for them to literally run into each other where Amber conveniently dropped a magazine that was about cystic fibrous. Daphne questioned her about having the magazine and Amber told her that she had a younger sister who had died from it. Which was a lie, but Amber had done her research and knew that Daphne's younger sister died of it.  So that's how Amber began their friendship. She quickly insinuated herself into Daphne's life.  And eventually into Daphne's husband Jackson's life.

I'll say no more, other than it was a good story with some nice twists to it!  It would be a good book club read!

2) Beneath A Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan: This was on my radar for a long time, and I finally picked it up.  I'm very glad that I did.  It is a novel based on a true story from Italy during World War II.

Pino Lella was a young, carefree teenager until his home in Milan was destroyed by Allie bombs.  He began working for the resistance, helping to lead Jews to Switzerland.  His parents feared for his life doing this work and made him join the German Army hoping that he would be safe during the war. However, Pino was injured and at the age of eighteen was recruited to be a driver for General Hans Leyers, Hitler's leader in Italy.

This afforded Pino the opportunity to spy on the Nazi occupation and pass information on to the resistance.

This is certainly the short version of this long book! The novel is very readable and gripping.  The author became friends with the real Pino and his son who helped him with important details for writing the book. It's a great read!

3) I needed something light after reading the above book, so I picked up On The Island by Tracey Garvis Graves: This was a rather interesting read. Thirty-year-old Anna was hired to tutor sixteen-year-old TJ at the family's summer home on a tropical island. The two of them boarded a private plane to meet TJ's family at the island when their pilot had a heart attack and the plane landed in the ocean.  The pilot was dead, but Anna and TJ were able to make it to shore, but quickly found that no one lived on the island that they were on.  They had to learn survival on their own. 

It was a quick, but interesting read.

4) This is another book that had been on my radar for a long time and I finally dug into it.  The novel is The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne.

The novel began with a young sixteen-year-old girl living in a small Irish village being shamed at Mass by her parish priest, and sent away on a bus by her parents, told to never return.  Her sin? She was pregnant. She boarded a bus to Dublin, wondering what she do, where she would live. 

After she had the baby, she gave him to the nuns to place for adoption.  His parents were Charles and Maud Avery, and Cyril grew up being constantly reminded that he was not a "real Avery". His adopted parents were quite uninvolved with the young boy as he grew.  He met a young man at boarding school.  JulianWoodbead had been to Cyril's home once when they were young and  Cyril never forgot him. They quickly became best friends all through school until they were a bit older and Cyril unexpectedly left Ireland and over the years learned who he really was as a man.

This is a huge book that covers from the 1940s to today. And I loved it.  I haven't read such an interesting and well-written book since I read A Little Life. It will certainly be in my top five favorite reads for 2021.  Maybe my favorite!

5) I finished The Inner Voice of Love by Henri Nouwen.  It seems that I have been reading it forever because I would only read one "Spiritual Imperative" per day for my spiritual reading. This book is called Fr. Nouwen's "secret journal" that he kept when he was going through dark times after the loss of a beloved friendship.  I found it mostly quite helpful with my journey.  Sometimes one of the Imperatives didn't seem to reach me, but most did.  I would recommend this book for those who want to go deeper into their journey.

6) Lastly, I re-read The Book of Lost Names by Kristen Harmel.  I just read it last winter, so the only reason I read it again so soon was that it is the chosen book for the library's book club that meets here. The book club is tomorrow, but I don't have much expectation that anyone will be there.  There was another book club that met at a different time and day at the library and I went to that, and no one came, other than the librarian monitor of the club. She said that since  COVID began, people began to quit coming to that one, but the one scheduled for tomorrow has had people coming sporadically, so I am giving it a try.  I blogged about this book on the 5th of December 2020 if you want to read my review.  It's a good book!

July reads

 My reading seemed down a little in July, probably because we were so busy traveling for three weeks!  Hopefully, it will be picking back up!  I read three books this month, two I liked, one I was a bit disappointed in.  For regular readers of this blog, you may have noticed that I have switched to the Goodreads widget on the side of the blog to show what books I've read.

The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda is a pick for the library book club here for August.  This will be my first time attending, so I hope I like the group!

I did like the book! It was an easy read, kind of a good read for summer! The story took place in a small town in Maine, that was a vacation spot for the wealthy.  Avery had lived in the town all of her life, but Sadie was one of the summer people.  They had developed a friendship over the years and would be inseparable during the summers when Sadie was there.  But the last summer Sadie was there she died.  It was determined to be a suicide, but Avery was convinced that it wasn't. When Sadie's family returned the following year, Avery was determined to learn the truth.

The story was a good mystery and well-written!

I loved Mrs. Lincoln's Sisters by Jennifer Chiaverini!  The story is told in different time periods, going back to 1825 to 1882, but each chapter was well-labeled so I did not have any difficulty keeping up with the book. I didn't realize until I was done reading it that it was a sequel to Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker, so now I will have to read that sometime!

The story centers around Mary Todd Lincon and her sisters and begins in 1875, several years after the death of Mary's husband, Abraham Lincoln.  Mary had been declared insane and was in an institution. Her sisters had great concerns about her as did Robert Lincoln, her only living child.  In the story, the sisters all played a large part in Mary's story, and the book is quite good at describing all of the differences that were between Mary and her sisters as they grew. And how they tried to help Mary after the death of her husband.

I found the book to be fascinating.  I want to learn much more about Mary and about her sisters! 

I just finished City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert and was disappointed with it.  For one thing, it is a huge book! (I had found a hardback copy at the used bookstore and bought it, even though I always prefer paperbacks.) My disappointment was that on the second page of the book, we learn that there was a man involved with Vivian Morris, who was the love of her life.  It's not until page 400, that the reader learns who this man was. 

In-between pages 2-400, the life of Vivian is told.  And it is an interesting story, but way too long for me. She had been asked to leave Vassar after her first year, so her parents sent her to New York to stay with her Aunt Peg.  Aunt Peg owned a run-down theater where she and her staff put on plays for the neighborhood audience. Vivian became their costume designer and made all of the costumes. She was introduced to the nightlife of New York by the showgirls who worked for her Aunt Peg. 

It was all interesting, but I wanted to know more about the man she loved! Ms. Gilbert is certainly a talented author so I don't mean to disparage that.

"Love like that is a deep well, with steep sides.

       Once you fall in, that's it-you will love that person always. "

 

Two more June reads

 Just getting back to my blog after a three-week trip to visit family and friends.  Finished the three weeks away with a 4 day trip to Milwaukee with all of our kids and grandkids.  We had a great time, but it did take us a few days to rest up!  Anyway, all that to say that I didn't get to blogging about the rest of the books that I read in June.

1) Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann: This is a non-fiction

story that is now being made into a movie.  It is the story of the Osage Nation murders in Oklahoma in the early part of the 20th century and the beginning of the FBI.  The Osage Nation in Oklahoma in the 1920s were the richest people in the United States (per capita) because oil had been found under their land.  Then slowly, members of the Osage were being killed or dying under mysterious circumstances. Eventually, the FBI, a new government agency, was called in to investigate not only the deaths of the Osage people, but also the deaths of those who had been investigating the deaths.  It is a fascinating, but sad, story of how the Osage Nation was treated for so long, and how deeply the murders were covered up.

A great read

2) Lisey's Story by Stephen King: While sorting through her husband's papers after his death two years earlier, Lisey began to understand that dark place that Scott (her husband) would go to in his mind at times.  And as she began sorting through memories of their time together, she began to understand just what Scott experienced, and began experiencing it herself.

This has been made into a mini-series and I'm not sure how I feel about seeing it.  The story was interesting most of the time, but I just wasn't feeling the whole demon-like part of the story.  I think Mr. King is a great writer and I love how he develops and writes his characters, which is why I continue to read his books, but the "creepy" part of the books just leave me 'meh'.

When the Apricots Bloom and The Two Lives of Lydia Bird

 I recently read two more books: When the Apricots Bloom by Gina Wilkinson and The Two Lives of Lydia Bird by Josie Silver.  The first one I had never heard of and received for Mother's Day.  The second one I kept seeing recommended on Facebook book sites and decided to try it.

When the Apricots Bloom is a story of three women living in Iraq at the time that Saddam Hussein was their leader.  Two of the women, Huda and Rania, had been childhood friends and they are rather reluctantly reunited as they both face the fear of losing their children to the Iraq regime. Huda was working as a secretary at the Australian embassy and was ordered to befriend Ally, the deputy ambassador's wife, in order to learn any information against America. All three woman have their own secrets and have to trust each other in order to help each other.

This was a good story and I ended up quite liking it!

I really struggled with The Two Lives of Lydia Bird and about halfway through it I almost gave up on reading it, but I was waiting for another book to arrive in the mail, so I continued on with it and was very glad that I did!

This novel was about Lydia Bird, who was engaged to her love, Freddie Hunter. Sadly, on her birthday, Freddie was killed in a car accident on his way to meet her. Jonah, their best friend, was also in the car and he just had a minor injury. As Lydia struggled with her loss, she found that if she took one of the pills that the doctor had prescribed for her to help her sleep she would enter into an alternative universe (my words) where Freddie was still alive and she was with him. So she was really living in two worlds as she continued to grieve. 

It was here that the book started to get old to me.  But then, Lydia had to face some big challenges that she rose up to, and her life and her perspective began to change. In the end, the book was quite hopeful, but not in a sappy way.

"You don't get over losing someone you love in six months or two years or twenty, but you do have to find a way to carry on living without feeling as if everything that comes afterward is second best.  Some people walk up mountains, others throw themselves out of planes.  Everyone has to find their own way back, and if they're lucky they'll have people who love them to hold their hand."

Two Jane Harper novels

 As I wrote earlier, I had read The Dry by Jane Harper and loved it.  So now I have read two earlier books of hers and while they were good, The Dry definitely is my favorite. She has a new book out that I am waiting for in paperback that doesn't come out in paperback until January 2022.  Ugh. Also, did I mention before that The Dry is being made into a movie?

So, as I said, I have read two more:

1) Force of Nature by Jane Harper: you know those retreats that companies have that are supposed to be bonding experiences for the employees?  Well, this is about one of those where five women were taken to a lodge, then sent out with a map for a five-day journey into the Australian wilderness.  But only four of the women returned, and the four women had different stories about Alice, the missing woman. Alice was a whistleblower in a case Detective Aaron Falk was working on, so he was drawn into the search.

This book was a good read, and I liked how it was written.  The story was told from each of the five women's perspectives, which I thought added to the story.  It was a good mystery!

2) the second book I read was The Lost Man by Jane Harper: this is another good mystery that takes place in the Australian outback. Two brothers, Bub and Nathan who hadn't seen each other for a long time, came together after one of them found their third brother, Cameron, dead out in the outback. Bub had lived on Cameron's place, with Cameron's wife and children, so Nathan, and his son who was visiting at the time, went to stay at Cameron's home to help the family deal with their loss and, hopefully, find out what had happened to Cameron. There was also the issue that Cameron and his family lived in the old family home, so who inherits the land and the home?

  So right now it's 3 for 3 for Jane Harper's books!

The Dry

 I think that I have become a big fan of Jane Harper, the author of The Dry!  This book is a great, easy to read, and follow mystery! And now I learn that it was Ms. Harper's debut novel (published in 2016). 

The death of Aaron Falk's best friend Luke, Luke's wife and son brought Aaron back to his small hometown in Australia, where years before Aaron and his father left in shame. Luke's parents called Aaron, who was a Federal agent (working in forensic accounting) to unofficially help with the case.  It appeared that Luke had killed his wife and son, then killed himself, leaving his infant daughter alive and unharmed. As Luke began helping with the case, old secrets began coming to light bringing up another unsolved death-the one that Aaron and his father had fled from years ago.

This novel is one of the best-written mysteries I have read.  I couldn't stop reading it! I have already ordered more of her books!

 

The Orphan Collector

The Orphan Collector by Ellen Marie Wiseman sure hits home with a novel that takes place during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. Interestingly, the author had written it before the recent Covid 19 pandemic.

The story centers around a thirteen-year-old girl, Pia, who lived with her German mother and twin infant brothers.  Her father (also German) was off fighting for the United States in World War I.  The family lived in Philadelphia in a poor neighborhood.  When Pia's mother contracted the flu, Pia was left in charge of everything.  Soon her mother died, and Pia had to leave the apartment to find food and supplies for her and the babies. She left the sleeping infants in a small cubbyhole, hoping to return before they woke up. Sadly, Pia was struck ill while out and was unconscious in the hospital for several days. When she returned to the apartment another family had already moved in and knew nothing about Pia's brothers. Pia was placed in an orphanage and was determined to leave there and find her brothers, while also hoping that her father had come home from the war and was looking for his family. 

A neighbor of Pia's (who she had never met or seen) had recently lost her baby and happened to see Pia leaving her apartment without the babies.  She decided to go to Pia's apartment to check on the twins and found them crying.  Without thinking she took the twins and immediately left the neighborhood, moving away from where she would not be found. Eventually, this neighbor decided to take babies or children from orphanages, and sell them to grieving parents.  This served two purposes: one to provide money to her, and to help rid the country of "foreign children" and help them to be "American children".

It took Pia a long time to learn the truth about the neighbor and begin the search for justice for everyone involved.

I enjoyed this story, although I sometimes felt that it dragged a bit at the beginning, but I stuck with it and ended up liking it a lot! 

April Reads in 2021

 I got a lot of reading done in April-not sure why since I was traveling for almost half the month and I don't read much when traveling!  Anyway, here's what I read:

1) Abide With Me by Elizabeth Strout: this was her second novel, published in 2007.  She's a favorite author of mine, so I was surprised that I hadn't read it.  It's a beautifully written, moving story about a young minister whose wife had died and he was left alone with his five-year-old daughter, in the small town that they had moved to earlier.  It's a good solid read that I liked very much.

2) The Searcher by Tanya French: I liked this story very much.  It is about a recently divorced man who retired from the Chicago Police Department and moved to Ireland for his retirement, hoping to find a nice quiet village to live in.  He found a place that was fairly remote and began to settle in fixing up his house. Soon he noticed a young kid watching him.  He learned that the young girl's older brother had disappeared and she had heard he was a cop and wanted his help.

3) Faith by Jennifer Haigh: this book takes place in Boston in 2002.  A number of Catholic priests were accused of sexual abuses, including Sheila's older brother Fr. Art. Sheila had long been estranged from her family but had remained close to her brother Art to help him in any way she could. As Sheila and Art became closer, old family secrets emerged.

4) American Baby: A Mother, a Child, and the Shadow of History of Adoption by Gabrielle Glaser: this was a fascinating, heart-breaking non-fiction read  The author investigated the seizure of young infants of three million young mothers happening in New York in the 1960s. She centered on one young teen girl and the baby she lost to adoption but never forgot. The book was written well, easy to read, and very interesting.

5) Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan: I only read half of this book and then decided it was a DNF-did not finish- and set it aside as I began reading a different book.  I just couldn't find interest in it.

6) The Hypnotist's Love Story by Liane Moriarty: this is what I consider a nice beach read-interesting, entertaining, and easy to read (but somewhat unbelievable for me). A woman was a professional hypnotist who met and fell in love with a man. He soon told her that he had a stalker, which she found rather interesting.  And so the story goes. Easy to read book.

7) When I Was Yours by Lizzie Page: this story took place in 1939 when a seven-year-old girl was evacuated to a home 100 miles away from her home in London, as the country was expecting London to be a target for bombings. She was placed in a home where there were no other children with a woman and her distant husband. They all must learn to live together and deal with loss and disappointment. Good read.

8) The Girls in the Stilt House by Kelly Mustian: this was also a good book. A teenage girl left her home with her abusive father in the swamp with her new love and lived in Baton Rouge with him for a year until he decided he was moving on.  The young girl, now pregnant, had nowhere to go but back to her father in the swamp. One night her father became very threatening with the girl while in a shed. Suddenly, another girl showed up and saved her.  The girl who saved her was a daughter of a sharecropper for the other side of the swamp. The two girls formed an alliance and decided to take care of each other.  Both girls had dreams of leaving the swamp for good.  

9) Dusk, Night, Dawn by Anne Lamott: this is Ms. Lamott's latest book and is as good, if not better, than the others. I find her essays so simple and so moving at times.  Profound wisdom put simply. "Why am I here? To love this dumb old day. Oh, if only I could remember this"

And lastly:

10) The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende: another interesting story that took place in 1939. A young girl living in Europe was sent to live with her aunt and uncle in San Franciso as the war began. There she met the son of the gardener and they became fast friends.  Many years later as the young girl (now an old woman) is near the end of her life, she moved to a retirement home and there she met a care worker. Soon, the woman asked the care worker to be her personal assistant. The assistant and the woman's grandson began helping the woman tell her life story and they found letters sent from the gardener's son over the past seventy years.  The book is a quite beautiful story, nothing exciting, just a old, old love story!

Four books read

 I've been on a reading roll lately.  It feels like I have my groove back! Two so-so books and two good books.  You can't win them all!

1) All Adults Here by Emma Straub: about a mother and her three adult children. The mother has a secret to share with her children but is worried about how it will affect them.  Astrid (the mother) is also dealing with wondering about mistakes she may have made raising her kids. Meanwhile, the three adult children have their own issues to deal with.  I found it entertaining and readable, but not anything to make me think.

2) We Begin At The End by Chris Whitaker.  I was taken by the author's writing right off at the start of reading the book. And the story...and the characters...just wonderful reading! There are two main characters: Walk who was chief of police in his hometown that he had never left.  He continued to struggle with a life-changing event that occurred thirty years past. The other main character is Duchess who was a thirteen-year-old girl, who had spent her life dealing with her addicted mother and protecting and taking care of her five-year-old brother. Both Walk and Duchess have loved and lost and continue to seek the love of a family.

There are many characters in the book, and they all begin to tie together as you read it.  It is a story that has stayed with me for days, especially the ending.  Good read!

3) Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker: I have wanted to read this book since it came out, and when I saw it at the library, I grabbed it.  It is an absolutely fascinating true story about the Galvin family.  The family consisted of both parents, ten boys, and two girls. Of the twelve children, six of the boys were diagnosed with schizophrenia during the 1970s.  The book takes the reader along with the journey of this family over the years and also ties into the research that has been happening in the scientific/medical field studying schizophrenia.  The Galvin family was/is instrumental in the research of schizophrenia.

It is a very readable story that will help others learn about the illness and how it affects families.  Another good read! 

4) The last one I read was The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce: I also saw this at the library and picked it up.  I'm glad that I did, and didn't buy it.  I really didn't find this book very good.  I was quite disappointed because I loved her two books that I have read (The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy-both wonderful books!). Anyway, the story is about a man who has a shop in an area that is being torn down and developed and he meets a woman who comes into his shop, and they share a love of music, then fall in love. Nothing about the story grabbed me.  Sad.

3 Non-Fiction!

 Non-fiction used to be rare in my reading sphere.  I am noticing a trend of reading more and more of it, however! I recently finished up on three non-fiction books, one that I have been reading for a while, picking it up off and on.

1) Wintering by Katherine May: This was the perfect book to read over the winter.  And I took my time with it. The subtitle is "The power of rest and retreat in difficult times".  Winter itself is a difficult time for me (yes, even here at the beach-I'm getting quite spoiled wanting warm summer-type days!).

I found this to be a beautifully written book  It starts in September and ends in late March.  It is the journey of the author's time dealing with hard issues: her husband's illness, her son's beginning homeschooling, and the author having to leave her job for her own medical issues. The book tells of how the author weathered these "setbacks" (my words),  in part by learning to use them for the opportunities they offered.  In other words, finding the positives in the situations and accepting and utilizing the positives. She focuses on the importance of finding the power of resting and retreating.  A lovely book!

2) A Grief Observed by CS Lewis: This is an older book (1961) that the author wrote after his wife had died. It is the journey of losing faith and coming back.  Easy for many to relate to after the death of a loved one. While I didn't find the book to be especially profound, it was interesting to observe his journey of faith.

3) Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell: You may recall that I have read other books by Malcolm Gladwell.  I love Malcolm Gladwell.  I love his books and I love his podcast Revisionist History (check it out-season 5 has just been released).  Outliers is probably the best of his books that I have read to date. The subtitle is "The story of success". I read it in two days...I couldn't put it down!

In this book, Malcolm looks at the surrounding world of successful people, in all sorts of categories (sports, business, etc.).  He argues that it's not just a matter of intelligence, ambition, or personality traits.  Success is more about the opportunities that arise, and the culture one is from (possibly, and usually, going back for generations). The stories he presents are fascinating and quite thought-provoking. I found the book to have excellent insights into factors that make one an outlier!

The Notebook and 84 Charing Cross Road

 I finished and read The Notebook and 84 Charing Cross Road in the last three days. I was actually just using up my reading time until a new book arrives today.

So, let's discuss The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks.  I had watched the movie several years ago and loved it, including sobbing at the end. It's a really good, well-done movie.  So I thought I should read the book and I was terribly disappointed in the book.  I don't know how it ever got the acclaim that it did.  I thought it was poorly written, and had a less than stellar ending. At least it was a quick read.

I read 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff yesterday.  It's a very small, charming little book of letters between the author and what I pictured as a quaint little used book store in London.  Helene lived in New York City and came across an ad for the store. She began a correspondence ordering books from the store in 1949, primarily dealing with Frank, but also over the years various other employees, and with Fred's wife.  The letters (at least in the book) ended in 1969, a few months following the unexpected death of Frank. In their letters, they shared their love of books and really had a twenty-year friendship develop.  I noticed that the book was dedicated to Frank, which was sweet.

2 more books: The Shadows We Hide and The Book of Angels

 In 2014, I read The Life We Bury by Allen Eskins.  I blogged about it on the 19th of November 2014. I didn't realize that the author had written a second book in 2018 with the same main character.  I was excited to earn this and to go get the book and read it! The second book is The Shadows We Hide.  Both books are mysteries with the main character being Joe Talbert.

In The Shadows We Hide, Joe Talbert gets a lead on his father, who had left his mother before Joe was born and never returned to meet his child.  However, the lead was an obituary for the man. Because the deceased man's name was also Joe Talbert, it appeared that this was his father.  Joe headed to the town where the man had lived, and there he found all kinds of mysteries going on! First, was this his father? Who killed him and why? Does he really have a half-sister? And these are just a few of the things that Joe was trying to learn.

I love the author's writing.  His writing is very easy to read, the characters are well-developed, and the stories are worth reading!

The other book that I just finished is The Book of Angels by Sophy Burnham. It was an interesting read, although I ended up skimming some of it. I did enjoy the stories that people shared about their experiences with angels!

2 books-Commonwealth & A Sorrow Shared

 I had Commonwealth by Ann Patchett sitting on my TBR pile for a long time. I finally picked it up to read and really liked it!

Commonwealth spans fifty years.  It's about two families that have their lives turned upside down when the mother of one family left and married the father of the second family.  So then there were four parents and six children trying to work out how their lives together would work.  Fast forward about twenty years and one of the children became involved with a well-known author. After she told him stories about her family, he wrote a book using their stories.  The book became a bestseller and the children (all adults by then), along with the parents had to face just what their lives were and the things that they had done.

It was a very interesting book.  It stayed with me. 

A Sorrow Shared by Henri J.M. Nouwen is actually a combined edition of two short pieces that Fr. Nouwen wrote after the death of his mother. In Memoriam was written shortly after his mother had died in 1978 describes his feelings about being with his father and his siblings as they sat and waited for their mother's death. 

I would guess that most people my age have gone through the journey of their mother's deaths. I did find this book comforting.

"Yet by letting her go, I did not lose her. Rather, I found that she is closer to me than ever."

A Letter of Consolation is a bit longer than Memoriam.  Fr. Nouwen wrote it to his father about six months after the death of Fr. Nouwen's mother.   I would sum it up with:

"Love is stronger than death."

The Four Winds

 The Four Winds is by author Kristin Hannah. I have read many, if not all, of her books, with The Nightingale being, by far, my favorite. 

The Four Winds begins in 1921 in Texas with the main character, Elsa. Elsa had been ill when she was young, and so her parents never allowed her to do much of anything, including going to school after she turned fourteen. She was told that she was not pretty like her sister and by 1921, she was considered a spinster.  However, one night she began considering her life and what she wanted  She realized that if she didn't do something, she would live and die in her parent's home never knowing what it was like to have her own family.  And she was ready to change all that.

Elsa cut her hair and secretly made a new dress for herself, then one night announced to her parents that she was going to the speakeasy that night.  Her parents forbade it, but she ran off and went.  And there she met a younger man than herself, a good-looking Italian man named Rafe.

By 1934, Elsa had been living with Rafe's parents ever since her and Rafe's quick marriage. The drought had settled over the area and Elsa had to make a decision for her and her children. Elsa decided to leave Texas with her children for California as a part of the Dust Bowl migration, with the promises of jobs and a good life. 

Things aren't always as promised and rough times were ahead for the family.  

The novel is about Elsa's strength and love for family that she never knew she had. It's a rather heartbreaking story, but also one of hope.  It has stayed with me ever since I finished the book.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

 Let me just start off by saying I loved this book! The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab is a lovely read that takes the reader through three hundred years! The author has reported that this book took her ten years to write and after reading it is obvious why.  The novel spans over three hundred years.  It goes back and forth in time, from whatever time Addie was living in, to her time in New York in 2014. The chapters are well-titled so that the reader always knows what year it is. It appears to be thoroughly researched as it goes through the different time periods.  And by the end, it breaks your heart.

Addie was living in a small village in France in 1714 when she is expected to marry a man she does not love. At the last minute, before the wedding begins, Addie ran away, deep into the forest, where she mistakenly called upon the "old gods" to help her.  And there appeared a man that she had always sketched on paper for herself, but had never seen before...the man she believed was meant for her. This "man" made a deal with her. She could live forever, but never be remembered by anyone, nor could she speak her name.  And so began the next three hundred years of Addie's life.

Throughout the three hundred years, Addie would be visited by "Luc" (as she had named the old god) wanting her to surrender to him.  Addie would never agree. 

In 2014, Addie was living in New York City, where she wandered into a bookstore one day and there she met Henry, who remembered her. And eventually, she has to face the decision of her life.

"I remember you."

Beautiful book. 

The Midnight Library

 The Midnight Library by Mark Haig has gotten a lot of reviews and the reviews seem to be from either people who loved the book or readers that thought it was just a nice read.  I fall into the latter. It was an okay read.

It is a story of a woman, Nora Seed, who was not content nor happy with the life she was living. When she found herself in the Midnight Library with the older woman who had been the librarian when Nora was young, she learned that there were many books about the numerous lives she could choose for herself.

So the story goes through Nora picking and living various lives, trying to find the perfect life for her. It was interesting but didn't really move me. 

The Guest List

My reading has been quite sporadic this month.  I had a knee replacement in the middle of this month and thought that I would then have plenty of time for reading. Sadly, that didn't happen. I found it hard to focus on a book. I tried to read two books and gave up on them, but that took away five nights of reading that felt wasted!

You have probably come across references to The Guest List by Lucy Foley. I waited two months to get it from the library! I had/have mixed reactions to the book.  First of all, I thought that it was about discovering who had murdered who. So that threw me off the book for a bit, but I stuck with it.

The story is about a wedding that is happening on an island off of Ireland.  It is a several day event.  The main male characters were schoolmates of the groom.  The female characters were a more diverse group: the bride's sister, the wife of one of the bride's old friends, and the wedding planner who also owned (with her husband) the venue spot and did the catering.

As you can probably imagine, with a group like that, much was happening.  Lots of old secrets revealed, along with some unspoken regrets and grievances.

The author did a wonderful job with character development.  It was easy for the reader to know each character in depth. I really appreciated that each chapter that was narrated by one of the characters had not only the person's name as the title, but also told who the character was in the story. And she did a nice job wrapping the story up at the end.

I have been thinking about the book since I finished it a few days ago.  It's a good read!

Magic Lessons

 What a great book to start off with for 2021!  I loved Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman which, of course, isn't surprising since I love all of her books.  This book is a prequel to Practical Magic by her.

Magic Lessons begins the story of the Owens women and the beginnings of the Owen curse.  Maria Owens was given up as an infant and was raised by Hannah Owens. Hannah taught Maria the Nameless Gift as she realized that Maria also had the gift. After Hannah was killed, Maria was soon sent to Curacao in servitude until she reached the age of sixteen. As she was leaving England, she vowed that love would never rule her life, after observing her mother's mistakes. But,alas, she did fall in love in Curacao.

"Any woman can make a mistake, especially when she is young, and sees the wrong man through a haze so that he appears to be something he's not."

Maria's lover returned home to Boston, and never contacted Maria. When Maria completed her servitude time, she boarded a ship to go find her lover and introduce him to his daughter. On the ship, she met Samuel Dais, who she nursed back to health on the voyage. Maria and Samuel fell in love with each other, although neither would share their feelings with the other.

The rest of the story takes place in Essex County, where Maria raised her daughter, Faith.

Ms. Hoffman's writing is stunning in every book of hers that I have read, and this book was no exception.

In one of Faith's dreams:

"She heard her mother tell her that when you were loved by someone, you never lost them, no matter what might happen next. Despite the curse, despite the losses you might endure, she knew now that love was the only thing that lasted. It was inside you and with you for all eternity."

And Samuel's father telling Maria as he was dying:

"When you fall in love like that, time doesn't matter.  This was the secret he told Maria, the last words he ever said. 

What belonged to you once, will always belong to you.

Be grateful if you have walked through the world with another's heart in your  hand."

This book is such a good story and a great prequel! I highly recommend it! 

2020 In Review

 I am so happy that 2020 is over.  May 2021 bring us abundant blessings!

I read 59 books in 2020. 50 were fiction, 9 were non-fiction (a pretty good number for me, and even more surprisingly, 4 of them are in these lists!). This year is a very easy choice for my top book of the year that I read and I predicted it after I read it.  

However, there were 19 books that I rated as very good:

 Before and After-Judy Christie & Lisa Wingate

The Revisioners-Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

Dear Edward-Ann Napolitano

The Secrets We Kept-Laura Prescott

Disappearing Earth-Julia Phillips

The Overstory-Richard Powers

The Zahir-Paul Coelho

The Immortalists-Chloe Benjamin

Rebecca-Daphne Du Maurier

Rebecca’sTale-Sally Beauman

A Mercy-Toni Morrison

The Book of Lost Friends-Lisa Wingate

The Vanishing Half-Brit Bennett

Normal People-Sally Rooney

The Color of Water-James McBride

Talking to Strangers-Malcolm Gladwell

Jack-Marilyn Robinson

The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell-Robert Dugoni

Almost Everything-Anne Lamott

Help, Thanks, Wow-Anne Lamott

You can't go wrong with those! All were very good reads! But the next category is the four books that I rated as great:

The Nickel Boys-Colson Whitehead

A Place for Us-Fatima Farkeen Mirza

The World We Knew-Alice Hoffman

This Is Happiness-Niall Williams

And the book of the year for me was the one that I rated as excellent:

A Little Life-Hanya Yanagihara: A devastatingly beautiful book!!

December Reading-5 books

 I finished up 2020 with five books read in December.  I received two books for Christmas, one of which I am reading now (Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman) and the other I am starting today called Wintering.  Those were two of the books on my Christmas list! So on to my end of the year reading:

1) Keeping Lucy by T. Greenwood-I mistakenly bought this thinking it was by t. greenwood (a favorite author).  It was a good book, despite my error. It began in 1969 when a woman's baby, Lucy, was born with Down's Syndrome, and the mother's powerful influential father-in-law arranged for Lucy to be put in an institution, over the mother's resistance. The family argues that it would be best for the family and for Lucy.  However, two years later the mother learns of an expose' of the "school" exposed the horrors that were going on there.  I don't want to tell anymore, but it was a good story.

2) The Orphan Mother by Robert Hicks-this is by the author who wrote The Widow of the South and continues the story by telling about Mariah, a former slave of the widow.  The story takes place in Franklin, TN as did the first book. Mariah's grown child (her only child) was killed at a political rally and Mariah was determined to find those responsible for his death.  Her search was, as to be expected, intense and dangerous, but Mariah was undeterred. I found myself liking this book very much!  It was a good read!

3) Almost Everything: Notes on Hope by Anne Lamott-I love Anne Lamott's books and this was no exception.  It is my favorite of hers that I have read so far. It is a short book of individual essays "that explore life's essential truths."  The essay on "In the Garden" is about death and is profound. 

"Of course, when certain people die, there is anguish.  We will never get over their deaths, and we're no supposed to."

This really touched me...beginning with the first deaths that devasted me years ago when I lost my grandparents, then my brothers, then my parents, then good friends. This is a powerful, touching book and I highly recommend it!  

4) The One-In-A-Million Boy by Monica Wood-Another really good book that I had put of reading for the past four years! "the boy" was eleven years old when he began doing Boy Scout hours by helping 104-year-old Ona Vitkus with chores around her home each week. The boy was very interested in the Guinness Book of Records and wanted Ona to set some records. Sadly, the boy died suddenly, so his father Quinn decided to finish up the boy's requirements and spend the next seven weeks helping Ona.  Quinn was a musician who worked gigs and was not around the boy very much.  He and the boy's mother were divorced (for the second time). Through-out the book, Quinn and Ona help and revive each other's lives. A good read.

5) Verity by Colleen Hoover-This book came very highly recommended by others in a Facebook Book Club, so once it came out in paperback, I got it.  It's an interesting psychological mystery. Verity was a well-known writer, who was severely injured in a car accident.  Her husband, Jeremy, hired Lowen Ashleigh to complete a book series that Verity had begun. Lowen went to stay at Jeremy and Verity's home to spend some time going through Verity's office and to read the series in order to have a sense of how to finish the series. And then things began to happen!  It's a good read, although I figured some of it out early on.