New Year, Fresh Start

Reading is a very personal thing on many levels. But it is also something that can be easy to share and discuss. Life often contributes to changes in our reading styles and patterns. Life has definitely been driving my reading life and especially my posting life. I am taking control of these areas again and moving forward.

So here we are at the beginning of another year. I hope to revive my blog and revive my life. It has been a tough few years. It was going well here at the book nook and then a close friend died suddenly. It threw me into a tailspin. We moved a few months later and then a year almost to the day we moved again. I went back to teaching last year and well my life is consumed when I teach. This year has brought changes to that. I am not teaching but reentering the business world. This means I can spend time on personal reading and writing. Also, we are entering the third year of Savannah life. It is good to be a little more settled. I have missed that feeling.

This past fall we lost Mom. I am still working on that. The holidays were good but a little sad. I think that is to be expected. As another year begins, I do not really do New Year Resolutions, I do believe that we can try New Year goals. I am going to try to be more focused and committed to my reading and my life. I continued to read through all of the above events but my reading changed several times. I did a lot less of the Arc's and more of escape reading.

This year I am part of a Classic Reading Challenge 2014 group on facebook. This is exciting for me as I love the classics and like to share this. I am finally settling in with War and Peace by Tolstoy. I am about 400 pages into the unabridged version of The Count of Monte Cristo but put it down for the holiday season. Revenge just doesn't work with Christmas. I am reading both of those in physical book format. I am reading Dr. Zhivago in ebook format. That is the beginning of my classic work. I am thinking I will finish Volume II (Book II) of Don Quixote this spring as well. Thinking of reading another Dickens this year and of course we will have to go with Faulkner this summer. This all may change as I continue to develop my classic reading plan.

I have the new Stephanie Plum book, Takedown Twenty. I am excited about reading that but am waiting for my sister to be ready so we can read it together and discuss. Anna got me started on this series. I love it. Fun, light hearted, and set in the area where I used to work. Speaking of series, I think I want to read the Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett. If you have read these please let me know what you think. I am also reading Agatha Christie in order of publication. I started this last year. My Grandma Durkee introduced me to Agatha as a young girl. I have been a fan ever since. I love mysteries. If you have some series you love or are interested in exploring let me know and we will jump in.

I am looking at some new material as we move forward. I will pick up some Arc's again and will keep you informed. I am looking to find some new text this year. So let us begin.....

As you can see this blog is evolving a little. I hope you stick around for a while and forgive my meandering past. Love to you all. I wish you happy reading.

Book Review: Gone by Cathi Hanauer

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9781451626414
• Publisher: Atria Books
• Publication date: 6/19/2012
• Pages: 368

Meet the Author

Cathi Hanauer is the author of the novels My Sister's Bones and Sweet Ruin and the editor of the New York Times bestselling essay anthology The Bitch in the House: 26 Women Tell the Truth About Sex, Solitude, Work, Motherhood, and Marriage. Her articles, essays, and/or criticism have appeared in The New York Times, Elle, O, Glamour, Self, Parenting, Whole Living, and other magazines. She lives with her family in western Massachusetts. Visit her website at CathiHanauer.com.

Overview

For the past fourteen years, Eve Adams has worked part-time while raising her two children and emotionally supporting her sculptor husband, Eric, through his early fame and success. Now, at forty-two, she suddenly finds herself with a growing career of her own—a private nutritionist practice and a book deal—even as Eric’s career sinks deeper into the slump it slipped into a few years ago.

After a dinner at a local restaurant to celebrate Eve’s success, Eric drives the babysitter home and, simply, doesn’t come back. Eve must now shift the family in possibly irreparable ways, forcing her to realize that competence in one area of life doesn’t always keep things from unraveling in another.

Gone is an outstanding novel about change and about redefining, in middle age, everything from one’s marriage to one’s career to one’s role as a best friend, parent, and spouse. It is a novel about passion and forgiveness and knowing when to let something go and when to fight to hold on to it, about learning to say goodbye—but, if you’re lucky, not forever.

Review:

 While the story plot is not all that unusual; a husband running away from his family; the reactions of the family members in this story are different than one would expect. Eve seems to move through the desertion as if she is not really connected to the events. This at first glance can seem quite unbelievable but then again how can we be sure how we would react to the situation. At times I kept wanting to push her into action, to express more emotion, to react in a more expected manner. She seemed much too passive under the circumstances:

a missing husband, the bank account growing smaller, a fourteen year old daughter who is difficult, and a young son who is struggling to understand what is happening. Eve is a likeable person but seems to be the type of person who needs to control her actions and emotions, she finds it difficult to express her own anger and sorrow.

The father, Eric, was surprisingly likeable. The story of his flight from home, his struggle to understand himself what was going on and why he needed to be away from his family was moving. Sympathy for the person responsible for the agony of this family was quite unexpected. 

The story is well written and takes a different path to explore an all too typical event in this day and age. Hanauer dares to examine atypical reactions and emotions in a very dynamic situation. The book was enjoyable, unusual, and lends itself well to group discussions.

I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to book clubs as it has the possibility to stimulate discussion.

Book Review: Sequela by MP Kollman

Product Details

·  Paperback: 306 pages

·  Publisher: Outskirts Press (May 8, 2012)

·  Language: English

·  ISBN-10: 1432791737

·  ISBN-13: 978-1432791735

Synopsis:

Jerome Grayson is dead; Wade Addams arrested; Jane Doe identified; Jackson Nolan committed suicide, evidently to avoid the humiliation of a trial. The entire case has been neatly wrapped up. Or so it would seem. That case also brought Grayson back to a house he felt certain he would never be welcome in again. He had been banished from this home ten years ago for being silently complicit in the drug use of his brother, Jerome; and now, for being the instrument of Jerome's death. But understanding Jerome had chosen his own fate, his parents welcomed him back. And so, Destiny has brought him together with Samantha Greene, but will she now rip them apart as seemingly unrelated events occur to the residents of Jaspar? For Steven Nolan has also come to Jaspar: His father's suicide, Jerome's death and the similarities to his own brother's suicide twelve years earlier, drive him to take up arms against Jaspar.

Video Link:

About the author:

For MP Kollman, pages are like a blank canvas on which to wield an artistic brush and enrapture the mind with the written craft. The author's talent has been heralded by many and is matched only by an imagination that rises to the task at hand. Sequela is the second in a series of recent pursuits and work is progressing quickly on a follow-up.

Review:

Sequela is the second book in a series so you come into the story in media res. You can read it as a stand-alone book but there is a twist at the end that is meant to draw you to the next book. The characters are likeable if a little archetypical.  Sandy Grayson is pitted against Steven Nolan. Both are one part of a pair of twin brothers in which the other twin has died. Jerome Grayson had died recently while Alan Nolan had died about 12 years in the past. Both men come from well to do families who have strong father figures. Both Emery Grayson and Jackson Nolan care about their sons but the similarity ends there.  While Sandy Grayson is restoring the lost relationship with his father, Steven is mourning the loss of his. The question is will both young men survive the fallout? Then of course there is Samantha Greene a young woman caught in the middle, both men have plans for her. She is recovering from trauma herself. She now stands in between Sandy and Steven. 

 Sequela has the typical elements of mysteries regarding plot but with a new twist. Two sets of twins with remarkably similar relationships but very different families. The parallels and disparities in these two men and their families is an interesting perspective. And of course there is the idea behind the title: sequela meaning a morbid condition following or occurring as a consequence of another condition or event. Obviously the events in this book are simulated by prior events. Will the next book follow suit?

The shortcomings of the novel are always the most difficult to comment upon. In the beginning I found the story a little difficult to get into due to the choppiness of the sifting time periods. This caused me to keep pushing reading the book back a little. To be fair I was in the midst of planning a trip to Greenville, SC for a book sale thus the delay was not necessarily the fault of the book itself. 

There were a few grammatical or typo errors that always cause me to stumble but surprisingly this book was not replete with them. I absolutely will put down a book that is so obfuscated with grammatical errors and typos that it is distracting. There was a sentence later in the story which had to be a typo because it made absolutely no sense. “My car is strange. Sam’s still alive…..” pg. 217. But that was the only completely disrupting sentence in the book. 

 The author has a very creative mind which is both a plus and a minus. The plus side is that you have some interesting new takes in the plot. The minus side means that a couple of times during the reading I got a little lost because there seemed to be a jump that I missed. I was able to figure it out and move on with only a small delay. While this did detract from the smoothness of the reading it did not make me want to put the book away completely. Also, I thought that at least one of the subplots-Sandy’s business in San Francisco was wrapped up to quickly without satisfactory detail. That having been said overall I enjoyed the book. MP Kollman is talented and has potential.  

Coming Soon

Now that I am settling in from this last move it is time to get back and get active. My apologies to my followers.

Coming soon will be reviews on the new batch received this month. My weekend should be busy. While I have been in the process of a second month in two years I have not completely abandoned reading. That would never happen.

With this move I finally got to locate my boxes of books and begin unpacking them. Coming across my copy of The Passage by Justin Cronin I decided it was time to dive in. The sequel The Twelve will be coming out next month. I was not disappointed. I will post a full review closer to the release date of the second book in the trilogy.

Also, I attended "The Really Big, Really Cheap Book Sale" in Greenville, South Carolina. My sister has been trying to get me there for years. Now that I am down South again I made sure that was scheduled. Had a great time and got some great books. I will post a picture and list later on.

Last year I attended the Baltimore Book Festival and had a great time. I met Laura Lippman and got some great pics. I will share some a little later this week. I am really sorry I will be missing it this year. If you are in the area please check it out-http://www.baltimorebookfestival.com/

This past February I got down to the Savannah Book Festival for one of the evenings. I plan to get there earlier this next February and really get the feel for it. February in Savannah this year was nice and warm. The squares are lovely places to hold events.

I have been reading Devices and Desires by P.D. James. Nothing like sitting on the porch with a cup of English Breakfast Tea and a good book.

It is so nice to have a porch again complete with old wicker rocking chairs, and a great view, screened in as well. This week we have been blessed with lower humidity so porch sitting has been great.

I hope everyone enjoys the weekend. I will be back with a post soon.

As I Lay Dying- William Faulkner

Faulkner's style is perfection itself. In As I Lay Dying Faulkner extended the experimentation with narrative that he started in the Sound and the Fury. With 59 segments and 15 narrative voices, As I Lay Dying is complex and compelling.

The story begins with an illness that leads to death, followed by the experiences of the family immediately following the death. Their incites, often differing, keep the story moving forward but with a unique quality. This is life-simplicity overlayed with complexity.

As I Lay Dying is poetic. I couldn't put the book down and finished in one day and an evening. Faulkner never disappoints me. If you have not sampled Faulkner, this is a most! Absolutely on my favorites list and will be read many times.

5 stars!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Soft Southern Dreams

I have been haunted lately by dreams of warm, honeyed southern nights, and there were some, I remember them. I remember sitting out on a lounge chair in the front yard, sipping tea, listening to the cicadas. I remember gentle breezes and the bubble of the creek down the hill.

I have exiled myself from the deep south for more than half my life but it colors every inch of my life. One never truly escapes the south, not that I wanted to escape it. I just couldn't seem to find space for me there. I wasn't the pretty one, that was my older sister, I wasn't the smart one, that was my younger sister. I guess I never really had definition. I kept my soul to myself.

The south comes back to me in dreams-the graceful old house with the long front porch, two to three stories, and an enclosed porch on the back. Old comfy furniture, and plenty of books. This is often accompanied by the elderly lady wearing her old mink stole. We sip tea and talk about the past. She is obviously a cross between my mamaw and my Grandma Durkee. The two women I admire most. They were very different but equally graceful.

Last night I dreamed I was living in that house. The elderly lady owned it of course, and helped me find a beautiful, quaint building in which to open my bookstore. My dream life. The one I never had. I often think about living that life through writing the story.

All of this has gotten me in the mood for a deep, soft, southern story. I am heading off today to The Book Escape on Light Street in Baltimore to find one. Mine are still packed in boxes for the most part, either at the storage facility or still in the house in New Jersey. I have read many books since moving back to Baltimore and will be writing you about them soon. But today the south is calling me. "Carolina on my mind"

Musings: Books and things

This beautiful site is one of the many views that make my transition back to Baltimore and city living so wonderful. I love taking walks around the harbor and to the top of Federal Hill and just enjoying being outdoors in the city. So much has changed in the past year.

On April 30th last year I lost a very good friend. It was so unexpected and took the wind out of my sails. This year I look back on our time together and remember him with so much love. Brian was a beautiful soul and he is blessed to be with God. I will always miss him. Much love is to my dear friend Leigh and the boys!

  

Shortly after this there were changes in my husband's job that forced us to look at even  more change. We began the long process of looking for new opportunities and facing the reality of new beginnings.

Of course our beautiful daughter gave us a beautiful gift that helped to balance out the dryness of summer last year.

Our youngest son moved on campus, our oldest son left for Marine boot camp, our daughter and her husband moved into their own home and promptly gave us our baby girl. So much change! All of this was followed by our move to Baltimore. Can you say big year?!

Now here we are a year later and we are finally beginning to settle into our new life. God has been good through all of this. I am going to start a new job next week-not teaching. The atmosphere for education has become so dismal in the US that being a teacher is well less than great. So I am moving on reluctantly. The new job is exciting and very different. I am looking forward to getting back to work.

Through all of this change I have continued to read but not really updated my blog. Sorry. I can only say that I was overwhelmed with everything going on. I have listed a few of the books I have been reading and posted a few reviews. Today I want to share some of the great reads that have seen me through the turmoil of last year.

During the summer I sat on my deck and contemplated life a great deal while delving into the works of Proust. It was comforting and distracting to imagine a quiet life in the Provence of France. I can only describe the work as Beautiful! Slow moving and gentle.

Kate Carlisle

Then I breezed through a stack of cozy mysteries for the fall. They were light and fun, easy to get in and out of while making heavy decisions about our move and packing. Kate Carlisle blessed me with an advanced copy of her fall release, as did Laura Childs. They were wonderful works. Love cozy mysteries.

 

  When I arrived in Baltimore early this year I began to pull some of the ARC's that I had not gotten to yet and work through those. Andrew Taylor's wonderful book The Anatomy of Ghosts, Queen of Your Life, and others. I read and posted the review for Bruno, Chief of Police. Good times!

I had a Laura Lippman book that I had bought ages ago sitting on my TBR stack that I finally pulled off the shelf. What the Dead Know, set in Baltimore, was a great introduction back to charm city. I had such fun keeping up with the setting. I had eaten several times at the Bel Loc Diner during our visits to Baltimore while looking for a place to live, so it was a delight when the detective went for breakfast there early in the book. This was a delightful book that made me enamored with Laura Lippman. I recently bid on a package of 10 signed copies of her newest book that included a visit to your local book club meeting. I didn't win sorry to say but I am still enjoying her books. I began reading from the beginning her Tess Monaghan series. I am on Number 7 in the series now.

And yes I finally found a book club! It is a wine and book club which is perfect for me. The first meeting I attended we read and discussed Room by Emma Donoghue. Great book, quick read, only 210 pages. I read it on my Nook. I missed the May meeting where James Ellroy's The Black Dahlia was discussed. I read the book but am not generally drawn to the film noir novels. Next up for our club is a favorite Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote. It will be great to not only discuss the book but how the movie, one of my favorites, differs from the book. I love the variety of reads that are picked and discussed. It keeps you from getting stuck in one direction and missing so many other great books.

And the big accomplishment, I finished the first volume or Part One of Don Quixote. I will be starting the second part soon. The book is a slow start, even with the windmill incident, but I am glad I kept going. It is a magnificent book. I can certainly see where Shakespeare was intrigued. Love the book.

  

I am still working on my summer reading list. How about you? What are you planning to read this summer? I have added Mildred Pierce by James Cain. So many options!

Bruno, Chief of Police by Martin Walker

Bruno, Chief of Police by Martin Walker

• Pub. Date: April 2010
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group 
• Format: Paperback , 288pp  (Also available in Nook and Kindle format)
• Series: Vintage Series  
• ISBN-13: 9780307454690 
• ISBN: 030745469X

Benoit Courréges, aka Bruno, lives in a small village in the South of France. Bruno, a policeman in the village, embraces country life, shopping at the local market, distilling his own vin de noix, and enjoying great food with great friends. His most difficult work usually involves helping local farmers avoid the E.U. inspectors and the fines they impose.


Murder interrupts the quiet paces of this simple country life. A North African man who fought for the French army is the unlikely victim. In order to restore order to this quiet village, Bruno must figure out who murdered this man. The investigation opens old wounds from the Nazi occupation and threatens to destroy the peace and tranquility of the village.

Review:
 
This title was a thoroughly enjoyable read. Walker does a great job of giving us a picture of life in a small village in Southern France. Bruno is a likable character, who is sympathetic and sensitive of the issues that are raised during his investigation.
 
The book is "gentle" in telling but engaging. The story unfolds rather then busting out. I don't remember which blog had made me aware of this book but I am grateful. I fell in love with the people and the village itself. I find myself wanting to move to this area and enjoy the quiet, elegant life of Southern France.
 
Mystery lovers will enjoy the quiet rhythms of this book. I plan to pick up other books in this series. Next one up The Dark Vineyard.

Pondering

Hi everyone,

I have arrived in Baltimore, Md. I met my husband here almost 30 yrs ago. We will be celebrating our 25th anniversary this month. Appropriate since we were married in Timonium.

It is hard work moving from a 4 bd house to a 2 bd apartment. Forced to get rid of stuff-good! The new place is coming along. I need to get the rest of my books here and figure out where I am putting them. I will be busy setting up at least one of my bookcases today. Some order at last.

I drove to NC on Monday and home on Tuesday. One of my sons just finished boot camp in Dec and MCT training. I went to his MCT graduation yesterday and watched him board a bus for the airport. He is heading to Missouri for his MOS. Cold and snowy there!

My new granddaughter is beautiful and growing.

This picture is a few months old.

I read Bruno by Martin Walker. Barely had time to read with all of the apartment hunting trips, boot camp graduation, packing, the holidays, the move. I enjoyed the book very much. Wish I could remember which blog brought it to my attention. I am now reading Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay. I found that at Barnes and Noble.

With all of the snow, sleet, freezing rain, ice-the title sounded interesting. I will be unpacking books that I have received for review this week and getting back track. I have missed reading and posting. And I have missed all of you. I will be checking in on your blogs soon.

Also, I am looking for a book club to join in the Baltimore area. I have posted on meetup so we will see what happens.

Should I pursue teaching here in Baltimore? What do you think? I am looking to get back to work. In addition to teaching, I have worked as a bookkeeper, paraprofessional for a CPA firm, and as a controller for 5 hotels in Texas. What to do? What to do?

Finally-----the sun. I was about to give up on that. The sun is shining. Oorah!

What are you reading? Is it for fun? review? education? business? self-edification?

Musings

Life has a way of catching up with you. This has been a difficult year. A dear friend passed away, my daughter got married, we had our first grandchild, my oldest son left for bootcamp, my youngest son moved into a dorm and so on.

In the last month my husband interviewed and accepted a position with a new company. We will be moving to Baltimore. We have been in the process of visiting there and looking for housing. The relocation is on us of course. Our oldest son just graduated bootcamp and is now a Marine. He is home for a few days before he must leave us for more training and finally assignment to a fleet. He leaves right after Christmas. Our youngest son is coming home for winter break and must be checked out by tomorrow. My niece is visiting from SC-she is awesome. And loads of help to me.

I am going through everything in our house, throwing as much as possible away, and then beginning to pack. I must decide what to do with the animals, get the house listed and ready to sale, and prepare us to move into a smaller place. We decided as empty nesters to rent an apartment in the city for a while. That will be fun but means that we are going to move from 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, walkin closets in all bedrooms, attic, full walkout basement, garage to 2 bedrooms, 2 bath apartments. Such fun!

As you can see there are many things that are distracting me at the moment and very little reading is happening. Our life has exploded. But I will be settled into Baltimore by the middle of January-we can't keep paying for my husband to stay there during the week and travel here on weekends now can we.

I will be back to positng on a more regular basis in January and hope to participate in a book tour in February so please hang in there with me.

January update:

We are moving this week. I will be back on the air next week. Thank you for hanging in with me. Love to you all.

Review: Testimony by Anita Shreve

Testimony by Anita Shreve

Publication: Little Brown

Publication Date: 10/21/2008

324 pages paperback

Jacket Synopsis:

At an exclusive New England Boarding School, a sex scandal unleashes a storm of shame and recrimination.

The men, women, and teenagers affected--among them the headmaster, struggling to contain the incident before it destroys the school; a popular student-athlete, grappling with the consequences of his mistakes; the boys mother, confronting her own forbidden temptations; and a troubled teenage girl eager to put the past behind her--speak out to relate the events of one fateful night and its aftermath.

Enter a world upended by the repercussions of a single impulsive action.....

Review:

Shreve is very good at tearing the cover off of our hidden emotions and presumptions, making us question our judgments. This was a difficult book at times and very emotional. Working with teenagers is stressful, and precarious at times, but also a delight. As I was reading this book I kept thinking about how it speaks to the fact that most teenagers (and often adults) don't realize the significance of one little act on their lives.

In this story many lives are changed forever by one impulsive act-lives lost, dreams shattered, and innocence lost. Wouldn't it be worth it to examine this idea and maybe create some understanding that even though choices were made, everyone was a victim as well as a perpetrator? Shreve makes it very clear that there are no easy answers-and maybe that it is almost entirely impossible to examine every issue that this situation uncovered.

Recently, I came across another review where Shreve was criticized for not developing a storyline that examined the young girl's underlying issues that help lead her to act out. Shreve does not make judgment statements in her work, the book shares the perspective from several of the characters involved and opens the door into the way they have personally handled the situation, and the tragedy that ensues.

The stream of consciousness flow of some of the characters made this a little bit tougher to get into at the beginning, especially that of the young girl, Sienna. But once the story got underway it was hard to put the book down. Shreve slowly led you into an understanding of who would die, and why, so that it was not a surprise. There was only one piece of information she held until the last, with few hints. Who held the camera?

Shreve's writing is terrific as usual, her characterization is believable and well done, the story is gripping, and well you definitely walk away with much to think about. I have not always been drawn into Anita Shreve's books, but when I am I find that I really enjoy it and love the questions that she leaves me with. Reading a book that makes me question some of my own presumptions is one of my favorite past times.

This is a terrific book for book clubs. So much to talk about, so much to examine. Enjoy!

I am offering one copy of Testimony by Anita Shreve. To win please leave a comment below with an email account where I can contact you. You may substitute (at) and (dot) for actual symbols. One winner will be chosen at random.

Review: The Lies That Bind by Kate Carlisle

The Lies That Bind by Kate Carlisle

Publication Date: November 2, 2010
Pages: 304
Publishers: Obsidian Mystery


A Bibliophile Mystery


Jacket Synopsis:
One bookbinder. One bully. One beau. Looks like someone has got to go.....
When it comes to rare books and antiquities, Brooklyn Wainwright is a master. That's why she has returned to San Francisco to teach a bookbinding class at Bay Area Book Arts. Unfortunately, BABA director Layla Fontaine is a horrendous host who pitches fits and lords it over her subordinates. With the help of her beau, Derek Stone, Brooklyn manages to put on a brave face and endure.

But someone else is not so forgiving. Layla is found dead from a gunshot wound, and Brooklyn is bound and determined to investigate. But when Layla's past ends up intertwined with Derek's, Brooklyn realizes that the case is much more personal than she thought--and the killer might want to close the book on her for good.

Review:
I enjoy Cozy Mysteries, especially during the fall when I can curl up with a cup of hot tea, a blanket and a book. They are just plain fun.

Kate Carlisle has captured my interest with this series. I love a smart heroine. Brooklyn is smart, a little loopy at times, but fun. Although I don't really connect with the new age, guru background of her family and friends, I do find it entertaining. Brooklyn is just the right blend of likable and quirky. She stumbles into murders, worries over her karma with dead bodies, but enjoys the pursuit of the villain. Perfect match for a cozy mystery. Of course she is one lucky lady--two gorgeous men to consider. A bad boy handsome type beside a smooth, English, ex secret agent type. Yummy. Enter fun.

Carlisle includes enough details of the bookbinding process that I am intrigued. I have begun to look into taking a bookbinding class. Of course I am one of those people that can get lost in the smell of books. Love it!!!!!!!!!!!!

I read Jane Eyre every couple of years, not for the plot, but for the language. I love words. Bronte is one of those authors who draw me in with their proficiency in language. I love a book with great vocabulary-used correctly of course. Also grammar is important. Carlisle has a good handle on vocabulary. Her writing style is smart, and fluent. Perhaps this is why she is one of my favorite cozy mystery writers.

For all of the cozy mystery fans out there this series is definitely one you need to check out. It is fun, smart, and well written. Curl up and read away!

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

A book meme by Shelia at One Persons Journey Through a World of Books.

It has been a while since I last posted this. Life interrupts.
Last week I was reading:

1. Fiber & Brimstone by Laura Child
2.Once Wicked Always Dead by T. Marie Benchley
3. everything lovely, effortless, safe by jenny hollwell

This week I am reading:

1. The Lie That Binds by Kate Carlisle

2. The Dissemblers by Liza Campbell

3. Testimony by Anita Shreve

In My Mailbox

This weekly meme is hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren! Check out her blog to see what others are reading.

My summer kind of fell a part on me and it has been a very long time since I participated. I have received many books since then but I will stick to some of the more recent.

I received Testimony by Anita Shreve courtesy of Hachette Books

Pub. Date: October 2008
Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
Sold By: HACHETTE BOOK GROUP

Synopsis (B&N):
At a New England boarding school, a sex scandal is about to break. Even more shocking than the sexual acts themselves is the fact that they were caught on videotape.

A Pandora's box of revelations, the tape triggers a chorus of voices--those of the men, women, teenagers, and parents involved in the scandal--that details the ways in which lives can be derailed or destroyed in one foolish moment.

Writing with a pace and intensity surpassing even her own greatest work, Anita Shreve delivers in TESTIMONY a gripping emotional drama with the impact of a thriller. No one more compellingly explores the dark impulses that sway the lives of seeming innocents, the needs and fears that drive ordinary men and women into intolerable dilemmas, and the ways in which our best intentions can lead to our worst transgressions.

From Librarything Earlier Reviewers I have received the following

The Dissemblers by Liza Campbell

Paperback 200 pp
Publisher: The Permanent Press
Publication Date: October 2010

Synopsis (LT):
The Dissemblers is the story of a woman searching for greatness and beauty, only to find that neither greatness nor beauty are exactly what she thought. Ivy Wilkes always assumed she would achieve greatness as a painter. She moves to Santa Fe in search of the light and landscape that inspired her idol, Georgia O’Keeffe. At first, Ivy embraces life in the artsy desert town, working in the O’Keeffe museum by day and spending her evenings with Omar, the seductive cousin of her upstairs neighbors. But when Ivy’s own painting stagnates, she finds herself paralyzed by the fear that she will never paint anything of worth. Unable to create anything original, she begins imitating Georgia O’Keeffe’s work and is enticed by an offer to create O’Keeffe forgeries to sell on the black market. The paintings sell, but Ivy’s secrets isolate her from those she loves, who have secrets of their own. When a mysterious man appears at the museum, asking questions about O’Keeffe forgeries, Ivy’s bonds of love and friendship are tested. In her struggle to find her own artistic voice, she navigates the space between pride and guilt, love and selfishness, with devastating consequences. Rendered in concentrated prose, The Dissemblers explores themes of isolation and misunderstanding. The emotions are subtle, and the characters continually thwart their own best intentions while harboring mutually exclusive desires.

and

The Mistress of Abha by William Newton

Paperback: 320 pages

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
(August 31, 2010)

Synopsis(LT):
The year is 1930 and the British are in Arabia. Ivor Willoughby, a young orientalist, embarks on an ambitious quest to find his father, an officer abroad with the British Army. In all Ivor's life, Robert has returned to England only once, bedraggled and wild-eyed with tales of As'ir, a land of sheikhs and white-turbaned bandits, where he is fighting alongside Captain Lawrence and is known by the name Ullobi.

After that single meeting, Robert is never heard from again. Ten years on, Ivor must find out what became of him. So he sets out on the journey of a lifetime. Traveling to Cairo to join the Locust Bureau, then circuitously to Abha, Yemen, and along the Red Sea coast, Ivor searches everywhere for clues about Ullobi, but no one appears to remember him. Or perhaps they are afraid to admit to it. Along the way Ivor hears whispers of a woman warrior called Na'ema who was once a slave. Her story seems tantalizingly connected with his father's, and Ivor finds himself in the misty heights of Ayinah looking for an Abyssinian seer who was carried on the same slave ship as Na'ema in 1914 and might unlock the mystery.


I purchased the following books:

The Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf

Pub. Date: July 2009
Paperback: 384pp
Publisher: MIRA

Synopsis (B&N):
It happens quietly one August morning. As dawn's shimmering light drenches the humid Iowa air, two families awaken to find their little girls have gone missing in the night.

Seven-year-old Calli Clark is sweet, gentle, a dreamer who suffers from selective mutism brought on by tragedy that pulled her deep into silence as a toddler.

Calli's mother, Antonia, tried to be the best mother she could within the confines of marriage to a mostly absent, often angry husband. Now, though she denies that her husband could be involved in the possible abductions, she fears her decision to stay in her marriage has cost her more than her daughter's voice.

Petra Gregory is Calli's best friend, her soul mate and her voice. But neither Petra nor Calli has been heard from since their disappearance was discovered. Desperate to find his child, Martin Gregory is forced to confront a side of himself he did not know existed beneath his intellectual, professorial demeanor.

Now these families are tied by the question of what happened to their children. And the answer is trapped in the silence of unspoken family secrets.

Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin

Pub. Date: January 2010
Hardcover: 351pp
Publisher: Delacorte Press

Synopsis (B&N):
 Few works of literature are as universally beloved as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Now, in this spellbinding historical novel, we meet the young girl whose bright spirit sent her on an unforgettable trip down the rabbit hole–and the grown woman whose story is no less enthralling.

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.

A love story and a literary mystery, Alice I Have Been brilliantly blends fact and fiction to capture the passionate spirit of a woman who was truly worthy of her fictional alter ego, in a world as captivating as the Wonderland only she could inspire.


Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin

Pub. Date: October 2010
Hardcover: 274pp
Publisher: William Morrow

Synopsis (B&N):
A powerful and resonant novel from Tom Franklin—critically acclaimed author of Smonk and Hell at the Breech—Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter tells the riveting story of two boyhood friends, torn apart by circumstance, who are brought together again by a terrible crime in a small Mississippi town. An extraordinary novel that seamlessly blends elements of crime and Southern literary fiction, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter is a must for readers of Larry Brown, Pete Dexter, Ron Rash, and Dennis Lehane.







and Freedom A Novel by Jonathan Franzen

Pub. Date: September 2010
Hardcover: 562pp
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Synopsis (MacMillan):
Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul—the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the avant-garde of the Whole Foods generation. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbor, who could tell you where to recycle your batteries and how to get the local cops to actually do their job. She was an enviably perfect mother and the wife of Walter’s dreams. Together with Walter—environmental lawyer, commuter cyclist, total family man—she was doing her small part to build a better world.

But now, in the new millennium, the Berglunds have become a mystery. Why has their teenage son moved in with the aggressively Republican family next door? Why has Walter taken a job working with Big Coal? What exactly is Richard Katz—outré rocker and Walter’s college best friend and rival—still doing in the picture? Most of all, what has happened to Patty? Why has the bright star of Barrier Street become “a very different kind of neighbor,” an implacable Fury coming unhinged before the street’s attentive eyes?

In his first novel since The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen has given us an epic of contemporary love and marriage. Freedom comically and tragically captures the temptations and burdens of liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the heavy weight of empire. In charting the mistakes and joys of Freedom’s characters as they struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world, Franzen has produced an indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time.