Review: The Weight of Silence

Author: Heather Gudenkauf
Format: paperback review galley - 384 pgs
Characters: Calli, Deputy Sheriff Louis, Petra, Martin, Antonio
Subject: missing children, selective mutism
Setting: small town in Iowa

Genre: fiction
Source:  ARC from Mira books (pub date Aug 2009)


An absolutely heart-pounding read.  I picked it up last night to start it so I could get an idea of about how long it would take.  I finished it 3 1/2 hours later.   I was reluctant to start it since it dealt with missing children, and after some of the darker reading I've been doing, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to handle it.

Briefly (NO SPOILERS) Calli and Petra - BFFs- aged 7, go missing early one morning. Parents, police, and townspeople begin the search in the woods behind the girls houses, where they liked to wonder.  Ben, aged 14, Calli's brother goes into the woods to search.

Gudenkauf writes from knowledge of disabilities.  One of the little girls who is missing suffers from 'selective mutism.'  Much of the book deals with the mystery of why she is unable to speak.   There is an element of mystery, a poignant lost love, great emotional development of all the characters. I was on the edge of my chair throughout, unable to put the book down.

The results of the search for the girls, the well-drawn players and the predictable (no more) ending are well worth staying up half the night.


Challenge: ARC completion 
Many thanks to Mira Books (www.MIRABooks.com) for the review copy.

Unfinished Friday -Unfinished or Abandoned?

Marie, the Boston Bibliophile started this very useful meme so we can blog about books that for whatever reason just don't work.
 
Last week Caite of A Lovely Shore Breeze commented on my double discards:

" I love the idea of Unfinished Friday...but my problem is I hate to admit defeat. I put a book aside with the idea that someday I will finish it and am not sure I ever admit I absolutely will not finish it."

I totally agree with her.  For those of us who love books, and have any acquaintance with anyone who writes them, we know how much the author invests physically, emotionally, and often financially, into getting this book published and having people read it and comment on it.  I often put books aside to try later. I have an entire category in my LibraryThing personal library called "DNF- try later" as opposed to the "DNF- given away".

Perhaps it's my generation...I belong to that age group whose parents lived through the Great Depression and who would not let us leave the table without finishing every single brussel sprout, green bean, or beet on that plate.  After all "children were starving in (India, China, Korea, take your pick)".  So I'm socially conditioned to finishing anything I start.  I was so thrilled when my then 70+ year old father took up needlepoint when he needed something to do while recovering from knee surgery.  I unloaded a trunk full of half-finished projects that had been languishing for YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEARS.....and he polished them off in four months!

Just for a diversion, here's the last piece Daddy did for me before he died, he was 82 at the time he completed it and said 1000's of swear words as he attached each of those 1000s of beads, and by the way, he did this one completely from scratch.  It wasn't one of my leftoevers. It hangs on the wall opposite my bed, and it's one of the last things I see at night when I turn out the light. But I keep thinking, if Daddy could finish those beads, I can finish a book!

So when I get a book I don't like, or keep falling asleep while reading (Ya think that's a clue????) I have a hard time getting over the feeling that it's my fault.  But FACE IT TINA....You aren't supposed to like everything in the world.  There are TV shows I turn off, clothes I look at in the store and put back on the rack, foods I don't order from a menu ( and a few I've even sent back!).  So why can't I abandon a book?

When I looked at the books I've abandoned so far this year, one was self-published and the promotional blurb did not match the subject matter as I expected.  The writing was bombastic, and I just wasn't interested.  It went into the LT Member Giveaway where, to date, 70+ people have indicated they would give it a home.  Another ARC from Hachette went into Member Giveaway - over 200 people wanted it, and many people gave it great reviews on LT, so I didn't feel so guilty abandoning that one...I figure the author is getting the publicity ARCs are designed to provide, and I didn't say it was awfully written, just that the subject matter was not to my liking.

My third and fourth abandoned beauties are still with me.  They are huge chunksters of non-fiction that I'm really interested in, and want to be able to pick up and read perhaps in pieces as time goes on.  I also know from experience, than sometimes it takes almost 200 pages to really get into a big guy.  So when my brain is ready to settle down and absorb some more, I intend to get to them again.

I actually have 7 more sitting on my TBR (Finish them shelf) and I'm hoping the "Finish them" challenge I set myself will help me get back to at least 3 of them this year. I found them all interesting to a point but as often happens with non-fiction, the authors just get into so much detail, I get lost in the trees and can't get out of the forest. With the fiction books, I keep seeing fabulous reviews, and several people have told me to stick with them, so I'm holding them, hoping that some morning my mind will say---AHA...let's finish that one this week.

By the way, these 7 that need finished are listed here.

I'm having a contest, and any book that gets 10 or more comments of encouragement, I will pledge to read it at least 1/2 way again this year.  Then if I still don't like it, I'll have a giveaway.  Get those comments in..

1. The History of God by Karen Armstrong
2. Women who Run with Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
3. Generations: The History of America's Future 1584-2069 by Neil Howe and William Strauss
4. East of the Mountains by David Guterson
5. Rabbi Jesus by Bruce Chilton
6. Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
7. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

So let's all agree....it's Ok to leave a book unfinished.  And let's thank Marie for starting this meme and giving us permission to put these back on the shelf (with bookmarks intact) for later enjoyment if we don't want to abandon them completely.  YEA MARIE!!!

Review: 206 Bones

Author: Kathy Reichs
Narrator: Barbara Rosenblatt
Format: audio book- 9 discs (10+hours),320 pg equivalent
Characters: Detective Ryan, Temperance Brennan
Subject: murder investigation, identification of remains
Setting: Montreal, North Carolina
Series: Temperance Brennan
Genre: crime fiction
Source: audio books from public library



My first Reichs read. Being as claustrophobic as I am, I had a hard time with the subject matter (NO SPOILERS). I also felt that she was trying to politicize her obvious bias about the professional credentials required for various forensic experts. I'll read another one before passing judgment on the series.

Basically, Temperance Brennan, a forensic anthropologist, is working various cases in Montreal and in North Carolina. (I gather our heroine bi-locates.) When bad judgments appear in her examinations and reports, she sets out to discover who or what may be sabotaging her good name. Four different murders of elderly women and identifying the remains of a family lost on a boating trip 40 years ago are all begging for her attention.

There is a love (on again, off again?) interest with a detective named Ryan, a wonderful cat and a snarky neighbor. The character lineup is good, the plot was well developed, and without the campaigning it would have been an enjoyable read.  Barbara Rosenblatt does her usual great job of narration.

Challenge: Medical Mysteries, Audio Books, Thrillers and Suspense,  Support your Local library

Review: The Khan Dilemma

Author: Ron Goodreau
Format: paperback ARC galley proof -282 pages
Characters: Rich Danko, Max Siegel,  Franny Rappaport
Subject: corruption, National Security, rogue intelligence
Setting: Las Cruces, California
Genre: crime fiction; suspense
Source: ARC from iUniverse publishing
Challenge: ARC cleanup challenge, Thrillers and Suspsense

An outstanding debut thriller. Cashing in on the abundence of homeland security rogue operations scenarios sweeping the literary and video world, Ron Goodreau, practicing DA and new author, gives us a tight, chillingly believable plot with a host of good guys/bad guys (who's who we're never sure), fast paced action, excellent dialogue, and characters you can definitely picture.

A young Pakistani, Raheem Khan, has been caught red-handed by a citizen neighbor at the scene of a double homicide in a quiet residential neighborhood. Rich Danko the current DA in Las Cruces is under investigation for corruption when he is approached by FBI agents to squelch Khan's indictment avoiding a splashy trial, and urged to make the whole thing go away. Hoping to work a quid pro quo with the Feds, he hands off what he considers to be a career buster mess to his hated rival and assistant DA Max Siegel. Max immediately smells a rat and enlists the help of his favorite investigator, retired Special Forces paratrooper Franny Rappaport. Both Max and Franny dislike the FBI's handpicked lackey Detective Dale Cox and set out to discover "the rest of the story."

The plot rolls along, the pages turn quickly, and within a few hours the incredible ending arrives. It's a story worthy of a movie script. I hope that Max Siegel, the hunky protagonist turns up in more books. He is a lawyer one could almost learn to love.

Many thanks to iUniverse for providing the review galley of this great read.

Blogger Unplugged

I may be off line for awhile. My computer has developed some nasty nasty behavior (I don't get the blue screen of death, I get the white screen of black dots screen of frozen nothing) so it's in the hospital now going through a queen's ransom worth of diagnostics.....let's just hope it's a nasty virus, and not a dissolving hard drive...

Thankfully hubbie let me use his, and I can check email on my blackberry, but it's not the same as visiting with you all on a full screen with regular keyboard. So stand by, just means I'll have more time to read and have lots of reviews stacked up.  There are three great mysteries I'm doing right now, and two more great ARC panting for their turn.  I'll keep you in suspense.  Please feel free to continue to drop comments - I can check those on the crackberry!

Review: War Torn: Stories of War from the Women Reporters who covered Vietnam

Contributors: Tad Bartimus, Denby Fawcett, Jurate Kazickas, Edith Lederer, Ann Bryan Mariano, Anne Morrissy Merick, Laura Palmer, Kate Webb, Tracy Wood
Format: Hardback 340 pgs
Subject: Women reporters in Vietnam War (non-fiction)
Setting: Vietnam
Genre: Non-Fiction, personal recollections
Source: public library

 When I think of Vietnam, I think of the soldier's faces.  Unguarded, innocent, smiling. They were all so young, unprepared for the filth and degradation of war.  No one wanted to be in that distant, strange land, but they did not complain. Some felt it was their duty to come to Vietnam.  Some never stopped questioning why they were there.  But they fought; they died....I wanted to write about these men.----Jarate Kazickas  War Torn, "These Hills Called Khe Sanh"  pg.121.

In 1966, when I graduated from an all-female college, women were just beginning to embrace the concept that opportunities were open to them, that we went to college to get an education-not a husband, although many of us still embraced the "womanly" occupations of school teacher, nurse, and librarian.  I joined the Navy, and found myself (after a rigorous Officer Candidate training in Newport RI) serving in a schools command personnel office in Newport where for the next two plus years, I spent 50% of my time, signing orders and travel papers and getting clearances to send graduates of the Navy's various training schools in Newport to duty in Vietnam.  None of my Newport classmates (all females) served in country.  The only women the Navy sent were nurses.  I signed their orders, but I didn't go through training with them and I didn't go to war with them.  My war was at home, convincing myself that our country couldn't possibly make the horrible mistake the war protesters screamed we were making.

My husband graduated from the Naval Academy that same year, and many of his classmates did go to Vietnam.  Several didn't return.  He went in 1972, commanding a large ocean going tug ferrying barges in and out of that dangerous area.  We don't talk a lot about the war.  To this day, I cannot go to the Vietnam War Memorial (THE WALL) without breaking down in tears.  It's not just for the people we know.  The tears are for all the people we didn't know, that we'll never have the chance to know, and for the loved ones who never had the chance for a long life together like we have had, for the incredible carnage and anguish our country endured because of what is known as Vietnam.

So........it was with a great deal of trepidation that I took on the reading challenge War Throughout the Generations: Vietnam sponsored by Anna and Serena.  I wasn't certain I was ready to tackle what I was sure could only be an extremely politicized and polarizing experience. I don't watch war movies, I can't stand to see anything with blood and guts and guns and grenades.  I even have trouble reading some 'thrillers' if they're too graphic. Is it that if I can't picture it, then it didn't happen?  I'm especially sure that I'll probably never be able to publicly blog about my still conflicted thoughts.

War Torn, was the perfect book for me to begin my reading, and maybe even to begin to examine my feelings.  Written by nine women who served as war correspondents in Vietnam during various periods of the conflict between 1966 and 1975, the diverse perspectives, adventures, and experiences of this group helped me to come to grips with the fact that it's ok not to be able to resolve our feelings.  They came from a variety of backgrounds and educations (one had never worked in any journalistic capacity - she got to Vietnam as a pediatrician's girlfriend!), they had an assortment of marching orders (from covering traditional women's items like families and food to going anywhere the military would permit them), and they had a wide range of reactions.

I was struck so strongly by their love of the country and the people.  Anyone I've ever spoken to who went there speaks of the beauty of the land, and the gentleness and integrity of the people.  The government may have been corrupt, and the land may have been decimated by all participants, but these women were all able to find something positive to bring out of their experiences.  I was especially struck by their insistence of getting the word out about what the average GI was really going through, by trying to get to know them, convincing field commanders to let them accompany troops in the field, and then report about soldier's heroism, fears, and battlefield wisdom.

I was also struck by the difference between "the war" as experienced by those who stayed mainly in Saigon, and "the war" out in the valleys, in the mountains, in the villages.

Kate Webb: "...back in Saigon it was different. You got back more often than not stinking, sweat caked, mosquito bitten, and badly in need of a shower, the images of the last week or ten days --the loss, the nerves, the bitterness, the adrenaline, the fear-- to lights, booze, laughter, and martinis on the terrace of the Caravelle (hotel) pg. 68.

The courage (some might say recklessness?) exhibited by this group as they schlepped up mountain sides wearing 100 lb packs, burned leeches off their arms and legs, waded across rivers holding their precious cameras and tape recorders over their heads, ducked into trenches to avoid flying mortars was not what was expected of 'little ladies' of our generation.  Several were wounded, a couple have debilitating physical issues that will follow them for the rest of their lives.  They adopted Vietnamese children, wrote books, and basically did what they were supposed to do--they reported what they saw.

Several admitted however, that they had been unable to think about or reminisce about their time until this project was proposed.  It was only in this book, 25 -30 years after they left, that they allowed themselves to confront some of the very emotional issues they had to bury in order to report in an objective manner.  Kate Webb was taken prisoner (in Cambodia) at one point. In writing about the experience, her ability to detach and report is impressive.

With the lack of any news or reference point, any reality check, in the grey limbo of 'the prisoner'--where you are not among the living or the dead of the war, but trapped in a gray twilight with no links to the living world--you reach a point inside yourself that you wouldn't reach otherwise. Pg. 78

There are other memorable quotes from several of them:

Anne Bryan Mariano: "Being in the field proved to me that while there are many cases of individual courage and heroism among soldiers, there is nothing about war itself that is heroic." (pg. 39)

Tad Bartimus : "In my youth I thought I was invincible, that if I didn't get shot or visibly maimed, I'd get away clean.  But surviving a war doesn't mean you escape being its victim. .....my ongoing health problems (from exposure to Agent Orange?) remind me that thousands of veterans still fight the Vietnam War every day in their own bodies." pg. 188, 217.

Laura Walker, who 'hitchhiked' to Vietnam with no press credentials or experience, writes eloquently of the other group of women who served in Vietnam, and about whom as a group not much has been written, the nurses.

The myth is that women weren't in combat.  In an official sense, that's true...Nurses saw the war from the inside out, from the rotting wounds infested with maggots to the stink of burned flesh, the mangled limbs, and the sucking chest wounds....The nurses wanted, willed, hoped, believed, prayed, and yearned for their patients to live so much that each death felt like a defeat. Nearly every nurse came home with a debilitating and corrosive sense of failure embedded in her soul.  If only she ad been a better nurse, more would have survived.

These are powerful and empowering stories-- for women and men. If you want to start reading about actual 'in country' experiences, this is a great place to start.

 
Challenge: War Thru the Generations

Monthly Wrap-Up for Challenges

As you can see on the sidebar, I've entered a number of reading challenges this year, and I'm really having fun meeting the requirements.  I'm especially pleased that I've been able to clear out so many ARCs and I'm keeping pace with the ones arriving this year. I'm still not completely caught up, but by April, I hope to be on track, and then I've promised myself I'll never get so far behind again...

Several of my challenges feature criteria that are overlapping, so books can count for more than one challenge. However, I'm finding that when I go to enter all of these in the individual Mr. Linky's set up by the contest people, Mr. Linky doesn't like that overlap. So.........I'm going to do a monthly post and list (and link) them here, and then just use this one post in Mr. Linky to see if that works. If you're a challenge maestro, I'll be emailing you (if I can find your email) to let you know what's happening.

The composite report indicates that for the month of January, I've read  and reviewed 20 books (not counting the four I abandoned).  Of those my top five are

1. Fireworks over Toccoa
2. Then Came the Evening
3. Supreme Courtship
4. True Blue
5. The Postmistress.

Unfortunately, Fireworks and Evening won't be in the stores until next month...But they are worth waiting for.
So here's the progress for the month--the Challenge Title links to that blog's contest, and the Book title links to my review:

Books Won Reading Challenge:
Supreme Courtship
True Blue (Audio)
Simon's Cat

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Reading from My Shelves Challenge:
A Year in the Merde
Kitchen
Founding Brothers
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Thriller and Suspense Reading Challenge
Death Goes on Retreat
A Fountain Filled with Blood
Key Lime Pie Murder
True Blue
The Black Echo
China Lake 
Death of a Valentine
A Fatal Grace
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Typically British Reading Challenge
Starburst
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Audio Book Challenge
Death Goes on Retreat
A Fountain Filled with Blood
Key Lime Pie Murder
True Blue
The Black Echo
China Lake
Starburst
A Fatal Grace
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ARC Reading Challenge
The Book of William
My Name is Will
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
The Lovely Bones
Then Came the Evening
The Postmistress
Death of a Valentine
Fireworks over Toccoa
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TBR Challenge
Supreme Courtship
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Support Your Local Library
China Lake
The Black Echo
Death Goes on Retreat
A Fountain Filled with Blood
Starburst
Key Lime Pie Murder
The Body in the Cast

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So there you have it for January.  I even took time off last nite to watch that gorgeous full moon rise over the river!  Even though meeting those reading challenges is fun, I don't want ever to lose sight of the best the world has to offer...it's right outside the door, and sitting right next to us and it's all the friends we've make over the years.  On to February.

Mini Review: Kitchen

Author: Banana Yoshimoto

Format: 160 pages, paperback
Characters:Mikage, Yuichi, Eriko
Subject: grief, mourning, healing
Setting: Tokyo Japan

Genre: fiction-novella
Source: Alibris used books



This is an exquisite little book written in prose that is elegant and eloquent. In the first novella, Kitchen,  Mikage, a young girl living in Tokyo, is suddenly orphaned when her grandmother dies. She is living alone, mourning, emotionally lost, when she is invited to stay with a school mate Yuichi and his transgendered mother/father(?) Eriko in their larger, more modern apartment.  There, the availability of a modern (for Japanese households) kitchen gives her a way to work out her grief and solidify her yearnings to make food and its preparation a life's work. While there, her relationship with them speaks of losing, dying, recovering, and living again. When Eriko dies, she is cast again into mourning, and must climb back out, while helping Yuichi with his emotions.

The second short story Moonlight Shadow tells another story of love lost and is equalling touching.

This book had been sitting on my shelf for over a year. I had started it last fall while we were 'on the road' since it's so small and packs easily, but unintentionally left it in Virginia at a friend's house. She mailed it back last week, and I was so thrilled to be able to finish it. It is sparse, short, and beautiful. Well worth finding.

Challenge: Reading from My Shelves

Review: A Fatal Grace

Author: Louise Penny
Format: audio -8 discs (10 hrs), 368 pages equivalent
Characters: Armand Gamache, Jean Guy Beauvoir
Subject: murder in a small town
Setting: Three Pines, outside Montreal
Series: The Three Pines Mysteries
Genre: mystery, detectives
Source: public library audio book



Once again, Louise Penny takes us to that idyllic village in the Pines outside Montreal, where we all want to go on our vacation to experience the beauty, the quiet, the inhabitants whom we are beginning to regard now as friends.  In this 2nd of the Three Pines Mystery series, we even begin to like that eccentric old lady Ruth, the poet, the head of the volunteer fire department.

Inspector Gamache and his team must find out who killed a woman who was electrocuted on a frozen pond while watching the town's annual Boxing Day curling match.

The fact that absolutely no one in the town liked the victim, or even seemed to know much about her, makes the job even harder.  Penny is beginning to hit her stride in this one, as she offers us several different possibilities for the perpetrator, introduces some new characters, and expands on the character of Armand Gamache that we met in her first book "Still Life."

When we finally figure it out (or did we?) there's still several chapters left, and we find perhaps we didn't get it right after all.

I listened to this in audio and it's such a treat to hear the bi-lingual give and take, the elegance of the Quebecois as they go about day to day life.  To read (or listen) to these books is to fall in love with characters, a town, a region. I can't wait to read more.


Challenge: Supoort Your Local Library, Audio books, Thrillers Suspence and Mystery

Unfinished Friday -a double header

Marie, the Boston Bibliophile started this very useful meme so we can blog about books that for whatever reason just don't work. This time I had two that hit the 'Let it Go" Pile. The first was  "The Hemingses of Monticello" by Annette Gordon Reed.

I've been working on this one for almost three weeks.  It is ponderous, tedious, learned, well-researched, and I've certainly learned a lot.  It really isn't for any specific challenge, although I thought it would be good background material for my participation in the US Presidents challenge.  It is not a bad book, it won the National Book Award.  It's just a really slow, and very detailed (probably way too detailed) read.

I'm putting it aside for now.  I've had it as an audio, and it's not working.  I think it might work better in print, and will look for it.  I'm just finding that I'm tiring of the author's constant speculation based on 'we really have no positive proof.'  I seem to be hearing the same theories over and over, and after 4 discs that's enough.  I realize that historians have to make assumptions.  For that reason, I try to read non-fiction written only by well-vetted authors.  I felt that winning a National Book Award was plenty of vetting, but  I also feel let down.

This book is 31 discs in audio and 816 pages in print, so the investment of time is substantial. Let's hope a different format will remedy my indifference toward this one, because my brain is not ready to soak up 800 pages of repetition right now.
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On the other hand, the second abandoned book The Broken Road To Disaster Recovery by Keifer Bonvillain is an ARC I got late last summer self-published by the author. It is poorly written, surreptiously researched, and not vetted by anyone except the author. Billed as the undercover whistle blowing story of corruption in Louisiana and FEMA, the author sets out to prove he has the scoop.I couldn't finish this one. I felt like I was in the supermarket line reading the National Enquirer.

It smacked of overblown self-importance--the author seemed to be the only person in the US who knew corruption and was qualified to report on it. If it hadn't been his 2nd such work (he is the author of Ruthless: A Tell-All Book about Oprah Winfrey), I'd have had more inclination to pay attention. The writing was bombastic, snarky, overblown, and in need of good editing. After 50+ pages, I decided life is too short. If there's truly a scandal to be reported, then I'll wait til it's reported by legitimate and vettable journalists.

Review: Then came the Evening

Author: Brian Hart
Format:  262 pgs hardback
Characters: Bandy, Iona and Tracy Dorner
Subject:rebuilding relationships
Setting: Idaho valleys
Genre: fiction
Source: Bloomsbury publishers review copy
Challenge: ARC

This is an intense book. The setting is stark and beautiful--the wilds of Idaho.  I've never been there, but I had no trouble picturing the trees,the clouds,the winds,the gulleys,the old barns, and the valley.The scene is haunting.

The characters are intense.  There are three: Bandy, Iona, and Tracy.  While several others play more than cameo roles, these three broken, dysfunctional, hurting, needy people form the basis of the story and and keep us from putting down this book while we read how they try to mend their lives and the lives of those they hurt.

The story itself is intense. There are action scenes,and scenes of incredible stillness watching two or three people trying to puzzle out what to say, where to go, what to do next.  While there is no plot per se, there is a distinct beginning, a page-turning middle and a clear and dramatic end. The reader is pulled in from the very first pages and marches inexorably to an end at once fearful and hopeful.

Bandy Dorner, home from service in the Army, awakes from a drunken stupor in his crashed car, to find his house burned to the ground, and his pregnant wife running off with her lover. There's a struggle with the arresting law enforcement persons, and when next we see Bandy,the convicted felon sitting in a prison 18 years later facing the son he never knew he had.  Tracy, tired of living with his alcoholic mom Iona, has run to meet and claim his other parent.

Iona manages to provide for her son during those long years of Bandy's imprisonment by first marrying an OK guy, and moving to Washington State.  Then when that husband dies, Iona finds herself working a series of dead-end jobs, and moving in with her sister. Both ladies find it easier to 'bring home the bacon' by servicing gentlemen in their bedroom rather than waiting tables, or running a cash register, as long as the booze and drugs are well stocked.

As soon as he is old enough, Tracy sets out to find his roots.  After visiting his father in the prison, he returns to the original family homestead in Idaho and begins to rebuild.  When his father is released from prison, and his mother sobers up and comes to find the son she finds she misses, the three of them begin a slow waltz, circling each other, measuring how much effort building a relationship as well as a house will take.

Brian Hart gives us a gut-wrenching story in clean, clear, poetic prose.  There is pain, hurt, violence, and heart-breaking betrayal while at the same time there is love, forgiveness, tenderness, and reaching out to rebuild what has been lost.  We find ourselves routing for these people even as we fear the possibility of a train-wreck.

The ending is absolutely stunning.  We should all hope that Hart has more in his repetoire where this came from.  It's a keeper.

Favorites from the past

A World Lit Only by Fire

by William Manchester

Every Friday, Alyce At Home With Books features this meme inviting us to look back at a favorite book from the past.  Since this week, I'll be doing an Unfinished Friday post, I'm posting this one today while the memory is fresh like the snowflakes falling quietly outside.  It's amazing how the smallest things can trigger our memories.

This week's memory was triggered by a scene in a Louise Penny book I's reading: The Fatal Grace where Inspector Gamage walks into a room lit by oil lamps because a huge blizzard had knocked out the power.  He stopped and said to himself "...a world lit only by fire."  Instantly I remembered this book which I read at least ten years ago.  It was published in 1993, and it's going back on my re-read pile.  I don't remember details, but I do remember I closed it and said 'that was a good book!'  Here's how it's described on the Amazon site:

It speaks to the failure of medieval Europe, writes popular historian William Manchester, that "in the year 1500, after a thousand years of neglect, the roads built by the Romans were still the best on the continent." European powers were so absorbed in destroying each other and in suppressing peasant revolts and religious reform that they never quite got around to realizing the possibilities of contemporary innovations in public health, civil engineering, and other peaceful pursuits. Instead, they waged war in faraway lands, created and lost fortunes, and squandered millions of lives. For all the wastefulness of medieval societies, however, Manchester notes, the era created the foundation for the extraordinary creative explosion of the Renaissance. Drawing on a cast of characters numbering in the hundreds, Manchester does a solid job of reconstructing the medieval world, although some scholars may disagree with his interpretations.

Later, when Thomas Cahill started his Hinges of History series, I found my positive reaction to Manchester laid a great foundation for reading Cahill.  And here, in Maine in the winter, we quite often have short periods of time when the world is truly 'lit only by fire.'  It's magnificent.

New England Bloggers 1st Birthday

New England Bloggers Celebrate their 

1st year!

Tomorrow (January 27th) marks a big day in the calendar for the New England Bloggers.  This has been an exciting year for all of us as we get to know each other's sites and interests. A year ago, Elizabeth (AKA the Evil Overlord) began the daunting task of rounding up, listing and linking those of us in the blogosphere who lived and blogged in the glorious 6 state area known as New England.  We've had a great time finding out about each other: some of us do cooking, others crafting, sewing, art, and book reviews.  Our October mixer celebrating our reaching 100 members was especially fun as we went round visiting new sites and making new friends.

I've learned a lot about the diversity in the area, and am looking forward to visiting more of your blogs during the upcoming year.  Let's hope we grow some more, have some more "getting to know you" events, and maybe someday we'll find a village green, strike a tent, and all get together in real vice virtual space.

I'm not a native New Englander --I'm one of those people "FROM AWAY".  Hubbie and I fell in love with Maine's rugged coastline on our honeymoon, and decided 42+ years ago that we would someday have to live here where we could enjoy the lighthouses, the ocean, the wildlife, the blueberries, and the incredible seafood.  All of that is wonderful, but it's the people who make New England the place to be.  I've not yet met anyone here in Maine who would not stop and give me any help I needed if I asked --- and I probably wouldn't even have to ask.

There isn't a week that goes by that I don't see a church supper or benefit being held to help out fellow townspeople.  There isn't a week that goes by without some exotic wildlife sighting (exotic to me anyway), some new taste sensation being thrust at me, or some gorgeous sunrise or sunset bursting over the ocean here on the coast. 

This week for instance we get to escape our icy 1000 ft long driveway as the 'big snow' of last week finally melts.  Of course in New England we know to laugh at that because......come on........it's still January and we remember that this pile melts and that just means we're making room for the next batch.

So I'm not baking anything spectacular for the party--we had some crab for dinner and we're having hazelnut gelato for dessert (picked it up this afternoon at Hannaford's) with some Sweet Grass Winery (from nearby Union Maine)  Blueberry Beaujolais.  Life doesn't get any better.  What are you having?

No matter how you celebrate, let's all give a HUGE thank you to Elizabeth for being our fairy godmother.  She deserves a particular round of applause and a big virtual hug.

Elizabeth--this one's for you!

Review: Lovely Bones

Author: Alice Sebold
Format: 328 pgs paperback ARC
Characters: Susie Salmon, her family, Ray Singh, Mr. Harvey
Subject: unsolved murder
Setting: Pennsylvania 1973 and forward
Genre: fiction
Source: ARC from Hachette Book Group


A wonderful read. Since this book was first released in 2002, it has been on the best seller list for years, has sold over 2.3 million copies.  Last summer, it was re-leased in a trade paperback format, leading up to the release of the motion picture just last week.  I can't believe I haven't read it before now.

As you probably know, this is the story of a 14 year old girl, Susie Salmon, who is murdered, but whose body is not found. Susie narrates the story from heaven and shows us what her parents, her siblings, her schoolmates, the police,and the murderer are doing as everyone searches for her body.
 
NO SPOILERS. It's actually a beautiful story of sorrow, mourning, forgiving, starting over, loving, and growing up. . I was afraid it would be too goulish, but it's not. Susie's description of heaven won't please everyone, nor is it so out of the ordinary to be thrown aside by those who don't believe in an afterlife. Sebold gives us real human emotion in simple, flowing prose.  I literally could not put this down.  At 328 pages, it took just about 6 glorious hours.  What a wonderful way to spend an evening.



Challenge: ARC

Review : Fireworks over Toccoa

Author: Jeffrey Stepakoff
Format: paperback galley proof 260 pgs
Characters: Lily Davis Woodward, Jake Russo, Andrew Woodward
Subject: love, duty, relationships, fireworks
Setting: Toccoa Georgia 1945, 2007
Genre: fiction
Source: Advanced Review Copy from St Martin's Press (Thomas Dunne Books)
Challenge: ARC

Married for just a few weeks before her husband Drew left to go overseas during the war, Lily Davis Woodward, daughter of a wealthy Coca Cola executive, has waited three long years to take her place in society. Now just a few days before his scheduled return, she meets Jake Russo, war veteran and pyrotechnic engineer. He is preparing a huge fireworks show to honor the returning servicemen.

When they meet, love happens-- slowly, tentatively, tenderly and then with same explosiveness of Jake's fireworks.

In understated, elegant, exquisite prose, Stepakoff presents us with a painful, tragic, gorgeous, affirming love affair. The character development of Lily and Jake, as well as the presentation of Lily's parents and other supporting characters, gives us a picture of longing, duty, relationships, and heartbreaking honesty. Lily's dad for instance says to her when he suspects she's conflicted about her husband's return:

"I have been married to the same woman at least five times. Marriage comes in phases. Some good, some not so good. But you work through things, and you grow, and you change, and you stick by the decision that you made, even when you were seventeen.  That is your duty." (pg. 178)

The searing anguish of these star-struck lovers reaches its peak when Lily must choose whether to leave her home and roam the world with Jake shooting fireworks, or stay with her husband.  The resolution of her dilemma is heart rending but almost inevitable.  I will not spoil it for other readers.

This is simply one of the best love stories I've read in my adult life.

Review: China Lake

Author: Meg Gardiner

Format: 12 discs , 416 pgs equivalent
Characters: Evan, Brian, Luke & Tabitha Delaney,
Subject: Cults, Naval Aviation, crime
Setting: China Lake Air Station California
Series: Evan Delaney mysteries
Genre: mystery- amateur sleuth, thriller
Source: Overdrive audio download from public library

A new protagonist for me.  Evan Delaney, attorney turned writer, has been given temporary custody of her nephew Luke.  Luke's father (Evan's brother) is a Naval Aviator who is deployed to keep the world safe for democracy.  His mother abandoned him because she could not abide the 'Navy way' of life.  Mom subsequently joins a cult, which cult subsequently tries to kidnap Luke.

Evan and her paraplegic boyfriend Jessie- another attorney become caught up in a series of rather 'suspend your belief' adventures as they try to return Luke to his father, now back from sea and stationed at China Lake Naval Base in the desert of California.

The book becomes a combination of good cop/bad cop, Rapture meets Hollywood, biological warfare meets Top Gun.  I enjoyed the story but found Evan's character really stretched my ability to believe any of this could really have gone down the way it is portrayed.





Challenge: Audio Books, Thrillers & Suspense, Support Your Local Library

Mini-Review: The Black Echo

By now most of the literate western world is aware of Michael Connelly's Harry (Heronimous) Bosch-- a rugged individualist with great detective instincts.  I finally got around to reading him last fall when I got an ARC of The Brass Verdict and decided I wanted to go back to the beginning of this fascinating character.  Black Echo is the first of what is now up to fifteen adventures.

With still vivid memories of his days serving in Vietnam, Bosch is called to investigate the murder of someone who served with him. In a plot with many twists, and indelible characters who keep us guessing as to who is on which side of good or bad, Connelly presents us with a protagonist who shows humanity along with ingenuity. Paired with a female FBI agent, Bosch is soon on the trail of bank robbers who seem to be tied to his homicide victim. There are Internal Affairs investigators, pompous Police Captains, and officious FBI operatives, but somehow Connelly avoids stereotyping. Definitely recommended.



Challenges: , Audio Books, Thrillers Suspense, Support Your Local Library

Review: Death of a Valentine

Author: M.C. Beaton
Format: Hardback, 246 pages
Characters: Hamish Macbeth, Josie McSween
Subject: murder, romantic entrapment
Setting: Scottish Highlands
Series: Hamish Macbeth Mystery
Genre: mystery- cozy, police procedural
Source: ARC from Hachette Books

Hamish Macbeth finally goes to the altar??  

The story opens with Hamish standing before the altar as the minister asks the familiar "If any amongst you know of any reason why this man should not be joined to this woman...."

After being assigned a wee lassie female police constable as his assistant, Hamish is confronted with a series of murders, and he suspects they're related.  While he tries to avoid the amorous advances of Constable Josie McSween, he manages to investigate, and solve the crimes. Throughout the story though the reader anxiously waits to see.  Does Josie get her man?

Hamish Macbeth fans would lynch any reviewer who tells!  If you are a fan of this wonderful cozy police procedural series set in the Scottish highlands, you will surely enjoy this one.  If you've not read any before, it works as a stand alone.  And I'll never tell............


Challenge:ARC

Unfinished Friday --- Or is it?

The italics are the beginning of this post that I started earlier this week:
 
 For the past 9 months I've been picking this book up, trying to read it (or figure out what the premise is, or asking myself what it's all about, etc., etc.), and it's just not singing out "finish me, finish me." In fact, each time I've tried reading it, the other side of my brain is going "why are you wasting your time.?  I'm not liking this...."

I'm sure Shakespeare buffs are falling on their swords right now, but sorry, this one is going onto the abandoned pile--since it's a clearly marked NOT FOR SALE ARC, I can't even donate it to the library for its annual book sale. If you are interested in more objective assessments, BOOKLIST and Publisher's Weekly have blurbs you can read here.
Now...
At this point, I began paging through to see how far I really got, and my brain clicked on again.  "This book is downright funny" I thought. "Some of this is finally making sense.  I think I understand what the author is trying to do here"...So I planned to finish it over the weekend, and then give you the final review.  In the meantime, I thought it would be worthwhile to admit that sometimes it takes a time or two for something to 'click' and we ought not be too hasty to toss something aside. I was really settling back, and actually got about 95 of the 320 pages done, but realized that while there are sections of this book that are genuinely funny, and the premise is terribly clever, I just cannot take the abundance of sex, more sex, drugs, and more drugs needed to tell the story the way the author presents it.   It is hereby permanently consigned to the abandoned forever pile. Sorry Will, but this book is not for me.

I appreciate the opportunity offered to review the book, and will point out that no body can read every book and have a favorable opinion.  Others, including some very well known authors, have rated it highly. If you're a Shakespeare fan, a humor fan, and like satire, you might want to give it a try.

Review: The Postmistress

Author: Sarah Blake

Format: paperback galley, 322 pages
Characters: Iris James, Harry Vale, Emma Fitch, William Fitch, Frankie Bard
Setting: Franklin Mass, London 1941
Genre: literary fiction
Source: LibraryThing Early Review program

Set on both sides of the Atlantic during the early months of WWII, this is a compelling novel that pulls us right into the lives of Iris James-the Postmaster at Franklin Mass on Cape Cod; Emma Fitch-new bride of the town's doctor; Harry Vale-a WWI vet who is convinced that the Germans will land a Uboat on Cape Cod; and of Frankie Bard, the radio reporter working in London with Edward R. Murrow during the Blitz

Miss James is determined to maintain order and discipline in her life. The mail will be stamped and delivered on time without pause.  Harry Vale wants her to lower the Post Office's flag pole by several feet, claiming it serves as a beacon to Germans off-shore.  Iris balks at that suggestion, but agrees to petition the postal department for permission.

Emma, still recovering from a feeling of being abandoned by parents who have died, clings to her husband trying to establish an identity in this small town. After listening to Frankie Bard's emotional broadcasts about the hardships being endured by the British during the bombing of London, and after other events I'll leave to the readers (I DON'T DO SPOILERS), Dr. Fitch leaves behind his practice, his town, and his bride to go to London to help the many victims of the bombings.  He writes to Emma every night, and she mails him a letter every day. He promises he will return after six months.  When his letters suddenly stop, Emma becomes more detached, and Iris, as she watches her continue to mail her daily letter, becomes more concerned.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Frankie meets Dr Fitch in an air raid shelter one evening, and emerges to find her apartment destroyed and her roomate (who had been covering the Jewish story) dead. She convinces Murrow to let her go behind the war lines into Germany to find out what is really going on with the Jews.  She goes through France and Germany, gathering stories but not sure how (or whether) she will be able to tell them.

It is difficult to write about this story without spoiling the ending.  It's not necessarily a mystery, but this is a nuanced, evolving study of the impact of trauma, callousness, abandonment, death, and cruelty on the human beings who must live through war, and whose ability to survive, whose very humanity is constantly tested.  Frankie's stories of horror and personal suffering are particularly poignant and her mental anguish as she struggles to find a frame in which to report them, and deal with her meeting with Dr. Fitch,  are a cogent and mesmerizing thread pulling us along to an inevitable and powerful ending.

I encourage the reader NOT to read the cover blurb.  The 'hint' there about what is going to happen is overplayed, and comes so late in the story, that it is better left behind.  The forceful march to the inescapable ending, and Blake's exquisite character development and prose make this a compelling page-turner. It is a five star read, and the reader needs no road map to enjoy the journey.

many many thanks to LT Early Review program for making this copy available.