2015 Reading Challenge Category List

Semicolon is hosting a book list link up on Saturday so I thought I'd join in with a list of the how I fared with 2015's Reading Challenge.  I thought it would be interesting to list the books as they fit into each of the categories.  Don't know if that will interest any of you but it does me so that's how I will roll on this one.  Now most of the books I read can fit into more than one category so I tried to choose one category for them each but for a few I had to use one title several times.   On the other side of the coin, there were some books that didn't make the list because I already filled the category with another book.   Some of the books I read intentionally to fit the categories and some I read for my own choice of pleasure and then fit them into the appropriate category.  If in multiple categories the author is only mentioned once.  In A book set in a different country category that to me meant other than Canada or USA, otherwise I would have been able to list pretty much all of the books.

1) A Book with More than 500 pages:  Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill (I cheated a bit with this one - It came in at 474.

2) A Classic Romance:

3) A Book That Became A Movie:  "Still Alice" by Lisa Genova

4) A Book Published This Year:  "A House Divided" by Robert Whitlow

5) A Book With a Number in the Title:  "The Hundred Foot Journey" by Richard C. Morais

6) A Book Written By Someone Under 30:  "Miracle on Voodoo Mountain" by Megan Boudreaux

7) A Book with Non-Human Characters:  "Life Of Pi" by Yann Martel

8) A Funny Book:  "Invisible Ellen" by Shari Shattuck

9) A Book by a Female Author:  "Girl Runner" by Carrie Snyder;

10) A Mystery or Thriller:  "Girl on the Train" by Paula Hawkins

11) A Book with a One Word Title:  "Betrayed" by Lisa Scottoline

12) A Book of Short Stories:  "Wicked Women of the Bible" by Ann Spangler

13) A Book Set in a Different Country:  "Hansi-The Girl Who Loved the Swastika" by Maria Ann Hirschmann (Germany); "Miracle on Voodoo Mountain" (Haiti); "How to Be An American Housewife" (Japan); A Man Called Ove (Sweden)

14) A Non-Fiction Book:  "Laura Ingalls Wilder Country - the people and places behind Laura Ingalls Wilder's life and books" by William Anderson

15)  A Popular Author's First Book:  "Little House in the Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder

16)  A Book From a Favourite Author You Haven't Read Yet:  "Water From My Heart" by Charles Martin

17)  A Pulitzer Prize Winning Book:  "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee

18)  A Book based on a True Story:  "GI Brides-the wartime girls who crossed the Atlantic for love" by Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi

19) A Book from the Bottom of Your To Read List:  "The Sweet By and By" by Sara Evans and  Rachel Hauck

20) A Book Your Mom Loves:

21) A Book That Scares You:  "Inside the O'Briens"  by Lisa Genova

22) A Book More Than a 100 years Old:

23) A Book Based Entirely on It's Cover:  "How to Be an American Housewife" by Margaret Dilloway

24) A Book You Were Supposed to Read in School but Didn't:

25) A Memoir:  "Hansi-The Girl Who Loved the Swastika" by Maria Ann Hirschmann

26) A Book you can finish in a day:  "You are Here-Around the World in 92 Minutes" by Chris Hadfield

27) A Book with Antonyms in the Title:  "Little House in the Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder

28) A Book Set Somewhere You've Always Wanted to Visit:  "The Boston Girl" by Anita Diamont

29) A Book That Came Out the Year You Were Born:  "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee

30) A Book with Bad Reviews:  "the Bookseller" by Cynthia Swanson (it had mixed reviews)

31) A Trilogy:  (I cheated on this because book #3 is not yet realeased) Mercy Medallion Trilogy books 1 and 2:  Traces of Mercy and Finding Mercy by Michael Landon Jr. and Cindy Kelley

32) A Book From Your Childhood:  "Little House in the Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder

33) A Book with a Love Triangle:  "Lethal Beauty" by Lis Wiehl

34) A Book Set in the Future

35) A Book Set in High School:  "Wonders Never Cease" by Phil Calloway

36) A Book with a Color in the Title

37) A Book that Made You Cry:  "A Man Called Ove" by Fredrik Backman

38) A Book with Magic

39) A Graphic Novel

40) A Book by an Author You've Never Read Before:  "Girl Runner" by Carrie Snyder

41) A Book you Own But Have Never Read:  "Book of Negroes" by Lawrence Hill

42) A Book that Takes Place in Your Hometown

43) A Book that Was Originally Written in a Different Language:  "A Man Called Ove" by Fredrik Backman

44) A Book Set During Christmas:  "52 Little Lessons from A Christmas Carol" by Bob Welch; "A Quilt for Christmas" by Sandra Dallas

45) A Book by An Author with Your Same Initials: "Invisible Ellen" by Shari Shattuck

46) A Play

47) A Banned Book:  "To Kill a Mockingbird"

48) A Book Based On or Turned Into a TV Show:  Little House In the Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder turned into Little House on the Prairie TV series

49) A Book You Started but Never Finished

50) A Book a Friend Recommended:  "Still Alice" by Lisa Genova


So out of 50 catagories I missed 11.  Too bad some of the books I read that I didn't list didn't fit into these empty categories.  A Play, a book set in the future, a book with magic and a graphic novel were so out of my usual reads that they sorta got left to the end and ultimately left behind.  I tried to get some kind of book set in my hometown but my brain was stuck in a fiction novel and I couldn't find one but I probably could have gone non-fiction had I thought of that...though rumor around these parts is that Frank Perretti's "This Present Darkness" was written with my hometown in mind but who knows for sure.  And as far as A book I started but never finished...well there must have been a reason I didn't finish it so why would I waste my time picking it up again when there are so many other books I want to read?  All in all I think I did not too shabby for a tough challenge.

Becoming Ellen by Shari Shartuck ~ Book Review

This is the follow up to Ellen's story that began with this book.  I really enjoyed the first book and so when I saw it was on order at my library I put a hold on it right away and was first in line.  So glad I did that because this one was just as enjoyable of a read as the first.  It continues Ellen's story of slowing coming out of her shell and reaching out.  Her deepening friendship with Temerity, who's is perfectly named by the way, and Temerity's brother Justin, continues to be a safe place for her.  Their understanding and unconditional love and acceptance help Ellen to try to step beyond the very high walls and the reclusive invisible life she had built for herself.   But when she is confronted with the dire straights of two young children Ellen must face her own childhood of abuse and neglect and come out of her "invisibleness in order to help these kids.   Of course, watching from the shadows is not Temerity's style and before Ellen knows it she is being once again drawn into Temerity's whirlwind.  And things are once again happening at work which cause Ellen to have to make some decisions about being an onlooker or doing the right thing.

  It's hard to review this book without giving away what happened in the first so that's about all I'm going to tell you plot wise.  It is imperative to the reader, I think, for these two books to be read in order.  The first one laid all the foundations of Ellen's reclusive life and the uphill battle she has to overcome for all the years of working on making herself invisible.    I, once again, really felt for all the main characters of this story.  The reader sees a vulnerable side to Temerity in this one that wasn't yet revealed in the first book and we are given access to where she and her brother have learned their compassion and acceptance for others.  We continue to see how hard it is for Ellen to overcome everything she has been through and move beyond the social awkwardness but cheer her on when she is able to take those small steps to do what to the average person would not think twice about.  The book deals with various kinds of child abuse that just makes me ill to think about but the author, I thought, treated it with as much "gentleness" and care as was possible and still be able tell the story.   There is nothing gratuitous in the telling.  There was one part of the story that deals with Ellen and Temerity and the inured mother of a little girl that just sort of didn't ring quite true with me, the trust factor seemed very rushed to me, but again to say more would reveal the story.

Though I thought the first book had more humorous touching moments this one was just as good but in a different way.  It takes us deeper into the heart as more of Ellen and her childhood is revealed.  It explores an extreme side of the foster care system which I'm sure is not the norm.   I was just as emotionally invested in this story as the first.  


It was a 9 out of 10 for me.

Reading Challenge Goals Met:  A book published this year,  a book by a female author

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman ~ Book Review

Ove is a 59 year old man whom everyone thinks is the grumpiest person you would ever meet.  He likes his order and he lives by principal.  He believes strongly in things in a world where right just had to be right, a very black and white world, according to him.  He lives by the rules and there is not a smidge of bending them.  His beloved father instilled principles in him after all and he has lived his whole life this way, and there is no reason to change now.  And part of that order is setting himself up as the "gatekeeper" of his neighborhood association, looking over the neighborhood and making sure it's safe and no one breaks any "rules".  But Ove gets a huge shakeup to his orderly world when new neighbors move into his neighborhood.  They are chatty, she is foreign and pregnant, he doesn't know how to fix anything and they have noisy kids.  Another thing to grump about in his orderly world.  But they aren't just next door, they are in his face and trying to invade his world with cheerfulness and friendship and all he wants is to be left alone so he can carry out his plans.

This book came highly recommended by the lady at Indigo/Chapters when my daughter and I were on a book buying splurge there this spring.  It was originally written in Swedish but has now been translated into, I think I read somewhere, 25 languages.  It's popularity has basically been word of mouth.  Seeing one of the goals on my 2015 reading challenge was to read a book originally written in another language, this fit the bill.  I'm so glad I got it.  Though when I first started reading it I did wonder.  Ove is introduced as such an unlikeable, angry curmudgeon of a character...and I already had people like that in my life...did I really want to read a story of one?  But there was something so appealing about this story as layer by layer Ove's history is revealed and his exuberant new neighbor looks beyond the grumpy to find the heart of the man.  As Ove tries to bring his plans for his life to fruition something always happens to interrupt him and he faces choices and putting off those plans.  It turned into a wonderful story of looking beyond first impressions, of reaching out to others, of lending a hand and of life just being better when others are allowed in.  I laughed and cried my way through this whole book, sometimes at the same time, which an author has never been able to accomplish with me before.  The writing is quirky, different and charming starting with the chapter titles and carries on throughout the story and I don't think anything was lost in the translation at all.  Ove's story really made me look at my own life and what areas I am so rigid and closed off in (I tend to be a natural rule follower so this really woke me up to that) and how I need to open up to others more and enjoy those God places in front of me.

I gave this book a 10/10 for it's heart-warming look at sharing life with others and exploring how we all have something to offer and for the sheer enjoyment of the read.

Reading Challenge 2015 goals met:  A book originally written in another language, a book a friend recommended (ok the lady at the store is not my friend but it was still a recommendation), a book set in a different country, a book set somewhere I've always wanted to visit (Sweden),  a funny book, a book that made me cry, a book by an author I've never read before,

A Fall of Marigolds by Susan Meissner

In 1911, Clara Wood watched as the man she was falling in love with jumped to his death as the flames from the Triangle Shirwaist Factory roared around him.  Not being able to face returning to Manhattan to a life she was just starting, she finds a semblance of peace in a nursing job on Ellis island.  Here she takes care of the hundreds of immigrants who are kept on the island hospital for health reasons. But when an young immigrant comes in wearing a beautiful woman's scarf with marigolds all over it and in grief for the young bride who succumbed to scarlet fever, Clara feels drawn to help the young man and the colors in the scarf.  But in the helping Clara is caught up in a dilemma of whether to tell the truth or not and in turn must confront the feelings of guilt that is itself keeping her prisoner on the island.

Taryn Michaels has built a life for her and her daughter on Manhattan's Upper West Side.  She's working a job she loves researching and finding antique fabrics for her customers and has convinced herself she is finally happy.  But September 2011 is coming up, the tenth anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Centers, and she is once again facing that day as a national magazine publishes a formerly unknown picture of her watching in terror and clutching a beautiful scarf with marigolds as the tower collapses and the debris falls around her.  Now she must answer her daughter's questions about why she has never said that she was there when the towers fell and the guilt that she has tried to bury comes raging full force as she remembers her husband's death in the towers.

Susan Meissner has an incredible way of taking two individuals stories years apart and connecting them through a physical object, in this case the scarf and it's journey from one to the other.  Living decades apart both women witnessed a horrible life altering tragedy (the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire is a true event).   Both of these women's stories were paralleled in that they were both prisoners in a sense to the guilt they felt in what had happened to their loved one, and that both were choosing to live life in an "in between place" of grief and guilt, holding back from really living and loving.  Their stories of coping and what led to both tragedies really got me in my heart.   I couldn't put the book down.  It is beautifully written and causes the reader to think on whether they believe that things happen for a reason.  It asks us to wonder if a person can actually fall in love with someone they don't really know, asks us to define what love would be.  As an observer one would scoff at Clara's declarations of "loving" someone she didn't even really know, but the feelings she felt for Edward were hers and I as the reader could choose to call it unbelievable or I could choose to believe that this young, innocent girl actually did have deep feelings for the Edward she knew, even though the knowing was more of a budding aquaintanceship (is that a word?).    The story asks us if we believe in destiny and that God has a plan for each of our lives.  It causes us to think of the choices we make and how that forms where our life will take us.  Once again I loved the immigrant experience parts of the story and learning about the hospital on Ellis island.

There was one thing that prevents me from giving this a 10/10, however, but it is minor.  For me there was a bit of confusion at the end on to whom the scarf was passed along to (who is Elinor??) and had me scratching my head and trying to turn back to former pages to see what I had missed.  I loved this quote from the end of the story and it sort of summarizes the story for me:

"The scarf was given first to a woman named Lily by a mother who loved her.  Life sent Lily to a valley of decision, just as it sends all of us there from time to time.  She made difficult choices based on despair.  If I have learned anything this past year, is that despair is love's fiercest enemy.

Do not chose to abandon love because you are afraid that it will crush you.  Love is the only true constant in a fragile world."

Fall of Marigolds pg. 363

Though in the Christian fiction genre, I think it is a story that anyone would enjoy no matter where they are in faith.  I gave this lovely story a 9.5 out 10

Reading Challenge Goals Met:  A book set somewhere you've always wanted to visit (New York city), A book by a female author, A book from an author I love,

Linked to Semicolon Saturday Review of  Books

How to Be an American Housewife by Margaret Dilloway ~ Book Review

When Shoko fell in love during the war in Japan, she couldn't tell a soul, and she couldn't bring herself to leave and marry her love.  Japanese culture dictated that the person she loved was not in the right caste and it would bring shame upon her family.  So when tragedy strikes,  Shoko decides to marry an American GI not for love but for a better life , her father picks her future husband from a pile of pictures of American suitors.  Leaving Japan, she was able to keep her parents honor and have their blessing but instead she incurred the scorn of her beloved brother.   Her now husband, trying to help her to fit in to American life, gives her a book called "How to be an American Housewife".   Written in both English and Japanese, in it are supposed gems of wisdom in helping the Japanese wife to navigate the differences in customs and attitudes and help to transition her into the Western Culture.

Now fifty years, after raising 2 children in America, Shoko desperately wants to return to Japan and see her family.  Not hearing from any of them during her life in America she wants to try to heal the rift with her brother and bring a treasured item home with her.  But now health problems prevent her from going and so she turns to her daughter to make the trip for her.  The things her grown daughter will learn on this trip will become life changing and will cause her to see her mother in a whole new light.

"For the first years of my marriage, it had been my handbook, 

my guide to doing everything.

Rules for living, American style.

Sometimes it was right, and sometimes it was not.

Sometimes I liked it and sometimes I didn't.

But that was just like life.

You don't always get what you want, do you?"

How to be an American Housewife

page 139

I loved this beautiful story.  There was so much to it.  The war, Japanese culture and attitudes, trying to assimilate into America, facing horrible prejudice, never fitting in, hiding secrets, love and loss.   The story starts in America with an aging Shoko and her husband Charlie, and then seamslessly moves into an account of Shoko's growing up years in Japan, of her young adult self full of beauty and potential, of the hard realities of war, her life in America and then moves into the trip her daughter and granddaughter make in her stead.  It is full of rich historical detail but never seams dry.  The author has woven it into the story very well.  The story starts in the voice of Shoko and then later also picks up the voice of Sue, her grown daughter.

In the author's notes it's interesting to find out that parts of the story are really from her own mother's experiences of coming to America and that the "How to be an American Housewife" book actually was inspired by a book found by the author amongst her mother's cookbooks called "The American way of Housekeeping".    Her father had given it to her mother thinking it was a book for housewives, but it really was a book for maids.  For the writing of the story, the author created her own version "keeping in mind how her own mother might have viewed the world back then, through her cultural lens.  (pg. 335 Author's Notes).

This ultimately is a lovely mother/daughter story but it is also a story of forgiveness and redemption, of prejudice and survival.  It is charming, ultimately uplifting and I loved it.

I rated it 10/10

Reading Challenge Goals Met:  A book based entirely on it's cover (I thought the cover was lovely)... A book set somewhere you've always wanted to visit (Japan)... A book with a love triangle (kinda)... A book that made me cry... A book by an author I've never read... A book by a female author...A book set in a different country ( half of it)

Linked with Semicolon Saturday Review of Books

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant ~ Book Review

Addie Metsky is 85 years old when her youngest granddaughter interviews her and asks her how she got to be the woman that she is today.  And there starts the story of a young Addie Baum who is 15 years old and growing up in the North End of Boston.  Living  in a one room walk up with her parents and 2 sisters, she was raised by a very strict and superstitious Jewish mother and her hard working Jewish father.  The family are immigrants trying to make it in a better world but not quite prepared for the progressive America.  Out of the 3 living children, Addie was the only one born in the US.  The mom has never moved on from being forced to leave her Polish home and come to America and blames the father for the loss of their other child who died enroute.  They were poor but not starving, in Addie's words.  With everyone chipping in, they made enough for rent and food.  Addie has a natural curiosity and is very smart so against the wishes of her mother, she joins a library group for girls partly so that she can get out of the house and away from her mom who has never shown her any love or acceptance.  She recalls her days at Rockport Lodge where the girls went for a vacation and the lifelong friendships she formed there that helped to shape her life.  As Addie reminisces, she tells the story of her life and what it was like trying to make her way in the early 20th century as a woman, a Jew and an immigrant and as a young girl chafing against the old ways and trying to embrace the new.  She tells of the influences of her first exposure to "love", the influences of her "delicate" sister and her stronger more worldly sister, of her lifelong desire just to have her mother's acceptance.

For some reason, I always really like a good immigrant story.  Maybe it's because my own parents were immigrants and it helps me to relate to everything they might have faced and went through.  I like to read of their hopes and dreams in leaving everything they know and making a journey full of unknowns in the hope for a better life.  The courage that would take is astounding to me.  I enjoyed this story of family, friendships, immigrants, and trying to find one's place in a world of changing times.  Addie was a wonderful character with so many facets to her personality and I felt myself really drawn into her story.  Each character was really well developed which made it seem like I actually knew them.  The heartbreak of the immigrant story of facing total culture shock was very emotional (as my parents were immigrants too) and the contrasts between the mother who refused to change and accept her new country and in turn the child who was born in America and the father and girls of the family trying to find their place in their new world was very well written.  The narrative moves along at a nice pace and I really felt like it was an actual person telling their story which was really nice to me as 1st person narrative is not my favourite choice of story telling.   The story pulls you through every emotion:  pain, sadness, grief, joy, laughter, love and hopefully leaves the reader with hope.

I gave it a 9/10

Reading Challenge Goals Met:  A book set somewhere I always wanted to visit (Boston), a book by an author I've never read before, a book by a famous author,

The Bookseller by Cynthia Swanson ~ Book Review

It's 1962 and Kitty Miller is settled and happy in her life as a small book shop owner with her best friend, Frieda.  Though at 38 she is still single she has for the most part come to terms with that and enjoys the control and freedom she has to do what she wants when she wants.  Her and Frieda are close as business partners and best friends and she has a strong relationship with her parents.  Life is good.  But when she starts dreaming of another life, one where she is Katharyn with a perfect husband and adorable children in a lovely home in suburbia she chalks it up to her old life's desires which she thought she let go of .  It is the perfect life she once held out hopes for.  The dreams are so real and she enjoys them at first but when they start to happen consistently and start to reveal layers of imperfections and challenges the lines begin to blur for Kitty and she has to figure out what is reality and what is dream.

This book had a lot of draws for me.  I totally picked it up for it's cover and title and then the 1960's setting drew me in as did the alternate life story of what might have been.  I really enjoyed it but am having a hard time writing a coherent and articulate review as there is so much to the story and I don't want to give anything away.

 Both of Kitty's worlds were interesting and I couldn't help but be fascinated with her confusion each time as she entered into the dream world.  She had to figure things out on the fly which would be totally disconcerting for her and of course her reactions would be  confusing for the dream family.  I really liked how the writing never left me confused as to what reality Kitty/Katharyn was in and that allowed me to really get into the story of the lives of the character(s).  As Katharyn's story developed there were some aspects to it that involved one of the kids that  for me was of great interest because of my education background.  That was a development I didn't know was in there and I enjoyed reading that part of the story as it 's history is something I 've always been interested in. (I can't say more without giving things away so I'll just have to leave it at that.)

The 60's aspect was well written.  The descriptions of everything from lifestyle, to the decor, the clothing, the political climate to the attitudes and thoughts towards different things such as women's roles in life was all historically correct.  It reminded of why I chose the field I did.  The one thing I didn't like about the story was the one explicit scene in it.  I groaned inwardly when it came up wondering if the novel would be over run with them and if I would end up laying it aside.  To me the explicitness was totally unnecessary and the scene could have been told to give me the idea of the character's feelings at the time without describing the whole act to me.  Thankfully that was the one and only occurrence and it ended up being an interesting and unique story,

I gave it an 8.5/10

Reading Challenge Goals Met: A book set somewhere you've always wanted to visit (Denver, Colorado), a book with bad reviews (this one had some mixed reviews), a book by an author I've never read, a book published this year, a book by a female author, a book chosen entirely for it's cover

Linked to Semicolon Saturday Review of Books

Inside the O'Briens - a novel by Lisa Genova ~ Book Review

• Joe O'Brien is a career Boston PD Police Officer hailing from the Irish side of town.  He loves his wife Rosie and his four grown children and his identity is totally wrapped around being a good police officer and a proud husband and father.  In his 40's Joe is working towards his 25th year on the force and eventually the full retirement package in his 50's where he and Rosie can enjoy retirement together.  But when he starts to experience bouts of raging temper, dropping items, some involuntary movements and has difficulty writing out his reports at work Rosie talks the doctor avoiding Joe into getting checked by a doctor.  He finds himself seeing a neurologist and then being handed the horrible diagnosis of Huntington's disease.  As his family grapples with the hereditary significance of the disease Joe also has to face that his mother did not indeed die a drunk in a nursing home as he was told but that she had this horrible disease.  And now all those things that scared him about her he will be going through.  He also must face losing everything that defines, in his eyes, who he is.

After reading Still Alice (reviewed here) and learning so much about Alzheimer's disease, I was eager to read another of this author's novels.  I basically knew nothing about Huntington's disease before reading this book and I knew, again, that I would learn from it because of author's first hand knowledge of neuroscience (she has a degree from Harvard).  Huntington's Disease is a horrible hereditary neurological monster. It is passed on through families and if a parent has the disease, the children have a 50/50 chance of getting it.  Symptoms usually start in the 30's or 40's and progress over the next 10 -20 years until death.  It affects voluntary movements, walking, speech, temper and people not in the know assume the person is drunk.  It eventually makes it so that the victim is bedridden, unable to care for themselves and will affect swallowing and eating.  In the 90's a blood test was developed that reveals whether you have the gene pattern that will have Huntingtons in your future.  If you are tested positive, you will have the disease 100%.  There is no treatment and no cure.

This story really spelled out what the person and family that has Huntington's running in their family line deals with.  It is devastating.  My heart was torn for the O'Brien family as they each come to grips with it and each sibling must decide whether to have the test and know for sure before they start to develop symptoms.  As Joe is stripped of everything that is him...his health, his strength, his badge, his pride and even what him and Rosie have to face to provide for Rosie after his death is shocking and sad.  And then he has to deal with the guilt.  Guilt that he passed this onto his kids unknowingly, guilt of how treated his own mother even though he was mislead in what he was told was wrong with her.   As he fought within himself on how he wanted to deal with the disease and whether he had the courage to live it out before his family, the story really broke my heart.   As each adult child wrestled with whether to take the test and know for sure whether they had the disease, I felt myself  asking what I would do.  Would I be able to dig deep and find the courage to live a life of hope  in the midst of an essentially hopeless diagnosis.  The author really drew me into each and every character within the story as she described what they were battling inwardly.

This author is extremely adept in bringing to light what it is like to be diagnosed and to live with these devastating diseases from both the victim's standpoint and also the family's and to give the reader knowledge and compassion.  Both of the books I have read by her have really done that in my heart.  I recommend her novels for that very reason.  Because they are fiction they teach without the dryness of textbooks and draw out your compassion for what the people with these diseases face in their everyday.  They really knock out a lot of my assumptions.  That being said I must say that this particular story just about didn't get finished by myself.  The proliferation of f-bombs right from the first pages of the book had me wanting to put it aside from about page 5.  They are over the top plentiful as are other swears.  I usually don't bother with a novel that relies on that amount of swearing.  But because I knew I would learn from the story I pressed on.  But in reality by the end of the book I was so done with it because of the language.  It really did make it hard for me to press through.

I give this a 9/10 for writing of the devastation and feelings of facing this disease and the knowledge and compassion it brings out of the reader but took a point away for the crazy amount of f-bombs that I had to struggle through.

Reading Challenge Goals Met:  A book set somewhere I've always wanted to visit (Boston); A book that made me cry; A book published this year; A book by a female author; A book a friend recommended; A book that scares me.

Linked with Saturday Review of Books 

Finding Me by Kathryn Cushman ~ Book Review

  Kelli Huddleston grew up an only child with her father and stepmother. She was very close to her father and so when he and her stepmother died in a car accident she felt the loss deeply. All her growing up years, Kelli's father would never allow her into his home office, it was out of bounds and Kelli knew it. But now that he is gone she has no choice but to go in there and clear it out and wrap up his business files. But what she finds causes her to question who she is and everything she knew about herself and she'll also find she never really knew her beloved father at all. Needing to find the truth about herself and what her dad did and with only a few pictures to go by, she heads back to Tennessee where she'd always been told her mother and 2 siblings had died in a house fire that took everything. What she finds there will further complicate her once seemingly peaceful life and she must make a decision that will affect not only her but the lives of others.

 Well, this was a story that was hard to put down. I, as the reader, got very caught up in what was happening to Kelli. In the midst of opening up a new restaurant with her best friends her father and stepmother die tragically. While dealing with the grief of that and realizing she is alone in the world, she is trying to wrap up his business and files and discovers that she is not who she thought she was and her whole life has been a lie. In shock and drawn by the deep desire to discover who the persons in the hidden photographs are and ultimately who she is and against the advice of her best friend, she goes in search of the unknown persons. But once she finds them, it is hard not to be drawn into their lives and now she is faced with continuing the lie or telling the truth and devastating more lives.

 This story was so believable and I really felt Kelli's pain and confusion. It was easy to understand her choices and reasoning for her decisions. Her character was very well written. I had a hard time putting the book down because I just had to find out what was going to happen. I felt for her as she struggled not only with the death of her dad but at understanding and forgiving his deception and what he had done. And then her inner struggles as she finds herself being caught up and befriended by those in the photograph and the choice of whether to tell them who she really is. It's an emotional story, for sure, and engaged me right through out. I must admit, the character of Beth drove me nuts. She was soooo pushy and just wouldn't take no for an answer. It was at times hard not to really dislike her even though her intentions were written as good.  I also really like the exploration into the topic of  turning from biblical truth and believing lies because that is what you want to hear.  (2 Timothy 4:3-5).  A really engrossing read.

Reading Challenge Goals Met:  A book I own but haven't read yet, A book published this year, A book by a female author, a book from author I love


An thoroughly engaging story that I read in a few days I gave it a 9.5/10.

Linked with Saturday Review of Books

Invisible Ellen by Shari Shattuck ~ Book Review

Ellen has spent her whole life trying to be invisible.  Scarred both emotionally and physically since childhood she is now a very overweight, insecure and awkward adult living a very self-secluded life.  Though she tries to keep herself from being noticed she is a great observer of people and records what she observes in those around her in journals.  Having buried her emotions long ago, her writings involve no feelings, emotion or judgement but are simply a recording of what she has observed.  But one day as Ellen catches her usual bus to her night shift job cleaning Costco, Ellen comes across a blind girl named Temerity and her whole life changes.  Temerity boards Ellen's bus and due to her exuberant personality, Ellen feels compelled to get off at her stop and follow her.  But then she finds herself observing Temerity being mugged and before she realizes what she is doing Ellen steps in to help her, which is totally out of character for Ellen.  Temerity and her brother immediately and unconditionally befriend Ellen and step by step Ellen finds herself being swept along in Temerity's whirlwind way of helping others out.  Ellen soon discovers herself not quite so invisible anymore and actually having someone she can call her friend for the first time in her life. And through that acceptance Ellen starts to see that she does have some things to offer if she would dare to step out of her invisibility.  

This story turned out to be an enjoyable surprise!  One of the components on my Reading Challenge 2015 was to read a book written by an author with the same initials as me.  Well, I couldn't think of any off the top of my head and after some extensive searching I found this site that listed a bazillion authors alphabetically.  And after scrolling through and clicking on what seemed like a million books written by authors with the initials SS, I found this one that seemed like something I might possibly get into.   

The story grabbed me right away.  The concept of a friendship between a person who was emotionally handicapped and trying to hide and a person who was physically handicapped with a exuberant personality and how they connected was fun.  I was invested in the main characters and cared what happened to Ellen.  My heart broke for her as her story was revealed and cheered her on as she started to break out of the walls and shells she had placed around heart in order to protect herself.  I cried and I laughed throughout the book.  The way that Temerity seemed to push Ellen out of her comfort zones, always without knowing that that is what she was doing, led to some pretty humorous reactions and situations.  There is a natural humor in the story that I really enjoyed.  While the situations were a little crazy they lent a craziness and silliness that was refreshing in the midst of the issues that the book was reflecting on.  There was a few mentions of marijuana used for recreational purposes as a positive thing but they were for the most part just mentions and not really dwelt upon. 

A couple quotes that really stood out to me:

"She'd spent her whole life living day to day, hoping for nothing more than to get through each one unnoticed and unscathed.

...It was so much easier to expect nothing and be all right than to expect something and be disappointed."  pg 232

That one really got me thinking how many people I come across who are feeling this way and we tend to just walk right by them not even noticing them or thinking they are unfriendly or unapproachable or we judge them.  

and then:

"Besides, I always find that focusing on helping other people makes my problems much more insignificant, don't you?"    pg. 245

Sorta sums up the book in a lovely way as Temerity shows Ellen just that.

I gave this uplifting read a  9.5/10

Reading Challenge 2015 Goals Met:  A book by an author with your same initials, A book by a female author, a funny book, a book by an author I've never read before, a book that made me cry 

Life of Pi by Yann Martel ~ Book Review

Well, I'm certainly late to get on the "must read" bandwagon for this book.  In all honesty it's not a book that ever drew my attention when it first came out in spite of seemingly everyone talking about it and it winning a Canadian award.  I couldn't imagine reading a story about a boy in a lifeboat with a tiger that had a time span of 227 days.   But when the movie came out I went with hubby because he loves the 3D and went for that reason alone.   And while the movie was a visual spectacle, I left scratching my head, totally confused with the story.  So jump ahead to today and here I am reading the book for basically 2 reasons...the first being one of the challenges on my Reading List Challenge 2015 is "A book with non-human characters".   This category is not my norm for choosing a book so it definitely challenged me to find one that I would actually be interested in reading, but my 2nd reason was to maybe have it make sense of the movie for me.

So "Life of Pi" it was.  Now most everyone has by now heard the gist of the storyline.  A 16 yr. old boy from Pondicherry, India finds himself the only survivor of a shipwreck somewhere out of Manilla in the Pacific ocean along with a tiger, a zebra, an orangutan, and a hyena.  He survives 227 days out at sea trying to survive on a lifeboat while watching as 3 of the animals die "survival of the fittest" deaths until it is only him and the Bengal tiger left.  He must learn how to survive not only the elements and the tiger but discouragement and lonliness and lack of hope as time goes on.

The first third of the book tells the background story of Pi (the nickname he adopted because of being relentlessly teased for his full name of Piscine) growing up with his family in India.  His father who owned and ran the Pondicherry zoo was an atheist and raised his children to fear and understand the wild nature of the animals in spite of interacting  with them on a daily basis. Richard Parker, the bengal tiger, came to the zoo as a young cub so Pi grew up along with the tiger.   In spite of his father's beliefs, or non-belief as it were, Pi goes on to openly embrace 3 religions to which he is exposed.  In fact, the story opens with a journalist who is being directed to go find Pi because of his incredible story, a story that will make him believe in God.  There is much time spent in discussing the overall view of the 3 major religions in this third of the book and how Pi rationalizes the acceptance of all three in his young boyhood.  I found myself skimming a lot of this as it just didn't hold my interest and didn't make sense to me.  (There was also lots of endlessly run on sentences in this part of the book.)  The three religions are so far apart from each other in their belief systems that I found it far-fetched that a person can live by all three.  One of these  was Christianity which is clear in the fact that "Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.  No one comes to God but through Him"  (John 14:6).  So asking me accept the young Pi justifying and rationalizing living by 3 (Hindu and Islam were the other 2) was hard to compute for me even though it was through the viewpoint of a young boy.  I could understand his interest in all three, as I had an interest in religions as a young kid, but I was also very clear that in their differences one can really only choose one to take to heart and live by.  Accepting all three even from a kid's viewpoint just was not realistic to me, then or now.

The second part of the book deals with Pi's actual survival on the lifeboat.  This is where the story really picked up for me and was hard to put down.  The writing seemed to get much more focused and better.  Gone were the endless sentences.  There are some gruesome detail about the animals and their lack of survival that was hard for me to read, but for the most part the descriptions of Pi's feelings during this part of the story were gripping and real.  His beliefs and zoo background come into play to help him and the choices he has to make to survive did make me think.  His having to face surviving on a daily basis after hope for rescue dwindled was heartbreaking and his ingenuity had me amazed at times and crying at times as he had to face doing what he had to do in order to survive.  I couldn't put this part of the story down.

That is until he comes to the odd floating algae island.  Then this took a hard to make sense of it turn in the story for me.  I'm not good with allegory, I'm more of a face value story kind of person, so trying to figure out what it all meant was exhausting for me and I slugged along through this part.

Though I think most everyone has heard of the story and knows what happens if you haven't then this last part of the review is cautioned with a SPOILER ALERT and you may want to skip the next paragraph.

 The last half of the book deals with Pi finally, after 227 days at sea with a tiger, reaching land.   It's heartbreaking as Pi deals with the loss of the only living, breathing thing that has kept him sane and with some company for seven months.  Then he has to deal with two officials from the Japanese shipping offices who come to ask what he knows of the ship's sinking.  As he tells them the story they are very disbelieving that all this could happen and since there is no Richard Parker around to confirm it they have a hard time.   So he gives them another story, one much more "realistic" though gruesome.  They are then asked, as is the reader, which is the better story.  We are  left to ponder which lens and perspective we view the world through  This third of the book found me skimming a lot too, because of the way it is written.  It is written as an actual transcript of the discussion between Pi and the officials so to me it came off a bit dry.

So this book really had it's highs and it's blah portions for me.  I'm glad I read it, the story is always so much better than the movie for the most part for me.  The time at sea surely was the best portion, but trying to figure out all the allegory was not my cup of tea nor was trying to figure out Pi's closing statement about God after the officials chose which story they thought to be better.  It is definitely a work of story telling.    And it leaves one thinking long after the cover is closed on the book.  It is more than a fantastical story of survival, it is a story that asks to examine one's faith and the lense through which  we view things and whether we are able to believe the amazing things that take faith or whether you look at the world through the absolutes and practicals of what makes sense to your mind.  I think this book would make excellent discussions as a reading group choice.

I gave it a 7.5 out 10

Reading Challenge 2015 goals met:  A book with non-human characters, A book that made me cry, A book that became a movie, A book by an author I've never read before, A book set in a different country,

The Beautiful Daughters by Nicole Baart ~ A Review

Is what we remember and believe to be the truth in a tragic occurrence really truth or how we perceived it and want to believe?

 This is a story of 5 college friends, Adri who is a conservative young woman and her brother, Will, who were raised by their Christian father, Harper who is the wild child of the group, David who is son of very well to do parents who live in a castle-like mansion in town and for whom there is lots of expectations, and Jackson who is rarely mentioned. Adri has become a nurse and has moved to Africa to work with a charity but is called home after the death of the mansion's matriarch has made her an heir. We soon find out that Adri had been engaged to David and had actually fled to Africa following the death of her fiance and the story then starts to backtrack through Adri and Harper's viewpoints to the time of their college days where they met until the present where they both come back to the place they both swore they would never return to. Adri has not seen or talked to Harper since David's death even though they had been the best of friends in college so there is an air of mystery about that and what had actually happened to David. As the story unfolds there are sad and shocking revelations that play on the reader's emotions as and build up to why Adri and Harper no longer have contact. As they are forced to face their past they are also forced to face their guilt in the tragedy that caused them to go their separate ways.

 I usually love Nicole Baart's stories. Her writing is really good but I have to say this is definitely not my favourite of her books. I found I was just making myself finish the book because I usually do like this author's writing and I wanted to see what she would do with the characters not because I was loving the story or the characters involved. There were moments my attention was totally grabbed and then it would back off and I'd chug along until the next moment that it grabbed me. I didn't really engage or connect with either of the main characters unfortunately and I can't really state why. I found the ending did not reward me like I thought it would which is what I was hoping for in my determination not to put the book down. All that said, just because this particular story was not my cup of tea, I would still read the next book by this author.

I gave this book a 7.5/10

 Reading Challenge Goals Met: A book set somewhere I've always wanted to visit (Georgia), A book published this year, a book by a favourite author I haven't read yet, a book by a female author

Linked with Semicolon Saturday Review of Books

The Sweet By & By by Sara Evans with Rachel Hauck ~ Book Review

With having hand surgery and not being able to type and be on the computer for any length of time, unfortunately I got behind on my book reviews so there are going to be a few in the next couple of days.

The first book in a 3 book series, it was the last one I read. As I really enjoyed book 2 (reviewed here) and book 3 (reviewed here) I figured I would like to know the beginning of Jade's story. Jade is marrying into a well to do family. The furthest thing from her background. With a father who abandoned her when she was 8, and then having a hippie mom who constantly remarried and followed whatever fancy took her at the time, the only stable thing in Jade's life was her Christian grandmother. So when after college, Jade moved to a new town and became the owner of a antique and retro type store, she left the past in the past. But now with the fancy wedding her future mother in law is forcing upon her, she is confronted with having to invite her mother to the wedding. Which is the last thing Jade wants. Too much hurt and water has passed under that bridge and she will have too much explaining to do to her new family as she has hidden it all from them including her husband to be, granted them both agreeing to keep the past in the past. But when her mother shows up three weeks early with her own news, Jade has to come face to face with her past and hope when it all shakes out and settles she still has a marriage to look forward to.

 I liked this series and it was finally good to read the beginnings of Jade's story. The story is raw and honest in it's feelings. Jade faces many issues from her past that are now resurfacing after she tried so hard to bury them. As each one rears it's ugly head she is forced to resolve them. But her grandmother's Christian roots which she placed in her as a young girl, also come back to the surface and in doing so Jade must also face the hardest questions of why God would let all those things happen to her. Some of the reactions Jade had seemed a little immature for her age but then when one faced as much hurt as she did and then tried to bury it so deep I guess the emotions would also be immature as they were never dealt with. But it was a good story of pain, and redemption.

Reading Challenge Goals Met:  a trilogy (does finally finishing a trilogy count?), a book by a female author (bonus points for me:  it had 2 female authors!), a book out of the bottom of my TBR list

Linked at Semicolon Saturday Review of Books

Still Alice by Lisa Genova ~ Book Review

Alice Howland is a brilliant professor of cognitive psychology at Harvard and is world renowned for her research into linguistics.  Being a sought after lecturer she has a very busy schedule teaching her classes, lecturing at conferences all over the world and conducting research.  It is a life she loves.  Her husband is also a busy Harvard professor of science conducting cancer research.  Study and learning are very important to them and they have tried to pass that on to their adult children.  Their oldest has become a lawyer, the middle child a doctor but it is their youngest whom Alice locks horns with constantly as she has no interest in academia and has chosen instead to pursue a career in acting.  While her husband is supportive of this, she just cannot help constantly questioning her daughter's decisions. As Alice prepares for a new semester at work, small incidences of forgetfulness and disorientation start to show up in her days.  When she becomes lost in a part of town that she knows like the back of her hand it truly frightens her, she makes an appointment at her doctor's thinking she is experiencing a bad case of menopause.  It is then that she is handed the diagnosis of early onset Alzheimers at the age of 49.

This book was very moving and chilling in it's story.  It is taken from the viewpoint of Alice which is an approach that I've never read before.  I've read other stories that deal with this horrendous disease but always from the spouse, caretaker's or family members points of view.  I cried through out the book as Alice's frustration and fear of what was happening was tangible through the words.  Her having to slowly let go of life as she knows it and loves it as the disease quickly progresses is truly heart breaking.   It is so well written in it's attempt to show the reader what a person going through this disease might go through and feel.  It describes the disease, it's consequences and progression so well yet never gets bogged down in super scientific terminology so even someone like myself easy was able to understand what Alice was experiencing.  The author herself has a Ph.D in neuroscience from Harvard and is an online columnist for the National Alzheimer's Association so the story rang very true in it's descriptions.  She also mentions several areas of drug testing within the scope of the story that was interesting.

I don't think I'm giving anything away when I say I especially liked the progression of Alice and Lydia's (the actress daughter) relationship in the story.  It was moving to have privy to the change even though they are fictional characters.  The story ended in a way I was not expecting at all.    

I saw this book mentioned on Faith's website, she highly recommended it, and I was also interested when I saw that Julianne Moore had won the academy award for her portrayal of Alice in the film.  I determined to read the book first so that I could get the author's original intents and story rather than Hollywood's version and I'm so glad I did.  It was heart breaking, beautifully written, sensitive, intelligent, compassionate and informative.  I, also,  highly recommend this book to everyone.  It will change how you view and relate to someone going through Alzheimers and/or Dementia.

Rating:  10/10


Reading Challenge Goals Met:  A book a friend recommended, A book that scares me, A book that made me cry, A book by an author I've never read before, A book that became a movie

Finding Mercy by Michael Landon Jr. and Cindy Kelley ~ Book Review

Book Two in this story starts with bounty hunters chasing Mercy as she still tries to figure out her past. Heading south to where she believes she might have come from she is having to dodge not only the bounty hunters but try to pick up clues as to who she might be. After running across a portrait of a military man something in her memory is finally sparked and she goes in search of who it might be. Finally a clue that leads her to a large rice plantation has her meeting her family but still not recognizing them or knowing them. But even as she tries to fit into her past life more questions arise as to who and what kind of person she really was. And then there is still the nasty little detail about the bounty hunters that just won't give up.

As Mercy is thrown back into her life with a party being thrown for her return by her family, the confusion and mystery continues for her. The black woman who raised her and whom she was supposedly very close to can barely tolerate being in the same room with her and Mercy doesn't know why. She is appalled by the treatment and living quarters of the newly freed slaves who are now employees of the plantation. The attitude of her brother and step Mom towards the black servants saddens her and yet on the flip side they are surprised that she is not harder on the staff. As the young woman she was slowly comes to light, Mercy must reconcile the unrecognizable person she was with the person she is now. Does she want to go back to being that young woman from before the war and reclaim her old life or will she take steps to right the wrongs of the past and embrace who she is now?

Loved the sequel to Traces to Mercy. What a great story these two books were. I appreciated how the story wove the story of the north and the south viewpoints into it. The immediate results of the civil war on both the plantation owners and the freed slaves was something that this book really brought out to me. I hadn't really paused to think of what those newly freed people would do when on paper they were free but the attitudes were still the same towards them. I thought that the inner struggles that Mercy was having were very well written and felt myself hoping for the best for her and wishing she would quit making impulsive choices. I rooted for her through the set of two books and couldn't wait to see how it all played out for her. This and the first in the series, Traces of Mercy, was an excellent read. It'll be a keeper on my bookshelf.

Reading Challenge Goals Met: Book I own but haven't read yet; Book by an author I love but haven't read yet

Review linked to Semicolon Saturday Review of Books

Traces of Mercy by Michael Landon Jr. and Cindy Kelley ~ Book Review

After waking up in a doctor's office as the civil war ends, a young woman grapples with the fact that she has no memory of her past or who she is, nor how she was injured or how she came to be at the doctor's office. With no clues to go by, the doctor takes her to live with a group of nuns in the hopes that eventually her memory will return, at least enough to get her home. But as time passes and still no return of any of her memory, the nuns name the young woman Mercy because of a mercy medallion that was around her neck. Mercy lives her days longing for her memory to return so that she can know who she is. But after meeting a handsome young Yankee bachelor from a prominent family who wants to have a future with her she puts her reservations and hope of knowing her past life aside and instead agrees to marry him. Her life becomes a whirlwind of learning the proper etiquette and behavior, none of which she naturally remembers, and of planning her wedding. There is so much to look forward to until a stranger she meets at her engagement party threatens to destroy everything. He knows something of her past and gives her an ultimatum of telling her fiance by a certain date or he will. Though Mercy remembers none of what he tells her she did, she is thrown into a panic of what it will do to the life she is now trying to build and decides to take matters into her own hands. But her choices can take her down an even more devastating path.

Though it took me until chapter 2 to really get into the story, once at that point I was hooked. The first chapter is written in a way where no given names are used so I think that is why I found it a bit difficult to just get on board with the story right away. (And that is all I can say so that I don't reveal the story). Once chapter two hits, however, all that falls into place and the story really just takes off. I found the way it was written was really absorbing. The struggles Mercy faces between wanting to know her past and wanting to choose the wonderful future placed before her really drew me. I could almost feel her confusion and how she was torn at times. The innocent and sweet young lady she is is direct contrast to who this stranger claims she is and you feel her pain and panic as she tries to make sense of it all. The contradictions of her actions had me either cheering for her or going No what are you doing? It was relatable though in the sense that we all do stupid things when in a panic and threatened with losing what we consider precious that in reflection makes us shake our heads  . I loved this story and couldn't wait to get into the 2nd book of the series.

Reading Challenge Goals Met:  A book I own but have never read; A book from and author I love;

Betrayed by Lisa Scottoline ~ Book Review

 This book is part of the Rosato and DiNunzio series, but can stand alone.  It focuses on Judy Carrier who is an associate at the all woman firm of Rosato and Associates.  After being handed a damages case where she would have to defend a company Judy is not too happy with her boss.  The case will take an enormous amount of her time and energy.  She can't count on her best friend to go to bat for her with the boss because her friend is now a partner and it would cause issues.  And right at the same time, she receives news that her beloved Aunt has breast cancer, has had chemo and now needs breast removal surgery.  Taking the weekend she immediately goes to see her aunt before her surgery.  When she arrives, however, she discovers her mother already there.  Already on tense footing with her, the stress of the situation amplifies when her mother makes it clear that her Aunt Barb's Mexican friend Iris is not someone her mom approves of.  When Iris turns up dead in her vehicle, Aunt Barb cannot come to grips with it being the heart attack that the police are saying it was.  Suspecting foul play and out of compassion for her distraught aunt, Judy starts to poke around and discovers huge amounts of money in Iris's gardening box in her aunt's garage.  As she starts to try to figure out how that kind of money could come to an illegal immigrant, Judy starts to uncover all manner of mystery about the woman's life and death.  And to top it all off, things aren't going so well back at work or in her relationship with her live in boyfriend.

I love mysteries by Lisa Scottoline but I have to say this wasn't a favourite.  It had it's highs and it's lows for me.  For starters, I don't know if I was sold on the main character of Judy. There was just some things that didn't mesh for me. Just for a few examples without giving away story:  She was desiring to eventually want to make partner in the firm yet was trying everything she could to get out of the work her boss was putting on her to do.  She seemed to not know about some things in the storyline that I thought was odd, for example, for an educated woman she didn't know what surgical drains were, for a lawyer she seemed to have no clue what ICE was which is Immigration and Customs Enforcement.  I thought that was odd.  She may not have specialized in that but as a lawyer you'd think she would know the term.  She put herself in not just extremely dangerous situations, but to me, foolishly dangerous situations... again for an educated woman?     Anyway that could have just been the way I viewed things. Maybe because it involved her precious aunt she lost sight of what was totally and foolishly unsafe in lieu of finding the answers.   There was also the issue of too much.  Between family illness, family relational breakdowns, love relational issues, work issues, and now a big old mystery on her hands, there just seemed to be too much going on in this girl's life all at the same time. I wondered how on earth she got herself up and going with everything happening to her.   I did, however, enjoy the actual mystery.  It was a page turner and I couldn't put it down.  I had to see what was going to happen and how it all played out.  I also liked how through the characters of Iris and her immigrant friends, I learned a bit about the difficulties of illegal immigrants in the U.S.  That was interesting for me.

So in all, this particular one was an average read for me, didn't hate it but I didn't love it either.  But it won't stop me from reading other books from this author.

Gathering Shadows by Nancy Mehl ~ Book Review

(Finding Sanctuary Book 1)

Wynter Evans is a reporter with her eye on the anchor seat at a St. Louis television station. But when she sees a picture of a Mennonite teenager she thinks she has spotted her brother who had been abducted at the age of 7, eleven years earlier. At twelve, Wynter felt the deep ache of loss of her brother and was well aware of how it affected her family. The subsequent divorce of her parents devasted her teenage years and it seemed the pain would never go away. But she always felt deep inside that her brother was alive somewhere so when she sees the picture of the Mennonite boy she heads to where the picture was taken, the small town of Santuary. Convincing her station boss to do a story of the interesting things in small towns in Missouri, she is able to arrive in town under the guise of putting together a story. The mayor though is a bit skeptical and very protective of the people in his town. But he agrees to help line up some people Wynter can talk to. But when Wynter and her camera man start to dig too deep and start unearthing secrets, someone wants them either scared off or dead. As they get closer to finding the Mennonite young man, Wynter's estranged father all of a sudden comes into town and the truth may just change everything she thought she knew of her family.

 This is my first book by this author and I thought it was a great suspense story. It is full of intrigue and layers of secrets. Sanctuary is an interesting town and being a place as it's name implies, it is part Mennonite town and part a place where people go who are looking for a place of sanctuary. That made for some interesting characters involved in the story. Being under the romance suspense genre, the story was light on the romance which I thought that was in line with the main gist of the story. Wynter was there on a mission of finding her brother, nothing was more important and I thought the whole thing was woven together nicely with the romance not being foremost and taking over the story.

Reading Goals Met:  Book from a female author; mystery or thriller; new to me author

Lethal Beauty by Lis Wiehl ~ Book Tour

Publisher's Description:

Mia Quinn discovers that a series of seemingly unrelated murders are linked. How far up are the strings being pulled-and what happens when one of her own is at risk? The murder Mia is prosecuting seems like an open and shut case-until the accused claims he was the real victim and that the dead girl attacked him first. The tabloids dub her a "lethal beauty." Still, a conviction seems imminent. Then a key witness goes missing. Just when it looks like the killer could walk free, the dead woman's mother takes matters into her own hands. Meanwhile, Charlie Carlson, a Seattle homicide detective, is investigating the murder of a man whose body washed up on the beach of Puget Sound, but he's got little to go on. He has no dental work, fingerprints aren't on file, and he doesn't match any missing person reports. Then a church pianist is senselessly gunned down before horrified parishioners. All three cases seem unrelated-but are they? Together, Mia and Charlie race to find the answer before another crime hits too close to home.

 About the Author:    Lis Wiehl is a New York Times best-selling author, Harvard Law School graduate, and former federal prosecutor. A popular legal analyst and commentator for the Fox News Channel, Wiehl appears weekly on The O'Reilly Factor, Lou Dobbs Tonight, Imus in the Morning, Kelly's Court, and more. Visit her website at www.liswiehlbooks.com Twitter: @LisWiehl Facebook: LisWiehl

My Thoughts:  

Lethal Beauty is the third installment of the Mia Quinn Mystery series by this author. In this story Mia is prosecuting what would seem to be an open and shut murder case of a young Chinese girl. But she watches in frustration as a key witness goes missing and one member of the jury she helped choose becomes disengaged during the trial. And now another young Chinese person is found murdered. But are they all connected? The more she and homicide detective dig into things the more shocking of a story they unearth. And now can they ever get any new evidence to get the proof they need to convince Mia's boss to take the young girl's case back to trial? With all this on her plate and trying to juggle her family after her husband's sudden death, Mia has her hands full. How do you intermingle a high profile job and a young family as a single parent and not have them interfere with each other? Tough decisions need to be made. Gabe, her teenage son, is struggling trying to take on helping his Mom in roles that really should belong to his Dad and with how he fits in at school. When the opportunity to "improve" himself and become more manly comes along, he makes a decision that could change his life forever. But was it the right one? He seems to think so according to his own research until things start happening that he never could have imagined.

 This was another fast paced murder mystery by this author. Though third in the series, it can easily be a stand alone read. I enjoyed it as it kept me engaged without slowing down and I read through in a few days, always being kept on my toes and turning the pages to find out what happens. The author has taken on some interesting issues as the base of the story. The main issue is that of human trafficking and modern day slavery in America. That was an eye opener for me. I have read and thought about human trafficking but never connected it to a modern day slavery in America. It was, in my mind, a horrible thing that was going on elsewhere in the world. It is something that is hard to grasp as happening in this day and age in North America. And the second is of drugs marketed to teens to help them with normal everyday issues or to achieve something without all the hard work. Both lines of the story were well written and informative, making me think, while being woven into the lives of the characters.  Of particular note, is the Reading Group Guide which I thought  asked great questions to really make you think and be more aware.

Thanks to BookLook Bloggers and Thomas Nelson Publishers for giving me a free copy for my honest review.  All thoughts and opinions were my own and I was not required to give an positive review.

Lethal Beauty is available for purchase here.

This review will be linked at Semicolon Saturday Review of Books