The Life She was Given

                    Ellen Marie Wiseman

                         Guilty Pleasure

What a good book!!   I don't know when I have cried so hard because of a good book!!!.   This book is heart-breaking,  tender,  suspenseful, and I could not put it down.

It it told in two voices.  We meet Lily in 1931. A very young girl who for some unknown reason seems to be kept locked in a room in her parents attic.  The only thing her mother says is that people will be shocked if they saw her.  She is kept there until her mother sells her to a traveling circus!!!!

We also meet Julia in the 1950's.   She has been raised by the same unloving parents but managed to run away.  She is contacted by a lawyer at the time of her mother's death and goes back to the family home where she begins to relive painful secrets and discovers shocking family secrets.

Like I said,   a very good book.  I look forward to reading more by this author.

                    The Great Alone

                     Kirstin Hannah
               
                   2018 A to Z Challenge -"G"



Wow!.   Alaska is breathtaking!!!    and Kirstin Hannah takes you right into the beautiful landscape!!!

Leni , a 13 year old girl, and her parents move to the last frontier of Alaska in 1974.   A lot more rugged territory then,  than it is now.

Leni's parents, Ernt, a Vietnam POW. and Cara,  so in love with the man Ernt was before the war, that she will do anything and forgive anything he does.

They move to Alaska for a new beginning,  but they are not prepared for the brutality of Alaska.  They learn to be strong and depend on each other, but again they are not prepared for affect the long dark winters have on Ernt.  They  are also surprised by the openness of their new friends in their new small town.  Leni is a very strong 13 year old and Cara becomes a much stronger woman while dealing with all the Alaska of the 70's and the sometimes violent nature of her husband.

I enjoyed this book but felt that it might have been rushed at the end.

                                  #2018atozchallenge

                            Flight Behavior

                         Barbara Kingsolver

                      2018 A to Z Challenge -"F"


Dellarobia is a restless and dissatisfied housewife with 2 children and a husband with no ambition. She has lived on her in-laws property and under her mother-in-law's thumb for a decade. 

But what she sees when she goes up on the mountain for a possible secret tryst will change her live.  Will make her question her life, her church, and her belief in the world.

Very good and moving book.  Oh,  and I think I need to plant a butterfly garden.   Just saying!!!!

                 #2018atozchallenge

                 Murder of Mary Russell

                     Laurie R. King
                         Series

                  2018 A to Z Challenge -"M"


Well, of all of Laurie King's Mary Russell series,   this was not one of my favorites.  I am very sorry to say that because I have really enjoyed all of the adventures I have gone on with Mary and Sherlock Holmes.  If you have not read this series,  you MUST start with the first, "The Beekeepers Apprentice".  By doing so,  you will grow with Mary Russell from a young girl, to her demise in this the 14th book of the series..  You will travel with Mary and Sherlock to the Moors of England, the Arabian desert, India,  Japan,  and so much more!!

We begin this journey with a man pulling a gun on Mary Russell and then Mrs. Hudson ( the housekeeper of many years to Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes) arriving home to find Mary gone and a pool of blood on her kitchen floor!!! Can this really be the end of Mary Russell???     I certainly hope not!!!!      As intrigued as you might be,  please start at the beginning of the fascinating series to learn all about Mary and Sherlock.   

                                          #2018atozchallenge

                       

                                    Pretty Baby
                               
                                  Mary Kubica

                      2018 A to Z Challenge -"P"

I did not care for this book.  None of the characters,  Heidi, Chris, or their daughter Zoe,  were very likable.  They were all so self-absorbed.  Heidi with her work,  Chris with his money and Zoe, a surly 12 year old.

Then Heide brings home a homeless girl, Willow, and her baby.  Willow is hiding many secrets and Heidi becomes obsessed with Willow's baby.  Chris is very suspicious of Willow  and Zoe becomes even more withdrawn.

As the family dram unfolds, some events are expected,  few are true surprises.  It was not the psychological thriller that I was lead to believe it would be.

                                 #2018atozchallenge

                           One of Us is Lying
                             Karen McManus

                                   Debut

                             2018 A-Z Challenge ------O

I am so glad I am not a teenage in today's world.  The pressure that they put on themselves and that are put on them by others.

5 teenagers are sent to detention, the jock, the homecoming queen, the brainiac,  the guy no one likes, and the druggie.  They all feel they were set up for the detention. One of them dies and the other 4 all say they had nothing to do with it and again,  they have been set up.  Who is lying.?

#2018atozchallenge

2018 A to Z Reading Challenge

Bookworm and I have both achieved Iguana Status by reading 10 books in the challenge to date!!

Dear Zoe, by Philip Beard

Debut Novel

2018 A to Z Challenge - "D"

Another book that lingered on my shelf for years despite the fact that I was really interested in reading it!  A rather short book but packed with a lot of feels.

Our main character is Tess who is 15.  The book is told as a "letter" written to her youngest sister who was killed by a hit and run driver on 9-11.  A book about how personal grief got swallowed up on a day when the nation grieved as a whole.

Tess is a character that I think many can relate to whether it be on the subject of grief, teenage angst, divorced/blended families, figuring out ones self.  You sometimes forget that this is written by a man as the female teenage voice seems so authentic (well, there is one moment of male ego that does remind the reader that yes, this was written by a man - ha ha)

#2018AtoZChallenge

To Fetch a Thief by Spencer Quinn

Series

The problems with me and series....1.  Once I start one I usually have to finish them even if my interest starts to wane.  2.  I can't read them back to back to back so it can take me months/years to complete a series.

This is one of those that I started and the first book was fun and light and I thought that it would be an enjoyable series to follow.   Well, this is book 3 of 8 and they are terribly, terribly redundant!  Not in a typical genre "you know how it will end" redundancy, but Chet (the canine narrator) who repeats himself over and over again and admittedly does so!  At first it seemed kinda humorous but by book 3 I'm so over it.

So, I suppose it's good for me to have my second problem of not being able to read a series one book after another because I would SO not recommend that with this repetitive series. 

I tried to simply focus on the plot of the story which involves a missing elephant (I always love a good elephant story) and for the most part it was an okay mystery.  I will continue the series as we already purchased them all, but I can't say I'm wagging my tail about it.

Quotes:  "He has a way of saying just oh sometimes when he's talking to women, maybe a thing I've mentioned already.  If I did, did I also point out its never a good sign?"

"...easy to tell from that barroom smell, which I must have described already, probably more than once..." [Yes Chet, you have!  See what I mean!]

Carnegie's Maid by Marie Benedict

Historical Fiction

2018 A to Z Challenge - "C"

I was drawn to this book by its genre of historical fiction (one of my favorites) and Carnegie himself, as I reside in Pittsburgh and you don't have to look far to see his mark on the city.

A fairly short book, just under 300 pages, with short chapters making it a quick and easy read.  At times I felt Benedict was a bit repetitive, but it wasn't enough to distract me from the story.  A bit of a love story, but it spoke more about the early immigrants' struggles in America and was a tale about the strength, intellect and limitations of a woman.

I enjoyed the fictional window into the complex life of Andrew Carnegie.  I benefit from and support the wonderful library system here in Pittsburgh, have been to the Museum and Music Hall often and while the Carnegie home no longer exists, I do plan on visiting the neighboring and similar Clayton home owned by the Fricks.

Quotes:  "'I am not about to stand idly by when a classist remark is doled out here in democratic America'"

"...I had never heard of a library open to the public without a hefty subscription fee."

"'I can distinctly remember standing before those bookshelves and feeling inspired and overwhelmed by the opportunities found there.  I would carry my book around with me the following week, reading it in breaks snatched from my work.'"

"History often produced the grisliest of results.  Simply because those events were past did not make them any more palatable."

#2018AtoZChallenge

Song of a Captive Bird by Jasmin Darznik

PageHabit Subscription - February - Historical Fiction

2018 A to Z Challenge - "S"

Author Jasmin Darznik does an amazing job of weaving the true life of poet Forugh Farrokhzad with her actual writings and a fictional story to allow you to tap into the emotion of this extraordinary woman.

The oppression and repression that continues in so many countries to women specifically is heartbreaking yet women like Forugh not only fight against it, but do so without a desire to escape their homelands.  The love of country is so profound even when the men of their country often betray them.

Quotes: "He was twenty-six years old, an age at which a young woman would have long since been declared torshideh, or pickled.  But for a man it was, of course, different; he could defer marriage for as long as he could deflect his mother's appeals.

"One after the other, the married women holding the canopy stepped forward and took turns rubbing a cone of salt against a cone of sugar to symbolize how sadness and joy, the two constants of life, merged in marriage."

"Because I was a woman, they wanted to silence the screams on my lips and stifle the breath in my lungs.  But I couldn't stay quiet.  I couldn't pretend to be modest or pure or good.  No.  I was a women and I couldn't speak with the voice of a man, because it was not my voice - not true and not my own.  But there was more to it than that.  By writing in a women's voice I wanted to say that a woman, too, is a human being.  To say that we, too, have the right to breath, to cry out and to sing."

"'Well,....it doesn't matter. My feelings aren't enough to persuade him to make some sort of change.'  Her answer was quick. 'They should be,'"

"As if poetry could be destroyed like a building or a body.  But art wasn't like that.  Art could survive; even when suppressed, even when outlawed, it could survive far worse fates than fire."


#2018AtoZChallenge

The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine

PageHabit Subscription - October - Mystery

2018 A to Z Challenge - "L"

What a deliciously diabolical debut written by two sisters!  A psychological thriller that reminds you: to not judge what you don't know about another person's life, be careful what you wish for and my 101 reason never to get married!!

You may think you know the 3 main characters:  Amber, Daphne and Jackson, but do you really??  I don't want to say anything more and spoil this wicked little thriller!

#2018AtoZChallenge

A Tangled Mercy by Joy Jordan-Lake

Once Upon a Book Club Selection
November 2017

2018 A to Z Challenge - "T"

Wow, just wow.  A slave-era story told in alternating past and present voices from the conflicted historical city of Charleston, SC.  You will love and hate the characters as much as you will love and hate the city itself.

Jordan-Lake gives us a novel not only meticulously researched, but also replete with genuine characters and a mystery that gathers speed as you near the end of the book.  Not only does she paint an accurate and disturbing picture of the horrors of slave life in Charleston in the 1800's but she weaves in more recent history.  Stories that I mourned when I heard them on the news, far removed from Charleston, but once immersed in this story, they pierced my heart.

With all the books I read that cover all different eras of human history, it never ceases to disappoint me how terribly cruel we can be to one another, yet through such unimaginable horrors, the human spirit continues to rise up, to strengthen, to heal and sometimes, miraculously, forgive.

Quotes:  "You got some kind of slippery grip on your stack of nice." (Gabe - I just love Gabe!)

"Lots of people seem trustworthy at first.  But nobody comes thorough in the end."

"Hard not to spend up the life we've got now railing at what we wish hadn't been."

"Only for some of us, maybe forgiveness is more a journey than a moment in time."

"A life worth living is one of compassion.  And a life of compassion will include may tears."

#2018AtoZChallenge