Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield

Newest Book on TBR

2019 A to Z Challenge - "O"
Color Coded Challenge - Black

Well, I definitely got caught up in the current of this book!!  Not surprising as I do enjoy Ms. Setterfield's writing, having read The Thirteenth Tale twice and enjoyed it both times!

The story flows along, picking up new characters along the way until we get to into turbulent waters, where all the stories come together and you must keep rowing (a/k/a reading) to see if you will ever get into a calmer stream and discover the true tale.

This book had it all - villains, good guys, a little romance, some mysticism, kidnapping, and adorable, smart pigs.

Summary from Goodreads:  A dark midwinter’s night in an ancient inn on the Thames. The regulars are entertaining themselves by telling stories when the door bursts open on an injured stranger. In his arms is the drowned corpse of a little child.  Hours later the dead girl stirs, takes a breath and returns to life.  Is it a miracle? Is it magic?
Or can it be explained by science?   Replete with folklore, suspense and romance, as well as with the urgent scientific curiosity of the Darwinian age.

Quotes:  "As a rule he kept acorns for pigs, apples for horses, marbles for small boys, and a flask of alcohol for older ones.  For females of the human species he depended on good manners, the right words, and immaculate polished shoes and buttons."

"Death might be a necessity in farming, but suffering? Never."

"But some people went about in their armor every day and showed the blades of their swords to all.  The whole world was the enemy."

"He knew his camera could not capture this - that some things were only truly seen by a human eye."

every last one by Anna Quindlen

"Q" Author
2019 A to Z Challenge - "E"

I'm not sure how to describe this book.  Did I like it? Yes. Will I read more by Quindlen? Yes.

The book starts slow, in that we don't reach the climatic part until about 1/2 way or more through, but it doesn't drag.  We peer into the lives of the Lantham family and get to know mom, dad, the 3 kids, their friends, their routines; there is a reason for this build up of their "mundane" life.  When tragedy strikes, we watch the struggle to go on.  While this particular tragedy is not something we can all relate to (my god, I hope not), the struggle of moving on, opening up, finding one's self again is.

Summary from GoodReads:  Mary Beth has built her life around her family, around caring for her three teenage children and preserving the rituals of their daily life. When one of her sons becomes depressed, Mary Beth focuses on him, only to be blindsided by a shocking act of violence. What happens afterward is a testament to the power of a woman’s love and determination, and to the invisible lines of hope and healing that connect one human being to another. Ultimately, this is a novel about facing every last one of the things we fear the most, about finding ways to navigate a road we never intended to travel

Quotes:  "Sometimes I feel as though the entire point of a woman's life is to fall in love with people who will leave her."

"Whatever she did was fine.  That's what I've learned. It's fine.  Whatever you manage to do."

                    The Huntress - Kate Quinn
                                "Q" - author

We begin right after WWII, where we meet 3 interesting women.  A young photographer, the huntress, and a Night Witch.   I had never heard of the Night Witches, a group of female pilots in the Soviet army who bombed the Nazi at night. 

We also meet Ian, Tony, and Nina who hunt down Nazi war criminals and they really want to find a women they call, "The Huntress" because of the horrible things she did during the war.  She murdered several Jewish children , killed Ian's brother, and tried to kill Nina. 

The young photographer is Jordan whose father wants her to take over his antique business, but his new wife encourages Jordan to follow her dream of becoming a professional photographer.  A photo that Jordan takes really bothers her and the more she questions it, the more her life could be in danger.

I enjoyed learning about the Night Witches. They were instrumental in helping the Soviets beat the Nazis.

             The Snowman - Jo Nesbo
                     Series

This is the book that started me on the journey of Harry Hole.  Well,  I have read it and now I will be ending my journey of books by Jo Nesbo.
Let me say, Mr. Nesbo,  that I love Harry!!!   But the number of red herrings that are in this book really made it a chore for me to read.  By the time I got to the "real" murderer,  I really did not care!!!!  Good-by Harry.

Harry's new case is sort of a cold case (lol,  see what I did there..cold-snowman),  Anyway, a woman goes missing, there is a snowman in her yard with a pink scarf around her neck.  This leads Harry to other women who have been missing , some going back several years.  As Harry gets close to solving the case, more people go missing or end up dead.  Sometimes it is very confusing as to why..  Then by the time it is explained,  I have forgotten what role they played in the story. As I said, too may red herrings for me. 

Goodreads says::

Oslo in November. The first snow of the season has fallen. A boy named Jonas wakes in the night to find his mother gone. Out his window, in the cold moonlight, he sees the snowman that inexplicably appeared in the yard earlier in the day. Around its neck is his mother's pink scarf. 

Hole suspects a link between a menacing letter he's received and the disappearance of Jonas's mother - and of perhaps a dozen other women, all of whom went missing on the day of a first snowfall. As his investigation deepens, something else emerges: he is becoming a pawn in an increasingly terrifying game whose rules are devised - and constantly revised - by the killer.

Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris

Oldest book on the TBR
 2019 A to Z Challenge -"F"
Color Coded Challenge - Yellow (I know it says orange, but it appears more yellow)

This book has been on my TBR since at least 2006 (when we started cataloging them, so probably even longer) and is my first by Joanne Harris.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this book (besides hungry for oranges!).  It is well written, compels the reader to continue to read to discover the secrets and provides a message of there being consequences to your actions - sometimes in the harshest sense.  Yet, I never really connected to any of the characters, even though there is a lot of emotion in the book.  It just never seemed to come off the page.

Summary from Fantastic Fiction:  When the widowed Framboise moves back to the village of Les Laveuses, where she grew up, she is pleased to discover that no-one recognizes her.  She soon forges a new life for herself there, and before long has established a profitable creperie.  All is going well, until her profiteering nephew realizes that money can be made by publishing a collection of Framboise's increasingly popular recipes, left to her by her mother, a woman despised through the village. But if the book is published, Francoise's true identity will be revealed, opining the flood gates to a past life and painful childhood memories.


Quotes: "I don't see why the blood we share should tie us in affection."

"There is no recipe to take a child into sweet, safe adulthood."

The Glass Ocean by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig and Karen White

New Author(s)
Once Upon a Book Club - September 2018
2019 August Motif - Mode of Transportation

An historical mystery fiction novel about the sinking of the Lusitania told in 3 different perspectives: 1 from a present day author and 2 from 1915 aboard the Lusitania.

This book seemed right up my alley and I did start out REALLY liking this book and then it turned all Hallmark Movie on me!

This was the paragraph that had me gagging about 1/2 way through the book:

"In [his] absence, the folly took on an uncanny silence...I couldn't get used to the stillness, the vacuum he left behind.  Everywhere I looked, I saw a hole where he should have been.  The desk. The sofa. The rug where he lay yesterday evening during a break..."

Mind you, she met this guy a week ago and he had only stepped into another room!!!, for God's sake!

And another swooning moment:  "'I've been in love with you from the moment I first saw you.  I've tried to stop, but I can't.  I just can't seem to accept that I will have to spend the rest of my life loving you from afar.'"  Puhleez!

Oh and yes, there is a typical Hallmark plot twist - oh no!

Cheesy romance sections aside, I enjoyed the authors' format of the 3 women and the 2 different time frames.  The mystery angle was based on some of the conspiracy theories of that fatal sailing of the Lusitania.  It kept you guessing, even if I did get a bit confused (no, not because my heart was aflutter) by some of the spy aspects, which could have been fleshed out a bit more.

While I don't think I will be picking up any individual novels by any of Team W or their other collaboration novel, I will be putting the non-fiction (and less bosom-heaving romance) telling of the Lusitania -  Dead Wake by Erik Larson - near the top of my TBR. 

Quotes:  "Shelves and shelves, lining six of the octagons's walls, each one crammed with books at all angles, bent with books to its absolute maximum capacity." (My idea of heaven!)

"'It's easy to love someone you can't have.  There's no risk in it.'"

"'Oh, but it's never a question of what we deserve,....  It's a question of what we can bear.'"

               Women in the Castle - Jessica Shattuck
                          Historical Fiction

#monthlynotif- June - Historical Fiction


In this book,  I learned how hard it was for the people who were in the resistance in WWII.   It really takes place after the war when Marianne tries to keep her promise to her husband to protect the other wives of the resisters.

She is able to find 2 other women, Benita and Ania and their children..  The story then goes back and forth between the time the women are living in the Bavarian castle and their individual back stories.  Each woman is hiding something about her past. Each one has a secret. 

Goodreads said:::
      Written with the devastating emotional power of The Nightingale, Sarah's Key, and The Light Between Oceans, Jessica Shattuck's evocative and utterly enthralling novel offers a fresh perspective on one of the most tumultuous periods in history. Combining piercing social insight and vivid historical atmosphere, The Women in the Castle is a dramatic yet nuanced portrait of war and its repercussions that explores what it means to survive, love, and, ultimately, to forgive in the wake of unimaginable hardship

             Ayesha at Last - Uzma Jalaluddin
                            Guilty Pleasure

This book is being compared to "Pride and Prejudice".Since I have not read "P and P",  I can not say if it is modern version of that classic. I will say that it is a cute and quirky romantic comedy.

Ayesha's grandfather says ." Choose to live your life as a comedy, not a tragedy"

There were very good descriptions of Indian food and clothes and also the prejudices that the Muslim people face.

This was a quick and enjoyable read.

Goodreads says:::
A smart young Muslim Canadian woman navigates the complexities of career, love, and family in this lively homage to a Jane Austen classic. "While it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single Muslim man must be in want of a wife, there's an even greater truth: To his Indian mother, his own inclinations are of secondary importance." With that nod to Pride and Prejudice firmly in place, Jalaluddin lays the groundwork for a raucous story that mixes a zany cast of characters with a tightly wound plot