The Chalk Man - C.J.Tudor       
                        Guilty Pleasure

2019  A to Z Challenge - "C"
2019 Color Challenge - Any other Color (Orange)
2019 January Motif Challenge - New to you Author

This started a bit slow for me, but around 100 pages it got interesting.

The chapters alternate between 1986 and 2016.
In 1986 , Eddie and his friends are 12 years old and they leave each other  coded messages written in chalk stick man figures.   One day someone has left stick men messages leading the boys to a dead girl in the woods.

In 2016, Ed and his friends each receive a letter with a stick figure written on it and then one of them is murdered.   Ed tries to piece together what happened in 1986 and who is after them now.

I enjoyed the read but was disappointed because of all the hype this book got when it first came out.
Still, if you like a good mystery,  then read "The Chalk Man" !!

#2019AtoZChallenge                                   

2019 Reading Challenges!!

For 2019 Bookworm and I are going to try to tackle a couple of reading challenges!!

We found that Ginger Mom and Company's A to Z Reading Challenge got us to really delve into our massive TBRs! This year we are going to be a little less strict for the difficult letters (such as Q, X and Z).  Since we want to stick to books we already own (all 1,300 of them!!) and not purchase or borrow any books to meet the challenge, we will allow for our challenge that the more difficult letters only have to be IN the title, not necessarily start with the letter.

Another Challenge that intrigued us is the Color Coded Reading Challenge hosted by My Reader's Block.  We figured we could do this in conjunction with the A to Z Challenge and it's only 9 books over the course of the year!

Finally, we are going to do our best to take on the 2019 Monthly Motif Reading Challenge by Girlxoxo.  This will have a different prompt for each of the 12 months.  These selections too may correspond to books in the other challenges, but as with the other 2 challenges we are only going to use books we currently have!

Wish us luck!!

  The Redbreast - Jo Nesbo
         3rd in the Series

 I am so conflicted!!!!!    I really like Harry Hole.  He is an error-prone , alcoholic , but likable,  Norwegian policeman..   I have enjoyed learning about him and watching his character develop in the 3 books I have read so far.    But,  I get so confused because of the writing style of this author.   He seems to jump around, but maybe that is because of the way Harry goes about solving cases?? 

 The cases are interesting and there are a lot of twists and turns, (maybe my reason for getting lost?) to keep me reading.

This case takes place is Oslo, Norway.  We learn some of Norway's history during WWII, which I did not know.  So there is some going back and forth between 1944-45 and 1999-2000.  Someone is killing the soldiers who were on the Eastern Front during the war,  but we don't know who or why.  That is when Harry come into the picture.
   He is moved up to Inspector because of a mistake he makes and the higher ups want to keep it quiet. ,, he also may find a love interest. 

I will take a break from Harry before I start the next in the series,  The Nemesis

Zorro by Isabel Allende

Historical Fiction

2018 A to Z Challenge - Z

Whew!  I did it!!!  I read a book starting with EVERY letter of the Alphabet!  And....for the most part they all came off my TBR shelves!  Zorro one was one of the few we had to purchase to meet the challenge.

I've read one other Isabel Allende novel (Portrait in Sepia) in 2017 for another reading challenge and much like that one, I enjoyed it but found my thoughts wandering at times throughout the book.  In Zorro, we delve into the character's fictional background and how he became the imaginary man that he is.  Some of the political background of Spain under Napoleonic rule and the New World settlement by Europeans got me a bit bogged down at times.  The novel spans 50 years and goes from California to Barcelona Spain and back again, so it's a lot to compress into an almost 400 page novel.

Of course, reading some of Zorro's escapades I recalled growing up with a reruns of the Disney's Zorro television show.  So I could easily picture these well-written scenes.  Allende incorporates humor and some intrigue by keeping the narrator of the book a mystery until the very end.

All in all it wasn't a bad read.  I would probably only recommend it to history buffs, Zorro fans, and the like as I don't think it would be captivating to all readers.

Quotes:  "...had become careless in matters of security, convinced that in the modern world there was no place for religious fanaticism.   They believed that the days of burning people at the stake were gone forever.  Now they were paying the consequences of their excessive optimism....where education, like everything else in the country was censored.  Many of his professors and companions had been arrest for expressing their opinions."

"He maintained that the powerful invented laws to preserve their privileges and to control the poor and discontented;...for example, taxes, which in the end the poor paid while the rich found ways to avoid it."

"...there is no such thing as absolute truth, that everything passes through the filter of the observer.  Memory is fragile and capricious; each of us remembers and forgets according to what is convenient.  The past is a notebook with many leaves on which we jot down our lives with ink that changes according to our state of mind."

#2018AtoZChallenge

    Girl in Hyacinth Blue - Susan Vreeland
                     Guilty Pleasure

What an interesting concept!   To follow a (hypothetical) painting through it's travels from owner to owner.

We trace the painting back to World War II, Amsterdam, and even back to it's beginning and it's  inspiration, told in short stories.
It is interesting to see how the painting affects each individual and what they take from the painting.

It would be interesting to actually see a painting like this and what I would get out of looking at it.




                                 
                                                                     

                          Max  -  Sarah Cohen-Scali
                                 Historical Fiction

Just when I thought I had read about all of the atrocities done by the Nazis,  I read "Max"...This is about how the Nazis chose certain women to have the "perfect" German child and to raise that child as the perfect Nazi soldier.   So "Max" was born.

Max is telling his story from his time of conception , his time in children's homes, and his stark upbringing. 

I did not care for this book.  Not sure if it was because of the atrocity to children or the narrator being a propagandized child. I also felt that the child narrator was speaking and doing things too old for his age.  I don't know, maybe I was just really uncomfortable with the subject matter.  What was your opinion of this book??

Bookworm has hit 100 books on (or rather OFF) her Toppling Book Pile!!  Woo Hoo!

         Elizabeth is Missing  -   Emma Healey
                         Debut novel
This is a sad story about Maud, an elderly woman who is suffering from progressive dementia.  She is certain that her friend Elizabeth is missing and must find her and help her.

But is Maud confusing her reality with her past,  is Elizabeth just missing because she doesn't visit Maud today or is a memory trying to break through her dementia??

For a debut novel, Emma Healey does a very good job of giving insight to dementia and making  a bit of a mystery.

         What She Left Behind  -  Ellen Marie Wiseman

                      My guilty pleasure read.

I chose this has my guilty pleasure read off of my TBR because I really liked this author's book ,"The Life She was Given".  I enjoyed this book as well but it was a harder read for me , maybe because of the subject matter.

I would put this in the YA genre because one of the main characters is 17 year old Izzy who is a foster child.  Izzy is our present day voice who lives with her foster parents because her mother is in prison for killing Izzy's father.  Izzy has to deal with some high school bullying , questioning why her mother would kill her father,  and then having to help her foster mother clear out an old insane asylum for the Historical Society.  Here is where we meet the second voice of the book,   Clara.

Clara is from the early 1930's when it was common practice for women to end up in asylums just for disobeying their or talking back or being a troublesome burden to you husband.

So we go between the two ladies,  Izzy trying to find out about Clara through her belongings and Clara living in the asylum trying to convince people that she is not insane.  This was the hard part for me because of the descriptions of the abuse that was done to the patients. 

I have already put two more of Ellen M Wiseman's books on my TBR. 

                   
      I Let You Go - Clare Mackintosh

                           New Author

I chose Clare Mackintosh as my new author because I had heard many good things about her,   not because of her last name.  Lol.  Besides, she spells it wrong,  just kidding!!!!

This was an easy read  with a twist that I did not see coming and what a twist it was!!

The story starts with a 5 year little boy being killed by a hit and run and Jenna Gray's life is forever changed.   The story is told by the police working the case and Jenna who ran away from the boy's death. 

The first part of the book is a little slow but the second half takes off.  I will definitely look for more books by this author.

                                 Cockroaches - Jo Nesbo

                                       Series


Second in the Harry Hole series,  on my way to reading the much acclaimed "The Snowman"!!

A Norwegian ambassador is found in a sleazy motel in Bangkok  with a knife in his back.  This murder needs to be solved quickly and quietly,  so Harry Hole is sent from Norway to Thailand .  Harry,  I am learning,  doesn't to  anything quietly. 

Harry uncovers many reasons and many suspects for this murder but also finds a lot of opposition from the higher ups.

A good crime mystery but too many foreign names and places for me.  I kept getting lost.   I am liking getting to know Harry Hole and look forward to our next adventure together in "The Redbreast".

                   Forgotten Garden  -  Kate Morton

                                  "M"  -  Author

Cassandra's grandmother,Nell,  passes away and leaves Cassandra the deed to  a cottage in England.   That starts Cassandra on a journey to learn more about this mysterious cottage that her grandmother never talked about and the discovery of many family secrets.

This is told in 3 voices,  Nell, Cassandra and Eliza, as it travels through many time periods.  Kate Morton does this seamlessly.

Many twist and turns and surprises will keep you turning the pages,  it did for me.

A quote I like from this book......"You make a life out of what you have,  not what your are missing"

The Lost for Words Bookshop by Stephanie Butland

New Author

Once Upon a Book Club - June 2018

A little mystery, a little romance, a little statement on domestic violence and the foster system.  Little enough that the book really didn't grab me fully. English which is often a drier read with words and places unfamiliar to me.

I enjoyed meeting the characters; the endearing Archie and the troubled Loveday, but I didn't get attached to them.

Not a bad read, just not an overly remarkable one.

Quotes:  "Idiot that I was, I liked that he liked me.  I should have known better.  In retrospect, I think that maybe he didn't like me much beyond the fact that I was talking to him about him and what he was interested in."

                              The Retreat  -  Mark Edwards
                                    New Author

"You should be careful what you believe !"

There is a legend of the Red Widow that kids tell each other at bedtime, around campfires, or just to scare each other.  The Red Widow takes young children and eats their souls.  She needs a child every 35 years. That time is approaching and Lily goes missing.!!!!

Now, 2 years later,  Julia , Lily's mom,  has opened a writer's retreat. Max, Suzi, and Lucas are her first guests and Lucas becomes interested in the disappearance of Lily. Once he starts looking into what happened 2 years ago,  strange things start happening. 

Mark Edwards is a new author on my TBR and he really kept my interest in this page-turner thriller.  I will definitely look for more of his books.   Enjoy this read,  but don't read it at night !!!!! 

                                   The Glass Ocean

                     Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, Karen White
                                     (Historical Fiction)

2 time periods,  3 women.
Sarah , in 2013, is researching her family history for a new novel she is trying to write.  Her great-great-grandfather was a steward on the Lusitania.  She finds a connection with a family named Langford and travels to England to meet John Langford , whose great-great-grandfather was also on the Lusitania.  They start digging in the family archives and discover some hidden family secrets.

In 1915, we meet Tess and Caroline, who are both on board the Lusitania.  Caroline is a first-class passenger who is questioning her marriage  and Tess is second-class passenger who is a thief trying to steal something from Caroline. 

There is intrigue, espionage, and romance in this novel.   However,  I find it difficult to classify it as a true historical fiction.  For me,  I need more historical facts than the time and place in which a novel takes place.  Also,   I do not enjoy romantic love stories, which this book had too much of. 
But still an enjoyable read.