Category: Books

Yesterday's Tomorrow by Catherine West is a touching love story, played out against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. When Kristin Taylor heads to Vietnam on her own in 1967 she has two goals. First, she's is determined to be a top-notch journalist covering the war. Second, she's looking for her brother, who was already serving in the military there. One of the first people she meets is Luke Taylor, who literally holds a gun in her face. Luke is a brilliant photographer, but moody and certainly has secrets. Sparks fly from the beginning, but they've got the usual battles going on. Neither wants to admit their feeling, each for their own reasons, but eventually they can't resist the love growing between them, but the war provides an even bigger stumbling block. First off, from reading the synopsis, I wouldn't have realized that this was Christian fiction. For me, I don't think it would have affected my decision to read it, but...

Confession #1 - I love mysteries. Confession #2 - I love mystery short stories. Think about it, some of the best mysteries, Sherlock Holmes for example, are short stories. A short story is more like a heady fling— intense, adventurous, emotionally charged, and, when I was young, embarrassingly quick.  Okay, forget that last one.  The best short stories, like those high-octane lovers, never fully leave you.  They burn, linger, haunt.  Some sneak up on you in a subtle way.  Others are like a punch in the gut--sudden, spontaneous.  They knock the wind out of you. (Harlan Coben in the Introduction) Obviously, picking up The Best American Mystery Stories 2011 was a no-brainer for me. In a short story every word counts and the writers represented in this collection, from Joe R. Lansdale to Lawrence Block to Charles McCarry, are master story-tellers. The pages in this anthology are filled with heroes, villains, every sort of setting, every sort of crime, solutions, surprises, and great...

I would love to visit Italy one day, and especially Venice. Leon's books, along with others, have made me fall in love with the city. A Noble Radiance features Commissario Guido Brunetti,  a good honest man searching for the truth while working in a police force and political system that are often corrupt or uninterested. In this installation, a body found in a field turns out to be the kidnapped son of one of Venice's aristocratic families. Brunetti can't accept any too easy answers and keeps digging, unearthing deadly secrets about the family and it's business. Setting and character are Leon's strong points for me. Brunetti keeps me coming back to this series. He's  intelligent, determined, and has a wonderful, strong, loving relationship with his wife and children, who are actually in the books, not just shadows rarely mentioned. And Signorina Elettra, the secretary of the Vice-Questore, is a treat, a woman I would love to know in real life. This is not...

I wasn't going to read Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs, but a lady I know insisted that I would like it and it turns out she was right, against all odds, I liked it, didn't love it mind you, but did find it enjoyable. Sixteen year-old Jacob travels to Wales to find out the truth behind his grandfather's stories of amazing children and the orphanage where he found shelter during WW 2. Reasons I shouldn't have liked it. First, I don't read much YA, even those that adults will love too. It's not necessarily a conscious choice, just the way my reading tastes have been trending lately. Second, I'm not a big fan of time travel, which it turns out is an integral part of the book, even if it's a loop, a little outside of the usual time travel scenario. Third, I don't do monsters, and they're real in this one. Fourth, the ending wasn't really an ending....

I can’t believe it’s November already. These are books and other goodies I received during the month of October. Mailbox Monday was created by Marcia of  A Girl and Her Books and is being hosted at Mailbox Monday this month. $15 Amazon certificate and box of Novel Teas (Won from A Novel Source. Thanks!) Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs (Purchased) Hallow's Eve by Sarah Diemer (Purchased) Review A Clockwork Christmas by Jenny Schwartz, J.K. Coi, PG Forte, Stacy Gail (From Carina Press via NetGalley) In Other Worlds by Margaret Atwood (From Knopf Doubleday) Bright and Distant Shores by Dominic Smith (From Atria) A Double Death on the Black Isle by A. D. Scott (From Atria) The Hum and the Shiver by Alex Bledsoe (Won from vvb32 Reads. Thanks!) The Time In Between by Maria Duenas (from Atria) Reflecting Him by Carla McDougal, along with video teaching series, leader's guide and music CD (Won from the blog tour through Cathy Carlton Willis Communications. Thanks!) Yesterdays Tomorrow by Catherine...

Odd, sad and beautiful, The Girl in the Castle Inside the Museum by Kate Bernheimer is not a book I would recommend reading, but the illustrations are gorgeous. The story is about a tiny girl who lives in a miniature castle inside the museum. During the day children come to the museum and stare in at the castle hoping to see the girl, but when they leave she is lonely. The castle is a wonderful place, but she dreams of the people who could visit her. Finally, she decides that the reader should place of picture of themselves in her castle in the museum in the book and then she would never be lonely. I know it's a picture book, but it disturbs me a little. The girl is stuck in the castle and can never play with anyone else or talk to anyone else, she can only dream about other children. The writing is disjointed, it doesn't flow well from one...