by Heather Gudenkauf
On a quiet morning two little girls - one a mute and the other her best friend - go missing in the woods.
Over the course of the coming hours, their families will face fear, history, relationships, unanswered questions and new revelations as they search for the girls and deal with the outcomes of the morning.
Well-written and descriptive, the author tells the story through the characters of Callie, a 7-year-old who has, for reasons that will be revealed, not spoken in years; her mother Antonia; her older brother Ben; Deputy Louis, who searches for Callie while confronting his complicated feelings for Antonia and the crumple of his own marriage, and Martin Gregory, the father of her best friend Petra, also missing.
Like many books in which I become immersed, I found myself wanting to jump into the book at certain times- to shake the mother, for never leaving her awful abusive husband, to protect the children from their dad, to force the deputy's wife to leave him alone so he can find the girls, to beg Callie to talk and beg those around her to understand why she can't, and force them to ask themselves why.
It's a fascinating book that will pull you in quickly and surprise you along the way.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
The Bride Quartet
Vision In White
Bed Of Roses
Savor The Moment
Happy Ever After
by Nora Roberts
As sugary-sweet as wedding cake icing are The Bride Quartet books, a series about four friends in Conneticut who find their own happy endings while running a bridal business on the grounds of the Brown Estate.
Despite their predictable patterns, these lace-laden, rose-strewn, bliss-bringing books are a fun little indulgence and, for those of us who work in the wedding industry, a remarkably accurate portrayl of what goes on behind the scenes at an event (if not in our daily lives aside from the events. Seriously, they all -even the florist- routinely get up at 5 AM to exercise. Let me tell you, not in my case, baby.)
As Laurel, Mac, Emma and yes, even the Type-A, Tums-popping Chief Planner Parker find love in unexpected places, the lush wedding details of the various events they plan in the meantime are a guilty pleasure (and a wealth of inspiration!) for this florist.
And let's face it, Nora Roberts is really damn good at writing hot sex.
So there's that.
I was given the first two books by a former bride and purchased the third and fourth shortly thereafter, and though it is fun to read them all together, not neccessary to following the plot line. I would reccomend, however, reading them in chronological order as some of the longer events carry through all four books (i.e. a wedding they begin planning in book 1 actually takes place in book 4). You won't ruin the story if you don't, but you'll enhance it if you do.
Bed Of Roses
Savor The Moment
Happy Ever After
by Nora Roberts
As sugary-sweet as wedding cake icing are The Bride Quartet books, a series about four friends in Conneticut who find their own happy endings while running a bridal business on the grounds of the Brown Estate.
Despite their predictable patterns, these lace-laden, rose-strewn, bliss-bringing books are a fun little indulgence and, for those of us who work in the wedding industry, a remarkably accurate portrayl of what goes on behind the scenes at an event (if not in our daily lives aside from the events. Seriously, they all -even the florist- routinely get up at 5 AM to exercise. Let me tell you, not in my case, baby.)
As Laurel, Mac, Emma and yes, even the Type-A, Tums-popping Chief Planner Parker find love in unexpected places, the lush wedding details of the various events they plan in the meantime are a guilty pleasure (and a wealth of inspiration!) for this florist.
And let's face it, Nora Roberts is really damn good at writing hot sex.
So there's that.
I was given the first two books by a former bride and purchased the third and fourth shortly thereafter, and though it is fun to read them all together, not neccessary to following the plot line. I would reccomend, however, reading them in chronological order as some of the longer events carry through all four books (i.e. a wedding they begin planning in book 1 actually takes place in book 4). You won't ruin the story if you don't, but you'll enhance it if you do.
Monday, January 17, 2011
The Girl With A Dragon Tattoo Who Played With Fire and Kicked The Hornets Nest
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
The Girl Who Played With Fire
The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest
by Stieg Larsson
I jumped on the "The Girl" bandwagon towards the tail end of it, as the third book was coming out in hardcover form- worrying briefly and ultimately unneccessarily that all the previous hype had clouded the book for me, and I was destined to enjoy them, but not be blown away.
I was still pretty blown away.
Lisbeth Salander, and Mikael Blomkvist, have definitely been added the list of serial characters I love, making author Stieg Larsson's death just after finishing the third even more devastating, as Lisbeth Salander's tales of subterfuge and cyber espionage would reportedly have continued for at least several further novels.
(Side note: his partner, Eva Gabrielsson, retains the laptop on which he was working on the 4th novel. The rights to this book are currently being debated; there is also speculation as to whether it was meant to be the 4th book or actually the 5th book in the series, which was to include 10.)
The books center around massively intricate plots involving lots of conspiracy and government cover-up, which, if you know me, is exactly the kind of book I love to curl up with and dive into.
If you haven't read them yet, I'd make several strong reccomendations:
1) Wait until you can read them one right after the other. Rich in detail, plot, character development and with twists and turns along the way, these books seamlessly blend into the next, particularly the second and third. If you pause too long between them you'll risk forgetting the buildup of the previous.
2) The books, as you might know, take place in Sweden. The names of the characters, thusly, are Swedish. I found it a bit hard at times to keep track of who was who and got distracted at trying to figure out how to pronouce the names. I found I enjoyed the story much more when I let go of this and assigned a mental "face" to each name, which helped me keep track of the characters, particularly in the third book.
I am in the camp of "excited to see them make a movie" about these books, where some fans are hotly against and some are hotly for. Like any make-into-a-movie, I think there is merit to the idea and anticipate some adaptation.....and again, like any other, highly recommend the books first!
The Girl Who Played With Fire
The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest
by Stieg Larsson
I jumped on the "The Girl" bandwagon towards the tail end of it, as the third book was coming out in hardcover form- worrying briefly and ultimately unneccessarily that all the previous hype had clouded the book for me, and I was destined to enjoy them, but not be blown away.
I was still pretty blown away.
Lisbeth Salander, and Mikael Blomkvist, have definitely been added the list of serial characters I love, making author Stieg Larsson's death just after finishing the third even more devastating, as Lisbeth Salander's tales of subterfuge and cyber espionage would reportedly have continued for at least several further novels.
(Side note: his partner, Eva Gabrielsson, retains the laptop on which he was working on the 4th novel. The rights to this book are currently being debated; there is also speculation as to whether it was meant to be the 4th book or actually the 5th book in the series, which was to include 10.)
The books center around massively intricate plots involving lots of conspiracy and government cover-up, which, if you know me, is exactly the kind of book I love to curl up with and dive into.
If you haven't read them yet, I'd make several strong reccomendations:
1) Wait until you can read them one right after the other. Rich in detail, plot, character development and with twists and turns along the way, these books seamlessly blend into the next, particularly the second and third. If you pause too long between them you'll risk forgetting the buildup of the previous.
2) The books, as you might know, take place in Sweden. The names of the characters, thusly, are Swedish. I found it a bit hard at times to keep track of who was who and got distracted at trying to figure out how to pronouce the names. I found I enjoyed the story much more when I let go of this and assigned a mental "face" to each name, which helped me keep track of the characters, particularly in the third book.
I am in the camp of "excited to see them make a movie" about these books, where some fans are hotly against and some are hotly for. Like any make-into-a-movie, I think there is merit to the idea and anticipate some adaptation.....and again, like any other, highly recommend the books first!
Monday, January 10, 2011
Sarah's Key
by Tatiana de Rosnay
Oh, my heart.
It aches.
As you might well expect, given that this book simultaneously takes place in Paris around the milennium, and in Paris in 1942 in the midst of the Holocaust.
Where, on a July afternoon, a Jewish family is one of many taken during the Velodrome d'Hiver roundup, an event I was unaware until this novel despite having traveled to Paris several times in my life and, I'm nearly certain, walking in the neighborhood near the Eiffel Tower that has since been built over the former site of the Velodrome.
A Jewish family with a daughter and a son, who manages to conceal himself upon the arrival of the police in a small hidden closet, locked in by his sister who - innocent of the meaning of the roundup - promises to return shortly. She, and her parents, are then sent away.
Sixty years later, an American journalist living in Paris with her family begins researching an article about the Vel' d'Hiver roundup and discovers a distant connection to her husband's family, which grows closer to home the more she follows the trail. As she does her relationship with her husband, and her understanding of his family, starts to come into question.
I can't say much more about the book other than to say you'll want to keep reading all the way through to find out what happens to the family, to the young girl Sarah and to the journalist Julia, and to find what, if anything, is the absolution that can be offered in the wake of such devastation.
Oh, my heart.
It aches.
As you might well expect, given that this book simultaneously takes place in Paris around the milennium, and in Paris in 1942 in the midst of the Holocaust.
Where, on a July afternoon, a Jewish family is one of many taken during the Velodrome d'Hiver roundup, an event I was unaware until this novel despite having traveled to Paris several times in my life and, I'm nearly certain, walking in the neighborhood near the Eiffel Tower that has since been built over the former site of the Velodrome.
A Jewish family with a daughter and a son, who manages to conceal himself upon the arrival of the police in a small hidden closet, locked in by his sister who - innocent of the meaning of the roundup - promises to return shortly. She, and her parents, are then sent away.
Sixty years later, an American journalist living in Paris with her family begins researching an article about the Vel' d'Hiver roundup and discovers a distant connection to her husband's family, which grows closer to home the more she follows the trail. As she does her relationship with her husband, and her understanding of his family, starts to come into question.
I can't say much more about the book other than to say you'll want to keep reading all the way through to find out what happens to the family, to the young girl Sarah and to the journalist Julia, and to find what, if anything, is the absolution that can be offered in the wake of such devastation.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Our Lady of The Lost And Found
by Diane Schoemperlen
The book jacket reviews call it "one of the most charming novels you're likely to read this year," (New Orleans Times-Picayune) and I have to say that I'd agreee.
The novel opens with the narrator becoming the author - who never reveals her name - as she writes the account of what has just happened to her over the course of a week she has spent with her new friend, Mary.....
.......as in, Mary, the Virgin; Mary, the Blessed Mother; Mary, who has been appearing to those in need for many, many years and is in need of a respite from it all.
That Mary.
So what initially seemed like a quirky, light read soon finds interesting questions brought to mind as the friendship between Mary and the author develops.
The novel runs between the author revealing bits of herself to Mary, spliced with historical accounts of Mary appearing to others in their time of need. We also see the development of Mary as a real, and witty at that, person- the kind that, as the author does, you might hang out at the mall with cracking jokes as the expense of the woman selling anti-aging cream ("Heaven forbid that a woman should look her age, Mary said, slipping her arm through mine. Imagine what that stuff could do for me. I'm two thousand years old and don't look a day over two hundred.")
I also found it extremely interesting how well the author developed the narrator's character, given the hinderance of never knowing her name. Instead, she chooses to divulge small insights into the narrators life throughout the book as well as lovely descriptive aside passages that help us develop a sense of her without naming her, for example, a passage setting the scene of doing a household chore while having a conversation:
"Ironing, I can honestly say, is one household chore that I do truly enjoiy. I find it relaxing and comforting; the smooth pointed glide of the iron, the steam hot smell of the fabric, the tug of the muscles in my upper arm. I still use a heavy steam iron that must be twenty years old now. I bought a new one once, not bcause there was anything wrong with the old one but just because I thought it was time. But I found it unsatisfying. It was too light in my hand, altogether lacking the serious and stalwart heft of the old one, so I returned it to the store with a flimsy excuse, got my money back, and caried on happily as before."
Seriously, I love this. I love this woman and her flimsy excuse and her crazy old steam iron.
There was one particular, longer passage about finding things that I loved towards the middle of the book, as well, which sums up quite a bit about the book for me.
"This new proliferation of Marys in my life would seem to bige lie to the popular nothiong that you are most likely to find something when you're not looking for it. This idea is most often offered in the spirit of consolation and encouragement to a single woman looking for a man and repeatedly coming up empty-handed and/or broken-hearted.
-Don't worry, people say. You'll find him when you least expect it. Once you stop looking, you'll find him for sure.
These well-meaning advisors may or may not go on to mention how a watched pot never boils.
In light of my recent experience of running into Mary everywhere I turn, it now seems to me that, much as the old notion of finding something when you're not looking for it has often been proved true, the opposite is also equally true: you find what you are looking for. Sometimes, once your blinders have been removed, you find it over and over again.
So there was Mary: on television, in newspapers and magazines, in a friend's neighborhood, in my stamp collection, at the beauty salon, the grocery store, and my favorite downtown restaurant.
And, on a Thursday afternoon in April, there she was among the lawn ornaments just where she had always been. If only I had thought to look."
Look. Read. Enjoy.
The book jacket reviews call it "one of the most charming novels you're likely to read this year," (New Orleans Times-Picayune) and I have to say that I'd agreee.
The novel opens with the narrator becoming the author - who never reveals her name - as she writes the account of what has just happened to her over the course of a week she has spent with her new friend, Mary.....
.......as in, Mary, the Virgin; Mary, the Blessed Mother; Mary, who has been appearing to those in need for many, many years and is in need of a respite from it all.
That Mary.
So what initially seemed like a quirky, light read soon finds interesting questions brought to mind as the friendship between Mary and the author develops.
The novel runs between the author revealing bits of herself to Mary, spliced with historical accounts of Mary appearing to others in their time of need. We also see the development of Mary as a real, and witty at that, person- the kind that, as the author does, you might hang out at the mall with cracking jokes as the expense of the woman selling anti-aging cream ("Heaven forbid that a woman should look her age, Mary said, slipping her arm through mine. Imagine what that stuff could do for me. I'm two thousand years old and don't look a day over two hundred.")
I also found it extremely interesting how well the author developed the narrator's character, given the hinderance of never knowing her name. Instead, she chooses to divulge small insights into the narrators life throughout the book as well as lovely descriptive aside passages that help us develop a sense of her without naming her, for example, a passage setting the scene of doing a household chore while having a conversation:
"Ironing, I can honestly say, is one household chore that I do truly enjoiy. I find it relaxing and comforting; the smooth pointed glide of the iron, the steam hot smell of the fabric, the tug of the muscles in my upper arm. I still use a heavy steam iron that must be twenty years old now. I bought a new one once, not bcause there was anything wrong with the old one but just because I thought it was time. But I found it unsatisfying. It was too light in my hand, altogether lacking the serious and stalwart heft of the old one, so I returned it to the store with a flimsy excuse, got my money back, and caried on happily as before."
Seriously, I love this. I love this woman and her flimsy excuse and her crazy old steam iron.
There was one particular, longer passage about finding things that I loved towards the middle of the book, as well, which sums up quite a bit about the book for me.
"This new proliferation of Marys in my life would seem to bige lie to the popular nothiong that you are most likely to find something when you're not looking for it. This idea is most often offered in the spirit of consolation and encouragement to a single woman looking for a man and repeatedly coming up empty-handed and/or broken-hearted.
-Don't worry, people say. You'll find him when you least expect it. Once you stop looking, you'll find him for sure.
These well-meaning advisors may or may not go on to mention how a watched pot never boils.
In light of my recent experience of running into Mary everywhere I turn, it now seems to me that, much as the old notion of finding something when you're not looking for it has often been proved true, the opposite is also equally true: you find what you are looking for. Sometimes, once your blinders have been removed, you find it over and over again.
So there was Mary: on television, in newspapers and magazines, in a friend's neighborhood, in my stamp collection, at the beauty salon, the grocery store, and my favorite downtown restaurant.
And, on a Thursday afternoon in April, there she was among the lawn ornaments just where she had always been. If only I had thought to look."
Look. Read. Enjoy.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Book Reviews Coming!
For months I have been reading books and writing mental reviews and witty remarks about them. I've even gone so far as to dog-ear the pages of favorite quotes and create stacks of books that I need to write reviews on.
And as you can tell........
.....I haven't actually written any.
This has long been a thorn in my side, and now, I'm pleased to say the thorn has been removed!! Starting tomorrow there will be actual reveiws of actual books that I have actually read and actually written about, RIGHT HERE, along with fun little labels you can use to find good beach reads, by-the-fire reads, long books or short books, or happy-ending books.
Enjoy!
And as you can tell........
.....I haven't actually written any.
This has long been a thorn in my side, and now, I'm pleased to say the thorn has been removed!! Starting tomorrow there will be actual reveiws of actual books that I have actually read and actually written about, RIGHT HERE, along with fun little labels you can use to find good beach reads, by-the-fire reads, long books or short books, or happy-ending books.
Enjoy!
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