One by One by Gilbert Morris

Summary:

One secret links twelve strangers. One secret that could cost them everything. Danielle Ross's life keeps slipping out of control. First she must abandon her education to take over her ill father's floundering detective agency. Then, while pursuing a new case, Dani becomes a victim herself. She awakens in a strange place and finds herself surrounded by eleven other people. Among them are a doctor, a dancer, a German submarine commander, and a former Death Row inmate--all clueless as to why they have been brought together. The culprit relentlessly insists they are united by one dark secret and that their lives depend on their confessing it. Can Dani find the link between these strangers before time runs out?

My take: 4 looks
You all know how I feel about Christian fiction, and that I am no real fan. This book is a keeper! It has the Christian basis, but is not overwhelming or overbearing, and just works it in as part of the story nicely. A non-Christian would not be threatened at all reading this book, and isn't that what it's all about?

This is a series about a private investigator/ex-cop/seminary student Danielle Ross who gets in a very tough situation. What drew me to this book was a comment from a friend of mine that this was much like Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians", aka "And Then There Were None". That is one of my favorite mysteries of all time, and I was intrigued about this one.

After reading it, I have to admit that she was correct. Without some of the twists and turns, this was a very engaging read. I was fully invested in the characters and couldn't wait to pick it back up once I had to put it down for one reason or another. Before I finished it, I had the other already waiting on the side table. 

Highly recommended.

Long Lost by Harlan Coben

Summary:
An old flame wakes Myron Bolitar from sleep. Terese Collins is in Paris, and she needs his help -- no questions answered. In her debt, Myron makes the trip and learns of a decade-long secret: Terese once had a daughter, who died in a car accident. Now it seems as though that daughter may be alive -- and tied to a sinister plot with shocking global implications.

My take: 4 looks
I love these books! They are like getting on a crazy roller coaster ride, then getting back in line as soon as it's over. The characters are not overly developed and none of these books will probably make you tear up, but you will enjoy yourself immensely and wish you had a friend just like Win! These books would make a GREAT series of movies, much like the Jesse Stone made-for-TV movies.

This is book 9 in the Myron Bolitar Mysteries by Coben, so I have got some catching up to do! Here is the order:

Deal Breaker (1995)
Drop Shot (1996)
Fade Away (1996)
Back Spin (1997)
One False Move (1998)
The Final Detail (1999)
Darkest Fear (2000)
Promise Me (2006)
Long Lost (2009)
Live Wire (2011)

Let Them Eat Cake by Sandra Byrd

Summary:
Lexi Stuart is at a critical crossroads. She’s done with college but still living at home, ready to launch a career but unable to find a job, and solidly stalled between boyfriends.

My take: 3 looks
That's all of a summary that this cute book deserves?! I couldn't believe that's all there was.

Allow me to elaborate: Lexi is a French major from a good university who can't seem to hold a job; lives with her parents who just sold their house; her brother is a successful attorney who is marrying another successful attorney; she just signed a lease on an apartment she can't afford; and, she has a crush on her engaged boss at a French pastry shop. What's not to love?!

Oh, yes...and she is trying to find her way to God. She doesn't want her grandmother's faith, doesn't want her mother's faith, but wants to find her own relationship with God and what He wants for her.

Cutely written, but a bit sophomoric at times, this is a nice, light beach-read. Interspersed in the pages are recipes, notes, forms and ice-breaker games, making the journey from page 1 to page 310 an interesting one. This is the first in a series of three, and I will probably add the next one to my list. I'm curious as to what Lexi will do next!

Brother Odd by Dean Koontz

Summary:

Loop me in, odd one. The words, spoken in the deep of night by a sleeping child, chill the young man watching over her. For this was a favorite phrase of Stormy Llewellyn, his lost love, and Stormy is dead, gone forever from this world. In the haunted halls of the isolated monastery where he had sought peace, Odd Thomas is stalking spirits of an infinitely darker nature

Through two New York Times bestselling novels Odd Thomas has established himself as one of the most beloved and unique fictional heroes of our time. Now, wielding all the power and magic of a master storyteller at the pinnacle of his craft, Dean Koontz follows Odd into a singular new world where he hopes to make a fresh beginning—but where he will meet an adversary as old and inexorable as time itself. St. Bartholomew’s Abbey sits in majestic solitude amid the wild peaks of California’s high Sierra, a haven for children otherwise abandoned, and a sanctuary for those seeking insight. Odd Thomas has come here to learn to live fully again, and among the eccentric monks, their other guests, and the nuns and young students of the attached convent school, he has begun to find his way. The silent spirits of the dead who visited him in his earlier life are mercifully absent, save for the bell-ringing Brother Constantine and Odd’s steady companion, the King of Rock 'n' Roll. But trouble has a way of finding Odd Thomas, and it slinks back onto his path in the form of the sinister bodachs he has met previously, the black shades who herald death and disaster, and who come late one December night to hover above the abbey’s most precious charges. For Odd is about to face an enemy who eclipses any he has yet encountered, as he embarks on a journey of mystery, wonder, and sheer suspense that surpasses all that has come before.

My take: 4 looks
I love this series. It is so cleverly written, and on an adult level (you may have to look up some words, unless you are a wordsmith!). I had to jump from book one to three because the library didn't have the second one (Forever Odd) available. No worries, though, this book is a standalone and I didn't miss a beat. I look forward to reading the others in this series, and highly recommend them.

life on the refrigerator door by Alice Kuipers

Summary:

Claire and her mother are running out of time, but they don't know it. Not yet. Claire is wrapped up with the difficulties of her burgeoning adulthood—boys, school, friends, identity; Claire's mother, a single mom, is rushed off her feet both at work and at home. They rarely find themselves in the same room at the same time, and it often seems that the only thing they can count on are notes to each other on the refrigerator door. When home is threatened by a crisis, their relationship experiences a momentous change.

Forced to reevaluate the delicate balance between their personal lives and their bond as mother and daughter, Claire and her mother find new love and devotion for one another deeper than anything they had ever imagined. Heartfelt, touching, and unforgettable, Life on the Refrigerator Door is a glimpse into the lives of mothers and daughters everywhere.

In this deeply touching novel told through a series of notes written from a loving mother and her devoted fifteen-year-old daughter, debut author Alice Kuipers deftly captures the impenetrable fabric that connects mothers and daughters throughout the world. Moving and rich with emotion, Life on the Refrigerator Door delivers universal lessons about love in a wonderfully simple and poignant narrative.

My take: 4 looks
I am giving this book 4 looks based solely on the clever idea of writing an entire book on notes stuck to the fridge. Not one element is missing here. The characters are clear, the day-to-day lives are clear, and the gentle wave of time and the toll it carries is clear. Beautifully, beautifully done. Highly recommended.

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

Summary:

What's the real truth behind the legend of the hound of the Baskervilles? Is it really a devil-beast with crushing teeth and supernatural strength that's haunting the lonely moors? Enter Sherlock Holmes' world to find the answer, in this, the only full-length novel ever written by the creator of one of the most popular and enduring detective series ever written.

My take: 3 looks
It was good, but not great. One of the most popular and enduring detective series ever written? Well, I would rather read an Agatha Christie, I think. I still think about Ten Little Indians...

Don't get me wrong, I liked the book and enjoyed reading it, but it doesn't make me want to run out and get another Sherlock Holmes book. However, nor will it keep me from reading another one, should it be recommended.

As for recommending this one, I would say that yes, you should read it. If for nothing else than it is of some repute and should be added to your read list based solely on that merit.

Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers

Summary:

Can God’s Love Save Anyone? Bestselling author Francine Rivers skillfully retells the biblical love story of Gomer and Hosea in a tale set against the exciting backdrop of the California Gold Rush. The heroine, Angel, is a young woman who was sold into prostitution as a child. Michael Hosea is a godly man sent into Angel’s life to draw her into the Savior’s redeeming love.

This remarkable novel has sold over a million copies and is among the top twenty on the ECPA fiction bestsellers list for four years running.

California’s gold country, 1850. A time when men sold their souls for a bag of gold and women sold their bodies for a place to sleep. Angel expects nothing from men but betrayal. Sold into prostitution as a child, she survives by keeping her hatred alive. And what she hates most are the men who use her, leaving her empty and dead inside.

Then she meets Michael Hosea. A man who seeks his Father’s heart in everything, Michael Hosea obeys God’s call to marry Angel and to love her unconditionally. Slowly, day by day, he defies Angel’s every bitter expectation until, despite her resistance her frozen heart begins to thaw. But with her unexpected softening come overwhelming feelings of unworthiness and fear. And so Angel runs. Back to the darkness, away from her husband’s pursuing love, terrified of the truth she can no longer deny: Her final healing must come from the One who loves her even more than Michael Hosea does…the One who will never let her go.

A powerful retelling of the book of Hosea, Redeeming Love is a life-changing story of God’s unconditional, redemptive, all-consuming love.

My take: 2.5 looks
That is quite a summary, huh? Written by either the author or a groupie, I would say that the above is a bit more of a love fest that I would give it.

The story of how I came upon this book: in my women's Sunday school class last week, someone was talking about the book and how her husband told her that it was making her cry so much that it was upsetting their children. I asked about the book and a member of the class took life and limb in hand to run to the church library to get me the book.

The first thing I noticed, of course, was the cover and it just made me chuckle. It is very obviously the female equivalent of Fabio and I commented that it looked like a Baptist Harlequin Romance. Well, I have to tell you, it reads like one, too. At a robust 464 pages, I never even thought of shedding a tear. Instead, I wanted to slap the heroine of the book, named Sarah/Angel/Marah/Amanda/Mandy/Tirzah. A retelling of the book of Hosea, yes, but with much more running. She flees once, her husband finds her. She flees again, her husband finds her. She flees again and probably again ... honestly, I lost count. At some point, I would have just let her work it out with God without my help. Which he did, praying for and waiting on her for three years while she sought and found God thanks to a totally different man. Poor Micheal (her husband) never got to see the joy of her accepting the Lord as her Savior.

Yes, yes, I know the moral is that I run away from God numerous times and He seeks me, forgives me and loves me just the same. I get it. I just don't want to read a tome about it. And good grief with the names in this book! Michael, Hosea, Sarah, Elizabeth, Miriam, Ruth, Paul. I would say that a light hand is not a strength of Francine Rivers.

This is the second book that I have read by this author, and will more than likely not read another.

Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz

Summary:

“The dead don't talk. I don't know why.” But they do try to communicate, with a short-order cook in a small desert town serving as their reluctant confidant. Odd Thomas thinks of himself as an ordinary guy, if possessed of a certain measure of talent at the Pico Mundo Grill and rapturously in love with the most beautiful girl in the world, Stormy Llewellyn.

Maybe he has a gift, maybe it’s a curse, Odd has never been sure, but he tries to do his best by the silent souls who seek him out. Sometimes they want justice, and Odd’s otherworldly tips to Pico Mundo's sympathetic police chief, Wyatt Porter, can solve a crime. Occasionally they can prevent one. But this time it's different.

A mysterious man comes to town with a voracious appetite, a filing cabinet stuffed with information on the world's worst killers, and a pack of hyena-like shades following him wherever he goes. Who the man is and what he wants, not even Odd’s deceased informants can tell him. His most ominous clue is a page ripped from a day-by-day calendar for August 15. Today is August 14. In less than twenty-four hours, Pico Mundo will awaken to a day of catastrophe.

As evil coils under the searing desert sun, Odd travels through the shifting prisms of his world, struggling to avert a looming cataclysm with the aid of his soul mate and an unlikely community of allies that includes the King of Rock 'n' Roll.

His account of two shattering days when past and present, fate and destiny converge is the stuff of our worst nightmares—and a testament by which to live: sanely if not safely, with courage, humor, and a full heart that even in the darkness must persevere.

My take: 4 looks
What a ride! I picked this one up on a recommendation from a friend, and knew nothing about it. It proved to be a page-turner with surprises at every corner. I loved all of the characters, the premise, the action and even the surprise ending. I did NOT see that coming! I look forward to the movie they are releasing this year.

I will read ALL of this series!

Rory Gilmore's Reading List

It's pretty awesome when a television show sparks a list of books as long as "Gilmore Girls" did. I didn't watch this show, so I had no idea that the daughter on the show, Rory, was a voracious reader. There are book clubs out there because of this, and people are still challenging themselves to reading all of the books on the list. Awesome!

The list is below, and I have highlighted those books I have already read. I am a bit disappointed that the titles starting with "The" are in the T-section, but we can't have it all. Overall, I was shamed by the number of books unread. I need to get on the stick!

Enjoy!

The List

• 1984  (George Orwell)
• A Confederacy of Dunces (John Kennedy Toole)
• A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Dave Eggers)
• Mencken Chrestomathy (H.L. Mencken)
• A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister (Julie Mars)
• A Passage to India (E.M. Forster)
• A Quiet Storm: A Novel (Rachel Howzell Hall)
• A Room of One’s Own (Virginia Woolf)
• A Separate Peace (John Knowles)
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
• American Tragedy (Theodore Dreiser)
• Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)
• Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank)
• Atonement: A Novel (Ian McEwan)
• Autobiography of a Face (Lucy Grealy)
• Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Dai Kijie)
• Bee Season (Myla Goldberg)
• Bel Canto (Ann Patchett)
• Beloved (Toni Morrison)
• Beowulf
• Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
• Brick Lane (Monica Ali)
• Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
• The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty (Eudora Welty)
• Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems (Edgar Allan Poe)
• Cousin Bette (Honoré de Balzac)
• Crime and Punimensht (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
• Daisy Miller (Henry James)
• David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)
• Dead Souls (Nikolai Gogol)
• Death of a Salesman (Arthur Miller)
• Demons (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson)
• Eleanor Roosevelt (Blanche Wiesen Cook)
• Ella Minnow Pea: A Progressively Lipgrammatic Epistaolary Fable (Mark Dunn)
• Emma (Jane Austen)
• Empire Falls (Richard Russo)
• Ethan Frome (Edith Wharton)
• Rick Steves’ Europe Through the Back Door 2007: The Travel Skills Handbook (Rick Steves)
• Extravagance: A Novel (Gary Krist)
• Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)
• Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World (Greg Critser)
• Flowers for Algernon
• Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)
• Franny and Zooey (J.D. Salinger)
• Galapagos (Kurt Vonnegut)
• Hamlet (William Shakespeare)
• Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad)
• Holidays on Ice: Stories (David Sedaris)
• How the Light Gets in (M. J. Hyland)
• How to Breathe Underwater (Julie Orringer)
• Howl (Allen Ginsberg)
• Inherit the Wind (Jerome Lawrence)
• Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë)
• Just a Couple of Days (Tony Vigorito)
• Leaves of Grass (Walt Witman)
• Letters to a Young Poet (Rainer Maria Rilke)
• Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
• Little Dorrit (Charles Dickens)
• Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
• Living History (Hillary Rodham Clinton)
• Lord of the Flies William Golding)
• Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert)
• Me Talk Pretty One Day (David Sedaris)
• Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter (Simone de Beauvoir)
• Middlesex (Jeffrey Eugenides)
• Moby-Dick (Herman Melville)
• Monsieur Proust (Celeste Albaret)
• Mrs. Dalloway (Virginia Woolf)
• My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath (Seymour M. Hersh)
• My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru (Tim Guest)
• My Sister’s Keeper (Jodi Picoult)
• Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature (Jan Lars Jensen)
• New Poems of Emily Dickinson (Emily Dickinson)
• Night (Elie Wiesel)
• Dawn Powell: Novels 1930-1942 (Dawn Powell)
• Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck)
• Old School (Tobias Wolff)
• Oliver Twist (Oliver Twist)
• On the Road (Jack Kerouac)
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Ken Kesey)
• Oracle Night (Paul Auster)
• Oryx and Crake (Margaret Atwood)
• Othello (William Shakespeare)
• Out of Africa (Isak Dinesen)
• Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk (Legs McNeil)
• Property (Valerie Martin)
• Pushkin: A Biography (T.J. Binyon)
• Pygmalion (George Bernard Shaw)
• Quattrocento (James Mckean)
• Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books (Azar Nafisi)
• Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad (Virginia Holman)
• Romeo and Juliet (William Shakespeare)
• Rosemary’s Baby (Ira Levin)
• Sacred Time (Ursula Hegi)
• Sanctuary (William Faulkner)
• Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay (Nancy Milford)
• Seabiscuit: An American Legend (Laura Hillenbrand)
• Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen)
• Siddhartha (Hermann Hesse)
• Slaughterhouse-Five (Kurt Vonnegut)
• Small Island (Andrea Levy)
• The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories (Ernest Hemingway)
• Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos (Julia de Burgos)
• Songbook (Nick Hornby)
• Speak, Memory (Vladimir Nabokov)
• Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (Mary Roach)
• Swann’s Way (Marcel Proust)
• Swimming With Giants: My Encounters With Whales, Dolphins, and Seals (Anne Collett)
• Sybil (Flora Rheta Schreiber)
• A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)
• Tender Is the Night (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain)
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (Michael Chabon)
• The Art of War (Sun Tzu)
• The Awakening (Kate Chopin)
• The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath)
• The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews (Peter Duffy)
• The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
• The Code of the Woosters (P.G. Wodehouse)
• The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexander Dumas)
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (Mark Haddon)
• The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America (Erik Larson)
• The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (Tom Wolfe)
• The Five People You Meet in Heaven (Mitch Albom)
• The Fortress of Solitude (Jonathan Lethem)
• The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
• The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy)
• The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
• The Group (Mary McCarthy)
• The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
• The Holy Barbarians (lawrence lipton)
• The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (Victor Hugo)
• The Jungle (Upton Sinclair)
• The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar (Robert Alexander)
• The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
• The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 (Gore Vidal)
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis)
• The Little Locksmith: A Memoir (Katharine Butler Hathaway)
• The Lottery: And Other Stories (Shirley Jackson)
• The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
• The Manticore (Robertson Davies)
• The Master and Margarita (Mikhail Bulgakov)
• The Meaning of Consuelo (Judith Ortiz Cofer)
• The Metamorphosis (Ovid)
• The Naked and the Dead (Norman Mailer)
• The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco)
• The Namesake (Jhumpa Lahiri)
• The Nanny Diaries (Emma McLaughlin)
• The Opposite of Fate (Amy Tan)
• The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde)
• The Polysyllabic Spree (Nick Hornby)
• The Portable Dorothy Parker (Dorothy Parker)
• The Portable Nietzsche
• The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill (Ron Suskind)
• The Razor’s Edge (W. Somerset Maugham)
• The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
• The Rough Guide to Europe 2006 (Various Authors)
• The Scarecrow of Oz (L. Frank Baum)
• The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)
• The Second Sex (Simone De Beauvoir)
• The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
• The Shadow of the Wind (Carlos Ruiz Zafon)
• The Song of Names (Norman Lebrecht)
• The Song Reader (Lisa Tucker)
• The Sound and the Fury (William Faulkner)
• The Story of My Life (Helen Keller)
• The Sun Also Rises (Ernest Hemingway)
• The Time Traveler’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
• The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters (Elisabeth Robinson)
• Unabridged Journals (Sylvia Plath)
• The Year of Magical Thinking (Joan Didion)
• Time and Again (Jack Finney)
• To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
• Truth & Beauty: A Friendship (Ann Patchett)
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Harriet Beecher Stowe)
• Unless (Carol Shields)
• Vanity Fair (William Makepeace Thackeray)
• War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy)
• When the Emperor Was Divine (Julie Otsuka)
• Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Edward Albee)
• Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Gregory Maguire)
• Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (Rebecca Wells)

The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova

Summary:
Psychiatrist Andrew Marlow, devoted to his profession and the painting hobby he loves, has a solitary but ordered life. When renowned painter Robert Oliver attacks a canvas in the National Gallery of Art and becomes his patient, Marlow finds that order destroyed. Desperate to understand the secret that torments the genius, he embarks on a journey that leads him into the lives of the women closest to Oliver and a tragedy at the heart of French Impressionism. Kostova's masterful new novel travels from American cities to the coast of Normandy, from the late 19th century to the late 20th, from young love to last love. THE SWAN THIEVES is a story of obsession, history's losses, and the power of art to preserve human hope.

My take: 2 looks

I read over 400 pages of this one and finally put it down, so glad that it was over, at least for me. The book was not a difficult read, but it was j-u-s-t t-o-o l-o-n-g.I don't care for rambling tomes of feelings, perspectives and ideas when they have already been set and delivered. I know. I get it. I understand. I comprehend. I caught on. I grasp the situation. I register. 10-4. Roger. Wilco.

See? You understand quite well what I am saying, and you got it the first time, but I went on and on and it gets a bit old, doesn't it?

By the time I put the book down, I could not care less what happened to the obsessed, self-absorbed, artificially-repressed-with-life painter Robert Oliver. I had no sympathy for the angst felt by the rejected Mary. I was glad that Kate was shed of the albatross that Robert had become to her. I was convinced that Andrew needed badly to have sex since he seemed to fantasize about every woman he ran across. I was not impressed by the love affair of Beatrice and her uncle-by-marriage.

Honestly, I rolled my eyes so much at this story I probably should make an appt with my opthomologist, but really wanted to finish it. However, I started to feel that it was sucking days from my existence. Deciding to put it down unfinished was a relief. I have also decided to remove another book by Kostova, The Historian, off of my TBR list.

Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner

Summary:
In the novel that won her the Booker Prize and established her international reputation, Anita Brookner finds a new vocabulary for framing the eternal question "Why love?" It tells the story of Edith Hope, who writes romance novels under a psudonym. When her life begins to resemble the plots of her own novels, however, Edith flees to Switzerland, where the quiet luxury of the Hotel du Lac promises to resore her to her senses. But instead of peace and rest, Edith finds herself sequestered at the hotel with an assortment of love's casualties and exiles. She also attracts the attention of a worldly man determined to release her unused capacity for mischief and pleasure. Beautifully observed, witheringly funny, Hotel du Lac is Brookner at her most stylish and potently subversive.

My take: 3 looks

I am giving this book three looks because I found it easy to read and I loved Brookner's writing style The story was mediocre. Brookner assumes her readers are intelligent and uses the language to its fullest flourish. I adore reading books that drive me to the dictionary!

I felt quite like I knew these characters, as seen through the eyes of the protagonist, Edith Hope. As an author, she is a very astute observer of people, and the hotel gives her a small but interesting menagerie. Interestingly, she is keen on looking at others with a critical eye while dismissing her own indulgences until late in the story, where her self-reflection takes her to a crossroads. 


It is worth the read, in that the less-than-200 pages will cost you only a few days. Brookner's writing style is a delight and this winner of the 1984 Man Booker prize will hold its own on your TBR list.

I have the answer

Dear Books a Million, I have the answer as to why you are closing stores.

I visited the Books a Million in Huntsville today to spend my two giftcards and left in a state of complete dissatisfaction.

To begin with, there were not enough sales personnel to help customers. You know how Barnes & Noble ALWAYS has at least one person in the customer service section in the center of the store? BAM has a customer service section, too; but, it was empty the entire time I was in the store, unless someone was paged to go there. That meant that a customer had to ask for assistance in order to get attention. I don't like that.

I waited for the customer service person to help me with a few author's names. They didn't have either book I was looking for. So, I perused the sale aisles until a few more books came to mind. I went back to customer service. No one. I went up to the checkout and asked her to help me. She paged the customer service person. I waited there while she helped someone with a vampire series. They chatted until the loudspeaker said, "Tammy, please come to the front for a void." She PASSED me to go to the front. There were two people waiting behind me by this time...well, you get the idea. I had to wait. Then, I couldn't find either of those books, either, even though she assured me that they were both available.

So, time to check out. No one to pay. No one for any of the five registers at the front. I waited. And waited. And waited. So did everyone behind me. Evidently, the woman manning the cash registers had to go over to the coffee bar (Joe Muggs) to fix an issue with a coffee machine.

So, BAM, here is the issue: you are losing money so you cut hours and personnel. Customers come in to buy and become frustrated because they can't get the help they need. It's difficult to find items and there is no one around to assist. So, the customers go to another book store. Because we don't care where we go, we just want our books in the shortest amount of time for the l

east amount of money. You are not meeting at need and you are going to go out of business.

The End.

A fun video!

Ever wonder what books do overnight? Here is a peek!

The Joy of Books

 

The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett

Summary:
St. Elizabeth's is a home for unwed mothers in the 1960s. Life there is not unpleasant, and for most, it is temporary. Not so for Rose, a beautiful, mysterious woman who comes to the home pregnant but not unwed. She plans to give up her baby because she knows she cannot be the mother it needs. But St. Elizabeth's is near a healing spring, and when Rose's time draws near, she cannot go through with her plans, not all of them. And she cannot remain forever untouched by what she has left behind ... and who she has become in the leaving.

My take: 4 looks
This was a pleasurable book to read. The writing was robust and clever. I can see why Patchett has so much buzz about her right now. I found the book to be easy to read and hard to put down.

However, keeping me from giving this one 5 looks was the character around whom all others revolved: Rose. I found her to be a bit shallow and one-dimensional. I don't think this was the intention at all, in that I believe Patchett intended this character to be complex, brooding and unpredictable. I found her to be just the opposite. Rose was fervent in her lack of feeling and emotion, running when she got the good chance, and you knew she was going to run. Toward the end of the book, I found myself wondering if perhaps the author meant to give the impression that Rose suffered from Schizoid Personality Disorder. I was never compassionate toward Rose, and perhaps that was not the point, but by the end of the book, I didn't care at all about her.

Son, Cecilia and Sister Evangeline saved the story. They were all very compelling, complete and full characters. I felt Son's trepidation, sorry and joy. I ached for Cecilia to find her own way, first at St. Elizabeth's, then a way out of the grand hotel. Sister Evangeline was the mother/grandmother/confidant we all wish to have. The way they all interacted with Rose and because of Rose was a good tale.

I liked this book, and will read more by this author.

The Dressmaker by Elizabeth Birkelund Oberbeck

Summary:
In this romantic debut novel, a reserved provincial French tailor falls head over heels in love with a woman who’s hired him to create her wedding dress. Claude Reynaud is a bit of a throwback, an old-fashioned dressmaker working in a cluttered studio outside modern-day Paris, quietly designing his famous gowns by hand. Every spring he ushers pretty young society brides into his studio, measures them, and designs their dresses without ever contemplating for himself the sort of romance that will lead these ladies and their grooms to the altar.

But one afternoon a woman arrives who shatters his composure: Valentine de Verlay is charming, beautiful, a lady of society, and, of course, engaged. She comes with no instructions for her wedding dress, just a beautiful figure, a long graceful neck, and total faith in her dressmaker. Claude, forty-six years old, devoted to his work, and long since deserted by his wife, finds himself smitten.

As Valentine’s wedding approaches, his commitment to her dress makes it impossible for Claude to keep a safe distance, and everything he’s come to rely on in his small, focused life looks ready to collapse. Worse still, as he is welcomed into her circle of friends and family, it appears that the betrothed Valentine may share his feelings. The Dressmaker is a perfect gem of a novel, an enchanting portrait of another world, and, above all, a sly and irresistible love story.

My take: 3 looks
This summary really misses the mark, in my opinion. At no time did I feel that Valentine shared Claud's feelings for him. He was instantly smitten, quickly morphing into obsession, to the point that he almost forces himself on her at one of their last meetings. Their relationship is not sweet, simple or heartfelt. It is all lust for him, and all father-complex for her.

Adding to this plot is the estranged wife who suddenly appears after 8 years of silence, just in time for Claud to become a famous designer at one of France's most sought-after design houses. Overbearing, over-the-top, greedy, manipulative and grating ... this woman should have been turned on her heel. However, Claud succombs to her omnipresence and allows her to spend freely. Oddly enough, while his actions prove otherwise, he continues to make it clear to her and others that they are separated and getting divorced...all while signing check after check at her whim.

Then there is Lebrais, the owner of the design house. I could never figure out if the house was all-the-rage, or perhaps it had fallen out of favor with a fickle fashion market. In any event, Lebrais was the male version of Claud's wife: verbal, pushy, condescending and manipulative. Once again, Claud talks a big game, but falls in line with Lebrais' demands.

One bristling character I could have overlooked, two I could have handled, but three? I felt no compassion whatsoever for Claud by the end of the book. He deserved to be miserable, alone and a doormat. The saving grace of this book is the descriptions of fashion: the colors, the fabrics and the textures combining to create fabulous outfits.

This was the author's first book, so I will probably give her one more try.