29. A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny (audio)

I love Louise Penny's mysteries and I think Chief Inspector Gamache is the ultimate police crime solver.  This is the first time I have listened to one of her books and it was fantastic.  The narrator, Ralph Cosham, has a slight Canadian French accent that brings true realism to the story of a small town near Montreal in Quebec.  I may never say Montreal the same again, it is so much prettier in French.  The narration also brings to life the wonderful and eccentric characters that inhabit the town of Three Pines and provide backdrop to the genius and humanity of Armande Gamache.  These books don't just tell the story of a murder and how it is solved by the crack homocide team of the Surete du Quebec, they also explore human nature and the many ways people connect or not.  Along with the murder of Lillian Dyson, an old ex-friend of Clara Morrow, on the night of her solo art show, the book also follows the struggles of Jean-Guy Beauvoir, Gamache's second-in-command, as he deals with the aftermath of a shootout where he and Gamache were both gravely injured.  I can't wait to read the next book to see if he is able to overcome his inner demons.    Plus, it has been a while since I read the previous books; and I keep wanting to go back and remember things that are referenced in this book.  Re-reading these books is something I look forward to.  Rating:  5

28. Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett always makes me laugh and this book is especially funny.  Three witches from Wyrd Sisters are back trying to save the world from "happy ever after" story endings.  I t seems there is another witch who is making sure that all the stories in the city of Genua end just the way they should, little choice to the actual people who inhabit the story. 

"Servant girls have to marry the prince.  That's what life is all about.  You can't fight a Happy Ending."

Nanny Ogg, Granny Weatherwax and Magrat Garlick have all kinds of adventures as they fly their brooms from Lancre to Genua to help Magrat take over as the fairy godmother to the luckless serving wench about to marry a really creepy prince.  What fun!  Rating:  4.5

27. Every Last Cuckoo by Kate Maloy

I copied this review from Dawn at "She is Too Fond of Books".  A great review from a great blogger.

Back of the book blurb: Sarah Lucas imagined the rest of her days would be spent living peacefully in her rural Vermont home in the steadfast company of her husband. But now, with Charles’s sudden passing, seventy-five-year-old Sarah is left inconsolably alone.



As grief settles in, Sarah’s mind lingers on her past: her imperfect but devoted fifty-year marriage to Charles; the years they spent raising their three very different children; and her childhood during the Great Depression, when her parents opened their home to countless relatives and neighbors. So, when a variety of wayward souls come seeking shelter in Sarah’s own big, empty home, her past comes full circle.

She is Too Fond of Books’ review: Every Last Cuckoo is about so much more than grieving and coping with loss, although Kate Maloy incorporates these main themes wonderfully into her novel. The characters experience love and loss in many iterations, including the ultimate loss – the death of Charles, husband to Sarah; father to Charlotte, David and Stephie; grandfather; good neighbor; lifelong friend.

We know from the first page that Charles dies; we watch in slow motion as Sarah rushes to him in the woods, alerted to his downed state by the agitation of their dog Sylvie. Maloy intersperses the scenes of Charles’s death as present-tense two-page vignettes throughout the first third of the book; the rest of Part One gives us the history of Charles and Sarah: the families that formed them, the shared history that shaped them, and the stories of the family they created together.

Maloy personifies grief; anyone who has experienced a death or deep shock will recognize these feelings of the reality hitting you again and again:

"Grief slipped away, only to attack from behind. It changed shape endlessly. It lacerated her, numbed her, stalked her, startled her, caught her by the throat. It deceived her eye with glimpses of Charles, her ear with the sound of his voice. She would turn and turn, expecting him, and find him gone. Again. Each time Sarah escaped her sorrow, forgetful amid other things, she lost him anew the instant she remembered he was gone."

The book considers the troubled relationships between Charles and their son David, and between Sarah and their daughter Charlotte. A similar strain is mirrored between Charlotte and her 15-year-old daughter Lottie; Sarah “was a drawbridge, separating mother and daughter until the traffic on their troubled waters could pass.” This talent for meditation serves Sarah well.

Part Two looks at how the family copes, and how Sarah eventually thrives after Charles’ death. Hers is a journey of self-discovery and reflection, stepping outside her normal routines and reaching back into her own experience of “family” to offer something more than she knew she had to offer.

Maloy writes compassionately about friendship and companionship of “the older generation.” Sarah is both physically and mentally very active, yet she is at odds with her aging:

"… She had lived many thousands of days, so it was not surprising that scenes from an hour here or a moment there should surface at random. Her memories were beads jumbled loose in a box, unstrung. Everything – people, events, conversations – came and went so fast that only a fraction of the beads were ever stored at all. Few were whole, many cracked; more rolled away beneath pressing, present moments and were gone forever. What was the point?"

The novel is full of metaphors, beautiful word pictures that are striking, but not overdone. A few months after Charles’ death, one afternoon finds Sarah sitting at the kitchen table as a snow spring falls. Maloy describes the sounds of the house – the high-pitched breaths of the dogs, refrigerator hum, snow sliding off the roof; then she adds:

"Otherwise, all was muffled inside the house, inside the blizzard. Sarah imagined herself a tiny figure, sitting and sipping tea inside a glass globe. Someone had shaken her life up hard, and now everything was still except for the whiteness falling around."


It was a pleasure to read Every Last Cuckoo and to see just where Sarah’s journey would take her. Maloy’s use of language made it hard to put down; when I was done, my paperback was flagged with dozens of passages I want to re-visit.

You’re probably wondering about the unusual title, Every Last Cuckoo. No, it doesn’t mean crazy, mad, off your rocker. It connects to the brood parasite nature of some species of cuckoo birds; it will all make perfect “aha!” sense when you read the novel! 

I think Dawn captured the essence of this book perfectly.  I loved her quotes and loved this book.
Rating:  5

26. and 27. Relentless . . . I'll Find You by Clair Poulson

Clair M. Poulson served as a law enforcement officer in the neighboring county where I live and is now a Justice Court Judge.  Both of these books are thrillers involving law enforcement against truly evil men. 
Relentless  Erika is  eighteen-year-old who grudgingly goes on vacation with her family to Colorado.  She is taken hostage by an escaped murderer who is truly crazy but very wily.  Most of the book follows the chase around the Rockies while poolice try to rescue Erika as her kidnapper outsmarts them time after time.   Erika relies on her faith and prayer to get her through.

I'll Find You  At the age of six, Jeri witnesses her best friend, Rusty, being kidnapped.  She vows to find him and seventeen years later, she does . . .  he is a convict in a prison.  Again, there is a truly evil man who Rusty met in prison who puts Jeri in peril and only a miracle saves her.

As you can see, there are a lot of similarities in these two stories.  Both are LDS fiction which I enjoyed.  I found them both to be quite gripping and tense and not preachy at all.  Maybe the characgters are a bit too sterotyped . . . the evil characters are so bad and Jeri, at least, is sooo good.  Erika is a bit spoiled  but quickly redeemed.  Rusty was more complex as he tries to remember his earlier life and put the horrifics of his life after his kidnapping beyond him.  All in all, I liked these books.  Rating:  4

25. Murder in Miniature by Margaret Grace

Geraldine Porter is a retired widow who devotes her time to helping out in the community and creating show-box-sized Victorian shadowboxes.  She serves as chairwoman of the local Dollhouse and Miniatures Fair and soon finds herself involved in the murder of an unknown woman.  Naturally, Gerri finds herself sleuthing despite the warnings of her nephew, a local policeman. 

While I found Gerri to be quite charming, I couldn't really get into this book since miniatures is not one of my interests at all.  I've got too many books to read to get started in a series about this craft.  All in all, I just found this mystery to be cute and just okay.  Rating:  3

24. Tamsin by Peter S. Beagle

From book jacket:

Arriving in the English countryside to live with her mother and new stepfather, Jenny has no interest in her new surroundings--until she encounters things on this ancient estate with ties to another world . . . one darker and older than anything she's ever experienced.  And meets a friend in greater pain than any she has ever known.

Tamsin died more than 300 years ago.  As a ghost, she has haunted the lonely estate without rest, trapped by a hidden trauma she can't remember, and a powerful evil even the spirits of the night cannot name.

And before Jenny can help Tamsin find peace, she will have to delve deeper into the dark world of the night than any human has in hundreds of years, and face danger that will change her life forever.:

I really liked this book.  It starts off with Jenny being a typical 13-year-old brat sulking about her move to England.  There is some comedic, light moments, but things gradually start getting a bit more interesting when  the ghosts appear.  Then interesting become intense and then just plain dark and gripping.  Beagle does a fantastic job with the pacing and drawing you into the ghost story, building up the suspense to a wonderful crescendo of horror and resolution.  While I never felt scared, I was definitely drawn in and could not put the book down when I came close to the conclusion.  Great ghost story.  Rating:  4.75

23. The Year the Lights Came On by Terry Kay

This is my second book by Terry Kay and I love the way he writes.  You are present as he tells about a rural Georgia town in 1947 and the life of the young boys living there.  There is a definite division between the people on each side of Highway 17; and it creates great tension at the school between Colin's group, Our Side, and the Highway 17 gang led by Dupree Hixon.  Eleven-year-old Colin has a great bunch of friends including his older brother, Wesley, who is a natural leader, and Freeman Boyd, a wild child who knows the swamp better than any one else around.  Wesley figures out the main difference between the two groups is that they have electricity.  The knowledge that soon the Rural Electrification Administration would be running lines to the rest of the county leaves Our Side feeling a bit smug about their secret.  Kay creates a great story about an era when things were simpler but harder, more innocent and also about how progress in the shape of electricity changed the culture and lives of the people involved.  I find that I really enjoy coming-of-age stories of young teenage boys set in bygone times.  I can't remember reading similar stories involving girls.  Why is that?  If you want to read a well-written book with a great story, pick this one or even another Kay book, The Valley of Lights (not a series).  Rating:  4.75

22. April Fool Dead by Carolyn Hart

I love the "Death on Demand Mystery" series.  Annie Darling owns her own mystery bookstore called Death on Demand located on a South Carolina small island.  It's amazing how many murders there are on this island and Annie gets involved in each one.  The mysteries themselves are pretty fluffy.  The fun is in the characters, especially with Annie and her gorgeous husband, Max.  That relationship is sheer enjoyment.  I also enjoy the contests that Annie hosts at her bookstore.  Each month she commissions a set of five pictures that depict different mysteries.  Annie is also always discussing different books that make the reader want to go out and read them.  If you love mysteries, these books will give you lots of ideas of ones to check out.  In this  particular mystery,  Annie creates a contest advertising an upcoming book signing and puts flyers around the island.  Someone creates similar flyers, only they are targeting actual residents of the island.  Soon a school teacher is shot in her home and a student is pushed off a pier and drowns.  Through it all is Laurel, Max' ethereal mother, who drifts in and out and helps the police end a drug-running operation.  There is too much going on and the mystery wraps up too neatly.  Even so, I enjoyed the book as much as the rest of the series.  Annie and Max are just a great couple to read about.  Rating:  4

21. Summer of Light by W Dale Cramer

Mick Brannigan is happy with his life as a construction worker, husband and father of three.  It's true that his youngest, four-year-old Dylan, is suffering from a condition making it difficult for him to process his sensory perceptions causing behaviorial problems.  Fate seems to take a hand in Mick's life when he loses his job and becomes the primary caretaker for Dylan and the other two children.  He takes on odd jobs around the neighborhood, cutting down a tree which falls into a house, destroying it and the chainsaw borrowed from another neighbor.  He has a freak accident and drives his car into a pond.  One things leads to another; but through it all he helps Dylan learn to deal with his condition, finds another vocation and develops faith in a God who does know what is happening in our lives.  The religious message is not heavy handed at all.  I truly enjoyed the humor in this story and how Mick deals with his frustrations and the growth in his life.  Rating:  5

20. The Stargazey by Martha Grimes

I have always enjoyed Martha Grimes's Richard Jury series.  Richard is a New Scotland Yard superintendent who surrounds himself with a fascinating set of friends.  My favorite is Melrose Plant, an many-titled peer of the realm who has renounced his titles unless it is useful while helping Jury solve his cases.  The book has just the right blend of mystery, suspense and humor.  I'm not going to go into the plot itself.  I just recommend any Richard Jury book.  Rating:  4.25

19. Cheerful Money by Tad Friend

Tad Friend comes from a long line of Wasps  and this book explains what that means as he tells his life story.  The reader gets to know his illustrious ancestors and how Wasps dominated American life for many centuries. 

From back cover:
"As a young man, Tad noticed that his family tree, for all its glories, was full of alcoholics, depressives, and reckless eccentrics.  Yet his identity had already been shaped by the family's age-old traditions and expectations.  Part memoir, part family history, and part cultural study of the long swoon of the  American Wasp, Cheerful Money is captivating examination of a cultural crack-up and a man trying to escape its wreckage."

I found this book very interesting and educational.  It was fun to read about America's oldest families and the changes they have gone through in the last fifty years.  Rating:  3.75

18. Sweet Love by Sarah Strohmeyer

I liked this romance novel because it involves a forty-something woman, Julie, who is a mother and a journalist who is attractive but still forty-somethng.   She hates to cook because that is something her mother pushed her to do all her life.  Now she wins a ticket for a dessert class and finds herself in a class with the man she has had a crush on most of her life until they had a serious parting of the ways six years before.  And you can probably figure out the rest of the story line from here on.  Even though it is totally predictable, there are some fun characters in the book including Julie's mom and her daughter that keep the book interesting and humorous.  Rating:  3.5

17. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin

Can you believe I never read this book when I was a young girl?  I found it on my mom's bookshelves and finally got around to it.  It struck me as a weaker version of Anne of Green Gables, which is one of my all-time favorite books.  Rebecca is remarkably like Anne in her ability to bring cheer to those around her.  She gets into all kinds of scrapes that mortify and anger one of the old maiden aunts whom she has been sent to live with.  The other aunt, Jane, is an old softie who is always trying to make things better between Rebecca and Aunt Miranda.  There is a alluded future romance that you never get a chance to find out more about; but, all in all, it's a very cute book and fun to read.  Rating:  3.75

16. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

This is the second book that Cassie gave me for Christmas.  It is such an elegant book that I had it sitting on the end table for weeks.  The inside is just as pretty with the black and white striped end papers and the black sky with white stars page at the beginning of each chapter. 

"The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.


But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead."  From Amazon

I found the prose in the book to be just as elegant as its appearance.  The descriptions of the circus were so captivating that you are drawn into the magic of this elusive circus.  However, I didn't feel that I really got to know the characters.  Besides Celia and Marcus, there are other members of the circus, the true fans who follow it whenever they can determine where it will next appear, and finally Bailey, a young boy who is completely enchanted with the circus.  While I read the book, I felt a vague sense of menace which never truly materialized, so it felt slightly incomplete for me.  Rating:  4

15. Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

I orginally bought this book to read for the Twisted Fairy Tales challenge.  I don't even know if this challenge is still being held; but it's way past time for me to read it.  I think I put it off because the back cover describes Ella as having the unusaul gift of being obedient so she can never say no to any order given to her.  For some reason, that made me uncomfortable; and it certainly causes a lot of grief for Ella.  However, she is aspirited young woman who finds ways to rebel even though she has to follow the orders.  I have not yet seen the movie based on this book starring Anne Hathaway and wonder if anyone recommends it.  I like the actress and think she would make a great Ella.  Over all, I found this book to be a fun and light read.  Rating:  4

14. The Dragonfly Pool by Eva Ibbotson

From back cover:

"At first, Tally doesn't want to go to the boarding school called Delderton.  But soon she discovers that it's a wonderful place, where freedom and self-expression are valued.  Enamoured of Bergania, a serene and peaceful European country led by a noble king who refuses to bend to the Nazis, Tally organizes a ragtag school dance troupe to attend the international folkdancing festival of 1939 held in Begania.  There she meets Karil, the crown prince, who wants nothing more than ordinary friends.  But when Karil's' father is assassinated, it's up to Tally and her friends to help Karil escape the Nazis and the bleak future he's inherited."

This is a wonderful book for older children.  The illustrations are beautiful and the story is enchanting.  I found each of the characters to be interesting and unique.  Rating:  4.5

13. So Well Remembered by James Hilton

I absolutely loved Hilton's Random Harvest so I was excited when I found this book on my mom's shelves.  It's an old book, published in 1945; and in excellent condition.  However, the story is not nearly as wonderful as Harvest.  The story is about George Boswell, an amiable man who has a dream for his small manufacturing town and proceeds to chamr those around him into following his dreams.  He begins as the lowly son of a factory worker who educates himself and begins to serve on the town council.  He also meets Livia Channing, whose father was an owner of the largest factory in town and who put hundreds out of work  through embezzlement or mismanagement.  (Never really sure what he did)  George marries Livia and the marriage ends badly a few years later.  Then it's WWII and George meets a young man who is a patient in a local hospital after a horrible war injury.  He turns out to be Livia's son and George becomes involved with his life and trying to make things right for him as well.  It's just a slow tale of a good man who does his best for those around him.  Rating:  3.75

12. Maggie --Her Marriage by Taylor Caldwell

When I was young, I read all of Taylor Caldwell's book and loved them.  Somehow I missed this one which is okay because I didn't love it.  There is not really a sympathetic character in the book with the possible exception of Maggie's husband, John.  He is the most powerful man in the county but falls in love with Maggie, the daughter of the blacksmith.  She is in love with her cousin who is a dreamer and weak.  After sending him away to find his fortune as a poet, she marries John and proceeds to alienate everyone around her with her airs and demands.  She eventually figures things out in the end, but by then I didn't care.  Rating:  2.5

11. The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway

This is the sad tale of the seige of Sarajevo which took place in the years 1992 through 1995.  As the inhabitants of the city are bombarded continuously from the surrounding hills, they learn to run across intersections and to hide in the shadows of crumbling buildings.  After a bomb hits a street where people are lined up for food, killing 21; a cellist carries his cello to the square and plays a beautiful piece of music for an hour at the same time for 21 days.  The author follows the lives of three strangers--a bakery worker, a young father, and a female sniper who is charged with protecting the cellist from the army on the hills.   The book follows each as they strive to carry on their lives in the most daunting of circumstances and how the music comes to affect them and other survivors in the ravaged city.  I found the story to be gripping and very well-written, but bleak, even though the cellist is a inspiring focal point.  Rating:  4

10. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

"It was as black in the closet as old blood.  They had shoved me in and locked the door.  I breathed heavily through my nose, fighting desperately to remain calm.  I tried counting to ten on every intake of breath, and to eight and I released each one slowly into the darkness.  Luckily for me, they had pulled the gag so tightly into my open mouth that my nostrils were left unobstructed, and I was able to draw in one slow lungful aftg another of the stale, musty air."

So begins my first venture into the Flavia de Luce mystery series.  I pictured a tall, blond twenty-something woman who was in deep peril because of her nosing into some dark secret.  I was so wrong.  Flavia is ten or eleven and a budding chemist with a passion for poisons.  She's hilarious in her oddities.  She is thrilled when a dead body turns up in the garden of her family's dilapidated mansion and annoys the police with her observations and sleuthing.  Naturally, she is right more than not.  A wonderful mystery with Flavia as a truly delightful character.  Rating:  4.75