Book Reviews

Book Reviews

Oh man, I've been itching to write some book reviews. I don't know why this gives me such satisfaction but it does. Maybe one day my great-grand kids will want to know what I thought about a book and BOOM!! There you go.

I've got some good ones for you today. The weather is cooling, my electric throw blanket is calling, and I've found the most delicious herbal tea to drink, and so it is again time to read. If you need some fun books to read this fall you will like all of these. So take an armchair vacation!!

Susanna Kearsley has quickly become one of my favorite pleasure reads authors. I have yet to read a book of her's that I didn't love. This one is no exception. 

From Goodreads:

"...This mesmerizing, suspenseful, and richly atmospheric tale of time travel draws us into the heart of a heroine we won't soon forget...The first time Julia Beckett saw Greywethers she was only five, but she knew at once that it was her house. Now, twenty-five years later, by some strange chance, she has just become the new owner of the sixteenth-century Wiltshire farmhouse. But Julia soon begins to suspect that more than coincidence has brought her there. As if Greywethers were a portal between worlds, she finds herself abruptly transported back in time. Stepping into seventeenth-century England, Julia becomes Mariana, a beautiful young woman struggling against danger and treachery, and battling a forbidden love for Richard de Mornay, handsome forebear of the present squire of Crofton Hall. Each time Julia travels back, she becomes more enthralled with the past, falling ever deeper in love with Richard...until one day she realizes Mariana's life threatens to eclipse her own--and that she must find a way to lay the past to rest, or risk losing a chance for love in her own time."

I read this book after watching some episodes on YouTube of the British TV show called Extraordinary People when I was sick this summer. This show is FASCINATING and especially good at keeping your mind off of puking. I had coincidentally just watched the episode "The Boy Who Lived Before" right before starting Mariana which is also about reincarnation. So I was definitely in the proper mind set for this book.

It was super fun!! I couldn't put it down (I think I read it in a day) and I was bawling my eyes out at the end. Kearsley takes her readers on a great ride and this book is no different. Sure, there were a few loose ends that kind of bugged me, and a flat character here and there, and someone please tell me what the deal was with her brother... but it didn't stop it from being a lovely book and a wonderful escape from reality.

My Rating: Great. (As in fun...not as in beautiful classic literature.)

 From Goodreads:

Remember the woman you used to be ...Alice is twenty-nine. She is whimsical, optimistic and adores sleep, chocolate, her ramshackle new house and her wonderful husband Nick. What's more, she's looking forward to the birth of the 'Sultana' - her first baby. But now Alice has slipped and hit her head in her step-aerobics class and everyone is telling her she's misplaced the last ten years of her life.In fact, it would seem that Alice is actually thirty-nine and now she loves schedules, expensive lingerie, caffeine and manicures. She has three children and the honeymoon is well and truly over for her and Nick. In fact, he looks at her like she's his worst enemy. What's more, her beloved sister Elisabeth isn't speaking to her either. And who is this 'Gina' everyone is so carefully trying not to mention? Alice isn't sure that she likes life ten years on. Every photo is another memory she doesn't have and nothing makes sense. Just how much can happen in a decade? Has she really lost her lovely husband forever?

This was the perfect summer read for me. I thought it was fresh and fun. It think it would be a good selection because there is a lot to discuss...such as, what if you couldn't remember the last 10 years of your life...how would you feel? Would you be happy about where you found yourself? Did you become the person you wanted to be? Are you living the life you thought you would live? If no, are you okay with that? Good thought-provoking stuff to discuss. Plus, it's a funny book and had me laughing out loud. I liked how we got the perspective of several people...Alice's sister via her letters to her therapist, her grandma via her blog (that was one of my favorite parts of the book!!), and Alice's perspective...both as a 30 year-old and as a 40 year-old. I loved it.

My Rating: Fun, engaging, and funny. Enjoyable!!

Yes, another Susanna Kearsley book!! They are fun. You should read them. You'll like them. I promise. 

From Goodreads:

"Archaeologist Verity Grey has been drawn to the dark legends of the Scottish Borderlands in search of the truth buried in a rocky field by the sea. Her eccentric boss has spent his whole life searching for the resting place of the lost Ninth Roman Legion and is convinced he's finally found it—not because of any scientific evidence, but because a local boy has "seen" a Roman soldier walking in the fields, a ghostly sentinel who guards the bodies of his long-dead comrades. Here on the windswept shores, Verity may find the answer to one of the great unsolved mysteries of our time. Or she may uncover secrets someone buried for a reason."

This book gets a little criticized because it doesn't contain the usual parallel time story lines but that is what I liked MOST about this book. One of my critiques of Susanna Kearsley is that she uses the dual time travel storyline in almost all of her books...in different ways to be sure...but it's still there and it makes the love story set in the present suffer because, truly, how could it possibly compete with the amazing love story that is set in the past. That said, the love story in this book is most definitely in the present...and it was good!! I also loved the characters in this book. My two complaints are 1.) I wanted Verity a little more fleshed out. Why is she described as a 'difficult women'? There is nothing in the book that supports that claim for instance so that irritated me. 2.) I wanted MORE...I wanted to know more about all of the characters, main characters and secondary characters, including all of their back stories...even the ghostly Sentinel. I wanted to know more about what happened to the Ninth Roman Legion. But I did like that the story didn't flip flop from the past to the present and that Verity didn't "travel" to the past. It's always nice to mix things up a bit and not be so formulaic. I also like that when I finish a Susanna Kearsley book I can just hand it right over to my 16 year-old daughter who also loves these books and then we can gush about them together. That's rare!! 

I am currently reading Kearsley's book The Firebird which has the character Robbie in it (about 20 years after Shadowy Horses) as well as Anna from The Winter Sea. So maybe I will get the closure and depth that I wanted from this book in The Firebird. I hope so.

My Rating: Great. (I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning just to finish it.)

From Goodreads:

"Award-winning author Alan Bradley returns with another beguiling novel starring the insidiously clever and unflappable eleven-year-old sleuth Flavia de Luce. The precocious chemist with a passion for poisons uncovers a fresh slew of misdeeds in the hamlet of Bishop’s Lacey—mysteries involving a missing tot, a fortune-teller, and a corpse in Flavia’s own backyard.

Flavia had asked the old Gypsy woman to tell her fortune, but never expected to stumble across the poor soul, bludgeoned in the wee hours in her own caravan. Was this an act of retribution by those convinced that the soothsayer had abducted a local child years ago? Certainly Flavia understands the bliss of settling scores; revenge is a delightful pastime when one has two odious older sisters. But how could this crime be connected to the missing baby? Had it something to do with the weird sect who met at the river to practice their secret rites? While still pondering the possibilities, Flavia stumbles upon another corpse—that of a notorious layabout who had been caught prowling about the de Luce’s drawing room."

 The Flavia de Luce mysteries are delightful. Enough said.

My Rating: Good...but not as good as the 1st one The Sweetness At The Bottom of The Pie.

I read this book in elementary school years ago and watched the series on PBS. They were delightful then and they are delightful now. I reread this book this summer with my 9 year-old daughter and it was SO MUCH FUN!! My daughter, Ailey, is the dreamiest of my four children and definitely the most Ann(e) like. She loves to be dramatic, use big words, and has a superb imagination. She loved the book and I have heard her saying things like "you are my bosom friend" and "he reminds me of Gilbert Blythe" this summer. I love it!! Getting to relive it all and share it with her has been PRICELESS!!

My Rating: Always has been and always will be...EXCELLENT!!