mystery – Peaceful Reader

My feet are cold and I need a cup of tea

I’m under the weather as temperatures change here. I have the bare essence of a cold. My ears itch, my chest is a little raw, and I’m blowing my nose like crazy. In the midst of a pandemic being sick takes on new meaning. I sneeze at work at my students look at me like “ewww” and I wear a mask most every moment at school.

I take a wide array of cold remedies; most of them are on the natural side. At the first hint of something coming on I start with the Emergen-C packets in a glass of water and I take regular vitamin C by tablet as well. My friend Jen turned me on to Gypsy Cold Care Tea years ago and I still use it religiously. For some reason I now have to order it online because many stores just don’t carry it. No idea why. I also have NutriBiotic GSE (Grapefruit Seed Extract) liquid concentrate which I take by squeezing 8-10 drops into a small glass of water. While I do use all these very natural remedies I also use Vick’s VapoRub all the time. I can’t help it because it works for me. I do love a good hot bath when I’m not feeling well. I know even without testing that I don’t have Covid because when I had it last winter I was so, so tired all the time.

I did get an amazing amount of reading done last weekend just because I had a sleepless night on Friday so I read The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave-it was so good! I read until 11pm (late for me) and then I tried to sleep but was still awake at 12:30 so I read a little more and that’s kind of how the rest of the night went. I really enjoyed the mystery and Hannah Hall and Bailey’s relationship as they started to work together.

Now I’m furiously reading Dear Pink written by Michelle Angelle so that I can begin the next in (maybe) a series with connecting characters. Until Next Year just came out and both books are fun, romance novels with sexy main characters!

Stay healthy out there and happy reading.

Farewell to September

I can’t believe October begins tomorrow. Summer is my favorite weather season because I like the heat of the sun, the warm days on a boat or patio, and easy summer foods and beverages. Many people love all that about Fall; the pumpkin spiced everything, the sweaters, the leaves falling. We’ve had amazing weather throughout September and I hope October brings more of the same. Truthfully all the seasons provide something to love but when we veer towards winter I dread feeling chilled all the time. As with every month I’ve done a fair amount of cooking and reading this last week. Right now I’m enjoying Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo, the 2nd in the series.

Last weekend I cleaned up an area of my living room and went through a stack of books. Weird right, that I would have a stack of books sitting right on the floor in any of the rooms in my house? As I sorted this particular stack of books I found a note from a friend inside the front cover that said “I’m going to want this one back” which is code for “this was very good!” so I promptly started to read it.

The Plot was amazingly good and written by Jean Hanff Korelitz, an author I was completely unaware of until now. I read the book in 4 days and while it has some creepy moments it isn’t over the top because I can’t handle scary. It has great plot twists and interesting characters. Now I want to read other stories by this author. She is a playwright and started an online book group, Book the Writer, that pairs authors with readers. Check out the EventBrite page to see upcoming authors. I would love to sit in on one of these sessions even though technical they all take place in NYC apartments. (After browsing the list I signed up for the online group with Jhumpa Lahiri and her new book Wherabouts. I’ll have to check if the library has a copy as I made a promise to myself about book buying after I moved that stack of books from one spot to another.

{Half-Baked Harvest image}

Sometimes my brain works overtime and I try to prepare something for book club that relates to the book we read. This is not always easy but reading Anxious People by Fredrik Backman the food question was very clear. The characters all eat pizza together in the apartment with the bank robber/kidnapper and so I made Roasted Mushroom Kale Pizza from Half-Baked Harvest and it was delicious. There were no leftovers. Last night I made Roasted Butternut Squash and Spinach Lasagna and it is amazing. We had it for dinner tonight with a salad and we had to force ourselves to stop picking at what remained in the pan. Two pieces is plenty…but oh, so good! I do want to make her Vanilla Chai Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew soon as well…I mean tomorrow is October after all.

Now I’m off to do a little bedtime yoga with Adriene and get myself mentally prepared for Friday.

Museum of Thieves (great little chapter book)

I bought this one awhile ago at the Fall Scholastic Book Fair and catalogued (one of the talents I have as I have a Library Science degree) it into the library. I read a few pages and knew it was going to be good. Then I set it down and went about my business.

I picked it back up two years later. None of the kiddos were reading it so I had to investigate further and I loved it. I’m ready for the second one to come around, which upon investigation is out and so is the 3rd one! This is the bonus of reading books before you recommend them; this morning I had a student come in looking for something “mysterious”-I handed her this one and told her to give it a try.

Synopsis:

Welcome to the tyrannical city of Jewel, where impatience is a sin and boldness is crime. Goldie Roth has lived in Jewel all her life. Like every child in the city, she wears a silver guardchain and is forced to obey the dreaded Blessed Guardians. She has never done anything by herself and won’t be allowed out on the streets unchained until her Separation Day.

When Separation Day is cancelled, Goldie, who has always been both impatient and bold, runs away, risking not only her own life but also the lives of those she has left behind. In the chaos that follows, she is lured to the mysterious Museum of Dunt, where she meets the boy Toadspit and discovers terrible secrets. {back cover}

I have post-it notes littered throughout the book of quotes I just couldn’t resist:

But she (Olga Ciavolga) was smiling when she turned back to Goldie. “But there are some things, child, that you should steal, if you have enough love and courage in your heart. You must snatch freedom from the hands of the tyrant. You must spirit away innocent lives before they are destroyed. You must hide secret and sacred places.” {122-123}

There are different sorts of fear, she (Goldie) realized that now. There was the fear of having a musket held to your head, or having black oily water try to snatch you into its depths. There was nothing easy about that fear. It made your heart nearly tear itself out of your chest, and weakened the long bones in your legs so that you could barely stand. It made you want to vomit with fright.
But there was another sort of fear, the fear that you would never be allowed to be who you really were. The fear that you true self would have to stay squashed up, like a caged bird, for the rest of your life. That fear was worse than any soldier. {179}

and one more…

“The museum should never have become so full of wild and dangerous things,” said Sinew. “But the people of Jewel are like Guardian Hope, with her planks and hammers. They tried to nail life down. they wanted to be completely safe and happy at all times. The trouble is, the world just isn’t like that. You can’t have high mountains without deep valleys. You can’t have great happiness without great sadness. The world is never still. It moves from one thing to another, back and forth, back and forth, like a butterfly opening and closing it’s wings.” {197}

Goldie is a brave young girl who listens to her inner voice which takes her places she’d have never thought to venture otherwise. Her and Toadspit try to think through how to solve the problems they face. They are surrounded by interesting adults who guide them. What’s not to love??

Lian Tanner’s Website-with games for the museum!
Random House fun website for this series.

Happy Friday!

The Amazing Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl

I devoured Flynn’s previous book Dark Places (2009) but never got around to reading Sharp Objects (2006). My husband read it and honestly I think it is too creepy for me. All three of her books feature dark characters with twisted, thoughtful, and non-linear plot lines.

Gone Girl

Gillian Flynn

2012

415 pages

The opening line on the inside flap “Marriage can be a real killer” makes such an interesting opener for the tale of a marriage gone strangely, crazily awry. Nick and Amy meet at a party in New York City as two fairly young adults. They flirt and the flirting is cute. They walk home together after the party but then don’t meet up again for a few months. When they connect the second time it seems like all the pieces fit snugly together and they end up marrying.

Their backgrounds are so utterly different that this may be a testament for sticking with your own kind. Amy, an only child, has grown up sheltered and wealthy in the big city with two odd parents who’ve turned her life into a wildly popular picture book series. Think Jane without Sally and Dick. The books never fail to make Amy feel like a loser even though her parents are always there to boost her confidence.

Nick is from small town Carthage, Missouri with a rather dysfunctional family. He has a twin sister, Margo, a smothering mother, and an abusive father. Both Amy and Nick write for a living until magazine subscriptions and dot.com’s start to go under. They lose both of their jobs within a few short weeks of each other. Luckily Amy has that trust fund to rely on and they meander around their NYC pad for months. Margo calls one day to say their mother has cancer Nick takes it as an opportunity to give up the big city and head back home to Carthage with Amy in tow. Big city, pampered Amy does not do well with small-town, small-minded middle of the U.S. of A.

Nick and Margo use the last of Amy’s fund to purchase a downtown bar and spend their days minding the bar and hanging out after their mother passes on. Their father is in a nursing home where he causes lots of trouble and seems to flit in and out at crucial moments. He adds this odd twist that makes you seriously wonder about Nick’s mental stability. Amy’s parents are anther complex set of characters that add so much to the dynamic of what we know of Amy.

Told in alternating chapters this book showcases Flynn’s amazing ability to twist and turn the way we look at varying scenes in a person’s life. There’s more than two sides to any story. I can’t tell you more. I just can’t. There is so much more. I didn’t dislike one part of this book except that it came to an end. I guess I was shocked by the ending. Read it. Read it. You won’t forget Nick or Amy. It could be any of us on a given day just going off the deep end.

Quote:

Amy Elliott Dunne
July 5, 2010
Diary Entry

I won’t blame Nick. I don’t blame Nick. I refuse-refuse!-to turn into some pert-mouthed, strident angry-girl. I made two promises to myself when I married Nick. One: no dancing-monkey demands. Two: I would never, ever say, Sure, that’s fine by me (if you want to stay out later, if you want to do a boys’ weekend, if you want to do something you want to do) and then punish him for doing what I said was fine by me. I worry I am coming perilously close to violating both of those promises. (65)

You can see the complexity of Amy’s character as she learns to make adjustments in her marriage; she suffers from an amazing ability to over-think life.

Read Tina’s review.
NY Times review
Gillian Flynn’s site.

A Year without Autumn by Liz Kessler

I have to admit I did expect something magical from the woman who generally writes about mermaids but the magic in this tale comes from time travel not ocean creatures.

A Year Without Autumn

Liz Kessler

2011

294 pgs

Summary: Thirteen-year-old Jenni’s much-anticipated vacation with her family and best friend Autumn goes awry when an old elevator transports her to a future in which everything has changed, and she must not only return to her time but find a way to prevent what she has seen from coming true.

Jenni doesn’t choose to travel forward in time; it just happens and what she finds is confusing and unhappy. How did all this mess occur? It takes her awhile to figure out what has happened to make her and her best friend’s life so miserable and then how to sort the trauma into something good. Jenni discovers that a missed horse riding date with Autumn causes a near-fatal accident for Autumn’s little brother, Mikey. The trickle down affect of this accident is what sheds light on a sad future for her best friend’s family and her in retrospect.

This is a wonderful book to share with a friend or a class full of students. Problem solving and cause and affect would be good discussion topics. Jenni grows as a character and I love how this makes her more sure of herself and her friendship with Autumn. You got to trust yourself first. I think young readers (probably girls) will love this time travel book about friendship. It reminded me of that famous line “There but for the grace of God go I”. You never know what circumstances can bring a family down if Autumn’s family can change in an instance.

Random quote:

I slink out of the house like a burglar, silently closing the front door behind me, and head for Autumn’s building.
The lobby is empty. It looks the same as it’s looked every day, the same as it looks every year. The marble walls, the fountain trickling out behind a glass panel, the archway to the first-floor hallway. The elevator. The one we’ve always used. And next to it, the other one: the one that’s never worked. Until yesterday. (146)

While it doesn’t have mermaids for characters this story is a though-provoking twist of fate tale. Perfect for understanding the complexities of family life and how simple moments can change everything.

Sufficiently Creepy; The Books of Elsewhere by Jacqueline West

One day at work our lovely library volunteer was reading behind the desk. If I didn’t have to teach classes I’d be doing the same thing. She had a book checked out from the public library from their “Just Arrived” shelf and she was fascinated. It was elementary fiction and one that I hadn’t heard of at that time. It was The Shadows, the first book in West’s new series.

Synopsis:

Olive and her parents move into a creepy old house on Linden Street. The house has some history as the previous elderly owner died while living there and all the household stuff stayed right there. Olive, a curiuos girl, finds a pair of old fashioned glasses that help her enter the oil paintings stuck to the wall all around the house. She meets the people in the paintings, she meets three cats who belonged to the previous owners and life gets downright creepy as she tries to solve one little boy’s mysterious existence inside a painting of Linden Street. As per adventure stories her parents are busy with their own lives, leaving Olive plenty of free time to explore.

It begins like this:

Mrs. McMartin was definitely dead. It had taken some time for the neighbors to grow suspicious, since no one ever went in or came out of the old stone house on Linden Street anyway. However, there were several notable clues that things in the McMartin house were not as they should have been. (1)

Great first sentence. Perfect hook for young readers.

The second book in the series, Spellbound, has Olive drifting around the house aimlessly, trying to think of ways to rescue Morton, the trapped young boy. She meets another young boy, Rutherford, who is visiting his grandmother right down the street. He gets her thinking about a spellbook-a grimoire-as he puts it. Olive now has a purpose as she tries to find a way to release Morton and she thinks the spellbook might be the answer.

A little further on:

There was another reason Olive didn’t tell anybody about the cats or the paintings or the McMartins. She always put this reason second, even in her own head, but the truth was that her secrets would be a lot less fun if she shared them with anyone. Sure, a candy bar tasted good if you ate one half and let your dad have the other, but it was much, much nicer to eat the whole candy bar by yourself. (5)

Perfect thoughts for an eleven-year-old girl to have. There is so much mystery and excitement in both these books. I hope West is hard at work on the third-I think we’ve only touched the surface of this new amazing Elsewhere!

Wonderully illustrated by Poly Bernatene. I’ve easily been able to read these and book talk them as we have them in our library collection now. It’s wonderful to have someone here helping me everyday who likes to read and shares that with me and students.

Find Jacqueline West at her great website.

Other reviews:
Kimberly at Cool Kids Read
Jennifer at Jean Little Library

*Not to be read late at night or by yourself*

If The Witness Lied by Caroline B. Cooney

It’s been years since I read any of Cooney’s popular titles but I picked up this title as my husband and I browsed for books for Teenage Boy to take on vacation. I’ve griped about this before but he does not like to GO TO the LIBRARY anymore…!? I hope his senses will return to him one day but as I expect him to read-we get him the books, he picks out a few that he “deems” somewhat interesting and he reads them. He read this one over vacation and when I asked him how it was he looked at me and shrugged very nonchalantly (if you have teenagers you know what I mean) and said it was okay in a very flat line voice. So I had to pick it up and read it just to see what that meant.

And guess what…it was okay but only okay with a shoulder shrug…

The story was predictable.The characters were flat.
The candle on the cover doesn’t fit-Jack Fountain on a bike, a television camera, a little boy in a Jeep-any of these would have worked.
It never fully adds up and Cooney doesn’t give me a good reason for Aunt Cheryl.
It was kind of sad to think no one cared about these kids to look deeper into their tragedy! Come on neighbors down the street!

Can you feel my shoulders shrug?

Read The Compulsive Reader’s post if you want a different perspective.
Benjamin at Teen Reads talks about it .
Goodreads synopsis

My husband tells me that I never read books I don’t like because all my reviews are positive so this one’s for you, honey.

The Little Stranger; A Novel by Sarah Waters

My book club picked this for its February read. It’s a big book at 463 pages for such a short month but it took me less than a week to read it and for me, that’s pretty good. It kept my interest and I rather enjoyed the lengthy English descriptions but I was left wanting. Waters purposely never ties up the ends, which left me shaking my head.

The Little Stranger is a detailed story about an old house, Hundreds Hall, and the Ayres family that lives within. Our narrator, Dr. Faraday, the son of a former nursemaid at the house, is called out to the house to examine a young maid and begins a relationship with the family members; Mrs. Ayres, her daughter, Caroline and her son, Roderick. He’s a country doctor who grew up in the village and visiting the house as an invited guest and doctor is a bit of thrill for him, even though the house has not weathered well. Something about the family (and the house) intriuges him and he continues his visits to have tea, treating Roddie’s war injuried leg and helping them through one catastrophe after another. The house is driving the family members mad in one way or another and Dr. Faraday is like this outsider who has a front row seat to the show.

This is where it gets a bit tricky. Several incidents are described, leading readers to believe that the old mansion is haunted or cursed, which was creepy and exciting but never explained-just left me on the edge. I wanted some loose ends tied up. Part of the intrigue was that the house tormented each family member in a different way. For Roderick, it played on his insecurities as a landowner/gentleman farmer. For Mrs. Ayres, the mystery “ghost” was Susan, the young daughter she had lost before Caroline and Roderick were born. As for Caroline’s haunt-I leave it a” mystery”-because that one left me more well, mystified than the others. You’ll have to read it for yourselves and post back to share your own explanations.
And Dr. Faraday has some odd pull to the house which did make me wonder once or twice if he was somehow involved. Why does the house never bother him?

Tomorrow night is our book club meeting and I look forward to discussing this story with everyone. I sometimes try and bring a food item to match with the book. Last month I brought Baking Soda Biscuits to share for The Widow of the South discussion but this book they don’t dwell on food much-they do drink a lot of tea and cakes but that didn’t seem as fun to me. I purchased a copy of this from Alibris (a bargain @ $4.00)…just because the library copies were checked out (probably by other members of my bookclub) and PBS didn’t have it listed. The book now resides on my husband’s side of the bed. Creepy and mysterious is right up his alley.

Did I like the book? Yes.
Was I creeped out? Yes, making it tough to read at bedtime.
I disliked the ending. My only issue.
What I enjoyed? The characters and the historical aspect.
Learning more about the class system in England kept me riveted:

Here’s a quote:

The story ran on, Caroline and Roderick prompting more of it; they spoke to each other rather than to me, and, shut out of the game, I looked from mother to daughter to son and finally caught the likenesses between them, not just the similarities of feature-the long limbs, the high-set eyes-but the almost clannish little tricks of gesture and speech. And I felt a flicker of impatience with them-the faintest stirring of a dark dislike-and my pleasure in the lovely room was slightly spoiled. Perhaps it was the peasant blood in me, rising. But Hundreds Hall has been made and maintained, I thought, by the very people they were laughing at now. (25)

Sarah Waters website

Other interesting thoughts on the book:
Wordsmithonia’s review
A Girl Walks Into a Bookstore…
Things mean a lot…

Have you read other books by Sarah Waters? I did enjoy her style.

Dark Places

Gillian Flynn

2009

345 pages

From the back cover:
Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas.” She survived-and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, when the Kill Club, a secret society obsessed with notorious crimes, locates Libby and pumps her for details-proof its members hope may free Ben-she hatches a plan to profit off her tragic history. For a fee, she’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings to the club. As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started-on the run from a killer.

Gripping! Genererally this is not my type of book but my husband picked it out from Barnes and Noble(he’s into the three for the price of two member deal) and I’m sure this heading on the back helped [Named one of the best Books of 2009 by The New Yorker]-my husband loves The New Yorker. He begged me to read it so we could talk about it-he liked it that much. I read it in 2 1/2 days because it is a thrilling, alternating chapters book to read. You get to know all these different angles and I couldn’t put it down. And even though the murders were gruesome to read about I didn’t get scared, really-just emphathetic to the characters involved.

Random quote:
I steal underpants, rings, CD’s, books, shoes, iPods, watches. I’ll go to a party at someone’s house-I don’t have friends, but I have people who invite me places-and I’ll leave wearing a few shirts under my sweater, with a couple of nice lipsticks in my pocket, and whatever cash is floating inside a purse or two. Sometimes I even take the purse, if the crowd is drunk enough. (52)

My husband has become a fan of Paperback Book Swap as well and he quickly located a copy of Sharp Objects, Flynn’s first book so we have that on our to-read pile now. His pile is not as big as mine by any means but just the fact that he now has a pile is a fantastic coup for me.

Buying Time

by Pamela Samuels Young

(2009)

414 pages

Goldman House Publishing

I’m always stunned when I read a well-written book by an author that I’ve never heard. It’s not that I think I know every good writer but the book world does seem to buzz, buzz buzz about the already famous ones, like Piccoult, Kingsolver, Scottoline and the list goes on. I am so happy to have discovered this author

This is Pamela Samuels Young’s fourth novel and I plan to backtrack and read the others because I enjoyed her writing style so much. Young is a successful lawyer herself and began her writing career to create characters of color with real experiences as smart and interesting attorneys-something she didn’t find in other thrillers. She has definetely succeeded.

Buying Time is a sexy, fun, fully-engaging mystery focused on the viatical insurance business. Viatical insurance is when a broker swoops in and buys your life insurance policy for half the amount, giving you quick cash for a medical procedure not covered by insurance or even a family vacation before you die. Terminally ill patients are generally the focus for this business. Young’s characters are as interesting as the mystery, making the book spin rapidly along. Many of her characters are unsavory but still likeable. Waverly Sloan is the down-on-his-luck lawyer, about to be disbarred, who “stumbles” upon the viatical business. He quickly moves up in this shady business and is soon under investigation as his clients are dying unexpectedly. Angela Evans, an Assistant U.S. attorney, leads up the team of investigators looking into Waverly Sloan. Lawrence Erickson is chairman of a top law firm with Roland Becker as his right hand man. Erickson is being considered for attorney general by the president of the United States and Becker needs to make sure Erickson wins the nomination. Erickson, unfortunately, has a few problematic issues to hide and he’ll do just about anything to keep them secret. Sloan, Evans and Erickson, alternate chapters and bring a slew of family and friends into this twisted tale, creating very interesting sub-plots including Angela and her love life!

Angela Evans is about to marry Judge Cornell L. Waters, III, even though she’s not really feeling it. She meets Dre, a sexy, single father, at the gym and her heart and her eyes notice what is missing from her relationship with the steady and controlling Cornell. I loved Angela’s character and hope she might be featured in upcoming titles. Young does an amazing job of writing characters who, like us, make mistakes, say the wrong thing, and make bad choices. Most of these characters I loved even despite their poor choices but a couple of them made decisions that simply could not be forgiven. But you’ll need to read it for yourself to discern whom I found dispicable and who had more redeeming qualities.

I leave you with a good tantalizing teaser:

At only 130 pounds, she was no physical match for her assailants. They easily overpowered her, forcing her back into a prone position. As one man sat on her upper legs, strapping her left arm to her side, the other man bent her right arm at the elbow and guided her hand up toward her forehead.

During her deepest period of her grief, Veronika had longed to join her mother. But now that she was face-to-face with the possibility of death, she fought valiently for life. That changed, however, the second Veronika felt something cold and hard connect with her right temple. She stiffened as one of the men grabbed her fingers and wrapped them around the butt of a gun. (3)

I’m all pumped up again just rereading the passage to type the quote. This book hooked me from the very first chapter and I thank Tracee L. Gleichner, PR specialist from Pump Up Your Book for my copy. Not only did I enjoy this mystery but I have a new author to search for!

Buy a copy here:

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