The Alter Girl by Orest Stelmach



This novel is a prequel to The Boy from Reactor Four and the Boy Who Stole from the Dead.  It tells the story of Nadia Tesla as an adult, before she becomes involved with Adam.  She has lost her job due to the economic downturn, and she becomes obsessed with finding out the truth about her godfather's death.  Was it a simple accident or did someone push him down the stairs?  Her search for answers brings her into contact with her estranged mother and brother along with some dangerous and shady characters.

Interspersed with this tale is the story of Nadia's childhood attempt to survive for three days alone in the woods in order to achieve an award in the Ukrainian scout group to which she belongs.  These memories help explain something of Nadia's past and the relationship she and her brother had with their father.

Both story lines are riveting.  Will Nadia find the truth about her godfather's death without dying herself?  Although we know she survives her scouting challenge, we worry about what will happen to her in the woods alone.

Through her investigation, she begins to forge new relationships with her mother and brother.  As she learns, so do we.  We learn about the plight of the Ukrainian people after World War II.  We learn about their modern culture, and the culture of the past.

It is a fascinating and riveting book which I highly recommend.

As Night Falls by Jenny Milchman


This novel did not appeal to me.  I found the plot to be too drawn out, the characters to be two-dimensional, and the writing to be rather flat.  The majority of the story focuses on a home invasion by two escaped convicts.  The story of the criminals and the family that becomes their target is interspersed with the backstory of the criminal who has targeted this house.  Although the events which occur are tense, the fact that they go on and on leaves the reader not really caring about the fate of the family.  A surprise is revealed late in the novel to explain why this particular family has been targeted, but, again, it did not feel like enough of a reward for reading that far.

I am not saying that this novel is bad.  I am simply saying that it was not one that I enjoyed.

The Stranger by Harlan Coben



Harlan Coben never fails to keep you turning the pages as fast as you can to see what will happen next.  This novel is no different.  The lives of a normal suburban couple are turned upside down when a stranger appears and tells the husband something about his wife that he did not know.  Without spoiling the story, it is difficult to go into too much detail.  Suffice it to say that the wife disappears, and the husband spend the rest of the novel frantically trying to find her.

In some ways, this novel is more ominous that Coben's usual fare. The stranger is able to turn lives upside down with a little persistent digging on the Internet.  It is a cautionary tale for the modern era.  The edning was, t me, a bit disappointing, but that is a small thing compared to how riveting the book is.

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah



Set in France during the second world war, The Nightingale tells the story of two sisters who are very different but both heroic in her own way.  Vianne, married with a young daughter, experiences the war as a villager whose husband has gone to fight the Germans.  Her sister, Isabelle, becomes involved in the French resistance.  The story begins with a modern day event of an elderly woman moving out of her home and into assisted living.  her son is helping her move and is surprised when she insists on taking an old trunk from the attic.  This trunk is full of momentos from the era, things (and events) which her son knows nothing about. The reader does not find out until the end of the book which sister is still alive to tell the tale.

Narration switches from Vianne to Isabell. Their perceptions of each other are often vastly distorted.  Vianne thinks Isabelle is simply headstrong and rash, never thinking before she acts.  Isabelle believes Vianne is simply a coward.  The trials they must survive during Nazi occupation are often horrific for both sisters.

This book, like All the Light We Cannot See, provides an important viewpoint of the war that is not often discussed: how it affected simple people who had to endure occupation and fighting.  I highly recommend this book.

The Dream Lover by Elizabeth Berg



The Dream Lover is a fictionalized account of the life of George Sand.  The novel skips back and forth between Sand's past and her present, which can, at times, be jarring; however, these multiple storylines help the reader understand why George Sand might have acted as she did.  She is a passionate woman who is eternally looking for real love, from her family, from men, and from a woman.

The writing is delicious, creating the time and the feel of the settings and making characters come to life.  The problem I had with this novel, however, is that I grew tired of the main character.  Aurore Dudevant takes the pen name George Sand, partially to make her novels sell better and partially because she envies men and the power their sex gives them.  She takes to wearing men's clothing at least some of the time.  The irony of this situation is that, in spite of all of her talk of equality, she is willing to sacrifice herself and her children for a man.  There is such a string of men in her life that one becomes tired of the endless parade and of what she gives up for these men who, on the whole, are not deserving of her love.

She is involved with the major literary and artistic characters of her day, some as lovers and others as friends. The love of her life is an actress, Marie Dorval.  They share one passionate night together, but George is never able to recover from her love of Marie.  She does become involved with a number of other men after this relationship, but it is the memory of Marie that sustains her.

Perhaps the novel stretches too far, trying to include all of the events of her life.  For me, it was simply too much.

The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan



I love Amy Tan, but this was not one of my favorite books of hers.  The story centers around Violet, being raised by an American mother in a courtesan house in Shanghai.  Violet yearns to know more about her father, but when she finally does it is devastating to her.  The story follows Violet through tragedies, hardships, betrayals, and loss - from her childhood to being a grown woman with an adult child of her own.  This never-ending parade of horrible events got wearying as I read and read.  "Surely," I would think, "things will look up for Violet."  Although they did, briefly during the story, I began to feel a bit shell shocked by her experiences.

The reader will learn all about courtesan houses and life in the cities and the rural areas of China. (Here's a hint - always opt to be a city girl.)  Many interesting characters appear throughout the novel, but their motivations and backstories are so unclear, that they make little impression.  Amy Tan's novels are always sweeping, but I felt this one swept a bit too much.

Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult



I loved this novel!  Jodi Picoult always creates characters that spring to life from the pages of her books. She always tells about emotional journeys.  This novel, however, has a surprise ending that I never saw coming.

Thirteen year old Jenna Metcalf has been searching for her mother, Alice as long as she can remember.  Alice disappeared in the wake of a tragic accident at the elephant sanctuary where they lived.  Alice, a renowned researcher on grief in elephants, survived the accident, but disappeared from the hospital and has not been seen or heard from since.

Jenna spends hours searching the internet and posting on missing person message boards.  She hounds the police to keep investigating.  Finally, she enlists the help of a psychic, Serenity Jones who was once a famous TV personality famous for finding missing persons, but has since become not much more than a pal reader in a walkup apartment.  She also hires a private investigator,   Virgil Stanhope, who was a police officer originally involved in investigating her mother's disappearance. Serenity, who has lost faith in her psychic abilities, and Virgil, who has lost faith in mankind, are drawn to Jenna, and end up helping her despite their reservations.

This motley trio checks out every possible lead.  The characters they encounter along the way are also an interesting crew.  As they gather more and more information, they still cannot determine what really happened on that fateful night.

This is a riveting mystery, but it also teaches the reader a great deal about elephants.  I will never be able to enjoy seeing an elephant in a zoo again.  I would highly recommend this novel.

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins



Rachel is a drunk.  She has allowed depression to drive her to drinking, and drinking has destroyed her life. She is divorce from her husband, Tom, who remarried and now has a child.  She has lost her job, but rather than tell her friend, with whom she lives, she get up every morning and takes the commuter train into London. This train passes the home where she lived with Tom, and each time she rides by she looks at the house where he and his new family live.  She suffers blackouts and can't remember what she has done, and her actions often involve calling her ex-husband in the middle of the night.

She notices a young couple a few house down from Tom.  They are idyllic - she beautiful and he tall and handsome.  She creates a fantasy world for these two strangers, imagining their happy life together.  One day, however, she sees the wife kissing a man who is not her husband.  Then, one morning Rachel awakens and can't remember what happened the night before.  She has several wounds and no idea how she got them.  She vaguely remembers being in the neighborhood of her old house.  When she learns that Megan, the real name of the wife from the idyllic couple has disappeared, she becomes obsessed with finding her.  She contacts the police to tell them about the "other" man, and gets further and further embroiled in the investigation.  As is often the case, the husband is the key suspect, and Rachel becomes involved with him, claiming to have been a close friend of Megan's.

It is a riveting who done it.  Although I suspected who the murderer might be, it was revealed with skill that made for a satisfying resolution.  This work has been compared in many reviews to Gone Girl.  I found it to be very similar in a way that other reviewers hadn't mentioned.  There are no sympathetic characters in this book. I tried to like Rachel, but just like her friends and acquaintances in the novel, I became fed up with her endless acts of self destruction.

For readers who don't need to feel a kinship with any of the characters, this is a tense mystery.  However, for me, it was something of a disappointment.

Belzhar by Me Wolitzer



A great teacher, a mystical journal, and friends are what it takes to heal Jam Gallahue.  Since the loss of her boyfriend, Reeve Maxfield, Jam has not been able to cope.  She has sunken into a depression that even her psychiatrist can not penetrate.  Finally, her parents send her to a boarding school of "emotionally fragile" teens in rural Vermont, the Wooden Barn.

Jam gradually begins to make friends at the school, become involved in activities, and recover, but she cannot let go of Reeve.  She is assigned to a special English class with the legendary Mrs. Quenell.  This is to be Mrs. Q's last class before retirement, and she has hand selected the five students who will participate in a semester-long study of Sylvia Plath.  She gives each student an ancient red leather journal and tells them they must turn the journals in on the last day of class.

The first time Jam writes in her journal, something miraculous happens. She is transported to the playing fields near her old school, and Reeve is waiting for her.  They are able to spend time together, and Jam believes that this has saved her life.  She soon finds that everyone in her class is being transported to the place in their past just before the traumatic event occurred which landed them in the Wooden Barn.  This secret bonds them together.

Jam eventually finds herself attracted to a boy from Special Topics, Griffin. She must decide whether to hang on to Reeve in the mysterious world the group has named Belzhar or fall in love with Griffin who is alive and very interested in her. What will happen when they run out of pages in their journals?  Each member of the group has to make decisions about what they will do with their lives.

The resolution is a little less than satisfying.  Each character in the class shared the traumatic and tragic events that led them to the school, but Jam withholds her own story.  When we finally learn it, it seems a bit of a letdown; however, it demonstrates the emotional fragility of adolescents.

I would recommend this book to young adult readers.  I think girls would like it more than boys due to the female narrator and the focus on romance.

When the Night Comes by Favel Parrett



This is a charming book told from the perspectives of a young girl, Isla, and a Danish sailor, Bo.  Isla lives a lonely life with her mother and younger brother in the small town of Hobart in Tasmania.  When her mother brings home Bo, he opens up an entire world that she never knew existed.  He describes the voyages on his ship, the Nella Gay, to Antartica.  His descriptions allow Isla and the reader to see, feel, hear, and sometimes taste the experiences of travelling to one of the most forbidding and beautiful places on earth.

Their friendship ends when the Nella Gay is wrecked and scrapped, meaning Bo will not be returning to the port of Hobart, but their time together has allowed Isla to envision a future for herself far from the tiny world she knows.  It is a novel about friendship, dreams, and possibility.

I would recommend this novel for secondary students or adults.  Younger students would, I believe, be confused and put off by the less than clear transition between narrators, times, and places.

Lies that Bind (Maeve Conlon Novels) by Maggie Barbieri



Maeve is dealing with the death of her father and mysterious, unsettling occurrences at her bakery, when she gets shattering news - she may have a sister.  She enlists the help of an old friend of her father's, a hunky detective she has recently met, her best friend, and even her ex-husband as she tries to discover the truth.  She gets into a number of dangerous situations, and battles to remain in control of her business and family while obsessed with the mystery of a missing sister.
Overall, the story line was engaging and the characters believable.  I did get tired of Maeve hauling her unregistered gun around and fantasizing about using it.  This mystery has the makings of a cozy, but is trying too hard to be hard-boiled.  I also got tired of references to a mysterious murder in Maeve's past and to the abuse she suffered as a child.  One of two mentions would have definitely sufficed.

Revival by Stephen King



Stephen King starts off strong with his latest work, Revival.  Jamie Morton is the central character of this novel. We first meet him when he is a pre-schooler, and follow him through a long and bumpy life.  Along the journey, Jamie keeps running into Charles Jacobs.  First, Jacobs comes to Jamie's small town as the new minister.  He, his beautiful wife, and their adorable son become central to Jamie's and his siblings' world.  Rev. Jacobs, in addition to being a minister, is a serious amateur scientist who is fascinated with electricity.  When one of Jamie's brothers is injured in a skiing accident, the reverend seemingly cures him using electricity.  It is not long after that that the reverend is also touched by a freak accident.  His wife and child are killed in a horrific traffic accident. Jacobs is inconsolable after the loss and completely loses his faith.  He gives a sermon which causes him to be immediately fired, and Jamie thinks he is out of his life for good.

Jamie's own fascination is the guitar.  He picks up one belonging to his brother and, before long, he finds himself playing with a band. He loves the way girls react to him as a musician, and he loves being onstage.  This leads him to a life with different bands, travelling from town to town.  Eventually, he finds himself with a serious heroin addition, down and out in Tulsa, OK. (As a resident of Tulsa, by the way, I have to mention that King's portrayal of my town is less than flattering and exaggerates stereotypes about the state.) He goes to the state fair, hoping to buy drugs, and runs into Charles Jacobs.  Jacobs saves his life by breaking his addiction and helps him get a job at a recording school in Colorado.

Jamie thinks Jacobs is out of his life for good, but, of course, he isn't.  Jamie and Jacobs reconnect which leads to a horrifying ending to the novel.  The ending, unfortunately, is where I think the novel lost its way. This is a story about faith, science, and magic.  It is the story of a man obsessed with finding our what happens after we die.  The ending, although it supplies an answer to the question, is neither horrifying enough to satisfy nor anticlimactic enough to give the novel an ironic twist.  I really like the first 80 percent of this book, but the ending left a lot to be desired.

John Grisham is Back with Gray Mountain



John Grisham has been churning out legal thrillers on a regular basis for years.  Although I have liked some of them, I haven't really loved a Grisham novel since A Time to Die.  Finally, he has written another really great novel.

It's 2008, and Samantha Kofer is pulling in the big bucks in a high-pressure job with a huge Wall Street firm.  Her work is mind-numbingly dull, but she believes there is real opportunity for advancement if she keeps working nights and weekends.  Then, the world of finance comes tumbling down.  Samantha is one of hundreds of young attorneys laid off due to the financial collapse.  Her firm makes her an offer: if she will work for free for one year for a non-profit, they will hold her job and reinstate her when the economy turns around.  Samantha isn't too worried; she has saved quite a bit.  She half-heartedly applies for some of the positions with non-profits recommended by her firm.  Time after time, she is told that the position has already been filled.  Finally, she gets an opportunity with a small legal aid group in a tiny town in the heart of Appalachia.

Samantha's new firm deals mainly with trying to help miners and their families.  Simple divorces, wills, and other legal paperwork take up a great deal of their time, but the true heart of the firm is trying to help miners receive the black lung benefits they are entitled to.  Samantha becomes friends with a young attorney who is fighting the mining companies who are strip mining, destroying the land, and poisoning the water for miles around.  When he dies under suspicious circumstances, she finds herself in a life or death battle with big corporations.

The thriller part is as good as anything Grisham has written before.  What sets this book aside from his usual work is the complex character at the center of the story.  Samantha grows, changes, and becomes a better human being through her experiences in rural Virginia.  She learns a great deal about the law and life.  I hope she will appear in another Grisham novel sometime soon.

I Really Wanted to Hate These Books; Unfortunately, They Were Great: 

The Cuckoo's Calling and The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)

                      

J.K. Rowling's first foray into fiction after the Harry Potter series was The Casual Vacancy.  I read this book as soon as it was released, hoping for some of the fabulous writing and imaginative storytelling in the Harry Potter series.  I was hugely disappointed, and I really disliked the book.  So, when Rowling published The Cuckoo's Calling under a pseudonym, I expected to hate it too.  It was only after rave reviews from a friend with similar taste, that I finally broke down and read it.  Boy, am I glad I did.

The main characters in both novels are detective Cormoran Strike and his secretary Robin.  When Cuckoo's Calling begins, Strike is down on his luck.  He is down to two clients, living in his office, and only able to hire a temporary secretary.  In fact, he nearly sends Robin away on the morning she shows up since he really doesn't have the money to pay her.  A wealthy client soon arrives, however, and retains Cormoran to find out what really happened to his sister, superstar model Lula Landry.  Her death has been ruled a suicide, but her brother doesn't believe that is the case.

Cormoran, along with Robin, begins to delve into the lives of the rich and famous, trying to determine the real facts behind Lula's death.  As they investigate, we find out more about them as individuals.  These two characters are what makes these novels so engrossing.  As soon as I finished the first novel, I began The Silkworm.  Although it is a little grittier, it is also a fascinating mystery.  This time, Cormoran and Robin end up immersed in the literary scene in London.

Both novels are excellent mysteries with characters that you learn to really care about.  I can hardly wait for installment three of what I hope will be a long series.

Terminal City by Linda Fairstein



Assistant DA Alexandra Cooper is back, trying to find a killer linked in some way to Grand Central Terminal before he kills again.  As with all of Fairstein's Alex Cooper books, this one gives you history and trivia about New York City along with a rip-roaring mystery. Alex, along with detectives Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, are on the trail of a serial killer.  The first body is found in the Waldorf Astoria but strange marks, resembling train tracks, have been carved into the body.  The second corpse moves the investigation closer to Grand Central, and the third actually takes place in the subterranean city beneath the station.  Adding to the urgency of stopping a killer is the fact that the President of the United States will be arriving at Grand Central in only a few days. Alex's relationship with Mike Chapman, which began in the last novel, is a sub-conflict throughout the book.

Fairstein's rock solid research brings Grand Central Terminal alive for the reader, and the mystery keeps you turning the pages.  I highly recommend this book.

The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman

Like so many of Alice Hoffman's novels there is something that appears to be magic, but truly is not.  The extraordinary things in this novel are mostly humans with birth defects or acquired abnormalities such as being covered i tattoos.  They are all exhibited along with some rare birds, a giant tortoise, and a number of strange (sometimes fake) creatures in formaldehyde, in Coralie's father's museum.  Coralie's father keeps her away from these "freaks" when she is a child, but as she grows older she becomes one of the exhibits since she has her own abnormality, webbed fingers.  Coralie is trained by being required to stay in a tub full of ice water for hours and developing her ability to hold her breath so that she can become a "mermaid" in a tank of water in the museum. As the prosperity of the museum is challenged by bigger and brighter entertainments in Coney Island, Coralie's father stoops to having her perform as something of an underwater stripper for groups of "gentlemen" in the evenings. Coralie is extremely sheltered, never allowed out without supervision except for quick trips to the market.  When she happens upon a young man one night after a nightly swim in the freezing Hudson, her life changes completely.

The tale of this young man, Eddie, is interwoven with that of Coralie in the novel.  Having escaped Russia with his father after his mother and everyone else in his village was murdered, Eddie is not content to slave in a factory as his father has done.  He strikes out, first working as a sort of child detective, then becoming a photographer.  He abandons his Jewish traditions, and he and his father become alienated.  Eddie chronicles life in New York City including the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire.  This event involves him in searching for a lost girl who should have been in the building that day and leads him inexorably toward Coralie.

There is a great deal of suspense and there are some truly disturbing scenes, but mainly this novel explores what "humanity" is and how outward appearance has little relationship to the quality of character.  I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

A Magical Novel: The City by Dean Koontz

The city is a story about magic and relationships, and about achieving greatness despite huge obstacles.  It is a wonderful young adult novel that will appeal to both male and female readers.  Jonah is eight when the story begins in 1967 and is living in an unnamed metropolis.  Although he is African American and this is the height of the civil rights movement, the problems Jonah deals with are more global than simply those of race.

He is living with his mother in a walk-up apartment.  His father is a no-account smooth talker who comes and goes but never really offers anything to the family.  Jonah doesn't have many friends when the story begins, but he begins collecting an odd assortment.  First there is Pearl, a magical woman who may or may not be the city itself.  She is there when Jonah really needs her, and he credits much of his good fortune to her.  Then there is Mr. Yoshioka, an upstairs neighbor who becomes Jonah's friend, confidant, and co-conspirator. Finally, Malcolm and his sister become Jonah's closest friends. 

Jonah's mother is a singer and his grandfather is a pianist so music runs through Jonah's veins. Music, in fact, becomes the one thing that Jonah can hold on to no matter what happens.  He becomes immersed in a plot by a radical group and has to rely on all of his friends to help him through, but it is music that saves Jonah's life in the long run.

This is a beautiful book with memorable characters and moving events.  I would highly recommend it for students in upper elementary, junior, or senior high.  It is also a great read for adults. 

The Quick: A Novel by Lauren Owen

First, let me say that The Quick is not - quick that is.  The first quarter of this novel seemed interminable!  It begins with a brother and sister being raised by servants and a series of governesses on an isolated British estate.  "How Gothic!" you might think.  You'd be wrong.  There's tons of atmosphere, but little happens. The absentee father dies, leaving the son a pile of money and the estate so he goes off to an exclusive school then heads to London to try his hand at writing.  The daughter, meanwhile, gets squat since she's a female and spends several years nursing an ailing aunt who takes her in.

Many reviewers have referred to The Quick as a modernized vampire tale.  The only modernity apparent to me is the homosexual relationship in which the brother becomes involved (before he becomes a vampire) with a tortured metaphor about the fact that being a vampire is as socially acceptable as being gay in Victorian London.

Now, to the vampires.  The actual vampire story is fabulous.  There are two social classes for vampires in London, the wealthy and the poor.  The wealthy vampires only admit men and only those of a certain class. The poor have vampires of all ages, both men and women.  The novel finally starts rolling with the introduction of vampire hunters who become involved with the sister's quest to find her missing brother. There is action, suspense, intrigue...all of the things a reader hopes for in a book. There is a surprising turn of events at the end which is quite satisfying.  

Overall, I would recommend this book, but I'd also recommend skimming the first 25%.  It will seem much more entertaining that way, and much more "quick"

Charming, Funny, Touching...Just a Wonderful Read: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry



Although there is a mystery at the heart of The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin, it is the characters who keep you reading.  A.J. Fikry, the central character, has given up on life.  He expects only the worst and is simply surviving when an unexpected event causes him to change.

This novel revolves around life in a bookstore and offers humorous but dead-on reviews of some of the classics of literature.  It is a book that will make you laugh, but also one that will make you think.  I would highly recommend this to anyone who loves books.