Books Reviewed

Reviews of books, audiobooks, etc…

Review: LOST LAKE by Sarah Addison Allen

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Love love love…I just love the writing and characters of Sarah Addison Allen’s work. LOST LAKE is no different. I happily received this from Net Galley last month and couldn’t wait to read it. Addison Allen’s stories combine true to life characters grappling with real problems, with a little bit of magic thrown in. They are memorable and heart-warming stories – the kind of books that stay with you long after you’ve read the last page.

In LOST LAKE, young widow Kate Pheris has spent a year grieving her late husband. Her overbearing, but well-meaning, mother-in-law preps Kate and her daughter Devin to move in with her, but instead Kate takes off on a short vacation with Devin to Lost Lake. Kate hasn’t been there since she was twelve, but her memories are of a magical place and long lazy summer days, many spent with her young friend Wes. Lost Lake, though, is on the verge of being sold and turned into condominiums. The owner, Kate’s great-aunt Eby (also a widow), is going to sell and move on with her retirement since times have changed and most people no longer visit or even remember the vacation site exists. Kate’s presence and “return” to Lost Lake cause quite a stir, and soon the townsfolk, along with Kate and an interesting cast of character friends, work to help Eby keep the property.

I’m always a sucker for a happy ending! I also like stories where characters are trying to heal from a loss or past hurt. There is more than one character with wounds in this story, and each has their own storyline.

If you enjoy Sarah Addison Allen’s books (such as THE PEACH KEEPER, THE SUGAR QUEEN, and GARDEN SPELLS), you will enjoy LOST LAKE!

Thank you, Net Galley and St. Martin Press, for my copy!

Here’s a short Goodreads video of Sarah talking about the book and her own life (via You Tube):

Review: The Dead of Summer by Mari Jungstedt

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I received THE DEAD OF SUMMER by Mari Jungstedt from publicist Meryl Zegarek to read and review. I had never read any of Jungstedt’s other works, and they are in the “translated Scandinavian crime novels” genre. This book is part of a series featuring Detective Anders Knutas, and it is translated into English by Tina Nunnally.

At the start of the story, a young father leaves his family’s camping site to go for an early morning run. He is a business owner and a family man, but he is plagued by a nameless anxiety. While running along the beach in beautiful Gotland (a Swedish island popular with vacationers), he is shot and killed. Knutas and his team begin to tie the victim into a scheme of hiring illegal workers and possibly trafficking illegal liquor from Russia, when another man is killed in a similar style. Knutas’ colleague , Karin Jacobsson, takes the helm in solving the mystery and finding the killer before anyone else is killed.

I really enjoyed this novel! I wasn’t sure what to expect and I was hoping it wouldn’t be too violent. While there is violence/sex/drugs/etc. none of it was overly graphic and it did not take up all the book. Instead I found that Jungstedt is a master at making her characters come alive through their interpersonal relationships. Knutas is having a bit of a lull in his marriage. Karin is holding a secret from her past. Television reporter Johan is struggling with his failed relationship with his once fiancée Emma. The nature of these relationships made a difference in how I read this book. It wasn’t all action, but also subtle shadings of character. I kept thinking that it would make a great BBC series!

THE DEAD OF SUMMER is currently available for Kindle and will be coming out in paperback in March, 2014.

If you enjoy crime novels, you will probably enjoy THE DEAD OF SUMMER. Thank you, Ms. Zegarek for sending me a copy!

Review: THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS by Elizabeth Gilbert

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I received THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS to review through Net Galley. I had liked Gilbert’s EAT, PRAY, LOVE but I heard this novel was very different. I just loved this story which follows the life of Alma Whittaker, a highly intelligent, gifted botanist of Dutch descent, living in Philadelphia in the 1800’s.

This lengthy novel (over 500 pages) starts with young, industrious Henry Whittaker, who travels with Captain Cook and becomes a well-known and respected (and very wealthy) expert on botany. He marries an intelligent Dutch woman and together they make their home on an estate in Philadelphia and have a daughter, Alma. Alma is incredibly precocious and socially awkward but endearing. Throughout the book she is quick to point out her flaws and her shortcomings, but her intelligence and perseverance shines through. Alma is unlucky in love and is devastated by her short-lived and ill-fated marriage to a young and gifted artist. Alma travels to Tahiti to find out more about her husband’s death, and this journey of discovery takes up a large portion of the last third of her book.

I really enjoyed Ms. Gilbert’s writing. I know little about botany and was rather surprised that I found Alma’s intense and in-depth study of mosses actually rather interesting! I loved Alma’s intense scientific studies and her passion for Darwin’s theories (along with her own brilliant suppositions). The excitement of scientific inquiry and discovery from that time period (mid 1800’s) shines throughout this story. There are some sexual passages in this book, but I did not find them excessive or overly graphic. Rather, they made Alma seem more human to me.

Thanks, Net Galley and Viking for my copy!

Quick Review: POE by J. Lincoln Fenn

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This Amazon “Breakthrough Novel” award winner was a fun find for me! It is the quick moving story of Dimitri Petrov, an obituary writer at his local newspaper. Dimitri is mourning the death of his parents from the year before. He is also writing a tome on Rasputin in his spare time. Dimitri is sent on an assignment to cover a séance at a local deserted “haunted house”, along with an annoying colleague, the medium, and a young woman he has met before and hopes to attract. What happens that night causes Dimitri to end up in the morgue as a DOA (though thankfully, he revives). After the séance, Dimitri is haunted by a female spirit he calls “Poe”, and he becomes determined to solve the mysteries surrounding the house and some murders, while protecting himself and his new girlfriend, Lisa.

This was a fun and fast read. I just loved the character of Dimitri, who was a bit hapless. He wasn’t strong, overly courageous, or sophisticated. He was smart, though, and very “real”. I couldn’t help cheering for him!

I loved how this novel combined supernatural, horror, and fantasy elements, along with humor. I look forward to more from Ms. Fenn — maybe even more with Dimitri? I would recommend for older YA as well, but be aware of some adult content and language.

I got my kindle copy via Amazon.

Review: THE SECRETS OF CASANOVA by Greg Michaels

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I was recently approached to read and review Greg Michaels’ new novel: THE SECRETS OF CASANOVA. It sounded fun and interesting (and to be honest, I know very little about the real Casanova – a great lover, right? And always makes me think of Greg Brady in the Brady Bunch?). This was a rollicking, fun, adventure story, with a little history and a lot of fiction thrown in.

Giacomo Casanova was a real person who lived in the mid to late 1700’s (see Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giacomo_Casanova). He was known for having many affairs with women and this reputation continues today when we call someone “a Casanova”. However, he was an interesting figure, intelligent and well-known, who wrote many works (best known is his autobiography), was imprisoned in Venice, lived in Paris, and knew many famous people of his era.
Michaels makes Casanova come alive as a flesh and blood man – part swindler, part earnest young man. He’s a bit of a lovable rogue who shows his more sensitive side in his relationships. He is on a quest for a holy relic, complete with “treasure map”, and his adventures take him and his companions across Europe with various close calls along the way.

As I read this book, I thought of what a fun movie it would make! I kept seeing Robert Downey Junior in the lead (call me a child of the 80’s). If you like swashbuckling adventure, you would probably like this book. There are some sexual scenes (not many, but they are there) or I would suggest it to the younger crowd as well.

I wasn’t sure by the ending if we might be hearing more from Mr. Michaels and Casanova. I would look forward to seeing his adventures continue!

Thanks for the opportunity to share your book, Greg!

YA Review: The Unseemly Education of Anne Merchant by Joanna Wiebe

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I chose this paranormal YA romance from Net Galley because, ever since middle school, I am a sucker for books that take place in boarding schools! THE UNSEEMLY EDUCATION OF ANNE MERCHANT is the first in a trilogy (wish I had known this going in to it as the ending disappointed me due to lack of resolution!). Undertaker’s daughter, Anne Merchant, is sent from her humble home in a very wealthy area of California to an island off Maine to the  elite Cania Christie boarding school. Right away she notices that everyone there is almost creepily perfect, and they all are bent on an almost ridiculous race to become valedictorian. Anne soon realizes that nothing is as it seems, that valedictorian means much more than grades, and that getting in to Cania Christie is so difficult and expensive, well let’s just say that people are dying to get in!

I can’t say too much more without giving it all away, but Anne works with new friends to explore and understand the mysteries of the school and the island (and villagers) where they live. The more she finds out, the more terrifying it all becomes. Add in some romance, teen angst, and conflict and you have fun (older – due to sexual content) YA fare. I can see this book as a movie – sort of Twilight meets Hunger Games.

Thanks, Net Galley and BenBella Books for my copy!

Quick Review: ELIZABETH OF YORK by Alison Weir

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Alison Weir is an amazing historian, having written non-fiction books on a variety of British history subjects, including Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. I’ve read most of her work and while it is dense, it is fascinating.

I received ELIZABETH OF YORK from Net Galley. To be honest, I had no idea who she was (except that with that name, she was British). The subtitle of this book is “A Tudor Queen and Her World”. Elizabeth was Henry VIII’s mother. Her brothers were the little princes in the Tower (who disappeared). Elizabeth lived in a somewhat chaotic and violent time in British history in the late 1400’s. After a variety of ups and downs, she became a beloved and reigning queen, and the grandmother of Elizabeth I.

While I love reading these type of books, it is dense reading! It was also quite long. I read a Kindle version, but Amazon says over 600 pages. It is filled with facts that I would have been better served to write down into a genealogy. (I also struggle with the fact that a LOT of British queens/ladies shared the same three names: Elizabeth, Anne, or Jane, with an occasional Margaret thrown in).

If you don’t know much about Elizabeth of York and enjoy historical biography of the Tudors, then this is one for you!

Thanks, Net Galley and Ballantine Books, for my copy!

Review: THE INVENTION OF WINGS by Sue Monk Kidd

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Oh my. This is a book I can hardly do justice to. It will truly be on my “Best of 2014” list this year!

I loved Sue Monk Kidd’s THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES (and I enjoyed her other two books as well), so I was very excited to get an ARC of her new publication THE INVENTION OF WINGS from Net Galley.

This historical novel tells the story of Sarah Grimké, a young girl of Charleston, SC. Starting in the 1830’s. Sarah receives a personal slave, a young girl named Handful (Hetty), as a gift for her eleventh birthday, and upsets her parents by trying to grant her her freedom. Young Sarah dreams of being a lawyer. Plain and intelligent, she doesn’t fit with the Southern belles of her peer group. She forms a friendship with Handful and almost immediately gets them both into serious trouble when she teaches Handful to read. The story follows Sarah, and Handful, as they grow up and become adults. Sarah evolves (along with her younger sister Angelina) into a passionate abolitionist and worker for women’s rights. Handful and her mother dream of one day being free.

While I loved this story, I was absolutely amazed to discover that Sarah Grimké and her sister Angelina were real people and that Sue Monk Kidd had based her novel on historical facts. How had I never heard of them?? This is a story that must be told. If you enjoy historical fiction, women’s studies, Civil War genre, and/or basically strong female protagonists who are based in reality, then you will enjoy this well-written and well-researched book.

Do yourself a favor and read this book!

Thanks, Net Galley and Viking, for my copy! Looks like it’s a pick for Oprah’s Book Club, too.