The Firebrand by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Title:  Firebrand
Author:  Marion Zimmer Bradley
Pages:  605
Genre:  Historical Fiction
Series:  None

Synopsis:  Blending archaeological fact and legend, the myths of the gods and the feats of heroes, Marion Zimmer Bradley breathes new life into the classic tale of the Trojan War - reinventing larger-than-life figures as living people engaged in a desperate struggle that dooms both the victors and the vanquished, their fate seen through the eyes of Kassandra - priestess, princess, and passionate woman with the spirit of a warrior.

Review:  Ms. Bradley is at her best in a novel like this one.  From King Priam to Helen of Troy, from Agamemnon to Odysseus, all of the characters are so life-like and so realistic.  It's like you are there in Troy when the Gods and men brought down the greatest city of the time.

Akhilles is no hero.  He is a spoiled, rotten, horrible person.  Helen of Troy is a women whose fate had been decreed by the Gods.  She is their pawn in the great game to destroy Troy.  Kassandra, the main character, has had visions of blood, fire and death from the time she was a very young girl.  Her 'gift of sight' was tempered with a curse -- no one who heard her prophecies would believe them.

The novel does not end in Troy.  It continues on into Mycenae and beyond, following Kassandra and her story.

Exciting and enchanting, with plenty of gory war scenes, this book is nearly impossible to put down.  In the author's postscript, she mentions that The Iliad makes no mention of Kassandra's fate.  She goes on to say:

"However, tablet #803 in the Archaeological Museum in Athens reads as follows:

ZEUS OF DODONA, GIVE HEED TO THIS GIFT

I SEND YOU FROM ME AND MY FAMILY -

AGATHON SON OF EKHEPHYLOS,

THE ZAKYNTHIAN FAMILY,

CONSULS OF THE MOLOSSIANS AND THEIR ALLIES,

DESCENDED FOR 30 GENERATIONS

FROM KASSANDRA OF TROY"

I do not know if the tablet actually exists or not.  After reading this novel, I hope that Kassandra did indeed survive to have a family after the fall of Troy.

Rating:  10 / 10

The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult

Title:  The Storyteller
Author:  Jodi Picoult
Pages:  460
Genre:  Fiction

"Yes," she said.  "But see how much of me is left?"

Synopsis:  Sage Singer becomes friends with an old man who is particularly beloved in her community after they strike up a conversation at the bakery where she works. Josef Weber is everyone's favorite retired teacher and Little League coach. One day he asks Sage for a favor, to kill him. Shocked, Sage refuses, but then he tells her he deserves to die. Once he reveals his secret, Sage wonders if he is right. Can someone who has committed a truly heinous act ever redeem themselves with good behavior? Should you offer forgiveness to someone if you are not the party who was wronged? And most of all, if Sage even considers his request, is it murder, or justice? What do you do when evil lives next door?

Review:  There is so little I can say about this book without giving too much away.  So, I'll just say that Josef Weber did the most horrible thing imaginable.  Sage is stuck in a nightmare, trying to figure out what is right and wrong, now that she knows the truth.

I'll also say that Sage wasn't my favorite character.  I found her to be a little self-centered and dishonest.  Lou Stein, who she contacts to help with Josef, is a much better person.  But, Sage's grandmother, Minka, is the best character in the story by far.

As always, this author made me feel very deeply about the story and the subject matter.  Have a box of tissues and be ready to be upset if you decide to read this novel.

Rating:  9 / 10

The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold

Title:  The Almost Moon
Author:  Alice Sebold
Pages:  304
Genre:  Fiction
Publisher:  Back Bay, 2007
Series:  Stand Alone

Synopsis: A woman steps over the line into the unthinkable in this brilliant, powerful, and unforgettable new novel by the author of The Lovely Bones and Lucky.

For years Helen Knightly has given her life to others: to her haunted mother, to her enigmatic father, to her husband and now grown children. When she finally crosses a terrible boundary, her life comes rushing in at her in a way she never could have imagined. Unfolding over the next twenty-four hours, this searing, fast-paced novel explores the complex ties between mothers and daughters, wives and lovers, the meaning of devotion, and the line between love and hate. It is a challenging, moving, gripping story, written with the fluidity and strength of voice that only Alice Sebold can bring to the page.

Review:  This book is dark.  It's darker than dark.  It opens with the main character, Helen, confessing that she's killed her mother.  It goes on to describe her life, both past and present, and it's not a pretty picture.  There are almost no characters in this story who are not broken.  And none of the characters are especially likable.  In fact, some of them I ended up disliking immensely.  The only really likable characters you meet are Mr. Forrest, a neighbor, and Helen's daughter, Sarah, who has been obviously hurt by the life she's led.

This is a look into mental illness and the long-term effects it has on the family.  It is stark and awful and completely believable.  It raises the question of genes versus environment and brought me to the conclusion that it really doesn't matter how mental illness is caused.  That it is passed on is all that really matters.

I cannot say I loved this book as much as I did The Lovely Bones.  I can say that it was incredibly intense and I'm very glad I read it.  There is hope, in the end, I thought.  Hope that maybe the next generation will be better than the one previous.

Rating:  8 / 10

Blaze by Stephen King

Title:  Blaze
Author:  Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachman)
Pages:  285
Genre:  Fiction / Suspense
Publisher:  Scribner, 2007
Series:  Stand Alone

Synopsis:  A fellow named Richard Bachman wrote Blaze in 1973 on an Olivetti typewriter, then turned the machine over to Stephen King, who used it to write Carrie. Bachman died in 1985 ("cancer of the pseudonym"), but in late 2006 King found the original typescript of Blaze among his papers at the University of Maine's Fogler Library ("How did this get here?!"), and decided that with a little revision it ought to be published.

Blaze is the story of Clayton Blaisdell, Jr. -- of the crimes committed against him and the crimes he commits, including his last, the kidnapping of a baby heir worth millions. Blaze has been a slow thinker since childhood, when his father threw him down the stairs -- and then threw him down again. After escaping an abusive institution for boys when he was a teenager, Blaze hooks up with George, a seasoned criminal who thinks he has all the answers. But then George is killed, and Blaze, though haunted by his partner, is on his own.

He becomes one of the most sympathetic criminals in all of literature. This is a crime story of surprising strength and sadness, with a suspenseful current sustained by the classic workings of fate and character -- as taut and riveting as Stephen King's The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.

Review:  I was expecting horror and got something all-together different.  Good thing I keep tissues on my desk because this story was sad.  I rooted, shamelessly, for the 'bad guy', Clayton Blaisdell.  His life was messed up and ruined and he never caught a break.  He reminds me a little of William Blakely (Blockade Billy) and John Coffey (The Green Mile).  But he was neither of them.  He was something else, but his story was just as haunting and awful in its own way.

The short story Memory was included at the end.  It is the idea that turned into the novel Duma Key.  It wasn't horror either, although it had a bit of the horrific in it.

Mr. King proves again that, while he is undeniably the King of Horror, he is also a writer with a real talent for making you care about his characters.  He shows that fully in these stories.

Rating:  7 / 10

Sovereign by C. J. Sansom

Title:  Sovereign
Author:  C. J. Sansom
Pages:  660
Genre:  Historical Fiction / Mystery
Publisher:  Pan Books, 2007
Series:  Shardlake, Book 3

Synopsis:  Autumn, 1541.  King Henry VIII has set out on a spectacular Progress to the North to attend an extravagant submission by his rebellious subjects in York.

Already in the city are lawyer Matthew Shardlake and his assistant Jack Barak.  As well as legal work processing local petitions to the King, Shardlake has reluctantly undertaken a special mission for Archbishop Cranmer - to ensure the welfare of an important but dangerous conspirator who is to be returned to London for interrogation.

But the murder of a York glazier involves Shardlake in deeper mysteries, connected not only to the prisoner in York Castle but to the royal family itself.  And when Shardlake and Barak stumble upon a cache of secret documents which could threaten the Tudor throne, a chain of events unfolds that will lead to Shardlake facing the most terrifying fate of the age...

What is still true - astonishingly, in the twenty-first century - is that Queen Elizabeth II retains the title Henry VIII took for himself: Supreme Head of the Church of England, Defender of the Faith and - in theory at least - God's chosen representative in England.

Review:  This book was even better than the first two.  Thomas Cromwell is dead, executed by King Henry VIII.  Matthew Shardlake has been trying desperately, ever since the fiasco with the Greek Fire in the last book, to stay out of politics.  It's now the next year and Archbishop Cranmer has called on Shardlake to help keep an important prisoner alive.

In York, Shardlake's life is in danger at every turn.  The Northerners hate the Southerners who have come with the King on his Progress.  Shardlake has enemies now that his old benefactor Cromwell is gone.  And then he comes across papers that may document that the King is not the rightful heir to the throne.  At no point in the story did I realize who was after Shardlake.  I thought I knew, but I was far off base.  I love these stories and how the mystery stays a mystery until the bitter end.

York was even more pathetic and awful than London.  The prisoner Shardlake must keep alive was kept in such awful conditions that I cannot understand how anyone ever made it to trial (or to their execution).  At one point, Shardlake himself winds up in the Tower of London and the description of that scary and horrible place was enough to give me the shivers.  King Henry VIII is even worse 'in person' than I'd expected.

The Historical Note at the end of this novel was eye-opening and I was pleased to see how much of the background of this story was true, or at least as close to that as it can be.  The quote I chose from this book came from there and, after reading the novel, it chilled me.

Rating:  9.5 / 10

Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult

Title:  Leaving Time
Author:  Jodi Picoult
Pages:  405
Genre:  Mystery
Publisher:  Ballantine, 2014
Series:  Stand Alone

Synopsis:  Alice Metcalf was a devoted mother, loving wife, and accomplished scientist who studied grief among elephants. Yet it's been a decade since she disappeared under mysterious circumstances, leaving behind her small daughter, husband, and the animals to which she devoted her life. All signs point to abandonment . . . or worse. Still Jenna--now thirteen years old and truly orphaned by a father maddened by grief--steadfastly refuses to believe in her mother's desertion. So she decides to approach the two people who might still be able to help her find Alice: a disgraced psychic named Serenity Jones, and Virgil Stanhope, the cynical detective who first investigated her mother's disappearance and the death of one of her mother's co-workers. Together these three lonely souls will discover truths destined to forever change their lives. Deeply moving and suspenseful, Leaving Time is a radiant exploration of the enduring love between mothers and daughters.

...in spite of what Serenity's said -- in spite of what I had believed -- she's not a lousy psychic. She's a fucking great one.

Review:  This book kept me guessing until the very end.  I was so sure I knew what had happened to Jenna's mother.  It turns out, I was nowhere near the truth.  This book was written from several points of view, mostly using Jenna and Alice, and it was easy to get so caught up in the story that I'd forget whose part I was reading.

The characters were all great.  Jenna and her mother, Alice, and her father, Thomas, are at the center of the story.  But, Serenity, the psychic, and Virgil, the ex-police officer, were more important to the quest to find out what had happened ten years ago, when Alice vanished.

I loved the little bits of obscure information about elephants.  Learning about the way they interact, live and treat one another was an eye-opening experience for me.  Realizing how poorly this incredible animal is being treated made me angry and sad.

I was completely unprepared for the ending and found myself in tears.  This was a great novel, one of Ms. Picoult's better ones, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Rating:  9 / 10

Handle With Care by Jodi Picoult

Title:  Handle With Care
Author:  Jodi Picoult
Pages:  477
Genre:  Fiction
Publisher:  Atria Books, 2009

Synopsis:  When Charlotte and Sean O'Keefe's daughter, Willow, is born with severe osteogenesis imperfecta, they are devastated -- she will suffer hundreds of broken bones as she grows, a lifetime of pain. As the family struggles to make ends meet to cover Willow's medical expenses, Charlotte thinks she has found an answer. If she files a wrongful birth lawsuit against her ob/gyn for not telling her in advance that her child would be born severely disabled, the monetary payouts might ensure a lifetime of care for Willow. But it means that Charlotte has to get up in a court of law and say in public that she would have terminated the pregnancy if she'd known about the disability in advance -- words that her husband can't abide, that Willow will hear, and that Charlotte cannot reconcile. And the ob/gyn she's suing isn't just her physician - it's her best friend.

Handle With Care explores the knotty tangle of medical ethics and personal morality. When faced with the reality of a fetus who will be disabled, at which point should an OB counsel termination? Should a parent have the right to make that choice? How disabled is TOO disabled? And as a parent, how far would you go to take care of someone you love? Would you alienate the rest of your family? Would you be willing to lie to your friends, to your spouse, to a court? And perhaps most difficult of all -- would you admit to yourself that you might not actually be lying?

Review:  Well, I love this author but this is not one of her better stories.  There weren't really any characters I liked except Willow.

The family was so dysfunctional it's amazing they are still a family.  The mother, Charlotte, is not very likable.  She comes across as one of those controlling mothers, with a martyr complex to boot.  The father, Sean, is only slightly better and is actually in a few scenes worse.  The elder daughter Amelia is your average teen, self-centered and difficult.  The fact that she suffered from bulimia and liked to cut herself didn't really make me feel all that sorry for her.  It just made me angrier at her parents for rarely noticing she exists.

As to the rest of the cast, there really aren't any winners.  The best friend and obstetrician, Piper, who Charlotte winds up suing, comes across as weak and ineffectual.  Charlotte's lawyer, Marin, spends far too much of the story whining to herself about the birth mother she's never met -- and then winds up regretting ever meeting her.  Most of the the secondary characters, from teachers, to lawyers, to doctors seem inconsiderate and lacking in compassion.

Willow, though.  She was impossibly brave and smart and funny and beautiful.  But even that ended up badly.  Because she hadn't been through enough in the first 475 pages, the author found it necessary to kill her off at the very end.  I don't understand why.  It did nothing to help the story or the characters.  Well, it did allow Charlotte to finally do something with the money she won in the lawsuit; she buried the check with Willow.  What a complete waste.  I'd have been quite a bit happier with a happy ending, or as happy of an ending as there could have been.

This was a quick read, as all Ms. Picoult's books are, but it wasn't a very enjoyable read.  It felt like I was being beaten up and broken just reading it.  Between the osteogenesis imperfecta, the bulimia, the festering questions of abortion and adoption, and the painful legal term Wrongful Birth, there was so little light it was like reading a nightmare.  Maybe that was how it was supposed to feel, but it didn't make me like it any better.

Rating:  5.5 / 10

The Pact by Jodi Picoult

Title:  The Pact
Author:  Jodi Picoult
Pages:  406
Genre:  Fiction
Publisher:  Harper Perennial, 2006

Synopsis:  From Jodi Picoult, one of the most powerful writers in contemporary fiction, comes a riveting, timely, heartbreaking, and terrifying novel of families in anguish -- and friendships ripped apart by inconceivable violence. Until the phone calls came at 3:00 A.M. on a November morning, the Golds and their neighbors, the Hartes, had been inseparable. It was no surprise to anyone when their teenage children, Chris and Emily, began showing signs that their relationship was moving beyond that of lifelong friends. But now seventeen-year-old Emily has been shot to death by her beloved and devoted Chris as part of an apparent suicide pact -- leaving two devastated families stranded in the dark and dense predawn, desperate for answers about an unthinkable act and the children they never really knew.

Review:  This book was uncomfortable.  While it was also tragic and funny and hopeful, it was mostly uncomfortable for me.  I found it hard to believe that a teenage girl with a loving family would be suicidal over what seemed like small issues.  After thinking about it, I realized that other people's problems rarely seem as important as our own.  A man in a restaurant restroom did a horrible thing to Emily when she was young.  Her boyfriend feels more like her brother.  She is genuinely disgusted with herself and her life.  It is a sad state of affairs that ends with her death.

Ms. Picoult has been my go-to author for contemporary fiction for years.  When I need a break from my usual fare, she never fails to enthrall and amuse me all while making me think about subjects most of us would rather not think about.

I've loved some of her other stories better, but I still couldn't put this one down not until the bitter, yet hopeful, end.

Rating:  8 / 10

And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

Title:  And the Mountains Echoed
Author:  Khaled Hosseini
Pages:  404
Genre:  Fiction
Publisher:  Riverhead Books, 2013

Synopsis:  Khaled Hosseini, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, has written a new novel about how we love, how we take care of one another, and how the choices we make resonate through generations.

In this tale revolving around not just parents and children but brothers and sisters, cousins and caretakers, Hosseini explores the many ways in which families nurture, wound, betray, honor, and sacrifice for one another; and how often we are surprised by the actions of those closest to us, at the times that matter most.

Following its characters and the ramifications of their lives and choices and loves around the globe—from Kabul to Paris to San Francisco to the Greek island of Tinos—the story expands gradually outward, becoming more emotionally complex and powerful with each turning page

Review:  I was surprised when I read A Thousand Splendid Suns.  I did not expect to enjoy the book half as much as I did.  This time around, I knew what a fine author Khaled Hosseini is.  And still, his panoramic and engrossing tale has managed to surprise me.

The characters, the backdrops, and the story are all so rich and vivid that it begins to feel as if it's real and you are there.  Incredible, sad and unforgettable.

Rating:  9.5 / 10

Salem Falls by Jodi Picoult

Title:  Salem Falls
Author:  Jodi Picoult
Pages:  434
Genre:  Fiction
Publisher:  2001, Washington Square Press

Synopsis:  Love can redeem a man...but secrets and lies can condemn him.  A handsome stranger comes to the sleepy New England town of Salem Falls in hopes of burying his past: once a teacher at a girls' prep school, Jack St. Bride was destroyed when a student's crush sparked a powder keg of accusation. Now, washing dishes for Addie Peabody at the Do-Or-Diner, he slips quietly into his new routine, and Addie finds this unassuming man fitting easily inside her heart. But amid the rustic calm of Salem Falls, a quartet of teenage girls harbor dark secrets -- and they maliciously target Jack with a shattering allegation. Now, at the center of a modern-day witch hunt, Jack is forced once again to proclaim his innocence: to a town searching for answers, to a justice system where truth becomes a slippery concept written in shades of gray, and to the woman who has come to love him.

Review:  Whenever I need a break from aliens, spaceships, dragons and knights, Jodi Picoult is one of my favorite authors to turn to.  Her books are always fast reads; impossible to put down stories of the joy and tragedy of life.  This story is no exception.

This page-turner takes a look at witchcraft and rape, a seemingly odd combination and certainly two risky topics to write about.  So many things could have gone badly with such sensitive issues being discussed, but the story works perfectly.  The ending shocked and saddened me.  The girl who starts most of the trouble in the story, Gillian, turns out to be the most troubled teenager in town.  I won't give it away, but I certainly didn't see myself ever feeling sorry for her....until I did.

The main characters (teenager and adult alike) are well-rounded and believable.  There are no perfect people in Ms. Picoult's stories and that, to me, makes them all the more enjoyable.  I really loved this story.  It was unusual and made me question my own preconceptions about the subject matter.

Rating:  9 / 10

The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult

Title: The Tenth Circle
Author: Jodi Picoult
Format: PB
Pages: 385
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Atria, 2006
ISBN-13:     978-0743496711
Series: Stand Alone

Favorite Quote:  "It's how I run away."

Synopsis:  Fourteen year Trixie Stone is in love for the first time. She's also the light of her father, Daniels' life -- a straight A student; a pretty, popular freshman in high school; a girl who's always seen her father as a hero. That is, until her world is turned upside down with a single act of violence. Suddenly everything Trixie has believed about her family -- and herself -- seems to be a lie. Could the boyfriend who once made Trixie wild with happiness have been the one to end her childhood forever? She says that he is, and that is all it takes to make Daniel, a seemingly mild-mannered comic book artist with a secret tumultuous past he has hidden even from his family, venture to hell and back to protect his daughter.

Review:  As always, Ms. Picoult has written a novel that grabbed me and didn't let go.  The story is heart-wrenching and heart-warming, scary and completely believable all at one time.  It's a roller-coaster of a ride and not for the faint of heart.  The subject matter was difficult, to say the least, but I still just couldn't put it down until I was done.

Rating:  8 / 10

Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult

Title:  Sing You Home
Author:  Jodi Picoult
Format: PB
Pages: 466
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Washington Square, 2011
ISBN-13:  9781-439102732 
Series: Stand Alone

Favorite Quote:  "I'm not," I say, straight-faced.  "I mean, if you look at sheer probability - the fact that all these things are happening to you means it's much more likely I'm safe.  I'm positively charmed, in fact.  You're good luck for me."

Synopsis:  Every life has a soundtrack. All you have to do is listen. — Music has set the tone for most of Zoe Baxter’s life. There’s the melody that reminds her of the summer she spent rubbing baby oil on her stomach in pursuit of the perfect tan. A dance beat that makes her think of using a fake ID to slip into a nightclub. A dirge that marked... more » the years she spent trying to get pregnant.

For better or for worse, music is the language of memory. It is also the language of love.

In the aftermath of a series of personal tragedies, Zoe throws herself into her career as a music therapist. When an unexpected friendship slowly blossoms into love, she makes plans for a new life, but to her shock and inevitable rage, some people -- even those she loves and trusts most -- don’t want that to happen.

Sing You Home is about identity, love, marriage, and parenthood. It’s about people wanting to do the right thing for the greater good, even as they work to fulfill their own personal desires and dreams. And it’s about what happens when the outside world brutally calls into question the very thing closest to our hearts: family.

Review:  When I need a good book, guaranteed to be a can't-put-it-down, enthralling, fast read, I nearly always choose this author.  She hasn't let me down yet and certainly not with this story.  It wasn't what I expected, but then I didn't really know what to expect.  I really did love it though.

Rating:  9.5 / 10

House Rules by Jodi Picoult

Title:  House Rules
Author:  Jodi Picoult
Format: PB
Pages: 532
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Washington Square Press, 2010
ISBN-13:  978-0743296441
Series: Stand Alone

Favorite Quote:  Jacob stares right at me.  It hurts.  It actually hurts.  "House rules," he says simply.  "Take care of your brother:  he's the only one you've got."

Synopsis (PBS):  Jodi Picoult wraps another stirring melodramatic plot around a misunderstood modern affliction in this tale of Jacob Hunt, an 18-year-old murder suspect who has Asperger's Syndrome. — Jacob's mother Emma and his little brother Theo have gradually become reluctant satellites of Jacob and his condition, forced to make unwanted adjustments to their own lives in order to better suit his needs. Jacob is obsessed with forensic science, and has the odd habit of appearing at crime scenes and bombarding the investigators with unwanted advice. At the sight of one particularly heinous crime, Jacob's criminal insights prove to be a bit too precise, and he is soon charged with murder. The situation is compounded when Jacob's lack of emotion, his social awkwardness, and his involuntary tics are read as the callous reactions of a psychopath.

Emma's only hope of saving her son lies in the hands of a young attorney who must not only combat the prosecution's convincing evidence, but also his own client's tendencies to make himself appear guilty.

Review:  Wow.  Just wow.  I remember now why Jodi Picoult is one of my favorite authors.  I didn't really know much about Asperger's Syndrome, but I certainly feel like I do now.  I knew the reason Jacob did what he did before it was revealed, but it didn't take away from the story one bit.  The characters are all great.  I especially liked the older brother, Theo, and the police officer, Rich.  But, my favorite was the lawyer, Oliver.  Really, this is just a fabulous story with plenty of emotion and action and all the things that make a story great.  Ms. Picoult never disappoints.


Rating:  8.5 / 10

The Last Child by John Hart

Title:  The Last Child
Author:  John Hart
Format:  PB
Pages:  419
Genre:  Fiction
Publisher:  Minotaur, 2010
ISBN-13:  978-0312642365
Series:  Stand Alone

Favorite Quote:  No crows, Johnny thought.  God knows.

Synopsis (Amazon):  Thirteen year-old Johnny Merrimon had the perfect life: a warm home and loving parents; a twin sister, Alyssa, with whom he shared an irreplaceable bond. He knew nothing of loss, until the day Alyssa vanished from the side of a lonely street. Now, a year later, Johnny finds himself isolated and alone, failed by the people he'd been taught since birth to trust. No one else believes that Alyssa is still alive, but Johnny is certain that she is---confident in a way that he can never fully explain.

Determined to find his sister, Johnny risks everything to explore the dark side of his hometown. It is a desperate, terrifying search, but Johnny is not as alone as he might think. Detective Clyde Hunt has never stopped looking for Alyssa either, and he has a soft spot for Johnny. He watches over the boy and tries to keep him safe, but when Johnny uncovers a dangerous lead and vows to follow it, Hunt has no choice but to intervene.

Then a second child goes missing . . .

Undeterred by Hunt's threats or his mother's pleas, Johnny enlists the help of his last friend, and together they plunge into the wild, to a forgotten place with a history of violence that goes back more than a hundred years. There, they meet a giant of a man, an escaped convict on his own tragic quest. What they learn from him will shatter every notion Johnny had about the fate of his sister; it will lead them to another far place, to a truth that will test both boys to the limit.

Traveling the wilderness between innocence and hard wisdom, between hopelessness and faith, The Last Child leaves all categories behind and establishes John Hart as a writer of unique power.

Review:  This is an incredible novel.  Issues of belief and trust are at the root of this story.  Johnny doesn't believe in much anything or trust much of anyone.  Except he believes he can find his sister.  His journey to do so forces him to confront and battle many harsh realities:  his mother's drug use, his father's disappearance, and his own lack of faith.

There was quite a bit of action.  I loved the characters, especially Detective Hunt and the escaped convict, Levi.  No one in this story is untouched or blameless, but in the end it is more about forgiveness than blame.  This is not a happily ever after type of story.  But it ended just as it should, with hope for the future.

Rating:  9.5 / 10

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

Title:  Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Author:  Jonathan Safran Foer
Format:  PB
Pages:  326
Genre:  Fiction
Publisher:  Mariner, 2006
ISBN-13:  978-0618711659
Series:  Stand Alone

Favorite Quote:  "I changed the course of human history!"  "That's right."  "I changed the universe!"  "You did."  "I'm God!"  "You're an atheist."  "I don't exist!"  I fell back onto the bed, into his arms, and we cracked up together.

Synopsis (Amazon):  Nine-year-old Oskar Schell has embarked on an urgent, secret mission that will take him through the five boroughs of New York. His goal is to find the lock that matches a mysterious key that belonged to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11. This seemingly impossible task will bring Oskar into contact with survivors of all sorts on an exhilarating, affecting, often hilarious, and ultimately healing journey.

Review:  This is one of the strangest books I've ever read.  There are blank pages, odd pictures, and type that can't be read at all.  Told mostly from the point of view of nine-year-old Oskar, it switches viewpoints and swings between the past and the future so often that I wasn't always sure what was going on.  But, it was still an incredible work of fiction.

While this story is obviously about healing and the paths we take to find it, I came away mostly with a real appreciation for the little coincidences that make up our lives.  Take one random action away and a whole life is changed.  I didn't adore this book, but it certainly made me think.

Rating:  7 / 10

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

Title:  The English Patient
Author:  Michael Ondaatje
Format:  PB
Pages:  301
Genre:  Fiction
Publisher:  Vintage, 1993
ISBN-13:  978-0679745204
Series:  Stand Alone

Favorite Quote:  We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves.

Synopsis (Amazon):  With unsettling beauty and intelligence, Michael Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning novel traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an abandoned Italian villa at the end of World War II.The nurse Hana, exhausted by death, obsessively tends to her last surviving patient. Caravaggio, the thief, tries to reimagine who he is, now that his hands are hopelessly maimed. The Indian sapper Kip searches for hidden bombs in a landscape where nothing is safe but himself. And at the center of his labyrinth lies the English patient, nameless and hideously burned, a man who is both a riddle and a provocation to his companions—and whose memories of suffering, rescue, and betrayal illuminate this book like flashes of heat lightning.

Review:  This book is as beautifully written as it is unsettling.  Four people, torn apart in differing ways by the war, are thrown together and forced to live a strange half-life.

The writing style is poetic and, at times, difficult to understand and follow.  The dialogue is almost never punctuated with quotation marks, so I was often left unsure if it was really dialogue or just a character's thoughts.  This was a tough read, both emotionally and because of the depth of the language, but the descriptions of the scenery left me breathless and the insights into the characters were wonderful.

As a choice for a Read-A-Thon, it was perhaps not my best choice since this is not a book I could read quickly.  This is a book where I needed to reread each passage two times to really comprehend it in its entirety.  I do wish the story had been less difficult to read.  But, it's also been on my list of books I've wanted to read for quite a while, so I am pleased I read it and I did enjoy the experience.  Unfortunately, I didn't love it as much as I wanted to.

Rating:  7.5 / 10 

Shoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella

Title:  Shoeless Joe
Author:  W. P. Kinsella
Format:  PB
Pages:  224
Genre:  Fiction
Publisher:  Ballantine, 1983
ISBN-13:  978-0345309211
Series:  Stand Alone

Favorite Quotes:  "If I'd only got to be a doctor for five minutes, now that would have been a tragedy."

"They'll turn up your driveway, not knowing for sure why they're doing it, and arrive at your door, innocent as children, longing for the gentility of the past, for home-canned preserves, ice cream made in a wooden freezer, gingham dresses, and black-and-silver stoves with high warming ovens and cast iron reservoirs."

Synopsis (Back Cover):  The voice of a baseball announcer tells the Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella: "If you build it, he will come." "He" is Shoeless Joe Jackson, Ray's hero. "It" is a baseball stadium which Ray carves out of his cornfield.  SHOELESS JOE is about baseball. But it's also about love and the power of dreams to make people come alive.  Will you be among the Iowa dreamers who can see a cornfield stadium filled with baseball's greatest heroes?

Review:  Oh, this is a tough book to review.  It is a great story.  The characters are so well written and the story so well told that I believed every word.  I wonder, if I drove to Iowa tonight, could I see the game being played by Shoeless Joe Jackson and the rest of eight 'Black Sox'?  A few other players join in, including a player named Moonlight Graham, who only ever played one inning before becoming a doctor, and Johnny Kinsella, Ray's long-dead father, who returns as a much younger man.

The problem with reviewing this book is one of my all-time favorite movies, Field of Dreams, is based upon this story.  The movie is on my top five movie list.  And, enough of the story was changed in the making of the movie, that I found myself thinking, 'but, that's not what happened!'.  It's almost unheard of for a movie to outdo a book, but I'm afraid in this instance it's true.

The changes?  There are mostly small ones and I won't mention them.  The main one, however, surrounds one of the main characters.  The author who Ray drives across the country to find is J.D. Salinger, the reclusive author of Catcher in the Rye, rather than the movie's pseudo-political writer from the 60's named Mann, played so effortlessly by James Earl Jones.  Since I honestly dislike Salinger, it wasn't a change I found appealing.

But, I will put aside my love of the movie.  The bottom line is this:  I knew what was going to happen.  How could I not?  I've seen the movie a dozen times.  It didn't matter.  I still read it with relish.  It made me want to believe, it touched me and made me think.  I got teary-eyed when Moonlight Graham stepped off the field to become the much older Doc Graham to save Ray's daughter from choking.  And, when a book makes you feel, really feel, isn't that the definition of good fiction?  I'd highly recommend this story to anyone.

Rating:  8.5 / 10

The Bright Forever by Lee Martin

Title:  The Bright Forever
Author:  Lee Martin
Format:  HC
Pages:  268
Genre:  Fiction
Publisher:  Shaye Areheart Books, 2005
ISBN-13:  978-1400097913
Series:  Stand Alone

Favorite Quote:    Maybe you've made up your mind about who's good and who's evil, and if you have -- if you're one of those -- God help you.  Ask anyone who was living in the middle of it all and they'll tell you:  it didn't have anything to do with good and evil; it was all about love.

Synopsis (Amazon):  On an evening like any other, nine-year-old Katie Mackey, daughter of the most affluent family in a small town on the plains of Indiana, sets out on her bicycle to return some library books.

This simple act is at the heart of The Bright Forever, a suspenseful, deeply affecting novel about the choices people make that change their lives forever. Keeping fact, speculation, and contradiction playing off one another as the details unfold, author Lee Martin creates a fast-paced story that is as gripping as it is richly human. His beautiful, clear-eyed prose builds to an extremely nuanced portrayal of the complicated give and take among people struggling to maintain their humanity in the shadow of a loss.

Review:  I started out the month of May with heartbreak.  This novel is sad and terrible, full of guilt, remorse and innocence lost.  I was hoping to find another novel as good as The Lovely Bones, which is one of my all-time favorite novels, when I picked this book out.  It's not quite that good.  It is, however, a story that I won't forget soon.

The story is told in turns, each of the main characters getting to tell a part of the whole story.  Each person brings their own perspective and feelings to the story they tell.  Only one man knows the entire story, though, and he only tells the last of it at the very end of the book.  I wanted to cry for poor nine-year old Katie, but I felt most sorry for her older brother, Gilley.  He is just a young man, still in high school, and he lost the remainder of his childhood and blamed himself endlessly for doing the one thing that started the whole horrible tragedy.  Of course, he couldn't have known that tattling on his sister would have such dire repercussions, but that didn't alleviate his guilt.

All the characters are human and flawed, with sparks of beauty and gentleness, just like most people.  The characters were well-written and the story well-told.  It was sometimes hard to keep up with whose point of view I was reading, but that's only because I tore through the chapters so quickly that sometimes I lost track.

This was a great way to enter a new month.  I really enjoyed this book.

Rating:  9 / 10

The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue

Title:  The Stolen Child
Author:  Keith Donohue
Format:  PB
Pages:  319
Genre:  Fiction
Publisher:  Anchor, 2007
ISBN-13:  978-1400096534
Series:  Stand Alone

Favorite Quote:  This child and I were bound together.  As boys dream of growing into men, and men dream of the boys they once were, we each took measure of the other half.

Synopsis (Amazon):  “I am a changeling–a word that describes within its own name what we are bound and intended to do. We kidnap a human child and replace him or her with one of our own. . . .”  The double story of Henry Day begins in 1949, when he is kidnapped at age seven by a band of wild childlike beings who live in an ancient, secret community in the forest. The changelings rename their captive Aniday and he becomes, like them, unaging and stuck in time. They leave one of their own to take his place, an imposter who must try–with varying success–to hide his true identity from the Day family. As the changeling Henry grows up, he is haunted by glimpses of his lost double and by vague memories of his own childhood a century earlier. Narrated in turns by Henry and Aniday, The Stolen Child follows them as their lives converge, driven by their obsessive search for who they were before they changed places in the world. Moving from a realistic setting in small-town America deep into the forest of humankind’s most basic desires and fears, this remarkable novel is a haunting fable about identity and the illusory innocence of childhood.

Review:  This story was dark, scary and creepy some of the time.  It was had light and funny moments, but these were rarer.  This fairy tale is not for the faint of heart.  It is terrible, both from the point of view of the changeling and the child who is taken.  It's hard to choose which has the more difficult existence.  It's too easy to say that the child asked for none of it and that the changeling chose the path.  The changeling was once the child, too, a century or more ago.

I nearly wanted to call this a fantasy novel, but the story of both the changelings and the children they replace are both told so matter-of-factly, complete with details that you'd almost rather not know, that it seemed more like a biography or true story.  I realize that the fact that one of the main characters (and many of the secondary characters) are of the fey probably lends itself towards being a fantasy novel.  It just didn't feel like one.

The first half of this book moved a little slow in places.  I wondered if I would even finish it at one point.  Then, the second half sped up suddenly, pulling me in and not letting go until the end.  The ending was what it had to be, bittersweet and hopeful.

Rating:  6 / 10

Tomato Girl by Jayne Pupek

Title:  Tomato Girl
Author:  Jayne Pupek
Format:  HC
Pages:  298
Genre:  Fiction
Publisher:  Algonquin, 2008
ISBN-13:  978-1565124721
Series:  Stand Alone

Favorite Quote:  I'm the girl they found standing on the table.  The girl who traced the cracks in the wall with her mother's blood.

Synopsis (Amazon):  For eleven-year-old Ellie Sanders, her father has always been the rock that she could cling to when her mother's emotional troubles became too frightening. But when he comes under the thrall of the pretty teenager who raises vegetables and tomatoes for sale at the general store that he runs, Ellie sees her security slowly slipping away. Now she must be witness and warden to her mother's gradual slide into madness.

Told from Ellie's point of view, Tomato Girl takes the reader into the soul of a terrified young girl clinging desperately to childhood while being forced into adulthood years before she is ready. To save herself, she creates a secret world, a place in which her mother gets well, her father returns to being the man he was, and the Tomato Girl is banished forever.

Review:  I decided a change of pace was in order.  And, I certainly found one.  This book is disturbing, shocking, and heart-wrenching.  To watch Ellie struggle to live the shadowy, terrifying life she's forced to live because of the disappearance of her father is almost too difficult to bear.  Her mother has always been disturbed, but after her husband's leave taking, she turns completely insane.  Towards the end, as the facade of normalcy begins to completely falter, I almost wished the book to be over and done with.  Sharing in Ellie's nightmare existence was almost too much for me.  I wish the book had told whether Ellie ever came to terms with her childhood and whether she was able to lead any kind of normal life, although the suggestion at the very end is that she is about to get the help she needs, so one is left hoping.

This is not my usual choice of reading material, but I had heard it was an incredible story, a book that wouldn't soon be forgotten.  That is certainly true.  I'm just not certain I want to remember Baby Tom, Jellybean, and all the other awful, sad details, but I have a suspicion I won't ever forget Ellie's tragic tale.

Rating:  4 / 5