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You are browsing the archives of 2009 August.

In The Kitchen
By Monica Ali
Completed August 23, 2009

In The Kitchen by Monica Ali was like a good-looking, sweet-smelling dessert that held so much promise – until you sunk your teeth into it. Despite its delectable exterior, it turned out to be a book with little taste or appeal.
The recipe was classic. Gabriel Lightfoot was on [...]

Haunted by Barbara Haworth-Attard
Pages: 273
Ages: 14+
First Published: Aug. 18, 2009 (Canada only)
Genre: paranormal, thriller, mystery, magical realism
Rating: 4.5/5
First sentence:
Dee spread feed over the ground, calling, “chick, chick.”
Reason for Reading: I love a good ghost story.
Comments: Set in the Bruce Peninsula area of Ontario at the time that the soldier’s had returned home from WWI, Dee [...]

I’ll start off by admitting I may be a little biased. There is something captivating about reading a book when you recognize the street names, know the buildings mentioned, have been to the natural landmarks and live a block away from the church the family attended. But when I also find myself reading a brilliant epic love story I think my insider knowledge is more of a bonus than a bias.

Bess and Tom come from different classes. Bess is the 17yo daughter of an influential man at Niagara Power and lives in Glenview Mansion. She attends a Catholic Girls Academy (even though the family isn’t Catholic) and leads a sheltered life. Tom is about 22 and is the local riverman. He catches fish for pay, pulls dead bodies out of the river, works a few nights in the saloon he has a room over and is always on hand when help is needed down at the river[...]

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe
Pages: 371
First Published: Jun. 9, 2009
Genre: historical fantasy,
Rating: 4/5
First sentence:
Peter Petford slipped a long wooden spoon into the simmering iron pot of lentils hanging over the fire and tried to push the worry from his stomach.
Reason for Reading: The Salem witch trials have always been a favourite [...]

The Last Dickens by Matthew Pearl
Pages: 386
First Published: mar. 17, 2009 (paperback coming Oct. 6, 2009)
Genre: Historical fiction, mystery, literary thriller
Rating: 3.5/5
First sentence:
Neither of the young mounted policemen fancied these subdivisions of the Bagirhaut province.
Reason for Reading: I’m always interested in Victorian historical fiction plus I’ve read two other books this year that concerned Charles [...]

Sacred Hearts
By Sarah Dunant
Completed August 15, 2009
The third novel in her Italian Renaissance series, Sarah Dunant transported her readers into the everyday lives of nuns in her latest book, Sacred Hearts. Set in a convent in Northern Italy, Dunant continued her pristine historical writing through strong characters and women’s quests to find freedom during a [...]

Free Agent by Jeremy Duns
Paul Dark Trilogy, Book One
Pages: 338
First Published: June 23, 2009
Genre: espionage, thriller, historical fiction
Rating: 4.5/5
First sentence:
As I edged the car onto the gravel, the front door of the house swung open and Chief’s steely grey eyes stared down at me.
Reason for Reading: I don’t typically read modern spy novels as I’m [...]

The Bishop’s Man by Linden MacIntyre, 399 pages
I only know Linden MacIntyre for his work as an investigative reporter on the CBC show the fifth estate, but he has a future as a novelist if this book is anything to go by. He writes a somewhat suspenseful tale of a lonely man, a priest facing [...]

I was like a man, shovel in hand, finding himself standing in a freshly dug grave but with no memory of having dug it. I stayed there because at least if you’ve hit bottom you had no farther to fall. - from The Long Fall -
Leonid McGill is a man of contradictions. He has spent [...]

The Dragon’s Pearl by Devin Jordan
Pages: 341
Ages: 10+
First Published: Jul. 7, 2009
Genre: YA, historical fantasy
Rating: 4/5
First sentence:
Marco Polo glared at the menacing knight standing at the other end of his family’s trophy room.
Reason for Reading: An historical fantasy featuring Marco Polo is an ideal theme to tickle my fancy. 
Comments: 16yo Marco Polo’s father, Niccolo, has [...]

The trajectory of any life, laid out across a table, reduced to jottings in a pad, would no doubt seem both damning and inane, our imperfections difficult to justify despite our best intentions. - from Best Intentions, page 302 -
Lisa Barkley seems to have it all – two beautiful daughters with enough money to [...]

The HelpBy Kathryn StockettCompleted August 9, 2009
Set in the turbulent Jackson, Mississippi during the early 1960’s, The Help was the debut novel by Kathryn Stockett. Many times, when I read a novelist’s debut book, I think: “that’s not a bad start” or “some flaws but a promising career.” Rarely does a debut knock my socks [...]

Rapacia by Dale E. Basye, Illustrations by Bob Dob
The Second Circle of Heck
Pages: 362
Ages: 10+
First Published: Jul. 28, 2009
Genre: children, fantasy
Rating: 3.5/5
First sentence:
As many believe, there is a place above and a place below.

Reason for Reading: Next in the series.

Comments: Marlo has been moved to the second circle of Heck, Rapacia, where the greedy children [...]

The Blue Notebook by James A. Levine
Pages: 210
First Published: Jul. 7, 2009
Genre: literary fiction
Rating: 4.5/5
First sentence:
I have a break now.
Reason for Reading: Honestly, I simply felt compelled to read this, even though it’s not my usual type of reading. I do however enjoy books written in diary format, books with an Indian viewpoint and books [...]

Undone by Karin Slaughter
Special Agent Will Trent, Book 3
Pages: 436
First Published: Jul. 14, 2009
Genre: thriller, mystery
Rating: 5/5
First sentence:
They had been married forty years to the day and Judith still felt she didn’t know everything about her husband.
Reason for Reading: Karin Slaughter had a new book out!
Comments: A victim of unspeakable torture is found on the [...]

What had persuaded her to buy the house, though, were none of these sensible reasons but the thought that sprang into her mind at the first sight of the address – 41 Fortune Street – that her grandfather would have liked the name. “Straight out of Dickens,” she could hear him say, straw hat rocking. [...]

The Elephant Keeper
By Christopher Nicholson
Completed August 2, 2009
For an animal lover like me, it’s hard to dislike The Elephant Keeper by Christopher Nicholson. The main character, Tom Page, is a likeable guy, who devoted his life to care for two elephants in late 18th century England. The elephants were all personality – characters that you loved [...]

He had no memory of a beginning – of a mother or father, sister or brother. His life was simply there, at Saint Anthony’s, and what he remembered began in the middle of things – the smell of boiled sheets and lye; the taste of watery oatmeal; the feel of dropping a brick onto [...]

Agents and the men they chase often have the same start in life. They are creative problem solvers, natural leaders with street smarts and an ability to anticipate their adversary’s next ten movies. Somewhere along the way, guys like Gagne choose the law, and guys like Solomon choose crime. Gagne understood that [...]

No one stays forever. On the morning of her disappearance Lilia woke early, and lay still for a moment in the bed. It was the last day of October. [excerpt from Last Night in Montreal]Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel
Unbridled, 2009 (ARC)
Fiction; 247 pgs
Last Night in Montreal is a rather [...]