Novels Now

The Flying Troutmans by Miriam Toews

Pages: 274
First Published: Oct. 1 2008
Rating: 4.5/5

First sentence:

Yeah, so things have fallen apart.

Reason for Reading: The publisher’s plot synopsis grabbed me right away.

Summary: Hattie in Paris, who has just been dumped by her boyfriend, receives an urgent message from her niece in Manitoba to come home quickly. Hattie’s sister Min is in a deep depression and needs to go into the hospital again and when Hattie arrives she finds the kids in a state. Teenage Logan retreats into his hoodie all the time, rarely speaks and the neighbors have a backyard full of hatchets. Thebes, on the other hand, does not stop talking, ever, and looks as if she hasn’t changed clothes in a few weeks nor combed, let alone washed her hair in months. Hattie is totally not up to the job of looking after two children so she takes the children in the van on a road trip to the States to find their father whom Min chased out of their lives when they Logan was a toddler and Thebes newly born. With only the name of a place of where he was ten years ago they set off.

Comments: What a wonderful, brilliant book! A humourous, heart-felt, sometimes poignant story of a family of the most quirky characters. This family is both dysfunctional and each member is suffering their own mental health problems but they are also lovable, unique and become accepted to the reader just the way they are. The only character I didn’t connect with nor grow to like was Hattie, who was quite negligent with looking after the children and as a 32yo woman had no excuse for her behaviour except that she daydreamed about her ex-boyfriend back in Paris and hadn’t looked after children before. I didn’t buy it. However, the children and Min (who we get to know through Hattie’s memories) were extremely outlandish yet totally believable characters.

A great story that will have you chuckling, shaking your head and growing fonder of these two children the more you read. I really enjoyed this, my first foray into Toews, and I will be looking into her other work hoping to find the same quality of story. The book vaguely reminded me of the movie “Little Miss Sunshine” and I pictured Logan just as the teenage son in that movie. If you enjoy an offbeat story populated with eccentric characters this book will certainly fit the bill.

Testimony by Anita Shreve

Pages: 305
First Published: Oct. 21, 2008
Genre: realistic fiction
Rating: 3.5/5

First sentence:

It was a small cassette, not much bigger than the palm of his hand, and when Mike thought about the terrible license and risk exhibited on the tape, as well as its resultant destructive power, it was as though the two-by-three plastic package had been radioactive.

Reason for Reading: I really wanted to read this book right from when it first came out but it just kept getting pushed to the bottom of the pile. I received a review copy from Hachette Book Group.

Summary: Avery is a small New England town and Avery Academy, the private high school, is the only prestigious thing about it. That is until the headmaster receives a sex tape of several students in a drunken orgy which someone has filmed. While that may not exactly be shocking these days, especially if it had come from the public school, what is shocking is those involved. One girl is only fourteen. The boys are top A students and athletes with promising futures. One boy is a day student, on a scholarship, one of “them” (a town boy), from an upstanding farm family. What follows is a retelling of the events leading up to and after that dreadful event told through the voices of those involved and many others.

Comments: This was a wonderful book! I really enjoyed the read. Each chapter the voice changes from character to character, going from major players to minor characters such as teachers on staff to room mates. This is a brilliant way to keep what is actually a fairly simple plot going into many different directions. There are secrets that unfold that make the simple incident more than it seems initially. Also viewing the incident from each major character’s point of view turns what at first appears to be an easy-place-blame incident into one much more profound showing one the other side, multiple other sides and the moral issues involved when one is so quick to make rash judgement on others. A very intriguing story!

The characters are all developed well, at least the ones the author meant to. I became attached to a couple of the characters but knew they were doomed from the beginning. Perhaps that is why I became attached to them? There are a couple of major reveals in the book. One I had figured out from the very beginning so was rather let down that I had actually uncovered it as I think it spoilt the effect for me. If I could have been surprised/shocked over the event my rating would have been higher. All in all, though, I really enjoyed the book. Now she has a new book out, A Change in Altitude, (Sept. 09) which looks very good to me as well. I think I may have found another favourite author.

It’s hard for anyone to know where allusion ends and reality begins, let a lone a small child. - from Between Here and April, page 25 -

Elizabeth Burns, a journalist who has given up traveling the world to cover war stories in order to be there for her two children, begins suffering blackouts one day. When medical tests show there is no physical reason for her fainting spells, Elizabeth seeks psychiatric help. What she discovers is a long buried memory of the disappearance of her best friend April when she was six years old. Driven to seek out the truth, Elizabeth begins to research her April’s disappearance and uncovers a horrible truth – the disappearance was actually a murder committed by the girl’s own mother. Elizabeth’s journey to uncover the truth and understand the mind of a woman who would kill her own child opens a floodgate of unresolved issues for Elizabeth – a failing marriage, a brutal gang rape, and questions of her own ability to mother.

Between Here and April is a novel which reaches into the dark recesses of the human mind and looks at one of the most difficult to understand crimes: filicide. Deborah Copaken Kogan brings to the novel her own background of  journalism (she is the author of the bestselling memoir Shutterbabe which explored her life as a war photographer), and a history which includes a murdered childhood friend. In mining her own experiences, Kogan brings to her writing an honesty and clarity that transforms the novel into something that feels like a true crime story.

Between Here and April is provocative, tough to read and at times uncomfortable as it explores the subjects of sexual perversity, rape, child abuse, discrimination against women, and the unrelenting demands placed on mothers. Filicide is a crime which is almost unspeakable – and yet Cogan takes this topic head-on and seeks to find empathy for the woman who would be driven to commit such an act.

“Mrs. Cassidy had one arm wrapped around each of her daughters. The two girls…were lying on pillows, their feet toward the tailgate. They were dressed in flannel pajamas.” She held them while she killed them. She loved them, even as she was suffocating them. But she must have hated herself more. – from Between Here and April, page 223 -

Cogan’s writing is sharp, intuitive and hypnotic. I always enjoy novels written by journalists who have honed their writing skills to get to the core of the story quickly, and who know how to create tension and conflict between characters. This is not a book for everyone. Many readers will be disturbed by the images Cogan creates. The subject matter will turn many readers off. But, those readers willing to follow Cogan into the darkness will be rewarded with a story not soon forgotten.

Recommended.

It was Kabutri’s question that triggered Deeti’s vision: her eyes suddenly conjured up a picture of an immense ship with two tall masts. Suspended from the masts were great sails of a dazzling shade of white. The prow of the ship tapered into a figurehead with a long bill, like a stork or a heron. There was a man in the background, standing near the bow, and although she could not see him clearly, she had a sense of a distinctive and unfamiliar presence. – from Sea of Poppies, page 7 -

Deeti, an Indian woman who grows poppies, has a vision of a ship – an odd vision because she lives 400 miles from the sea and has never seen a boat such as this…but her vision is a premonition and the ship has a name: Ibis. Thus begins Amitav Ghosh’s sprawling, historical saga Sea of Poppies. What follows is a story with a vast cast of characters whose paths ultimately cross enroute to the island of Mauritius aboard the Ibis – a former slave ship manned by a motley crew including an opium addicted captain, a freed American slave, and a foul-mouthed first mate with a penchant for cruelty. The voyagers include Paulette (a French woman with a sense of adventure who is fleeing an unacceptable situation in India), and Neel (a man who has been convicted of a crime he did not commit). But it is the Indian indentured workers who take center stage in a novel about caste, freedom, and human connection. And it is Deeti who becomes the central figure – a strong woman who marries beneath her caste and is respected by the other women aboard the ship.

The novel is beautifully imagined and captures the hopelessness of the opium factory workers, the daily lives of the villagers, the violence of ship law, and the diversity of an India in the mid-nineteenth century. Ghosh’s use of language in the novel is brilliant. Filled with strange words, pidgin English, and unusual sentence structure – the book at first seems unwieldy. But Ghosh succeeds where other less talented authors might not. The language, used with appropriate context, becomes almost like a musical score in a movie. Ghosh’s use of language demonstrates the way language can unite or divide people, and confuse or clarify situations. It is a powerful technique that works.

Historically, Sea of Poppies is set just prior to the Opium Wars and revolves around the British involvement in India and their trade practices exporting opium from India to China. Ghosh reveals the damage done by British colonial rule and the devastation wreaked upon the Indian economy, as well as society at large. Although apparently Ghosh’s creative inspiration was the indentured people of India, he says in an interview: “[...] once I started researching into it, it was kind of inescapable – all the roads led back to opium. The indentured emigration [out of India] really started in the 1830s and that was [around the time of] the peak of the opium traffic. That decade culminated in the opium wars against China.”

Ghosh is skilled at creating character…and in Sea of Poppies the characters are memorable and complex.

This was a personage of formidable appearance, with a face that would have earned the envy of Genghis Khan, being thin, long and narrow, with darting black eyes that sat restlessly upon rakishly angled cheekbones. Two feathery strands of moustache drooped down to his chin, framing a mouth that was constantly in motion, its edges stained a bright, livid red: it was as if he were forever smacking his lips after drinking from the opened veins of a mare, like some bloodthirsty Tartar of the steppes. The discovery that the substance in his mouth was of vegetable origin came as no great reassurance to Zachary: once, when the serang spat a stream of blood-red juice over the rail, he noticed the water below coming alive with the thrashing of shark’s fins. How harmless could this betel-stuff be if it could be mistaken for blood by a shark? – from Sea of Poppies, page 13 -

Although filled with adventure and interesting plot twists, Sea of Poppies is also about what makes us human in the face of crisis. One particularly memorable part of the novel to me was when Neel loses his caste and is convicted of the crime of forgery. Thrown into jail, he is forced to share a cell with an Asian named Ah Fatt who is hopelessly addicted to opium and lies in his own waste. For Neel, a man of stature who is fastidously clean, the situation is almost unbearable. And then he makes a self-discovery about what it means to care for another human being:

To take care of another human being – this was something Neel had never before thought of doing, not even with his own son, let alone a man of his own age, a foreigner. All he knew of nurture was the tenderness that had been lavished on him by his own care-givers: that they would come to love him was something he had taken for granted – yet knowing his own feelings for them to be in no way equivalent, he had often wondered how that attachment was born. It occurred to him now to ask himself if this was how it happened: was it possible that the mere fact of using one’s hands and investing one’s attention in someone other than oneself, created a pride and tenderness that had nothing whatever to do with the response of the object of one’s care – just as a craftsman’s love for his handiwork is in no way diminished by the fact of it being unreciprocated? - from Sea of Poppies, page 300 -

It was moments like these in the story which elevated it above the typical historical novel.

Some readers have found the ending of Sea of Poppies to be abrupt and unresolved. I would agree. However, this book is the first in a planned trilogy which may explain the ending. At any rate, Sea of Poppies completely enthralled me and I am looking forward to the next two books.

Readers who love world and historical literature, and who enjoy richly textured sagas will love Sea of Poppies.

Highly recommended.

Read more about the book and planned trilogy.

Read more about Amitav Ghosh and his work at the author’s website.

Read an interview with the author.

Even if I had the key to Pa’s request, I had no idea how to tackle a murder investigation. All I could do was to remain vigilant - an early morning sparrow, picking up tidbits of information, hungrily following any leads that presented themselves. - from The Scent of Oranges, page 81 -

When a young woman named Linda returns to South Africa for the funeral of her father, she is drawn back in time to her childhood growing up on their farm amid the orange groves. Although it was she who discovered her murdered brother’s body, she has no recollection of the crime. But when she is given a letter from her father asking her to re-investigate the details of the murder, Linda finds herself once again embroiled in the mystery of her brother’s death which includes dark, family secrets.

Joan Zawatzky’s novel The Scent of Oranges is part mystery, part historical fiction. Zawatzky paints an unflattering picture of post-apartheid South Africa - a country of poverty, violence and inadequate medical care where TB and AIDS take their toll. Despite this bleak portrayal, Zawatzky also reveals the beauty of the countryside where belief in ancestral spirits are interwoven with ghosts of the past.

Rain had brought flowers, leafy tendrils and a mass of weeds to the brittle veld. I picked wet jacaranda blossoms, popping them as I once had and sniffing their faint perfume on my fingers Blue borage was flowering and I followed its trails as it crept along hedges, over trunks and boulders. - from The Scent of Oranges, page 211 -

I was back in the orange groves on a crisp golden morning when I saw them for the first time. Beneath the trees, I noticed a ripple in the leaves hugging the ground. Was it a mouse or small animal? I lay in a furrow holding my breath. I had dug welts into my thighs by the time I saw them, three shimmering creatures darting between the trees and only as tall as one of Pa’s beer bottles. Their pointed brown faces were too small and their features far too fine to discern details. I watched fascinated until a breeze swept them away. - from The Scent of Oranges, page 186 -

The book is narrated through Linda’s point of view and its strengths are the descriptions of South Africa and its people. I did not find the mystery itself that compelling - perhaps because the pace of the story is slow and early in the book Linda is often met with silence to her inquiries about the murder. Zawatzky takes a long time to build tension and resolve the conflicts which are introduced between the characters. This meandering pace is frustrating at times. I also found the dialogue to be the weakest element of the novel - stilted and unconvincing, all the characters began to sound the same to me after awhile. Because of this, I found myself feeling distanced from the characters as though I was observing their story, but not part of it.

Despite these flaws, Zawatzky does an adequate job in revealing the cultural divide between the native people and the western, often affluent population of South Africa. The magical elements of the book - visits from spirits and the belief in voodoo - were well written and compelling.

The Scent of Oranges is not a dynamic read, but readers who wish to learn more about the culture of post-Apartheid South Africa will find this novel enlightening.

Although Janine understood almost none of the language, the expressions and gestures of the people at the table were so familiar that she felt she’d already heard this entire conversation and understood it perfectly, sitting among her aunts and uncles in her grandmother’s house many nights near the San Francisco Bay. - from The Islands of Divine Music, page 190 -

John Addiego’s debut novel - The Islands of Divine Music - is a multi-generational novel in short stories about the Verbicaro family. The book spans more than 100 years and is told from the multiple viewpoints of five generations of Italian-Americans, beginning with the voice of matriarch Rosari  as she leaves Southern Italy bound for the United States. Although each individual must move through their life with their own problems, challenges, and unique perspectives…they are all bound together by family and the divine. A member of my book group referred to them as “islands within the chain of an archipelago” which seems to describe the structure of this novel well.

The Islands of Divine Music is not an easy book to read and understand. Addiego uses magical realism to bring forth his themes of isolation, faith and love of family. All the characters are seriously flawed - some becoming embroiled in the mafia, others turning towards prostitution, and some slipping into the stranglehold of drug addiction. They fight demons such as social alienation, violence, and infidelity. All of this occurs against the backdrop of 20th century American history: Immigration, Prohibition, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, and Civil Rights. It is a large platter of rich subject matter - and at times it seems almost too weighty for a novel of just under 250 pages.

Addiego is a skillful writer and there were some passages that were so beautifully written I began marking them:

Eleonora stood on deck with her head uncovered, her face radiant, and the sky fell as white jewels onto her black hair. She lifted Rosari’s hand, and they dance slowly through the snow, a substance Rosari had never seen before, a phenomenon which seemed to her then the flight of a million angels come to guide her mother and herself to a new life. - from The Islands of Divine Music, page 14 -

Through the glass their eyes met, and Penny’s heart jumped, and as the pneumatic door snapped shut and the car lurched forward she mouthed his name, and he nodded. Both of them opened their mouths and pointed as the train swiftly drew them apart, the one who had stood on the Golden Gate Bridge an hour earlier and decided against death by the direction of a bird’s flight and the other who’d returned in thought to that hidden mesa at the end of the world where a mother and child huddled under a blue poncho and waited for the shadow of death to pass over. - from The Islands of Divine Music, page 129 -

Despite these exquisite passages, the novel also was quite graphic in its descriptions of violence - especially one scene which describes the sexual assault of one of the female characters. There were moments in the book where I felt Addiego could have been less graphic and still made his points.

One of the flaws of the novel was the vast numbers of characters which flow in and out of the narrative. Luckily for the reader, Addiego provides a genealogical chart at the beginning which I found myself referring to many times just to keep everyone straight. This novel often felt like a collection of short stories (and indeed, many of the chapters were previously published as short stories). I found myself frustrated at times that just as I was starting to get to know one character, I was introduced to another. The second half of the book felt better connected to me than the first part.

I have a negative bias toward novels entrenched in magical realism, so it is to Addiego’s credit that I found myself slipping into the world of the Verbicaro family and wanting to know more about them.  The language of this novel is raw and occasionally graphic; often the characters are gritty and unlikable. Although I think Addiego is a talented writer, the book was not really my cup of tea. But for readers who love magical realism and who like a novel which is unique, The Islands of Divine Music might be just what you are looking for…

The cover art on this book is wonderful. The artist is Paul Zwolak and you can find more of his amazing work here and here.

Otherwise by Farley Mowat

Pages: 309
First Published: Oct. 28, 2008
Genre: non-fiction, memoir, autobiography
Rating: 3.5/5

First sentence:

Born in Mid-May 1921 — lilac time in the small town of Trenton on the northern shore of Lake Ontario’s Bay of Quinte — I spent my early years messing about in swamps, woods, and farmyards; falling in and out of boats; and surviving in various decrepit houses while establishing fundamental relationships with such disparate beings as snapping turtles, portly spiders, rapier-billed herons, honeybees, a bear who visited me in dreams, Charlie Haultain’s silver foxes, crayfish and eels, water snakes along the Murray Canal, a passel of mongrel dogs, and Beatrix — an enormous earthworm who lived through an entire winter in a tin can by my bedside.

Comments: Otherwise is Farley Mowat’s memoirs of his life between the years 1937 and 1948. The opening pages quickly get us to his teen year’s and his last year of living in Saskatchewan where he became a friend for life of the Others (the wildlife). Farley’s family moves frequently but he always manages to find local wildlife whether they be living in small rooms or on a boat. Farley, along with his pals, volunteer and join the service where he was to spend the days of World War II fighting mostly in Italy. Finally after the War he comes home, marries, but is unable to settle down to ‘post-war’ life and he goes on ventures for the scientific community back to Saskatchewan and finally up to the northernmost parts of Canada where he spends time with the in-land Inuit.

The time frame this book covers parts of his life that are written in more detail in such books as And No Birds Sang and The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be. While those books are about certain experiences in his life, this book is about him directly and the defining years of his life, the years that made him the man that he came be. Beautifully written, compelling reading, humorous and touching at times Mowat knows how to write and fans of the author will not be disappointed with his latest foray. While not exactly a page-turner, it is the type of book that is hard to put down and I often picked it up to read over my current fiction book before turning the lights out at night. An all-round enjoyable read with fascinating information about Saskatchewan wild-life, scientific procedures of the thirties and forties, Canadian army life and the Inuit. This would also be the perfect book to read for those who have never had the pleasure of reading Farley Mowat.

Here’s the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice by Maureen McCormick

Pages: 274
First Published: Oct. 14, 2008
Genre: autobiography/memoir, non-fiction
Rating: 3.5/5

First sentence:

This story begins in the fall of 2006 in Los Angeles.

Comments: In the prologue, Maureen McCormick starts with when she came out of the woodwork to appear in the reality show Celebrity Fit Club. Then she begins a chronological story of her life as a child appearing in many commercials, especially for Mattel, on to the Brady Bunch years, her unsuccessful attempts to achieve acting status beyond Marcia Brady, her eventual success on Broadway and her life now. She gets into the nitty-gritty describing her early introduction to drugs and sex, her eventual addiction to cocaine throughout the seventies and eighties and then her life current life as a born-again Christian. She talks of her struggles with her dysfunctional family and her love for her mentally challenged brother. Maureen names names but keeps a respectful tone by concentrating on her own troubles and not dwelling on others. In once instance she uses a pseudonym for a famous person she was involved with in the drug/sex scene.

I found Maureen’s tone and narrative extremely readable. Her story of her childhood is written with a child-like wonderment as she entered the life of show business and became a cultural icon. Her voice becomes more mature as she herself matures and she presents herself as someone who can take the blame for her own actions. Not often do I find biographies page-turners. I love entertainment memoirs but non-fiction doesn’t often grip me to that extent. But this book was one I couldn’t put down, I kept picking it up in favour over the fiction book I was co-currently reading. While the book only partially concerns the Brady years, (which I wish there was more of) any fan of the show is bound to enjoy this look at the behind the scenes aspects, to find out what the real Marcia Brady was like, and whatever happened to her.

The Runaway Dolls by Ann M. Martin & Laura Godwin*
Illustrated by Brian Selznick
The Doll People, Book 3

Pages: 323
First Published: Oct. 7, 2008
Genre: children, fantasy
Rating: 4.5/5

First sentence:

Annabelle Doll didn’t see the mysterious package when it was delivered.

Comments: The Palmer’s are on a two week vacation and the dolls have the run of the house. Just before they left a parcel arrived and was thrown on the couch. Annabelle and Tiffany examine it only to find that it is Annabelle’s long lost little sister. However, the adults believe no such thing so Annabelle decides to let her sister out and runaway to protect her from disappearing again and, of course, Tiffany comes along. Little do the girls know that their brothers have been spying on them and follow them. Thus begins a wild adventure for the dolls as they get lost in the woods, hitch a ride on a wagon, end up downtown and eventually in the toy department of a large department store.

This is the most exciting of the three books. The dolls find themselves in one spot of trouble after another and the characters are just adorable. This book is so much fun to read. Again, the illustrations are half of the enjoyment of the book. Selznick’s illustrations are gorgeous and this book starts with a several page long illustrative wordless narrative similar to parts of The Invention of Hugo Cabret. I highly recommend this series to young girls (and their mothers!).

Lynn Austin
428 pages

The circumstances of life have dealt a tough blow to the Carlson sisters. First, their beloved mother dies. Next, their father dies under circumstances that ruin life for them in their Swedish village. Their uncle and his family come to live with them but rather than helping the situation it only creates new problems as their brother Nils, unable to get along with their uncle, abandons both the family farm and his sisters. The girls want to hold on to their only home but oldest sister Elin carries a dark secret. She decides that the only thing she can do to escape the stigma they carry in the village is to escape to America. So she writes to her mother’s favorite brother who lives in Chicago and asks him the help arrange for their passage. He obliges but once the sisters arrive in America they find that their new beginning is filled with hard work and deprivation. All the girls want is to feel loved and to have a home of their own but they have many miles to go and many lessons to learn before they will find one.

One of the things that makes Lynn Austin one of my favorite authors is her ability to write characters whose lives mirror real life no matter what time period she is writing from. This book takes place in the late 1800’s but you still find flawed characters dealing with issues that still plague us. Hunger, poverty, neglect, poor choices, etc.

She also has the ability to present the message of Christ without making it feel forced. It flows with the circumstances in the lives of the characters and like it would in real life. The characters in this story are not happy-go-lucky. They are angry with God for their circumstances and His apparent lack of care for their pain and we are present as they work their way through their grief.

My one complaint would be that I felt like the dialogue was strained in a few places. I still enjoyed this one a lot though and I would recommend it to readers of Christian Fiction and Historical Fiction. (4/5)

Loucinda McGary

319 pages

Donovan O’Shea has lived in America since he was seventeen years old. It seems that whenever he gets near the fens(which, from my reading, I gather is a marshy-type area) his gift of “the sight” is triggered. Donovan is afraid of his gift and tries to stay as far from the fens as possible. When his father Dermot has a stroke, however, he must head back to Ireland to help his sister make decisions and take care of Dermot’s interests.

Rylie Powell has grown up in America with her mother and a man that she has always known was not her biological father. When her mother dies, Rylie’s stepfather gives her a share of the insurance money and as much information as he has to help her find her father. A private investigator tells her that her father is Dermot O’Shea.

Rylie and Donovan’s paths intersect in County Armagh, Ireland in  a maze of mystery, attraction, and family secrets.

When I first read about The Wild Sight,  I was interested in reading it because of the paranormal aspect of Donovan’s gift. I was a bit hesitant because of the romance and forbidden love aspect because I am not into the more graphic love scenes. They do exist but I didn’t find there to be an overabundance of them(meaning that I didn’t have to skip huge chunks of the book) and the rest of the story was well-worth reading. The paranormal was different than some of the others I have read and the mystery was not easily solvable. All in all it was was engaging and a fun diversion from reality for me.

I would recommend this to any fan of romance/forbidden love-type stories as well as readers who enjoy a paranormal element and solving mysteries. (3/5)

‘Tis The Season! by Lorna Landvik
Contemporary Fiction - Epistolary
2008 Ballantine Books
Finished on 11/2/08
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Product Description

Bestselling author Lorna Landvik shines in this delightful holiday novel of redemption and forgiveness.

Heiress Caroline Dixon has managed to alienate nearly everyone with her alcohol-fueled antics, which have also provided near-constant fodder for the poison-pen tabloids and their gossip-hungry readers. But like so many girls-behaving-badly, the twenty-six-year-old socialite gets her comeuppance, followed by a newfound attempt to live a saner existence, or at least one more firmly rooted in the real world.

As Caro tentatively begins atoning for past misdeeds, she reaches out to two wonderful people who years ago brought meaning to her life: her former nanny, Astrid Brevald, now living in Norway and Arizona dude ranch owner, Cyril Dale. While Astrid fondly remembers Caro as a special, sweet little girl left in her charge, Cyril recalls how he and his late wife were quite taken with the quick-witted teenager Caro had become when she spent a difficult period in her life at the ranch as her father was dying.

In a series of e-mail exchanges, Caro reveals the depth of her pain and the lengths she went to hide it. In turn, Astrid and Cyril share their own stories of challenging times and offer the unconditional support this young woman has never known. The correspondence leads to the promise of a reunion, just in time for Christmas. But the holiday brings unexpected revelations that change the way everyone sees themselves and one another.

At once heartfelt and witty, ’Tis the Season! bears good tidings of great joy about the human condition–that down and out doesn’t mean over and done, that the things we need most are closer than we know, and that the true measure of one’s worth rests in the boundless depths of the soul.

I don’t usually read “holiday” books, but a couple of weeks ago, as I was helping set one of the Christmas tables at work, I spied the new Lorna Landvik book. The colorful cover caught my eye, so I flipped it open and discovered it’s an epistolary. What perfect timing!! I had just set my new end cap and knew this would be the perfect eye-catching book to sit in the #1 position on the display. Of course, I really like to have read all the books I recommend, so I got a copy and brought it home to read as soon as I finished my current book.

What a treat!! I could have easily read it in an afternoon, but as life seems to go around here, I wound up reading it over the course of two days.

It’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed one of Landvik’s books (gave up on The Tall Pine Polka and haven’t felt compelled to read The View from Mount Joy), but this is a winner! As with most epistolaries, the exchange of correspondences between multiple characters takes a bit of time settling into who’s who. But once the characters were established, I quickly devoured the book. And, just in case you’re not a fan of Christmas-type books, this spans five months prior to Christmas. I’m tempted to say it really isn’t a holiday book at all. Just happens to conclude in December.

This is definitely a quick read, but it’s also one of those feel-good books that we can all benefit from during this hectic and stressful time of year.

If I haven’t been able to convince you, check out Lesa’s review for more details. ‘Tis the Season! won’t wind up on my Top Ten for 2008, but I’m so glad I took the time to read it. Perfect brain candy after a couple of very long months!

“We turn now to the issue of what constitutes an appropriate punishment for your various infractions,” said the judge in the middle, the gray-haired one whose name Jaywalker always had trouble remembering. [First Sentence]

The Tenth Case by Joseph Teller
Mira, 2008 (ARE)
Crime Fiction; 388 pgs

From the Publisher:

Criminal defense attorney Harrison J. Walker, better known as Jaywalker, has just been suspended for using “creative” tactics and receiving “gratitude” in the courtroom stairwell from a client charged with prostitution. Convincing the judge that his other clients are counting on him, Jaywalker is allowed to complete ten cases. But it’s the last case that truly tests his abilities—and his acquittal record. Samara Moss—young, petite and sexy as hell—stabbed her husband in the heart. Or so everyone believes. Having married the elderly billionaire when she was an eighteen-year-old former prostitute, Samara appears to be the clichéd gold digger. But Jaywalker knows all too well that appearances can be deceiving. Who else could have killed the billionaire? Has Samara been framed? Or is Jaywalker just driven by his need to win his clients’ cases—and this particular client’s undying gratitude?

Joseph Teller’s novel, The Tenth Case, was true to life, notably with regards to the little nuances of the preparation for and the actual trial process. In one respect, it was a refreshing change from many legal thrillers I have read in the past in that, despite Jaywalker’s blurring of convention, the author did not turn the story into a run for your life, action packed thrill ride with gun or fist fights. Just the same, the novel was plenty suspenseful as Jaywalker struggles to defend a woman whose innocence even he questions as the trial unfolds. There were a couple of slow spots in which I worried that the author had gone into too much detail. However, I also realize that my familiarity with the court process might have contributed to that feeling. Even then, the book would pick up again right away and not once did I lose interest in the story line or the characters.

Defense attorney Jaywalker is a bit of a maverick, not afraid of making his own rules as he goes along. It has obviously landed him in trouble, resulting in his three year suspension from practicing law. He has a conscience and a sense of fair play, however, that balances out the “bad boy” image. He’s easy to like and no doubt a good person to have on your side in a pinch. Samara Moss straddles that line as well. I never completely warmed up to her character, but it was easy to see how the past impacted the decisions she would make throughout her life.

Jaywalker is one of those complex characters that has many layers, some of which were peeled back enough to tempt the reader to want to learn more about him. I look forward to reading more by Joseph Teller and seeing what trouble Jaywalker can get out of next time.

Rating: (Good)

North to Alaska the land rises gently from the Arctic Ocean and an ice pack that extends over the pole and beyond. South of Patagonia, it plunges into the Drake Passage at Cape Horn. Six hundred miles away is Antarctica. Start at one of these ends of the earth - if only in your mind - and aim for the other along a ten thousand mile line of mountains. You’ll meet in your travels along the ridge all kinds of landscapes, all kinds of animals. You’ll learn the temperaments of all kinds of weather. You’ll meet people so different - and so much alike. Visit the high places, and the rest of the world will be less of a mystery. -From Alpine Americas-

Olaf and Gitta Soot spent 40 years collecting photos of mountains, villages and the people and animals who inhabited them. Their adventures led them to the Western ranges of the Americas and an idea began to formulate - to create a book which celebrated the long and beautiful line of mountain ranges which run from the north to the south poles. They collaborated with Don Mellor (who they had worked with previously when they published Adirondacks Alive, a photo-essay collection of the Adirondacks of New York State) to piece together the jaw-dropping and beautifully written Alpine Americas.

Alpine Americas is a gorgeous “coffee table book” which examines the 10,000 miles of peaks from the Arctic to Patagonia. It is organized by chapters which look at each mountain grouping - beginning with the far North mountains of the Brooks Range along the Northern rim of Alaska, and ending with the ragged Patagonian ranges and fjords. Each chapter describes the unique weather, people and animals of the region and is filled with breathtaking photographs. It is a feast for the eyes.

Those who love the isolation and beauty of the mountains, and specifically those who climb them, will find themselves enthralled by Mellor’s captivating prose and amazed at how the lens of Soot’s camera has captured the majesty of the west’s highest places.

For the real threads that hold this wondrous earth together are those of her own design - the currents of the sea, the jet stream, the great rivers. The real threads are the physical realities that we cannot change but to which we can adjust. And must.  The real threads include the squiggly line of mountain peaks that defines the edge of two continents and in so many ways, defines those who explore. -From Alpine Americas-

Alpine Americas is recommended for arm-chair explorers, as well as those who have actually been there. My thanks to Lisa Roe, online publicist, who sent me this gorgeous book.

221 pages

A couple of years ago(before I had a blog) I read Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich. While I learned a lot from that book and I enjoyed Ehrenreich’s sense of humor quite a bit, I was left feeling sad and a little irritated at the premise that the American Dream is dead.

Apparently, I am not the only one who felt this way because Scratch Beginnings is in Adam Shepard’s own words:

Socioeconomically speaking, my story is a rebuttal to Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch, the books that speak to the death of the American Dream. With investigative projects of her own, Ehrenreich attempted to establish that working stiffs are doomed to live in the same disgraceful conditions forever. I resent that theory, and my story is a search to evaluate if hard work and discipline provide any payoff whatsoever or if they are, as Eherenreich suggests, futile pursuits.

- Scratch Beginnings pg XV, Introduction

Adam Shepard’s story begins after he has graduated college. He is frustrated by what he sees around him: lack of initiative, whining, entitlement mentality, and reminiscing about the “good ole days”. So he decides to do a test. Armed with only $25, an 8?X10? tarp, an empty gym bag and the clothes he is wearing he travels to a random city(name drawn from a hat) by train. He is not allowed to use his college education or personal contacts to advance himself in any way and he a goal for himself. Within a year, he must move from homelessness into a productive member of society as defined by: having an operable vehicle, a furnished apartment, $2500 in cash and be in a position to continue improving his position either by going to college or starting his own business.

There are a lot of things to be learned both from Ehrenreich’s book and Scratch Beginnings. For someone like me who grew up in a stable, suburban home, both Nickel and Dimed and The Invisible Poor by David K. Shipler can go a long way toward educating us about the difficulties that are out there. The playing field is definitely not level: that is to say that not everyone starts out with the same advantages. But Scratch Beginnings reminds us that no matter where you start out, there comes a time when you must accept responsibility for your own life. As stated by Leo, one of the guys that Adam meets during his 70 day stay in the homeless shelter:

Some of the people in the lower class start out behind. We all have the same freedoms, true, but those of us born into poverty don’t necessarily have the guidance.

But I’ll tell you this. There comes a time for everybody that it’s time to grow up. I mean, look at me. I came from a broken home. Mama’s got six kids. No daddy. Maybe the lights will turn on today; maybe not. Eatin’ mayonnaise and pickle sandwiches. I started out less fortunate than most people, and I lived my life accordingly. Streets, drugs, violence…all that. But then I turned twenty and realized that it was time to shape up or dead just like everybody else I knew.

- Scratch Beginnings, pgs 102-103

I highly recommend reading Nickel and Dimed and The Invisible Poor to compliment this book. They offer more information on the adversities but they are less hopeful.

For that reason, I loved Scratch Beginnings. I think it presents a balanced perspective between understanding the lives of those less fortunate than ourselves and the adversities that must be overcome, understanding personal responsibility and holding out hope that hard work and perseverance are not vain pursuits. (5/5)

422 pages

There is a reason that Michael Connelly has become one of my favorite authors after having only read three of his novels. He writes fast-paced crime novels that draw you in and hold your attention all the way through.

In The Brass Verdict, Micky Haller is thrust back into law practice literally overnight after his recovery from being shot, becoming addicted to pain-killers and going through rehab. It seems a colleague named Jerry Vincent has been murdered and he has named Micky as the attorney who will take over in the event that Jerry is unable to carry on.

Micky inherits thirty-one cases, one which is very high-profile and involves a Hollywood producer and the murder of his wife and her lover. It is this case that consumes his attention and sets the pace for the The Brass Verdict.

This was my first Connelly novel that included Harry Bosch. Previously I have read The Poet and Blood Work. I do recognize the character of Jack McEvoy, a reporter from The Poet as he makes an appearance in The Brass Verdict.

I feel like I am missing part of the story on Harry and Micky from previous books but since this was a review copy sent to me by Miriam from Hachette Books, I didn’t want to take time to catch up on Harry’s history. I look forward to reading the Bosch books at some point.

This was a twisty and entertaining criminal case story. I enjoyed it and recommend it to mystery lovers and Connelly fans alike. (4/5)

When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson , 348 pages

Jackson Brodie, previous detective from Case Histories and One Good Turn, is back for Kate Atkinson’s newest novel. The title hints at the bad news following some characters that permeates this page turner. There are some desperately sad people in this book, and as several stories overlap and intersect they prove Jackson’s line near the end of the book,  ’A coincidence is just an explanation waiting to happen.’

This story is more straight forward than One Good Turn. Atkinson takes some time to weave several characters and stories together, and then the twists started that had me rapidly turning the pages to see how it would end. Great characters and plot twists and humor and suspense.

Reggie Chase, sixteen but looks younger, is a nanny for Dr Joanne Hunter’s baby. Reggie spends her time avoiding her no good brother, trying to get her high school degree, and being followed by bad luck. I wanted to hug her and cheer her on the whole time.
Dr Hunter’s husband is having some business cash flow issues and then Dr Hunter herself goes missing.
Joanne Mason was six years old when her family was butchered by a serial killer, only she and her novelist father survived. The killer, Andrew Decker, is about to be released from prison after thirty years in jail.
Louise Monroe, Detective Chief Inspector in Scotland, has moved on from her attraction to Jackson in the last book, but hasn’t stopped thinking about him (who could?) She is still a strong protector of women and the baddest ass cop around.
Jackson Brodie, he used to be a policeman. He always has to look for a missing woman; he can’t turn that mystery down.

Once a train wreck is added to this assortment of characters, lives get intertwined and some blood is shed. I liked how so many nursery rhymes were woven into the writing, and pop references are flying everywhere. I’m sure I missed a lot, not being a British native, but I was able to identify many. The ending was a little vague but as hopeful as could be expected for these sad, sad people. Louise and Jackson are terrific characters, full of angst and both are the typical lone-wolf cop with commitment issues. Hopefully, they will be back to another book.

Everybody lies. Cops lie. Lawyers lie. Clients lie. Even jurors lie. There is a school of belief in criminal law that every trial is won or lost in the choosing of the jury. I’ve never been ready to go all the way to that level but I do know that there is probably no phase in a murder trial more important than the selection of the twelve citizens who will decide your client’s fate. -From The Brass Verdict, page 239-

Defense attorney Mickey Haller unexpectedly gets thrust back into the legal arena (after a year recovering from prescription drug addiction) when his colleague Jerry Vincent is found murdered in a parking garage. Vincent’s entire caseload - including accused double murderer Walter Elliot (a famous movie studio executive) - is transferred to Haller in Vincent’s will. Haller eagerly steps into Vincent’s shoes, but quickly discovers that nothing is as it seems…and Vincent’s killer may be one of his own clients. Detective Harry Bosch is the lead investigator on the case and is himself somewhat of an enigma. Before the novel comes to a close, both Bosch and Haller will need to cooperate from both sides of the law in order to catch the killer.

Michael Connelly’s novel is fast-paced and gripping, with twist and turns that will keep the reader guessing until the end. This book is a continuation of Connelly’s previous novels (which I have yet to read). But it is not necessary to have read Connelly’s work beforehand in order to enjoy The Brass Verdict.

Connelly has a firm grasp of the legal system and creates memorable (and believeable) characters who are not always predictable. His dialogue is tight and compelling.

For readers who love suspenseful legal thrillers, The Brass Verdict is one they will enjoy. This was my first Connelly novel, but I would not hesitate to pick up another of his books.  The Brass Verdict was released October 14th through Little, Brown and Company. Connelly’s previous novels include The Lincoln Lawyer, Chasing the Dime, Void Moon, Blood Work, and The Poet. For more information about the author, visit his website.

Recommended.

Mike got up off the floor and sat on the sofa while he loosened his tie and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, as if increasing the blog flow to the brain might help solve his problem. And it was then that the word containment entered his mind. And with that word, moral, ethical, and political choices were made, though Mike would realize the implications of these only later, when it occurred to him that he might have chosen at that moment another word, such as revelation, say, or help. -From Testimony, page 12-

Anita Shreve’s newest novel Testimony (due for release by Little, Brown and Company on October 21st) is a riveting story. The book is set in Vermont at a small, private school and told from multiple view points. Mike Bordwin, the headmaster of Avery Academy, is shocked when he views a tape which shows a 14 year old girl at the school engaging in a drunken orgy with three male students - all of whom are 18 years old or older. He recognizes the young men as stars of the school basketball team and is faced with a dilemma. Should he keep the “problem” contained to the school disciplinary committee, or is this a criminal act that should involve law enforcement?

As the novel unfolds, the reader discovers each character’s unique perspective of the event and the consequences of their behaviors. There is no one who is left unscathed as each character “tells” their side of the story, including the parents and children directly involved and those seemingly minor characters such as the guy who sells alcohol to minors and the cafeteria lady at the school.

Taut, gripping and impossible to put down, Shreve’s novel explores the devastating aftermath of this one event. Nothing is as it seems and each character’s decisions will have an impact impossible to predict. Thematically the novel explores the tenuous relationships between parent and child, and looks at how expectations can be shattered in the course of a night. This is a book which I predict will make the book club circuit and become a favorite to discuss.

I recommend this provocative novel to those readers who are not offended by graphic sexual scenes and difficult subject matter.

(Release date: October 21, 2008)

It’s the last summer before college for 18 year-old Kim Larsen. She and her friends spend their time at the lake and working at their various summer jobs. Being from a small town in Ohio makes them all ready to get on with the big adventure into adulthood but at the same time they are whiling away the last bits of the summer with the freedom of teens.

Everything changes when Kim disappears on her way to work one day and Songs for the Missing is a chronicle of the thoughts and emotions of those who know and love her.

I didn’t have any trouble getting hooked during the first part of this book. I enjoyed learning about Kim, her friends and family and her town quite a bit. Somewhere in the middle though, the story lagged for me and I had to convince myself to pick it up again. I think this is due, in part, to some outside influences in my life and also because this is not a cheerful story. One thing I am sure of is that it had nothing to do with the author’s writing.  The author did a fine job of making the reader experience pain of the characters from their differing perspectives. Though the subject was a sad one and I struggled to get back to this book, I ended up liking it quite a bit. I’m glad I stuck it out to the end. (3.5/5)