When I finished this book, I just sat back and said "Wow." That pretty much sums up the entire novel. What an amazingly beautiful and sad love story, not only between Isabelle and Robert, but also the friendship between Dorrie and Isabelle. This is definitely a book I will be recommending!
The most recent in the October Daye series, Ashes of Honor was incredibly difficult to put down. Like all of the books in the series, McGuire keeps the action going with a mixture of faerie mythology and mystery with Shakespeare references thrown in. A great read for fans of urban fantasy with an awesome heroine. I also loved that the author includes a pronunciation guide at the beginning of each book.
This book offers a interesting look into the terrifying world that young Americans encountered during WWII warfare. The story is told from a 18 year old small-town Iowa farm boy who is sent to combat in France. Fear quickly consumes George's world as he reacts to the unimaginable devastation around him. I immediately became intrigued with George's situation making it hard to put this novel down. The book is a short but powerful read, and there is much to be said about its honest look at the harrowing realities that people, turned soldiers, experience during wartime.
This book is amazing! It is about these kids that are magically transported into another realm, a place called Lyrian, which is ruled by the evil wizard emperor, Maldor. They find themselves way in over their heads as Jason and Rachel go on a quest to defeat the tyrant and find a way to get back home.
This book had everything a good fantasy needs - magic books, time travel, and orphans - and has a crazy magician thrown in for good measure.
When Kate finds a magical book that allows you to travel through time with the help of a photograph, she and her younger siblings find themselves being abducted by an evil witch more than 30 years earlier. If you like Harry Potter, you'll love this book!
After reading the classic Sherlock Holmes stories, Laurie R. King wondered what would a woman with a mind like Sherlock Holmes be like? Then she wondered what would happen if they met each other? And so the Mary Russell series of mysteries was born.... The story begins with Holmes retired from London and keeping bees in the country. Russell is walking across the fields with her face in a book, preparing for her university entrance exams. She very nearly steps on him. This is a wonderful book for anyone who enjoyed the original stories, but would like to consider how Holmes would function during the years before, during, and after World War I.
First in the Mary Russell series. Mystery--Historical Mystery--Psychological Suspense.
Timely in publication date if not when I read it, Taft explores politics and the state of America as seen through the eyes of a freshly woken William Howard Taft. The alternate reality aspects of the story are glossed over, which I was disappointed by, and the author seems to have a personal vendetta against processed foods, which seemed shoehorned into a story where it didn't belong, but overall, I don't want the time it took me to read this story back, which is fairly high praise.
Great book , I love all the references to the 1980 and 1990.
This is my all time favorite book. To quote the book. plots with in plots. Every time I read it (6 times) I find more and more subtly plot lines.
I wanted to like this book. Rowling is a good writer and there are some interesting plot lines. However, there were too many stories, with no central story or character to root the reader. I also found myself either not liking or being apathetic toward most of the characters. The common factor to all the characters and plot threads is the shared geographical location; it doesn't seem to be enough to pull it all together. It felt like a slice-of-life account rather than a novel. The Casual Vacancy would be a good read for a book group--perhaps discussion with more enlightened readers would help make sense of it.
This epistolary novel is a quick read. At the beginning of 1946 a young newspaper columnist named Juliet receives a letter from a member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. She soon finds herself on the Channel Island of Guernsey meeting the members in person to learn about their island and find out the impact the recent German occupation has had on each of their lives.
Stephanie is at it again – blowing up cars, breaking and entering, being pursued by a lunatic, landing in a grave, and being rescued by Ranger among other things. She and Lula, once again, are searching for someone who has mysteriously disappeared, while at the same time are dealing with some of the nut-jobs from the Trenton area. Steph does have a tender heart toward them though. Grandma Mazur is once again instrumental in her successful sleuthing. Stephanie is slightly less conflicted this time about Ranger and Morelli. Hmm…
It’s a fun and easy read, and some parts made me laugh out loud
LOVING FRANK is the dramatic story of architect Frank Lloyd Wright's affair with a married woman in the early 1900s. Based on real facts, the novel explores their love and motivations. The ending is jolting and unexpected...gripping, but true.
Maine towns are always a quaint setting for an adventurous tale and this book delivers. The remodeling situations that arise are hilarious and the book has useful "tool time" like hints sprinkled in at the beginning of most of the chapters. I found myself really looking forward to reading the next hint. There are quirky characters that you get to know, care about, and even want to emulate. The plot moves forward at a steady pace but sometimes for me mysteries throw in too many details and drag on just a little too long.
A very gripping Star Wars Novel that provides insight and historical background into the origins of the Sith. Written in a suspenseful manner, this is the first of a 3 book series that is one of my favorites in the Star Wars universe.
This is my daughter's new favorite! Two cute pups, a pesky squirrel, and a funny sweet reuinion. We've read it many times and still love it!
Incredibly entertaining book, with quintessentially British humor - convoluted, mocking and a bit dark. Though Jasper Fforde’s other books are enjoyable (the Thursday Next and Nursery Crime series, for example), I found this one more coherent and the concepts more intriguing.
Read it to discover why spoons are a highly prized personal possession; why “chasing the green” is discouraged; whether the “Something That Happened” is ever explained; and why Eddie, the protagonist, is sent to do a chair census in a town on the edges of civilization.
At the crossroads of book lovers, code-cracking, and the digital future of data (and the power of the Google empire), you'll find Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. Set in San Francisco, this story follows a book store clerk and his Googler love-interest as they try to solve a secret society's ancient mystery with all the tools at hand, both antique and innovative. If you consider yourself both a book nerd AND a tech nerd, you will love this book.
I did enjoy this story of a house and the people who lived in it and loved it. The book opens in present day when the current owners are trying to decide what to do with it after inheriting it from their aunt. We then go back in time to 1775 and the building of the house, and then each subsequent chapter deals with another point in the history of the house, tying together nicely at the end. The house itself is the main character in the story, and you are actually rooting for it to survive and flourish.
Of course, some of the chapters were much more interesting than others, and I had to do a bit of flipping back to remember who characters were as they occasionally would pop up several chapters apart.
All in all, I give this book a solid 4 stars. Fans of similar books such as The Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland should enjoy this.
As the third book in the Last Survivors series, I was looking forward to how to characters from the first two books would come together following their own experiences of the disaster. I found myself disappointed in this respect. While the book was engaging, it was missing the "can't put it down" quality of the other two and, after finally having the first book's main character meet the second book's main character, I was left feeling that I could have skipped the second book without really missing anything. That's not to say that the second book isn't good, it just isn't necessary to read it before reading this book.
Where this book did a good job was in tying up the loose ends from the first book. I definitely felt that the story was complete and, as such, am a little confused by the fact that there appears to be a fourth book in this series now.