Tuesday Book Review on Wednesday

Four-star review for Fortune Falls by Lou Vane

 The first book in a relatively new series begins slowly with a group of older teenagers attending a leadership camp where the instructors are not much older than they are. Friendships form quickly and the lessons prepare them for skills they don’t expect to use often like scaling mountains. Jess, one of the students, connects with Matt and Priya on the bus to the camp and thereafter they spend a lot of time together, but a triangle forms, unnecessarily for me, between Jess, Matt and one of the instructors, Ethan. Their week is over and they’re about to head home when word comes of an epidemic that’s led to quarantines. The action picks up after that with searches for ways to leave and failing that, to survive the coming winter. Of course, there are more people thrown into the mix and a few deaths along the way as the story becomes more dystopian than apocalyptic. This was a quick read and I’m still not sure what Jess’ previous personality was, but I enjoyed it enough to read more of the series. 

Tuesday Book Review

Four-star review of West With Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge

I read this for a book group I recently joined. It was an interesting story based on the actual transport of two African giraffes from the harbor in New York City to the San Diego Zoo before World War 2 and at the end of the depression period. The story is told from the viewpoint of a seventeen-year-old dust bowl survivor who drove the truck taking the giraffes cross country but written by him at the age of 105. In fact, my only real quibble is that the boy’s speech pattern doesn’t reflect his lack of education. I learned a lot about conditions in different parts of the country in the late 1930s. The characters and events of the story were all entertaining and engaging.

Tuesday Book Review on Wednesday

 

Five-star review of Still the Sun by Charlie N. Holmberg

Holmberg is one of my favorite fantasy writers and this latest novel didn’t disappoint. She’s explained that the idea for this story came to her in a dream. However she came up with the plot and world of this book, it was very unusual. I was with Pelnophe all the way through as she tried to understand the machines she was attempting to fix inside a tower a distance from Emgarden, the town where she lived. Were they artefacts of the ancients? Who were the two strange men who’d been living in the tower? There were so many mysteries that were gradually but satisfyingly resolved in this town where the shining sun alternated with an all-encompassing mist. There’s room left for a sequel I hope Holmberg will write.

Tuesday Book Review on Wednesday

 

Five-star review of Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen

On the surface this is a story about time travel, but it’s really more about the travelers. Kin Stewart travels for the Temporal Corruption Bureau (TCB) as a field agent and is stranded in the San Francisco Bay area in the 1990s after a malfunction. He’s built a life for himself, and the metabolizers that agents use to allow safe time travel cause him to forget that he’s actually from the mid-22^nd century. He marries and settles down with his wife Heather and their daughter Miranda until ‘rescuers’ come for him eighteen years too late. They return him to 2042 – and his fiancée Penny – where he’s been gone only weeks, but he can’t forget Heather and Miranda. The novel is well-written and each of the characters is developed.

Tuesday Book Review on Wednesday

 

Four-star review of A Lingering Shadow : An Arabella Stewart Historical Mystery (Arabella Stewart Historical Mysteries Book 2) by D. S. Lang

Arabella, recently returned from France where she was a telephone operator for the Signal Corps in the Great War, is working to revive business at the golf resort start by her grandfather and his partner Mac, but the murder of a guest puts her plans on hold. She and her childhood friend Jax, now the town constable, must find the murderer if the resort and their small Ohio town can survive. The tension between Arabella and Jax is the same as in the first book, since Jax is still hesitant to reveal his part in her brother’s death during the war and she’s fighting the feelings she has for him. A few characters from the first book play a smaller part in this one, and I would have liked to see more of them, but the focus is on the two of them, as it should be, and on the motivation for the murder.  

Tuesday Book Review on Wednesday

 

Four-star Review of Hoot by Carl Hiaasen

As a departure from his usual mystery novels, this YA book still retains the humor and Florida setting. Roy Eberhardt recently moved to a small town there after many years in Montana. He’s homesick and being bullied by a middle-school bully on the school bus, but he becomes fascinated by a barefoot boy who runs past the bus and doesn’t seem to go to the school. Meanwhile, a pancake conglomerate wants to build a new pancake house in an empty lot in the town, and barefoot boy has been sabotaging their plans for what turns out to be a legitimate reason. Although I’m not a member of the target group for the book, I did enjoy reading it.

Tuesday Book Review on Wednesday

 

Five-star Review of The Curious Secrets of Yesterday by Namrata Patel

Tulsi has been expected all her life to take over for her mother and grandmother as a spice healer in the Ayurveda tradition at their shop in Salem, Massachusetts, but she doesn’t think that’s the path she should take. The Gupta women also had a tradition of raising a daughter alone. The problem for Tulsi was that she didn’t know how else to live her life or what she wanted instead. But as she uncovers secrets about her mother and grandmother’s past and gets to know the owner of the new restaurant next door, her options become clearer. She also meets people from her mother and grandmother’s past in Chicago. Throughout the book, each of the characters is beautifully developed. The writing is engaging. As a bonus, it was fascinating to learn about various herbs and spices and their medicinal values.