Twenty-Eight and Half Wishes by Denise Grover Swank

★★★★☆  

Rose is a woman to love.  She is innocent and craves adventure.  She gets both when her mother is murdered.  Rose will make you giggle and be happy there are just plain ol' good people out there as she works her way through her mystery.

Written In Blood by Nathan Bush

★★★★☆   I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. 

I read the Prologue again after I read the book and realized it is a succinct summary of the book.  I will not summarize the book because I can’t possibly write a better summary than the author.  If you don’t like the Prologue, you will not like the book.  I like the Prologue and enjoyed the book very much.

I found it interesting that the name of the character speaking (Ken or Eddie) was at the top of the page in each chapter.  I became fond of the characters as they were well established.  Even some of the more minor characters felt human to me and added depth to the story.

The book gives you twists and turns and keeps you guessing.  I didn’t figure out who the killer was prior to being told and that is rare for me.  I will read more of Mr. Bush’s books.

Initiated to Kill by Sharlene Almond

★★★☆☆  I was sent a Kindle copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. 

First off, some general rambling.  I love the cover of this book.  It is intriguing and I found myself going back to the cover to look at it again and again.  I think missing the covers of books is the biggest downfall to using eReaders.  Anyway, on to the review.

The book is surrounded by a mystery of Jack the Ripper, the Freemasons and a deaf woman, Anabella.  Anabella’s roommate, Celestina, disappears after a night out of partying and becomes involved with the case due to her supreme ability to read people’s body language.  The police, the teachers at Anabella’s school, Celestina’s co-workers, Annbella’s Aunt and Uncle all bring their own interesting stories to the book.  The “feeling” of the book as I read it was dark and beautiful simultaneously.  The symbolism is throughout the novel and I was glad to read the book.

The prologue begins to describe a scene that includes the Freemasons, which is always an interesting topic for mystery.  As I read the first several pages of the book I was lost.  I didn’t know who story teller was.  It changes from a character calling for “Mummy”, to descriptions of Easter celebration in Seville.   This and the editorial issues with the book were a bit frustrating but do not despair and keep reading! 

I have added Sharlene's Journey in Little Paradise to my "To Read" shelf on Goodreads.

Back In the Saddle!

I'm going to start blogging again and to get started I reengaged my Goodreads Authors/Readers Group.  I have some great books coming up to read and review.

Initiated to Kill  by Sharlene Almond

Written in Blood (The Foley Chronicles:  Files from the 8th District Book 1) by Nathan Bush

Her Valentine Family (Claremont, Alabama, #1) by Renee Andrews - If you haven't read Cake Icing, Butt Budder & Tea Lids then you should.  It is on my Favorites shelf.

A Cold War by Alan Russel - Loved the Gideon and Sirius series starting with Burning Man

To my Sunshine

You show the light in so many ways

Your goodness, you simply say

I will help all I can

To make your life better

It is who I am

Your look of beauty; the way you see the world

Your kindness and love

It is unheard

People like you will save humanity

We have something to learn

From the young -- it is uncanny

Your view of loveliness in mankind

How I wish we all could see

Martin Luther King, Ghandi and you

See something I wish that I knew

You are so special in the way that you see

I've learned so much raising you to be who you are to be

I am proud and grateful to have you as mine 

I love you so much; you are my sunshine

To my Seester, on her birthday

The one that sticks up for me when others do not

The one that loves me when I think others cannot

The one that shows me what love can do

Oh how I wish that I knew

The one that repeats that I am worth a lot

Though I fight it with all I've got

She is the the right way, the way God has said

I should have listened way before when

My life was troubled and in need of a mend

I love my Seester more than I can say

She is the reason that I am what I am today

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

4 1/2 stars

Cheryl Strayed is a woman trying to find her way.  There are several books about other women doing the same thing for example, “Saturday Night Widows” by Becky Aickman and “A Homemade Life” by Molly Wizenberg, to name a couple.  I am glad to say that this book delighted me just as much as the two I mentioned.   Cheryl is a likeable person, with faults, insecurities and a drive to move forward.  Women do this at different times in their lives.  Divorce, death, break ups, heart break, empty nest syndrome…life changing events.

Cheryl begins a trek on a journey that she is not only not prepared for, but doesn’t know what she is really searching for.  She starts the adventure to find herself, her true self which seems to be a common mystery to women.  She keeps going though she is ill prepared and finds friendship and help along the way.  She conquers fears because she doesn’t have a choice and comes out a stronger, more fulfilled woman. 

I love her; not only for her bravery, but for writing it down so I could read it and feel that even though I cannot take on the Pacific Crest Trail, I may be able to conquer other fears and become stronger by facing myself. 



A Feast of Infinite Rot by Andrew Van Wey

4 1/2 Stars

Woohoo! Mr. Van Wey did it again! I read Forsaken and loved it so I decided to give this one a try too. I’m glad I did. This story, or stories within the story, was twisted, imaginative and entertaining.

First, I love the titles of these books. They give me a chuckle and I get excited to read the book. When I was a little girl I would watch westerns with my Dad. I still like the themes of lone characters finding their way through danger and make it through the world. This may be part of the appeal of this book for me.

The main story starts describing “a traveler”. A bit odd, since the character isn’t even given a name; makes it a bit difficult to grow attached to a character without a name, right? I felt some sort of benevolence toward the Traveler for some unknown reason. The story continues to describe the Traveler as he struggles through the elements with a horse. He is trying to cross a river bank and the efforts are taking their toll. It seemed to be a Western setting to me but something was wrong with it. Fog was mentioned but I found myself picturing fog, it being dusk and the Traveler being weary. The Traveler describes the river as “…autumn branches grasping above the torrent like fingers, desperate and dying”. Not too spooky but kind of Alfred Hitchcockish.

The Traveler comes to an Inn where he hopes for lodging and a meal and perhaps a prostitute. After washing up and being served dinner, the Traveler and the head of the Inn begin to discuss payment. In return for the lodging and the meal the traveler is to tell three stories to the people that live and run the Inn. Though the residents are a bit odd, an old woman without teeth and a sloped back, a young woman with dirty hair that hides her eyes and a simpleton that mutters and laughs to himself; the Traveler is happy to agree to the small payment. The short stories now begin.

The Hag’s Reckoning is a story of a witch in cahoots with the devil. Young boys are caught stealing vegetables from the witch’s garden and she scares the dickens out of them. To get her back the boys come up with an idea to frame her with jaw bones that they are going to dig up from the cemetery.
Another odd point, I never thought of witches having a green thumb nor have I thought that kids would willingly steal vegetables. Obviously, it is taken place in a different time since young boys are allowed out late at night and able to dig up corpses without a blink of an eye.

The Elder of Aldritch, my favorite, is about Vineyard Owner that is going bankrupt. The Elder comes upon the Traveler stealing from him but ends up employing him to rebuild the stone fence around the grapevines. The son of the vineyard owner is lazy, arrogant and doesn’t like the Traveler sleeping in the barn or being at the house. The son is spending all the money and not contributing to the vineyard.

This was my favorite because of the themes. The son’s feeling of entitlement, the Elder being kind, intelligent but incapable of influencing his child. Greed, violence and the power of money all play a role but I won’t give away the end.

The Tiberman’s Daughter is about love lost. It is a common love tragedy. Rich versus poor; the righteous versus immoral but you don’t know which characters hold which attributes.

There are conversations between the stories that the Traveler tells. The residents ask questions and the Traveler gives explanations about the stories themselves and tidbits about his life. Each short story is a part of the Traveler’s life with a bit of exaggeration to make the story better, he says. Again, I won’t say ore so I don’t give away the end which I started to figure out but was still surprised by most.

Read the book on a rainy night with a glass of wine, red wine, of course.

Love (funny romance novel) by Beth Boyd

3 stars

.

Love, ah.  The title says it all.  Do you know what is going to happen when Karen is volunteered to go to the country and watch her Grandmother’s cottage?  Of course you do.  The author’s story follows the old age flow of a love story.  We know the end, but we don’t care because we love the characters.  This story is no different.  Karen is likable and genuine with a few female insecurities mixed in.  She hangs out with a friendly and energetic Jack Russell named Humphrey when she isn’t painting and drawing.  She’s still has a crush on Adam her teenage object of desire and her greatest desire is to be independent and successful artist.  If she were real, I’d be her best friend.

The antagonist characters have the qualities that always seem to be well, anagonists.  Morgan is Adam’s editor, beautiful, petty and plain mean spirited.  Nick, the local real estate broker, is a player and has a personality that is all about him.  You will be glad to see them go.

Give it a read.  It is a quick, delightful love story.

Quotes that make me laugh

“I've never really wanted to go to Japan. Simply because I don’t like eating fish. And I know that's very popular out there in Africa.”
~Britney Spears

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
~Albert Einstein

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
~Jane Austen

“I am not young enough to know everything.”
~Oscar Wilde

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.”
~Jim Henson

“I love mankind, it is people I can’t stand.”

~Charles M. Schulz

“Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation. The other eight are unimportant”
~Henry Miller

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

4 ½ Stars

I was asked a few months back whether I’ve read this book yet.  “Nope, not yet, but I think I saw it on my Good Reads recommendation list”, I say.  So off I go to the local library site to see if they have it for Kindle and I enter my request to be added to the twenty-seven person wait list.  Well, I just finished this book.  I tend to request numerous books from the library or purchase several for my Kindle at the same time and only read a few lines of the book’s description so I don’t remember what book is about what.  I don’t want to ruin the surprise and I want to let the author layout the story for me.

I started Gone Girl and thought that Nick Dunn was a good guy that was down on his luck but had a good family foundation (I know about his Dad, but you can’t have everything).  Amy Elliott Dunn seemed like the girl next door (maybe a more put together version) that found a man that understood her.  Well done, Ms. Flynn, I bought it.  Actually, I wasn’t aware that this was a mystery/thriller so I think my method of obtaining books is successful.

Nick’s transformation from the good guy to the cheating guy took me by surprise, but it seems that people that cheat are insecure people.  Anyone agree or disagree with this?  I didn’t hate Nick for cheating but I did think he was spineless to stay in the marriage when he didn’t love his wife but needed her money.  Money is the one thing you can make more of; unlike time. 

Then Ms. Flynn hits me with the big one.  Amy is a psycho bitch.  Huh.  Well, that was unexpected.  Amy messed with Nick’s mind so much I not only felt badly for him and Desi (poor strange guy), but I was hoping that Go, Nick’s twin sister, would punch Amy in the nose. 

I felt a bit dark after I read it.  I was walking around work wondering if people around me were like Amy.  People that are sinister and without consciences that move through life manipulating others.  Of course there are, I think there are medical terms to describe them.  Amy scared me.

Saturday Night Widows

4 stars


When I first saw this book as a recommendation I thought it might be fun to read a book about a group of women that band together to move towards better times.  I was unaware that this was a non-fiction (Memoir mean anything to you?  Apparently, not to me) work and was completely surprised (I don’t know why since the word, “Widows” is in the title) how much of the book concentrated on death.  I thought I was going to be entertained by silly woman stories of how everyone lived happily ever after.  I’m so glad I completely missed the boat and read this book.  I was amused and educated by Ms. Aikman’s book.  I love underdog stories and I was rooting for all six women in this book.

This story touched me since I’ve lost a loved one in the last couple of years; I have relationship issues that scare me to death and I’ve never completely found where I belong in the world if I’m not sitting with my children.  There were several of these human issues that are addressed in the book and I found myself failing to complete other tasks so I’d have more time to read this book.

There were a few AHAs! for me while reading this book was that grieving people are not necessarily looking for help though they may be sending out those signals.  Becky Aikman puts it this way, “Human beings are programmed to help those in visible distress.  It’s an emotional symbiosis, as ingrained as attraction or a mother’s care, and it is probably one of the more admirable characteristics of the human race, even though it may not always seem that way to the person on the receiving end.”

Another AHA! was when Becky confirmed for me that it was completely normal to not feel sad on my deceased loved one’s  birthday but to come unglued on a Spring evening when we would walk the dog.   Finally, Becky finally shows that fear will hinder you receiving what truly makes you happy.  I love this conversation between Becky and Bob. 

“I was blindsided by my divorce.  It made me questions whether men and women were meant to inhabit the same planet—make that the same universe.  But one nightmare implosion shouldn’t put a person off soufflés.  I could never accept the possibility of a life without love.  It’s like food, it’s like sleep, like breathing.  People are meant to make love, and they’re meant to be in love”  “I like soufflés, but they fall”, I [Becky] countered.  “And they’re not the only source of food.  It’s okay to like soup, too.  And it’s valid to find satisfaction in a variety of friendships instead of one overarching, all-consuming romance that might blow up in my face.”

“He gave me a long appraising glance, “No offense, but soup is soufflé without the air.  There’s magic in soufflés.  Settling for soup when you want soufflé is the act of a coward.”

Well said.  So back in the saddle I go.  A bit more hopeful, a bit smarter and a bit more educated.

Dogs

I’ve mentioned in one of my Random Thoughts postings that I miss my dog terribly.  He died a year and a half ago.  I dream about him frequently and I had a funny dream recently about Dexter.  I should mention that I’ve always dreamt a great deal and I tend to remember my dreams.

So in my dream I was playing with my beloved golden retriever, Dexter, and my family came up to me to see what I was doing.  When they saw Dexter they asked me where he came from and when I explained to them that I went back in time to get Dexter when he was healthy (without arthritis and cancer) and brought him back.  My family was thrilled.  They all said, “That’s great” as  they greeted Dexter, petted, played with him while he munched on his doggie treats and wagged his tail.  They were so excited for me to have my pal back.  I took Dexter with me many places and on hot summer evenings I said, “Come on Dexter.  Let’s go outside and drink a beer.”  He’d follow and lay at my feet while I drank beer and he ate his organic apple treat.

When I was reflecting back on the dream I thought it was funny that not only was my family exceptionally happy to see Dexter, but they didn’t blink an eye when I said I traveled back in time.  There wasn’t any question that I was able to time travel and they didn’t ask why I didn’t stop horrible things from happening while I was gathering my dog.  Everyone was just happy that I had my Dexter back and I was happy.  It was a nice dream.

Dexter, as a puppy, with a bunch of children giving him love.

Quotes that make me say, “hmmm”.

 “Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.”
~Dr. Seuss

 “A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it's in hot water.”
~Eleanor Roosevelt

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
~Oscar Wilde

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”
~André Gide

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
~Mark Twain

“Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”
~Oscar Wilde

“Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it's not because they enjoy solitude. It's because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.”
~Jodi Picoult

Sick by Brett Battles

3 Stars

Blake Crouch sold me on this book.  I fell hook, line and sinker while reading his introduction.  The fear of terrible things happening to your children while you stand there helpless to save them has been my biggest fear since I became a parent.  Daniel Ash is the unfortunate parent that wakes up to the cries of his daughter.

This book has three elements that make it a good read.  First, the characters are well developed and I found myself talking to them. “Don’t do that!”  Don’t trust him!”  I wanted them to succeed and bring the bad guys down.  If I could just figure out who the bad guys were.  Second, the story didn’t repeat itself over and over as some books do.  I find that in some books the author assumes the reader cannot remember what happened two chapters previously so they summarize again and again.  Three, the characters do not know who to trust.  They cannot seem to figure out who is trying to kill them or why.

The anxiety is the main feeling I had when I was reading this book.  I must say that Dr. Karp’s demise was quite satisfying. 

Chosen by Denise Grover Swank

 

4 stars

I like to solve problems.  I do it for a living and I am known to analyze too much by my friends and family.  So it is not a surprise that I like mysteries.  I hadn’t heard of Denise Grover Swank but I found this book on Amazon’s free books and decided to give it a try. 

Emma Thompson is the single mother of Jake and there are “bad guys” attempting to hurt him.  She struggles to keep Jake safe while attempting to give him a normal childhood.  Not so easy when people are chasing and shooting at you.  The reader is not informed why people are chasing Jake, but the action is well written and draws you in. 

Will Davenport is introduced as a mercenary, a bad guy, but not associated with the bad guys chasing Jake and Emma.  The interactions between Will and Emma alert the reader to the classic romance setup between Emma and Will.  The jealousy, bickering and conflict are all there and I like them both and wanted them to just go with it.

Now the story gets a bit spooky.  Up to this point, the story gives us mystery, romance and a bit of a supernatural trend.  I don’t put the book down.  Who are the true bad guys in the book?  Jake’s behavior become mysterious as does Emma’s behavior.  At this point in the book I have a flashback of Dean Koontz’s Servants of Twilight when the reader is thrown into a similar puzzle.  Hmmm…Servants of Twilight is one of my all-time favorite books.  Could Jake Thompson and Joey Scavello be similar characters?  Hmmm….  I won’t spoil it for you.

I went on to purchase and read Hunted (The Chosen #2) and Sacrifice (The Chosen #3). 

Quotes that I love

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. ~William J.H. Boetcher

I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles. ~Christopher Reeve

Not since the days of slavery have there been so many people who feel entitled to what other people have produced as there are in the modern welfare state, whether in Western Europe or on this side of the Atlantic. ~Thomas Sowell

The homemaker has the ultimate career.  All other careers exist for one purpose only – and that is to support the ultimate career. ~C.S. Lewis

The weak can never forgive.  Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. ~Mahatma Gandhi

Men-ipulation, A memoir of Addiction and Recovery by Denise Domning and Monica Sarli

2 Stars

I’m a big fan of underdog stories.  I’m anxious when the story begins to see how downtrodden the main character is while I silently think about how grateful I am that I’m not in the same position.  I get excited when the underdog begins his upward movement towards victory.  The turning point is the POINT of an underdog story and it was lost in this book. 

Monica’s story started out well.  I felt anxious as I was trying to figure out how she and her husband were going to make it out of the hell hole they were in.  By the time Monica had recovered I realized that the turning point passed me by. 

I did like the main characters.  I wanted Monica to succeed and Steve’s parents to be proud of their son and I wanted Steve to be ok.  I wanted them to live a happy prosperous life, but at the end, I just felt blah. 

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehreneich

1 Star

I joined a new book club that is closer to my home and this was the first book.  Interesting title, I do have a degree in Sociology, hmmm.  Looked up the author – oh no.  Wikipedia says, [she] “is an American Feminist, democratic socialist, and political activist who describes herself as “a myth buster by trade”’.  “Where is your open mind?” I ask myself.  I’m a liberal conservative by my own definition.  I live conservatively but don’t feel I have the right to push my ideals on others.  Everyone says that, right?  So I decided that I was going to read the book and I was going to go to the book club and see what I was missing.  I am open to the fact I may be wrong and by living the life I do (I’m not hungry, am employed, own my own home, and have medical insurance) that I may be biased. 

I grab a glass of wine, my favorite reading blanket (doesn’t everyone own one?) and settle down to see what Ms Ehreneich can teach me.  Her writing flows and is easy to read.  She tells a good story, if it were a story.  Ms Ehreneich starts with explaining her experiment and the rules.  She is to go out to US cities and see if she can make enough money to survive based on minimum wage, more or less.  She explains that though she is doing this there are limits.  She will have a car, being homeless is not an option, etc.  Ok, I’m fine with that. 

She looks for jobs and housing and becomes a waitress and begins telling the stories of her coworkers. I like her coworkers.  They are portrayed as hardworking people just trying to get by.  Then Ms Ehreneich begins to describe management.  Their portrayals are not nearly as likeable.   I keep reading.  I keep disagreeing.  The author is a PhD, right?  This stuff is scary to me.  Below are the statements from the book that made me decide that perhaps this book club was not for me and that though I respect Ms Ehreneich’s right to voice her opinion I disagree with her wholeheartedly.  Let me be clear, I do agree that there is a group of workers that are living below the poverty level and have full-time jobs.  This is what the story is supposed to be about, but isn’t.  It is a story about the struggle between the elitist and the proletariats. The struggle can be summarized simply but it is not a simple struggle.  I do not agree with Ms Ehreneich’s statements below.

·         Page 99, “True, I don’t look so good by the end of the day and probably smell like eau de toilet and sweat, but it’s the brilliant green-and yellow uniform that gives me away, like prison clothes on a fugitive.  Maybe, it occurs to me, I’m getting a tiny glimpse of what it would be like to be black.”

·         Page 120, “But warnings about the heat and the allergies put me off, not to mention my worry that the Latinos might be hogging all the crap jobs and substandard housing for themselves, as they so often do.”

·         Page 184, this statement is in reference to Wal-Mart and its worker who are called “associates”. “After all, you’d need  a lot stronger word than dysfunctional to describe a family where a few people get to eat at the table while the rest—the “associates” and all the dark-skinned seamstresses and factory workers worldwide who make the things we sell—lick up the drippings from the floor:  psychotic would be closer to the mark.”

·         Page 190, “Probably in part because of advertising by roughly $2 billion drug-testing industry, but I suspect that the demeaning effect of testing may also hold some attraction for employers.”

·         Page 195, ...”traits deemed essential to job readiness:  punctuality, cleanliness, cheerfulness, obedience.  These are the qualities that welfare-to-work job-training programs often seek to inculcate, though I suspect that most welfare recipients already possess them, or would if their child care and transportation problems were solved.”

·         Page 211, “My guess is that the indignities imposed on so many low-wage workers—the drug tests, the constant surveillance, being “reamed out” by managers—are part of what keeps wages low.”

·         Page 212, “For reasons that have more to do with class—and often racial—prejudice than with actual experience, they tend to fear and distrust the category of people from which they recruit their workers.  Hence the perceived need for repressive management and intrusive measures like drug and personality testing.”

I didn’t like the book; if you are on the far-left I think you will like it.

Bond Girl, by Erin Duffy

3 stars

I’ve read a ton of books like this one, but I still love them.  Alex Garrett is a young girl that dreams of working on Wall Street after visiting her Dad’s work as an investment banker.  She is smart, attractive and a go-getter! 

Alex faces the traditional problems women go through moving from college to the work world.  She is determined to make her mark in a male-driven profession.  The men she deals with are funny and helpful while the woman that Alex thinks will help her is the only person that is not willing to help Alex.

Everything Alex faces from spending a thousand dollars on a cheese wheel to walking in on a slumber party in the conference room will make you laugh and cheer her on.  You watch Alex grow as is a very capable worker (except when reading her horoscope) but ignores the signs when it comes to romance.  I don’t know a woman that hasn’t done this.  In the end, Alex figures out what is important to her and what she is willing to do to achieve her dream.