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Excerpt from All the Light We Cannot See

December 5, 2017 / 4 Comments

I’m currently working on All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr. This little book (545 pages, according to Amazon) is a Pulitzer Prize winner. I don’t read a lot of war stories, but this one intrigued me. Two children whose lives are on a collision course. Opposite sides of the war, connected by radio waves, but unknown to each other. It’s been a pretty good book so far, though the multiple points of view from multiple timelines can be confusing at times.

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Excerpt from The Dead in their Vaulted Arches

November 28, 2017 / 5 Comments

Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce series is new to me, and I’m glad I picked this one up. The Dead in their Vaulted Arches is apparently #6 in the series, though Amazon doesn’t tell you the volume number, so you have to go to another site to find out! I am enjoying reading about this precocious little poisoner—er, amateur detective—and her family, friends, and enemies. Flavia is in the sad circumstance of trying to solve her long-lost mother’s murder, but she seems to be up to the task.

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Excerpt from Gathering Blue

November 21, 2017 / 4 Comments

I picked up the second book in Lois Lowry’s Giver Quartet, Gathering Blue. Lowry has a way with words, and I am quite enjoying the story. I love her characters and the way she describes the communities they live in. It’s easy to fall in love with Kira and young Matt.

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Excerpt from Down Under

November 14, 2017 / 4 Comments

I just finished a new (to me) James Patterson thriller, Private Down Under. I have read a couple of the other Private books, and quite enjoyed them. This one wasn’t quite up to the same standard as the usual Private titles. There were three separate cases, and I thought that at some point they were going to intersect, but they did not. They were just three separate, unrelated cases. Besides that, there was a strange combination of metric and Imperial measurements in the book.

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Excerpt from Mercy

November 7, 2017 / 7 Comments

On to a medical thriller this week, one of my favourite genres. Daniel and Michael Palmer serve up Mercy: a Novel, where an angel of death killer is eliminating one patient after another. I am enjoying the detailed descriptions of the medical procedures and the character development of the protagonist and her family. In the tradition of Robin Cook’s Coma, the Palmer’s bring you Mercy.

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Excerpt from The Silent Sister

October 31, 2017 / 5 Comments

This week I am on to a psychological mystery, The Silent Sister, by Diane Chamberlain. I am drawing close to the end, and it has been an interesting and engaging read, although I have guessed all of the twists well ahead of time. A well-written suspense novel that reminds me somewhat of a Mary Higgins Clark.

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Another Excerpt from The Hero of Ages

October 24, 2017 / 3 Comments

I have been interested in the themes of faith and of opposition in all things, such as between ruin and preservation. So I picked a quote on faith.

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Excerpt from The Hero of Ages

October 17, 2017 / 7 Comments

I am currently reading Brandon Sanderson’s The Hero of Ages. Yes, this is the third book in the Mistborn trilogy, and I haven’t read the first two books in the series. I just dived right into this world without knowing anything about it, but Sanderson does a good job at filling in the backstory so that the reader has some idea of what’s going on.

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Excerpt from The Polygamist’s Daughter

October 10, 2017 / 5 Comments

Most of the books I mention here are young adult, suspense, or mystery. Ninety-nine percent are fiction. But last week I picked up Anna LeBaron’s memoir, The Polygamist’s Daughter. As a rule, I don’t read memoirs, but this one intrigued me. Annan is not a polished writer, but she has a story to tell, and I enjoyed reading it. The Polygamist’s Daughter is a journey of faith rather than an expose, so don’t expect a lot of action.

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Thanksgiving Giving!

October 9, 2017 / Leave a Comment

Today is Canadian Thanksgiving, and I am thankful for my readers!

I know, most of you are in the US, and your Thanksgiving day isn’t for another month and a half yet. But the growing season is shorter in Canada and our harvest is in. We’ve had our first frost and first blizzard of the year (at least in my part of the country) and our thoughts are turned to toasty socks and stretching out with a good book by the fire.

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