Review: The Legacy by Katherine Webb

The Legacy by Katherine Webb

Fiction, Published August 30, 2011

Challenges: Historical Fiction

ARC received from netGalley.com

Read: August 2011, 496 pp.

3/5

Book Blurb:

Following the death of their grandmother, Erica Calcott and her sister Beth return to Storton Manor, a grand and imposing house in Wiltshire, England, where they spent their summer holidays as children. When Erica begins to sort through her grandmother’s belongings, she is flooded with memories of her childhood—and of her cousin, Henry, whose disappearance from the manor tore the family apart.

Erica sets out to discover what happened to Henry—so that the past can be laid to rest, and her sister, Beth, might finally find some peace. Gradually, as Erica begins to sift through remnants of the past, a secret family history emerges: one that stretches all the way back to Oklahoma in the 1900s, to a beautiful society heiress and a haunting, savage land. As past and present converge, Erica and Beth must come to terms with two terrible acts of betrayal—and the heartbreaking legacy left behind.

First Impressions (Out of all the books I have to read, why this one?):

The cover is just stunning.  Lately, I have been attracted to books about family secrets or old family homes with secrets so thought I would try this one out.

Thoughts:

The Legacy follows two sisters Erica and Beth back to their grandmother’s estate to sort out her belongings after her death.  They had spent a lot of their childhood there, but stopped going soon after a tragic event that happened in 1986, when Beth was about 12 and Erica was 8.  The narration switches back and forth between the sister Erica’s point of view at the present time, which I think is about 2005, to 1986 when a tragedy occurred at the manor house, and to the story of the sisters’ great grandmother Caroline in the early 1900s in New York City and the isolations of a ranch in Oklahoma.

There are multiple threads weaving – if somewhat convoluted – throughout the book to follow.  First there is the present time. Erica and her sister Beth at the estate trying to sort through their grandmother’s things and needing to decide what to do with the home.  In the will, they must either both live there or it will be sold and the money will go to charity.  Then there is Beth’s depression – it is so bad that her husband divorced her and rarely lets her see her son Eddie.  Erica thinks the root of her depression stems back to the disappearance of their cousin Henry during their childhood.  Next, enters their gypsy neighbors, namely Dinny, who they played with nonstop as children but haven’t seen in 23 years.  Erica tries to remember what happened that day in 1986.  What happened to Henry? Did someone take him or was he killed? But if he was killed, where was his body? Erica knows her sister and childhood friend Dinny know what happened to their cousin Henry, but being so young at the time of the incident, she does not remember what happened to him, and they refuse over and over again to tell her what they know.

I found the story of Caroline to be rather confusing at first because it is not until at least half way through the story that it is explained why the reader even cares about her and what it has to do with the mysteries of the present.  I really found her entire story to be rather depressing and while I was sad for her, I never really sympathized with her.  She had lost so much that when she actually found what she had been looking for, her jealousies took over and set her future family up for a lot of miseries.  Truly a lost soul – only lived for Corin, her first husband. She was lost to the Calcotts and lost to me as a reader.

Overall, I did enjoy the beautiful use of language and I was very interested in discovering how things were going to unwind, but it just seemed to take so long to get there.  Some of the results were more obvious than others.  Unfortunately, the reader learns more than Erica and so some of the real truths are lost forever to the family.  I often felt like Pooh Bear, circling and circling around the same tree not getting anywhere, with how long it took for Erica to figure things out.

My favorite character of the lot was Eddie! I think he really lightened the dark mood when he came to the house.

Quotes:

A dew pond, at the far side of the grounds where the estate met the rolling downs, from which sprang the stream that flowed through the village.  It was deep and still and shaded; the water dark on a cloudy day like today, matte with the falling rain, ready to hide any secret cast into it.

So now the house is ours – but only for a little while, because I don’t think we can bear to live hear.  There’s a reason why not.  If I try to look right at it, it slips away like vapor.  Only a name surfaces: Henry.  The boy who disappeared, who just wasn’t there any more.  What I think now, staring up into the dizzying branches; what I think is that I know.  I know why we can’t live here, why it’s even remarkable that we’ve come at all.  I know.  I know why Beth won’t even get out of the car now.

Our roles are defined by habit, by memory and custom.  Here, in this house, we are children.

“I think you’re a bit obsessed with this pond, Rick,” Eddie tells me gravely.  I smile.  “I’m not. What makes you say that, anyway?”  “Every time we come near it you go all Luna Lovegood.  Staring into space like that.”

At that hour the sky in the east was violet and azure, pricked by faint, glimmering stars that winked out of existence as the day broadened.

Many a murderer was born to a decent, God-fearing woman.

I have never before found graveyards eerie, or particularly depressing.  I like the expressions of love on the stones, the quiet declarations of people having existed, of having mattered.  Who knows what secret feelings lie behind the carved lists of offspring, siblings and surviving spouses – or if the memories they had were truly loving.  But there is the hope, always, that each transient life meant something to those left behind; cast a vapor trail of influence and emotion to fade gradually across the years.

It would be easier, I think, to squeeze truths from the stones of these walls than to squeeze them from my sister.

“It’s always the way.  We wait until the people who could answer our questions are dead and gone, and only then do we realize we had questions to ask them,” she says, somewhat sadly.

Read A-likes:

The Thirteenth Tale by Diana Setterfield, The Girl in the Garden by Kamala Nair, The Tale of Halcyon Crane by Wendy Webb,  The Distant Hours by Kate Morton

Thanks to netGalley and HarperCollins for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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Review: River’s Song

River’s Song by Melody Carlson

The Inn at Shining Waters #1

Fiction – Christian, Historical (1959), Published August 2011

Read: August 2011, 274 pages

3.75/5

Book Blurb:

Sometimes when we look back, we are able to see ahead.

Following her mother’s funeral, and on the verge of her own midlife crisis, widow Anna Larson returns to the home of her youth to sort out her parents’ belongings, as well as her own turbulent life.  For the first time since childhood, Anna embraces her native heritage, despite the disdain of her vicious mother-in-law.  By transforming her old family home on the banks of Oregon’s Siuslaw River into The Inn at Shining Waters, Anna hopes to create a place of healing – a place where guests experience peace, grace, and new beginnings.  Starting with her own family…

First Impressions (Out of all the books I have to read, why this one?):

I loved the idea that Anna was creating an inn out of her family home.  I think this can bring in a lot of interesting characters.  I love how she ending up decorating her inn.  I love the lodge style a, like the lodges at Yellowstone or Grand Canyon National Parks, and have decorated my house that way, even though I live far from any moose and bears.

Thoughts:

The story takes place in 1959 along Oregon’s Siuslaw River.  Anna has just left her mother’s funeral and has come back to her childhood home to sort things out.  She has inherited the home and land, but since she has not been home in a long time, does not really know the state of it or what she is going to do with it.  Anna spends a few days recuperating and starting to enjoy the time away from her very demanding mother-in-law.  Although Anna’s husband died from war wounds over 8 years ago, she and her daughter, Lauren, are still living with her mother-in-law, who treats Anna like a second class citizen because of her Indian heritage.  Even though life on the river is not as convenient as that in the big city, the river life starts to heal Anna’s soul.  The friends she finds on the river will forever change her river’s course.

Overall, I really enjoyed River’s Song.  It definitely takes the reader back in time to a place that is slower paced and more calm and soothing, like the river.  I loved the descriptions of the land and the river and enjoyed seeing Anna’s healing process.  Anna truly finds herself there and becomes more confident and more authentic. The beginning of the book was a little slow and hard to get into, but once Hazel enters the picture, things on the Siuslaw River definitely start to liven up, as does Anna’s personality.  It’s like she’s in a haze after her mother’s death and truly does not know where to turn or which direction to go, which is understandable once you find out how her home life has been for the last 20 years with Eunice, her mother-in-law and what she went through with her husband. 

I absolutely adored Hazel and Babette, and even Henry’s characters and how they really become Anna’s family.  I also loved learning about the history of the river and Anna’s grandmother.  I really think you have to know where you’ve come from to know where you’re going and learning about family history is really interesting to me.  When Hazel starts to translate Anna’s father’s notebook of Siuslaw stories, that is when Anna truly starts to appreciate everything her grandmother taught her a young girl.

The main reason this book is not a 4 or better for me is that the end, in general, was pretty rushed compared to the rest of the novel, which was more quiet and meandering. There were many allusions and a little bit of buildup to Anna and Clark’s relationship and how they felt about each other, but it felt to me like all of a sudden the river came to a narrow spot in it’s course and everything just came rushing through.  I would have liked to see them  “date” or at least flirt a little before suddenly deciding, “ok, yeah I guess I’ll marry you.”  I think their relationship had a lot more potential and storyline before the marriage part.

A little note about the Christian aspect of the novel -  I think it was well done.  I like when it is subtle and not preaching in your face.  As Anna heals on the river, her faith grows and she often remembers things her grandmother and mother would say about God and I think as she starts to pray and apply these teachings in her life, her sense of self grows and she becomes more at peace with herself.  I really liked the teachings of forgiveness and weakness. 

“When I am weak, I am strong.”  The first time Anna heard it she’d been confused, asking what it meant.  Grandma Pearl said the words were from God’s Book.  “It means when I run out, when I am empty and weak, God can fill me.  I must be empty first.” -p. 242

“Forgiveness is the sweet fragrance of violets on the heel that crushed them,” Mother would sometimes say with a twinkle in her eye as she arranged the delicate blooms in the tiny vase.  -p. 244

In the next installment, River’s Call, I’m hoping to learn more about why Eunice is the way she is and see Lauren and Anna’s relationship grow.  I also cannot wait to see the characters that come to stay at the Inn of Shining Waters.  I hope one of them is Hazel!

Thanks to Glass Road Public Relations for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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The Rock Orchard by Paula Wall – Review

Fiction/Romance, Published 2005

Challenges: Southern Reading Challenge Three #3

Bought @ bn.com $3.99 July 2008

Read August 2009

Rating: 4/5

For anyone looking for some 1920′s southern charm.

From the Preface:

Just because a woman is good at something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s what she should do in life. If that were the case, most of the women in the Belle family would be hookers. It is common knowledge that Belle women make hard men melt like butter in a pan. They are equally adept at reversing the process.

The Belles live in a house that sits on a bluff overlooking the river. It has the look of a place whose owners grew bored with their money long ago. Honeysuckle vines wind around the columns like thread on a spool, and roses, wild as weeds, scratch at the paint like chiggers. It’s a mystery where the lawn ends and the cemetery begins. The Belles are of the mind that dead people make the best neighbors.

Review:

I loved the author’s use of language. Everything flowed together and the cemetery became its own character. I think I will reread this one.

Quotes:

“That child is like a dandelion,” Lettie said.  She could grow through concrete.” -p. 116

“A cemetery is like an orchard.  Some lives were sweet.  Some bitter as lemons.  And some were rotten to the core.” -p. 122

“The blessing and the bane of a man is the woman who makes him rise to the occasion.” p. 181

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Review: The Thorn

The Thorn by Beverly Lewis

The Rose Trilogy #1

Fiction-Amish, Published Sept 7, 2010

ARC Received from Publisher, Bethany House

Challenges: Series IV, Summer Reading Challenge

Read Sept 2010, 346 pp.

Verdict: 4.5/5

Book Blurb:

Lancaster County, with its rolling meadows and secret byways, may seem idyllic, but it is not without its thorns. THE ROSE TRILOGY is the stirring saga of two Amish sisters, and the events and decisions that change their lives.

Spirited Rose Ann Kauffman has long enjoyed a close friendship with the bishop’s rebellious foster son. Rose’s older sister, Hen–who knows more than she should about falling for the wrong man–cautions her against him, but Rose is being courted by another, and so dismisses the warnings.

Hen Kauffman Orringer’s impulsive marriage to an outsider divided her from the People, a decision she regrets now that she has a daughter of her own. As Hen struggles to reclaim aspects of Amish culture, her very modern husband pushes back, and the two soon come to an impasse. Can she find a way to reconcile her longing for the Old Ways with the life she has chosen?

My Thoughts:

This is my first Beverly Lewis book and it seems I am definitely behind the times as she has over 80 books in print.  I truly enjoyed this glimpse into Rose’s Amish life.  Set in the mid-1980s, before the personal electronics age, life seems simpler on the Amish farms in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

As the saying goes, “every rose has its thorn”, and Rose Ann is no exception.  She encounters several thorny situations throughout the book.  First she has to take care of her mother, who is now confined to a wheelchair after a horrific buggy accident.  Rose’s older sister,Hen, refused her Amish roots and married outside the faith (or any faith for that matter), but now that her daughter is showing signs of her mother’s worldly choices, Hen yearns to return to her Amish heritage, much to her husband’s dismay.  Rose will eventually have to make a choice between her best friend, Nick, who has not been officially accepted into the faith and her Amish beau, Silas, who promises her a secure life within the community.

I don’t know much about the Amish community, but I was surprised how much freedom Rose Ann and the other young women seemed to have without supervision.  She is definitely one busy girl.  Not only does she help take care of her family and do all her barn chores with Nick, she works once a week for an outsider cleaning and cooking for him.  She is also allowed to court after church get-togethers, spending a lot of alone time with the boys.

It’s surely a great beginning for the trilogy.  With much love and faith, Rose has yet to see what God has in store for her.  This was a  quick and enjoyable read for me and it won’t be my last Beverly Lewis or Amish-centered novel.  The second in the series, The Judgment, debuts in April 2011.

Click here for an excerpt.

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Review: McMurtry’s Sin Killer – A Sin of A Book!

Sin Killer by Larry McMurtry, Audio narrated by Alfred Molina

The Berrybender Narratives #1

Fiction – Historical/Westerns, Published 2002

Challenges: Audio Book Challenge, Series Challenge IV

Read June 2010

2/5

Book Blurb:

From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry comes the first leg of an epic journey through the early American frontier, introducing a pioneer family the likes of which you will never forget.

It is 1830, and the Berrybender family — rich, aristocratic, English, and hopelessly out of place — is on its way up the Missouri River to see the untamed West as it begins to open up. With irascible determination — and a great deal of outright chaos — the party experiences both the awesome majesty and brutal savagery of the unexplored land, from buffalo stampedes and natural disasters to Indian raids and encounters with frontiersmen and trappers, explorers, pioneers, and one part-time preacher known as “the Sin Killer.” Packed with breathtaking adventure, charming romance, and a sense of humor stretching clear over the horizon, Sin Killer is a truly unique view of the West that could only come from the boundless skill and imagination of Larry McMurtry.

Thoughts:

Don’t expect another Lonesome Dove with this one.  Sin Killer begins with a farcical English dignitary family headed north up the Missouri River on a barge.  It’s a large crew on the barge, including Lord Berrybender, 6 of his 14 ‘legitimate’ children, his mistress, hired guides as well as several Indian chiefs returning from Washington, as well as various servants who can in no way tend to all the Berrybenders’ needs.  One of the central characters is Lord Berrybender’s eldest and most eligible daughter, Tasmin, who quickly falls in love with a frontier man, Jim “Sin Killer” Snow.  He is very harsh with Tasmin’s sinful ways.  The Berrybenders often leave the barge to folly around on the American frontier and disaster usually follows.  There are many mishaps and kidnapping from the Indians and Lord Berrybender is truly a mess! He’s out for all the American exotic hides, but has no sense in his skull at all.  At the end of this book, the unsightly crew who is missing many of their original numbers, are headed to the Yellowstone Fort for the winter.

This is the first in a tetrology, however, I just cannot imagine following along with the crazy Berrybenders.  I really just cannot imagine that there will be any of them left by the end of the fourth book!  While I love the Lonesome Dove stories, I did not enjoy this folly of a book too much.  I think the only reason I finished this audio was that the narrator was truly great and I just had to find out how many of the characters would meet their untimely demise before the end.

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Review: Saving CeeCee Honeycutt

Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman

Fiction-Southern, Published 2010

Read June 2010, 306 pp.

Shelf Life: Never got there!

4.5/5

Book Blurb:

Twelve-year-old CeeCee Honeycutt is in trouble.  For years, she has been the caretaker of her psychotic mother Camille – the tiara-toting, lipstick-smeared laughingstock of an entire town – a woman trapped in her long-ago moment of glory as the 1951 Vidalia Onion Queen.  But when tragedy strikes, CeeCee is left to fend for herself.  To the rescue comes her previously unknown great-aunt, Tootie Caldwell.

In her vintage Packard convertible, Tootie whisks CeeCee away to Savannah’s perfumed world that seems to be run entirely by women.  From the exotic Miz Thelma Rae Goodpepper, who skinny-dips in her backyard bathtub and uses garden slugs as her secret weapon, to Tootie’s all-knowing housekeeper, Oletta Jones, to Violene Hobbs, who entertains a local police officer in her canary-yellow peignoir, the women of Gaston Street keep CeeCee entertained and entralled for an entire summer.

My Thoughts:

This was a very sweet book and such a great start to some fantastic summer reading!  Set in the mid-1960′s, the book starts out with CeeCee living with her mother, but having to care for her starting at a young age.  It it weren’t for Mrs. Odell, CeeCee’s neighbor, she wouldn’t have had any childhood.  Then her crazy Aunt Tootie sweeps in her hellish Ohio life and drives her down to Savannah in her convertible.  I loved all the Savannah characters, but mostly Oletta, Tootie, Mrs. Goodpepper, Sapphire!!, and the sweet Miz Obee.  CeeCee comes to Savannah with a lot of baggage and slowly but surely learns how to heal her pain by sharing it with her new friends.  I absolutely loved when Oletta took her to visit the ladies at the Green Hills Home. Sapphire is such a hoot!

“Lawd, you’re white.  But if you’ve gotta be here, then sit in the shade so you don’t hurt my eyes.”

I loved the vividness of all the descriptions.  I could clearly see all the characters, the beautiful historic homes and sceneries of Savannah, and smell Oletta’s delicious recipes.

This debut effort by Beth Hoffman gets a two thumbs up from me and I look forward to many more to come!

Read-Alikes:

Sarah Addison Allen – The Girl Who Chased the Moon, The Sugar Queen, and Garden Spells as well as Pamela Morsi’s Bitsy’s Bait & BBQ.

Quotes (So Many Wonderful Ones! Ü):

When a chapter of your Life Book is complete, your spirit knows it’s time to turn the page so a new chapter can begin.  Even when you’re scared or think you’re not ready, your spirit knows you are. -Mrs. Odell p. 41

I felt the flutter of a page turn deep within me as a chapter in my Life Book came to a close. -p.44

“I’ll get a box from the basement and you can pack it up with a few of your favorite books, but only one box.” (CeeCee’s Dad)

One box, that’s all? He’s sending me away and won’t even let me take my books? p. 37-38

“Oh Cecelia, isn’t it wonderful?” she said with a look of ecstasy on her face.  “This house is alive with history.  I can feel it humming through the soles of my shoes.”  I looked down at the floor and waited.  But I didn’t feel anything. -p. 101

Everyone needs to find the one thing that brings out her passion.  It’s what we do and share with the world that matters.  I believe it’s important that we leave our communities in better shape than we found them. -p. 101

If there’s one thing I’d like most for you, it’s that you’ll find your calling in life.  That’s where true happiness and purpose lies. (Aunt Tootie)  … “But how will I know what my fire is?” (CeeCee) “Oh, you’ll know.  One day you’ll do something, see something, or get an idea that seems to pop up from nowhere.  And you’ll feel a kind of stirring – like a warm flicker inside your chest.  When that happens, whatever you do, don’t ignore it.  Open your mind and explore the idea.  Fan your flame.  And when you do, you’ll have found it.” (Aunt Tootie) – p. 101-102

http://emmegailsbookshelf.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/review-the-girl-who-chased-the-moon/

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Review: The Tale of Halcyon Crane

The Tale of Halcyon Crane by Wendy Webb

Gothic Fiction/Mystery/Suspense, Published 2010

Read May 2010

Challenges: Thriller & Suspense Reading Challenge, Time Travel Reading Challenge

Shelf Life: N/A – I read this one immediately!!

5/5

First Line: “I was the only passenger on the ferry crossing to Grand Manitou Island.”

Book Blurb:

When a mysterious letter lands in Hallie James’s mailbox, her life is upended.  Hallie was raised by her loving father, having been told her mother died in a fire decades earlier.  But it turns out her mother , Madlyn, was alive until very recently.  Why would Hallie’s father have taken her away from Madlyn?  What really happened to her family thirty years ago?

In search of answers, Hallie travels to the place her mother lived, a remote island in the middle of the Great Lakes.  Most of the stiff islanders are unwelcoming, and she soon realizes her family’s dark secrets are enmeshed in the history of this strange community.  And then there’s the grand Victorian house bequeathed to her – maybe it’s the eerie atmosphere or maybe it’s the prim, elderly maid who used to work for her mother, but Hallie just can’t shake the feeling that strange things are starting to happen…

My Thoughts:

Strange things indeed!  Once Hallie sets foot off the ferry and onto Grand Manitou Island, the reader is transported through time.  It’s the off season for the touristy spot and not many islanders stay through winter.  It is here that thirty-something Hallie learns her past, including the fact that she has been on the island before, though she does not remember it.  She does not remember her mother either and soon learns the secrets of her family’s past from Iris, her mother’s maid.  It is Iris who tells Hallie of her family history and tells it so well it is almost as if she were a first-hand witness to events happening nearly a century ago.  So many twist and turns and Hallie can see and hear every aspect of the haunting tales.   Will Hallie discover her past before history continues to repeat itself?

I LOVED this book!  If  you’re looking for a gothic ghost tale with wonderfully creepy graveyards, ghosts, witching spells, and haunting dreams full of family secrets, you have to read this book!  It was a random purchase at Borders one day a few weeks ago.  Right away I was drawn to the cover with the ghost girl sitting on the antique couch.  Hallie’s Manitou Island is fashioned after the real island of Mackinac off of northern Michigan in the Great Lakes.  Like Manitou, they too are a tourist spot that do not use any motorized vehicles, but horse drawn carriages.  The author also points out that the storm of 1913 mentioned in the novel was a real tragic event that remains the worst storm in the history of the Great Lakes.

Quotes:

That’s how powerful stories are.  They can actually create the past if told often enough. p. 11

It occurs to me that you might like to hear about your family now.  I’m the only one left alive to tell you their story.  If you don’t hear it from me, you won’t hear it.  And they – the stories of your people – will be lost forever. -p. 137

There, with the lights of the kitchen illuminating the darkness, in a house built on secrets and filled with ghosts and murder, I realized that the lines between Iris’s stories and my reality were blurring.  Were Will and I somehow caught up in my family’s grim and bloody fairy tale? p. 245

Read-Alikes: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

Challenge Buttons:

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Ella Minnow Pea – A Word Lover’s Delight!

Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn

Fiction/Epistolary Novel, Published 2001

Challenges: N/A

Received from paperbackswap.com

Read March 2010

4/5

From the Cover:

Ella Minnow Pea is a girl living happily on the fictional island of Nollop off the coast of South Carolina.  Nollop was named after Nevin Nollop, author of the immortal phrase containing all the letters of the alphabet, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”

Now Ella finds herself acting to save her friends, family, and fellow citizens from the encroaching totalitarianism of the island’s Council, which has banned the use of certain letters of the alphabet as they fall from a memorial statue of Nevin Nollop.  As the letters progressively drop from the statue they also disappear from the novel.  The result is both a hilarious and moving story of one girl’s fight for freedom of expression and a linguistic tour de force sure to delight word lovers everywhere.

Review:

The Nollopians are proud people.  They are especially proud of their most noted citizen, Nevin Nollop.  They even have a statue of him in the town square with a sign of his notable sentence, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”  When letters start falling from the old dilapidated sign, the local government decides it is a sign from the grave, from Nollop himself, telling his fellow Nollopians that the said letter can no longer be used.  While this first appears to only be an annoying inconvenience with the letters Z and Q, it quickly becomes outrageously amusing for the reader to see how our favorite cousins Ella and Tassie will continue to communicate without the unlawful letters.  It truly is a mastery of wordmanship!

But Ella and Tassie do not find their dire situation amusing, not one bit! They are simply outraged that their once trusted and beloved home of proud word lovers has become quite empty with more and more fellow Nollopians excommunicated back to the States and their letters becoming shorter and shorter, fearing they may slip up and they will find themselves leaving Nollop for good.  Soon even the governing body finds it hard work around such few letters and commands that if someone comes up with a better, shorter pangram than Mr. Nollop, all the letters will be allowed back on the island.  As Miss Ella Minnow Pea becomes one of the last remaining Nollopians left, the pressure is on for her to work out such a sentence.  Can she do it?  The last few letters are continually falling off and all that are left are L-M-N-O-P…

I loved Tassie and Ella from the start.  They explain that they must write letters across their little Nollopian island, simply because for some reason, even they do not understand, the phone lines cannot be connected and until they can find a string long enough to tie two cans together, they will continue to write to each other daily.  I absolutely love epistolary novels and this one is sure to hit the spot with all the true bibliophiles who love each and every one of the 26 letters.

Quotes:

See my Teaser Tuesday post.

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Sarah Addison Allen’s The Girl Who Chased the Moon Previews!

I’m so excited for this book to come out on March 16th! I’ve already pre-ordered it!

Check out the author’s website for all the Extra Moon Goodies!  I especially like the “Book Cover Saga” and of course all the great recipes she always includes in her books!

Amazon.com has just posted the book trailer.

(Sorry, I couldn’t find it on youtube yet to embed into the post.)

Check out my reviews for Sarah Addison Allen’s other great books:

The Sugar Queen and Garden Spells

About the book:

Emily Benedict came to Mullaby, North Carolina, hoping to solve at least some of the riddles surrounding her mother’s life. But the moment Emily enters the house where her mother grew up and meets the grandfather she never knew, she realizes that mysteries aren’t solved in Mullaby, they’re a way of life: Here are rooms where the wallpaper changes to suit your mood. Unexplained lights skip across the yard at midnight.

And a neighbor, Julia Winterson, bakes hope in the form of cakes, offering them to satisfy the town’s sweet tooth—but also in the hope of rekindling a love she fears might be lost forever.

Can a hummingbird cake really bring back a lost love? Is there really a ghost dancing in Emily’s backyard? The answers are never what you expect. But in this town of lovable misfits, the unexpected fits right in.

To find your path, sometimes you must chase the moon.

emmegail’sbookshelf is not affiliated with amazon.com…she just shops there…

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Mirror, mirror on the wall…

Mirror Mirror by Gregory Maguire

Audio book narrated by John McDonough, with Kate Forbes, Barbara Rosenblat, and Richard Ferrone

Fiction, Published 2003

Challenges: Once Upon a Time, Audio Book Reading Challenge

Read: Feb 2010

3/5

Verdict: This book is not the fairest of them all…

From the Cover:

The year is 1502, and seven-year-old Bianca de Nevada lives perches high above the rolling hills and valleys of Tuscany and Umbria at Montefiore, the farm of her beloved father, Don Vincente.

But one day a noble entourage makes its way up the winding slopes to the farm – and the world comes to Montefiore.  In the presence of Cesare Borgia and his sister, the lovely and vain Lucrezia – decadent children of a wicked pope – no one can claim innocence for long.  When Borgia sends Don Vincente on a years-long quest to reclaim a relic of the original Tree of Knowledge, he leaves Bianca under the care – so to speak – of Lucrezia.  She plots a dire fate for the young girl in the woods below the farm, but in the dark forest there can be found salvation as well…

Review:

In gathering my thoughts for this review, I’m really enjoying the historical research behind the book and the tale of Snow White much better than I actually liked the book. Maguire really did his research for this one, finding the perfect historical family, the Borgias, to place into Brother Grimm’s fairy tale.  For the poisonous apple that Snow White’s evil step-mother gives her to eat that puts her into her unconscious slumber in the tale that we all know and love, Maguire has chosen the setting to be early sixteenth century with a young fair maiden with raven hair, Bianca, who lives in a small estate near Tuscany.   Don Vincente, Bianca’s father, is charged by the Borgia family, one of higher rank and nobility, to set out on a cross-country quest for an apple from the tree of knowledge.  This seems to be the utmost impossible task, but after a decade of trudging the Italian countryside and even being imprisoned, Don Vincente returns to Montefiore with two sacred apples from Adam and Eve’s tree.

Much has changed, however, while he was away.  Bianca was saved from a certain death by Lucrezia’s raging jealousy, but her kidnapper did not kill her, but instead banished her into the woods where seven dwarves soon find her and take her in.  The dwarves are anything from what you see on the Disney movie and there are in fact eight dwarves all together, one of which secretly followed and looked after Don Vincente on his long journey.  Will Bianca ever be released from her carefully watched glass coffin?  What will happen to the last known branch of the tree of knowledge?  And the mirror tells all…

Maguire has a really interesting way of describing things and it involves too much bodily fluid and sexual innuendos for my tastes.  For me, it really detracts from the story as a whole.  I found myself in my car going “ewww, did he really just say that?” or “that was just not necessary!! TMI!! TMI!!”  It seems you either love or hate Maguire’s writing style. My favorite character was Primavera, the cook and Bianca’s keeper, although she ends up losing Bianca and then somehow loses her tongue, but only she can say how it happened, so this incident was ultimately left a mystery.   I do love how Maguire fits the historical facts (although somewhat stretched to his liking), including a poisonous comb that the real Lucrezia Borgia is thought to have used, to the tale of Snow White.

Quotes:

“The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say.” (p. 2)

“If you’re ever in doubt, throw a pepper in the air.  If it fails to come down, you have gone mad, so don’t trust in anything.” -Primavera (p.18)

“They might have used their mirror as an escape hatch, to ask it the single correct question, the only question a mirror ever cares about: not who did I used to be, nor who am I now, but who am I to become?–for the secret act of light that fires a mirror is this:  A mirror’s image is always forward of the truth by an instant or so.  While a question is formulating–Who is the fairest of us all, say, or How many crow’s feet can I pretend not to have today? or Is this the face of a murderer?–the mirror always knows the answer before the question is asked.” (p. 247)

More Information:

About the House of Borgia

About Lucrezia Borgia

About Snow White

Book Club Reading Guide

Other Reviews:

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