The Gates of Evangeline by Hester Young FIC Hes

   

This was an interesting mystery.  Charlie (aka Charlotte) is a woman in the depths of depression.  When she was very young her mother left her.  When her father is killed in an accident she goes to live with her paternal grandma at the age of 14.  She grows up and marries - she didn't pick a good one and ends up a single mother.  Charlie works as a journalist and loves being a mother to her son, Keegan.  When he dies suddenly she can barely hold on.  She has been working from home but changes are afoot and she has to return to the office.  But she finds she can't do it.  Then she hears from her old boss who works a True Crime publication.

Desperate to get away she takes an assignment.  It involves going to Louisiana and the case involves the kidnapping of a young boy decades before.  Charlie will be living at the estate where it happened.  Did I mention that Charlie has been having very weird dreams?  It is about a little boy who is asking for her help.  Are they random dreams or is she becoming psychic?

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The 6:41 to Paris by Jean-Philippe Blondel FIC Blo

   

To be upfront, this book is not for everyone.  It is very short and it is translated from French.  Which means it was written by a Frenchman.  French books (and movies) tend to be different from American ones.  Here is the premise of the book:  Cécile (47, married with children and very successful in a business) is taking a train back to Paris after spending the weekend with her parents (not a very pleasant experience - ever!).  She is happy to find a seat with no one next to her.  Of course that doesn't last long.  A man sits down.  Immediately she recognizes him.  He is Philippe Leduc - someone from her past.  She doesn't say anything to him.  He recognizes her also but says nothing.  The book goes back and forth between what the two characters are thinking and glimpses into their pasts - and what happened in London to change their lives.

I really enjoyed it - and it doesn't take long to read.  Try it!

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Escape Points by Michele Weldon 362.1969 Wel

 
This memoir has three themes - wrestling, breast cancer and being a single mom.  Weldon is a journalist and a published author so she knows how to write a book.  The chapters take their titles from wrestling terms.  I recognized that and I was pretty proud of myself because I don't know much about the sport.  The wrestling part of the book has to do with her three sons who all participated in the sport.  It is less about the sport per se but more about what it takes for these young men to be a part of it.  And equally important what it takes for a single mom to be a 'wrestling mom'.  It wore me out just reading about it.

To make things a bit more interesting she is diagnosed with breast cancer.  This is a lot to deal with - and she does it totally on her own.  She left her husband when her kids were still young.  (She wrote the book "I Closed My Eyes: Revelations of a Battered Woman" so I guess we know why the marriage didn't last).  He was an absentee father who broke the hearts of his sons over and over.  And financially responsible?  Not at all.

It was an interesting book and I imagine a lot of people can relate to things she has gone through.

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Christmas Bells by Jennifer Chiaverini FIC Chi

It's that time of year when I like to read books with a Christmas theme.  There are two stories going on within the novel.  What they have in common is the poem "Christmas Bells" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and the Christmas carol "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day".  Longfellow's part of the story is what was going on in his world (the Civil War, a son who insists on joining up, the loss of his wife and his struggle to learn how to live with all of this).  I enjoyed learning about Longfellow because I couldn't have told you anything before I read this book!

The other story line takes place in present-place Boston.  Sophia teaches music in the public schools but her Christmas isn't going to be very merry because she finds out there are budget cuts coming and she will be unemployed at the end of the year.  She still has to maintain some Christmas spirit because she also volunteers at a church and they are practicing for the Christmas Eve concert.  Do you want to guess what they are going to be singing?????

It was an entertaining book and perfect for the season.

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Had I known: a memoir of survival by Joan Lunden 616.99 Lun

I remember Joan Lunden from her days on morning TV.  I wasn't aware that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer until she made the brave decision to appear on the front of People Magazine - with no hair.  If you read the book you will find out that she didn't intend to do that when she agreed to the interview but decided (after getting the okay from her kids) that she should bravely show the world her battle.  Then I was diagnosed with the disease also and found myself doing a lot of reading on the subject!   Being a journalist, Joan did a great job of telling her story.

She neither understates or overstates what she went through - she just tells the truth.  Some parts of the books made me teary and other parts made me laugh.

Joan's story is not everyone's story.  Having money, connections and a very supportive family made it easier (but not easy!) for her to go through the treatments.  But none of those things help with the mouth sores, lack of appetite, fatigue, etc.   She did give lots of little tips throughout the book for people to try.

I think it is a great book for anyone fighting breast cancer and for anyone who is close to someone going through it.

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Host by Robin Cook FIC Coo

This novel is similar to others by Cook - but that's okay because I like his medical thrillers!  In his latest Lynn Peirce is finishing up medical school.  She is in a committed relationship with her boyfriend Carl.  He becomes a patient in her hospital when he has to have some routine surgery.  When she can she slips away to go check on him and expecting to find him groggy but fine.  Instead she discovers that he has not regained consciousness after the procedure.  According to the MRI he has suffered brain death.  She is devastated.  When she finally excepts the prognosis she wants to learn more about what went wrong.  Her lab partner, Michael, is drawn into the mystery.

What they uncover is that there are a lot of people having complications from anesthesia.  As they dig deeper and deeper they start getting death threats - hmmmm I think they might have discovered a deep dark secret.  The story line will remind you a bit of Coma from Cook's earlier days.

An entertaining read - as long as you don't have any surgery planned!!!

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Playing with Fire: A Novel by Tess Gerritsen MYS Ger

I have read most of Gerritsen's Rizzoli and Isles novels.  This one is a stand-alone novel and it was quite different than her others - and I loved it.  The story moves between two periods of time.  It begins in modern times when Julia Ansdell goes shopping after performing at a music festival in Rome.  She has bought something for her husband and her three-year-old daughter Lilly but is still looking for her own souvenir.  When she wanders into an antique store she finds the perfect momento for herself.  It is music for a waltz called the Incendio Waltz.  She reads the notes and can hear them in her head.  She knows it is complex but she is eager to learn how to play it when she returns home.

The first time she tries to play it at home she is interrupted when Lilly comes up to her and she has blood all over her hands.  The cat is dead and Julia knows that Lilly did it but her husband insists that it was an accident. When Julia begins to believe that Lilly is trying to hurt her she begins to connect it to the times that she was playing the waltz - and thus begins many tests and visits to various doctors.

The other part of the book takes place in Europe.  The Nazi's are beginning to ramp up their persecution of the Jews.  Lorenzo is a young man who is only interested in his violin and looking forward to entering a music competition.  He planned to do a solo but finds himself playing a duet with a young woman named Laura.  They make beautiful music together and of course they fall in love.  Lorenzo is Jewish and Laura is not.  You can tell this isn't going to end well!

Julia is convinced that she needs to find out more about the waltz to be able to help her daughter and she begins to research where it came from and finds herself in a dangerous situation.

I loved it!

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Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Kate Clifford Larson 362.1968 Lar

    

Rosemary Kennedy was the third child and oldest daughter born to Rose and Joseph Kennedy.  She died in 2005 at the age of eighty-six, which is a long time to live - but when you read about Rosemary's life you quickly realize that it was an eternity.  I knew a bit about Rosemary's life before I read this book but I found this book to be fascinating.  What happened to her was most certainly not unusual for the times.  In fact she surely had it better than most because of her family's money.  But everything about her story is so sad.

It begins with why she was unable to learn like her siblings.  What a horrific story.  She was a beautiful girl (the best looking of the Kennedy girls) but she was not allowed to have any sort of a normal life.  To hide her intellectual disabilities she was closely watched so that no one would notice. Of course eventually that doesn't work.  She was moved from place to place in an attempt to find a school that could help her.

Rosemary might have been the family secret but eventually she became a secret even from her family.  She ended up in Wisconsin and her siblings were told she had gone there to become a teacher's assistant. An operation is performed on Rosemary when she was in her twenties and the essence of Rosemary was gone forever.

A powerful book.  It is not the usual Kennedy book because Rosemary was not the usual Kennedy.

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Corrupted by Lisa Scottoline MYS Sco

Bennie Rosato is back. As Lisa Scottoline herself would say, Yay! 

Scottoline’s newest offering in the Rosato and DiNunzio series features the law firm’s founder and mother-figure taking on a rare capital murder case, where all the evidence points to her client’s guilt. Why does Bennie sign on to defend Jason Lefkavick without even a second thought? She has a 13-year-old debt to pay off.

Corrupted begins with Bennie heading to the Roundhouse to meet with her client, someone she hasn’t seen since he was 12. Then the story jumps back to 2002, to fill in the history that these two characters share. Bennie, who prides herself on keeping personal and professional lives totally separate, stumbles when she meets 12-year-old Jason, who’s been incarcerated in a juvenile detention facility for fighting at school. All of a sudden feelings of motherhood protectiveness seep under her professional façade. Once that first crack opens up, she also finds herself involved in a personal relationship which her brain tells her she should avoid.

Scottoline’s better novels, in my opinion, are the Bennie Rosato stories. They have well-developed characters, focus on the law – an area Scottoline knows well, and offer the mystery and intrigue that keeps the reader turning the pages. I bet we’ll see another Rosato and DiNunzio fairly soon, because Scottoline has given us a peek at Bennie’s more human, vulnerable side and a hint at more romance to come for the leading lady. Write on, Lisa. I’m waiting.

The Death's Head Chess Club by John Donoghue (FIC Don)

In 1962, Emil Clement, a French Jew and chess champion now living in Israel, is a player at the World Chess Federation Interzonal tournament in Amsterdam.  Emil is a survivor of Auschwitz and carries with him every day his belief that there are "no good Germans."

After his first game he is approached by a Catholic bishop who seems vaguely familiar.  To his horror he realizes it is SS-Obersturmfuhrer Paul Meissner.  He is immediately catapulted back to Auschwitz in spring 1944, a time he has struggled to forget.

Emil resists the overtures from Paul to meet and talk.  He wants nothing to do with this man who was so instrumental in his imprisonment.  But Paul is persistent and explains to Emil that all he wants is forgiveness.  Imagine Emil's puzzlement when Paul explains that he doesn't want Emil's forgiveness but rather for Emil to forgive himself.

In Auschwitz, Paul was charged with improving the flagging morale of camp personnel.  He organizes a chess club and tournament for Nazi officers.  When word gets to him of a Jewish prisoner called "the Watchmaker" who is considered unbeatable at chess, he is instructed to demonstrate German superiority by pitting this Jew (Emil) against the best Nazi players.  As the matches progress, the stakes are raised and a curious relationship develops between the two men.

This book came highly recommended to me by a patron.  I was intimidated - at 376 pages and with small print it didn't seem like a book to dive into.  But only a few pages in I was hooked and those 376 pages flew by.  It is the story not only of the atrocities committed by man against man but also the story of surviving in an almost impossible situation.  And ultimately it becomes the story of forgiveness (as Paul wanted) and finding a way to move forward in life.

I second the recommendation - this is a wonderful book.