From the A Shelf...

 Author:  Anderson, Rachael Renee

Title:  Minor Adjustments

There are a lot of authors whose last names begin with A:  Austen, Auel, Atwood, Archer, Adler-Olsen, Adichie, Abbott. It was hard choosing just one book. In the end, I went with this novel by a local Utah author, Rachael Renee Anderson, because I was in the mood for a more light-hearted read....and it's set in Australia.

From the blurb:  "Bachelor Devon Pierce isn't sure what to think when he's appointed guardian of four-year-old Australian Ryan Caldwell--except that he's completely unprepared to be anyone's guardian. Leaving his Chicago business, he heads to Sydney to prove he isn't up for the responsibility. But Ryan's solicitor, Stella Walker, convinces him to give it a try--at least for a few weeks. Little does Devon know this 'minor' adjustment will turn his life upside down and grant him a future he never expected to have."

My thoughts:  This is a sweet and heartwarming story. At just 214 pages, it's not very long, and it reads fast. I really liked Devon, and enjoyed watching his transformation from single guy to loving Dad. The sparks between him and Stella were fun, too. And there's a lot of humor and a happy ending. All in all, this was a good pick from the A shelf, and it wraps up my Reading the Alphabet project....although I now have a list of other A authors I want to read. Like Mona Awad, Tahmina Anan, and Jeff Abbott. But that was kind of the whole point of this alphabet reading project:  to discover new books and new authors from the library shelves. And it definitely worked. Maybe someday I'll start back at Z and do it all over again. 

Happy Reading!

A classic mystery...

 

Title & Author:  Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay

Setting:  1900. Appleyard College, a private boarding school for young ladies in Australia. 

First line:  "Everyone agreed that the day was just right for the picnic to Hanging Rock--a shimmering summer morning warm and still, with cicadas shrilling all through breakfast from the loquat trees outside the dining-room windows and bees murmuring above the pansies bordering the drive.

The plot:  The book starts out with a pleasant outing: twenty girls and two teachers having a picnic lunch at Hanging Rock. Then four of the girls take an innocent walk up to the monolith. Only one of them comes back, hysterical. The others are nowhere to be found. The mystery of what happened to those three girls, and the repercussions of their strange disappearance and how it affects those left behind, take up the rest of this novel.

My thoughts:  This is not a fast page-turning thriller. The narrative is slow, almost methodical, with more description than dialogue. But I thought it was interesting, especially seeing the impact this one tragic incident has on those at Appleyard College. Although it's not the girls who are at the center of this novel. (A fact I found a little disappointing.) I like stories set in boarding schools, but there's no immediacy in this one, and no real sense of daily life. The school is mostly in the background.

There were three characters I liked: Michael Fitzhubert and Albert Crundall, two young men who help search for the girls, and Mademoiselle de Poitiers, the young French teacher at Appleyard. But I never felt a deep connection with any of them. There's an almost surreal quality to this novel. And the mystery is left unsolved at the end. Although I actually liked that about the novel. The truth probably would have been a letdown. I prefer the not-knowing. All in all, I'd give this one 3 stars. 

This book was published in 1967, and counts as my Mystery/Detective/Crime Classic for Karen's Back to the Classics Challenge. 

Happy Reading!

Craven Manor

Abandoned and practically in ruins, Craven Manor looks and feels haunted. When he's offered the job of groundskeeper, Daniel Kane wants nothing to do with the manor. Especially after he reads the owner's list of unsettling rules for staying there:

• No strangers are allowed onto the property.
• Do not enter the tower.
• Do not leave the groundskeeper's cottage between midnight and dawn. Draw your curtains. Keep the doors locked. If you hear knocking, do not answer it.

But Daniel is desperate. So he reluctantly accepts the job and moves into the groundskeeper's cottage. His first task? To clear the crypt of thorny vegetation. And it's going well. Except for the strange tapping on his door at night. And the mysterious figure he glimpses in the tower window. Then there's the feeling he has of constantly being watched. And the ghost-like black cat haunting the manor's halls. But that's not all. There's a terrible evil inside Craven Manor's tower itching to get out.

This is another good haunted house adventure from Darcy Coates. It's entertaining, fast-paced, and full of ghostly suspense. The strange history of Craven Manor had me questioning everything Daniel was told. And just when I thought I had it figured out, Coates threw in another twist. Daniel makes a few very stupid mistakes along the way, but I still liked him. Overall, this book is a fun mix of supernatural and mystery. It's not super scary, although it does have it's moments. And I liked the ending a lot.

Happy Reading!

Survive this!

"The missiles, Fin. Something's gone very wrong. We don't know much, but it looks as though regions in the north of Asia have been hit as well as the Gobi Desert. Word is it's a nuclear test gone wrong, but it might have been deliberate..."

By the time we got into town the sky had changed. It was like the sun was being choked with thick orange dust. The sky glowed, throbbing with colour, but it was like it had swallowed up all the sunlight. ... It was beautiful--and wrong.

In one afternoon, Fin's world changes--from warm summer to nuclear winter. Now there's no internet, no phones, and no power. The water supply has been compromised and the food is running out. With their Mom over an hour away in Sydney and their father missing, Fin and his younger brother, Max, must figure out how to survive on their own.

In The Sky So Heavy Claire Zorn has written a post-apocalyptic YA novel of survival set in Australia that's "scarily realistic", fast-paced and entertaining. I really like these kinds of novels, especially when they're well-written and believable. And this novel is both (although there were a few times when I felt things happened a little too conveniently). Fin is resourceful and smart; I liked him and his pesky younger brother. And I liked the friends he teams up with, too. This book made me wonder how I would survive in a similar situation...and what choices I would make. Which is what I like about these kinds of books:  they always make stop and think....and stock up on extra chocolate! This particular survival/disaster book is as good as John Marsden's Tomorrow, When the War Began and Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer. All three are worth reading if you happen to like post-apocalyptic novels like I do.

Happy Reading!

Another similar read:

The Road to Winter by Mark Smith  

Only Daughter...

I've always been good at playing a part...

It's the look in their eyes that does it. A mix of pity and disgust. Like I'm worth nothing, just another stray for them to clean up. A memory slowly opens and I realize I know exactly how to get myself out of this. The power of what I'm about to say is huge. It courses through my body like a shot of vodka, removing the tightness in my throat and sending tingles to the tips of my fingers. I don't feel helpless anymore; I know I can pull this off.  "My name is Rebecca Winter. Eleven years ago, I was abducted."

But she's not Rebecca. She's an imposter who only intends to borrow Rebecca's identity until she can get the police off her back. But having a nice home to go to, and a warm bed to sleep in, and loving parents is appealing. Plus, there are things in her own past she's trying to escape. So she continues the charade. And being Rebecca isn't so bad...until she begins to suspect that something's not right in the Winter home. Plus, a black van keeps following her. Bec's parents and twin brothers are acting strangely. And what if whoever caused the real Bec to disappear decides to come after her?

Anna Snoekstra skillfully interweaves Bec's story with that of her imposter in this compelling psychological suspense novel. Trying to figure out what happened to the real Bec kept me guessing all the way to the unsettling ending. And the impending danger to her imposter added another chilling layer. I liked this one. I also liked how Snoekstra played off the name Rebecca Winter, so similar to Daphne du Maurier's own character--and just like in her novel, Rebecca, we never learn the real name of Rebecca's successor in this book either.

Only Daughter is a fun, fast-paced read. What made it even better was reading it along with Melody. So be sure to check out her review and see what she thought of this psychological thriller. She also asked me a couple of questions when we were done. Here they are along with my answers:

Q. What do you think the real Rebecca Winter and the imposter have in common and do you like any of them?

Bec shoplifts and then flaunts her new acquisitions while the imposter pretends to be someone she's not and never flinches as she tells lie and lie, so I think they both have a similar kind of recklessness about them. I also think both of them have the same tendency to run from their problems rather than face the truth. And while I liked both girls, I liked the imposter a little bit more than the real Bec. To me, she just seemed like more of a scrappy fighter/survivor. And I liked that about her. 

Q. Who do you  most sympathize with? The real Bec, the imposter, or both?

I sympathized with both characters, but at the end of the book I was rooting for the imposter while feeling mostly pity (along with a little frustration) for Bec.

Happy Reading!

Two Fun Reads...

The Road to Winter by Mark Smith

This entertaining YA dystopian novel is set in an Australia where an unknown virus has wiped out most of the population. For the last two years, Finn and his dog, Rowdy, have been on their own. Finn traps rabbits and harvests abalone for food, trades for veggies with an old man who lives nearby, and tries to avoid the gang of raiders known as the Wilders. Oh, and he surfs to stay sane. Then a girl named Rose enters his life. She's on the run from the Wilders and Finn knows he will have to risk his own life in order to save hers.

Not all dystopian novels are worth your time, but if I were grading this one I'd give it a solid B. It's well-paced. It wasn't too long, which means it never dragged. I really liked the survival aspects of it; I liked the characters, too, especially Finn. And I'm actually looking forward to reading the sequel.

To Suit a Suitor by Paula Kremser

Insipid characters, stilted dialogue, conflicts that could be resolved in two seconds, and/or an overly contrived plot will make me DNF a Regency romance every time. Luckily, this particular Regency romance by Paula Kremser has none of these deficiencies. Instead, Kremser has created two main characters who are believable and very likeable. I enjoyed their witty bantering and their tentative friendship.

Julia North, who is in her third London season, has just been abandoned by her latest suitor, much to her mother's chagrin. Julia knows there must be something wrong with her, she just doesn't know what. So she retreats to her cousin's house in the country where she meets Mr. Henry Chamberlin, who is still mourning the death of his fiancee three years ago. He's handsome, but truly believes he'll never fall in love again. Then he meets Julia. This charming romance, while not on the level of Austen or Heyer, is a light-hearted, well-written and fun read. And I liked it a lot.

Happy Reading!

A little bookish serendipity....

Inspired by an episode of Friends, Amal, an Australian-Palestinian-Muslim teen-age girl, makes the hard decision to start wearing her hijab full-time. She views the headscarf as a visible badge of her faith. But she's also worried about how everyone else is going to react. Her parents are naturally concerned, but very supportive; the principal of her high school is much less so. At least she can count on her closest friends. But what will Adam think of her new look? Does My Head Look Big In This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah is an honest and humorous account of one Muslim girl's journey through life as she navigates school, friendship, love, family and faith.

"All this time I've been walking around thinking I've become pious because I've made the difficult decision to wear the hijab. I've been assuming that now that I'm wearing it full-time, I've earned all my brownie points. But what's the good of being true to your religion on the outside, if you don't change what's on the inside, where it really counts? ... I've been kidding myself. Putting on the hijab isn't the end of the journey. It's just the beginning of it."

Amal is a charming character. She has all the normal teen worries, along with a few extra hijab-inspired ones. And this book gives you a view of Islam from the inside out. It's insightful and entertaining and I liked it a lot. Best of all, I got my copy for a quarter from my library's discarded books sale. Don't you just love  bookish bargains? So, here's to serendipitous library finds that lead to such interesting and enjoyable reads.  I bought another discarded library book the same day I got this one; I hope it's just as good. The cover and title certainly sound like fun:

Happy Reading!

Another Favorite Read...

 "I arrived in the Alice at five a.m. with a dog, six dollars 

and a small suitcase full of inappropriate clothes."

One woman, four camels, a dog named Diggity and a 1700 mile trek across the Australian outback. Robyn Davidson's Tracks is one of my all-time favorite travel/memoir/adventure books. With four stubborn, sassy and mischievous camels, Davidson travels from Alice Springs across the vast and forbidding Gibson Desert to the western coast of Australia ... alone. It's a crazy, poignant and brave journey. Her funny mishaps with the camels always make me laugh, but it's the inward journey she makes along the way--that hard-earned discovery of truth and self--that I remember most. This is a thoughtful and empowering book.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes from this amazing book:

"The two important things that I did learn were that you are as powerful and strong as you allow yourself to be, and that the most difficult part of any endeavor is taking the first step, making the first decision."

"To be free is to learn, to test yourself constantly, to gamble. It is not safe. I had learnt to use my fears as stepping stones rather than stumbling blocks, and best of all I had learnt to laugh."

Happy Reading!