March's Bookish Art...

Charles Louis Baugniet

"Books are not about passing the time.  They're about other lives.  Other 

worlds.  Far from wanting time to pass, one just wishes one had more of it."

--Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader

R Shelf Serendipity...

Author: Vaddey Ratner

Title: In the Shadow of the Banyan

Smoke was everywhere, as black as the soldiers' clothes. On sidewalks, books and papers burned in piles. Ashes flew up into the air, like burnt butterflies. I wondered why they were called Khmer Rouge--"Red Khmer." There was nothing red about them ... I wondered what they were really. Soldiers or peasants? Children or adults? They looked neither like devarajas nor rakshasas, the mythical gods and demons I'd imagined them to be; in those plain black clothes they looked more like a race of shadows, each one a repetition of the others.

Raami is seven when the Khmer Rouge overrun Phnom Penh and her family's life of royal privilege quickly comes to an end. They're forced to leave their home in Phnom Penh and flee to the country. Then the Kamaphibal, the leaders of the Revolution, make them move again. And when they discover that her father is Sisowath Ayuravann, a well-educated prince and poet, they take him away. Raami, her mother, and her little sister are soon separated from the rest of their family and sent to a poor village among the rice paddies to work. Raami is bereft without her father, as is her beautiful mother. Somehow they must learn to survive in a Cambodia they no longer recognize.

Lightning struck, the sky roared, and the night cried a giant's tears, thunderous and inconsolable.

Ratner based her novel on her own life and her writing is magical. If I tried to write down all of my favorite passages I'd end up copying the entire book. It makes my own words feel so inadequate. Saying that this novel is compelling and powerful; sad, but somehow still full of hope, does not do it justice.  Ratner's writing is storytelling at its finest.

Needless to say, I loved this book. I was lucky enough to visit Cambodia six years ago and reading this book brought it all back:  theBuddhist temples, the tall gum trees, the thatched houses on stilts, the ox-carts, the rice fields, and most of all, the resilient people. This is definitely one of the best books I've read all year!

Words, you see, allow us to make permanent what is essentially transient. Turn a world filled with injustice and hurt into a place that is beautiful and lyrical.

Happy Reading!

 

Bookish first impressions...

These first lines made me want to read more; see if any make you want to read more, too.

"Kell wore a very peculiar coat. It had neither one side, which would be conventional, nor two, which would be unexpected, but several, which was, of course, impossible."

Title: A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab

(Surprisingly compelling, this fantasy adventure with its four different Londons--Red, Gray, Black and White--is lots of fun. I loved it!)

"The obsession began on June 12, 2008 around 11:23 a.m."

Title: Intertwine by Nichole Van

(Emme Wilde travels back in time to England, 1812, to meet her soul-mate in this time-travel romance.)

 "I suppose a lot of teenage girls feel invisible sometimes, like they just disappear. Well, that's me --Cammie the Chameleon. But I'm luckier than most because, at my school, that's considered cool. I go to a school for spies."

Title: I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You by Ally Carter

(My niece recommended this entertaining YA novel; AND it fills the "spies" category for me on Reading Bingo!)

"Amy Grimes was bored with her life. She was bored with school, bored with her parents, bored with most of her friends, and had been well on the way to being bored with her boyfriend, Simon Church, until he suggested that they just pack up and leave this very boring little town."

Title: Fear the Dark by Kay Hooper

(Hooper's novels of psychic suspense are always page-turners, and this one is no exception.)

"Christmas crept into Pine Cove like a creeping Christmas thing: dragging garland, ribbon, and sleigh bells, oozing eggnog, reeking of pine, and threatening festive doom like a cold sore under the mistletoe."

Title: The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore

(An irreverent and quirky "tale of Christmas terror" with an incompetent Archangel, a dead Santa, a boy's Christmas wish, and zombies. It's awesome.)

Happy Reading!

The Wolves of Andover

"Blowing out the candle, Martha pulled both of the blankets close under her chin and lay in the dark. Here I am, she thought, traded like a kettle to yet another family. She knew it was not just for the wages ... it was to find a husband."

 It is 1673 and Martha Allen has been sent to Billerica, Massachusetts to help her pregnant cousin, Prudence, while her husband, Daniel Taylor, is away. Martha is a hard worker, but at nineteen, she's already considered a spinster. One of the hired men working on the farm, a tall Welshman named Thomas Carrier, soon catches her eyes. But he's older. And he is hiding a secret from his past, a secret that goes back to Oliver Cromwell and the execution of Charles I. He is also aloof and taciturn; not that Martha is a paragon.

"She had seen her reflection in a bucket of water often enough to know she had a kind of beauty, mirthless though it was; her skin was clear and unspotted, her forehead high and sloping. Her black hair ... was no doubt her glory, but she knew her brows knitted together too often to be pleasing, causing a deep well to form between them. But beyond all of that, she feared she had too much force, too much animal vitality, to be winning; at least to any civil, unprotesting sort of man."

The other story line running through this historical fiction novel concerns the five mercenaries sent by Charles II to Massachusetts to hunt down the regicides, those men who brought about the death of Charles I, especially the one called Thomas Morgan. The chapters alternate between Martha's story and that of these five men, although I would have preferred it if Kathleen Kent had focused solely on Martha and Thomas. (I found myself skimming the other chapters.) Kent includes a lot of interesting historical details; and I was also glad that at the end of the novel she explains which parts of her story are based on fact, and which are based on legend, rumor and supposition. Martha's a strong character, but I found her to be a bit prickly and not always likeable. And I while I liked Thomas, I wish his character had been fleshed out a little more. As for the rest of the novel, I liked it, but I didn't love it. Still, it's set in Massachusetts, which means I've filled another category in Lory's Reading New England Challenge. I only have two more states to go!

Happy Reading!

From the R Shelf...

Author:  Michael Robotham

Title:  Say You're Sorry

How it begins:  "My name is Piper Hadley and I went missing on the last Saturday of the summer holidays three years ago. I didn't disappear completely and I didn't run away, which is what a lot of people thought ... I didn't disappear alone. My best friend Tash was with me. I wish she were here now.

The main players:  The two missing girls, Piper Hadley and Natasha McBain; clinical psychologist Joe O'Loughlin who's been asked by the Oxford police to consult on a related case; ex-cop Vincent Ruiz who helps Joe with his investigation; and the man who took the girls, a man they call George.

My thoughts:  Talk about a serendipitous find from the R shelf! I loved this book. It's suspenseful; it's got memorable characters; it's very well-written; and it kept me guessing until the very end, which every good mystery should. The chapters alternate between Piper and Joe as Robotham skillfully weaves together the past and the present. It was in the hopes of stumbling upon amazing novels like Say You're Sorry and even more amazing authors like Michael Robotham that made me start Reading the Alphabet in the first place. I can't wait to read Robotham's other psychological thrillers. I understand Joe O'Loughlin is the main recurring character, which makes me glad because I like him. In fact, I liked everything about this book.

Happy Reading!

Similar reads:

The Edge of Normal by Carla Norton

The Whisperer by Donato Carrisi

In the Woods by Tana French

Be Happy!

The 'decision to be happy' is actually the decision to stop being unhappy.

--Barry Neil Kaufman

Most people are about as happy as they 

make up their minds to be.

--Abraham Lincoln

Change your thoughts and you change your world.

--Norman Vincent Peale

Remember happiness doesn't depend upon who you are or 

what you have; it depends solely on what you think.

--Dale Carnegie

Be cheerful in all that you do. Live joyfully. Live happily.

Live enthusiastically, knowing that God does not dwell in

gloom and melancholy, but in light and love.

--Ezra Taft Benson

Ghostly suspense...

"Somebody's living in this house. I heard them earlier. Whispering. When I turned round there was no one there. But there was still whispering."

Lieutenant Dominic Lancaster and his younger sister, Octavia, are sent to their family's summer home near Ullswater to escape the London blitz. Dominic is still recovering from losing his left leg in the war; Octavia is almost completely deaf. They're supposed to be safe in the England countryside, but Hallinhag House is not the sanctuary they hoped it would be.

"The house seems more than quiet. Downcast ... It's full of forgettings ... When I have been here before, the house has seemed filled with light; but that was always the summer, and it is winter now. Perhaps the house has picked up my mood, sensed my new vulnerability, and knows how useless I am. Can houses sense what we feel? Do they feed off all the emotions that have been experienced between their walls? Octavia says there are ghosts here. I admonish her, and I watch her when she comes to this room. She might be serious, but I doubt it. She has no names for these ghosts. Maybe they are silent, like her. 

Told in diary form, Jonathan Aycliffe's The Silence of Ghosts is a quiet tale of Gothic suspense. The house affects Octavia first, but Dominic is not immune. Neither is his nurse, Rose. They all see the children, but it's Octavia that the ghosts want.

I love a good ghost story, especially one set in a house with a mysterious past like Hallinhag House. And while this particular novel isn't the best ghostly tale I've read, it's pretty good. I liked the World War II setting, and the romance between Dominic and Rose. Octavia is a spunky and fun character. And the history of Hallinhag House is unexpected ... and a bit unsettling. All of which makes The Silence of Ghosts a nicely eerie, not too scary, read.  (Though I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending.)

Happy Reading!

Similar Reads:

     The Silence by Sarah Rayne

     The Woman in Black by Susan Hill

     The Fate of Mercy Alban by Wendy Webb

     The Poisoned House by Michael Ford