Black Woods Blue Sky by Eowyn Ivey

 

What this book is about:  Birdie, a young single mother, and her six-year-old daughter, Emaleen, who live in Alaska. Birdie yearns for freedom and flight and wild places. And Arthur Nielsen, a quiet, scarred recluse who lives in an isolated cabin in the mountains beyond Wolverine River. He and Birdie fall in love and for awhile the three of them are happy living together far away from everyone else, exploring the wilderness, picking berries, catching salmon. But Arthur has a secret--a side of himself that isn't so tame. And it threatens their fairy tale ending.

My thoughts:  I loved Ivey's fairy tale-inspired novel, The Snow Child. She has a way of evoking a sense of wonder with her lyrical prose while at the same time creating a setting so real you can practically smell the wildflowers. And she's done it again with this novel. I loved the richly drawn Alaskan wilderness setting, and I loved Arthur and Emaleen and their cute interactions, too. But like many a Grimm fairy tale, I sensed early on I might not get my hoped for happy ending in this one. Because this book is sad. Which didn't make me like it any less, though it did break my heart just a little. I wanted more for Arthur, Birdie and Emaleen. But I still love the way Ivey writes.

My rating:  ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Happy Reading!

An Unforgiving Place by Claire Kells

 

Felicity Harland and Ferdinand "Hux" Huxley are agents for the Investigative Services Bureau; they investigate crimes that occur in National Parks. This time they've been summoned to the Gates of the Arctic National Park in Alaska where a young couple has been found dead near the Alatna River. Was it a tragic accident? Or murder? 

Harland and Hux soon discover that the couple came to Alaska to meet up with the reclusive Zane Reynolds, a man who purportedly can solve any couple's infertility issues. To Harland, his group sounds like a cult. So, she and Hux head out into the remote landscape in search of Reynolds to find out if he had anything to do with the couples' deaths. 

My thoughts:  This is another intriguing mystery from Claire Kells. I really loved the setting! The Gates of the Arctic is the second largest national park in the United States; it's also one of the least visited because of how remote it is. There are no roads or trails leading into the park; you have to be flown there in one of those small Alaskan bush planes and dropped off. That extreme isolation really added some nice tension to this book. Not only do Harland and Hux have to deal with the harsh landscape, but they also have to deal with a secretive survivalist, fleeing fugitives and a "demon bear". It's a fun summer read.

Happy Reading!

Kells' previous novel:  Vanishing Edge

One Last Shot by Susan May Warren

 

From the blurb:  "When country music star Oaken Fox joins survivalist Mike Grizz's new adventure show in the Alaskan wilderness, he just wants to boost his fan base. But when tragedy strikes and Air One Rescue must save them, Oaken wants to quit. Too bad his producer has other plans--signing him on with Air One Rescue as a recruit and making a reality show.

"EMT Boo Kingston did not join Air One Rescue to train a celebrity. But she's a rookie to the team, so yes, she'll train Oaken and keep him alive and not for a minute pay attention to his charm.

"Then five women go missing from a resort during a bachelorette weekend gone wrong. Now, Air One and the rescue team will have to use all their skills and manpower--including Oaken--to find them before a blizzard settles in. But can they work together before tragedy strikes?"

My thoughts:  Ashley @ The Rustic Reading Gal, who recommended this book, said I would love it...and she was right. The compelling action starts on page one and continues throughout the book. But there are also quiet moments with Oaken and Boo and the other members of the rescue team--moments of heart, humor, redemption, forgiveness, and faith. I loved all the rescue guys, but I especially loved Oaken and Boo and how they slowly came together over the course of the story. And that Alaskan wilderness setting is always a favorite of mine. All the rescue scenes felt very realistic, and were nicely suspenseful, too. And I loved the positivity and the happy ending. I will definitely be checking out the next book in this series when it comes out next month. 

Happy Reading!

Walden on Wheels by Ken Ilgunas

 "Behind a vandweller's decision to move into what is often a cramped, smelly, heatless, air-conditioning less vehicle--there is always a story....a vandweller doesn't become a vandweller simply by purchasing a van. Rather, some personal change or transformation must first occur. The answer to the question about why I lived in a van is this book, which means that the following story isn't so much about a van but about student debt, and wilderness, and all the people and places and journeys that have made me the person I am today...."

 

How would I describe this memoir? It's honest, humorous, enlightening and entertaining. And it's about more than Ken Ilgunas trying to get out of debt or live in a van; it's a chronicle of his own journey to personal freedom and a better, more satisfying life. And I enjoyed every page of it. He meets a lot of interesting people and has many memorable moments in his quest to become debt free. I loved his Alaskan adventures and his experiences hitchhiking across America on his way back home. And all the living-in-a-van parts are especially funny. This is a great book. Here's just one of the quotes from it that I loved:

"Sometimes it's not until you see your shackles that you see your dreams. The soul must first be caged before it can be set free. For all the trouble it had put me through, I had the debt to thank for that. Still though, now that I was out of debt, I couldn't stop dreaming about what I could finally do. This sense of hope and anticipation that I felt made living a delight. This was freedom, I thought. Freedom didn't have to be about tramping around or having adventures:  freedom was simply being able to entertain the prospect of changing your circumstances."

Happy Reading!

 

Cold Wind by Paige Shelton

 

Beth Rivers moved to the small village of Benedict, Alaska, because she needed a place to hide where no one would find her, especially not the man who abducted her back in St. Louis. She can't remember much about him, but she fears he's still out there, hunting for her. But she feels safe in Alaska. Gril, the sheriff there, knows her story and keeps in touch with the police in Missouri. Beth's made a few friends in town, including Orin, the librarian, and Viola, who runs the halfway house where she rents  a room. She's even got a job putting out Benedict's newspaper, Petition. And she's writing her thrillers again. 

All is good until there's a mudslide outside of town and two young girls show up on Beth's doorstep, mute and covered in mud. No one seems to know where they belong. Then the frozen body of an unknown woman is found in a trapping shed outside of town. It looks like she's been dead for awhile, and that she didn't die of natural causes. And once again Beth finds herself involved in a murder investigation. 

I really enjoyed Paige Shelton's previous novel, Thin Ice, where I was first introduced to Beth and the town of Benedict, and I thought this second book was equally good. I liked how Beth is getting to know Alaska better and how she's fitting in with everyone in town, and I thought the two young girls were cute. (I liked their father, Tex, too.) The mystery surrounding them and the murdered woman does get a bit convoluted towards the end, and I questioned the killer's motive and some of the timing of everything, but overall I thought this was an entertaining book. And I'm looking forward to reading Shelton's next book set in Benedict, Alaska, which should come out this December. If you want to try this series, I recommend reading Thin Ice first.

Happy Reading!

Coming soon:

Survive this!

Title & Author:  Ice Dogs by Terry Lynn Johnson
Genre:  YA Adventure
Setting:  Alaska

How it begins:  "All eight of my dogs are stretched in front of me in pairs along the gangline. they claw the ground in frustration as the loudspeaker blares. 'Here's team number five. Our hometown girl, fourteen-year-old Victoria Secord!'"

What happens next:  Victoria is still grieving the death of her father who taught her everything she knows about surviving in the Alaskan wilderness. Her dogs and mushing are what she loves most...and what help her survive her overwhelming grief. So when she gets a chance to acquire a new lead dog from a neighboring musher, she heads out cross-country with her sled and her dogs without telling anyone where she's going. Only she forgets to check the forecast. When a sudden March storm threatens, she debates about turning around and heading back home. But then she runs across a crashed snowmobile. The driver, Chris, is a teenager who's new to Alaska; he's hurt, and he's lost. As the storm worsens, it's up to Vicky and her dogs to keep them both alive...and somehow find their way back home.

My thoughts:  At 279 pages, Ice Dogs is a fun and fast-paced adventure. I read it in a day. Vicky's survival skills were impressive, but the Alaskan wild is unpredictable and dangerous. Finding food, staying warm, and protecting her dogs from wolves and moose takes everything Vicky's got. And Chris's lack of outdoor skills isn't exactly helping (especially when he accidentally burns up her only map). I have to admit, while I liked both these characters, Vicky's lead dog, Bean, was my favorite. I liked all the survival bits, too. Johnson's writing rings with authenticity, especially all the dog sledding parts, and her pacing never lets up.

Happy Reading!

Spine-tingling Suspense...

"Shadows were seeping out of the trees like spilled molasses, coiling through the grass and sweeping up their trunks. The deathly quiet was broken by the hum of incoherent murmurings. dozens of whispered voices swirled around him as the shadows continued their steady march towards the driveway and his only means of escape .... He sucked air audibly through his teeth as the shadows took on the shape and form of people, an eerie queue of obsidian men and women without faces. He was going to die."

The book:  Forest of Shadows by Hunter Shea

The setting:  a log cabin in Shida, Alaska, a remote village where the native Alaskans know more than they're willing to say.

The main characters:  JOHN BACKMAN, a widower, lottery winner, and paranormal hunter who lives to investigate strange phenomenom. JESSICA, John's precocious and fearless six-year-old daughter who's the first to see a ghost at the log cabin. EVE, John's sister-in-law, and her young son, LIAM. And JUDAS GRAVES, an outsider in Shida who loves to read, smoke pot, and who experienced the terror residing in the log cabin firsthand. He's the reason John's come to Alaska with his family. Then there's the rest of the town, who really don't want John and his family there.

The end result:  a creepy and entertaining supernatural mystery with murderous shadows, ghosts, buried secrets, suspense, evil, terror, revenge, love, sacrifice, and death.  Do I recommend it? Absolutely!

Happy Reading!

For more Hunter Shea reads and reviews, check out Barb's review of Antarctic Ice Beasts, and watch for her upcoming review of Shea's newest novel, Ghost Mine. She's also posted a great interview with Hunter Shea about his books, which everyone should go and read. And then go read a Hunter Shea book for yourself!

Like one of these:
The Dover Demon
Megalodon in Paradise
They Rise

The Wolves of Winter

Lynn and her family moved from Chicago to Alaska when she was twelve, before the nuclear bombs fell. They thought they'd be safe there. Until the flu pandemic began. When her father succumbed to the deadly outbreak, Lynn and her mother, older brother, and her Uncle Jeryl, headed for the Yukon.

I was sixteen when we left Eagle, Alaska. When things got bad, when everyone seemed to be leaving, we up and left too. We headed into the Yukon Territory. To the trees, hills, mountains, valleys, rivers, snow, snow, snow, snow, snow. The vast wilderness of nothing.....It really was a beautiful place. You just had to get over the freezing weather, the darkness, the loneliness, the cabin fever, the boredom--oh God, the boredom--the shitty food, and the repetitive routine.

Now Lynn is 23, and her boring routine is unexpectedly interrupted when she meets an enigmatic stranger in the woods while she's out hunting. His name is Jax and he's got a dog with him he calls Wolf. And he's hiding a dark past.

Something was off about this man. I knew the potential danger I was in. Alone with a strange man, in the middle of nowhere, too far away to call for help. What a stupid idea it was to invite him back to the cabins. Why had I done that? God, it was so exciting.

Jax is not the only stranger who's come to the Yukon. Immunity, the government group from before the war, is searching for Jax. But he's not the only one they're interested in. Soon, Lynn and her entire family find themselves fighting for their lives.

What had happened to the world had made animals or monsters of us all. Survivors or murderers. Sometimes the line between the two was blurry....

MY THOUGHTS:  Compelling characters, lyrical prose, and Lynn's poignant relationship with her dad are three of the reasons why I liked this postapocalyptic novel by Tyrell Johnson so much. The two twists at the end weren't completely unexpected, but they worked. And I liked how Johnson wove pieces of Lynn's past throughout the entire novel, including her grief for her dad and snippets of the Walt Whitman poems he loved so much.  It made her feel like a real person. I also really liked Jax and Wolf. For me, The Wolves of Winter, is a 4-star read. The fact that I got to read it along with Melody made it even better. Be sure to check out Melody's review of this awesome book, too.

Happy Reading!

P.S. Whenever Melody and I do a "buddy read" she always asks me some questions at the end. Here they are, along with my answers:

Q. With the war and the flu pandemic, do you think Lynn and her family, as well as Jax, would be happier living on their own even if it means they have to hide forever?

A.  They might be safer hiding and living on their own, but even before they met Jax they didn't seem very happy in their isolation. I mean, look how excited Lynn got when she saw Jax just because he was someone new. And Jax didn't come across as a super happy person out there on his own. I think people need love and friendship and other people to laugh with in order to be truly happy.

Q. The author has painted a scary world in The Wolves of Winter. What do you think is the scariest in this story?

A. For me, the scariest part is the fact that almost everything bad that happened in this story--the nuclear bombs, the flu virus, the fires--were all engineered by humans. It's scary to think about how good people are at destroying one another.