The Gilded Cage by Lucinda Gray

It's 1821, and an unexpected inheritance brings Katherine Randolph and her older brother, George, from their farm in Virginia all the way to England. It's not an easy transition, but Katherine is working hard to learn the rules of etiquette and how to act as a proper lady. Her cousins, Grace and Henry, are there to help. And George. But then, the morning after their introduction ball, George is found dead. Drowned. Every one thinks it's a tragic accident, but Katherine believes someone killed him. And her insistence that her brother was murdered soon puts her own life in danger.

While Katherine falls in love a little too quickly for my tastes, she's also a spunky and determined heroine. I liked how she never gives in to her two cousins, or to anyone else. After all, Katherine isn't a delicate English maiden; she's a fearless Virginian farm girl who knows how to shoot a gun and defend herself. Her own brother calls her Wildcat. I only wish I could have gotten to know her brother better; I suspect I would have liked him, too. And while it was pretty obvious who was behind George's death, there is a twist at the end that I wasn't expecting. Overall, this YA mystery is a fun read. I did find myself wishing that the author had fleshed out certain scenes and characters more than she did though. At only 245 pages, this story sometimes felt a little thin and rushed. But then, if it had been over 400 pages, I'd probably be complaining that it was way too long and needed editing. Isn't that the way it goes?

Happy Reading!

Some YA Fun...

Violet Wings by Victoria Hanley                                                                                         

First Line: Back when I was nine, my parents went missing.

My Thoughts: This is a light-hearted YA novel about fairies and genies, rules and magic, Earth and Feyland. In Hanley's world, each fairy or genie has a level of magic from lowest red to highest violet. (The girls are fairies; the boys are genies.) Zaria Tourmaline, who at 14 has just come into her magic, is a violet fairy, which is rare. She has a lot to learn about spells and portals, true friends, hidden enemies, and breaking all the rules. I liked that Hanley veered away from the traditional view of the Fae and instead created her own version of fairies; in her world, the fairies are more like the ones I used to imagine as a child. Hanely did a good job of creating her characters, and I thought this book was a lot of fun to read. I'm looking forward to reading the sequel: Indigo Magic. I hope it's a good as this one.

Added bonus: This book  fills another square on my YA Bingo Card--the square where you need to read a book with a color in its title. Lucky, huh?

Happy Reading!

Prisoner B-3087

The Jewish ghetto, the Wieliczka salt mine, concentration camps, death camps, the gas chamber, a death march ... Birkenau, Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau ... No one could survive them all.  Yet somehow Yanek Gruener did.

Sound unrealistic and unbelievable?  It's not.  Although Prisoner B-3087 by Alan Gratz is a fictionalized YA novel, it is based on the true life story of Jack Gruener, who at the age of 13 decided that he was not going to die at the hand of the Nazis.

"In the place of my pain, I felt the stirring of determination.

I would not give up.  I would not turn myself in.  No matter

what the Nazis did to me, no matter what they took from me,

I would survive."

And he did.

I loved this book.  Like The Hiding Place and The Diary of Anne Frank, this is a book everyone should read.  It's that good.

Other, similar books you might want to check out:  Destined to Live by Ruth Gruener and The Girl in the Green Sweater by Krystyna Chiger.  Both are amazing stories of hope and survival.

If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch

Kidnapped at age 5 by her own drug-addicted mother, Carey has spent the last 10 years living in a camper in the Tennessee woods with her younger sister, Jenessa.  But now Carey and her sister have been found and taken back home.  Only Carey isn't sure any place will ever feel like home again.

"Inside, I hurt in that empty-puzzle-piece way ... The tears flow, hot as the creek in the summer time ... I'm alone in a foreign land, this kingdom called New Bedroom, so clean, it makes my brain hurt ... I've been a world of tired, clear down in my dusty bones."



Not only does Carey have to reconnect with the real world, but with her father and new stepmother and stepsister, too.  And she has to learn how to accept and deal with everything that happened to her in the woods.  This is a moving and powerful story, one that will break your heart more than once, and make you smile through your tears.

Happy Reading!