Cole Shoot by Michael Maxwell

Here is a copy of my Amazon review of Michael Maxwell's 5th book in the Cole Sage series.

Yet another terrific book by Michael Maxwell. The worst thing about this book is the fact that now I have to wait until his next book, Cole Fire is finished and published before I get to read another of Michael Maxwell’s books. I hope it won’t be long. Mr. Maxwell’s, main character is Cole Sage. He is in many ways a ‘mild mannered newspaper reporter‘, but when necessary for the sake of friends and family will don his super-hero cape to bring help to them. Each of his books deals with the different evils that permeate our society today. This book deals first with gang violence and the second the care and respect our special needs mentally handicapped citizens should have. We see again some characters from an earlier book as well as they help Cole’s newspaper intern out of a very tough spot.

I love seeing that a writer can have a character function in a book without all the trappings that most seem to feel are so necessary, such as Cole not drinking, or jumping into bed with his girlfriend. Cole has a moral compass so lacking in many these days. While he doesn't follow rules blindly, he does feel deeply the ethics of the choices he makes and his decisions. This book especially shows it so very well.

There are scenes showing genuine love for people, especially Marco and Cole the first time they see each other which was a delightful scene in the book. For those that would be bothered by it, there are some scenes of gang violence in graphic detail. There are however, no scenes of gratuitous sex to skip over.

Mr. Maxwell writes from a Christian perspective yet without constant Biblical references. This book has two verses brought up by Cole’s friend Kelly. And they were appropriate and in context. One of the things that over the years that has turned me off of the regular so called “Christian novels” is the almost constant quoting of the Bible. No one seems to have a voice unless they are quoting Bible passages and that sure isn't the norm for most Christians that I have met. So even if you don’t live your life with the same religious philosophy as the author and Cole, you can still read the book and enjoy it.

Cole Dust by Michael Maxwell

One of the nice things that have happened since I starting reviewing books and things is being asked by independent authors and manufacturers to review their items. One day I got an email from Michael Maxwell asking if I would read and review his book Diamonds and Cole which I thoroughly enjoyed so he sent me more of his books. At this point I think I have read and reviewed 6 of his books, 4 of which are in the Cole Sage series. Cole is a newspaper journalist. Rather than being a hard drinking, chain smoking guy that many journalist are portrayed, he is different. It is hard to put your finger on it, but he is different as he defends and helps the helpless, finds the truth behind lies and is always willing to lend a hand as he keeps his positive viewpoint through out. Even though he gets a 'girlfriend' in the third book, he hates calling her his girlfriend at their age, that is what she is. Even after 8 months of dating, they are still not falling into bed at a moments notice (some novels seem to have a couple having sex before they have even changed name or phone numbers which I hate) as matter of fact, they aren't having sex at all, just appreciating each others company. As I said Cole is a different character and if you would prefer to a read books with minimal swearing, smoking, drinking and sex, yet still have a gripping tale, this books might just be for you. Below is the Amazon review I just did for the latest book I read: Cole Dust.

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I was gifted this Kindle book in exchange for an honest review.

This is the fourth book in the Cole Sage series; it leads us more into Cole’s life and some of the things that made him who he is today. Right before leaving on a planned vacation he receives an envelope that had been forwarded many times due to his having moved from Chicago to San Francisco. In the letter and subsequent phone call to the attorney that sent it, Cole finds out that he has inherited property in Oklahoma and must reside in the house for at least 30 days to avoid horrendous inheritance taxes. So he changes vacation plans and heads to Oklahoma.  He comes to find a house in need of a lot of TLC and a yard piled high with tumbleweeds. H also finds a neighbor that is the neighbor we all want, who immediately jumped in to help him bring back the house to the point he should be able to sell it.

In the house Cole finds a trunk in the attic which turns out to be full of notebooks his grandfather had written over the course of his life. His grandfather had died when Cole was around 5 years old so he never had a chance to meet him nor had his father told him much about him. Cole being an only child, with his parents gone had felt alone in the world but in a prior book had meet his daughter that he had never known he had as well as his granddaughter. Just having those two in his life felt like riches, so finding even one notebook from his grandfather felt like a treasure discovered, but he found many more than more than one. So between fixing up his house, Cole learned about the family that he had never known about.

This in many ways was a touching book in that we learned from one family what the depression, the dust bowl the Spanish flu did to the family and the small town they lived in. We see what alcoholism, bigotry and poverty can do to a family. This was an interesting book that brings insight into the life of a family. It made me wish that somehow I could find something along the order of a stack of notebooks or diaries from my grandparents as I never have really heard their background and they are now no longer with us. Sometimes just knowing what past generations went through helps us to understand why we become who we do.

 

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I hope you will take the chance to read one of his books and enjoy them as well as I do.

Where They Found Her by Kimberly McCreight

I'm not quite sure where this year has gone. My blog hasn't been neglected due to not reading any books, but my Kindle sucks me in and makes it so easy to read the next book as soon as you finish one. I've had many occasions this past year to review non-book items as well, and I plan to start posting those here as well. The Amazon Vine program brings many great things into my life to try and review. My favorite item that I received last year was my  Black and Decker Convection Toaster Oven . I had never even been close to a toaster oven up to this point and so I was a complete novice upon using one. We learned fast though that it makes the best baked potatoes in the world! No more turning on our big electric oven to bake a couple of potatoes for hubby and me and no more too damp microwave potatoes. This come out perfect inside with crispy skin on the outside. Toasting my bagels is super easy as well and no getting a bagel half stuck in a regular toaster.

My latest book that I finished around midnight last night was Where They Found Her by Kimberly McCreight. To be published by Harper in April 2015. This was a very well written book that centered around the death of a newborn baby that was found in a creek. Written somewhat in the style of Up The Down Staircase, in that there were psychiatrist notes, newspaper articles, journal entries, blog articles and regular text it gives a rest from straight dialogue. Here is my review that I posted to Amazon.

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This is the kind of book that makes me happy to be an Amazon Vine member with a chance to read and comment on books before they go out to the general public. While at times I have had to read some strangely awful books, in other cases such as this, it is a very well written book and hard to believe it comes from a beginning author with only one other book to their name. This was an enjoyable book to read, even with the main focus being the death of a newborn, since it was a well-crafted story that keeps you guessing throughout the book.

This book not only delves into the mystery of a dead newborn found in a creek but also the relationships between people in a small university town. Rather than getting a series of perfect mom’s, dads as well as children, these people seem real. You find a mother still grieving her stillborn baby, another is grieving a divorce, while another is trying to be the world’s perfect mother and wife and alienating everyone around her including her husband and children in the process. All are subjects that most of us can relate to in some way. In the end we see the truth of the saying ‘be sure your sins will find you out’. This was a very interesting book to read and keeps you guessing throughout the whole book. A well told tale and I look forward to reading more books by this author.

 

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One of the difficulties of reviewing books on Amazon is the buzzards that want to swoop down and chastise you if in any way shape or form you write a spoiler, ie. telling crucial parts of the book before they have a chance to read it. In one review I mentioned that the woman had breast cancer which since it was mentioned on the very first page of the book it wasn't something that could be construed as a spoiler yet sure enough it was. So forgive me is my reviews seem a bit lackluster at times. The internet has given people a voice and they are determined to use it!

Whole Latte Life by Joanne Demaio

Whole Latte Life by Joanne Demaio ISBN 9781466427501

One of the difficulties with writing book reviews is if you 'give away' any part of the story there are howls of protest that one has 'spoiled' the story. Many times it is hard to write a review, especially for Amazon.com and to not try to give the story away without offending the "Spoiler Alert" police. This is the review that I wrote for Amazon.com but I feel that I couldn't say quit everything that I wanted to. Sara Beth was suffering from severe depression, she was very tied, still, to her dead mother's apron strings; she was still emailing her and writing her letters in her journal as well as calling her phone number. It was very obvious that she cared more for her dead mother than she did for her husband and three children. I found her a very hard character to like, while Rachel was the kind of woman I would love to have for a friend. Willing to love and yet willing to confront. I loved Rachel's story so much more than Sara Beth's and it was almost as if Sara Beth's story was the back drop to allow Rachel and Michael's story to exist.

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This is Joanne Demaio’s debut novel. I had read her second book, Blue Jeans and Coffee Beans first. While there is some overlap of characters and places in the two novels, it is not essential to read the books in order to understand what is going on. They are stand alone novels.
 

The book starts out with Rachel and Sara Beth in New York City for a weekend to celebrate their 40^th birthdays. Sara Beth goes to the restroom and doesn’t come back. Eventually, Rachel checks the restroom and doesn’t see her. When one of the restaurant employees hands her a note stating that Sara Beth, was basically going out on her own to find herself, Rachel panics. In the last few years, Sara Beth had gotten pregnant at 38, long after all maternity clothing and baby items were gone out of the house. She had lost her mother whom she was close to to a brain aneurysm. She was frustrated about not having achieved many of her life goals including opening an antique shop that she and her mother had shopped for items for it for many years.

Rachel in her panic to find Sara Beth ends up confronting a mounted policeman for help. As the story unfolds she becomes better acquainted with him. As I don’t want to spoil the book for you, I won’t go into the story any more other than to say it was a very different one with a lot of the characters taking a look at themselves and the changes they may need to face.

Sara Beth was a very different sort of character than one usually finds in a novel. She appears to be suffering from true clinical depression, although she had been hiding it so well her best friend Rachel and her husband Tom never really noticed it. But she crashes at the point of the New York weekend. As the story progresses, you will see many of the things that had been weighing on her. She also has a very forgiving and loving family and best friend as they go on this ride with her.

I think one of the strongest things about this book is the author knows and writes her characters as flawed, imperfect people that are still deserving of love and attention. But aren’t we all like that? I do think however that Sara Beth, besides the changes she makes in her life, should also get lined up with some professional help so that she can make long term changes in her life. A problem that I had with the book, and it is a small one, was money for the most part was not a problem. Everyone had money to spend in sufficient quantities for whatever they wanted to do, whether vacationing at a beach house for weeks, going the NYC for the weekend, going out for dinner, buying jewelry, actually buying anything. As someone that has always had to count her pennies, books where there seems to be an open wallet, ‘take what you want’ tends to offend me a bit. In this novel, it took away form the realism of the book, especially when it comes to Sara Beth’s wedding and engagement rings. Read the book and see what I’m talking about.
 

For book clubs, there is a reader’s guide at the back of the book.

 

Blue Jeans and Coffee Beans by Joanne Demaio

Blue Jeans and Coffee Beans by Joanne Demaio  ISBN 9781479262779

Here is my latest book review on this easy reading novel.

At times I find myself scratching my head trying to figure out how and why a book got its title. I was happy to be able to truly understand the title of this book as one of the main characters was a designer of denim clothing. This is the author’s second novel. I wasn’t able to read her first but I was very pleased with this story. Other than some confusion at first trying to sort out all the different characters, it was an interesting story of old friends meeting up at the beach where they had hung out in the summers while growing up. Now they are all in their late 20’s or early 30’s and life hasn’t been kind to all of them. Some have survived tragedies, others are having financial and marital problems and others are having emotional problems due to unanswered questions form their childhood. Maris feels cut off after losing her mother, a woman she only knew through old 8mm home movies, and Eva who was adopted and has spent much of her life trying to track down her birth parents.

As someone who moved around way too much while growing up, I always wonder if there are really these kinds of deep long term relationships from a person’s teen years. Since I read a lot of books about close friendships, I can only assume that they do exist. If so, these were a group of kids that grew up that still cared for each other, they weren’t being catty behind the others backs. So this was a great picture of friendship and relationships. It also involved finding the clues to what Maris and Eva searched for all these years.

This is an interesting and readable book with characters that you can relate to and like. I don’t like reading books where I really end up hating several of the characters. While some of the story may seem a bit far fetched, they do say that truth is stranger than fiction, especially in Eva’s search for her birth mother, a delicate topic even still in today’s world.

The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey

Yet another review from a book received from the Amazon Vine program. It seemed like for a while I was only getting the dreariest, dark, depressing books that I could barely finish. This one however was different and I did enjoy it although the author is not in the same league as Charlotte Bronte.

Introducing The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey

If you love the novel Jane Eyre then you should probably love or at least enjoy this book as it is a modernized Jane Eyre story. Some incidents in the book are almost identical to what happens in Jane Eyre and others are only reminiscent. If you have never read Jane Eyre, you should still enjoy this book. It was so nice to read a novel that has a happy ending just like Jane Eyre did! I’ve had way too many books that were dark dreary books come my way lately that left me feeling depressed. So I was glad to have a happy book even though many of the events in the book are sad.

I had received a Jane Eyre DVD starring Timothy Dalton as a birthday present that unfortunately had glitches in it so I had to exchange it. This meant that when my new copy came, I had to run it to see if the new DVD ran correctly. So while reading the modern day Jane Eyre novel (The Flight of Gemma Hardy) I was seeing the Jane Eyre story unfold before my eyes and actually was reading the same part of the novel that was being shown on the screen. Rather an interesting experience. For those of you that aren’t acquainted with this particular piece of literature and don’t want to track down a copy of Jane Eyre to read, the DVD will give you a fairly good idea of the novel, although no movie can replace reading ever!

Instead of gothic England, this book took place in the 1960's, so obviously some of the previous scenes were impossible to capture in the new book. Also, how does one rewrite a top of the line novel like Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights or Jane Austen's novels? But, Margot Livesey did her best and shows, along with Charlotte Bronte, that when one has no money and has no friends, no matter what the era, you are sure to have trouble getting by in life.

Goodnight, Beautiful by Dorothy Koomson

This is a review of Goodnight, Beautiful that I did for the Amazon Vine program. I thoroughly loved this book although at the beginning I got a bit confused as to who was narrating the story. Prior to reading this book I had just finished two different 'novels'. Both had issues that the author was trying to shove down our throats. One was a mystery book that was really all about feminism. If I wanted to read about these issues, I would go to the non-fiction side of the library. This is partly why this book was such a relief to read. Where she could have pressed certain issues, she just let them be part of the story.
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This novel has everything in it that makes for a great reading experience in my opinion. Romance, loving family relationships, friendships and the bricks and rocks and boulders that are at times thrown into our paths. This book could have ended on a very sad note, but the author took it one step further and was able to end the book on a high note.

I loved the way the author was able to weave together two families that were tightly bonded by being neighbors and also bonded by love for each other. In the book you come to learn that one family was white and one was black, but rather than let the book flounder in the race relations issue, it was treated as just another thing, not too terribly important. One mother had bi-polar disease and so the other came along side her to help her raise her children. One father worked hard to support the two families when the other father couldn't cope.

The children grew up and went their ways. One of the girls offered to become a surrogate mother for the boy she grew up with and considered a brother. One boy married a woman with bi-polar disease and walked along side her to help her cope. The girl ended up raising her child alone except with the amazing help of her friends. The child goes in for surgery and instead of getting better, goes into a coma and that is what the whole book is tied around. These family stories are told as the background for this child laying in a hospital bed. When the sad end comes, the families are tied together with the passion that we can get through this too.

A touching lovely story and I hope to see many more from this author. I love how she was able to bring issues up such as race, mental health, single parenting and instead of preaching at us, showed how grace for each other will make everyone's life better. A very touching book.

Bitter in the Mouth by Monique Truong

My picks for books a week ago for the Amazon Vine program where less than stellar. One book I will not even inflict the review on you folks who read my blog. Needless to say I couldn't read past 80 pages it was so boring to me. When I published my review of that bit of drivel on Amazon, I was happy to see that Publisher's Weekly agreed with me. When doing a review for the Vine program, to keep me as honest and fair as possible, I read the book, write and publish my review before seeing what anyone else has to say about it. Sometimes I seem to be the lone voice of dissent or praise, but since this is supposed to be my feelings and I've never been known for being a "yes" person I don't particularly care. When possible, I try to let the authors know of my reviews of their books and when they write back and tell me that I 'got' the book I feel happy. The titles of all my reviews here, when possible, always link back to the author's blog or website so that if you like you can find out more about them. That all being said, on to today's Vine review.

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I was prepared to not like Bitter in the Mouth as the blurb about it seemed a bit implausible, but the selections for my Vine review picks that week were sketchy and this book looked to be the best of the lot. I am so glad I did choose it, because it turned out to be a very interesting book that showed friendships and families in the light of how they really are warts and all. Linda loves her father and is close to him, she is distant from her mother, extremely close to her great-uncle and has a best friend, Kelly, which she communicates by letters from their first little girl notes until the end of the book when they are in their early 30’s I believe. Not only does this book show the problems within the family, it also shows what Linda and her mother go through to heal their relationship.


Linda ‘suffers’ from synesthesia, although she would not call it suffering. Her form consists of every spoken word leaves a taste in her mouth which means that every word has certain connotations to her. For example, Mom equals chocolate milk, the name Leo equals parsnips. The only one that she has been able to discuss this with is her best friend Kelly, which is one of the reasons for the written letters between them over the years. Verbal language made it incredibly hard for her to handle the ‘incomings’ as she called them. It isn’t until she sees a TV program about people with other forms of synesthesia that Linda learns she is not alone.

What is found most appealing in reading this book, is that within minutes I felt like I was reading a girl’s true diary if girls had the writing ability of an adult to write out their feelings. I had to remind myself many times throughout reading this book that it was fiction. The entire book is narrated by Linda and as she learns things or understand past moments in time, only then do we learn and understand them too. This is a different and lovely novel and by the end of the book, you are really hoping for a happy ending for Linda even past the actual end of the book. You feel like you know her and want the best for her after all she has gone through. I will certainly be looking for more books by this author.

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One of the very interesting things that I found in this book was knowing it was written by a Vietnamese immigrant and I kept waiting for somebody in the book to be Vietnamese. Well at the half-way point we are introduced to that person and I had been suspecting who it would be for a while, but the writing was skilfully done so that it wasn't really the focus of the book but an added element. I see great things ahead for this excellent writer, Monique Truong.

The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker

The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker

I picked this book up at a book sale and I know I did it because of the cover. It shows a dress maker’s dummy in the size of a full figured woman surrounded by lovely crewel work embroidery. For someone like me that sews and embroiders, etc. I was hoping for a cozy novel with a sewing theme. I got much more than that!


Truly, our main character was truly a giant from birth onwards. Her story is one of cruelty not only from other children but also from adults including her father who blamed her for her mother’s death during childbirth. Truly has a two-year older sister, Serena Jane, who of course, is of normal proportions and is a raving beauty besides. The world falls at her feet. Yet as this book proves beauty is only skin deep and those of us who plod on despite physical infirmities and less than perfect looks should also have a chance to make something of ourselves and be loved and cared for also.

Throughout this book is woven the tale of a quilt that is elaborately decorated with flowers made by a woman many generations earlier who had been known for her healing potions. Truly discovers the key to unlocking the knowledge the quilt holds and finds she then also holds the power of life and death and what an awesome responsibility that can be.

I don’t like my book reviews to be mini reruns of the book, but just enough hints to make you want to read it for yourself. In this book especially giving the condensed version of the book wouldn’t do it justice. Many times I pick up a book with the phrase ‘a novel’ on the front cover and wonder will it be yet another boring long treatise about ‘whatever’ where I have no sympathy or empathy for the characters. This book wasn’t like that. I felt sorry for Truly who so wanted to be loved for just who she was, I wanted to slap the adults into treating her like a human. As I heard more and more about the quilt, I wanted to see it and hold it myself as I knew it surely was a thing of beauty. As Marcus loved Truly from afar I kept wishing I could give him courage to show his love to her. This is a wonderful story and was the author’s first book. I sincerely hope that it won’t be a one hit wonder.

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I read a book about every day or so and so within a few days of reading
The Little Giant of Aberdeen County,  I found myself reading Maggie Rowan by Catherine Cookson. In Maggie Rowan we also find two characters that were born with unusual shapes and disfigurments in pre-WWII England. If you would like to read and compare two books that have similiar themes, these two books should be a beginning for you. The books both take place during basically the same time frame in history, each on it's side of the Atlantic. Thankfully, attitudes have changed towards many with disabilities of all sorts, yet how many times do the pretty and handsome children get so much showered on them while those less fortunate shrivel on the vine. Both these books are a call to action to look into our own attitudes about others that might be different than us and remember everyone has feelings.

Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich

Thanks to the McCord Library in North East, PA for making this book available to me.

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This is my review of Sizzling Sixteen for Amazon.com

This is your typical Stephanie Plum mystery book. If you have been reading the series, it is a continuation of the amazing adventures of Stephanie, Lula, Joe, and Ranger and featuring more of Connie from the bail bonds office. We find that Connie makes great stink bombs and was known for it when she was in high school. Stephanie is still wrecking cars, Lula is on yet another diet where she is allowed to eat one item, only she hasn’t decided if that means one donut or one dozen donuts. Joe and Stephanie are currently on the outs although that doesn’t mean he won’t come to her rescue as needed. Ranger is still hot stuff and continues to loan Stephanie cars as she continues to total them. This time it is Vinnie the bail bondsman that has disappeared and the three girls need to find him and rescue him or come up with a million dollar ransom if they want to keep their jobs. In other words a typical fun story.


If you have never read a book from this story, you can jump in any time, but I suggest you start from book number one if you can. Otherwise, be prepared for a cozy mystery, humor, fun, romance, crazy grandma’s and a whole slew of oddball people. It is a great hot, humid summertime book to read to make you forget how miserable you are and at times you may find yourself laughing out loud. In the sense of great literature, this book doesn’t cut it, but if you want a fun entertaining book to read this whole series will do it for you.

This book did need to come with a warning though. Cluck in a Bucket extra crispy fried chicken played a huge role in this book. I was able to read this book in one sitting and by the time I was done I HAD to go get a bucket of Colonel Sanders extra crispy fried chicken, my brain wouldn’t stop demanding it! Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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I never read reviews of books until I have actually written and posted mine, so I was surprised than many readers didn't like this book. That is their right, but I am continually amazed when I see some reader's reviews of books and they pick books like this one apart as if it were supposedly the next Great American Novel. This book was quite simply meant to be fun and entertaining. I know I enjoyed it. All of the Stephanie Plum books are over the top silly and the times I have laughed out loud while reading them are too many to count. Then my husband asks what I'm laughing at and I read him a section and he laughs too. That is the fun part of this series of books. Perhaps I've had enough sadness and pain in my life that I enjoy anything that takes me away from the pain, if only for a few hours and so I am greatly indebted to Janet Evanovich for doing this for me. I was in very bad pain the day I read this and so the relief was enormous to get lost in a fun book and I firmly believe that "laughter does good like a medicine".

Maybe This Time by Jennifer Crusie

This was another Amazon Vine pick, Maybe This Time by Jennifer Crusie. a very different book than what I usually read, but just what I needed this weekend while battling a bad arthritis flare-up. For taking my mind off of my pain it gets five stars!

This was a very delightful, quirky book to read combining romance, ghosts and family dynamics. I would never normally read a ghost story and this one surprised me especially as it had not one but five ghosts by the end of the book. The ghost Dennis you almost felt sorry for as he was confined to the couch. But that is getting ahead of the story.


I knew this book was not based on true reality when the main character, Andie Miller, plopped herself down in her ex-husband’s law office determined to give him back 10 years worth of alimony checks that she had never cashed even though she was in debt herself. Who ever gives back alimony checks? In the midst of giving the checks back he convinces her to take a job to care for his wards living in southern Ohio. She arrives to take care of them to find a castle in total disrepair that had been brought over piece by piece from England and a moat surrounding it. The housekeeper was mean and crotchety and oozing booze fumes, the children, Carter and Alice, looking pale and silent until you tried to get Alice to do something she didn’t want to do and then she could scream louder and longer than anyone. And then the ghosts start coming out. A TV reporter shows up to film a story about ghosts along with a ghost expert who doesn’t believe in ghosts and someone to lead a séance. All show up without, of course, the benefit of having been invited.

In this fast paced book, the children learn to love Andie especially as she promises never to leave them. Andie’s ex-husband shows up and gets rid of the TV reporter and eventually all is settled with Andie getting back with her husband (of course). They and the children move to Columbus along with the couch and resident ghost only to find another ghost has been living in their house in Columbus for all this time. No matter how you describe the book, it sounds like a silly book but it is really a fun book to read especially when you need a ‘pick-me-up’ kind of book.

Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldman

This is another Amazon Vine book review. I had rather skimpy pickings last week and this book looked to be one of the better bets. Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldman was a lovely story that for the most part I enjoyed very much. I gave it four stars.

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This was a story of two families thrown together due to their children’s marriage and then those children’s death one hour after their marriage. The story is set in Maine and is divided into four summers starting with the wedding and ending with the two families acceptance of each other and each other’s strong and weak points four years later. I felt that the story was well told and included many human emotions of sadness, grief, sorrow, love, happiness, beauty, musical appreciation. Every once in a while though, I felt I was hitting a jarring note in the book when I came across a crude word that did nothing for the story except make you wonder why that word had been included in this story in the first place. Yes I am a bit of a prude, but reading a book that is tender and lovely and then running into words that should only appear in sleazy novels was inappropriate and unnecessary. Other than that, I enjoyed reading this book and could also see that it would probably make a terrific movie with the family conflicts, the conflicts within the families, seeing the growth of a musical prodigy, it even had a lovely story setting which would make for great viewing.. It was an interesting and a bit different story.

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The child prodigy was Samantha in the book, a young girl that at age three had been adopted from Cambodia and then due to unforseen circumstances wasn't living a life of the great American dream. At the time of the story her prowess at musicwas discovered and her violin playing became a theme throughout the book. Her story in itself would make a great novel.

The Goddess Abides by Pearl S. Buck

From my many boxes of books to read, this is the latest that I pulled out. I have heard of Pearl S. Buck for many years, but can't recall ever reading one of her books. This needless to say, was a bit of a strange one in my opinion. Better known for her books about China, this one was about a woman in the USA living a life that most of us would never be able to relate to personally. But the writing was well done and you can see where the story is going.

Here is the review that I did for Amazon:

I believe The Goddess Abides is the first novel of Pearl Buck’s that I have ever read. Set apparently in the late 1960’s early 1970’s, an era I well remember, I had a hard time not thinking as I read that the book had taken place much earlier. If not for the references to the Viet Nam War, short skirts on women, etc. I would have thought that the book was taking place in the 1920 pre-depression as the main character of the book still lived with her butler, cook, gardener, and chauffer, a rather full house of servants for that time period.


As the book opens Edith Chardman, 43, is still recovering from the lose of her husband when she meets a young man, Jared, at her winter home in Vermont. He is old enough to be her son yet she feels strangely pulled to him. At the same time she is also having an intense relationship with a much older man who loves her and is near death. Throughout the course of the book, while the servants handle the realities of caring for multiple homes, etc., Edith spends her time having philosophical discussions with herself on the meaning of love and trying to figure out the appropriate way to have a relationship with Jared after her older friend dies. She is also dealing with great difficulty with her age in relation to Jared’s and eventually sends him off to marry a young lady in his own age range.

This book held many lovely pieces of prose, had a front, middle and beginning, and was fascinating in some ways. As someone more than a decade older than Edith though, I have great difficulty understanding why at her age in the end she felt that she would never love again or feel passion for someone. Perhaps she needs to find someone her own age? Why is her life basically over at age 43? Also her ability, due to her wealth, of being able to spend all her time pondering the mysteries of life is very hard for someone like me who has had to ponder the mysteries of life in the midst of working, keeping house, groceries, fighting health problems, raising children, etc. Her only difficulty in life seemed to be deciding whether to build herself another house and whether to give herself in love to this young man or pass him on, honorably, to someone more appropriate than him. Most of use would wish that those were our only difficulties in life. Her life sounded a bit boring to me even though her main activities seemed to be reading and playing her piano. But days on end with nothing significant to do while waiting for phone calls from Jared seems a waste of a healthy person's mind and body. Get out there and do something you want to shout at her.. Very hard to relate to especially for the time period.

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The Quickening maze by Adam Foulds

The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds was a book I got through the Amazon Vine program to review. this review was of the Advance Uncorrected Proof but I noted that it had a blurb on the front cover that it was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. If I learned anything from this book, it was to avoid books that are shorlisted or have won the Man Booker prize as they are certainly not what I want to read!

The following is my 1 star review of the book:

The best thing I can say for this book is the author does have a way with words and writing very descriptive paragraphs using lots of words not in common usage. Unfortunately when it comes to stringing all those descriptive paragraphs together he fails in a big way. This book was a maze to read. Often you had no idea who was ‘speaking/thinking’ at any one time. The book seemed to have no beginning, end or even a middle. It was a very disconnected, boring book that I ended up putting down for several days to read several truly interesting books and then had to force myself to finish it.


Perhaps since the book was taking place at an insane asylum, the author felt it best to make everyone in the book have mental health troubles except for the gypsies that were occasionally mentioned in the book. Reading this book felt like being in a hallucination. Don’t waste your time. There are too many wonderful books in the world to read without wasting your time on this one.

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If you like your reading to feel like you are taking Honors English and need to do a term paper of some sort, perhaps The Quickening Maze might do the trick for you, but for me, I have better things to do with my time.