13. To Night Owl From Dogfish by Holly Goldberg Sloan and Meg Wolitzer

read the BOOK!!! (first one this year)
2019 Dial Books
295 pgs.
YA Contemporary Epistolary
Finished 1/20/2019
Goodreads rating:  4.09 - 4115 ratings
My rating: 5
Setting: Contemporary NYC, California coast, Minnesota woods....

First line/s: "From:  Brett Devlin
To:  Avery Bloom
Subject:  you don't know me"

My comments:  Note, the above cover is the only one I've seen on a book, but I found this illustrated cover that may be the Kindle edition cover?
     I read a book, an actual book, not on my phone/Kindle or audio!295 pages, all delightful.  I giggled and laughed out loud all the way throught.  Written entirely in correspondence between two 12-year old  protagonists, they begin as adversaries committed to breaking up their dating fathers, and of course their relationship grows into so much ore.  Clever and completely delicious with a wonderful cast of really well-fleshed-out characters and many wonderful settings.  An almost perfect book for every 12-year-old girl on the planet!

Goodreads synopsis:  From two extraordinary authors comes a moving, exuberant, laugh-out-loud novel about friendship and family, told entirely in emails and letters.
          Avery Bloom, who's bookish, intense, and afraid of many things, particularly deep water, lives in New York City. Bett Devlin, who's fearless, outgoing, and loves all animals as well as the ocean, lives in California. What they have in common is that they are both twelve years old, and are both being raised by single, gay dads.
          When their dads fall in love, Bett and Avery are sent, against their will, to the same sleepaway camp. Their dads hope that they will find common ground and become friends--and possibly, one day, even sisters.
          But things soon go off the rails for the girls (and for their dads too), and they find themselves on a summer adventure that neither of them could have predicted. Now that they can't imagine life without each other, will the two girls (who sometimes call themselves Night Owl and Dogfish) figure out a way to be a family?

84. Dear Lily by Drew Davies

read on my iPhone
2019 Bookouture
276 pgs.
Adult CRF-Epistolary
Finished September 1, 2019
Goodreads rating:  3.77 - 493 ratings
My rating: 2
Setting:  contemporary Copenhagen, Denmark

My comments:   I had to force myself to finish this one, not even sure why I didn't.  Darn, I even paid full price for it, it sounded that good.  It's pretty depressing and meandering and always made me feel gloomy.  It's about a young woman whose life in her mid 30s is not at all what she had thought it would be.  So after losing her much-loved sister she moves to Copenhagen, Denmark to "start new."  She smokes too much and drinks too much, becomes a hermit and lies around all day, and is just plain unhappy and depressed.  The she "sees the light" and begins to change.  Yes, there were dabs of humor, but just little dabs.  This one didn't do it for me at all.  Bummer.

Goodreads synopsis:  Dear Lily, 
          It’s me, Joy, your much wiser and (very slightly) older sister. I thought I’d start a new tradition of letter writing – now that we’re long distance. 
          On the plane over here, I began to cry in seat 21C. I think the magnitude of it finally hit me, after everything that happened… 
          I haven’t even unpacked yet – the only thing I’ve taken out of my suitcase is Harville, your beloved childhood teddy. Sorry for stealing him, but I need him more than you do. Every time I look at that little brown bear I think about our childhood. Remember that dance we made up to Annie’s ‘It’s a Hard Knock Life’? (Remember the broom choreography?) 
          I’m also sorry for abandoning you – I’ve always been your agony aunt, and a buffer in your infamous shouting matches with Mum. But I had to leave, Lily, I had to. 
          Anyway, I’m here now. I’m here to start over, and to face up to the past. I want to learn to laugh again, and to find someone to love who will maybe even love me back. You always told me I was just getting by, not actually living, so I’m finally doing it. Wish me luck, little sister. 
          Love, 
          Joy x 

A beautiful book-club read for anyone who has ever hit rock bottom, longed for a fresh start, or needed to heal a broken, aching heart.

35. Where'd You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple

listened on Audible
read by Kathleen Wilhoite
Unabridged audio (9:35)
2012, Little Brown
330 pgs.
Adult CRF
Finished 4/1/19
Goodreads rating: 3.90 - 341,732 ratings
My rating: 5
Setting: Contemporary Seattle, WA

First line/s: "The first annoying thing is when I ask Dad what he thinks happened to Mom, he always says, 'What's most important is for you to understand it's not your fault.' "

My comments: What a funky, funny, unusual novel.  (I can't say I was enamored with the reader, her voice got a little excessively overstimulated/excited in too many places.)  However - clever, over-the-top, and extremely humorous, the story kept me giggling, rolling my eyes, and completely hooked.  Written mostly as emails, letters, faxes, etc., the glimpses of Microsoft, Seattle, private schools, TED talks, architecture, the Antarctic, and five unique personalities are an absolute delight!

Goodreads synopsis:  Bernadette Fox has vanished.
          When her daughter Bee claims a family trip to Antarctica as a reward for perfect grades, Bernadette, a fiercely intelligent shut-in, throws herself into preparations for the trip. But worn down by years of trying to live the Seattle life she never wanted, Ms. Fox is on the brink of a meltdown. And after a school fundraiser goes disastrously awry at her hands, she disappears, leaving her family to pick up the pieces--which is exactly what Bee does, weaving together an elaborate web of emails, invoices, and school memos that reveals a secret past Bernadette has been hiding for decades. Where'd You Go Bernadette is an ingenious and unabashedly entertaining novel about a family coming to terms with who they are and the power of a daughter's love for her mother.

PICTURE BOOK - Snail Mail: With Pull-Out Postcards by Sharon King-Chai

Illustrated by the author

2016, Hodder Children's Books (UK)

32 pgs. with 6 x 8 envelopes containing heavy-stock postcards

Goodreads rating: 5.0 - 2 ratings

My rating:  5

Endpapers: A map of the world with the "snail trail."

1^st line/s:  "Hi there!  I'm Sam, the Seashell Snail.  I live by the seashore."

My comments:  

I vacillated between a 4 and a 5 for this one, mainly because my adult mind questioned how snails could travel the world, and so quickly. But the premise of the book. - similar to the idea of the Jolly Postman books and Vera Williams' Stringbean's Trip to the Shining Sea - and the information presented are top-notch. So are the fun and fanciful Snail family and friends. Actually, the whole package is just plain FUN! It would fit perfectly into any sort of epistolary unit that a teacher may do in I vacillated between a 4 and a 5 for this one, mainly because my adult mind questioned how snails could travel the world, and so quickly. But the premise of the book. - similar to the idea of the Jolly Postman books and Vera Williams' Stringbean's Trip to the Shining Sea - and the information presented are top-notch. So are the fun and fanciful Snail family and friends. Actually, the whole package is just plain FUN! It would fit perfectly into any sort of epistolary unit that a teacher may do in school, too. Two thumbs up.

Goodreads:   Sam the Seashell Snail is too young to go surfing around the world with his brother, Tiger. Not wanting Sam to miss out on the adventure, Tiger sends him Snail Mail from Brazil, America, India, Japan and France. Tiger's last Snail Mail has a very special birthday surprise!
          With pull-out postcards to pore over, this fun and charming picture book will captivate even the most tech-savvy of children.
          A Jolly Postman for this generation.

31. Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum

read on my iPhone
2016, Delacourt Press
328 pgs.
YA CRF
Finished 5/31/17
Goodreads rating: 4.11 - 16,116 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Contemporary Los Angeles, CA

First line/s:  "Seven hundred and thirty-three days after my mom died, forty-five days after my dad eloped with a stranger he met on the Internet, thirty days after we then up and moved to California, and only seven days after starting as a junior at a brand-new school where I know approximately no one, an email arrives."

My comments:  4.5  This was a dreamy YA romance, cleverly told with a combination of first person narrative and text messages between the protagonist and her best friend from Chicago, her new friends in LA, and a mystery classmate at her fancy new unfamiliar high school....who befriends her by text message and won't share his identity.  No, I am not an enjoyer of romance fiction, but this one suckered me in (and I do mean suckered, not sucked...)  right from the start.  An excellent cast of characters, the LA setting (that I wish she'd given a bit more attention to) and the epistolary aspects of the book worked very well together.  The plot includes typical high school angst, typical bullying, but not-so-typical dealing with grief, a new step family...and poetry.  The new stepbrother is even gay, so lots of issues are being "hit."  There's lots of older ya stuff going on - Jesse is a junior in high school - so I wouldn't recommend this for middle schoolers because of some very explicit conversations about sex.  Possible Spoiler alert:  Even though you know practically from the start who her secret admirer is, it's still pretty cool how it's revealed at the very end of the book.

Goodreads synopsis  Everything about Jessie is wrong. At least, that’s what it feels like during her first week of junior year at her new ultra-intimidating prep school in Los Angeles. Just when she’s thinking about hightailing it back to Chicago, she gets an email from a person calling themselves Somebody/Nobody (SN for short), offering to help her navigate the wilds of Wood Valley High School. Is it an elaborate hoax? Or can she rely on SN for some much-needed help?
          It’s been barely two years since her mother’s death, and because her father eloped with a woman he met online, Jessie has been forced to move across the country to live with her stepmonster and her pretentious teenage son.
          In a leap of faith—or an act of complete desperation—Jessie begins to rely on SN, and SN quickly becomes her lifeline and closest ally. Jessie can’t help wanting to meet SN in person. But are some mysteries better left unsolved?
           Julie Buxbaum mixes comedy and tragedy, love and loss, pain and elation, in her debut YA novel filled with characters who will come to feel like friends.

6. House Arrest - K. A. Holt

read on my Kindle
2015 Chronicle Books
304 pgs. (written in verse)
Middle Grades
Finished 2/10/17
Goodreads rating: 4.26 (1577 ratings)
My rating: 5
Setting: Contemporary USA (at one point it mentions Texas)

My comments:  The beginning of the story (below) sets it up particularly well, but doesn't tell of the dire straits that Timothy, his mom, and his baby brother are in.  Not only is Levi on super expensive medicine, he must be accompanied every minute because his breathing can be compromised without notice.  That means help.  And the help they end up getting causes more bad than good.  There is so much love in this book. Lots of other wonderful stuff, but lots of love.  Written in verse, as a diary/journal.

Goodreads synopsis:
Stealing is bad.
Yeah.
I know.
But my brother Levi is always so sick, and his medicine is always so expensive.

I didn’t think anyone would notice,
if I took that credit card,
if, in one stolen second,
I bought Levi’s medicine.

But someone did notice.
Now I have to prove I’m not a delinquent, I’m not a total bonehead.

That one quick second turned into
juvie
a judge
a year of house arrest,
a year of this court-ordered journal,
a year to avoid messing up
and being sent back to juvie
so fast my head will spin.

It’s only 1 year.
Only 52 weeks.
Only 365 days.
Only 8,760 hours.
Only 525,600 minutes.

What could go wrong?

Boxes for Katje - Candace Fleming

Illustrated  by Stacey Dressen-McQueen

2003, Farrar, Straus & Giroux

HC $17.99

32 cram-packed pgs.

Goodreads rating: 4.43 (320 ratings)

My rating: 5
TPPL

Endpapers: Excellent!
     Front - Mayfield, Indiana; May, 1945
     Back - Mayfield, Indiana; May, 1947 (yards FULL of tulips)

Illustrations:  Full page (no white :) edge-to-edge; bright, colorful, loaded with lots to take in. 

Title page:  Two-page painting of a girl (Rosie) with a package in her arms and her dog walking down a sidewalk towards in a "U.S. Mail" box

1^st line/s:  "After the war, there was little left in the tiny Dutch town of Olst.  The townspeople lived on cabbages and seed potatoes.  They patched and repatched their worn-thin clothing and they went without soap or milk, sugar or new shoes."

My comments:  I adore this story.  It's based on true happenings after World War II.  It's about people hearing of others with misfortune...and then doing something about it.  This is why I knit bears for orhans in South Africa and crochet 6 x 6 squares for afghans go to people who are colder than I am.  This story brought tears to my eyes.  I want a copy of my own!

Goodreads:  After World War II there is little left in Katje's town of Olst in Holland. Her family, like most Dutch families, must patch their old worn clothing and go without everyday things like soap and milk. Then one spring morning when the tulips bloom "thick and bright," Postman Kleinhoonte pedals his bicycle down Katje's street to deliver a mysterious box – a box from America! Full of soap, socks, and chocolate, the box has been sent by Rosie, an American girl from Mayfield, Indiana. Her package is part of a goodwill effort to help the people of Europe. What's inside so delights Katje that she sends off a letter of thanks – beginning an exchange that swells with so many surprises that the girls, as well as their townspeople, will never be the same.  This inspiring story, with strikingly original art, is based on the author's mother's childhood and will show young readers that they, too, can make a difference. 

My Pen Pal, Santa - Melissa Stanton

Illustrated by Jennifer A. Bell

2013 Random House Books for Young Readers

$9.99 smallish HC w/o dustcover

28 pages

Goodreads rating: 3.56

My rating: 3

Endpapers: lt. blue background with small Santas, snowmen, candy canes, ornaments, and gifts: red/white/aqua/green

Title Page: protagonist looking at plate of cookies marked "for Santa"

My comments:  This series of comments between Santa and Ava are very cute. She writes once a month, from just after Christmas in January to the following December, making comments and asking questions; Santa's return letters answer them.  Much is mentioned about believing in Santa vs. not believing in Santa (he's real for those who want to believe and not real for those who don't want to believe).  I think some ... most ... young children, still strong believers, after thinking about this, would have questions in their minds that might not have otherwise been there.  Therefore, I think this is great for older kids, those that don't really believe in Santa, but definitely NOT for those younger kids that still strongly believe.  Very sweet book.

Goodreads:  Writing a letter to Santa is fairly simple; you make your case and list your hoped-for gifts. But if you're a hard-core fan like Ava, a letter to Santa is something entirely different. A simple New Year's note to the North Pole about some uneaten cookies kicks off a year-long correspondence between a young girl and the jolly guy in the red suit in this joyful epistolary picturebook. This holiday story is perfect for those who believe and those who remember the wonder of the season.

33. Same Sun Here - Silas House & Neela Vaswani

Candlewick Press, 2011
298 pgs.
for:  Middle Grades
Rating:  Very Good/4

1st Line/s:  "Dear River,  I cannot tell from your name if you are a boy or a girl so I will just write to you like you are a human being."
Setting:  Late 2008 through 2009 NYC and the mountains of Kentucky
OSS:  Meena, an Indian immigrant girl and River, a Kentucky coal miner's son, become penpals and best friends as they share their lives, their problems, and the love of their families with each other.

Jackson and Bud's Bumpy Ride - Elizabeth Koehler-Pentacoff

America's First Cross-Country Automobile Trip
Illustrated by Wes Hargis
Millbrook Press, 2009
$16.95
32 pages
Rating: 3.5
Endpapers: Map of their journey across the US
2011 Grand Canyon Reader Award Nominee

Read at the Copper Queen Library, Bisbee, AZ on 9-25-10
The Afterword gives photos, dates, and interesting related information.

May 19, 1903 - a $50 bet that no one could ride a "horseless buggy" across the U. S. Horatio Jackson, visiting San Francisco from his native Vermont, takes it on!

No maps, poor all-dirt roads that were not used to cars, tires that look like bicycle tires needing quite a bit of repair, and a vehicle that appears to have no roof, all thwart them. But Horatio Jackson and Bud, the bulldog he acquires on the way, make it.

The story is told in diary form with very brief entries. The illustrations tell more of the story than the words. Fun!

Thea's Tree - Alison Jackson

Illustrated by Janet Pedersen
Dutton Children's Books, 2008
32 pages
Rating: 4
Endpapers: Dark blue

Thea Teawinkle, a budding scientist who lives in Topeka, Kansas, plants a purple seed as the beginning of a choose-your-own research project. But it is a very unusual plant -- making the dirt ooze and turn purple, growing excedingly rapidly and quite huge. And so begins a series of letters between Thea and various experts in their fields.

Thea's letters show the rapid growth, the strange noises she hears from above, and items (like a huge golden egg) that begin to appear beneath the giant immovable "tree." The information she receives - from all sorts of sources - doesn't help her at all...but they're such fun to read.

There's humor everywhere - in the watercolor illustrations that completely cover each green-bordered page, in the condescending answers she gets, even all the salutations cover the gambit from Enthusiastically, Carl Capshaw, Curator to Doubtfully, Ada Adler, First Bank of Kansas to Importantly, Anna Applebaum, Arboreal Acquisitions. Such fun.

Perfect for a letter-writing lesson. And how about a twisted faiy tale?

Seven for a Secret - Laurence Anholt

Illustrated by Jim Coplestone
Frances Lincoln Children's Books (London), 2006
24 pages (the last two open out to a quadruple page)
Rating: 4
Front endpapers: Scenes from the city
Back endpapers: Scenes from the country (both include a mail deliverer on a bicycle

This lovely story is told entirely in letters sent back and forth between a child in the city and her grandfather in the country. It is also based on a poem/saying called "The Magpie Song," of which I am unfamiliar. Perhaps it is British, as this book seems to be...

1 for Sorrow,
2 for Joy,
3 gor a Girl,
4 for a Boy,
5 for Silver,
6 for Gold,
7 for a Secret never to be told.

The girl's father worries about money, especially with a new baby on the way, and you can see that the grandfather's health is deteriorating. Eventually, Ruby frets because she hasn't heard from her grandfather. At the end of the book, you see Ruby and her family living happily in the grandfather's country home - without him. There's also a secret (#7 of the poem) that is answered at the very end.

This is a story for kids to figure out. It is a gentle way to discuss and/or show the end of life, especially of a loved one. Good book. Lovely, with the letters superimposed atop the illustrations that completely cover the pages.

First Year Letters - Julie Danneberg

Illustrated by Judy Love
Charlesbridge, 2003
32 pgs.
For Gr. 2-4 & teachers!

Now here's a great book to give a teacher! It's about a year of teaching, the second book about Sarah Jane Hartwell. (The first was First Day Teacher).

Full of humor and love, written entirely in letters, the story tells of a great school year and a great teacher. It includes science lessons, corresponding disasters, principal oabservations, escaped snakes, museum visits, and student inquisitiveness (hopefully that's a word.....).

This is a great fun read with pictures that beautifully compliment the letters.

The True Story of Little Red Riding Hood - Agnese Baruzzi & Sandro Natalini

Published 2007, in US 2009
Templar/Candlewick
Rating: 4.5
Ages 3+
$14.99

This is a prequel to the originial Red Riding Hood Story with letters to pull out of envelopes, doors to open, sheer shower curtains and gingham aprons to peek behind, pages of books to turn, tabs to pull, paper wheels to rotate , popups and popouts and glitter - altogther 16 pages, plus endpapers, of interactive entertainment with a good story to boot!

Wolf want to be good, so he asks the nicest person in the forest, Little Red Riding Hood, to teach him how. First on the list is to stop eating meat. She teaches him well, he soon becomes the nices person in the forest -- to Riding Hood's chagrin. So she decides to change him back (and we know the rest of the story to come....)

Delightful!

Epistolary Novels

Ahhh, a new word for me, and it's appeared over and over this last week. I keep getting it turned over on my tongue and my mind: E-Pill-Is-Tory, E-Paw-Still-ary...blub.... Eh-PISS-Tuhl-Airy, right? Am I the only one that's never heard of this classification category?

So, an epistolary novel is one that is written in letters by either one character in a book or many. I finished Dying to Meet You and the author calls it a graphic epistolary novel. Hmmmm. I've read more than a few of those.

That means that The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Shaffer and Barrows falls under this category. Jacklyn Moriarty's books (I particularly loved The Year of Secret Assignments does, too, but only if you include emails. Oh, and 47, Charing Cross and The Griffin and Sabine series by Nick Bantock----and what about the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series? To update the definitions to contemporary times, you'd have to add email, wouldn't you?

Whaddya think?

2/21/15: Diaries, emails, newspaper articles, texts....these are the stuff that epistolary is made of!

Here are some that I've read:

Adult Epstolary Novels:
Dear Lily  (Drew Davies) 2
Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society (Shaffer & Barrows) 5

Kid's Epistolary Novels:
Dying to Meet You (Book 1) (Kate Klise) 4
Same Sun Here (House & Vaswani) 4

Kid's Picture Books
Boxes for Katje (Candace Fleming) 5
Dear Vampa (Ross Collins) 4.5
First Year Letters (Julie Danneberg) 4
My Pen Pal, Santa (Melissa Stanton) 3
Seven for a Secret (Laurence Anholt) 4
Snail Mail: With Pull-Out Postcards (Sharon King-Chai) 5
Thea's Tree (Alison Jackson) 4

Kid's Picture Books still to review:
Ask Dr. K. Fisher about Weather - Llewellyn
Chain Letter (Babysitter's Club) - Martin
Day the Crayons Quit, The - Jeffers
Dear Annie - Caseley
Dear Peter Rabbit
Dear Polar Bear - Ablett
Dear Primo: A Letter to My Cousin - Tonatiuh
Diary of an Ant - Cronin
Diary of a Spider - Cronin
Diary of a Worm - Cronin
Gardener, The - Stewart
Help Me, Mr. Mutt!
I Wanna a New Room - Orloff
Kate on the Coast - Brisson
Love from Your Friend, Hannah - Skolsky
Love, Mouserella - Stein
Memoirs of a Goldfish - Scillian
Memoirs of a Hamster - Scillian
Quiet Place, The - Stewart
Small Dog's Big Life, A: Around the World with Owney - Kelly
With Love, the Little Red Hen

Kid's Chapter Books still to review:
Dying to Meet You (Book 2)
Dying to Meet You (Book 3) Till Death Do Us Bark - Klise
Dying to Meet You (Book 4)
Dying to Meet You (Book 5) Hollywood Dead Ahead
Letters to Leo - Hest
Naked Mole Rat Letters - Amato
Regarding the Bees - Klise
Regarding the Fountain - Klise

Other's I've heard of but have not yet read (with links to the Goodreads review):
Love, Rosie (Celia Ahern) Adult
My Most Excellent Year (Steve Kruger) YA
Letters from Skye (Jessica Brockmole) Adult HistFict
Address Unknown (Kathrine Kressmann Taylor) Adult HistFict
I'll Be Seeing You (Suzanne Palmieri-Hayes) Adult HistFict
The Tattooed Map (Barbara Hodgson) Adult
More Than Love Letters (Rosy Thornton) Adult Romance
The Lawgiver (Herman Wouk) Adult

36. Dying to Meet You (43 Old Cemetery Road: Book One) - Kate Klise

Illustrated by M. Sarah Klise (sisters)
Published: April, 2009
Harcourt/HMH
$15.00
160 pgs.
Quick read
Rating: 4
Front endpaper: house floorplans and "slice"
Back endpaper: Pictures and info on interior features

Meet I. B. Grumply (actually, Ignatius), Seymour Hope and his cat, Shadow, and Olive C. Spence. A grupmy, 60ish, has-been author, an abandoned 11 year-old boy, and an almost 200 year-old ghost are the protagonists in the story, set in Ghastly, Illinois, in a falling down old house on 43 Cemetery Road.

Grumply has rented the house for the summer, hoping that it will help loosen his writer's block so that he can write the 13th book in his children's "Ghost Tamer" series. He does not realize that the house comes with an abandoned 11 year-old and the house's original owner, the ghost of an unpublished writer of graphic epistolary novels. Through a series of letters we meet them, attend to some of the goings-on in the town, and watch as they build a relationship, then a family.

This is an entertaining, funny book that took no time at all to read, with all sorts of lighthearted nods to the dead and macabre, particularly with names that are tongue-in-cheek plays on words....the realtor, Anita Sale, the lawyer, E. Gadds; the book publisher, Paige Turner; M. Balm, the chief librarian; Barry A. Lyve, pet store owner.....to name a few.

23. Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Rating: 5
July, 2008
$22.00
274 pages
B&N Sales Rank #53!
Borrowed from D.

Told in letters, primarily to and from writer Juliet Ashton, we are treated to an unforgettable story of the German Occupation of Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands, for five years during World War II. The war has ended, the allies have arrived, and it's now time to rebuild England. London has been bombed, and Guernsey has been occupied, with no communication, food, or relief from the outside world. Juliet has written a series of magazine articles from the ficticious and often humorous point-of-view of "Izzy Bickerstaff" which were so enjoyed that a book has been made of them.

One day in January of 1946 Juliet receives a letter from Dawsey Adams, a resident of Guernsey, who is inquiring about a book tht he owns that used to belong to her. A correspondence ensues that introduces her to a cast of characters that are wonderful, caring, real.....and frequently quite funny, and which eventually draws her to the island. The stsory is part mystery, part love story, part history, and impossible to put down. I really, really loved it.