10. The Vanishing Season by Joanna Schaffhausen

#1 Ellery Hathaway

listened on Libby

274 pgs. (8:58)

2017
Adult mystery/thriller
Finished 3/1/2025
Goodreads rating: 3.81
My rating: 4
Setting: contemporary small town central Massachusetts

My comments: Ellery had been the victim of a serial killer, saved in the nick of time by a young FBI agent named Agent Reed Markham. Years later she's a top in a small Massachusetts town where no one knows her identity.  However, for the past three years she's been receiving ominous anonymous birthday cards, and there has been three annual disappearances, all at the beginning of the month of July.  She knows something is awry.  So she gets in touch with that FBI agent from fourteen years ago and more problems ensue.  This is good storytelling and kept me quite attentive.  Sick minds.  Very sick minds. A very bad guy and his equally-as-bad copycat. 

    Note:  Abrupt ending

    Another note:  I never really liked or trusted the protagonist, I'm not sure why.....

Goodreads:  Ellery Hathaway knows a thing or two about serial killers, but not through her police training. She's an officer in sleepy Woodbury, MA, where a bicycle theft still makes the newspapers. No one there knows she was once victim number seventeen in the grisly story of serial killer Francis Michael Coben. The only one who lived.

When three people disappear from her town in three years―all around her birthday―Ellery fears someone knows her secret. Someone very dangerous. Her superiors dismiss her concerns, but Ellery knows the vanishing season is coming and anyone could be next. She contacts the one man she knows will believe her: the FBI agent who saved her from a killer all those years ago.

Agent Reed Markham made his name and fame on the back of the Coben case, but his fortunes have since turned. His marriage is in shambles, his bosses think he's washed up, and worst of all, he blew a major investigation. When Ellery calls him, he can’t help but wonder: sure, he rescued her, but was she ever truly saved? His greatest triumph is Ellery’s waking nightmare, and now both of them are about to be sucked into the past, back to the case that made them...with a killer who can't let go.

32. Community Board by Tara Conklin

listened on Libby

272 pgs.

2023
Adult CRF/Chick Lit
Finished 5/9/2023
Goodreads rating: 3.34
My rating: 5
Setting: Contemporary fictional western Massachusetts town of Murbridge

My comments: Great cast of characters!  Darcy, the protagonist, is an absolute hoot.  After her marriage crumbles and dissolves, she heads home to western Massachusetts to her beloved parents.  However, when she gets there she discovers they have gone to Arizona to try out retirement there.  What follows is months of depression, but her antics throughout are basolutely riotous.  Most of it was really quite ridiculous, and I loved it and wanted more....and it included a great HEA!

74. Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center

listened on Audible

2019
320 pgs.
Adult Chicklit
Finished 12/3/2022
Goodreads rating: 4.02
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary Rockport, MA

My comments: An almost too-good-to-be-true paramedic/firefighter moves to Rockport, Massachusetts to help her estranged terminally ill mother.  Too-good-to-be-true in that she is stronger, smarter, savvier than all the other (male) firefighters in her department.  At 26 years old she has sworn off love and has never even dated since two things happened on her 16th birthday - her mother abandoned her and she was raped.  But on her first day in her new job in Massachusetts she has partnered with a rookie firefighter who she instantly falls for.  Turned out to be a definite romance novel with a firefighting twist.

Goodreads synopsis:  Cassie Hanwell was born for emergencies. As one of the only female firefighters in her Texas firehouse, she's seen her fair share of them, and she's excellent at dealing with other people's tragedies. But when her estranged and ailing mother asks her to uproot her life and move to Boston, it's an emergency of a kind Cassie never anticipated.

The tough, old-school Boston firehouse is as different from Cassie's old job as it could possibly be. Hazing, a lack of funding, and poor facilities mean that the firemen aren't exactly thrilled to have a "lady" on the crew, even one as competent and smart as Cassie. Except for the handsome rookie, who doesn't seem to mind having Cassie around. But she can't think about that. Because she doesn't fall in love. And because of the advice her old captain gave her: don't date firefighters. Cassie can feel her resolve slipping...but will she jeopardize her place in a career where she's worked so hard to be taken seriously?

Katherine Center's Things You Save in a Fire is a heartfelt, affecting novel about life, love, and the true meaning of courage.

7. The Loot by Craig Schaefer

#1 Charlie McCabe

listened on Audible

2019
329 pgs.
Adult Mystery Series
Finished 1/26/22
Goodreads rating: 4.08
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary Boston & suburbs

My comments: A female explosives expert returns from eight years duty in Afghanistan and joins a private security company.  Of course, her trial and first experience with the company has her (successfully) dealing with a bomb. There are lots and lots of ludicrous, longshot kind of figuring-out-clues that would never happen  Oh well.  It was fast paced and interesting, and somewhat believable.  Yes, I'd read more of these, I liked the main characters.

Goodreads synopsis:  She fought for her country. Now she’s fighting for her family.

When Sergeant Charlie McCabe returns from fighting in Afghanistan, she hopes to leave the war behind. Instead, she comes home to a father whose gambling has put him in deep trouble with a violent loan shark. She finds work as a professional bodyguard, but to save her father, she needs to get serious cash together fast.

However, her father isn’t the only one who needs saving. When Charlie’s first client—a wealthy executive with a shady past—narrowly escapes a bomb plot, Charlie’s investigation leads her into the heart of Boston’s criminal underworld. Along the way, she stumbles upon clues about a diamond heist gone wrong that’s been unsolved for decades.

With the clock ticking and chaos descending, Charlie sees a solution to both problems, but it won’t be easy, and it won’t be pretty. A “normal” life may await Charlie on the other side of this mess, but part of her knows that the battle has just begun.

110. The Box in the Woods by Maureen Johnson

#4 Truly Devious

listened on Libby, borrowed from TPPL

2021
400 pgs.
YA Myst
Finished 12/5/2021
Goodreads rating: 4.17
My rating: 4.5
Setting: contemporary western Massachusetts - kids' summer camp on a pond

My comments: This is a continuation of the Truly Devious trilogy, with an entirely new mystery but same cast of characters.  Stevie Bell is a 17-year old sleuth who has been enlisted by a rich guy who has purchased a summer camp that has been closed since 1978, when four of its camp counselors were murdered in the woods.  Stevie and two of her close friends become pseudo-camp counselors while she investigates the murders.  Her boyfriend, David, show sup, camping across the lake.  It's an interesting mystery, and I like it better than the first Truly Devious books. I DID discover that I didn't like the voice that the narrator gave to Stevie.  It was too throaty or something.  Good mystery.  More to come?

Goodreads synopsis:   The Truly Devious series continues as Stevie Bell investigates her first mystery outside of Ellingham Academy in this spine-chilling and hilarious stand-alone mystery.

Amateur sleuth Stevie Bell needs a good murder. After catching a killer at her high school, she’s back at home for a normal (that means boring) summer.

But then she gets a message from the owner of Sunny Pines, formerly known as Camp Wonder Falls—the site of the notorious unsolved case, the Box in the Woods Murders. Back in 1978, four camp counselors were killed in the woods outside of the town of Barlow Corners, their bodies left in a gruesome display. The new owner offers Stevie an invitation: Come to the camp and help him work on a true crime podcast about the case.

Stevie agrees, as long as she can bring along her friends from Ellingham Academy. Nothing sounds better than a summer spent together, investigating old murders.

But something evil still lurks in Barlow Corners. When Stevie opens the lid on this long-dormant case, she gets much more than she bargained for. The Box in the Woods will make room for more victims. This time, Stevie may not make it out alive.

26. Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson

listened on Libby/borrowed from library

narrated by Graham Halstead (great)

Unabridged audio (8:03)
2020
270 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery
Finished 3/23/2021
Goodreads rating: 3.64
My rating: 5
Setting: Contemporary Boston with soirees to NH and Rockland ME

First line/s: "The front door opened and I heard the stamp of the FBI agent's feet on the doormat."

My comments: OMG, I can't find my notes!  I do remember that I liked this book a lot, that it was impossible to put down, and I loved it from beginning to end.  The idea that a serial murderer could find his/her inspiration from murders in famous books was a fascinating plot idea.  Great narration.

Goodreads synopsis:  A chilling tale of psychological suspense and an homage to the thriller genre tailor-made for fans: the story of a bookseller who finds himself at the center of an FBI investigation because a very clever killer has started using his list of fiction’s most ingenious murders.
          Years ago, bookseller and mystery aficionado Malcolm Kershaw compiled a list of the genre’s most unsolvable murders, those that are almost impossible to crack—which he titled “Eight Perfect Murders”—chosen from among the best of the best including Agatha Christie’s A. B. C. Murders, Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train, Ira Levin’s Death Trap, A. A. Milne's Red House Mystery, Anthony Berkeley Cox's Malice Aforethought, James M. Cain's Double Indemnity, John D. Macdonald's The Drowner, and Donna Tartt's A Secret History.
          But no one is more surprised than Mal, now the owner of the Old Devils Bookstore in Boston, when an FBI agent comes knocking on his door one snowy day in February. She’s looking for information about a series of unsolved murders that look eerily similar to the killings on Mal’s old list. And the FBI agent isn’t the only one interested in this bookseller who spends almost every night at home reading. The killer is out there, watching his every move—a diabolical threat who knows way too much about Mal’s personal history, especially the secrets he’s never told anyone, even his recently deceased wife.
          To protect himself, Mal begins looking into possible suspects . . . and sees a killer in everyone around him. But Mal doesn’t count on the investigation leaving a trail of death in its wake. Suddenly, a series of shocking twists leaves more victims dead—and the noose around Mal’s neck grows so tight he might never escape.

47. From the Desk of Zoe Washington by Janae Marks

listened to audio on Libby through Bosler Library
narrated by Bahni Turpin
Unabridged audio (6:10)
2020 Katherine Tegen Books
304 pgs.
Middle Grade CRF
Finished 3/6/2020
Goodreads rating:  4.35 - 554 ratings
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary Boston/Somerville/Cambridge, Massachusetts

First line/s:  "The day I turned twelve, I was certain it'd be my favorite birthday yet, but then I got the letter."

My comments:   Ms. Marks has written a book with a wonderful 12-year-old voice, real and believable, with faults and fears, ambitions and beliefs.  Becoming acquainted with her imprisoned father for the first time and following clues to help the Innocence Project get him out of jail was the biggest premise of the book.  She also loved to bake, creating a new recipe for Fruit Loop cupcakes as she interned in a local bakery for the summer.  The setting of Boston/Somerville/Cambridge with an emphasis on Davis Square was detailed and fun for this suburban Boston native.  She wasn't perfect, and that made her all the more real.  I didn't like that the mother had completely given up the father as a murderer, even though he protested he'd never done anything wrong.  Then she blocked her daughter from any access to him.  This was harsh and a bit unbelievable.  Put the book down a a point for me.  However, what a great story for kids!  I wasn't super crazy about the narrator, although her reading ability was right on.  Highly recommended.

Goodreads synopsis:  Zoe Washington isn’t sure what to write. What does a girl say to the father she’s never met, hadn’t heard from until his letter arrived on her twelfth birthday, and who’s been in prison for a terrible crime?
          A crime he says he never committed.
          Could Marcus really be innocent? Zoe is determined to uncover the truth. Even if it means hiding his letters and her investigation from the rest of her family. Everyone else thinks Zoe’s worrying about doing a good job at her bakery internship and proving to her parents that she’s worthy of auditioning for Food Network’s Kids Bake Challenge.
          But with bakery confections on one part of her mind, and Marcus’s conviction weighing heavily on the other, this is one recipe Zoe doesn’t know how to balance. The only thing she knows to be true: Everyone lies.

33. Everything My Mother Taught Me by Alice Hoffman

Listened to eAudio/Prime
narrated by Brittany Pressley
Unabridged audio (0:50)
2019 Amazon Original Stories
28 pgs.
Adult HistFict Short Story
Finished 2/19/2020
Goodreads rating:  4.05 - 4526 ratings
My rating:  4.5
Setting:  1908 coastal Massachusetts

First line/s:  "There are those that insist that mothers are born with love for their children and place them before all other things, including their own needs and desires."

My comments:  Read beautifully.  A very interesting short story taking place in 1908 on an island off Rockport, Massachusetts, of a hateful mother and the 12-uear-old daughter who has decided to go mute upon the death of the father she adores.  I wish it had been longer, I would've liked more development of the characters and plot because it was good. 

Goodreads synopsis:  In this haunting short story of loyalty and betrayal, a young woman in early 1900s Massachusetts discovers that in navigating her treacherous coming-of-age, she must find her voice first.
          For fatefully observant Adeline, growing up carries an ominous warning from her adulterous mother: don’t say a word. Adeline vows to never speak again. But that’s not her only secret. After her mother takes a housekeeping job at a lighthouse off the tip of Cape Ann, a local woman vanishes. The key to the mystery lies with Adeline, the silent witness. New York Times bestselling author of The Rules of Magic Alice Hoffman crafts a beautiful, heart-wrenching short story.
          Alice Hoffman’s Everything My Mother Taught Me is part of Inheritance, a collection of five stories about secrets, unspoken desires, and dangerous revelations between loved ones. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single setting. By yourself, behind closed doors, or shared with someone you trust. 

63. The Line Tender by Kate Allen

listened to on Audible, borrowed from the libraryread BEAUTIFULLY by Jenna Larnia
Unabridged audio (7:20)
2019 Dutton
384 pgs.
Middle grade CRF
Finished 7/16/19
Goodreads rating:  4.29 - 541 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Not-quite-contemporary Rockport, Massachusetts

First line/s:  "The morning the great white came to Rockport, my best friend and I were sticking our fingers into the coin returns of every pay phone in town."

My comments:  This is my 2019 version of Bridge to Terabithia...at least that's how I feel during and after reading this.  I love the setting: Rockport, Massachusetts, which becomes almost like a character in the book.  I love the multi-generational  cast of characters, and the forays to Boston, the coast of Maine, and Cape Cod.  I don't know how Lucy handled everything that was thrown at her this summer before 8th grade, but she is one strong female character and I adore her.

Goodreads synopsis: The Line Tender is the story of Lucy, the daughter of a marine biologist and a rescue diver, and the summer that changes her life. If she ever wants to lift the cloud of grief over her family and community, she must complete the research her late mother began. She must follow the sharks.
           Wherever the sharks led, Lucy Everhart’s marine-biologist mother was sure to follow. In fact, she was on a boat far off the coast of Massachusetts, preparing to swim with a Great White, when she died suddenly. Lucy was eight. Since then Lucy and her father have done OK—thanks in large part to her best friend, Fred, and a few close friends and neighbors. But June of her twelfth summer brings more than the end of school and a heat wave to sleepy Rockport. On one steamy day, the tide brings a Great White—and then another tragedy, cutting short a friendship everyone insists was “meaningful” but no one can tell Lucy what it all meant. To survive the fresh wave of grief, Lucy must grab the line that connects her depressed father, a stubborn fisherman, and a curious old widower to her mother’s unfinished research. If Lucy can find a way to help this unlikely quartet follow the sharks her mother loved, she’ll finally be able to look beyond what she’s lost and toward what’s left to be discovered.

Picture Book - Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey

Caldecott Award Winner
Illustrated by the author

1941, Viking Press

HC & price

68 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  4.22 - 77,467 ratings

My rating:  5
Illustrations:  brown illustrations and text on cream colored pages

1^st line/s:  "Mr. and Mrs. Mallard were looking for a place to live."

My comments: This 1941 Caldecott Award winner is still one of the very best picture books in children's literature.  It's truly distinguished, as well as clever, lovely, comical and heartwarming.  I grew up on this story; AND my grandmother used to take my sister and me into Boston to ride on the Swan boats every spring.  Now there's a beautiful bronze sculpture of Mrs. Mallard with Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, Pack and Quack following her across the Public Gardens.  Oh my goodness, do I love it!

Goodreads:  This classic tale of the famous Mallard ducks of Boston is available for the first time in a full-sized paperback edition. Awarded the Caldecott Medal in 1942, Make Way for Ducklings has been described as "one of the merriest picture books ever" (The New York Times). Ideal for reading aloud, this book deserves a place of honor on every child's bookshelf.

8. Crow Hollow - Michael Wallace

read on my Kindle
2015, Lake Union Publishing
335 pgs.
Adult historical fiction
Finished 2/18/17
Goodreads rating: 3.65 (7156 ratings)
My rating: 4
Setting: 1676 Massachusetts - Boston west to Springfield

First line/s: "James Bailey stared down from the main deck of the Vigilant as it eased up to the wharves, a knot of excitement forming in his belly."

My comments:  This was quite a satisfying historical fiction novel.  Puritan Boston/New England has always fascinated me ever since, years ago, I studied the history and artwork of some of the first cemeteries in eastern Massachusetts.  Most easily accessible narration about the time period, however, is based around the Salem witch trials, of which I'm quite tired.  This is the story of Englishman James Bailey who, in December 1676, is emissary for England's King Charles, who has come to Boston to find out why Benjamin Cotton, the King's man in charge of Boston, has been killed in Indian uprisings.  Here he encounters Prudence Cotton, widow of Benjamin Cotton, who has written an account of her capture and imprisonment by the Nipmuc Indian tribe and has some questions of her own.  The story kept me interested throughout, and I learned quite a bit about the time, place, and history of the time.

Goodreads synopsis:  In 1676, an unlikely pair—a young Puritan widow and an English spy—journeys across a land where greed and treachery abound.  
          Prudence Cotton has recently lost her husband and is desperate to find her daughter, captured by the Nipmuk tribe during King Philip’s war. She’s convinced her daughter is alive but cannot track her into the wilderness alone. Help arrives in the form of James Bailey, an agent of the crown sent to Boston to investigate the murder of Prudence’s husband and to covertly cause a disturbance that would give the king just cause to install royal governors. After his partner is murdered, James needs help too. He strikes a deal with Prudence, and together they traverse the forbidding New England landscape looking for clues. What they confront in the wilderness—and what they discover about each other—could forever change their allegiances and alter their destinies.

MOVIE - Manchester by-the-Sea

R (2:15)

Wide release 12/16/16

Viewed 1-30-17
IMBd: 8.3/10

RT Critic: 96   Audience:  79
Critic's Consensus:  Manchester by the Sea delivers affecting drama populated by full-bodied characters, marking another strong step forward for writer-director Kenneth Lonergan.

Cag:  6 - It was generally an awesome movie in every way (though very sad and depressing if you dwell too much).

Directed by Kenneth Lonergan

Amazon Studios

Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler

My comments:  A happy-go-lucky family man that drinks a little too much becomes a hollow shell of a man after a great tragedy.  The story isn't sequential, it's cyclical, so the story of Lee's past slowly unfolds and we see why he is the empty man of the present day.  And this story doesn't get the happy, hoped-for ending -- he's lost too much and knows what he's capable of.  And more importantly, what he's no longer capable of.  A great movie.  One of the most depressing movies ever.  
AFTERWORD:  Casey Affleck got the Academy Award for his performance.  Well deserved.

RT/ IMDb Summary:  Lee Chandler is a brooding, irritable loner who works as a handyman for a Boston apartment block. One damp winter day he gets a call summoning him to his hometown, north of the city. His brother's heart has given out suddenly, and he's been named guardian to his 16-year-old nephew. As if losing his only sibling and doubts about raising a teenager weren't enough, his return to the past re-opens an unspeakable tragedy.

47. Night and Day by Robert B. Parker

Jesse Stone #8
Listened in the car returning from the east coast to Tucson
2009, Putnam
289 pgs.
Adult Mystery
Finished 9/5/16
Goodreads rating:  3.91 - 4,621 ratings
My rating: 3/5
Setting: Contemporary Paradise, MA

First line/s:  "Jesse Stone sat in his office at the Paradise police station, looking at the sign painted on the pebbled-glass window of his office door."

My comments:  A short, simple story that isn't so much mystery as it is a study of characters, personalities, and situations.  It includes a high school principal checking her female student's underwear, a peeping Tom, a swinger's club, and the thought processes that Stone goes through as his ex-wife, Jen, leaves him once again.  Perfect easy listening for the first five hours of my road trip. James Naughton read it perfectly, and I pictured Tom Selleck as Jesse Stone throughout.  A TV show in my head, as the miles progressed....

Goodreads synopsis:  Paradise, Massachusetts, police chief Jesse Stone confronts a town’s darkest secrets in the shocking new novel from the New York Times–bestselling author and “America’s greatest mystery writer” (The New York Sun).
          Things are getting strange in Paradise, Massachusetts. Police Chief Jesse Stone is called to the junior high school when reports of lewd conduct by the school’s principal, Betsy Ingersoll, filter into the station. Ingersoll claims she was protecting the propriety of her students when she inspected each girl’s undergarments in the locker room. Jesse would like nothing more than to see Ingersoll punished, but her high-powered attorney husband stands in the way. At the same time, the women of Paradise are faced with a threat to their sense of security with the emergence of a tormented voyeur, dubbed “The Night Hawk.” Initially, he’s content to peer through windows, but as times goes on, he becomes more reckless, forcing his victims to strip at gunpoint, then photographing them at their most vulnerable. And according to the notes he’s sending to Jesse, he’s not satisfied to stop there. It’s up to Jesse to catch the Night Hawk, before it’s too late.

10. The Map of True Places - Brunonia Barry

(read the actual hard cover book!)
2010, William Morrow & Co.
402 pgs.
Adult CRF
Finished 2/13/16
Goodreads rating:  3.64
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary Salem, Mass.

First line/s:  "In the years when her middle name was Trouble, Zee had a habit of stealing boats.  Her father never suspected her of any wrong-doing.  He let her run free in those early days after her mother's death.  He was busy being a pirate reenactor, an odd leap for a man who'd been a literary scholar all his life."

My comments:  This book has been sitting on my shelf for a long time - purchased because I'd read The Lace Reader, the first book Barry'd written.  The intricate, weaving plotline goes from story to story of the major players - always rejoining the protagonist, Zee Finch.  The setting, Salem, Massachusetts; Boston; Marblehead - encompassing both the maritime history of Salem as well as the witchy history - were familiar and memory-inducing.  However, there was a darkness to this book that was quite depressing, with elements of great discomfort for me.  Zee is now caring for her dad, who is quickly succumbing to Parkinson's as it crosses over to Alzheimer's.  Now a psychologist, she deals with bipolar patients - and we quickly realize that her own mother's suicide was induced by her own bipolar disorder.  There are lots of secrets that keep coming to the surface, some perhaps a bit too coincidental, but they worked for me.  I think if I had realized there was so much depression and sadness in the book - especially  Parkinson's - I might have never read it.  I'm glad I did...but it's going to take me awhile to get over it!

Goodreads synopsis:  Zee Finch has come a long way from a motherless childhood spent stealing boats—a talent that earned her the nickname Trouble. She's now a respected psychotherapist working with the world-famous Dr. Liz Mattei. She's also about to marry one of Boston's most eligible bachelors. But the suicide of Zee's patient Lilly Braedon throws Zee into emotional chaos and takes her back to places she thought she'd left behind.     
          What starts as a brief visit home to Salem after Lilly's funeral becomes the beginning of a larger journey for Zee. Her father, Finch, long ago diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, has been hiding how sick he really is. His longtime companion, Melville, has moved out, and it now falls to Zee to help her father through this difficult time. Their relationship, marked by half-truths and the untimely death of her mother, is strained and awkward.
          Overwhelmed by her new role, and uncertain about her future, Zee destroys the existing map of her life and begins a new journey, one that will take her not only into her future but into her past as well. Like the sailors of old Salem who navigated by looking at the stars, Zee has to learn to find her way through uncharted waters to the place she will ultimately call home.

9. Conversion - Katherine Howe

library book
2014, G. P. Putnam's Sons
402 pgs.
YA CRFish/HF/flip flopping back and forth....
Finished 2/13/16
Goodreads rating: 3.34
My rating:4
Setting:Contemporary Danvers, Massachusetts and 1706 Salem Village, Massachusetts (the same town)

First line/s: "How long must I wait?  His tongue creeps out the corner of his mouth while he writes, the tip of it black with ink, the blacking in his gums staining his teeth.  He looks like he's got a mouthful of tar.  I've been waiting for some time, but Reverend Green's still writing.  His quill runs across the paper, scratching like mouse paws.  Scratch, scratch, dip, scratch, lick, scratch."

My comments:  I chose this book for my YA book group to read because I'd read another by Howe, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, and enjoyed it.  This one took place in the same area of Massachusetts - Danvers, which was originally know as "Salem Village."  Yup, that Salem.  The story goes back and forth between the confession of one of the Salem girls who precipitated the witch hysteria in 1692 and a high school senior in contemporary Danvers.  I've recently read The Crucible - which was a good thing in that I knew much of the story but a bad thing in that I didn't really want to go over through the whole ordeal again.  The contemporary part of the story really kept me reading and anticipating.  This was a good mystery, great characters, and even believable in some of the unbelievable places!

Goodreads synopsis:  From the New York Times bestselling author of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane comes a chilling mystery—Prep meets The Crucible. 
           It’s senior year at St. Joan’s Academy, and school is a pressure cooker. College applications, the battle for valedictorian, deciphering boys’ texts: Through it all, Colleen Rowley and her friends are expected to keep it together. Until they can’t.
           First it’s the school’s queen bee, Clara Rutherford, who suddenly falls into uncontrollable tics in the middle of class. Her mystery illness quickly spreads to her closest clique of friends, then more students and symptoms follow: seizures, hair loss, violent coughing fits. St. Joan’s buzzes with rumor; rumor blossoms into full-blown panic.
           Soon the media descends on Danvers, Massachusetts, as everyone scrambles to find something, or someone, to blame. Pollution? Stress? Or are the girls faking? Only Colleen—who’s been reading The Crucible for extra credit—comes to realize what nobody else has: Danvers was once Salem Village, where another group of girls suffered from a similarly bizarre epidemic three centuries ago . . .
           Inspired by true events—from seventeenth-century colonial life to the halls of a modern-day high school—Conversion casts a spell. With her signature wit and passion, New York Times bestselling author Katherine Howe delivers an exciting and suspenseful novel, a chilling mystery that raises the question, what’s really happening to the girls at St. Joan’s

1. Crime of Privilege - Walter Walker

audio cd back & forth from school January 2016
audio read by Stephen Hoye
11 cds/14 hours
2013 Random House Audio
432 pgs.
Adult mystery
Finished 1/22/16
Goodreads rating: 3.30
My rating: 3/ definitely kept my attention, got tired of the protagonist
Setting: Cape Cod, Massaachusetts

First line/s: "Almost everyone had heard of the family mansion on Ocean Boulevard, but very few had been there."

My comments:  It did seem like there were some cumbersome/drawn-on-too-long places, but overall, this was a very good read.  I never really liked the protagonist especially (maybe it was the way he was read) and although there were no real surprises, I enjoyed listening to how the story unfolded.  I know the story was a parody of the Kennedy family (I know there were all sorts of scandals and secrets) but I hated to put them in the place of this Gregory family, for some reason.  I guess I really like the Kennedy family....

Goodreads synopsis: A murder on Cape Cod. A rape in Palm Beach. 
All they have in common is the presence of one of America's most beloved and influential families. But nobody is asking questions. Not the police. Not the prosecutors. And certainly not George Becket, a young lawyer toiling away in the basement of the Cape & Islands district attorney's office. George has always lived at the edge of power. He wasn't born to privilege, but he understands how it works and has benefitted from it in ways he doesn't like to admit. Now, an investigation brings him deep inside the world of the truly wealthy--and shows him what a perilous place it is. 
Years have passed since a young woman was found brutally slain at an exclusive Cape Cod golf club, and no one has ever been charged. Cornered by the victim's father, George can't explain why certain leads were never explored--leads that point in the direction of a single family--and he agrees to look into it.
What begins as a search through the highly stratified layers of Cape Cod society, soon has George racing from Idaho to Hawaii, Costa Rica to France to New York City. But everywhere he goes he discovers people like himself: people with more secrets than answers, people haunted by a decision years past to trade silence for protection from life's sharp edges. George finds his friends are not necessarily still friends and a spouse can be unfaithful in more ways than one. And despite threats at every turn, he is driven to reconstruct the victim's last hours while searching not only for a killer but for his own redemption. 

56. Six Years - Harlan Coben

read by Scott Brick
listened to while driving back & forth to work during the opening days of the school year...
2013, Dutton
368 pgs.
Adult mystery
Finished 8/20/15
Goodreads rating: 3.78
My rating: 3 - liked it for the most part
Setting: a prestigious contemporary college (Landford) in Western Massachusetts in the present time. Amherst, perhaps?

First line/s:  "I sat in the back pew and watched the only woman I would ever love marry another man."

My comments:  Well. The love story part of this is ridiculous, sappy, and over-the-top.  However it's an action-packed page turner when it comes to the mystery and following the clues.  I'm not a big Scott Brick fan when it comes to readers, so he came really close to ruining the story for me.  Maybe I would have liked it better if I'd read it or if it were read by someone else?  So, six of one; half-a-dozen of the other....I liked this, I didn't like this.....

Goodreads synopsis:  Harlan Coben, the master of domestic suspense, returns with a standalone thriller in the vein of #1 bestsellers Hold Tight, Caught and Stay Close that explores the depth and passion of a lost love . . . and the secrets and lies at its heart. Six years have passed since Jake Fisher watched Natalie, the love of his life, marry another man. Six years of hiding a broken heart by throwing himself into his career as a college professor. Six years of keeping his promise to leave Natalie alone, and six years of tortured dreams of her life with her new husband, Todd. But six years haven’t come close to extinguishing his feelings, and when Jake comes across Todd’s obituary, he can’t keep himself away from the funeral. There he gets the glimpse of Todd’s wife he’s hoping for . . . but she is not Natalie. Whoever the mourning widow is, she’s been married to Todd for more than a decade, and with that fact everything Jake thought he knew about the best time of his life—a time he has never gotten over—is turned completely inside out. As Jake searches for the truth, his picture-perfect memories of Natalie begin to unravel. Mutual friends of the couple either can’t be found or don’t remember Jake. No one has seen Natalie in years. Jake’s search for the woman who broke his heart—and who lied to him—soon puts his very life at risk as it dawns on him that the man he has become may be based on carefully constructed fiction. Harlan Coben once again delivers a shocking page-turner that deftly explores the power of past love and the secrets and lies that such love can hide.

PICTURE BOOK - A Home for Mr. Emerson - Barbara Kerley

Illustrated by Edwin Fotheringham

2014 Scholastic Press

HC $18.99

48 pgs.

Goodreads rating: 4.08

My rating: 4

My comments:  I've always known of Ralph Waldo Emerson - I knew he was a philosophical writer linked to Thoreau and Concord, Massachusetts.  This picture book biography, like somany I've read in the last few years, illuminates the man as a person - husband, father, friend; then thinker and and writer.  The book is filled with his quotes   - they are actually much of the text - and best of all is a list of writing ideas after the excellent Author's Note at the back of the book entitled "Build a World of Your Own."  
     A few suggestions:
          List 5 things you love to do
          List 3 things you'd like to learn more about
          Think about your favorie room - what do you like about it?
          Write down 5 favorite spots in  your city

"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."

"The only way to have a friend is to be one."

Goodreads:  From the award-winning creators of THOSE REBELS, JOHN & TOM, a joyful portrait of an American icon and an inspiring blueprint for how to live your life.

"All life is an experiment.
The more
experiments you make
the better."

          Before Ralph Waldo Emerson was a great writer, he was a city boy who longed for the broad, open fields and deep, still woods of the country, and then a young man who treasured books, ideas, and people. When he grew up and set out in the world, he wondered, could he build a life around these things he loved?
          This moving biography--presented with Barbara Kerley and Edwin Fotheringham's inimitable grace and style--illustrates the rewards of a life well-lived, one built around personal passions: creativity and community, nature and friendship.
          May it inspire you to experiment and build the life you dream of living.

5. We Were Liars - E. Lockhart

Read on my iPhone

2014 Delacorte Press

228 pgs.

Genre/Audience

Finished 1/11/15

Goodreads rating:  3.89

My rating:  (3) Liked it  

Setting:  A contemporary private island off the coast of Massachusetts, near Martha's Vineyard

1st sentence/s: 
      "Welcome to the beautiful Sinclair family.
        No one is a criminal
        No one is an addict.
        No one is a failure.
        The Sinclairs are athletic, tall, and handsome.  We are old-money Democrats.  Our smiles are wide, our chins square, and our tennis serves aggressive."

My comments:  I honestly don't know exactly how I feel about this book, so for right now, until I mull it over for awhile, I'll stick with the fact that I liked it.  I loved the suspense, I loved that no matter what my guesses were, I was incorrect.  I like the way the story was put together.  I liked that I could understand the Sinclair family enough that I had instant disdain for them.  I didn't hate it...I didn't love it.  It was, however, a darn good (quick) read.

Becky's review from Becky's Book Reviews

Goodreads book summary:  A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.
           We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart. 
          Read it.
And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

41. The Language Inside - Holly Thompson

2013, Delacorte Press

522 pgs. (but it's in verse, so it's a quick read)

YA CRF with a multicultural twist

Finished 6/26/2014

Goodreads Rating: 3.80

My Rating: 4/Very, very good

Amelia Given Library, Mt. Holly Springs

Setting: a contemporary Lowell, Massachusetts suburb

1^st sentence/s:
       third time it happens
       I'm crossing the bridge
       that slides through town
       on my way to a long-term care center
       to start volunteering

My comments:  This book certainly had many layers, and many, many themes.  One of those books that keeps you thinking.  Imagine having a stroke in your 30s that only allows you to move your eyeballs?  Imagine living in America, being an American, and having half of your thoughts and dreams in another country? And then on top of that, having your mom very ill, prognosis uncertain.  Tsunami devastation in Japan, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, Japanese and Cambodian dance, volunteering in a rehabilitation center, living in a new culture and missing the old one as well as living with immobilizing migraines...well that's a lot for one book.  But it works.  Beautifully.
          The book was written in verse and included a lot of references to poetry, which was wonderful.  But some of the verses in the book did not flow well, for me, as I read them (of course, some did). Line breaks and page breaks seemed to come in weird places.  Was it the way it was edited or the way it was written?  No matter, the story was extremely well done.

Goodreads Summary:
          Emma Karas was raised in Japan; it's the country she calls home. But when her mother is diagnosed with breast cancer, Emma's family moves to a town outside Lowell, Massachusetts, to stay with Emma's grandmother while her mom undergoes treatment.
          Emma feels out of place in the United States.She begins to have migraines, and longs to be back in Japan. At her grandmother's urging, she volunteers in a long-term care center to help Zena, a patient with locked-in syndrome, write down her poems. There, Emma meets Samnang, another volunteer, who assists elderly Cambodian refugees. Weekly visits to the care center, Zena's poems, dance, and noodle soup bring Emma and Samnang closer, until Emma must make a painful choice: stay in Massachusetts, or return home early to Japan.