2. The Stolen Queen by Fiona Davis

listened on Audible (purchased)

339 pgs. (10:18)

2025
Adult Historical Fiction Mystery
Finished 1/18/2025
Goodreads rating: 4.11
My rating: 3.5
Setting: Egypt, 1930s & 1978; NYC 1978

My comments: As likable as the story was, I had to suspend belief on some of the coincidences that too easily occurred in places in this story.  Spoilers ahead!  Annie and her point of view were likable and heartfelt, but also pushy and nosy, pushing the plot uncomfortably.  And since Charlotte kept her name and had a prominent position in the Egyptian antiquities community, it's very hard to believe that someone in the same business, albeit in a different country than the US, would not have realized that she was still alive.  And I truly can't believe that in the late 1970s anyone would be just allowed into any of the closed-off tombs like Charlotte and Annie were, no matter their expertise or credentials.  Lots of coincidences and incongruities, unfortunately.  Set in the mid 1930s in Egypt and in 1978 New York, it flip-flopped back-and-forth between those two time periods with the same protagonist.  Such mixed feelings I have about this book!  So much to love, so much to frown about.  3?  3/5?  4?  Eek!

Goodreads synopsis:  From New York Times bestselling author Fiona Davis, an utterly addictive new novel that will transport you from New York City’s most glamorous party to the labyrinth streets of Cairo and back.

Egypt, 1936: When anthropology student Charlotte Cross is offered a coveted spot on an archaeological dig in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, she leaps at the opportunity. But after an unbearable tragedy strikes, Charlotte knows her future will never be the same.

New York City, 1978: Eighteen-year-old Annie Jenkins is thrilled when she lands an opportunity to work for iconic former Vogue fashion editor Diana Vreeland, who’s in the midst of organizing the famous Met Gala, hosted at the museum and known across the city as the “party of the year.” Though Annie soon realizes she’ll have her work cut out for her, scrambling to meet Diana’s capricious demands and exacting standards.

Meanwhile, Charlotte, now leading a quiet life as the associate curator of the Met’s celebrated Department of Egyptian Art, wants little to do with the upcoming gala. She’s consumed with her research on Hathorkare—a rare female pharaoh dismissed by most other Egyptologists as unimportant.

That is, until the night of the gala. When one of the Egyptian art collection’s most valuable artifacts goes missing . . . and there are signs Hathorkare’s legendary curse might be reawakening.

As Annie and Charlotte team up to search for the missing antiquity, a desperate hunch leads the unlikely duo to one place Charlotte swore she’d never return: Egypt. But if they’re to have any hope of finding the artifact, Charlotte will need to confront the demons of her past—which may mean leading them both directly into danger.

40. The Secret Book of Flora Lea by Patti Callahan Henry

listened on Libby
355 pgs.

2023
Adult Historical Fiction/Mystery
Finished 5/4/2024
Goodreads rating: 4.07
My rating: 4
Setting: England, flipping between 1939 and 1960

My comments: Two sisters are sent off to the countryside with hundreds of other kids to be billeted with families to keep them safe from the upcoming bombings of London at the beginning of WWII.  Luckily, these two girls find a home with a wonderful woman and her son.  This is a story of loss, love, and grief.  There were not enough surprises in the retelling, most was told at the beginning and just recapped with a few more details, which made it a little boring in places.  Lovely writing.  I loved the settings.

Goodreads synopsis:  When a woman discovers a rare book that has connections to her past, long-held secrets about her missing sister and their childhood spent in the English countryside during World War II are revealed.

In the war-torn London of 1939, fourteen-year-old Hazel and five-year-old Flora are evacuated to a rural village to escape the horrors of the Second World War. Living with the kind Bridie Aberdeen and her teenage son, Harry, in a charming stone cottage along the River Thames, Hazel fills their days with walks and games to distract her young sister, including one that she creates for her sister and her sister alone—a fairy tale about a magical land, a secret place they can escape to that is all their own.

But the unthinkable happens when young Flora suddenly vanishes while playing near the banks of the river. Shattered, Hazel blames herself for her sister’s disappearance, and she carries that guilt into adulthood as a private burden she feels she deserves.

Twenty years later, Hazel is in London, ready to move on from her job at a cozy rare bookstore to a career at Sotheby’s. With a charming boyfriend and her elegantly timeworn Bloomsbury flat, Hazel’s future seems determined. But her tidy life is turned upside down when she unwraps a package containing an illustrated book called Whisperwood and the River of Stars . Hazel never told a soul about the imaginary world she created just for Flora. Could this book hold the secrets to Flora’s disappearance? Could it be a sign that her beloved sister is still alive after all these years?

As Hazel embarks on a feverish quest, revisiting long-dormant relationships and bravely opening wounds from her past, her career and future hang in the balance. An astonishing twist ultimately reveals the truth in this transporting and refreshingly original novel about the bond between sisters, the complications of conflicted love, and the enduring magic of storytelling.

20. Weyward by Emilia Hart

listened on Libby - borrowed from library

416 pgs.
2023
Adult Historical Fiction/Magical Realism

Finished 3/10/2024
Goodreads rating: 4.10
My rating:/
Setting: Cottage in England during three different time periods:  1619, 1942, contemporary

My comments: LOVE the cover!  Told from the point of view of three women in the Weyward family:  Altha, in 1619, on trial for practicing witchcraft, supposedly using a spell to have a farmer's cows trample him to death.  Violet, in 1942, living a hugely restricted life with her brother, being intimidated by a hateful father.  And then there's Kate in 2019, never leaving her flat because of an abusive, controlling husband, until she finally takes matters into her own hands.  Three really interesting stories of three strong women, bonded by blood and history and the huge touch of magic that connects them with the natural world, the birds, the bees, the bugs, and all growing things.  It was hard to put down and beautifully narrated by three different female voices.

Goodreads synopsis:  I am a Weyward, and wild inside.

2019: Under cover of darkness, Kate flees London for ramshackle Weyward Cottage, inherited from a great aunt she barely remembers. With its tumbling ivy and overgrown garden, the cottage is worlds away from the abusive partner who tormented Kate. But she begins to suspect that her great aunt had a secret. One that lurks in the bones of the cottage, hidden ever since the witch-hunts of the 17th century.

1619: Altha is awaiting trial for the murder of a local farmer who was stampeded to death by his herd. As a girl, Altha’s mother taught her their magic, a kind not rooted in spell casting but in a deep knowledge of the natural world. But unusual women have always been deemed dangerous, and as the evidence for witchcraft is set out against Altha, she knows it will take all of her powers to maintain her freedom.

1942: As World War II rages, Violet is trapped in her family's grand, crumbling estate. Straitjacketed by societal convention, she longs for the robust education her brother receives––and for her mother, long deceased, who was rumored to have gone mad before her death. The only traces Violet has of her are a locket bearing the initial W and the word weyward scratched into the baseboard of her bedroom.

Weaving together the stories of three extraordinary women across five centuries, Emilia Hart's Weyward is an enthralling novel of female resilience and the transformative power of the natural world.

35. The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James

listened on Libby - borrowed from the library

2022
344 pgs.
Mystery/Thriller - with ghosts
Finished 4/26/22
Goodreads rating: 3.94
My rating: 3
Setting: 1970's and contemporary Oregon

My comments: Two great female narrators, loved listening to them.  A ghost story, with everything based in reality except for one particular protagonist who is a dad, hateful ghost.  It didn't work for me, not at all.  Although I may remember this book in the future, it won't go down as a favorite.

Goodreads synopsis:  In 1977, Claire Lake, Oregon, was shaken by the Lady Killer Murders: Two men, seemingly randomly, were murdered with the same gun, with strange notes left behind. Beth Greer was the perfect suspect--a rich, eccentric twenty-three-year-old woman, seen fleeing one of the crimes. But she was acquitted, and she retreated to the isolation of her mansion.

Oregon, 2017. Shea Collins is a receptionist, but by night, she runs a true crime website, the Book of Cold Cases--a passion fueled by the attempted abduction she escaped as a child. When she meets Beth by chance, Shea asks her for an interview. To Shea's surprise, Beth says yes.

They meet regularly at Beth's mansion, though Shea is never comfortable there. Items move when she's not looking, and she could swear she's seen a girl outside the window. The allure of learning the truth about the case from the smart, charming Beth is too much to resist, but even as they grow closer, Shea senses something isn't right. Is she making friends with a manipulative murderer, or are there other dangers lurking in the darkness of the Greer house?

A true crime blogger gets more than she bargained for while interviewing the woman acquitted of two cold case slayings in this chilling new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Sun Down Motel.

64. Ground Zero by Alan Gratz

listened on Libby, borrowed from the library

narrated by Bernardo dePaula and Ariana Delawari

Unabridged audio (7:25)
2021
336 pgs.
Mid Grades CRF
Finished 6/17/2021
Goodreads rating: 3.83 - 5252 ratings
My rating: 5
Setting: 2001 Ground Zero, 2018 Afghanistan

First line/s: "Brandon Chavez was in trouble."

My comments: This story is told in two different voices set 18 years apart.  One is Brendan Chavez, a nine-year-old boy who accompanies his dad to work on the morning of 9/11/2001 at the Windows on the World restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center in New York City.  The second is that of a similarly aged girl in a secluded village in Afghanistan in 2018.  Because she unwittingly helps an injured American soldier, she puts her whole village in danger with the Taliban.  She hates Americans, because an American drone targeted her sister's wedding, killing that 16 year-old sister and many other villagers. That American soldier, "Taz," is actually Brandon. Her twin brother is so angry that much of the story is about him and his relationship with the Taliban.  This is a very powerful story.  There are a lot of intense scenes in the hour and a half that Brandon spends trying to figure out what is going on the the first tower, and then figuring out a way to get out.  His father dies.  It's intense and sad, as is much of the story that takes place in Afghanistan.  I'm not sure what age is would be appropriate for.  Somehow I don't thing my 11 year old grandson could handle it at all, but he's really sensitive.  I do know other fifth graders that could handle it.  There's a lengthy afterword by the author that explains all sorts of information about 9/11,  a fascinating, well-writtenprimer on the horrible day.

Goodreads synopsis:  In time for the 20th anniversary of 9/11, bestselling author Alan Gratz delivers a breathtaking, multifaceted, and resonant look at this singular event in US history -- and how it still impacts us today.
            It's September 11, 2001. Brandon, a 9-year-old boy, goes to work for the day with his dad . . . at the World Trade Center in New York City. When two planes hit the towers, Brandon and his father are trapped inside a fiery nightmare as terror and confusion swirl around them. Can they escape -- and what will the world be like when they do?
            In present-day Afghanistan, Reshmina is an 11-year-old girl who is used to growing up in the shadow of war, but she has dreams of peace and unity. When she ends up harboring a wounded young American soldier, she and her entire family are put in mortal danger. But Reshmina also learns something surprising about the roots of this endless war.
            With his trademark skill and insight, Alan Gratz delivers an action-packed and powerful story of two kids whose lives connect in unexpected ways, and reminds us how the past and present are always more linked than we think.

59. The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler

read first 2/3 on Kindle while laid up with broken elbow at Laura's, finished last 1/3 on audio/Chirp

narrated by Ari Fliakos

Unabridged audio (11:42)
2015
339 pgs.
Adult Magical Realism told in two time periods
Finished 6/2/2021
Goodreads rating: 3.60 - 32,808 ratings
My rating: 3.5
Setting: Contemporary Long Island Sound, New York and "OTR" in the northeast a couple hundred years before

First line/s: "Perched on the bluff's edge, the house in in danger."

My comments: 2/3 read on Kindle 1/3 listened on Chirp.  Narrated really well.  Magical realism?  Historical fiction.  Two time periods - 1790 & present time.  Simon, the contemporary protagonist, is a librarian, brother, and swimmer who can hold his breath for 10 minutes.  The setting, a house on the edge of Long Island Sound, is slipping into the water more and more as the weeks progress until it finally totally disintegrates and slides down the bank into the sea.  There's lots and lots of water in this book.  Mermaids swimming in see-through tanks. Floods.  Downpours so bad that water seeps into houses, ruins books, pages ... lives.  Families that combine and twist and become confusingly and elaborately pulled together - to the very end.  My favorite character was the tentacle-tattooed young man who is full of electricity, lighting lightbulbs with his fingers in the traveling circus sideshow.  I particularly enjoyed listening to the narration, it has enhanced the writing for me.  At the end of the audio is a short interview with the author that is quite interesting.  Very difficult for me to rate, But I definitely liked most of it.

Goodreads synopsis:  A sweeping and captivating debut novel about a young librarian who is sent a mysterious old book, inscribed with his grandmother's name. What is the book's connection to his family?

          Simon Watson, a young librarian, lives alone on the Long Island Sound in his family home, a house perched on the edge of a cliff that is slowly crumbling into the sea. His parents are long dead, his mother having drowned in the water his house overlooks.
          One day, Simon receives a mysterious book from an antiquarian bookseller; it has been sent to him because it is inscribed with the name Verona Bonn, Simon's grandmother. Simon must unlock the mysteries of the book, and decode his family history, before fate deals its next deadly hand.
          The Book of Speculation is Erika Swyler's gorgeous and moving debut, a wondrous novel about the power of books, family, and magic.

74. The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate

listened to audio borrowed from Bosler Library
narrated by Sophie Amoss, Sullivan Jones, Robin Miles, Bahni Turpin, Lisa Flanagan, Dominic Hoffman
Unabridged audio (15:16)
2020 Ballantine Books
388 pgs.
HistFiction told in two voices during two time periods
Finished 5/8/2020
Goodreads rating:   4.26 - 9918 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Louisiana, 1875 & 1987

First line/s: "A single ladybug lands featherlight on the teacher's finger, clings there, a living gemstone."

My comments:  Another book that has wowed me.  Based on the actual "book of lost friends," which were advertisements in the late 19th century posted by freed slaves looking for lost family members.  Told in two voices during two times periods, 1875 and 1987, and set in rural Louisiana, Hattie and Benny tell their tales.  Hattie is a freed slave, sharecropping on the same land where her family was enslaved, who ends up going on an adventurous journey trying to save the two daughters of the manor; half-sisters; one a miserable spoiled brat and the other a half Creole from New Orleans who was, of course, despised by her sister and her sister's mother.  Benny is a still wet-behind-the-ears brand new teacher who's landed a job in the "poor" school in the same town/locale as Hattie had lived.  A bibliophile, she has no books for her students, respect from her students, and no support from anyone local except the heir of the manor, who wants nothing to do with it or his uncles who run the town.  Benny, with the help of some of the town's African-American elders, gets the kids interested in their history, researching, learning, and starting to care about their roots.  Each chapter begins with an actual advertisement from the book of lost friends. I give it a 4.5 only because I think it start out a it slowly and didn't grab me 'til a bit of the way in.

Goodreads synopsis:  A new novel inspired by historical events: a story of three young women on a journey in search of family amidst the destruction of the post-Civil War South, and of a modern-day teacher who rediscovers their story and its connection to her own students' lives.
          Lisa Wingate brings to life stories from actual "Lost Friends" advertisements that appeared in Southern newspapers after the Civil War, as freed slaves desperately searched for loved ones who had been sold off.
          Louisiana, 1875 In the tumultuous aftermath of Reconstruction, three young women set off as unwilling companions on a perilous quest: Lavinia, the pampered heir to a now-destitute plantation; Juneau Jane, her illegitimate free-born Creole half-sister; and Hannie, Lavinia's former slave. Each carries private wounds and powerful secrets as they head for Texas, following dangerous roads rife with ruthless vigilantes and soldiers still fighting a war lost a decade before. For Lavinia and Juneau Jane, the journey is one of inheritance and financial desperation, but for Hannie, torn from her mother and eight siblings before slavery's end, the pilgrimage westward reignites an agonizing question: Could her long-lost family still be out there? Beyond the swamps lie the seemingly limitless frontiers of Texas and, improbably, hope.
           Louisiana, 1987 For first-year teacher Benedetta Silva, a subsidized job at a poor rural school seems like the ticket to canceling her hefty student debt--until she lands in a tiny, out-of-step Mississippi River town. Augustine, Louisiana, seems suspicious of new ideas and new people, and Benny can scarcely comprehend the lives of her poverty-stricken students. But amid the gnarled oaks and run-down plantation homes lies the century-old history of three young women, a long-ago journey, and a hidden book that could change everything. 

45. Dulci's Legacy by Margaret Pinard

read on my iPhone/purchased Kindle book
2014 Taste Life Twice Publishing
192 pgs.
YA Time Travel, mostly CRF, with a tiny bit of HF
Finished 3/5/2020
Goodreads rating:  3.88 - 8 ratings
My rating: 3
Setting:  Current & 1777 Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada

First line/s:  "God, I hope this place is better than junior high, Dulci Oyselle thought as she passed through the tall double doors into Glace Cove High School."

My comments: This book was written and suggested to me by one of my "friends" on Litsy, which is pretty cool.  It's about time traveling, but in just short fits and spurts, and Dulci has to piece all that she's seen together with similar time traveling that her best friend's brother has had for the last four years, making him close to crazy.  I guess you might call them visions instead of time traveling, or a combination of the the two.  A bit of a different premise, though I wish the 1777 story had been a little bit more compelling.  Why would a Sottish immigrant adopt a 10-year-old Micmac girls?  How would something like that come about?  That was just a little bit fanciful for me, or at least I can't seem to understand how something like that would happen, especially so many years ago.  The contemporary part of the story was interesting ... I particularly appreciated being given information about Celtic drumming and rural Canada.  And I learned a bit about the French and Indian Wars, which I don't know a whole lot about.

Goodreads synopsis:  Dulci Oyselle is a modern 13-year-old girl in Cape Breton, who thinks high school is going to be her big new challenge, but then starts seeing visions of things happening that no one else does.
          Snowy hills appear in the music classroom. Dangerous men square off for a fight below her bedroom window. What is she seeing? And why are these visions appearing now?
          It might have to do with the new boy in town, who is really interested in her, despite her shy awkwardness. Or it could have something to do with her best friend's family; Mehron's brother is a recluse with some unexplained mental illness that has suddenly turned violent.
          Dulci will need to figure out what she's seeing, and why. To do so, she'll need to have faith in herself, a strength she's never needed before. Encouraged by her friends and inspired by one particular vision, she just might be able to pierce the mystery.

28. Conviction by Julia Dahl

#3 Rebekah Roberts, NYC investigative reporter
Listened to Audio on Audible
narrated by Andi Arndt
Unabridged audio (8:17)
2017 Minotaur Books
312 pgs.
Adult Mystery
Finished 2/10/20
Goodreads rating:  3.83 - 812 ratings
My rating: 3.5
Setting: Contemporary Brooklyn with lots of flashing back to the late 90s

First line/s:  "The little boy walked to the storefront church alone, with blood on his hands and face."

My comments:  Another story told though descriptions of different times related to the major incident of the story.  The summer of 1992 in Brooklyn, New York, and the present, what took place from different points of view - and how Rebekah is following up on all the information she is able to compile. I was really uncomfortable whenever it flipped back to 1992 because I felt so horribly sad the the 16-year old who was falsely convicted and then imprisoned for over twenty years.  And so, so so pissed a the cops!  It almost got to the point I didn't finish the book because I was so darned uncomfortable and pissed at the whole situation.  And Rebekahs's mother...geez!  Poor Rebekah, working so hard in the first two books to find and figure out her mother and now we discover one of the most unlikable people ever.  I've seen nothing about a book number four, and it's been a few years, so I wonder if one will be coming at all....

Goodreads synopsis:  New York City 1992: a year after riots exploded between black and Jewish neighbors in Brooklyn, a black family is brutally murdered in their Crown Heights home. A teenager is quickly convicted, and the justice system moves on.
          Twenty-two years later, journalist Rebekah Roberts gets a letter: I didn't do it. Frustrated with her work at the city’s sleaziest tabloid, Rebekah starts to dig. But witnesses are missing, memories faded, and almost no one wants to talk about that grim, violent time in New York City—not even Saul Katz, a former NYPD cop and her source in Brooklyn’s insular Hasidic community.
          So she goes it alone. And as she gets closer to the truth of that night, Rebekah finds herself in the path of a killer with two decades of secrets to protect.
          From the author of the Edgar-nominated Invisible City comes another timely thriller that illuminates society’s darkest corners. Told in part through the eyes of a jittery eyewitness and the massacre’s sole survivor, Julia Dahl's Conviction examines the power—and cost—of community, loyalty, and denial.

27. We Hope for Better Things by Erin Bartels

listened to eAudio - RBDigital/TPPL
narrated by Stina Nielsen
Unabridged audio (12:03)
2019, Fleming H. Revell Co.
393 pgs.
Adult Hidtorical Fiction told in 3 time periods
Finished 2/10/2020
Goodreads rating:  4.22 - 2440 ratings
My rating:  5
Setting:Detroit and rural Michigan:  1861-1871, 1963-1967, and present time

First line/s:  Detroit: July  "The Lafayette Coney Island was not a comfortable place to be early."

My comments:  This was one of those books I didn't want to put don't and I couldn't wait to get back to.  I love historical fiction that goes back and forth between points-of-view, and this one didn't disappoint. Told from the viewpoints of three strong women, all related, and dealing with the racism of the Civil War, 1960's Detroit, and present day, and how history can follow a family - and just how important a family's history can be.  Beautifully read, great characters, and a setting that is a hugely strong part of the story, a great story.

Goodreads synopsis:  When Detroit Free Press reporter Elizabeth Balsam meets James Rich, his strange request--that she look up a relative she didn't know she had in order to deliver an old camera and a box of photos--seems like it isn't worth her time. But when she loses her job after a botched investigation, she suddenly finds herself with nothing but time.
          At her great-aunt's 150-year-old farmhouse, Elizabeth uncovers a series of mysterious items, locked doors, and hidden graves. As she searches for answers to the riddles around her, the remarkable stories of two women who lived in this very house emerge as testaments to love, resilience, and courage in the face of war, racism, and misunderstanding. And as Elizabeth soon discovers, the past is never as past as we might like to think.
          Debut novelist Erin Bartels takes readers on an emotional journey through time--from the volatile streets of 1960s Detroit to the Underground Railroad during the Civil War--to uncover the past, confront the seeds of hatred, and discover where love goes to hide.

25. Big Lies in a Small Town by Diane Chamberlain

listened to the eAudio borrowed from Bosler
narrated by Susan Bennett
Unabridged audio (13:19)
2020 St. Martin's Press
400 pgs.
Adult Historical Fiction/Present time Back & Forth
Finished 2/6/2020
Goodreads rating: 4.25 - 4671 ratings
My rating: 5
Setting: 1940 & 2019 Rural North Carolina

First line/s:  "The children knew it was finally spring, so although the air still held the nip of winter and the grass and weeds crunched beneath their feet, they ran through the field  and woods, yipping with the anticipation of warmer weather."

My comments:  I very much enjoyed this enthralling narrative, weaving the dialogue of two women almost 80 years apart in the same small town of Edenton, NC.  short chapters switched back and forth effortlessly, spending just enough time in each time period.  Art, mystery, racism, prison life, alcoholism, prejudice, and long-kept secrets wind together to  create a believable story that I couldn't put down and didn't want to end.

Goodreads synopsis:  North Carolina, 2018: Morgan Christopher's life has been derailed. Taking the fall for a crime she did not commit, she finds herself serving a three-year stint in the North Carolina Women's Correctional Center. Her dream of a career in art is put on hold—until a mysterious visitor makes her an offer that will see her released immediately. Her assignment: restore an old post office mural in a sleepy southern town. Morgan knows nothing about art restoration, but desperate to leave prison, she accepts. What she finds under the layers of grime is a painting that tells the story of madness, violence, and a conspiracy of small town secrets.
          North Carolina, 1940: Anna Dale, an artist from New Jersey, wins a national contest to paint a mural for the post office in Edenton, North Carolina. Alone in the world and desperate for work, she accepts. But what she doesn't expect is to find herself immersed in a town where prejudices run deep, where people are hiding secrets behind closed doors, and where the price of being different might just end in murder.
          What happened to Anna Dale? Are the clues hidden in the decrepit mural? Can Morgan overcome her own demons to discover what exists beneath the layers of lies?

131. The Darkling Bride by Laura Anderson

listened to eAudio/Chirp
narrated  by Sarah-Jane Drummey
Unabridged audio (12:02)
2018
369 pgs.
Adult Mystery in two time periods
Finished 12/28/2019
Goodreads rating:  3.92 - 2253 ratings
My rating: 3
Setting:

First line/s:  "Twenty miles south of Dublin, Deeprath Castle brooded in its shallow valley scooped out of the Wicklow Mountains."

My comments: A gothic mystery, taking place in Deeprath Castle in Ireland, where a young woman goes to catalog the huge library.  Once she gets there, she discovers a family enmeshed with the mystery of a murder twenty years previously, of the parents of the two current owners.  Hopping back-and-forth between the late 1800s and present day, an interesting mystery is solved.  Not sure I liked many of the characters, but I guess I wasn't really supposed to.  Interesting, but for some reason I couldn't really relate to any of them, particularly the protagonists.

Goodreads synopsis:  Three generations of Irish nobles face their family secrets in this spellbinding novel from the award-winning author of the Boleyn King trilogy.
          The Gallagher family has called Deeprath Castle home for seven hundred years. Nestled in the Wicklow Mountains of Ireland, the estate is now slated to become a public trust, and book lover and scholar Carragh Ryan is hired to take inventory of its historic library. But after meeting Aidan, the current Viscount Gallagher, and his enigmatic family, Carragh knows that her task will be more challenging than she’d thought.
          Two decades before, Aidan’s parents died violently at Deeprath. The case, which was never closed, has recently been taken up by a new detective determined to find the truth. The couple’s unusual deaths harken back a century, when twenty-three-year-old Lady Jenny Gallagher also died at Deeprath under mysterious circumstances, leaving behind an infant son and her husband, a renowned writer who never published again. These incidents only fueled fantastical theories about the Darkling Bride, a local legend of a sultry and dangerous woman from long ago whose wrath continues to haunt the castle.
          The past catches up to the present, and odd clues in the house soon have Carragh wondering if there are unseen forces stalking the Gallagher family. As secrets emerge from the shadows and Carragh gets closer to answers—and to Aidan—could she be the Darkling Bride’s next victim?

17. Lyrebird Hill

read by Eloise Oxer, gorgeously!
listened to on Audible
2015 Simon & Schuster Australia
416 pgs.
14 hrs. 11 minutes
Adult CRF / Historical (flipping back and forth)
Finished 3-19-17
Goodreads rating: 4.0 (584 ratings)
My rating: 4.5
Setting: 1898 and 2013 New South Wales and Tasmania, Australia

First line/s: (Prologue, August, 1898) "It is midnight.  I am hunched on the cold floor of the library, scratching these words."

My comments:  4.5 I couldn't wait to get back to this each time I had to leave it.  The story, though a little drawn out in places, was for the most part believable and excellently told.  It flipped back and forth between 1898 and 2013.  Eloise Oxer, the reader, was fantastic.  Her lilting voice and Australian accent put me right there in the bush, at Lyrebird Hill, or in Tasmania, immediately.  Unfolding are two different stories, of great-granddaughter and great-grandmother, more than a century apart.  In a way, perhaps because of the setting and alternating chapters back and forth, it reminded me of one of my favorite books, also set in Australia, The Forgotten Garden.  Delicious storytelling.

Goodreads synopsis:  When all that you know comes crashing down, do you run? Or face the truth?
          Ruby Cardel has the semblance of a normal life – a loving boyfriend, a fulfilling career – but in one terrible moment, her life unravels. The discovery that the death of her sister, Jamie, was not an accident makes her question all she’s known about herself and her past.
          Traveling back home to Lyrebird Hill, Ruby begins to remember the year that has been forever blocked in her memory . . . Snatches of her childhood with beautiful Jamie, and Ruby’s only friendship with the boy from the next property, a troubled foster kid.
          Then Ruby uncovers a cache of ancient letters from a long-lost relative, Brenna Magavin, written from her cell in a Tasmanian gaol where she is imprisoned for murder. As she reads, Ruby discovers that her family line is littered with tragedy and violence.
          Slowly, the gaps in Ruby’s memory come to her. And as she pieces together the shards of truth, what she finally discovers will shock her to the core – about what happened to Jamie that fateful day, and how she died.
          A thrilling tale about family secrets and trusting yourself...

37. Orphan Train - Christina Baker Kline

read on my iPhone/Kindle

2013, William Morrow Paperbacks

304 pgs.

YA/Adult CRF/HistFict

Finished 6/15/14

Goodreads Rating:  4.08

My Rating: 4.5/Super story

Setting: 2011 MDI, Maine and 1929 (+) Minnesota

1^st sentence/s:  "I believe in ghosts.  They're the ones who haunt us, the ones who have left us behind."

My comments:  4.5  I love books that flip back and forth in time, as this one does.  One orphan in 1929 Minnesota and another in 2011 Mount Desert Island, Maine.  (What a hoot reading about Somesville OneStop, Bar Harbor, MDI High School, and even the Island Explorer bus).  Which town is Spruce Harbor - Southwest Harbor I'm guessing.  I couldn't put this down - such trials and heartbreak each of these protagonists have endured.

Goodreads Summary:  The author of Bird in Hand and The Way Life Should Be delivers her most ambitious and powerful novel to date: a captivating story of two very different women who build an unexpected friendship: a 91-year-old woman with a hidden past as an orphan-train rider and the teenage girl whose own troubled adolescence leads her to seek answers to questions no one has ever thought to ask.

     Nearly eighteen, Molly Ayer knows she has one last chance. Just months from "aging out" of the child welfare system, and close to being kicked out of her foster home, a community service position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the only thing keeping her out of juvie and worse.
     Vivian Daly has lived a quiet life on the coast of Maine. But in her attic, hidden in trunks, are vestiges of a turbulent past. As she helps Vivian sort through her possessions and memories, Molly discovers that she and Vivian aren't as different as they seem to be. A young Irish immigrant orphaned in New York City, Vivian was put on a train to the Midwest with hundreds of other children whose destinies would be determined by luck and chance.
     The closer Molly grows to Vivian, the more she discovers parallels to her own life. A Penobscot Indian, she, too, is an outsider being raised by strangers, and she, too, has unanswered questions about the past. As her emotional barriers begin to crumble, Molly discovers that she has the power to help Vivian find answers to mysteries that have haunted her for her entire life - answers that will ultimately free them both.
     Rich in detail and epic in scope, Orphan Train is a powerful novel of upheaval and resilience, of second chances, of unexpected friendship, and of the secrets we carry that keep us from finding out who we are

6. The Bookman's Tale - Charlie Lovett

A Novel of Obsession

2013, Viking

354 pgs.

Adult HF and CRF (settings switch back and forth)

Finished 1/27/2014

Goodreads Rating: 3.77

My Rating: 5/ I really, really enjoyed this book - both story and writing

TPPL

Settings in the book:  mostly Ridgefield, NC and Kingham, (The Cothswolds), England

1st sentence/s:  (Hay-on-Wye, Wales, Wednesday, February 15, 1995) "Wales could be cold in February.  Even without snow or wind the damp winter air permeated Peter''s topcoat and settled in is bones as he stood outside one of the dozens of bookshops that crowded the narrow streets of Hay.  Despite the warm glow in the window that illuminated a tantalizing display of Victorian novels, Peter was in no hurry to open the door.  It had been nine months since he had entered a bookshop; another few minutes wouldn't make a difference.  There had been a time when this was all so familiar, so safe; when stepping into a rare bookshop had been a moment of excitement, meeting a fellow book lover a part of a grand adventure."

My comments:  Yup, I really enjoyed this book.  I love the way it was written - in short chapters during three different time periods.The short chapters helped me totally remember what had been happening previously in each time period.  The story has a little bit of everything - mystery, history, the book world, mental health, forgery, the art world, a love story and a whole lot of really great storytelling. I want more!

Goodreads Review: A mysterious portrait ignites an antiquarian bookseller’s search through time and the works of Shakespeare for his lost love.
     Guaranteed to capture the hearts of everyone who truly loves books, The Bookman’s Tale is a former bookseller’s sparkling novel and a delightful exploration of one of literature’s most tantalizing mysteries with echoes ofShadow of the Wind and A.S. Byatt's Possession.
     Hay-on-Wye, 1995. Peter Byerly isn’t sure what drew him into this particular bookshop. Nine months earlier, the death of his beloved wife, Amanda, had left him shattered. The young antiquarian bookseller relocated from North Carolina to the English countryside, hoping to rediscover the joy he once took in collecting and restoring rare books. But upon opening an eighteenth-century study of Shakespeare forgeries, Peter is shocked when a portrait of Amanda tumbles out of its pages. Of course, it isn’t really her. The watercolor is clearly Victorian. Yet the resemblance is uncanny, and Peter becomes obsessed with learning the picture’s origins.
     As he follows the trail back first to the Victorian era and then to Shakespeare’s time, Peter communes with Amanda’s spirit, learns the truth about his own past, and discovers a book that might definitively prove Shakespeare was, indeed, the author of all his plays.

The Secret Box - Barbara Lehman

Illustrated by the author
Houghton Miffline Books for Children, 2011
$15.99
40 pgs.
For:  Thinkers ages 4 and up
Rating:  4
Endpapers:  a look into the secret box, open inside cover on left, pile of items on right (you're looking down into the box....)

A boy puts  some mementos and a map into a "Seahorse Pier Saltwater Taffy" candy box and hides it away under the floorboards in the top-floor dormitory room of some sort of haven for boys.  This is some time ago, because the story continues to show the area and neighborhood as they progress from spread-out farmland to eventual full-throttle inner city.  However, the house stays there, cramped now among huge buildings.  The house still is home to boys, and one day three modern-era boys find the box.  They follow the map to see where it leads.  Cool.  At the end, time has passed again, and two even more modern boys find the box.....

Oh yes, another great book to create story from images...perfect....PERFECT for fourth grade boys!

53. The Scent of Rain and Lightning - Nancy Pickard

Ballantine Books, 2010
HC $25.00
for: Adults
319 pages
Rating: 5

The story begins in 2009 with 26-year-old English teacher, Jody Linder. Her three much-loved uncles arrive to tell her that Billy Crosby, the man convicted of murdering her parents 23 years earlier, has been let out of jail. However, after these first few pages it flips back to 1986 and explains how she was orphaned one fateful, stormy night when she was only three. But it leaves off before finding out what really happened.

The second part flips ahead again, to 2009 and Crosby's re-entry into the town of Rose, Kansas, where the Linder family is honored and admired and the entire town is up-in-arms...literally. We learn more about Billy's son, Collin, who was seven when his father was sent to prison. Through the years Collin and Jody have been weirdly attracted to each other, and as the rest of the story unfolds, their connection becomes even more powerful.

This is an excellent piece of storytelling. Even though I did a lot of guessing about what "really" happened, in some ways I was close and in some ways I wasn't. I couldn't wait to finish it. I enjoyed my trip through Kansas two summers ago, and now I want to return and check out some of the small towns, the cattle farms, and the COWBOYS!

50. Sarah's Key - Tatiana de Rosnay

Audio read by Polly Stone (who did a beautiful job with the French accents)
BBC Audiobooks America, 2008
(book published in 2007)
8 unabridged cds
10 hours
293 pages
Rating: 3

The last cd started skipping, so I read the last tenth of the book.

The story is told from two points-of-view. Sarah Starzynski, an 11-year old girl who, in June of 1942, is rounded up with other Jewish families in Paris and taken to the Vel' d'Hiv, then to a camp that is the prelude to Auschwitz; and Julia Jarmand, an American journalist living in Paris who is investigating the horrible crimes committed during the roundup to Vel' d'Hiv. She discovers a close tie to the tragedy when she finds that her husband's family has lived in Sarah's apartment since that fateful time in 1942 and she begins searching for more information, particularly Sarah's fate.

This is a tragic Holocaust story. I like the way it shows clearly how crimes of the past have their own repurcussions in the present and future. The whole story about Sarah is well written, poignant, meaningful. But the contemporary part didn't sit completely well with me. Julia's charming, narcisistic husband, Bertrand, for one. And we're to believe that after fifteen years of marriage, she is told confidential information by her father-in-law, whom she has never particularly gotten along with? And then there's a pregnancy....some of this part of the story seemed unreal to me. Reactions. Feelings. Some were too intense and some were missing. Maybe its the way the story was read...though I thoroughly enjoyed the narrator's rendition. There was just too much about Julia and her family that was "off" or missing or something.....

48. The Forgotten Garden - Kate Morton

Washington Square Press
published in Australia in 2008
paper, $15.00
552 pages
for: adults
Rating: 5

I really enjoyed this cleverly woven story of three generations of women. Set in Brisbane, Australia and Cornwall, England, it flips back and forth - quite flawlessly, actually - between the period from 1900 through 1913, to 1975, and then 2005. It is a mystery, with a cottage on a Cornwall cliff that contains a walled secret garden as one of the characters. It is also intertwined with the fairy tales written by Eliza, which adds another dimension to the rich story.

In 1913 Nell is abandoned on a ship that is making its way from London to Australia. Many years later, she tries to piece together the story, figure out who she is and where she came from. After she dies, her beloved granddaughter Cassandra picks up the pieces and continues the search, trying to figure out the mystery of which her grandmother had never spoken.

We meet Eliza, orphaned daughter of beautiful Georgianna, who left Blackhurst Manor to flee an obsessed brother and follow her heart. Georgianna's husband is a sailor, and when he is killed, she chooses to live in poverty in London with her twin daughter and son rather than return to Cornwall. The son tragically dies and Eliza is swept back to Blackhurst to "entertain" her sickly cousin, Rose. Years later the cottage on the cliff, connected by an intricate maze to the manor, becomes Eliza's. It sits empty for 60 years until it becomes Nell's, then another 30 until it becomes Cassandra's. And it is Cassandra that eventually unearths all of its secrets and works diligently to make it her new home.

I couldn't put this book down. Even though I had a pretty good idea of the outcome, it was nice to see all the extra, intricate pieces of the story fall into place. I very much enjoyed Kate Morton's writing, and will look to find the book she wrote a few years previously, The House at Riverton.

35. The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane - Katherine Howe

For: Adults
Hyperion, 2009
371 pgs.
$25.99
Rating: 4 Liked it a lot
Endpapers: In cursive text, a recipe to end "man's mortal suffering." (understood more after reading the book)

"Just because you don't believe in something doesn't mean it isn't real." This is a quote in the book that I keep thinking of.

Harvard grad student Connie Goodwin is looking for her dissertation topic in American colonial studies. Her advisor, Manning Chilton, a prominent historian, is hounding her to get going. But Connie's hippie mother, Grace, has called from Santa Fe to see if Connie will spend the summer cleaning out her dead grandmother, Sophia's, old house in Marblehead so that it can be sold. Abandoned for over twenty years, the ancient place is overgrown, unelectrified, and fascinating. On her first night in the old house, she finds an old key in an ancient family Bible that contains the name Deliverance Dane. Trying to discover some background on this Puritan name, shy Connie meets a like-minded steeplejack named Sam, and together they start hunting for clues.

The story takes place in 1991 and during the time of the Salem witch trials. I think it was set in 1991 because the author wanted our protagonist to really research, hunting through documents, libraries, churches, graveyards, museums, for information instead of sitting down at a computer. It works. It's a great story that I didn't want to put down. Read it on the plane flight back and forth to PA last weekend, and the time flew.

SPOILER: My only tiny negative comment would be about the character development of Manning Chilton. You know right from the beginning what he's all about, and it would be nice to have had this introduced slowly....I like to not guess the ending or the culprit untilt the story advances a little more. Oh well. This was minor.

A wonderful summer read. Especially after The Lace Reader, which also takes place in the Salem area, an area I'm somewhat familiar with, which adds an extra bit of fun. Now I really want to go check out the older parts of Marblehead!