48. How to Read a Book by Monica Wood

listened on Audible
288 pgs.

2024
Adult Contemporary Fiction
Finished 5/27/24
Goodreads rating: 4.36
My rating: 5
Setting: Contemporary Maine, Portland area

My comments:  I couldn't put this one down.  Told from the points of view of three different characters and set in Maine - with many references to locations that I totally knew - this beautifully written novel has won my heart!  The narrator was fantastic.  The kindness, integrity, and humility of Violet Harriet, and Frank were the very heart of this poignant story.

Goodreads synopsis:  A charming, deeply moving novel about second chances, unlikely friendships, and the life-changing power of sharing stories.

Our Reasons meet us in the morning and whisper to us at night. Mine is an innocent, unsuspecting, eternally sixty-one-year-old woman named Lorraine Daigle…

Violet Powell, a twenty-two-year-old from rural Abbott Falls, Maine, is being released from prison after serving twenty-two months for a drunk-driving crash that killed a local kindergarten teacher. Harriet Larson, a retired English teacher who runs the prison book club, is facing the unsettling prospect of an empty nest. Frank Daigle, a retired machinist, hasn’t yet come to grips with the complications of his marriage to the woman Violet killed.

When the three encounter each other one morning in a bookstore in Portland—Violet to buy the novel she was reading in the prison book club before her release, Harriet to choose the next title for the women who remain, and Frank to dispatch his duties as the store handyman—their lives begin to intersect in transformative ways.

How to Read a Book  is an unsparingly honest and profoundly hopeful story about letting go of guilt, seizing second chances, and the power of books to change our lives. With the heart, wit, grace, and depth of understanding that has characterized her work, Monica Wood illuminates the decisions that define a life and the kindnesses that make life worth living.  . 

60. Poisonfeather by Matthew FitzSimmons

#2 Gibson Vaughn

listened on Audible (KindleUnlAudio)

narrated by James Patrick Cronin

Unabridged audio (12:19)
2016
384 pgs.
Adult mystery
Finished 6/6/2021
Goodreads rating: 4.05 - 9074 ratings
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary rural WV

First line/s: "The lights thudded to life in cavernous sweeps of fluorescence.) 

My comments: Well created characters and a plot that is almost always able to follow, though complicated.  Definitely ended on a cliffhanger, will any of the characters other than Gibson Vaughan return for book number three?

Goodreads synopsis:  Gibson Vaughn, hero of the bestselling novel The Short Drop, returns in a smoldering thriller.

            When jailed billionaire Charles Merrick hints publicly that he has stashed a fortune in an offshore cache, a school of sharks converges upon his release from federal prison.

            Among his swindled victims is Judge Hammond Birk, the man who saved Gibson Vaughn’s life when he was a troubled teenager. Now Gibson intends to repay that debt by recovering Merrick’s victims’ money.

            But Gibson isn’t the only one on the trail of the hidden fortune.

            The promise of billions has drawn a horde of ruthless treasure hunters, including an edgy ex-con, a female bartender with a mysterious history, a Chinese spy with a passion for fly-fishing, and a veritable army of hardened mercenaries. To stay ahead of the sharks and win justice for his mentor, Gibson will need all his formidable skills. But at the end of the road, he’ll still have to face “Poisonfeather”—a geopolitical secret that just might get Gibson killed…or worse.

131. The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline

listened on Libby, borrowed from the library
narrated by Caroline Lee 
Unabridged audio (10:17)
2020
370 pgs.
Adult Historical Fiction
Finished 9/29/20
Goodreads rating: 4.23 - 3284 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: 1840s Britain, on ship from Britain to Tasmania, and Tasmania

First line/s: "By the time the rains came, Mathinna had been hiding in the bush for nearly two days."

What I posted on Goodreads:  4.5 A wonderful, though bleak, historical fiction about three women in the 1840s British penal colony which is now Tasmania in Australia. 

(I felt that the nondisclosure of ending for one of the major characters was a bit disconcerting, thus the erasure of half a point from a full-fledged five.)

Goodreads synopsis:  The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Orphan Train returns with an ambitious, emotionally resonant novel that captures the hardship, oppression, opportunity and hope of a trio of women’s lives in nineteenth-century Australia.
          Seduced by her employer’s son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early nineteenth-century London, is discharged when her pregnancy is discovered and sent to the notorious Newgate Prison. After months in the fetid, overcrowded jail, she learns she is sentenced to “the land beyond the seas,” Van Diemen’s Land, a penal colony in Australia. Though uncertain of what awaits, Evangeline knows one thing: the child she carries will be born on the months-long voyage to this distant land.
          During the journey on a repurposed slave ship, the Medea, Evangeline strikes up a friendship with Hazel, a girl little older than her former pupils who was sentenced to seven years transport for stealing a silver spoon. Canny where Evangeline is guileless, Hazel -- a skilled midwife and herbalist – is soon offering home remedies to both prisoners and sailors in return for a variety of favors.
          Though Australia has been home to Aboriginal people for more than 50,000 years, the British government in the 1840s considers its fledgling colony uninhabited and unsettled, and views the natives as an unpleasant nuisance. By the time the Medea arrives, many of them have been forcibly relocated, their land seized by white colonists. One of these relocated people is Mathinna, the orphaned daughter of the Chief of the Lowreenne tribe, who has been adopted by the new governor of Van Diemen’s Land.
          In this gorgeous novel, Christina Baker Kline brilliantly recreates the beginnings of a new society in a beautiful and challenging land, telling the story of Australia from a fresh perspective, through the experiences of Evangeline, Hazel, and Mathinna. While life in Australia is punishing and often brutally unfair, it is also, for some, an opportunity: for redemption, for a new way of life, for unimagined freedom.           Told in exquisite detail and incisive prose, The Exiles is a story of grace born from hardship, the unbreakable bonds of female friendships, and the unfettering of legacy.

71. Almost Midnight by Paul Doiron

#10 Mike Bowditch
listened on Audible
narrated by Henry Leyva
Unabridged audio (9:02)
2019 Minotaur Books
310 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery/Series
Finished 4-30-20
Goodreads rating:  4.10 - 1660 ratings
My rating:  4
Setting:  contemporary Maine

First line/s:  "I passed the morgue's meat wagon on my way up the hill to the prison."

My comments:  "My life would never be the same, I realized.  Why do we always come to these recognitions too late?"  Those are the very last words in this book, after he had uncrated Shadow into his acre and a half pen.  But so much had happened that it was hard to tell exactly what he was referring to, thou it seems it would be about how he had figured out how to allow the wolf to live out the rest of his life?  This was an interesting story with Billy Kronk and the Maine prison system being front and center, with Mike tracking down Shadow's shooter being the other half.  It was fascinating to read about the tiny community of Amish in the mountains of Maine.

Goodreads synopsis:  In this thrilling entry in Edgar Award finalist Paul Doiron's bestselling series, the death of Maine's last wild wolf leads Game Warden Mike Bowditch to an even bigger criminal conspiracy.
          Warden Investigator Mike Bowditch already has a troubling mystery on his hands: finding the archer who mortally wounded Maine’s only wild wolf. Then he learns his best friend, Billy Cronk, has been released from prison after heroically defending a female guard from a stabbing. Mike comes to believe the assault was orchestrated by a wider criminal conspiracy. When the conspirators pursue Billy's wife and children to a “safe" cabin in the woods, Mike rushes to their defense only to find himself outnumbered, outgunned―and maybe out of options.

10. Jar of Hearts by Jennifer Hillier

Listened to audio, borrowed from library
Narrated  by January LaVoy (super easy to listen to, good with voices)
Unabridged audio (10:23)
2018 Minotaur Books
311 pgs.
Adult Mystery Thriller
Finished 1/16/2020
Goodreads rating: 4.06 - 11,241 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Contemporary Seattle, Washington, with flashbacks 15 and 20 years.

First line/s:  "The trial has barely made a dent in the national news."

My comments:  A hugely mesmerizing story, told in snippets back-and-forth fifteen years apart, the story solwly peels back the layers of what happened one fateful night.  This examines all sorts of love - loe of friends, love of lovers, and love of parents and their children.  Once I started reading/listening I couldn't stop.  Giving clues along the way - some of the pretty blatant, actually - I totally enjoyed this piece of storytelling, no matter how upsetting it became.  I don't think I should have enjoyed it as much as I did!

Goodreads synopsis:  This is the story of three best friends: one who was murdered, one who went to prison, and one who's been searching for the truth all these years . . .
          When she was sixteen years old, Angela Wong—one of the most popular girls in school—disappeared without a trace. Nobody ever suspected that her best friend, Georgina Shaw, now an executive and rising star at her Seattle pharmaceutical company, was involved in any way. Certainly not Kaiser Brody, who was close with both girls back in high school.
          But fourteen years later, Angela Wong's remains are discovered in the woods near Geo's childhood home. And Kaiser—now a detective with Seattle PD—finally learns the truth: Angela was a victim of Calvin James. The same Calvin James who murdered at least three other women.
          To the authorities, Calvin is a serial killer. But to Geo, he's something else entirely. Back in high school, Calvin was Geo's first love. Turbulent and often volatile, their relationship bordered on obsession from the moment they met right up until the night Angela was killed.
          For fourteen years, Geo knew what happened to Angela and told no one. For fourteen years, she carried the secret of Angela's death until Geo was arrested and sent to prison.
          While everyone thinks they finally know the truth, there are dark secrets buried deep. And what happened that fateful night is more complex and more chilling than anyone really knows. Now the obsessive past catches up with the deadly present when new bodies begin to turn up, killed in the exact same manner as Angela Wong.
          How far will someone go to bury her secrets and hide her grief? How long can you get away with a lie? How long can you live with it?

37. Harbor Me by Jacqueline Woodson

I read the actual hard-covered book, only the second one so far this year.
2018, Nancy Paulsen Books, Penguin Random House
176 pgs.
Middle Grade Realistic Contemporary Fiction
Finished  4/9/19
Goodreads rating:  4.30 - 3971 ratings
My rating:  3
Setting:  Contemporary Brooklyn, NY

First line/s:  "We think they took my papi."

My comments:  Hmmm.  This book is beautifully crafted, with kids opening up to each other in loving, generous ways.  But I have a few misgivings about it.  The six kids portrayed all have different difficulties, experiences, ethnicities ... too many to make it seem at all real, just convenient for a good story.  It's never revealed why they are all put into a "special" class of only six kids.  There seem to be no (or very few) learning disabilities, physical disabilities or particular special needs.  So why are they "special?"  I taught fifth grade for years, and I can't quite imagine something like this taking place without more goofing around, hurt feelings occasionally, more misunderstandings....  I feel badly that I can't rate it any higher, there are just too many things I'm left bothered by.
     Note:  The dialogue was not put within quotation marks, but italicized.  I really liked this.

Goodreads synopsis:  Jacqueline Woodson's first middle-grade novel since National Book Award winner Brown Girl Dreaming celebrates the healing that can occur when a group of students share their stories.
          It all starts when six kids have to meet for a weekly chat—by themselves, with no adults to listen in. There, in the room they soon dub the ARTT Room (short for "A Room to Talk"), they discover it's safe to talk about what's bothering them—everything from Esteban's father's deportation and Haley's father's incarceration to Amari's fears of racial profiling and Ashton's adjustment to his changing family fortunes. When the six are together, they can express the feelings and fears they have to hide from the rest of the world. And together, they can grow braver and more ready for the rest of their lives.

14. The Warden's Daughter by Jerry Spinelli

listened to on Audio cd in the car
6 unabridged cds, 7 hours
2017, Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers
352 pgs.
Middle grades Historical Fiction
Finished 3/6/17
Goodreads rating: 3.62 - 680 ratings
My rating: 4
Setting: 1959 Hancock County, (Pennsylvania?)

First line/s: (from Chapter 1, Cammie, 1959)
"Breakfast time in the prison.  The smell of fried scrapple filled the apartment.  It happened every morning."

My comments:  I listened to this book.  I don't know if I would have read it.  I seem to be getting particular about the way a story starts, and this one did not immediately draw me in.  But the reader, Carrington McDuffie, with her smoky almost male-sounding voice DID begin to draw me in.  The story takes place in 1959 in Brooklyn New York, where Cammie is being raised by her single dad, who happens to be the warden of the county jail.  This is the story of a motherless girl during the summer before seventh grade, the summer when the loss of her mother becomes too much to bear.  It was a mesmerizing story.  The ending takes place 50 years later, still told in the first person by the protagonist, and I almost wish that it had ended back in 1959.  I'm not sure why Spinelli decided to write it this way.  Perhaps the ending is for the adult readers....  This was definitely a marvelous book, once you get into it.

Goodreads synopsis:  From Newbery Medalist Jerry Spinelli (Maniac Magee, Stargirl) comes the "moving and memorable" (Kirkus Reviews, starred) story of a girl searching for happiness inside the walls of a prison.
          Cammie O'Reilly lives at the Hancock County Prison--not as a prisoner, she's the warden's daughter. She spends the mornings hanging out with shoplifters and reformed arsonists in the women's exercise yard, which gives Cammie a certain cache with her school friends. 
But even though Cammie's free to leave the prison, she's still stuck. And sad, and really mad. Her mother died saving her from harm when she was just a baby. You wouldn't think you could miss something you never had, but on the eve of her thirteenth birthday, the thing Cammie most wants is a mom. A prison might not be the best place to search for a mother, but Cammie is determined and she's willing to work with what she's got. 
           "Jerry Spinelli again proves why he's the king of storytellers" (Shelf Awarenss, starred) in this tale of a girl who learns that heroes can come in surprising disguises, and that even if we don't always get what we want, sometimes we really do get what we need. 
          "This book is never boring and never predictable. Fame, good and bad fortune, friendship and mental illness all make their way into [Cammie's] narrative."--The New York Times Book Review 
Praise for the works of Jerry Spinelli: 
          "Spinelli is a poet of the prepubescent. . . . No writer guides his young characters, and his readers, past these pitfalls and challenges and toward their futures with more compassion." --The New York Times 
          "It's almost unreal how much the children's book still resonates." --Bustle.com on Maniac Magee

PICTURE BOOK - The Stamp Collector by Jennifer Lanthier

Illustrated by Francois Thisdale

2012 Fitzhenry & Whiteside, CANADA

HC &$18.95

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating: 4.35

My rating: 2/It was okay

Endpapers: Slate blue

Title Page: Simple, with a few illustrations of stamps, tasteful

Illustrations:  Dark, with speckles of white, a little bit fuzzy, but very effective

1^st line/s: "This is the sotry of not long ago and not far away.
It is the story of a boy who loves stamps and a boy who loves words.
This is the story of a life that is lost.
And found."

My comments:  Rating this book a "2" meaning "it was okay."  The Afterword was the best part.  The premise was wonderful.  But the story itself didn't grab me.  It was poetically written and dramatically illustrated, but the meat and potatoes were hamburger and mashed.  There was not enough detail, a little TOO much showing and not telling, if that's possible.  The relationship between the prisoner and the guard was non-existent and then there.  A story that children would love?  For example?  Perhaps if this book were written for adults ... but it is targeted for the children's audience, I believe, and I found it lacking.  And I'm really sorry about that.

Goodreads:  A city boy finds a stamp that unlocks his imagination; a country boy is captivated by stories. When they grow up, the two boys take different paths – one becomes a prison guard, the other works in a factory – but their early childhood passions remain. When the country boy’s stories of hope land him in prison, the letters and stamps sent to him from faraway places intrigue the prison guard – and a unique friendship begins.

22. Red Mist - Patricia Cornwell

Kay Scarpetta #19

Audio read by

11 unabridged cds

2011 Putnam Adult

512 pgs.

Adult Mystery

Finished 3/15/2015

Goodreads rating: 3.70

My rating:   4 - Excellent story

PBS

Contemporary Savannah, GA

My comments:  I haven't read a Kay Scarpetta novel in years and years, so when this audio book "fell" into my hands I decided to take another look/listen.  I still find Scarpetta self-absorbed, haughty, and unlikable, but the mystery and the story surrounding it are fascinating.  Cornwell can certainly spin an interesting tale....interesting, gruesome, and actually, quite believable.....

Goodreads book summary: Determined to find out what happened to her former deputy chief, Jack Fielding, murdered six months earlier, Kay Scarpetta travels to the Georgia Prison for Women, where an inmate has information not only on Fielding, but also on a string of grisly killings. The murder of an Atlanta family years ago, a young woman on death row, and the inexplicable deaths of homeless people as far away as California seem unrelated. But Scarpetta discovers connections that compel her to conclude that what she thought ended with Fielding's death and an attempt on her own life is only the beginning of something far more destructive: a terrifying terrain of conspiracy and potential terrorism on an international scale. And she is the only one who can stop it.

Sunday Love - Alison Paul

Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2010
HC $16.99
32 pages
Rating: 3.5
Endpapers: Red

The cover grabbed me instantly.

This is a great wordless book for older kids to follow and figure out. Illustrated entirely in red, black, and white, Bruno the Burglar breaks out of "the big house" to go after the love of his life. He is, of course, followed the entire way with a gaggle of officers trying to apprehend him. His surprise love is found - ecstasy! - but just before he can fulfill his longed-for embrace, he is captured. This all takes place on Valentine's Day, with Cupid trying to help him out along the way....and with one last helpful incident at the very end, he actually wins. I'm being careful in my wording so I won't give any of the fun stuff away....

Because of a spelling "thing" I puzzled over the title for a second or two....then it hit me.....