33. Binding Vows by Catherine Bybee

#1 MacCoinnich Time Travels

listened on Audible Free

narrated by David Monteath

Unabridged audio (9:18)
2009
292 pgs.
Adult Time Travel Romance
Finished 4/7/2021
Goodreads rating: 3.99 - 2869 ratings
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary California/1576 Scotland

First line/s: "They weren't even at the county line and Tara McAllister already regretted getting in the car."

My comments:  Tara McAllister gets dragged to a Renaissance Fair by her best friend, Cassie, for a long weekend.  She doesn't want to, and is pretty miserable at the start.  Hiding in a dark corner to stay out of the way of drunken guys trying to get her to dance, Duncan sits on her without seeing that she's there.  Duncan and his brother, Finn, have traveled there from the late 1500s trying to thwart an evil witch.  Duncan and Finn are are Druids.  The first third of teh book...or maybe half?...takes place in this California Renaissance Fair setting, and then -- Spoiler Alert -- the remainder of the story takes place in 1576 Scotland.  It's a love story with quite a bit of steam in a couple of places.  Lots of fun.  The first in a series of what looks like four books.

     From a review:  "These books blend time travel, history, battles, humor, suspense, magic, and romance (and some sex) in just the right blend."  Perfectly said!

Goodreads synopsis:  Duncan MacCoinnich's task... Travel to the twenty-first century Renaissance Faire, deflower the Druid virgins, and go home. Only his job is not so easily accomplished with the virgin in question, Tara McAllister. Time is running out. The evil is closing in on them both. Tara finds Duncan irresistible after what was supposed to be a mock Hand-fasting binds them. When Duncan whisks her to his home in Scotland she could accept that. But, can she forgive him for taking away her modern life when she finds herself in the sixteenth century? And is it love they feel? Or something else?

PICTURE BOOK - New Year at the Pier by April Halprin Wayland

Illustrated by Stephane Jorisch

2009, Dial Books for Young Readers

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  3.98 - 85 ratings

My rating:  4
Endpapers:  Lt. Blue

1^st line/s:  "Izzy loves this changing time of year.  Some days sunglasses, some days sweaters.  Apples, honey, the sound of the shofar, and his favorite part of Rosh Hashanah:  Tashlich!"

My comments: Tashlich is a ritual that is part of the High Holy days of Judaism, the Jewish New Year: Rosh Hashanah.  This story explains what it's all about ("casting away" things you're sorry for) and how it's celebrated.  I've been part of a number of Tashlich celebration.  When I taught at Tucson Hebrew Academy, we'd take the whole school to a local park that had a huge pond of water and we'd sing, chant in Hebrew (pray), and cast away our sins as we threw crackers into the water.  During this whole month prior to the High Holidays, the shofar would be blown every morning as we all gathered in the terrace between classrooms.  A shofar is an ancient instrument made from a ram's horn, and every shofar has its own sound.  A few of the students had their own, or brought in a parent's shofar and joined the rabbis in blowing.  I loved these days at THA!
          This story brought back so many wonderful memories! I like the way that the family really put some thought into what deeds they felt needed forgiving.  This is a wonderful story to explain Tashlich to Jews and non-Jews alike.

Goodreads:  Izzy’s favorite part of Rosh Hashanah is Tashlich, a joyous ceremony in which people apologize for the mistakes they made in the previous year and thus clean the slate as the new year begins. But there is one mistake on Izzy’s “I’m sorry” list that he’s finding especially hard to say out loud. Humor, touching moments between family and friends, and lots of information about the Jewish New Year are all combined in this lovely picture book for holiday sharing.

Winner of the Sydney Taylor Gold Medal for best Jewish picture book of the year!

47. Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick

listened to on Chirp
read by Caitlyn Green
Unabridged audio (8:55)
2009 Simon & Schuster
420 pgs.
YA Fantasy
Finished 5/20/2019
Goodreads rating:  3.99 - 517,264 ratings
My rating:  3
Setting: Contemporary Coldwater, Maine

First line/s:  "I walked into Biology and my jaw fell open."

My comments:  Well...this is just the sort of book a young teenage girl would enjoy greatly.  Romance, cute boys, a little bit of mystery, an "innocent" protagonist who is daring one minute and shaking in her boots the next.  As an adult, of course, I spent much of the read (or should I say listen) rolling my eyes.  But it's perfect for a 13-year-old fantasy lover.  I do think I'll pass on the rest of the series, myself....

Goodreads synopsis:
A SACRED OATH
A FALLEN ANGEL
A FORBIDDEN LOVE
          Romance was not part of Nora Grey's plan. She's never been particularly attracted to the boys at her school, no matter how hard her best friend, Vee, pushes them at her. Not until Patch comes along. With his easy smile and eyes that seem to see inside her, Patch draws Nora to him against her better judgment.
          But after a series of terrifying encounters, Nora's not sure whom to trust. Patch seems to be everywhere she is and seems to know more about her than her closest friends. She can't decide whether she should fall into his arms or run and hide. And when she tries to seek some answers, she finds herself near a truth that is way more unsettling than anything Patch makes her feel.
          For she is right in the middle of an ancient battle between the immortal and those that have fallen - and, when it comes to choosing sides, the wrong choice will cost Nora her life.

85. The Secret by Beverly Lewis

Seasons of Grace #1
read on my iPhone
2009 Bethany House Publishers
364 pgs.
Adult Amish Romance
Finished 8/27/18
Goodreads rating:  4.04 - 5894 ratings
My rating: 2.5
Setting: Contemporary PA Dutch country

First line/s:  "Honestly, I thought the worst was past."

My comments:  This is one heck of a long, drawn out story, so long and drawn out that it became quite boring.  It's the first of the series and leaves you pretty much hanging at the end.  I think the series is three books - books which could have been made into just one of the smae length.  It sure needed chopping!  And for being such a close knit clan/community, no one ever - EVER - really talks to each other or shares anything of any kind of importance.  Crazy.  They sure know how to gossip, though.  Is this what the AMish community is really like?  I'd love to find out what will happen to the three major portagonists but I refuse to spend the time....

Goodreads synopsis:  In the seemingly ordinary Amish home of Grace Byler, secrets abound. Why does her mother weep in the night? Why does her father refuse to admit something is dreadfully wrong? Then, in one startling moment, everything Grace assumed she knew is shattered. Her mother's disappearance leaves Grace reeling and unable to keep her betrothal promise to her long-time beau. Left to pick up the pieces of her life, Grace questions all she has been taught about love, family, and commitment.
          Heather Nelson is an English grad student, stunned by a doctor's diagnosis. Surely fate would not allow her father to lose his only daughter after the death of his wife a few years before. In denial and telling no one she is terminally ill, Heather travels to Lancaster County--the last place she and her mother had visited together. Will Heather find healing for body and spirit?
          As the lives of four wounded souls begin to weave together like an Amish patchwork quilt, they each discover missing pieces of their life puzzles--and glimpse the merciful and loving hand of God.

PICTURE BOOK - The Rabbit Problem by Emily Gravett

Illustrated by the author

2009 in England
2010 US McMillan Children's

HC $17.99

Goodreads rating:  4.24 - 760 ratings

My rating: 5 - This is going to be along-time favorite, I love it!

Back cover:  “The Rabbit Problem:  This book is based on a problem that was solved in the 13^th Century by the Mathematician Fibonacci, but it is NOT (I repeat NOT) and book about math.  It is a book about rabbits… Lots of rabbits!”

My comments:  First of all, the book is made so you can SEE how it’s made, you can see the ¾-inch long stitches, you can see the four signatures, you can take a look at the spine and see how the book is put together.  For me, that’s cool.  Secondly, the book is made like a calendar.  Once you open to the first page you have to rotate the book and read it vertically.  There are even holes punched all the way through the book (including the cover) so that it could hang like a real calendar.  And then the cleverness starts.  So thirdly, each double-page spread has a small “something” attached that you have to read (and totally enjoy!) before you turn the page.  And fourthly (spoiler alert!!!):  the last two pages are a magnificent pop-up.

          An invitation; knitting directions; Bunny’s baby book; The Ministry of Carrots RATION BOOK (all filled in); “The Fibber”, Fibonacci Field’s only local newspaper; and the Carrot Cookbook are all totally delightful and hysterical.  Read every work, these are a riot.  Actually, the entire book is a riot.  Perfect for older kids and even adults for a good ha-ha-ha.

          And Fibonacci’s Principle is fully discovered, disclosed, and discussed.  There’s even a math problem involved if one desires to try to figure it out (I do!).  Every page bears details to delight one and all, so look carefully everywhere, and take your time.  What a treat!  Hugely recommended.

Goodreads:  Hop along to the Field and follow Lonely and Chalk Rabbit through a year as they try to cope with their fast expanding brood and handle a different seasonal challenge each month, from the cold of February to the wet of April and the heat of July.

PICTURE BOOK - The Adventures of a Plastic Bottle: A Story About Recycling by Allison Inches

2009, Little Simon (Little Green Books)
3.99 in paper

24 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  4.11 - 83 ratings

My rating: 4
There looks like there's another book called The Adventures of an Aluminum Can that is published by the same publisher.

My comments:       This story is told in diary form, from the point-of-view of crude oil flowing at the very bottom of the ocean.  He’s pumped onto a ship, then to a refinery, made into small plastic bits, then molded into a water bottle.  After the bottling plant he’s purchased by a boy who, after guzzling the water, refills it and gives it to his mom with a flower.  After it’s done its duty as a vase, they recycle it and it’s sent to another place where he’s boiled down, made into spaghettis of plastic, then into a synthetic fleece sweatshirt that astronauts wear.

      There’s no mention of how long plastic takes to break down, which would have been another interesting aspect of the story.  But for a discussion about recycling, this would be a great introductory story.

Goodreads:  Learn about recycling from a new perspective!  Peek into this diary of a plastic bottle as it goes on a journey from the refinery plant, to the manufacturing line, to the store shelf, to a garbage can, and finally to a recycling plant where it emerges into it's new life...as a fleece jacket! 
          Told from the point of view of a free-spirited plastic bottle, kids can share in the daily experiences and inner thoughts of the bottle through his personal journal. The diary entries will be fun and humorous yet point out the ecological significance behind each product and the resources used to make it. Readers will never look at a plastic bottle the same way again!

9. The Magician's Elephant- Kate DiCamillo

listened on Audible
2009 Candlewick Press
201 pgs.(I read/listened to about 80 of them)
Middle Grade Fantasy
Feb. 17-18-19, 2017
Goodreads rating: 3.82 (15,420 ratings)
My rating: 1/DNF 'cause I hated it

My comments:  I keep trying to get into Kate DiCamillo's fantastical realms, but I can't.  I loved Because of Winn Dixie, and Raymie Nightingale, but I haven't liked a single other of hers.  And this really bums me out!  I listened to 40% and decided there are so many other books out there waiting for me to read that I'd pass on finishing.  Yuck.

Goodreads synopsis:  In a highly awaited new novel, Kate DiCamillo conjures a haunting fable about trusting the unexpected — and making the extraordinary come true.
          What if? Why not? Could it be?
          When a fortuneteller's tent appears in the market square of the city of Baltese, orphan Peter Augustus Duchene knows the questions that he needs to ask: Does his sister still live? And if so, how can he find her? The fortuneteller's mysterious answer (an elephant! An elephant will lead him there!) sets off a chain of events so remarkable, so impossible, that you will hardly dare to believe it’s true. With atmospheric illustrations by fine artist Yoko Tanaka, here is a dreamlike and captivating tale that could only be narrated by Newbery Medalist Kate DiCamillo. In this timeless fable, she evokes the largest of themes — hope and belonging, desire and compassion — with the lightness of a magician’s touch.

Short Story - from The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngoi Adichie

The Thing Around Your Neck 
Chimamanda Ngoi Adichie
2009; Anchor Books, Random House
Nigerian American woman
12 short stories
I purchased a paperback copy of the book

"Cell One"
p. 3 - p. 21
read Sat. 1/14/17
Adichie put me in Nigeria immediately.  I instantly knew the four characters in the story, the teller, her brother, Nnamabia, and her two parents.  When Nnamabia is thrown into jail because he stayed out past curfew and was with cult (gang) members in a bar, the family drive to visit him every day.  His cockiness slowly ebbs and his humanity shines through as he witnesses humiliations to a 70-year old man.  The abrupt ending put me off a bit.  I wanted more.  Good story.

71. City of Glass by Cassandra Clare

The Mortal Instruments #3
listened to Audible
2009, Margaret McElderry
541 pgs.
YA Dystopia
Finished 12-13-16
Goodreads rating: 4.34 - 579,031 ratings
My rating: 3
Setting:  Alicante, the Shadowhunter home "world"

First line/s:  "The cold snap of the previous week was over; the sun was shining brightly as Clary hurried across Luke's dusty front yard, the hood of her jacket up to keep her hair from blowing across her face."

My comments:  I listened to this book - mostly on the road traversing Texas.  It was highly predictable, a little repetitive and wordy in places, but pure entertainment during a long, long road trip.  I've recently watched the Shadowhunter TV series and totally dislike the actor portraying Jace.  It took me about half the book to get back the original picture of Jace that I had in my head. The setting moved from NYC to Alicante, of which I wasn't the greatest fan.  I think, perhaps, that this would be an excellent place to end this series.

Goodreads synopsis:  To save her mother's life, Clary must travel to the City of Glass, the ancestral home of the Shadowhunters - never mind that entering the city without permission is against the Law, and breaking the Law could mean death. To make things worse, she learns that Jace does not want her there, and Simon has been thrown in prison by the Shadowhunters, who are deeply suspicious of a vampire who can withstand sunlight.
     As Clary uncovers more about her family's past, she finds an ally in mysterious Shadowhunter Sebastian. With Valentine mustering the full force of his power to destroy all Shadowhunters forever, their only chance to defeat him is to fight alongside their eternal enemies. But can Downworlders and Shadowhunters put aside their hatred to work together? While Jace realizes exactly how much he's willing to risk for Clary, can she harness her newfound powers to help save the Glass City - whatever the cost?

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.

4. 11 Birthdays - Wendy Mass

This was a reread - I read it aloud to my 3rd & 4th grade book club.  They loved it.  During the last reading you could have heard a pin drop - 20 kids who are usually eating their lunch, making all sorts of chomping and crumpling noises -  were totally entranced.
Good choice for this group!

Finished  2-1-16
Goodreads rating: 4.16
2009, 267 pgs.

My original blog for this book.

Goodreads summary:  GROUNDHOG DAY meets FLIPPED in this tale of a girl stuck in her birthday.
          It's Amanda's 11th birthday and she is super excited -- after all, 11 is so different from 10. But from the start, everything goes wrong. The worst part of it all is that she and her best friend, Leo, with whom she's shared every birthday, are on the outs and this will be the first birthday they haven't shared together. When Amanda turns in for the night, glad to have her birthday behind her, she wakes up happy for a new day. Or is it? Her birthday seems to be repeating iself. What is going on?! And how can she fix it? Only time, friendship, and a little luck will tell. . .

PICTURE BOOK - What REALLY Happened to Humpty?: From the Files of a Hard-Boiled Detective by Jeannie Franz Ransom

Illustrated by Stephen Axelsen

2009 Charlesbridge

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating: 3.90

My rating: 5

Endpapers

Title Page

Illustrations

1^st line/s:  "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall./ Humpty Dumpty had a great fall./Humpty Dumpty was pushed."

My comments:  This book cracks me up every time I read it (I love all the word play) and it works perfectly as an introduction to the mystery genre for my fourth graders.  This goes into my picture-books-with-a-little-more-intricateness/intricativity (how's that for taking a little touch of freedom with words? Try saying intricativity three times fast!)

Goodreads:  Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. Or, as his brother Detective Joe Dumpty thinks, was he pushed? This case isn't all its cracked up to be. Suspects are plenty (as are the puns) in this scrambled story of nursery rhyme noir. Was it Little Miss Muffet? There's something not right about her tuffet. Or could it have been Chicken Little, who's always been a little cagey? Or was it the Big Bad Wolf, who's got a rap sheet as long as a moonless night? Joe's on the beat and determined to find the truth. Readers of all ages will delight in the word play and hilarious illustrations in this mystery of what really happened to Humpty Dumpty on that fateful day. 

54. A Reliable Wife - Robert Goolrick

I read this one!  The only one I could find was Large Print.....
2009, Algonquin Books
291 pgs.
Adult Historical Fiction with a more than touch of mystery...
Finished August, 2015
Goodreads rating: 3.24
My rating: 4
Setting: Winter , 1907, rural Wisconsin

First line/s:  "It was bitter cold, the air was electric with all that had not happened yet."

My comments:  This book was not at all what I expected, and I read it all in one long sitting (a great day to spend inside when it's 110 degrees outside). I enjoyed the surprises and the way they were added to the story. Although I can't define "normal" sexuality, desires, self-admiration, self-loathing, and religious fervor, I do think the author goes a little over the top here and there. The time period and setting added another layer of unexpectedness, as I don't read a whole lot of historical fiction and know very little about the state of Wisconsin. On the whole, I enjoyed reading this book very much. 

Goodreads synopsis:  Rural Wisconsin, 1909. In the bitter cold, Ralph Truitt, a successful businessman, stands alone on a train platform waiting for the woman who answered his newspaper advertisement for "a reliable wife." But when Catherine Land steps off the train from Chicago, she's not the "simple, honest woman" that Ralph is expecting. She is both complex and devious, haunted by a terrible past and motivated by greed. Her plan is simple: she will win this man's devotion, and then, ever so slowly, she will poison him and leave Wisconsin a wealthy widow. What she has not counted on, though, is that Truitt a passionate man with his own dark secrets has plans of his own for his new wife. Isolated on a remote estate and imprisoned by relentless snow, the story of Ralph and Catherine unfolds in unimaginable ways. 
With echoes of "Wuthering Heights" and "Rebecca," Robert Goolrick's intoxicating debut novel delivers a classic tale of suspenseful seduction, set in a world that seems to have gone temporarily off its axis.

46. The Professional - Robert B. Parker

#37 Spenser
listened to cd - audio read by Joe Mantegna
2009 Random House audio
289 pgs.
Adult mystery
Finished in July, 2015 - back and forth from PA to ME?
Goodreads rating: 3.79
My rating: I didn't rate this in July, I'm now doing this bookkeeping in December, so I can't remember my immediate reaction to the story.  I'll go with a 4....

Goodreads synopsis:  A knock on Spenser's office door can only mean one thing: a new case. This time the visitor is a local lawyer with an interesting story. Elizabeth Shaw specializes in wills and trusts at the Boston law firm of Shaw & Cartwright, and over the years she's developed a friendship with wives of very wealthy men. However, these rich wives have a mutual secret: they've all had an affair with a man named Gary Eisenhower- and now he's blackmailing them for money. Shaw hires Spenser to make Eisenhower "cease and desist," so to speak, but when women start turning up dead, Spenser's assignment goes from blackmail to murder.
     As matters become more complicated, Spenser's longtime love, Susan, begins offering some input by analyzing Eisenhower's behavior patterns in hopes of opening up a new avenue of investigation. It seems that not all of Gary's women are rich. So if he's not using them for blackmail, then what is his purpose? Spenser switches tactics to focus on the husbands, only to find that innocence and guilt may be two sides of the same coin.
     With its eloquently spare prose and some of the best supporting characters to grace the printed page, The Professional is further proof that "[t]here's hardly an author in the crime novel business like Parker"

SHORT STORIES - Triple Time - Anne Sanow

Drue Heniz Literature Prize 2009
2009 University of Pittsburgh Press

151 pgs.

Adult Fiction - 1980's Saudi Arabia

Finished

Goodreads rating: 3.87

My rating:    (5) Awesome  (4) Loved it  (3) Liked it   (2) It was okay  (1) Yuck

TPPL found it in Sedona

1st story:  "Pioneer" pgs. 1 -19
     A nine-year-old has accompanied his construction-worker dad and pregnant mom to a hot, boring village in the Saudi desert where they will spend at least two years.  It's still summer, he has nothing to do (their possessions have not yet arrived), and none of his family is happy.  The baby arrives - early.  The story gives a feel for this hot, depressing place with little going for it and seems somewhat pointless other than that.

Goodreads book summary:  For Jill, a young American living in Saudi Arabia in the 1980s, life is in “a holding pattern” of long days in a restrictive place-“sandlocked nowhere,” as another expat calls it.  Others don't know how to leave, and try to adopt the country as their own.  And to those who were born there, the changes seem to come at warp speed: Thurayya, the daughter of a Bedouin chief, later finds herself living in a Riyadh high-rise where, she says, there are “worlds wound together with years.”
           The characters in the linked stories in Triple Time are living an uneasy mesh of two divergent cultures, in a place where tradition and progress are continually in flux. These are tales of confliction-of old and new, rich and poor, sexual repression and personal freedom. We experience a barren yet strangely beautiful landscape jolted by sleek glass apartment towers and opulent fountains. On the fringes of urbanity, Bedouins traverse the desert in search of the next watering hole.
           Beneath a surface of cultural upheaval, the stories hold deeper, more personal meanings. They tell of yearnings-for a time lost, for a homeland, for belonging, and for love. Anne Sanow reveals much about the culture, psyche, and essence of life in modern Saudi Arabia, where Saudis struggle to keep their traditions and foreigners muddle through in search of a quick buck or a last chance at making a life for themselves in a world that is quickly running out of hiding places.

70. U is for Undertow - Sue Grafton

#21 Kinsey Milhone, Santa Teresa, CA

Audio read by Judy Kaye

11 unabridged cds  (14;00)

2009 Random House

403 pgs.

Genre/Audience

Finished 11/16/2014

Goodreads rating: 3.88

My rating:    4 - It was very good

Acquired PBS

1988 Southern California with flashbacks in the story to 1967

1st sentence/s:  April 6, 1988:  "When the past rises up and declares itself.  Afterward, a sequence of events seems inevitable, but only because cause and effect have been aligned in advance.  It's like a pattern of dominoes arranged upright on a tabletop."

My comments:  I got a good start on this about a year ago and for some reason never finished it. Listened to much of it on my trip back and forth to San Diego this weekend and it certainly helped wile away the hours-on-the-road.  Much like Eric Conger becoming the voice of Virgil Flowers, Judy Kaye has definitely become the voice of Kinsey Milhone for me - almost like having company as I drove.  Good story, very Kinsey Milhone.

Goodreads book summary:       It's April 1988, a month before Kinsey Millhone's thirty-eighth birthday, and she's alone in her office catching up on paperwork when a young man arrives unannounced. He has a preppy air about him and looks as if he'd be carded if he tried to buy a beer, but Michael Sutton is twenty-seven, an unemployed college dropout. More than two decades ago, a four-year-old girl disappeared, and a recent newspaper story about her kidnapping has triggered a flood of memories. Sutton now believes he stumbled on her lonely burial and could identify the killers if he saw them again. He wants Kinsey's help in locating the grave and finding the men. It's way more than a long shot, but he's persistent and willing to pay cash up front. Reluctantly, Kinsey agrees to give him one day of her time.
          But it isn't long before she discovers Sutton has an uneasy relationship with the truth. In essence, he's the boy who cried wolf. Is his story true, or simply one more in a long line of fabrications?
          Moving effortlessly between the 1980s and the 1960s, and changing points of view as Kinsey pursues witnesses whose accounts often clash, Grafton builds multiple subplots and memorable characters. Gradually we see how everything connects in this twisting, complex, surprise-filled thriller. And as always, at the beating heart of her fiction is Kinsey Millhone, a sharp-tongued, observant loner who never forgets that under the thin veneer of civility is a roiling dark side to the soul.

67. The Cutting - James Hayman

McCabe & Savage #1

Read on my iPhone/through Kindle/Audio eBooks

Audio read by Jonathan Davis

9 unabridged cds (11:00)

2009 Minotaur/McMillan

336 pgs.

Adult Murder Mystery

Finished 10/21/2014

Goodreads rating: 3.80

My rating:   (4) Loved it, despite a few "flaws"

Setting:  Contemporary Portland, ME

1st sentence/s:  from prologue:  "July, 1971.  He pressed the terrified creature firmly against his body.  He was a sturdy boy, tall for his eight years, with dark hair and a long, thin face.  After more than a month of summer sunshine, his normally fair skin had turned quite brown."
from Chapter 1:  "Portland, Maine; September 16, 2005.  Fog can be a sudden thing on the Maine coast.  Even on the clearest mornings, swirling grey mists sometimes appeared in an instant, covering the earth with an opacity that makes it hard to see even one's own feet on the ground."

My comments:  I love intense murder mysteries (does that make me ghoulish?) but this one had a few "grizzly" factors that almost took it too far for me.  This always happens when it involves any cutting of the skin with a knife or scalpel.  I have a difficult time with this.  The title should certainly tip one off......  That said, I greatly enjoyed this mystery.  I love the setting - Portland, Maine and upwards to Blue Hill (home!), and I really like the very human protagonist, Mike McCabe.  He's a police detective who has relocated from NYC with his 13-year-old daughter, Casey.  He made a few assumptions -- perhaps you could call them gut feelings - that seemed a bit over the top, but without which he could not have followed the clues to catching the bad guy. And this one one bad-ass bad guy.....

Goodreads book summary: From a formidable new voice in suspense fiction comes an edge-of-the-seat story of a homicide detective on the trail of a killer, who slays with exacting precision, and who harbors a terrifying motive
          Detective Sergeant Michael McCabe moved from New York City to Portland, Maine, to escape a dark past: both the ex-wife who’d left him for an investment banker, and the tragic death of his brother, a hero cop gone bad. He sought to raise his young daughter away from the violence of the big city . . . so he’s unprepared for the horrific killer he discovers, whose bloody trail may lead to Portland’s social elite.
          Early on a September evening, the mutilated body of a pretty teenaged girl, a high school soccer star, is found dumped in a scrap-metal yard. She had been viciously assaulted, but her heart had been cut out of her chest with surgical precision. The very same day a young businesswoman, also a blonde and an athlete, was abducted as she jogged through the streets of the city’s west end. McCabe suspects both crimes are the work of the same man---a killer who’s targeting the young---who is clearly well-versed in complex surgical procedures, and who may have struck before. Just as the investigation is beginning, McCabe’s ex-wife reemerges, suddenly determined to reclaim the daughter she heedlessly abandoned years earlier.
          With the help of his straight-talking (and, at times, alluring) partner, Maggie Savage, McCabe begins a race against time to rescue the missing woman and unmask a sadistic killer---before more lives are lost.

62. Fallen - Lauren Kate

#1 Fallen series

2009 Delacorte Press

452 pgs.

YA Fantasy

Finished 9/25/2014

Goodreads rating: 3.75

My rating:   1 - Yuck

Purchased at the TPPL Friends book sale

Set in a reform school (?) in Savannah, GA

1st sentence/s: from prologue:  Around midnight, her eyes at last took shape.  The look in them was feline, half determined and half tentative -- all trouble.
from 1st chapter:  Luce barged into the fluorescent-lit lobby of the Sword & Cross School ten minutes later than she should have..  A barrel-chested attendant with ruddy cheeks and a clipboard clamped under an iron bicep was already giving orders -- which meant Luce was already behind.

My comments:  There are so many smart, savvy, thoughtful, meaty YA dystopian/ other-wordly novels out there, and this isn't one of them. It's tedious, repetetive, and ridiculous.  I wish I hadn't wasted my time.

Goodreads book summary:What if the person you were meant to be with could never be yours?
          17-year-old Lucinda falls in love with a gorgeous, intelligent boy, Daniel, at her new school, the grim, foreboding Sword & Cross . . . only to find out that Daniel is a fallen angel, and that they have spent lifetimes finding and losing one another as good & evil forces plot to keep them apart. Get ready to fall . . 

42. Gooney Bird Greene Collection - Lois Lowry

Gooney Bird Green Books 1 - 4

audio read by Lee Adams - superb!
6 unabridged cds (7:01) Listening Library, 2009

1 - Gooney Bird Greene  (2002) 96 pgs.
2 - Gooney Bird and the Room Mother (2005) 80 pgs.
3 - Gooney the Fabulous (2007) 96 pgs.
4 - Gooney Bird is So Absurd (2009) 112 pgs.

(382 pgs. total)

Finished 7/17/14

Early/Intermediate Readers, the characters are in the 2nd grade

Goodreads Rating: 4.01

My Rating: 4/ Loved it

Bosler Library

Setting:  Contemporary Anywhere, USA

My comments:  Though pretty much implausible, this book is nonetheless enchanting.  I've read the first book previously, loved it. This time I listened with my 2nd grade granddaughter, who LOVED it.  Lee Adams, who read it, is TERRIFIC. Mrs. Pidgeon is a dream teacher.  And all four books (which I highly recommend reading in order) are full of writing and poetry lessons.  The implausibility is Gooney Bird herself.  I've taught a lot of creative, clever, extremely intelligent kids and Gooney Bird is still not quite a a believable character for me.  But who cares?  She's great! (And so is Mr. Leroy, the principal.  Every principal in the world should take pointers from this guy....

Goodreads Review:  This four-story collection includes:

Gooney Bird Greene There’s never been anyone like Gooney Bird Greene at Watertower Elementary School. She is the star of story time and keeps her class on the edge of their seats with her “absolutely true” stories. But do her classmates have stories good enough to share?

Gooney Bird and the Room Mother Gooney Bird wants to have the lead role of Squanto in her class Thanksgiving pageant. But that role will go to whoever finds someone to be the room mother. Gooney Bird finds a room mother alright, but promises not to tell who it is until the day of the play. But will the mystery room mother really show up?

Gooney the Fabulous Gooney Bird has a fabulous idea after her teacher reads fables to the class. Her fabulous idea is that each student create their own fable and tell it to the class! Everyone but Nicholas is excited about their stories and costumes. Can Gooney Bird find out why Nicholas is unhappy and get him to join in the fun?

Gooney Bird Is So Absurd On the day that Gooney Bird wears her special brain-warming hat to school, Mrs. Pidgeon is teaching her class about poetry. But just when things are going well, the kids get some terrible news. And Gooney Bird will need all the inspiration her brain can muster to organize the most important poem the class has ever written. 

39. Front and Center - Catherine Gilbert Murdock

#3 Dairy Queen series (D. J. Schwenk, Wisconsind high school athlete and dairy farmer...)

audio read by Natalie Moore

5 cds (5:55)

2009, Listening Library

254 pgs.

YA CRF

Finished 9/13/13

Goodreads Rating: 3.95

My Rating: Loved it (4) 

TPPL

Contemporary Red Bend, Wisconsin

My comments:  All three books in this series were terrific, and I can't imagine reading them out-of-order or as a standalone.  There's so much helpful background on each of the character in books one and two.  This book, for some reason, seemed a little different.  I had realized that D.J. was shy, but didn't realize to what extent until I discovered her quietness on the basketball court, where she could outplay anyone, but needed leadership qualities.  It was fun seeing how she finally figured out how to deal with that.  And it was great seeing how much she loved her now-wheelchair-bound brother, who pushed her until she didn't even want to talk to him.  I think my favorite thing about her, though, was the way she thought about things, cleverly and with great humor.  Murdock pulls off a first person narrative with gusto! (But what's with the cover photo?  Yuck!)

Goodreads:  After five months of sheer absolute craziness I was going back to being plain old background D.J. In photographs of course I'm always in the background—it's a family joke, actually, that us Schwenk kids could go to school naked on picture day, we're all so crazy tall. But I mean I was returning to the background of life. Where no one would really notice me or talk about me or even talk to me much except to say things like "Nice shot," and I could just hang out without too many worries at all.

But it turns out other folks have big plans for D.J. Like her coach. College scouts. All the town hoops fans. A certain Red Bend High School junior who's keen for romance and karaoke. Not to mention Brian Nelson, who she should not be thinking about! Who she is done with, thank you very much. But who keeps showing up anyway...

What's going to happen if she lets these people down? What's going to happen when she does? Because let's face it: there's no way, on the court or off, that awkward, tongue-tied D.J. Schwenk can manage all this attention. No way at all. Not without a brain transplant. Not without breaking her heart.