92. The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James

listened to audible borrowed from Bosler Library
narrated by Brittany Pressley and Kirsten Potter
Unabridged audio (11:00) though my "timer" said 12:19 at the end of listening
2020 Berkley and
327 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery
Finished 6/6/2020
Goodreads rating:  4.10 - 25,405 ratings
My rating: 4
Setting: 1982 & 2017 Fell, NY

First line/s:  "The night it all ended, Vivian was alone."

My comments:n  A ghost story.  A real, believable ghost story - and I don't believe in ghosts.  A serial killer.  Two 20-year-old protagonists, 35 years apart. 1982 and 2017.  Aunt and niece, both following the same clues and encountering the same ghosts.  A good story.

Goodreads synopsis:  The secrets lurking in a rundown roadside motel ensnare a young woman, just as they did her aunt thirty-five years before, in this new atmospheric suspense novel from the national bestselling and award-winning author of The Broken Girls.
          Upstate NY, 1982. Every small town like Fell, New York, has a place like the Sun Down Motel. Some customers are from out of town, passing through on their way to someplace better. Some are locals, trying to hide their secrets. Viv Delaney works as the night clerk to pay for her move to New York City. But something isn't right at the Sun Down, and before long she's determined to uncover all of the secrets hidden…

67. The Hand on the Wall by Maureen Johnson

#3 Truly Devious
Listened to Audio on Libby, borrowed from Bosler
narrated by Kate Rudd
Unabridged audio (8:36)
2020 Katherine Tegen Books
369 pgs.
YA Mystery
Finished 4/23/2020
Goodreads rating: 4.23 - 18,193 ratings
My rating: 3.5
Setting: 1936 and contemporary Vermont boarding school, winter

First line/s:  "The snow had been falling for hours, drifting past the windows, settling on the sill, following little landscapes that mimicked the mountains in the distance. Albert Ellingham sat on an overstuffed chair covered in plum-colored velvet."

My comments:  This third and final installment in an ongoing mystery nicely wrapped up any questions about the two murder mysteries, 1936 and current time, in a satisfying way.  This whole three-book-series was a little too drawn out, I'm sure it could've been condensed satisfactorily, but both books one and two were left with big cliffhangers and that couldn't have been done if this was made into one very long book.  I had to keep forcing myself to go back to listen, even though I did want to find out what the outcome was.  The 1936 - 1938 parts weren't half as interesting to me as the contemporary bits, but no matter.  I didn't really like the narrator's voice for the protagonist, not enough inflection to flat, which changed my perception of her personality.

Goodreads synopsis:  Ellingham Academy must be cursed. Three people are now dead. One, a victim of either a prank gone wrong or a murder. Another, dead by misadventure. And now, an accident in Burlington has claimed another life. All three in the wrong place at the wrong time. All at the exact moment of Stevie’s greatest triumph . . .
          She knows who Truly Devious is. She’s solved it. The greatest case of the century.
          At least, she thinks she has. With this latest tragedy, it’s hard to concentrate on the past. Not only has someone died in town, but David disappeared of his own free will and is up to something. Stevie is sure that somehow—somehow—all these things connect. The three deaths in the present. The deaths in the past. The missing Alice Ellingham and the missing David Eastman. Somewhere in this place of riddles and puzzles there must be answers.
          Then another accident occurs as a massive storm heads toward Vermont. This is too much for the parents and administrators. Ellingham Academy is evacuated. Obviously, it’s time for Stevie to do something stupid. It’s time to stay on the mountain and face the storm—and a murderer.
          In the tantalizing finale to the Truly Devious trilogy, New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson expertly tangles her dual narrative threads and ignites an explosive end for all who’ve walked through Ellingham Academy.
          New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson delivers the witty and pulse-pounding conclusion to the Truly Devious series as Stevie Bell solves the mystery that has haunted Ellingham Academy for over 75 years.

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?

DNF - Echoes Among the Stones by Jaime Jo Wright

listened on Audible - my purchase
narrated  by Pilar Witherspoon
Unabridged audio (12:34)
2019 Recorded Books
324 pgs.
Adult Time Shift:  1946/Present
Stopped reading on Jan. 4, 2020
Goodreads rating: 4.58 - 209 ratings
My rating: boring, but didn't finish so won't rate
Setting:  somewhere in Wisconsin both in 1946 and current time

First line/s:  Imogene Grayson, Mill Creek Wisconsin, July, 1946.  "She should have paid more attention to her longtime neighbor, Oliver Schneider, when she passed him on the road at dawn."

My comments:  I made it - forcing myself - through the first third of this book, but it was too boring, oh so boring!  S L O W.  Didn't really care for the reader either.  It's the beginning of a new year, so I'm not going to force myself to finish!  (Note:  I didn't care for either of the protagonists in either time period, either!, just couldn't engage with either of them at all.)

Goodreads synopsis:    After Aggie Dunkirk's career is unceremoniously ended by her own mistakes, she finds herself traveling to Wisconsin, where her grandmother, Mumsie, lives alone in her vintage, though very outdated, home. Aggie didn't plan for how eccentric Mumsie has become, obsessing over an old, unsolved crime scene--even going so far as to re-create it in a dollhouse.
          Mystery seems to follow Aggie when she finds work as a secretary helping to restore the flooded historical part of the town's cemetery. Forced to work with a puzzling yet attractive archaeologist, she exhumes the past's secrets and unwittingly uncovers a crime that some will go to any length to keep hidden--even if that means silencing Aggie.
           In 1946, Imogene Grayson works in a beauty salon but has her sights set on Hollywood. But coming home to discover her younger sister's body in the attic changes everything. Unfamiliar with the burgeoning world of forensic science and, as a woman, not particularly welcomed into the investigation, Imogene is nonetheless determined to stay involved. As her sister's case grows cold, Imogene vows to find justice . . . no matter the cost.

8. The Chalk Man by C. J. Tudor

read on my iPhone/Kindle/Book/Audible
2018 Crown Publishing Group
280 pgs.
Adult Mystery, back & forth in time, 1986 and present
Finished 1/16/18
Goodreads rating:  3.91 - 5066 ratings
My rating:  4.5
Setting:  small touristy town in the Cotswalds, England, 1986 and present

First line/s:  "Start at the beginning.  Problem was, none of us ever agreed on the exact beginning."

My comments:  There were some bits that did drag along a little, but otherwise this book was really difficult to put down.  I listened to it on Audible, and it was narrated with n incredibly wonderful British accent and voice.  Easy to understand.
     Ed Adams was 12 years old in 1986, and spent as much time as he could riding his bike around and playing in the woods and playground with his "gang," his four good friends.  Thirty years later he sets out to come to terms with the mysterious happenings of that time.  Switching between 1986 and 2016, we watch the whole story unfold in a totally fascinating way.  Many of the "surprises" are not so surprising, and Tudor includes one whopper of an ending.

Goodreads synopsis: In 1986, Eddie and his friends are just kids on the verge of adolescence. They spend their days biking around their sleepy English village and looking for any taste of excitement they can get. The chalk men are their secret code: little chalk stick figures they leave for one another as messages only they can understand. But then a mysterious chalk man leads them right to a dismembered body, and nothing is ever the same.
          In 2016, Eddie is fully grown and thinks he's put his past behind him, but then he gets a letter in the mail containing a single chalk stick figure. When it turns out that his friends got the same message, they think it could be a prank--until one of them turns up dead. That's when Eddie realizes that saving himself means finally figuring out what really happened all those years ago.

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...

9. Conversion - Katherine Howe

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

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

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

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

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