Thursday, December 18, 2014

The Nine Lives of Christmas by, Sheila Roberts narrated by, Kathleen McInerney



 This books is available on Audio through Library2Go click title to go to book page

The Nine Lives of Christmas by, Sheila Roberts narrated by, Kathleen McInerney

Synopsis from Goodreads:  Two people are about to discover that when it comes to finding love, sometimes Christmas magic isn’t enough…sometimes it takes a pesky orange cat named Ambrose.
When a guy is in trouble, he starts making deals with his Creator…and Ambrose the cat is no exception. In danger of losing his ninth and final life, Ambrose makes a desperate plea to the universe.  He’ll do anything—anything!—if he can just survive and enjoy a nice long, final life. His prayer is answered when a stranger comes along and saves him—and now it looks like he has to hold up his end of the bargain.
The stranger turns out to be a firefighter named Zach, who’s in need of some serious romantic help. If Ambrose can just bring Zach together with Merilee, the nice lady who works at Pet Palace, it’s bound to earn him a healthy ninth life.  Unfortunately for Ambrose, his mission is a lot harder than he ever thought.  Merriliee is way too shy to make the first move on a ladies man like Zach, and Zach thinks he’s all wrong for a nice girl like Merrilee.  Now it’s going to take all of Ambrose’s feline wiles—and maybe even a good old fashioned Christmas miracle—to make them both realize that what they’re looking for is right in front of their eyes.


It has also been turned into a Hallmark Movie  showing Thursday December 25 1:30 PM / 12:30c 


My Review:

This was a fun book, I loved the authors’ description of the nine lives of a cat, the parts with Ambrose/Tom the cat were great, even his little romance with Merilee’s cat the “conversation” between these two cats is hilarious!

This was also a soft romance which is the only kind I like heck there was only 2 kisses in the whole book. I liked the relationship between Zach and Merilee and thought it was cute how the cat would react to things Zach said about relationships. Zach is commitment-phobic but can’t seem to get Merilee off his mind. Merilee is, in her mind, the ugly duckling of her family and thinks no one will think she is beautiful like her sisters. When Zach & Merilee meet there is chemistry but Zach wants to run for the hills, but Ambrose the cat is going to try everything he can to get Zach to see Merilee again even it means a hunger strike!

There is also a side story about Zach’s family and why he isn’t a big fan of Christmas which I thought was very well done and didn’t get too sappy.

I truly enjoyed this Christmas story it wasn’t too mushy, sappy and wasn’t at all preachy so it hit the trifecta of what I love about Christmas books.

Kathleen McInerney’s narration was very well done; I liked her different character voices and the narration as a whole.


4 Stars

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Here are the top 20 books checked out at the Library in 2014


Here are the top 20 books checked out at the Library in 2014. How many have you read?


The Longest Ride by, Nicholas Sparks--Ira Levinson is in trouble. At ninety-one years old, in poor health and alone in the world, he finds himself stranded on an isolated embankment after a car crash. Suffering multiple injuries, he struggles to retain consciousness until a blurry image materializes and comes into focus beside him: his beloved wife Ruth, who passed away nine years ago. Urging him to hang on, she forces him to remain alert by recounting the stories of their lifetime together – how they met, the precious paintings they collected together, the dark days of WWII and its effect on them and their families. Ira knows that Ruth can’t possibly be in the car with him, but he clings to her words and his memories, reliving the sorrows and everyday joys that defined their marriage.
A few miles away, at a local rodeo, a Wake Forest College senior’s life is about to change. Recovering from a recent break-up, Sophia Danko meets a young cowboy named Luke, who bears little resemblance to the privileged frat boys she has encountered at school. Through Luke, Sophia is introduced to a world in which the stakes of survival and success, ruin and reward -- even life and death – loom large in everyday life. As she and Luke fall in love, Sophia finds herself imagining a future far removed from her plans -- a future that Luke has the power to rewrite . . . if the secret he’s keeping doesn’t destroy it first.
Ira and Ruth. Sophia and Luke. Two couples who have little in common, and who are separated by years and experience. Yet their lives will converge with unexpected poignancy, reminding us all that even the most difficult decisions can yield extraordinary journeys: beyond despair, beyond death, to the farthest reaches of the human heart.


Missing You by, Harlan Coben--It's a profile, like all the others on the online dating site. But as NYPD Detective Kat Donovan focuses on the accompanying picture, she feels her whole world explode, as emotions she’s ignored for decades come crashing down on her. Staring back at her is her ex-fiancĂ© Jeff, the man who shattered her heart—and who she hasn’t seen in 18 years.
Kat feels a spark, wondering if this might be the moment when past tragedies recede and a new world opens up to her. But when she reaches out to the man in the profile, her reawakened hope quickly darkens into suspicion and then terror as an unspeakable conspiracy comes to light, in which monsters prey upon the most vulnerable.
As the body count mounts and Kat's hope for a second chance with Jeff grows more and more elusive, she is consumed by an investigation that challenges her feelings about everyone she ever loved—her former fiancĂ©, her mother, and even her father, whose cruel murder so long ago has never been fully explained. With lives on the line, including her own, Kat must venture deeper into the darkness than she ever has before, and discover if she has the strength to survive what she finds there.


Orphan Train by, Christina Baker Kline-- 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.

Unlucky 13 by, James Patterson-- San Francisco Detective Lindsay Boxer is loving her life as a new mother. With an attentive husband, a job she loves, plus best friends who can talk about anything from sex to murder, things couldn't be better.
Then the FBI sends Lindsay a photo of a killer from her past, and her happy world is shattered. The picture captures a beautiful woman at a stoplight. But all Lindsay sees is the psychopath behind those seductive eyes: Mackie Morales, the most deranged and dangerous mind the Women's Murder Club has ever encountered.
In this pulse-racing, emotionally charged novel by James Patterson, the Women's Murder Club must find a killer--before she finds them first.






Lost Lake by, Sarah Addison Allen--- Suley, Georgia, is home to Lost Lake Cottages and not much else. Which is why it's the perfect place for newly-widowed Kate and her eccentric eight-year-old daughter Devin to heal. Kate spent one memorable childhood summer at Lost Lake, had her first almost-kiss at Lost Lake, and met a boy named Wes at Lost Lake. It was a place for dreaming. But Kate doesn't believe in dreams anymore, and her Aunt Eby, Lost Lake's owner, wants to sell the place and move on. Lost Lake's magic is gone. As Kate discovers that time has a way of standing still at Lost Lake can she bring the cottages—and her heart—back to life?
Sometimes lost loves aren't really lost. They're right where you left them, waiting for you to find them again.






Power Play by, Danielle Steel--- Would you sacrifice your family to have it all?
Fiona Carson has proven herself as CEO of a multibillion-dollar high-tech company, but she still has to meet the challenges of her world every day. Devoted single mother, world-class strategist, and tough negotiator, Fiona weighs every move she makes and reserves any personal time for her children. Isolation and constant pressure are givens for her as a woman in a man's world.
Meanwhile, Marshall Weston basks in the fruits of his achievements. At his side is his wife Liz - the perfect, supportive corporate spouse - who has gladly sacrificed her own law career to raise their three children. Smooth, shrewd, and irreproachable, Marshall is a model chief executive, and the power he wields only enhances his charisma. And to maintain his position, he harbors secrets that could destroy his life at any moment.
Both must face their own demons, and fight off those who are jealous of their success. Their lives as CEOs of major companies come at a high price. But just how high a price are they willing to pay? Who are they willing to sacrifice to stay on top? Those they love, or themselves?

Sycamore Row by, John Grisham--- Seth Hubbard is a wealthy man dying of lung cancer. He trusts no one. Before he hangs himself from a sycamore tree, Hubbard leaves a new, handwritten, will. It is an act that drags his adult children, his black maid, and Jake into a conflict as riveting and dramatic as the murder trial that made Brigance one of Ford County's most notorious citizens, just three years earlier.
The second will raises far more questions than it answers. Why would Hubbard leave nearly all of his fortune to his maid? Had chemotherapy and painkillers affected his ability to think clearly? And what does it all have to do with a piece of land once known as Sycamore Row?








Keep Quiet by, Lisa Scottoline--- New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award winning author Lisa Scottoline is loved by millions of readers for her suspenseful novels about family and justice. Scottoline delivers once again with Keep Quiet, an emotionally gripping and complex story about one man’s split-second decision to protect his son - and the devastating consequences that follow. Jake Buckman’s relationship with his sixteen-year-old son Ryan is not an easy one, so at the urging of his loving wife, Pam, Jake goes alone to pick up Ryan at their suburban movie theater. On the way home, Ryan asks to drive on a deserted road, and Jake sees it as a chance to make a connection. However, what starts as a father-son bonding opportunity instantly turns into a nightmare. Tragedy strikes, and with Ryan’s entire future hanging in the balance, Jake is forced to make a split-second decision that plunges them both into a world of guilt and lies. Without ever meaning to, Jake and Ryan find themselves living under the crushing weight of their secret, which threatens to tear their family to shreds and ruin them all. Powerful and dramatic, Keep Quiet will have readers and book clubs debating what it means to be a parent and how far you can, and should, go to protect those you love.


The fault in our stars by, John Green--- Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.
Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning author John Green's most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.








The Hunger Games by, Suzanne Collins--- Winning will make you famous. Losing means certain death.
The nation of Panem, formed from a post-apocalyptic North America, is a country that consists of a wealthy Capitol region surrounded by 12 poorer districts. Early in its history, a rebellion led by a 13th district against the Capitol resulted in its destruction and the creation of an annual televised event known as the Hunger Games. In punishment, and as a reminder of the power and grace of the Capitol, each district must yield one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 through a lottery system to participate in the games. The 'tributes' are chosen during the annual Reaping and are forced to fight to the death, leaving only one survivor to claim victory.
When 16-year-old Katniss's younger sister, Prim, is selected as District 12's female representative, Katniss volunteers to take her place. She and her male counterpart Peeta, are pitted against bigger, stronger representatives, some of whom have trained for this their whole lives. , she sees it as a death sentence. But Katniss has been close to death before. For her, survival is second nature.


Allegiant by,Veronica Roth--- The faction-based society that Tris Prior once believed in is shattered—fractured by violence and power struggles and scarred by loss and betrayal. So when offered a chance to explore the world past the limits she’s known, Tris is ready. Perhaps beyond the fence, she and Tobias will find a simple new life together, free from complicated lies, tangled loyalties, and painful memories.  But Tris’s new reality is even more alarming than the one she left behind. Old discoveries are quickly rendered meaningless. Explosive new truths change the hearts of those she loves. And once again, Tris must battle to comprehend the complexities of human nature—and of herself—while facing impossible choices about courage, allegiance, sacrifice, and love.






Top Secret Twenty-one by, Janet Evanovich--- Catch a professional assassin: top priority. Find a failure-to-appear and collect big bucks: top score. How she’ll pull it all off: top secret. Trenton, New Jersey’s favorite used-car dealer, Jimmy Poletti, was caught selling a lot more than used cars out of his dealerships. Now he’s out on bail and has missed his date in court, and bounty hunter Stephanie Plum is looking to bring him in. Leads are quickly turning into dead ends, and all too frequently into dead bodies. Even Joe Morelli, the city’s hottest cop, is struggling to find a clue to the suspected killer’s whereabouts. These are desperate times, and they call for desperate measures. So Stephanie is going to have to do something she really doesn’t want to do: protect former hospital security guard and general pain in her behind Randy Briggs. Briggs was picking up quick cash as Poletti’s bookkeeper and knows all his boss’s dirty secrets. Now Briggs is next on Poletti’s list of people to put six feet under.
To top things off, Ranger—resident security expert and Stephanie’s greatest temptation—has been the target of an assassination plot. He’s dodged the bullet this time, but if Ranger wants to survive the next attempt on his life, he’ll have to enlist Stephanie’s help and reveal a bit more of his mysterious past.
Death threats, highly trained assassins, highly untrained assassins, and Stark Street being overrun by a pack of feral Chihuahuas are all in a day’s work for Stephanie Plum. The real challenge is dealing with her Grandma Mazur’s wild bucket list. A boob job and getting revenge on Joe Morelli’s Grandma Bella can barely hold a candle to what’s number one on the list—but that’s top secret.


Unfit by, Lara Clevland Torgeson--- Chrissy Rollings has a mountain of troubles to overcome, one that would crush most other girls her age. She was born in a small North Carolina town in 1952, into a poor but happy and loving family that always managed to scrape by each month... until the night her father died in a car crash, plunging the family into poverty. Chrissy’s mother is forced to take low-paying jobs to supplement her meager welfare checks, leaving Chrissy to raise her five siblings. But even these sacrifices are not enough.
North Carolina was among the states to practice eugenics — forcing sterilization procedures on thousands of people deemed “unfit” to reproduce. When Chrissy’s mother was faced with the choice of having 14-year-old Chrissy sterilized or losing her welfare check, she makes the only choice she feels she can and signs the consent form. That act of survival sets into motion a series of events that shape the course of Chrissy’s life forever.





The Husband’s Secret by, Liane Moriarty-- At the heart of The Husband’s Secret is a letter that’s not meant to be read
My darling Cecilia, if you’re reading this, then I’ve died...
Imagine that your husband wrote you a letter, to be opened after his death. Imagine, too, that the letter contains his deepest, darkest secret—something with the potential to destroy not just the life you built together, but the lives of others as well. Imagine, then, that you stumble across that letter while your husband is still very much alive. . . .Cecilia Fitzpatrick has achieved it all—she’s an incredibly successful businesswoman, a pillar of her small community, and a devoted wife and mother. Her life is as orderly and spotless as her home. But that letter is about to change everything, and not just for her: Rachel and Tess barely know Cecilia—or each other—but they too are about to feel the earth-shattering repercussions of her husband’s secret.
Acclaimed author Liane Moriarty has written a gripping, thought-provoking novel about how well it is really possible to know our spouses—and, ultimately, ourselves.


The Winter People by, Jennifer McMahon--- West Hall, Vermont, has always been a town of strange disappearances and old legends. The most mysterious is that of Sara Harrison Shea, who, in 1908, was found dead in the field behind her house just months after the tragic death of her daughter, Gertie. Now, in present day, nineteen-year-old Ruthie lives in Sara's farmhouse with her mother, Alice, and her younger sister, Fawn. Alice has always insisted that they live off the grid, a decision that suddenly proves perilous when Ruthie wakes up one morning to find that Alice has vanished without a trace. Searching for clues, she is startled to find a copy of Sara Harrison Shea's diary hidden beneath the floorboards of her mother's bedroom. As Ruthie gets sucked deeper into the mystery of Sara's fate, she discovers that she's not the only person who's desperately looking for someone that they've lost. But she may be the only one who can stop history from repeating itself.





The whole enchilada  by, Diana Mott Davidson--- Goldy Schulz knows her food is to die for, but she never expects one of her best friends to actually keel over when she's leaving a birthday party Goldy has catered. At first, everyone assumes that all the fun and excitement of the party, not to mention the rich fare, did her in.
But what looks like a coronary turns out to be a generous serving of cold-blooded murder. And the clever culprit is just getting cooking.
When a colleague—a woman who resembles Goldy—is stabbed, and Goldy is attacked outside her house, it becomes clear that the popular caterer is the main course on a killer menu. With time running out, Goldy must roll up her sleeves, sharpen her knives, and make a meal out of a devious murderer, before that killer can serve her up cold.






Empty Mansions : the mysterious life of Huguette Clark and the spending of a great American fortune by, Bill Dedman--- When Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bill Dedman noticed in 2009 a grand home for sale, unoccupied for nearly sixty years, he stumbled through a surprising portal into American history. Empty Mansions is a rich mystery of wealth and loss, connecting the Gilded Age opulence of the nineteenth century with a twenty-first-century battle over a $300 million inheritance. At its heart is a reclusive heiress named Huguette Clark, a woman so secretive that, at the time of her death at age 104, no new photograph of her had been seen in decades. Though she owned palatial homes in California, New York, and Connecticut, why had she lived for twenty years in a simple hospital room, despite being in excellent health? Why were her valuables being sold off? Was she in control of her fortune, or controlled by those managing her money?
Dedman has collaborated with Huguette Clark’s cousin, Paul Clark Newell, Jr., one of the few relatives to have frequent conversations with her. Dedman and Newell tell a fairy tale in reverse: the bright, talented daughter, born into a family of extreme wealth and privilege, who secrets herself away from the outside world.
Huguette was the daughter of self-made copper industrialist W. A. Clark, nearly as rich as Rockefeller in his day, a controversial senator, railroad builder, and founder of Las Vegas. She grew up in the largest house in New York City, a remarkable dwelling with 121 rooms for a family of four. She owned paintings by Degas and Renoir, a world-renowned Stradivarius violin, a vast collection of antique dolls. But wanting more than treasures, she devoted her wealth to buying gifts for friends and strangers alike, to quietly pursuing her own work as an artist, and to guarding the privacy she valued above all else. The Clark family story spans nearly all of American history in three generations, from a log cabin in Pennsylvania to mining camps in the Montana gold rush, from backdoor politics in Washington to a distress call from an elegant Fifth Avenue apartment. The same Huguette who was touched by the terror attacks of 9/11 held a ticket nine decades earlier for a first-class stateroom on the second voyage of the Titanic.
Empty Mansions reveals a complex portrait of the mysterious Huguette and her intimate circle. We meet her extravagant father, her publicity-shy mother, her star-crossed sister, her French boyfriend, her nurse who received more than $30 million in gifts, and the relatives fighting to inherit Huguette’s copper fortune. Richly illustrated with more than seventy photographs, Empty Mansions is an enthralling story of an eccentric of the highest order, a last jewel of the Gilded Age who lived life on her own terms.


I've got you under my skin by, Mary Higgins Clark--- When Laurie Moran's husband was brutally murdered, only three-year-old Timmy saw the face of his father's killer. Five years later his piercing blue eyes still haunt Timmy's dreams. Laurie is haunted by more: the killer's threat to her son as he fled the scene: Tell your mother she's next, then it's your turn . . .
Now Laurie is dealing with murder again, this time as the producer of a true-crime, cold-case television show. The series will launch with the twenty-year-old unsolved murder of Betsy Powell. Betsy, a socialite, was found suffocated in her bed after a gala celebrating the graduation of her daughter and three friends. The sensational murder was news nationwide. Reopening the case in its lavish setting and with the cooperation of the surviving guests that night, Laurie is sure to have a hit on her hands. But when the estranged friends begin filming, it becomes clear each is hiding secrets . . . small and large.
And a pair of blue eyes is watching events unfold, too . . .



The first phone call from heaven : a novel by, Mitch Albom--- The First Phone Call from Heaven tells the story of a small town on Lake Michigan that gets worldwide attention when its citizens start receiving phone calls from the afterlife. Is it the greatest miracle ever or a massive hoax? Sully Harding, a grief-stricken single father, is determined to find out. An allegory about the power of belief--and a page-turner that will touch your soul--Albom's masterful storytelling has never been so moving and unexpected. Readers of The Five People You Meet in Heaven will recognize the warmth and emotion so redolent of Albom's writing, and those who haven't yet enjoyed the power of his storytelling, will thrill at the discovery of one of the best-loved writers of our time.







Fifteen Minutes by, Karen Kingsbury--- Overnight, Zack is the nation’s most popular contestant, a country singer with the looks and voice of a young Elvis. As his star rises, Zack is asked to compromise and quiet his beliefs, and also something more. Just as America is falling in love with Zack, just as he’s on the verge of winning it all, his choices lead him to the brink of personal disaster.At the same time, Reese Weatherly, a therapeutic horse instructor, is no longer sure about her relationship with Zack, or the wedding they had dreamed about. While Zack advances from one round of the competition to the next, an offer comes to Reese--one that will take her to a home halfway around the world.
Then Chandra Olson--reigning diva pop star and one of the Fifteen Minutes judges--intervenes. Chandra has suffered so much public pain and private agony since her days as a Fifteen Minutes contestant. Now she wants just one thing: meaning.
Can Chandra's private losses help Zack find his way, or will his fifteen minutes of fame cause him to lose the life he once loved? Fifteen Minutes is a story of character, compromise, and the cost of having it all. A story that raises the question: Who are the real winners?

Thursday, November 6, 2014

Neverhome by, Laird Hunt


Neverhome by, Laird Hunt
Available in-house

Synopsis from Goodreads:

An extraordinary novel about a wife who disguises herself as a man and goes off to fight in the Civil War.

She calls herself Ash, but that's not her real name. She is a farmer's faithful wife, but she has left her husband to don the uniform of a Union soldier in the Civil War. Neverhome tells the harrowing story of Ash Thompson during the battle for the South. Through bloodshed and hysteria and heartbreak, she becomes a hero, a folk legend, a madwoman and a traitor to the American cause.

Laird Hunt's dazzling new novel throws a light on the adventurous women who chose to fight instead of stay behind. It is also a mystery story: why did Ash leave and her husband stay? Why can she not return? What will she have to go through to make it back home?

In gorgeous prose, Hunt's rebellious young heroine fights her way through history, and back home to her husband, and finally into our hearts.


My Review:

A fascinating, sad story. I read this book in a day I couldn't stop reading I had to find out what happens next.

It's written like an oral history you truly hear her voice in every phrase and story. At times she is an unreliable narrator but sometimes you need to lie to yourself to get through the day.

This is historical fiction and Ash/Constance is a compilation of many women who dressed as men during the Civil War to go fight the war. All had different reasons and Ash’s reason was because her husband was weak, he was the soft one in the family and she was wire so she decided that she was the one who is going to go off to war.  As she said I was strong he was not , so it was me went to war to defend the Republic.

Parts of this book are very gory because  this is a no holds barred war story and you have to remember what medicine was like in those days. Plus there is no Geneva Convention so prisoners of war were treated so awfully that it’s hard for us to understand because there are rules about prisoner treatment now. The hardest part of this book to read is when she is held prisoner, those scenes are horrific but it is what happened during the civil war.

I loved the metaphor of the shave how it made you feel human again and you could forget the things you’ve seen for a few minutes.

Constance/Ash kept up an inner monologue with her mother who had been gone a long time but I think these conversations with her mother helped keep her sane. But it also teaches us about Constance and why and how she became Ash the reasons go so much deeper than just her husband is the soft one.

I think more men than she knew were on to her but since she was such a good soldier none of them said a word, like the Colonel I think he knew for awhile. And in her journey home she learned so much about herself and the Colonel. Speaking of her journey home, when she reached home things weren’t as she hoped there either and this ending was so heartbreaking.

But as I said earlier yes this book is heartbreaking but it is also beautiful and lyrical and I feel it is a must read.


4 ½ Stars

Monday, October 27, 2014

Frozen by, Mary Casanova


Frozen by, Mary Casanova

Synopsis from Goodreads: Sixteen-year-old Sadie Rose hasn’t said a word in eleven years—ever since the day she was found lying in a snowbank during a howling storm. Like her voice, her memories of her mother and what happened that night were frozen.

Set during the roaring 1920s in the beautiful, wild area on Rainy Lake where Minnesota meets Canada, Frozen tells the intriguing story of Sadie Rose, whose mother died under strange circumstances the same night that Sadie Rose was found, unable to speak, in a snowbank. Sadie Rose doesn’t know her last name and has only fleeting memories of her mother—and the conflicting knowledge that her mother had worked in a brothel. Taken in as a foster child by a corrupt senator, Sadie Rose spends every summer along the shores of Rainy Lake, where her silence is both a prison and a sanctuary.

One day, Sadie Rose stumbles on a half-dozen faded, scandalous photographs—pictures, she realizes, of her mother. They release a flood of puzzling memories, and these wisps of the past send her at last into the heart of her own life’s great mystery: who was her mother, and how did she die? Why did her mother work in a brothel—did she have a choice? What really happened that night when a five-year-old girl was found shivering in a snowbank, her voice and identity abruptly shattered?

Sadie Rose’s search for her personal truth is laid against a swirling historical drama—a time of prohibition and women winning the right to vote, political corruption, and a fevered fight over the area’s wilderness between a charismatic, unyielding, powerful industrialist and a quiet man battling to save the wide, wild forests and waters of northernmost Minnesota. Frozen is a suspenseful, moving testimonial to the haves and the have-nots, to the power of family and memory, and to the extraordinary strength of a young woman who has lost her voice in nearly every way—but is utterly determined to find it again.

My Review:

I really liked the character of Sadie Rose, she is a tough cookie but I also liked that we saw this softer side as her memories of when she was young came crashing down on her, the memories of the night her mother died and she almost froze to death in a snowbank but that night she not only lost her mother but her voice too but that was eleven years ago and now Sadie is having flashes of both memory and voice and the memories are not at all what she expected.

Of course you kind of have a little inkling of the truth behind what happened to Sadie’s mother but I didn’t care I wanted to see how the story played out. I liked Sadie’s journey from mute half prisoner to talking woman of the world. The awful truths about herself and her mother and father could have easily done a person in but not Sadie Rose they only made her stronger. I loved the other characters in this especially Hans & Aasta they were my favorites. My only small problem with the story is I’m not sure at the end if (hmm how do I saw this without a spoiler) …if things would have worked out so quickly or would more of a fight been put up or that that was enough “justice” for her parents. ( Read the book and hopefully that sentence will make sense to you).

This was a great young adult historical fiction set not that far from my home I thought the author did a great job at evoking the time and place in this book I just think the ending will be a problem for some people (I was a little iffy on it myself) but overall I enjoyed this book and would read others by this author as I very much enjoyed her writing. This would have been a solid 4 but the ending felt a bit rushed and not as believable as I had hoped.

3 ½ stars

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Whimsey: A Novel by Kaye Wilkinson Barley



Synopsis from Goodreads: Whimsey is a novel of southern fiction with a splash of magic and a touch of fantasy, topped with a sprinkling of humor.
The magic was already there when cigar-smoking matriarch Elizabeth Calhoun established an artist’s colony on an island off the coast of Georgia and named it Whimsey.
Elizabeth’s ghost still drops in from time to time to make sure things are going as she planned.
There’s also a wicked pixie named Earlene who fancies tight-fitting designer clothes and Louboutin stilettos.
Elizabeth’s grandniece, Emma Hamilton Foley, a once-promising jewelry designer who moved away from the island, now fears her talent has deserted her.
Along with her four best childhood friends, she has been invited to be a resident artist at Whimsey’s new upscale gallery, Les Ă©toiles. To join them, she’ll need to regain her talent, face the demons from her past and her feelings about Eli Tatnall, whom she loved as a girl.
Will moving back to the Island of Whimsey bring the magic back?
WHIMSEY is a story of hope and affirmation, about families and best girlfriends, connections and feelings. It’s about the things in life that make us happy and the things that scare us to death. And the people who walk through life with us.

My Review:
I want to live in Whimsey! This book proves not only can you go home again but that you should. Emma tried to leave Whimsey in the past but when things go wrong in her life and her artistic jewelry line takes the hit , she eventually figures out she needs to find her inner magic again and with some help from her long dead aunt Elizabeth the only place that it can be found is on the island of Whimsey. I loved the scenes with Aunt Elizabeth and the crayon and the story of finding you crimson, we all need this lesson!

I also enjoyed the pixie Earlene, I loved that she made silver glitter fall off of Emma without her even realizing it. Oh who am I kidding I loved every character in this book. The whole ensemble is there for a reason each with their own set of advise to Emma and when she finally decides to listen to all the people and island are trying to tell her things get much better for. I also want to see her jewelry; I want to see these colors the colors of a sunrise on Whimsey with colors no one has a name for.

This book is right up there with Sarah Addison Allen in southern magical realism; in fact I think these two authors should get together because the big grand opening of the gallery needs a caterer and who better than the Waverly sisters!

I highly recommend this book to southern fiction lovers, especially fans of Sarah Addison Allen. This book has the same feel good aftereffect that Sarah’s books do. I was surprised to find this is Kaye’s first novel; I look forward to reading anything else she writes!

5 Stars

Monday, October 13, 2014

Harpers Bazaar 10 BOOKS YOU MUST READ IF YOU LOVED 'GONE GIRL'




Harpers Bazaar put out a list 10 BOOKS YOU MUST READ IF YOU LOVED 'GONE GIRL' follow the link to the article here:

Which books suggested by Harpers Bazaar are available at the Library?




1)      Dare Me, by Megan Abbott- Available on Audio from Library2Go

2)      Cartwheel, by Jennifer DuBois- Available in Ebook from Library2Go

3)      Reconstructing Amelia, by Kimberley McCreight- Available in Ebook & Audio from Library2Go

4)      Dark Places, by Gillian Flynn- Available in house in softcover also available in Audio and Ebook from Library2Go

5)      Abroad, by Katie Crouch- Not available but can get it through InterLibrary Loan

6)      The Silent Wife, by A.S.A Harrison- Available in Ebook & Audio from Library2Go

7)      The Wicked Girls, by Alex Marwood- Available in house in softcover

8)      The Secret History, by Donna Tartt- Available in house in softcover also available in Audio and Ebook from Library2Go

9)      In the Woods, by Tana French-Available in Ebook from Library2Go

10)   The Cuckoo's Calling, by J.K. Rowling as Robert Galbraith- Available in house in Hardcover and on Audio from Library2Go

Friday, September 12, 2014

Library2Go Spotlight-Dollbaby , by Laura Lane McNeal narrated by, January LaVoy



Dollbaby , by Laura Lane McNeal narrated by, January LaVoy  :Available in ebook & audiobook from Library2Go (soon to be available in-house)



Warning: You will fall in love with the characters in this book.

This book made me laugh and made me cry. 11 year old Ibby’s (Liberty) father has died and her mother (can I put quotes around mother to let you know what I think of her) drops her off at her grandmother Fannie’s house the problem is Ibby and Miss Fannie have never met, and this so called mother doesn’t even walk her to the door to introduce them just drops her off in the street and drives away. If you can’t tell by this paragraph I don’t think very highly of Vidrine’s so called motherly love. Especially the “gift” she wants Ibby to give to her grandmother, Vidrine is just a spiteful woman.

Luckily for Ibby she is going into a house full of women that will love her and take care of her, the first person she meets is Dollbaby and her momma Queenie who work for her grandmother Fannie and Ibby doesn’t realize her grandmother is just as scared as she is that they won’t like each other, but Miss Fannie is a character and luckily they do hit it off even if it is strained for a little while. Miss Fannie is an interesting character strong yet fragile I laughed when she was helping the bookie then cried when she had her spell on Ibby’s birthday she was such an interesting character that has been through some awful things and when we learn how Queenie came to work for her and how she got her nickname it really gives insight into both of these women.

The book starts out in 1964, 3 days before Ibby’s 12th birthday and continues on till she is in college. Now, you know what race relations were like at this time in our country and even though this is New Orleans there is still certain things that can’t be done, even though Ibby is friends with Doll & Queenie’s family when she is out alone with any of them things are said and done that will make you cringe and hope that in this day and age things like that don’t happen anymore.

There is one other character that I did not like and that was neighbor girl Annabelle what a little brat who grew up to be a spoiled rotten brat (ok not the b-word I was going to use but you get my drift) but karma oh wonderful karma with a little push from Miss Fannie and Miss Ibby she does get her comeuppance and that made me laugh and cheer!

I truly loved the characters in this book Doll and Queenie are great ladies and I loved how loyal and loving they were towards both Miss Fannie and Ibby even from the first time meeting them. This is a story about family and acceptance and is a truly wonderful read.

Narrator January LaVoy did a fantastic job of bringing these characters to life I loved how she voiced Ibby at age 11 sounding like a little girl and voiced her differently as she got older but yet you knew it was Ibby talking, everyone had their own unique voice, LaVoy’s narration truly added to my experience of this book.

If you are a fan of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt or Secret Life of Bees or just southern fiction in general give this one a try.


5 Stars

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

National Book Festival Washington D.C.

Librarian Susie Sharp attends The National Book Festival




I was honored to be asked by the State Librarian, Mary Soucie, to attend The National Book Festival in Washington D.C. and work the booth for North Dakota. We were set up in the Pavilion of States at The Walter E. Washington Convention Center where there was a booth for each state plus the American territories. When people came into the convention center they were given a bag for all the giveaways and a map, if they got all 50 states plus the territories stamped by each booth they could turn the map in for a free book.

L-R- Our wonderful Junior League Volunteer, ND State Librarian Mary Soucie, Talking Books Coordinator Sue Hammer-Schneider, Susie Sharp Librarian Eddy-New Rockford Library


Our booth had plastic cups that said Book Nerd on them, magnets and postcards with a wordle of North Dakota Authors. To tell you the scale of how many people came through the booth we had 1000 cups and ran out of them by 11 am and that was actually the slowest time of the day.  We had a lot of fun at our booth and were surprised how many attendees had a North Dakota story, the family from Virginia that had vacationed in Medora this summer and attended the musical and pitch fork fondue, the many people who were stationed at either Minot AFB or Grand Forks AFB, the young lady who said her grandmother started the first library in a small town in North Dakota but unfortunately couldn’t remember the name of the town, and many more.

                                                   A picture of some of the crowd


There were author events all day but we were too busy in our booth to go see any of them, however at the end of the day I was able to get down to have Lisa See sign our library’s copy of China Dolls.




This trip was a lot of fun; I was able to get a little sightseeing done but will need to go back one day to see everything I missed. 




Tuesday, June 10, 2014

We Were Liars , by E. Lockhart

We Were Liars , by E. Lockhart
Available in house
Synopsis from Goodreads
A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.

We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart.

Read it.
And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

My Review:

This book was very twisty and turny with an unreliable narrator and is very hard to review because I don't want to give anything away and I'm afraid many people will, by tags and such, which is a shame. I'm so glad I read it right away.

I can't stop thinking about this story, it is written at times like poetry, as a diary and as just rambling but beauty throughout. It is so unique and hard to describe and I would highly recommend reading it soon before the spoilers are out there.

There were times I thought I had it figured out then the author would change my mind only to be partly right later on.

I read this book in 2 days and it has been a long time since a book has grabbed me that fast in a long time. Once I started all I wanted to do was keep reading. And when I was done I just wanted to start it over again.

I would recommend this to adult and young adult alike this book defies classification it just needs to be read.

If they make a movie of this one Edward Hermann must play granddad. I pictured him all the way through.

If you like a book that keeps you guessing, give this one a try. And Please Don’t Spoil it for others!

I don’t want to say anymore for fear of giving something away but I loved this book!


5 Stars

Friday, May 30, 2014

Dakota by Gwen Florio narrated by, Caroline Shaffer


Available in House and on Library2Go in audio this review is of the audiobook.

Dakota by Gwen Florio narrated by, Caroline Shaffer 

I should start off by saying that I am a North Dakotan, I live here,  my family lives here, my parents were raised here, so my perspective on this may be different than others.

This was a good mystery and it kept me guessing right up to the reveal. Lola is a reporter who decided to go after a story even though her Montana newspaper and Sheriff boyfriend Charlie tell her not to. She finds herself in the North Dakota Oil patch where the men outnumber the women by a huge percentage and finds herself hip deep in all sorts of trouble. She’s on the hunt for a killer of a young girl and maybe even more girls,  when she puts it together that many women from the Blackfoot Reservation in Magpie, Montana are going to the patch to work and that work ends up being  dancing or prostitution but they are ending up dead, not rich like they were hoping. She takes it upon herself to find the answers and it puts her in danger.

I liked the character of Lola she’s scrappy and fearless, of course that fearlessness gets her in trouble as she dives feet first into a story that is much bigger than she ever expected. I liked this book well enough that I plan to read Florio’s first book Montana and I look forward to reading  more of Lola’s adventure’s especially after the ending of this one I am curious how she will deal with that going forward.

The author also does a good job of respecting the Native Americans while honoring their culture. Also the descriptions of the man camps and the bars near them were pretty spot on.

I wish the narrator, Caroline Shaffer, hadn’t used the movie Fargo to learn a North Dakota accent. The character of Charlotte sounds just like the lady cop on the movie/tv show Fargo, and that annoyed me to no end. Her Native American accents were a little better and the main character was good because she wasn’t from North Dakota. Also The Bakken is pronounced Bahkken (like Bah humbug). It wasn’t that the narrator was bad I liked her narration except when she was doing her Fargo impressions. So I would listen to this new to me narrator again as long as the book wasn’t set in my home state!

This story looks at the gritty underbelly of the Bakken Oil Patch in North Dakota it involves prostitution and human trafficking and it may seem like fiction but unfortunately it is a true consequence of the major influx of people coming to ND to work, the crime rate in ND has gone up considerably and there are a lot of murders and crime on the west end of our state.

One thing that bothered me was, Thor saying this is Dakota, I have never heard anyone from North Dakota call it just Dakota because we need to make the distinction that we are North Dakota Not South Dakota.

3 ½ Stars


I received a copy of this book from the publisher & Librarything however I did end up checking out the audiobook from my library.





review crossposted to MissSusie's Reading & Observations

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Unfit by Lara Cleveland Torgesen


Unfit by Lara Cleveland Torgesen

Synopsis from Goodreads: Chrissy Rollings has a mountain of troubles to overcome, one that would crush most other girls her age.
She was born in a small North Carolina town in 1952, into a poor but happy and loving family that always managed to scrape by each month... until the night her father died in a car crash, plunging the family into poverty. Chrissy’s mother is forced to take low-paying jobs to supplement her meager welfare checks, leaving Chrissy to raise her five siblings. But even these sacrifices are not enough.
North Carolina was among the states to practice eugenics — forcing sterilization procedures on thousands of people deemed “unfit” to reproduce. When Chrissy’s mother was faced with the choice of having 14-year-old Chrissy sterilized or losing her welfare check, she makes the only choice she feels she can and signs the consent form. That act of survival sets into motion a series of events that shape the course of Chrissy’s life forever.

My Review:
Wow this is something I never knew about and it breaks my heart, this book was fascinating it felt like a true story but was a fictionalized amalgamation of different people, and it worked well, I really came to care about Chrissy.

 I never knew anything about the eugenics program before and was horrified that this happened in our country and how long North Carolina held on to this antiquated practice. If you don’t know what I am talking about eugenics is- forcing sterilization procedures on thousands of people deemed “unfit” to reproduce. And who decided this? People with fancy degrees who thought they knew better than anyone else. Kids who were sent to juvenile hall were sterilized, and girls like Chrissy whose mother was on welfare were threatened if she didn’t have the surgery they would lose their benefits, Chrissy’s mother worked a job but it wasn’t enough to raise all of her children. And yes before you think it Chrissy’s parents were married and had children then her father was killed in a car accident that is when they ended up on welfare.

That Chrissy was ever able to love & marry and have a happy life was a credit to her strength even when she felt she had Unfit tattooed across her forehead most of her life. How awful would that be to be told at the age of 14 that you are unfit?? Especially when Chrissy’s mother dies too and she loses all her brothers and sisters and feels the guilt of being mean to her mother after the surgery and what really bothered me they didn’t sterilize her mother and how could Chrissy not feel anger towards her mother who had signed the papers before Chrissy was even told what would happen to her.

This book grabbed me right away and was hard to put down, it is a fascinating read and well written. My only qualm was I so wanted Chrissy to find her siblings, I wanted them all to be okay and had been raised by loving happy parents but with a book like this the reality is she probably never could find them especially the little ones, but I wanted a happy ending for Chrissy, I wanted to hug her and tell her everything would be okay, so the author did a great job at making me care about the characters in this book. This book is a must read , about an embarrassing and heartbreaking time in North Carolina history.


5 Stars