The Golden Day

The Golden Day
By Ursula Dubosarsky
Candlewick Press, 2013. 150 pgs.  Young Adult

The '70's, a time of turmoil...eleven young girls set out with their teacher on a field trip to a beautiful garden to "think about death."  Eleven young girls return, not with their teacher but with a secret that changes and bonds them together in fear and friendship.

This unique book seemed slightly haunting to me.  Written in a flowing, clean, easy to read style, Dubosarsky constantly kept a sense of foreboding floating around.  I thoroughly enjoyed it (for a few split seconds it reminded me of a grown up adventure from the children's book Madeline, but don't let that deter you).  I would recommend it to any young adult because it was a fun read and to reluctant readers because of the short length combined with easy reading style.
mpb

The Cartographer of No Man's Land

The Cartographer of No Man's Land
by P. S. Duffy
Liveright, 2013. 371 pgs. Fiction

The 2014 centenary of the beginning of World War I has brought to us the tender-hearted and terrible story Angus MacGrath, a Canadian waterman and artist who defies his pacifist father to enlist as a cartographer so he can look for his missing brother-in-law who is also his best friend.  But London is already crawling with cartographers so Angus is sent to the front.  Back home his son, Simon Peter is trying to grow up without his father, sometimes caught between his anxious mother and his angry grandfather. The particular horrors of the war in the trenches are laid bare here, as are the contrasting beauties of life on and off the water back home. How Angus loses himself and his art, but then finds himself again for his son's sake, is the burden of this powerful, beautiful narrative.

LW

The War Within These Walls

The War Within These Walls
by Aline Sax and Caryl Strzelecki, translated by Laura Watkinson
Eerdmans, 2013.  175 pgs.  Young Adult

The story of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Uprising as the Nazis came to take everyone away, is graphically told here by one Misha, a teenage boy who chooses from the beginning to fight back. Misha's father is a doctor who works in the hospital, so his family is safe for awhile from deportation, but not from hunger. Misha watches anxiously as his mother's health fails and his little sister loses all her considerable vitality. When he can stand no more, he takes to the sewers, leaving the ghetto to steal food and return it to his family. When the Nazis catch on to that trick, and scorch the sewers with flamethrowers, Misha joins a resistance group inside the walls who stockpile such weapons as they can find and then take on the soldiers as they enter the ghetto to take everyone to the extermination camps. Strzelecki's black and gray and white pictures provide  a powerful and evocative accompaniment to Sax's story of Misha. A fine Holocaust book for  young people, The War Within these Walls is graphic in more ways than one, and should be approached carefully by the very tenderhearted or younger teens.
     
LW

Bellman & Black

Bellman & Black
By Diana Setterfield
Atria/Emily Bestler Books, 336 pgs. 2013.

I listened to this novel in hopes that it would be as intensely entertaining as Setterfield's other book, The Thirteenth Tale. While an interesting look into a deal with a mysterious man and then workings of a fabric mill then an emporium that sales anything and everything you need for funerals and mourning, it fell short on the mystery and dark characters that I liked so much in the other book.

William Bellman is introduced as a boy in the English countryside with his friends. He kills a rook with a slingshot and that becomes a small theme of the book. It never got creepy enough for me. The rooks were in the background as an omen, but never really used to their strength. Through disease and other incidents, he starts to lose people in his life and William makes a deal with a stranger in black. William loses himself to his successful and macabre store of all things dealing with death and even though a daughter is spared there is little interaction. The stranger in black shows up every now and then and the rest of the characters are minor and not really built up. In the end I didn't really care what happened to William Bellman and felt like the book just fell short.

EW

My Age of Anxiety: Fear, Hope, Dread, and the Search for Peace of Mind

My Age of Anxiety: Fear, Hope, Dread, and the Search for Peace of Mind
By Scott Stossel
Kopf, 416 pgs. 2014. Nonfiction

Scott Stossel is the editor of The Atlantic and details his lifelong struggle and search for a cure of his anxiety. He has so many experiences and varieties of treatment and even delves in to the history of anxiety as a diagnosis and the medical reaction. From pills to electroshock therapy to the school of thoughts from psychologists, Stossel has created a fascinating book of anxiety and its history. He not only makes the story personal by giving his accounts, but adds so much information to it that I couldn't put it down.

It is not weighed down by the facts and figures but adds to the interesting idea of anxiety and why so many people have it. If you have ever had anxiety, know someone who has, or have an interest in finding out more about the issues surrounding therapy and the use of prescription medicine and even the institutionalization for experiencing anxiety this book should be added to your list. This was truly a wonderful book to read and have a better understanding of the effects of anxiety on people.

EW

Amy & Roger's Epic Detour

Amy & Roger's Epic Detour
By Morgan Matson
Simon & Schuster BFYR, 2010. 343 pg. Young adult fiction.

After her father dies in a tragic car accident, Amy is left to drive the family car across the country to reunite with her mother in Connecticut, accompanied by Roger, a family friend. Putting aside her mother's plan and taking instead a scenic detour through the US, Amy finally has the opportunity to accept her father's death and find peace.

Matson does a beautiful job writing about fear and grief in this book and the ways that tragedy can drive families apart. Her characters are very genuine and believable and her plot takes enough twists to keep you interested. Warning: there are teen sex and teen drug use in the book, although nothing is graphically described.

JH

Ketchup Clouds

Ketchup Clouds
By Annabel Pitcher
Little Brown Books for Young Readers, 272 pgs. 2013

This book was unique, unsettling, and I still am not sure how I feel after reading it. It was so different in it's approach and protagonist that the story is still with me and I am still thinking about it. So it is really a great book to have me thinking about it and wanting to discuss it this many weeks after. Zoe is writing letters to a Texas Death row inmate about her last year or so of secrets and anxieties. They aren't the normal teenage secrets though and she is telling him her story of falling for two boys and one ends up dead. She wholeheartedly takes the blame for killing this boy and tells the inmate her story. The concept is completely different from any book I have read as the letters are written to the inmate, Mr Harris, but Zoe purposefully gives no address for response.

In doing this the author has created a raw, uninhibited version of Zoe's story and I had so many up and down emotions through out because of it. I felt for Zoe, I felt for these two brothers she fell in like and love with and I couldn't decide by the end who I felt worse for. Zoe has had a rough year of keeping this secret and dealing with the town's reactions to the boy's death, to her family's reactions knowing she was "dating" him and the loss of both loves as the outcome. Zoe is a vibrant character who is trying to get back to normal and the unconventional story makes for a fast read.

EW

Before I Die

Before I Die
By Candy Chang
St. Martin's Griffin, 2013. 303 pg. Nonfiction.

When a close friend of Candy Chang's died, she felt inspired to celebrate her life through an art installation on the side of an abandoned New Orleans house, one that would allow the community to reflect on their dreams and ambition. With a little chalkboard paint and some boxes of colored chalk, Chang created a collaborative display that resonated not only in her community but throughout the world.

This was really a beautiful book in every way. The photography was excellent and gave a good feel for what the "Before I Die" boards inspired across the globe. And the stories themselves were uplifting. Chang manages to record a good selection of dreams ranging from the mundane ("travel") to the touching ("meet my grandchildren") and the completely original ("eat salad with an alien"), but all of them encourage the reader to think about their own dreams and ambitions in the face of the dreams of others.

JH

Unnatural Selection

Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men
By Mara Hvistendahl
PublicAffairs, 2011. 314 p. Nonfiction.

Skewed birth ratios is a growing problem in many countries in the world, with young many in many countries knowing that there will never be enough women around for them to marry. Hvistendahl explores not just the surface of the issue, but delves deeply into the history of the problem, the current dilemma many countries face, and the potential future for society if sex selection is not addressed.

Hvistendahl writes a very compelling and interesting book. She employs a good balance of research and data with personal stories and interviews from people all over the world, but especially eastern Asia, where she is based. This is a book that made me think a lot about the facts and statistics she presents and how they relate to my own community.

JH

Hollow City

Hollow City
By Ransom Riggs
Quirk Books, 400 pgs. Young Adult.


Hollow City is the second book in the Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children series and follows the path of a group of "peculiar" children on their quest to help Miss Peregrine and get a home again after theirs has been destroyed. It picks up pretty much exactly where the first one leaves off. So it really is better to read the first one because there is little back story or character build up when there is adventure to be had immediately. And this book really is a quick, engaging adventure story with mysterious people, more peculiar plot twists, and a surprising end that leaves you hanging.

The peculiar children all have certain talents or powers that make them oddities in the real world. They live in special loops that usually mean they won't be harmed. There are evil people though who want to steal the peculiar' talents and have found a way in the loops. Peculiar children everywhere have been kidnapped and their keepers either tortured or taken away. Miss Peregrine's children head to London which is the peculiar capital of the world, and face off against scary hallows as well as try and avoid being killed now that they have been placed in 1940 and bombings during World War II. They form new allies, new enemies and meet so many fun and interesting characters. The series is very unique in the way vintage photographs were used to build the worlds and characters that continue to impress.

EW

Tatiana

Tatiana
by Martin Cruz Smith
Simon & Schuster, 2013.  290 pgs. Mystery

Martin Cruz Smith's latest Arkady Renko mystery begins with a murder. A young and full-of-himself young man is intercepted as he cycles down the road outside Kaliningrad after having served as an interpreter at a secret meeting. Apparently his notes from that meeting are suddenly in high demand, even though they are designed to be indecipherable to anyone but him. A short time later, Tatiana Petrovna, a brilliant and daring journalist, dies in a fall from her sixth floor apartment (think the real-life Anna Politkovskaya, only without guns). The official line is that Petrovna killed herself; Arkady Renko thinks not and begins to investigate at the same time as he is trying to figure out who killed billionaire mobster Grisha Grigorenko with a bullet to the head. Inexplicably, the young cyclist's notebook becomes important.  Who has it?  And was Tatiana killed for her knowledge of it?  And why does Grisha Grigorenko's son Alexi suddenly want it? In one of the most satisfying of his ever-satisfying Arkady Renko books, Smith takes his hero to Kaliningrad, the most crime-ridden and corrupt of all Russian cities, where he is pursued by a homicidal butcher, and various thugs who think he has the notebook. But in the meantime, someone very close to Arkady is deciphering its contents. One of the best of Smith's Arkady Renko series, which is high praise, indeed, Tatiana is thrilling, atmospheric, and deeply satisfying.

LW

Winger

Winger 
By Andrew Smith
Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2013. 448 pgs.

After multiple librarians and friends suggesting this book, I was able to read it over the holidays and I am so glad I did. This book is heartbreaking but refreshing in a way that can't really be explained until you read the ending.

Ryan Dean West is the main character and attends a private boarding school and is younger and scrawnier then his teammates and classmates. He is smart and talented enough to be advanced in rugby and school. He has been placed in a separate wing at school for boys that have gotten in to trouble, he struggles with trying to be cool, and he is in love with his older, best friend Annie. One of the best protagonists of any Young Adult book I have read, Ryan Dean comes off as a very insecure but hilarious teen. Then he grows a little and can hold his own as well as becomes friends with multiple characters that make for great adventures. Smith's portrayal of teen boys and their relationships was funny and touching all at once. I even learned a lot about rugby. There is some language as they are high school boys and they do fight quite a bit. The overall lesson learned though will stay with me a long time.

EW

Not a Drop to Drink

Not a Drop to Drink
By Mandy McGinnis
Katherine Tegen Books, 2013. 320 pgs. Young Adult.

I finished this in one day. It was intriguing and held my attention. Reminded me of Life as We Knew It. But it was completely original and the characters harsh in their will to survive but heart warming as they learn to survive together. There are multiple instances of sheer terror as well as conceivable situations that made me think a lot about what I had in my immediate belongings that would be precious and help me survive. 

The start is a little slow as it builds this world of loneliness as a teen girl and her mother try to survive daily and protect their pond of water. Water is the ultimate luxury and necessity as the world has been narrowed to what these characters know in a few square miles. There is a neighbor they know is around but even then don't speak to each other. Without giving anything away, there are many turns that cause Lynn to venture from her home and make the first friends she has ever known. There are men out to kill for water, rampant cholera outbreaks, and wild animals that left me feeling desperate to know what happens. And very thirsty. 

EW

The Silent Wife

The Silent Wife 
By A.S.A. Harrison
Penguin Books, 2013. 336 pgs. Mystery.

The Silent Wife  is being marketed as 2013's Gone Girl. I will say it held much of the same tense, uncomfortable interactions between a husband and wife but the characters were not as disturbing or obviously evil. Which could be a good thing if you like this type of book and Gone Girl was too much for you. This is a very quick read, and does have the mysterious development of a marriage gone bad to the line that is crossed in to just crazy.

Jodi and Todd are a couple with no children and to Jodi seem just fine. She works as a therapist part time and he has a good job and everything is comfortable. They are not legally married and this comes up later as a big plot point as Todd is having an affair and a child. The twists in this are pretty subdued and are attributed to Jodi's desperation in losing her husband and life she is used to. At times you think she wants him back, and at others, she wants to kill him. The start of the book says clearly that this book is about Jodi being a murderer and Todd the victim, but the suspense is still there as the characters weave their lies and resulting trauma into something no one can reverse.

EW

The Goldfinch

The Goldfinch
by Donna Tart
Little, Brown, 2013. 771 Pgs. Fiction


Theo Decker's semi-normal New York childhood is overturned when terrorists attack the MET. His mother is killed in the explosion, and he accidentally steals the famous Dutch painting, 'The Goldfinch'. In the following years, Theo is haunted by the death of his mother and by his choice to keep the stolen painting. Tart perfectly captures the psyche of a child with a secret: Theo worries over the morality of his decision and blames himself entirely, just as children do. Though Theo grows up and entertainingly descends into a life of drugs and crime, his childhood secret and the beauty of the painting remain at the heart of the work.

A lot has been said about the length of this work in the media, but I am of the opinion that a good story well told is worth reading whatever its length. Donna Tart is a masterful author, well able to handle multiple plots and digressions without loosing the reader's attention. She perfectly balances her work between a philosophical discussion of art and Theo's stumbling and well-intentioned attempts at crime. The philosophic hints keep the mind thinking, while Theo's activities add suspense and humor. Long-time fans of Tart will only regret that they'll likely have to wait another long decade before she publishes again.

-JM

It Happened at the Fair

It Happened at the Fair 
By Deeanne Gist
Howard Books, 2013. 432 pgs.

Cullen McNamara has invented a fire sprinkler system that is impressive enough to get him to 1893 Chicago World’s Fair to display his work and try and find an investor. Cullen is partially deaf and unable to hear in the Machinery Hall due to the noise. He finds beautiful and intelligent teacher of the Deaf amidst the chaos of the Fair and persuades her to tutor him in lip reading. Della Wentworth hesitates since she has lots of work to do and when she finally gives in it is due to his charms and persistence.

Cullen and Della have a great relationship in this book and play off each other really well. I enjoyed the descriptions of the fair and this era of new invention. The history is well researched and the parts that involved the Deaf school were portrayed as accurate at the time for teaching lip reading and talking instead of American Sign Language. The romance was just the right amount as well as the always needed suspenseful moment where the good guy actually gets what he wants in life. Gist always has an exciting love story but makes it a clean read.

EW

Let Me Off at the Top

Let Me Off at the Top!: My Classy Life and Other Musings
By Ron Burgundy
Crown Archetype, 2013. 224 pgs.

This is definitely for fans of Ron Burgundy as many of the stories are ridiculous in only a way the great anchorman can be. It is all nonsense but made me laugh multiple times since I like the humor of the movies. Just to be warned, the book is not clean all the time and it does have language.

Written as the anchorman's biography, this book takes a look at what made Ron the person he is today. Or at least the character you see in the movies. It takes you from his childhood home where coal mining was the only job you could get to his career as an award winning anchorman. It includes excerpts of his life at a high school that is completely Star Wars related and then to his first jobs and creating the news team that some people know and love.

The fun part of the biography is that it takes well known historical figures in celebrity and the news to create stories involving Ron Burgundy. The chapters run from specific incidents to his neighbor borrowing his leaf blower and not returning it. Very chaotic, but as a fan, I liked getting to know Ron Burgundy better.

EW

The Case of the Missing Servant

The Case of the Missing Servant
By Tarquin Hall
Simon & Schuster, 2009. 310 pgs. Mystery.

When Vish Puri, India's "Most Private Investigator," is hired to discover the location of the servant of a wealthy attorney, he finds he must put all his vast array of resources to the test to solve the mystery of his disappearance. The case is fraught with difficulties; will he be able to save his client from a lengthy, unpleasant prison sentence and still deal with his other cases?

What I liked most about this book was the setting: Hall does a marvelous job of bringing the reader to modern India and describing the unique conditions besetting  private investigator there. The plot was fun and the characters were very endearing. The only slightly discordant note was that the author often had the characters speak English that almost seemed a caricature of non-native-English speakers on the Indian subcontinent. When they spoke Hindi, their speech has grammatically correct again. Since I haven't been to India, I'm not sure if this is how it is, but it seemed a little strange to me. Other than that, it was a fun book and I look forward to continuing the series.

JH

Finding Colin Firth

Finding Colin Firth
By Mia March
Gallery Books, 2013. 336 pgs. Fiction.

Follow the stories of three women as they pass their summers in a small fishing village in Maine: Bea, who has just learned after the death of her mother that she was adopted and moves to Boothbay to feel out if she is ready to meet her birth mother; Veronica, who has returned to her hometown to put to rest the humiliation of her teen pregnancy and hope that her daughter will contact her; and Gemma, who has come to town to try to decide how to proceed with her overbearing husband and in-laws, her sudden layoff, and her unexpected pregnancy.

When I picked up this book, I thought it was going to be yet another Pride and Prejudice knock-off, with the Colin Firth reference in the title. I was pleasantly surprised to find that, even though the characters are anxious to try to see Colin Firth (who is rumored to be on location in town for a movie), the plot focuses on the ways in which the women overcome the difficulties in their own lives and find happiness. The writing was clean and accessible, and the author did a great job creating believable characters that you wanted to see succeed.

JH

The Other Child

The Other Child
By Charlotte Link
Pegasus Books, 2013. 410 pgs. Mystery

Charlotte Link is a bestselling author in Germany, but this is her first English novel. In a quiet English village a young college student is brutally murdered while walking home late at night. A few months later an older woman is murdered in a similar fashion. Are the two murders connected? Detective Valerie Almond tries to put together the few clues she has but everyone has secrets they’re trying to keep, including a dark link to the evacuation of children to Scarborough during WWII.

I enjoyed the book but it was a little slow to start. There were also a few subplots that left me hanging, so I didn’t feel completely satisfied in the end. That being said, I really did enjoy it and found the book interesting once I got going. It’s a pretty clean read but not perfectly squeaky. There were only a couple swearwords, and the few scenes that I thought were about to become graphic ended before it crossed the threshold. I could easily recommend this to anyone.

ACS

Almost Astronauts: 13 women who dared to dream

Almost Astronauts: 13 women who dared to dream
by Tanya Lee Stone
Candlewick Press, 2009, 133 pages, YA Nonfiction

While many have heard of the Mercury 7 (original NASA astronauts), few have heard of the Mercury 13. These were the 13 women who, during the 1960s when women could not be a police officer or rent a car, dared to believe they could become astronauts. They were unwavering in their pioneer spirit subjecting themselves to brutal physical and mental tests, lobbying NASA and the government and fighting blatant prejudice.

 This Young Adult book follows the difficult road these 13 women went down for nearly 20 years before women were to become an accepted part of NASA. The author makes sure we understand all the prejudice these women faced and just how strong these women were in their fight to make their dreams a reality. Good book for anyone interested in the history of the space program and also an encouraging book, especially for girls, on following their dreams.

mpb

An Invisible Thread

An Invisible Thread: The True Story of an 11-Year-Old Panhandler, a Busy Sales Executive, and an Unlikely Meeting with Destiny
by Laura Schroff and Alex Tresniowski
Nashville, Tenn. : Howard Books, 2011. 238 p. Nonfiction

When Laura Schroff, a harried sales executive, brushed past a young eleven-year-old panhandler on a New York City corner one rainy afternoon, something made her stop and turn back. She took the boy to lunch at the McDonald’s across the street that day. And she continued to go back, again and again for the next four years until both their lives had changed dramatically. An Invisible Thread is the heartwarming true story of a friendship that has spanned three decades and brought meaning to an over-scheduled professional and hope to a hungry and desperate boy living on the streets.

Nothing dramatic moves this story along, it is filled with the everyday events of two very different people, but the fact that they are friends is all that that this book needs to captivate readers. Schroff’s spur of the moment decision to to turn back changed her life as well as the young boy’s. It is definitely a story that gets you thinking about the small changes we can make in our lives that might end up having a huge impact.

HB

All Our Yesterdays

All Our Yesterdays
Cristin Terrill
New York : Hyperion, 2013. 360 p. Young Adult Fiction

Em must travel back in time to prevent a catastrophic time machine from ever being invented. Only she can do it, the proof is in the list she has never seen before written in her own hand. Each failed attempt of changing the past has lead to the same terrible present - imprisoned and tortured by a sadistic man while a war rages outside. In another time, Marina battles to prevent the murder of the boy she loves. Even if it means opening her eyes to a truth so terrible that she may not survive it … at least, not as the girl she once was. Marina and Em are in a race against time that only one of them can win.

Told in a split narration between Em and Marina All Our Yesterdays is a wrenching, brilliantly plotted story of fierce love, unthinkable sacrifice, and the infinite implications of our every choice. The author manages to explain time travel without confusing the reader. The plot is well-structured and complex with parallel story lines that merge as events progress and the action heats up. The characters are as mesmerizing as they are multi-dimensional and add depth to the story. A must-read in the YA genre.

HB

Rare: Portraits of America's Endangered Species

Rare: Portraits of America's Endangered Species
by Joel Sartore
National Geographic Society, 2010, unnumbered pages, Nonfiction

In true National Geographic style, the stark stunning photos are why you pick up this book. 68 portraits of American endangered spices from the Alabama Canebrake Pitcher-Plant to the Yellowfin Madtom are included. Some species are familiar like the Red Wolf and others like the Red Knot are not. Information for each entry is brief including only the scientific and common name, location of photo shoot, approximate number of species left and reason for declining numbers. Your eyes glance at the words then rivet on the photos.

I recommend this visual feast to anyone who is curious, cares or just wants to view some incredible photography of America's endangered species.

mpb

All There Is: Love Stories from StoryCorps

All There Is: Love Stories from StoryCorps
by Isay, David
New York : Penguin Press, 2012. 157 p. Nonfiction

Since 2003, StoryCorps has collected and archived more than 45,000 interviews with nearly 90,000 participants. Each story is archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. StoryCorps is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind, and millions listen to their weekly broadcasts on NPR’s Morning Edition and on storycorps.org. All there is, StoryCorps second publication, is a compilation of stories that carry us from the excitement and anticipation of courtship to the deep connection of lifelong commitment, we discover that love is found in the most unexpected of places--a New York tollbooth, a military base in Iraq, an airport lounge--and learn that the course it takes is as unpredictable as life itself.

The book is separated into 3 sections: Found, Lost, and Found At Last. Though varied in circumstances and details, these stories all have something that makes them universal and deeply touching. This powerful collection bares witness to real love, in its many varied forms. If you get a chance to listen to the audio book, I would take it. It is really neat to hear the voice of each original storyteller in turn.

HB

Crazy Rich Asians

Crazy Rich Asians
By Kevin Kwan
Doubleday, 2013. 403 pgs. Fiction.

Rachel Chu an ABC (American-born Chinese) had no clue what she was agreeing to when her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, invited her home to Singapore for the summer and to attend his best friend's wedding. They'd never really talked about money so it was a complete shock to learn that Nic was not only heir to one of the most massive fortunes in Asia but considered one of the most eligible bachelors to boot. The latter being the reason for the dislike of Rachel among the super-rich and pedigreed Sinaporean families.

What ensues over the course of the summer is a voyeuristic look into the scheming, gossiping, and backstabbing  lives of the fabulously wealthy Southeast Asian set.

Debut author, Kevin Kwan, doesn't quite pull this book off. There are certainly funny parts, and it is interesting reading about Singaporean culture (especially the food), but there are far too many characters and not much of a plot line. This book was mostly interesting to me in relation to other Asian pop-culture I have been learning about. On its own, I'm not sure I would recommend it.


AJ

Arranged

Arranged
By Catherine McKenzie
William Morrow, 2012. 390 pgs. Romance.

About to publish her first novel, Anne Blythe's life should be looking up, but when yet another relationship ends in disaster and shortly after that her best friend announces her engagement, Anne begins to second guess her ability to find a lasting relationship. So when by chance Anne comes across the card of an exclusive dating service called Blythe & Co. Anne believes it is a sign.


Anne sets up an appointment with Blythe & Co. only to discover that it is actually an exclusive, and pricey, arranged marriage service. After initially rejecting the idea she gradually warms to it and within a few months finds herself at a resort in Mexico where she is to meet her future spouse and marry him the next day.

This is a cute, beach read kind of novel. If you enjoy chick-lit like Sophie Kinsella and Hester Browne then I think you will like Catherine McKenzie.

AJ

The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in a Extrovert World

The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in a Extrovert World
By Marti Olsen Laney
Workman Publishers, 2002. 330 pgs. Nonfiction

This book was actually published before the now popular Quiet: the Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking, but I was actually unaware of it until after I read Quiet. I was concerned that the book might cover all the same ground as Quiet but decided to pick up the audiobook (which was revised for 2013) and listen in the car.

Interestingly, I found this book to actually be more self relevant than Quiet. Although, as explained in both books, there is quite a spectrum for introverts so that may not be the case for everyone.

The author, a self-proclaimed introvert herself, begins the book by dispelling commons myths about introverts. We are not all shy, anti-social loners. The book then goes on to discuss that most "Innies" have been brought up to believe there is something is wrong with them and that with enough effort and will, they can be "normal" like everyone else. Laney discusses why this view is wrong and how to turn being an introvert into an advantage by offering dozens of tips including how to deal with relationships as work and home.

Most interesting to me was the section on the scientific research into the genetic differences between introversion and extroversion. I had no idea that the reason it is so hard for me to recall words sometimes is that, as an introvert, I actually use my long-term memory where extroverts use their short-term memory.

AJ

Songs of Willow Frost

Songs of Willow Frost
By Jamie Ford
Ballantine Books, 2013. 331 pgs. Historical Fiction

William Eng is a Chinese-American boy growing up in a Seattle orphanage during the Great Depression. One day while watching a movie with the other boys from the orphanage he sees an actress and is convinced that it is his mother. He soon sets out with his friend Charlotte to try to find the movie star and discover why he was left at the orphanage. Through flashbacks to the life of Liu Song during the 1920's we start to discover the true story of heartbreak and loss.

This book dealt with many heavy subjects like incest, suicide, orphans, and prejudice but in a way that actually made me want to keep reading. Usually I would put down a book like this because I read to escape, but I couldn't stop reading this one. It is fun to once again see a historical glimpse of Seattle.

AL

Blackmoore

Blackmoore
By Julianne Donaldson
Shadow Mountain, 2013. 286 pgs. Romance

Kate Worthington has decided that she will never marry and instead would rather travel to India with her aunt. Her mother has other plans and they finally settle on a bargain where Kate can go to India if she receives and then rejects three marriage proposals. In order to do this she travels to the manor of Blackmoore where she asks for the help of her longtime childhood friend Henry Delafield. The plan seems simple in Kate's mind but things don't go as planned and she must face some hard truths about herself and those around her.

This is another great Regency romance from Julianne Donaldson. It is a little darker than her first novel, Edenbrooke, but it is still enjoyable. Kate and Henry are by far the most likable characters. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a good clean romance with some unexpected twists.

AL