Marcia Willett - The Way we Were: A Novel

85. The Way we Were: A Novel by Marcia Willett (2008)
Length: 416 pages
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Started: 1 September 2013
Finished: 4 September 2013
Where did it come from? From a Library Book Sale
How long has it been on my TBR pile? Since 22 August 2013
Why do I have it? I like contemporary fiction and Marcia Willett is a new author for me.

It was during a snowstorm in February, 1976 when Tegan - known as Tiggy to her friends - arrived at the remote house on Bodmin Moor. She had lost her partner in a tragic accident and was now alone - and pregnant. Julia, her dearest friend, welcomed her into her warm and chaotic family, and Tiggy slowly started to live again. She awaited the birth of her child, temporarily secure in the supportive love which surrounded her. 

But Tiggy's happiness was destined to be short-lived. Now, nearly thirty years later, when her son is about to become a father himself, the next generation discovers that there are secrets from the past that must be uncovered... 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I liked the characters; the story itself, and the setting as well. I give this book an A! 

A! - (90-95%)
  
Till we Meet Again, Glow Brightly as Moonlight

Judy Merrill Larsen - All the Numbers: A Novel

84. All the Numbers: A Novel by Judy Merrill Larsen (2006)
Length: 269 pages
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Started: 31 August 2013
Finished: 1 September 2013
Where did it come from? From a Library Book Sale
How long has it been on my TBR pile? Since 22 August 2013
Why do I have it? I like contemporary fiction and Judy Merrill Larsen is a new author for me.

As a child, Ellen Banks' son Daniel would ask his mother, "How much do you love me?" Ellen would always answer, "I love you all the numbers."

What begins as a beautifully sunny August afternoon on a bucolic lake, suddenly turns tragic when a Jet Ski swerves fatally close to the shore. It's a day Ellen Banks could never have prepared for, a day no mother should ever have to face.

From the moment her son James is killed, Ellen is thrown into a maelstrom of sadness and grief. She now must face the unimaginable prospect of living in a family that has been forever altered while somehow continuing to stay strong for her older son, Daniel. Daniel, who witnessed the fateful accident and blames himself for his younger brother's death.

Ellen's shock and grief soon give way to anger and defiance as lawyers and policemen who once vowed to support her quest for justice succumb to political pressure and back away. Still, Ellen is determined to see the reckless young man pay for his crime and to heal her family's deep wounds. But first she must heal herself.

This was quite a book. Touching and very poignant, the story was an extremely powerful one for me to read. While All the Numbers: A Novel was certainly sad, I enjoyed the book immensely and am eagerly awaiting Judy Merrill Larsen's next book with baited breath. I give this book a blazing A+! 

A+! - (96-100%)

Till we Meet Again, Glow Brightly as Moonlight

Reading Wrap-up For August at Moonshine and Rosefire

Hello everyone out there and I hope that you all had a terrific reading month for yourselves. I am known as Rosefire around the Internet and this is my new personal reading blog. I originally posted my reviews over at my daughter's blog, Emeraldfire's Bookmark but am now in the process of transferring them all over to my own blog. My daughter makes blogging look like so much fun that I thought that I would try it out for myself! :)

Anyway, I started out August with 709 unread books lying around the house and ended the month with 698 books unread. All the books that I acquired this month came from Amazon, Feed Books, Bookmooch, Netgalley, Mareena also lent me a book of hers, and an author sent me his book to review. Mareena and I also went to a Library Book Sale on the 22nd to celebrate my birthday.

Let me try to break down the influx for you:

Changes to the TBR pile

Read from my TBR pile (Yes! I am a reading machine :))
- Bloodroot by Amy Greene 
- Mindbend by Robin Cook
- A Ship Made of Paper: A Novel by Scott Spencer
- The Red Scream: A Novel of Suspense by Mary Willis Walker 
- Deviltry Afoot by Carol Pritt 
- A Patchwork Planet: A Novel by Anne Tyler
- Brood X: A Firsthand Account of the Great Cicada Invasion by Michael Phillip Cash
- The Sky is Falling: A Novel by Sidney Sheldon
- Sweetwater Creek by Anne Rivers Siddons
- Exceptional Acrostics to Keep You Sharp by Charles Preston
- From a Buick 8: A Novel by Stephen King

Added to my TBR pile (oh well, you win some and you lose some! Not too bad though, I suppose:))
- The Right Wrong Number: A Short Story by Barbara Delinsky
- Every Word: Crossings by Amazon Digital Services
- The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
- The Grey Woman and Other Tales by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
- Curious, if True: Strange Tales by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
- Lady Audley's Secret by M. E. Braddon
- The Thing From the Lake by Eleanor M. Ingram
- The Thames Valley Catastrophe by Grant Allen
- The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
- Bleak House by Charles Dickens
- The Haunted House by Charles Dickens
- The Jewel of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker
- The Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker
- Ice Trap: A Novel of Psychological Suspense by Kitty Sewell
- Horn Pattern by Gretta Hines
- The 228 Legacy by Jennifer J. Chow
- Pray For us Sinners by Peter S. Fischer
- The Paradise Trees by Linda Huber
- Poor Little Dead Girls by Lizzie Friend
- The Back Road by Rachel Abbott
- Preservation Hall by Scott Spencer
- The Rich Man's Table by Scott Spencer
- The Bookstore by Deborah Meyler
- Bound by Blood and Brimstone by D. L. Dunaway 
- Two Sides of a Heartbeat by DeLaine Roberts
- Blue Ribbon Kappa Sudoku Puzzles Magazine: October 2013 by Kappa Press  
- All the Numbers: A Novel by Judy Merrill Larsen
- Black Cross by Greg Isles
- Brooklyn: A Novel by Colm Toibin
- Distant Echoes by Colleen Coble
- Don't Tell by Karen Rose
- Friend of the Devil by Peter Robinson
- The Geometry of Sisters by Luanne Rice
- The Hiding Place by David Bell
- House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
- In the Kitchen: A Novel by Monica Ali
- The Loop by Nicholas Evans
- Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane
- A New Song by Jan Karon
- One Simple Act: Discovering the Power of Generosity by Debbie Macomber
- Rescue: A Novel by Anita Shreve
- Sandcastles by Luanne Rice
- The Sea by John Banville
- The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
- The Summer I Dared: A Novel by Barbara Delinsky
- The Way we Were: A Novel by Marcia Willett
- The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
- Willing by Scott Spencer

Taken off my TBR pile and sent to a new home (Yay! Happy Dance! :))
- Shock Talk: The Exorcist Files by Bob Larson
- Bloodprint: A Novel of Psychological Suspense by Kitty Sewell
- Nightshade by John Saul
- Mindbend by Robin Cook
- Kitchen Candlecrafting by Ruth Monroe
- Bloodroot by Amy Greene
- Coroner at Large by Thomas T. Noguchi, M. D. and Joseph DiMona
- North From Rome by Helen MacInnes
- Island Murders by Wanda Canada
- Mystery of Hunting's End by Mignon G. Eberhart
- Brood X: A Firsthand Account of the Great Cicada Invasion by Michael Phillip Cash
- The Eighth Day by Brooke Leimas
- Exceptional Acrostics to Keep You Sharp by Charles Preston

Well, there it is...the breakdown! All in all, a very good reading month for me. Here's a further breakdown:

Books Read: 11
Pages Read: 3,265
Grade Range: A+! to B+!

So, there you go! The reading month that was August. I hope that you all had an equally good reading month; if not a little better. :) See you all next month! :)

Till we Meet Again, Glow Brightly as Moonlight

Reading Wrap-up For August at Moonshine and Rosefire

Hello everyone out there and I hope that you all had a terrific reading month for yourselves. I am known as Rosefire around the Internet and this is my new personal reading blog. I originally posted my reviews over at my daughter's blog, Emeraldfire's Bookmark but am now in the process of transferring them all over to my own blog. My daughter makes blogging look like so much fun that I thought that I would try it out for myself! :)

Anyway, I started out August with 734 unread books lying around the house and ended the month with 723 books unread. All the books that I acquired this month came from Amazon, Feed Books, Bookmooch, Netgalley, Mareena also lent me a book of hers, and an author sent me his book to review. Mareena and I also went to a Library Book Sale on the 22nd to celebrate my birthday.

Let me try to break down the influx for you:

Changes to the TBR pile

Read from my TBR pile (Yes! I am a reading machine :))
- Bloodroot by Amy Greene 
- Mindbend by Robin Cook
- A Ship Made of Paper: A Novel by Scott Spencer
- The Red Scream: A Novel of Suspense by Mary Willis Walker 
- Deviltry Afoot by Carol Pritt 
- A Patchwork Planet: A Novel by Anne Tyler
- Brood X: A Firsthand Account of the Great Cicada Invasion by Michael Phillip Cash
- The Sky is Falling: A Novel by Sidney Sheldon
- Sweetwater Creek by Anne Rivers Siddons
- Exceptional Acrostics to Keep You Sharp by Charles Preston
- From a Buick 8: A Novel by Stephen King

Added to my TBR pile (oh well, you win some and you lose some! Not too bad though, I suppose:))
- The Right Wrong Number: A Short Story by Barbara Delinsky
- Every Word: Crossings by Amazon Digital Services
- The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
- The Grey Woman and Other Tales by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
- Curious, if True: Strange Tales by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
- Lady Audley's Secret by M. E. Braddon
- The Thing From the Lake by Eleanor M. Ingram
- The Thames Valley Catastrophe by Grant Allen
- The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
- Bleak House by Charles Dickens
- The Haunted House by Charles Dickens
- The Jewel of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker
- The Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker
- Ice Trap: A Novel of Psychological Suspense by Kitty Sewell
- Horn Pattern by Gretta Hines
- The 228 Legacy by Jennifer J. Chow
- Pray For us Sinners by Peter S. Fischer
- The Paradise Trees by Linda Huber
- Poor Little Dead Girls by Lizzie Friend
- The Back Road by Rachel Abbott
- Preservation Hall by Scott Spencer
- The Rich Man's Table by Scott Spencer
- The Back Road by Rachel Abbott
- The Bookstore by Deborah Meyler
- Bound by Blood and Brimstone by D. L. Dunaway 
- Two Sides of a Heartbeat by DeLaine Roberts
- Blue Ribbon Kappa Sudoku Puzzles Magazine: October 2013 by Kappa Press  
- All the Numbers: A Novel by Judy Merrill Larsen
- Black Cross by Greg Isles
- Brooklyn: A Novel by Colm Toibin
- Distant Echoes by Colleen Coble
- Don't Tell by Karen Rose
- Friend of the Devil by Peter Robinson
- The Geometry of Sisters by Luanne Rice
- The Hiding Place by David Bell
- House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
- In the Kitchen: A Novel by Monica Ali
- The Loop by Nicholas Evans
- Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane
- A New Song by Jan Karon
- One Simple Act: Discovering the Power of Generosity by Debbie Macomber
- Rescue: A Novel by Anita Shreve
- Sandcastles by Luanne Rice
- The Sea by John Banville
- The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
- The Summer I Dared by Barbara Delinsky
- The Way we Were: A Novel by Marcia Willett
- The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
- Willing by Scott Spencer

Taken off my TBR pile and sent to a new home (Yay! Happy Dance! :))
- Shock Talk: The Exorcist Files by Bob Larson
- Bloodprint: A Novel of Psychological Suspense by Kitty Sewell
- Nightshade by John Saul
- Mindbend by Robin Cook
- Kitchen Candlecrafting by Ruth Monroe
- Bloodroot by Amy Greene
- Coroner at Large by Thomas T. Noguchi, M. D. and Joseph DiMona
- North From Rome by Helen MacInnes
- Island Murders by Wanda Canada
- Mystery of Hunting's End by Mignon G. Eberhart
- Brood X: A Firsthand Account of the Great Cicada Invasion by Michael Phillip Cash
- The Eighth Day by Brooke Leimas
- Exceptional Acrostics to Keep You Sharp by Charles Preston

Well, there it is...the breakdown! All in all, a very good reading month for me. Here's a further breakdown:

Books Read: 11
Pages Read: 3,265
Grade Range: A+! to B+!

So, there you go! The reading month that was August. I hope that you all had an equally good reading month; if not a little better. :) See you all next month! :)

Till we Meet Again, Glow Brightly as Moonlight

August's Book of the Month

Hello Everyone! I chose the picture posted above because it reminds me of reading to my daughter Mareena when she was little. Every afternoon until she was about eight or nine years old, we would take one of her books that she wanted to read or that she was reading and we would curl up together on my big bed. 

We would spend an hour or so reading a chapter of her book, and then take a nap together. Her absolutely favorite author at that time was an English author named Enid Blyton. Ahh, nice memories...

My picks for 'Books of the Month' will be decidedly more adult these days, but they will be from almost any genre. August's Book of the Month is: 

Bloodroot by Amy Greene

Published as: Bloodroot in January 2010

Publisher: Vintage

Birth Name: Amy Greene

Born: 2 October 1975 in Morristown, Tennessee

Canonical Name: Amy Greene

Pseudonyms: None

Bloodroot by Amy Greene was the seventy-third book that I read in 2013. I have had this book on my TBR shelf since June 1, 2013 and it took me four days to read. I sent this book off to another good home on August 14, 2013.

Till we Meet Again, Glow Brightly as Moonlight

Stephen King - From a Buick 8: A Novel

83. From a Buick 8: A Novel by Stephen King (2002)
Length: 356 pages
Genre: Horror
Started: 28 August 2013
Finished: 30 August 2013
Where did it come from? From a Library Book Sale
How long has it been on my TBR pile? Since 22 August 2013
Why do I have it? I like horror and have read and enjoyed several books by this author in the past.

The officers of the Troop D state police in rural Pennsylvania have kept a secret since 1979. Since then, stowed out behind the police barracks in Shed B, has been a classic car - a Buick Roadmaster. In 1979, Troopers Ennis Rafferty and Curtis Wilcox answered a call from a gas station just down the road and came back with the abandoned Buick. Curt Wilcox knew old cars, and he knew immediately that this car was...wrong, just wrong. A few hours later, when Trooper Rafferty vanished without a trace, Curt and his fellow troopers knew the old Buick Roadmaster was worse than dangerous - and that it would be better if John Q. Public never found out about it.

With Curt's avid curiosity taking the lead, they investigated Trooper Rafferty's disappearance as best they could, as much as they dared. Over the years, the troop eventually absorbed the mystery as part of the background to their work; the Buick 8 sitting out there like a still life painting that breathes - inhaling a little bit of this world, exhaling a little bit of whatever world it came from. In the fall of 2001, some time after Curt Wilcox is killed in a gruesome auto accident, his 18 year-old son Ned starts coming by the barracks. Ned does various odd jobs around the barracks - mowing the lawn, washing windows, shoveling snow.

Sergeant Commanding, Sandy Dearborn, knows it's just the boy's way of holding onto his father, and Ned is allowed to become a part of the Troop D family. One day, Ned happens to look through the window of Shed B and discovers the family secret. Like his father, Ned wants answers, and the secret begins to stir; not only in the minds and hearts of the veteran troopers who surround him, but in Shed B as well...

I must say that I enjoyed this book much more than I thought I would. It was very exciting and my goodness, what an imagination Stephen King has. I've said before that I'm always a little wary of reading Stephen King's longer novels - the plots of many of his books start off brilliantly, and then they seem to go off the rails slightly, at least in my opinion. Anyway, while I found that some passages in From a Buick 8: A Novel were slightly verbose, overall, the book managed to capture my attention and successfully hold it until the end. I give this book an A!

A! - (90-95%)

Till we Meet Again, Glow Brightly as Moonlight

Charles Preston - Exceptional Acrostics to Keep You Sharp

82. Exceptional Acrostics to Keep You Sharp by Charles Preston (2008)
Length: 64 pages
Genre: Non-Fiction
Started: 25 January 2012
Finished: 29 August 2013
Where did it come from? From Barnes and Noble 
How long has it been on my TBR pile? Since 25 December 2011
Why do I have it? My friend Pamela knows how much I enjoy crossword puzzles and other types of mind-sharpening games, so she gave this book to me for Christmas of 2011.

I have an immense collection of mind puzzle books - from brain-teasers to sudoku, and everything else in between. From time to time, in between actually reading books as well, I'll pick up one of these mind puzzle books and try my hand at one or two of the puzzles. I have so many puzzle books stashed away, that I have no idea how many I actually have. 

Hence, I can have a particular puzzle book for years and still not finish it until several years after I receive it. So far though, these mind puzzles seem to be working excellently for me - I think...Maybe! :) I give this mind puzzle book an A+! 

A+! - (96-100%)
     
Till we Meet Again, Glow Brightly as Moonlight