Away Message: At the beach! Will be back next week.

Posted on February 15, 2019 by bseat

Reading many books on my vacation which I will share on my blog when I return. Meanwhile, you can enjoy this picture of the beach where we are staying!

Wish you were here!

Brenda’s Rating: ******(6 Out of 5 Stars)

Recommend this for Everyone!

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The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton

Posted on February 8, 2019 by bseat

An abandoned house with a history, a picture of a woman without a name, a famous mother whose daughter never knew her and a famous artist who never recovered after his muse disappeared. Seemingly unrelated and spanning more that 150 years, these disparate events and circumstances become the basis for an evocative and suspenseful story of love lost and eventually found.

Elodie Winslow is an archivist working in London, when she unexpectedly finds a leather satchel in a box of recently acquired material. The leather satchel contains a photograph of an an enigmatic woman posed in a garden and a sketchbook with a drawing of a gabled house on a river. The drawing resonates with Elodie even though she doesn’t think she has ever been there. The photograph was taken in the mid 1800’s but the woman in it is unknown. Suddenly, Elodie is eager to solve these mysteries, pursuing one lead after another while abandoning the wedding preparations she is supposed to be doing to her mother in law. As the mystery begins to unfold, Elodie realizes that the connections between the house, the woman and Elodie herself are much closer and more complicated than she could ever imagine.

Morton excels at writing these genre defying books! Not quite romance, not quite Gothic, not quite mystery, but always with a little “creepy” thrown in, they are enormously satisfying to read.  If you haven’t read one yet, you should do so at your next opportunity! Here are some links (The Lake House, The Secret Keeper) to some others you might enjoy as well!

Brenda’s Rating: ****(4 Out of 5 Stars)

Recommend this book to Lauren, Marian and Sharon

Book Study Worthy? Sure!

Read in ebook format.

Posted in Fiction, Historical Fiction, Psychological Mystery, Romance, Suspense | Leave a comment

The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar

Posted on February 1, 2019 by bseat
In this beautifully written novel about two women whose lives are intimately entangled: one a wealthy woman of high caste who lives a life of privilege and the other her servant, an elderly woman of low caste who lives in the slums with her granddaughter, we see how they have transcended their race and culture to form a unique and enduring bond that has helped both of them weather tragedies and challenges together. But now there is a new challenge that threatens this bond and they each must face a difficult and heartbreaking choice.
            
Bhima, must rise early every morning to get water. If she does not get there early enough she must wait her turn in the long line and that makes her late for work. Until recently her granddaughter, Maya, who she raised after the tragic death of her parents, does this. But Maya is unmarried and pregnant and if any of the neighbors find out they will become the brunt of gossip and harassment, so Maya stays at home. Bhima who loves Maya with great ferocity and on whom she had placed so many hopes and dreams, is beside herself with anger and fear now that her granddaughter has crushed those dreams with her selfish and wanton behavior. 
Eventually, Bhima knows she must tell her employer, Sera but she hasn’t been able to find the words. For Sera has helped Bhima and Maya by giving Maya the funds to go to college, but now that Maya is pregnant all that is lost. It is this waste that overwhelms Bhima and prevents her from telling Sera what has happened.
Meanwhile, Sera is unaware of the chaos that has over taken the life of her servant. Instead Sera is experiencing a sense of  freedom and joy that she has not experienced since childhood. Soon after marrying her husband she realized that she had made a grave mistake. It was Bhima who helped her through those difficult and trying years and gave her a way to endure and persevere. Now her husband has passed away and her mother in law is ill and incapacitated. Her daughter is married to a nice young man and they are expecting their first child. They all live together in Sera’s large home, and for Sera the home that seemed so often like a prison is now filled with love and happiness.
But soon Sera and Bhima will face a truth that will shake their bonds of friendship and love to the very core and they will have to make choices that will jeopardize not only their relationship but also their belief in themselves.
Written eloquently with well drawn and engaging characters Umrigar has portrayed the deep and complicated ties that bind women to each other. Her descriptions of life in Bombay are both powerful and evocative making you almost feel like you can smell the  stench of sewage in the slums, the spices in the market,and the food they are preparing. This is a book to enjoy and savor and even better there is a second book that follows these same characters, The Secrets Between Us!   
Brenda”s Rating: *****(5 out of 5 Stars)
Recommend this book to: Sharon, Marian, Lauren and Keith
Books Study worthy? YES! Maybe with some Indian take out?)
Read in ebook format          
      
                   
Posted in Fiction, Prize Winner, Romance | Leave a comment

His Bloody Project: Documents Relating to the Case of Roderick Macrae by Graeme MaCrae Burnet

Posted on January 25, 2019 by bseat

In 1869, in a remote village in Scotland, three people are brutally murdered. Seventeen year old Roderick Macrae is arrested for the brutal murders. This would be an interesting start to any historical novel, but Brunet makes the unique choice of telling this story as if the reader is leafing through the documents in the case file. Through witness statements, interviews, court documents, the coroner’s report and even a statement by Roderick Macrae himself, we see the story unfold.

The central question of course is why did he do it, since from the beginning there is little doubt that he did. In fact he confesses to the killings, but the question of why is much more complicated.  There seem to be conflicting opinions amongst the villagers about Roderick. The village vicar, a stern and morose man, insists that Roderick was wicked and unrepentant, but others recall him as being a gentle soul who became more  introspective especially after his mother died. As we move on into the case file we find Roderick Macrae’s memoirs in which he writes about the events that lead up to the killing. In prose that is affectless but nonetheless eloquent, Roderick describes the death of his mother, his complicated relationship with his abusive father, and his love for his sister, and the family’ financial struggles and conflict with one of the deceased. Interspersed between Roderick’s statement are medical reports and even a couple rudimentary psychological evaluations and then finally the trial record. But instead of adding to our understanding of what happened and why, the records create more uncertainty as to Roderick’s motives and raise disturbing questions about his sanity at the time of the murders.

Brunet has created a unique and fascinating story here, just by letting the the documents speak for themselves. The story is both engrossing and troubling and even though we know Roderick did it we keep rooting for a better outcome. This book was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize in 2016 and named as Best Book of 2016 by NPR, Newsweek, The Guardian and others and its recognition is well deserved. Although the format is creative, in less masterful hands the story could have become as dry and lifeless as police reports and case files tend to be. But Brunet manages to breathe life into his story and characters, keeps us hooked until the very end. I think we can expect more great books from this author!

Brenda’s Rating: *****(5 out of 5 Stars)

Recommend this book to? Sharon, Marian and Keith

Book Study Worthy:YES!

Read in ebook `format.

Posted in Fiction, Historical Fiction, Legal Procedural, Mystery, Prize Winner, Psychological Mystery, Suspense, Thriller | 2 Comments

The Witch Elm by Tana French

Posted on January 18, 2019 by bseat

Tana French has become one of my favorite authors. Her Dublin Murder Squad series (The Trespasser, Broken Harbor etc.) have all been some of the best books I have read. “Unputdownable”  as one reviewer has said, testifying to the way French has mastered the art of suspense. But this new book stands alone, both because it is not a part of a series, but also because she has taken the crime novel genre to a new and different level.

Toby is one of those people who has lived a “golden” life. Smart, good looking, well off, lucky in life and love. He is the kind of person you would love to hate, except he is so friendly and charming it is almost impossible to hate him.  But suddenly, Toby’s world betrayed him.  One night after coming home a little inebriated from celebrating with some friends, Toby interrupts two burglars in his flat. They beat him and leave him for dead.

Toby lives, but suffers extensive injuries and begins to realize, to his horror, that he may never be the same person he was before the beating.  The police investigate the robbery and the assault but there are few clues and Toby’s memory of the event is fuzzy at best. Trying to find a place to recover and get his life back together, Toby moves into the ancestral home with his Uncle Hugo who is dying of cancer. The old home and gardens have always been a source of solace to Toby and there he finally feels that he can recover. But when a skull is found in the hollow of the large elm tree in the garden, suddenly even that place of refuge becomes a place of conflict and distrust.  As Toby cooperates with the police investigation he begins to see that the memories of his youth are not only far from complete but that his past may not have been what he always believed.

French takes the idea of an unreliable narrator and goes one step further to explore the idea that our memories are often flawed, and incomplete. Toby struggles on two levels, with a memory that seems unreliable from the beating, but also with a memory of the events of his youth that seem undependable and inconsistent. When he is implicated by evidence found in the tree, suddenly Toby begins to question everything.

French has captured the slow burning horror of someone who begins to doubt everything about themselves. She slowly lets us see through conversations with the police, his uncle, his parents and his friends how differently he experienced those past events as compared to how they experienced them and like Toby, you too, begin to wonder how much you can rely on what Toby remembers.  Her ability to keep the suspense building in multiple ways, makes this one of those books you cannot put down. So beware!

Brenda’s Rating *****(5 out of 5 Stars)

Recommend this book to: Marian, Sharon and Keith

Book Study Worthy: Yes!

Read in ebook format.

Posted in Fiction, Mystery, Suspense | Leave a comment

Artemis by Andy Weir

Posted on January 11, 2019 by bseat

The Martian was one of my favorite books in 2015, so when I saw Andy Weir had written a new book called Artemis, I was intrigued and a bit uncertain whether it could possibly measure up to his first book. I should not have been worried. Weir has written another suspenseful, edge of your seat thriller set in space, this time with a bad ass heroine who despite the big chip on her shoulder and her jaded world view, is a heroine worth rooting for!

Artemis is humanity’s first and only lunar colony. Jasmine Bashara grew up in the colony and is now looking for a way to make some money to repay a debt. In addition to her regular job as a porter, Jazz also does a bit of free lance smuggling, so when one of her uber rich clients offers her a lot of money to do a small bit of industrial sabotage, she jumps at the chance. The job requires a unique set of skills including, technical savvy, detailed knowledge of the security which protects the lunar colony, a few carefully placed explosions and a devious and cunning mind all of which Jazz has in spades; making it easy for her to take the leap from small time smuggler to criminal mastermind.

Little does she know however, that her little bit of industrial sabotage is the opening salvo of a war between rival factions trying to take control of Artemis itself. Trapped between the rival factions, pursed by an assassin as well as the security forces of Artemis, Jazz must think of a way to not only save herself, but the colony of Artemis as well.

This was a fun read although at some points the technical details seemed to over power the narration. Despite that, I really enjoyed getting to know this snarky swaggering, Jazz who underneath all her bravado has a heart of gold.

Brenda’s Rating: ***1/2 (3 1/2 out of 5 Stars)

Recommend this book to: Sharon, Marian and Ken

Book Study Worthy? Sure why not!

Read in ebook format.

 

 

Posted in Fiction, Science Fiction, Suspense, Thriller | Leave a comment

Dark Sacred Night by Michael Connelly

Posted on January 4, 2019 by bseat

I thought I would start out the New Year right with a review on a book by one of my favorite authors-Michael Connelly!

There is something about his Bosch series that hits all the right notes of mystery, suspense, police procedural and finding justice that are so satisfying and Connelly is able to do it, time after time, without it getting stale or relying on the usual tropes of the genre.  Additionally, in each book we get to know Bosch and the other characters’ complicated inner landscapes more deeply, making the whole package very satisfying. In Dark Sacred Nights, a relatively new character, Renee’ Ballard, an LAPD detective demoted to the night shift at Hollywood Station, teams up with Bosch to solve a brutal murder.

Renee’ Ballard first meets Bosch rifling through the case files at Hollywood Station when she returns late one night at the end of her shift. After warning him that he is not authorized to be in the file room and asking him to leave, she takes a look at the file he was reading and is intrigued. It is an unsolved murder of a runaway 15 year old girl named Daisy Clayton. Her brutalized body was found in a dumpster, treated in death as if she mattered to no one. Something about the case pulls at Ballard and she contacts Bosch and her superiors and makes arrangements to work on the case when she has time or during her off hours in order to bring the killer to justice.

As they begin working the case Ballard and Bosch form a wary working relationship. Ballard doesn’t appreciate Bosch’s willingness to stretch the limits of the rules, and Bosch is resentful of Ballard’s trust that the rules and system are meaningful and should be followed. As they begin getting closer and closer to solving the case, Ballard and Bosch’s trust in each other and in the system itself will be severely tested as the killer leads them into a dangerous cat and mouse game.

I have yet to be disappointed by one of Connelly’s books and this was no exception. If you have not yet started watching the Bosch series on Amazon you are missing a great TV experience! Enjoy!

Brenda’s Rating: *****(5 out of 5 Stars)

Recommend this Book to: Sharon and Marian

Book Study Worthy? Yes, with other Bosh fans!

Read in ebook format.

 

Posted in Detective novel, Fiction, Legal Procedural, Mystery, Series, Suspense, Thriller | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Best Books from 2018-A Year End Wrap Up

Posted on December 28, 2018 by bseat

This has been a strange year, in many ways and it has affected my reading patterns profoundly. Although I have been reading voraciously, I have been reading way more newspapers and journals like the Atlantic or The Economist trying to keep up with the crazy, chaotic news cycles. This has distracted me from the books I usually read, so my count for this year is only 61, but I have made those books count!

In first place for this years best books are two books that I have found both profound and moving. The first is Warlight by Michael Ondaajte which is story about a man investigating his strange and rather traumatic childhood during WWII  and finding that his memory is less than reliable and the facts more troubling than he anticipated. Although the story line is intriguing and interesting it is Ondaajte’s lyrical writing that is compelling. This is a book to savor and enjoy.

The second, The Power  by Naomi Alderman, comes in as a close second with its intriguing feminist message in this Year of the Woman. This story about women who evolve a strange power, making them more powerful than men, imagines how profoundly that would change society and women themselves. Her exploration of this shift in power dynamics is both prescient and cautionary.

Two other books that I really enjoyed were News of the World and Exit West, both of which talk about that profound sense of loss you experience when you are uprooted from all you know.  In News of the World by Paulette Jiles, which is set in the post Civil War West, we follow the plight of a young girl who was taken by the Indians several years earlier and has now been “rescued” and must be returned to her relatives who live in south Texas.  A former soldier and now an itinerant news reader takes on the task of taking her back to her relatives. Their adventures and the unique bond which they form is the focus of the this wonderfully evocative story.

Exit West by Moshin Hamid explores what it means to leave your home, culture, religion and country. Set in a nameless country in the Mid-East where the government is slowly dissolving into chaos, two young people decide they must leave, but they must leave their families and all they know behind. The story follows these two and we see how they either flourish in the new and different world they move to, or search for the known comfort of what they have left behind.

Finally two fun books that I thoroughly enjoyed! The first is Hope Never Dies by Andrew Shafer, which is about Vice-President Joe Biden and former President Barak Obama who join together to solve a case involving a mysterious death on the Amtrak train line just outside of Wilmington, Delaware. This was one of those books where I kept giggling out loud and bugging my long suffering husband by reading excerpts that I thought were particularly funny.

The second is the Crazy Rich Asian trilogy by Kevin Kwan, which is a must read for many different reasons. First the descriptions of all the mouth watering food, then its delicious, snarky, gossipy writing style, and most importantly the wonderful complicated characters who seem to arrive fully formed onto the page. This was a wonderful, luscious surprise. Just a note of caution: you will crave Asian food while reading these books!

I hope you enjoy these and many other great books in this new year of 2019!

 

Posted in End of Year Summary | Leave a comment

A Christmas Testament, Arranged and Introduced by Phillip Kopper

Posted on December 21, 2018 by bseat

As you have probably realized by now, I have a collection of Christmas books that I bring out every year during this season. To me they are just as important to me as the the tree,  decorations and music which makes our home feel like the holidays.

One of the books I enjoy each year is A Christmas Testament. It features biblical readings beginning with the Creation, the story of Abraham, Isaiah’s prophecies, and the birth of Jesus, written in gorgeous calligraphy and illustrated with works of art, creating a true feast for the eyes and soul. The eighty illustrations featuring paintings by Leonardo Da Vinci, Lucas Cranach  the Elder, Tommaso Masaccio, Fra Angelico and others, as well as close up of intricate stained glass, tapestries and carvings from various medieval churches were all chosen with great care and attention to their role in supporting the narrative. The high quality of the printing and care for composition used in creating the book are also quite evident, making it almost a work of art in and of itself. This is one book that I am sure you will treasure year after year, as I have.

I wish all of you a very special Christmas!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Outsider by Stephen King

Posted on December 14, 2018 by bseat

Stephen King is both prolific and eclectic. From 11/22/63 which explores the assassination of John F. Kennedy to some of his classic horror stories like The Shining to the The Dark Tower series which is set in a post apocalyptic world, King shifts from genre to genre with ease, but at their core his books always explore the dark side of humanity and reveals the evil that stalks our very dreams. In The Outsider, King takes on the classic police investigation genre but gives us something much more complicated, making us question the very nature of evidence in finding guilt and the insidiousness of evil.

Detective Ralph Anderson was sure they had their man. The horrific murder of a ten year old boy whose violated body was found in the town park had galvanized the small police force of Flint City. Fingerprints and eye witnesses all pointed to one person -Terry Maitland, Little League Coach and English teacher and one of the most beloved citizens in the town. But Anderson was sure, or at least pretty sure it was Maitland and so in dramatic fashion they arrested Maitland in front of a crowd of onlookers during the last game of the season. And then things started to fall a part. Maitland had an alibi and as the counter evidence begins to come in, Anderson begins to question everything about the case. Enlisting the help of an out of town investigator, Holly Gibney, who uncovers even more disturbing evidence and crimes related to the Maitland case, Anderson begins to look for answers beyond what his rational mind can comprehend.

As always, King explores the nature of evil, the way it corrupts, the power it can have over us, and the ways we can overcome it in nuanced and revealing ways. It is an amazing experience as a reader to be held in the palm of such a masterful storyteller!

Brenda’s Rating *****(5 Out of 5 Stars)

Recommend this book to: Ken, Keith, Sharon and Marian.

Book Study Worthy? Yes!

Read in ebook format.

 

Posted in Detective novel, Existential Sc-Fi Thriller, Horror, Mystery, Psychological Mystery, Science Fiction, Spiritual, Suspense, Thriller | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment