I am really enjoying the sudden plethora of books with main characters who are of a certain age. By “of a certain age,” I mean characters who are in their late 50’s or older. It seems like a natural evolution since the Baby Boomers, who now have more time on their hands, are more than likely interested in books that have characters that are the same age as themselves.
Anderson has certainly latched on to this phenomenon and has created a highly interesting character named Edna Fisher who is in her 80’s. This book which is part fantasy (there are dragons) and part hero quest ( she is on a mission to stop the destruction of her world) is truly remarkable just as the name suggests!
Edna is living in a retirement home where she knits and watches “I Love Lucy” reruns with her roommate who is slowly sinking into dementia. The one bright spot is Benjamin, an orderly at the home, who is kind and takes an interest in her. Suddenly, however, she is contacted by a representative of the Council of Wizards and is told that she is ‘The Chosen One,’ selected to fight the dragon ridding sorcerer who is trying to destroy the Knights who are the defenders of the land. No one is more surprised than Edna that she has been chosen. Usually a teenager is chosen, someone like Clementine, who tries very hard to steal the magical sword Edna was given in order to complete her task. But Edna is not magical, hasn’t used used anything much sharper than a knitting needle in a long time. Besides she needs a walker if she is going to travel any great distance. But she is not one to shirk responsibility, especially if she can help the Knights, who meant so much to her son who died in their service. Besides, Edna tells herself, you are never to old for an adventure!
The plot is quite twisty, and there are betrayals, and magic that goes awry but it is always the steadfast practical wisdom that Edna offers that keeps the band which includes Ben and Clem, on task. This is a lovely book and it ends in a way that implies that more adventures with Edna Fisher are in our future!
Brenda’s Rating:**** (4 Out of 5 Stars)
Recommend this book to: Sharon, Lauren and Marian
Book Study Worthy? Yes
Read in e-library format.
Set in Shanghai in 1938, just after Kristallnacht, a huge influx of European Jews have arrived there after finding all other countries have closed their doors to them. At the time Shanghai was a politically ambiguous location-although technically Chinese territory, the city was a self-governing Western trading enclave. However, the Japanese had just increased their presence making Shanghai a hotbed of intrigue, conspiracies and political machinations.
In a camp in the Adirondacks, a counselor wakes up to find one of her campers missing. The missing child, Barbara Van Larr, is not just any child, but rather the daughter of the wealthy family who owns the camp and employs most of the people in the area. Additionally, fourteen years earlier in 1961, another child had also gone missing-Barbara’s older brother, affectionately known as Bear- and was never found.
Sometime in the future, a British civil servant is offered a dream salary to work on a special project. Once she is hired she finds out that a special government ministry is testing the feasibility of time travel. As part of that program they are gathering various “expats” from different times and she and a few others have been hired to be “bridges” to help orient, supervise, and assist these individuals in acclimating to their new time.
A bomb goes off in a mall in Los Angeles killing dozens of people including the bomber- a young Arab woman. A few days later Sajid Khan is arrested at his place of work in London. He is interrogated and beaten as the officers try to extract information from him about his 18 year old daughter Aliyah. This is how he finds out that is precious daughter is not in Japan teaching English but rather seems to be a part of the terrorist group that bombed the mall in Los Angeles.
Alexandra Boyd has traveled to Sofia, Bulgaria to be an English teacher. That is the stated reason for her moving to another country but the real reason is that after her beloved brother died, she just needed to get away from all the memories- to get some distance so she could heal. But less than 24 hours after she arrives, she finds that after helping an elderly couple into their taxi, she inadvertently kept one of their bags. Hoping to find some clue as to who the elderly couple is or where they are going, she opens the bag and finds an ornately carved box with the name Stoyan Lazarov, and containing what appears to be human ashes.
A retired spy must figure out who is coming after her after finding a dead body in her driveway. So much fun to read!
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Amanda Cole was not expecting a defector walk into the Embassy right in the middle of her busy day, but when the security detail called and said a Russian man was asking for her and wanted to defect, she cleared her schedule to listen to what he had to say. What she heard was terrifying. The man warned her that there was a plot to assassinate a US Senator within 24 hours. Amanda takes the warning seriously and passes the information to her superiors, but they don’t believe the information and do nothing. Twenty four hours later the Senator is dead.
ConaLee is not sure when they lost hope, she just knows that at some point they did. Now sitting on the buckboard with her mother, Eliza, who has not spoken in more than a year, she wonders what will become of them. They are being driven to the Trans-Allegeny Lunatic Asylum by a war veteran who used them for a time and now wants to be rid of them, uprooting them from their home and from their family. ConaLee must act as if she is her mother’s maid while she and her mother try to heal from the loss of their husband and father, and the trauma that occurred during the war.
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