Category Archives: Authors A-E

Forever in Blue

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by Ann Brashares

The fourth and final installment in the stories of the Sisterhood was the least juvenile of a series that really is universal, and shouldn’t be ignored just because of it’s YA label. In this novel, the girls are separate more than not, and the Pants are shared throughout their first year of college, not just during the summer. While not every story ends up completely happy, each of these young women grows and changes and sets the stage for what her life will become, and it’s great to watch them all deal with real issues, that real college freshman often encounter, and triumph over their personal obstacles.

I loved this series because the girls were so real.
I wanted to hate this book because it meant saying goodbye to old friends, but the beauty of books is that you can always re-read them.

Comfort Food

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Comfort Food: A Novel (IPPY Award Winner for Best Regional Fiction, West–Pacific) by Noah Ashenhurst

When I posted my list of planned reading for the 11 Decades challenge, I included Comfort Food because I liked the title, and because I like reading new authors. Imagine my surprise when the author contacted me and offered a review copy – of course I said yes.

I’m glad I did.

This novel is the story of six Gen-X college students, and the way their lives interweave. We are introduced to all of them in the initial chapter, and then each section gives us a significant moment in each of their lives, finally coming full circle to connect the first person we met to the woman he loves. Because of this structure, Comfort Food reminds me very much of the improv game “Four Square” or “Pan Left” in which there are four players who form different intersecting pairs of relationships.

What I loved most about the novel, however, was the language. Ashenhurst’s descriptions of the Pacific Northwest let you feel the misty air. Whether he’s talking about the pot-stench floating in a cheap off-campus apartment, or the visceral moment when one character realizes his wife is cheating on him, the words chosen give a vivid picture of place, and of the people existing in that place at that time.

I’d love to read more from this author.

Summers of the Sisterhood

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Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants / Second Summer of the Sisterhood / Girls in Pants (3 Book Set) by Ann Brashares

Despite the fact that a very kind author sent me a review copy of his book, and despite the fact that I’ve read the first fifty pages and found it gripping, having been burned to a crisp put me in the mood for light, fluffy reading.

Since I’ve seen The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants on cable many times at this point, and even rented the dvd when it was first available, and since my friend Erin had mentioned them several weeks ago (months, really) when the fourth book had just come out, AND since YA books are less expensive than general fiction, I ordered them all.

I’m glad I did. Like J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, Brashares’s novels are not all all “kiddie lit” but well-written, interesting coming-of-age novels that happen to have teenaged protagonists. The four girls who make up the Sisterhood are all three-dimensional. None of them are perfect. All of them are unique. Their stories are every bit as interesting as any more grown up chick-lit characters, and the writing is considerably less fluffy than many. Bookstores and publishers may classify these books as YA, but to me, they’re comfort reading. You know there will ultimately be a mostly-happy ending, but you also know the characters will progress, and that not everything will be sunshine and roses.

I’m a fast reader. I received these on Wednesday evening, and am now a bit more than half way through the third book. Is it too early for me to recommend them? No. Because everyone has gone through adolescence, and that makes these novels (which, at around 300 pages each, are a satisfying length) truly universal.

If you have daughters. If you are a daughter. If you are remotely in touch with your inner teen-aged girl, you must read these books.

Fool Moon

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Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, Book 2) by Jim Butcher

Book Two of Jim Butcher’s fantasy/mystery series The Dresden Files mixing it up with werewolves, of which, we learn from Bob (the spirit in the skull) there are many different kinds. Butcher’s novels are designed so that readers who follow the series in order will pick up the continuing relationships between the characters, but so that they can be read as stand-alone stories as well – which is my wordy way of saying that there was enough introduction included to make sure that new readers knew who everyone was, but not so much that it felt at all repetitive.

With the eponymous television series now in its seventh week on the Sci-Fi channel (here in the States, and on Space, I think, in Canada) comparisons are inevitable, but while the feel of the series is sort of “cozy paranormal” the books retain a much more classic detective novel tone, with strong secondary characters like local crime lord John Marcone offering a surprising amount of depth and personality.

Harry, of course, is our main focus, and in this novel we see just how fragile his friendship with cop Karrin Murphy really is, and get a little bit better knowledge of his on-again off-again romance with Arcane reporter Susan.

The action and exposition nicely balance each other, and over all the story does what Jim Butcher does best: entertains, and leaves us wanting more.

The Devil’s Teeth

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The Devil’s Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America’s Great White Sharks by Susan Casey

The Farallones, an island group just 30 miles west of San Francisco, and nicknamed The Devil’s Teeth because of their jagged profiles and unforgiving terrain, are also surrounded by waters which are the stomping grounds, so to speak, of one of our greatest apex predators: The Great White Shark.

Author Susan Casey managed to convince two biologists in residence to let her visit the island, and shadow their work for a compelling look at these great fish, and the men and women who study them in an environment that leaves them free to remain wild, and largely untainted by humanity.

The book’s only flaw was that it ended too soon, otherwise it was compelling, interesting, and exciting, offering a fresh look at these sharks who are so often Discovery channel fodder.

Love Walked In

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Love Walked InLove Walked In

I picked up this book at the airport in Dallas on my way to San Jose a few weeks ago, because I realized I’d forgotten to pack a book to read. I ended up not reading on the flight out there at all, but then started it in the hotel later that night. By the time I was home a few days later I was finished. In any case, it was an impulsive choice – the least offensive of the airport fare – and hey, the main character, Cornelia Brown, was the owner of a cafe. I like cafe stories.

As it turns out,  Marisa de los Santos’s novel is really two stories – there’s old-movie loving Cornelia’s search for romantic bliss, and then there’s the parallel tale of precocious young Clare, daughter of Cornelia’s new boyfriend Martin, who is looking for emotional stability and a sense of home.

Naturally both stories merge, but with a twist that makes this more than just chick-lit, and closer to general romance, though not in the Silhouette sense of the word.  It’s a gentle tale with vivid characters. Great for bathtub reading.

I’ve Been Around

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I've Been Around

Tania Aebi first sailed across my personal horizon years ago, with her book Maiden Voyage, the first-person account of her
solo circumnavigation of the world, and the people and places she encountered during here year or so asail with her intrepid cat, Tarzoon. While I may fantasize about doing something similar, the reality is that I’m much too fond of internet access, espresso bars, and regular showers to really enjoy such an experience. Still, reading about it let me escape for a few hours, and I heartily recommend that book, as it’s the perfect thing to read while tucked up in a warm quilt on a cold, stormy day. (I also recommend strong tea and crisp apples to go with the experience.)

This book, I’ve Been Around, is not a narrative, the way Ms. Aebi’s first volume was, but rather a series of essays about her life on and off the water, many of which were written for sailing-related magazines, most specifically, Latitudes & Attitudes. It’s enjoyable, thoughtful, and often entertaining, and while it is not the cozy stormy-day read that Maiden Voyage was, it is a lovely glimpse into the author’s life since then. (It’s been at least a decade, possibly two.)

Aebi’s conversational tone and obvious love of both her crafts (writing and sailing), make this an excellent read.

Atlantis Found

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Atlantis Found (A Dirk Pitt Novel)

Clive Cussler

My friend Rana mentioned the movie Sahara, and Clive Cussler books as a guilty pleasure in one of her blog entries, so when I saw several of his books on the library shelf, I picked one at random.

Atlantis Found reimagines the typical lost society of Atlantis and ties them together with a group of Nazi survivors hiding in South America and plotting to take over the world – on the surface not terribly original, except that it’s a Dirk Pitt novel which means there are exotic locations and cool gadgets and a sort of Indiana Jones / James Bond sense of fun.

I enjoyed the book a lot, but couldn’t talk about it because I knew it would be the type of thing Fuzzy would enjoy, and, indeed, he’s been reading it all weekend. I’m not sure I could read Cussler in large doses, but every so often, a visit with Mr. Pitt might not be ill-advised.

Pentagon

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Pentagon

Allen Drury

When I was in high school, I read everything Allen Drury had ever written up to 1984, most of which were novels set in and around the Nixon presidency, Watergate, all of that. Drury tells good stories, and his original characters were fresh and interesting, as well as being multi-dimensional.

So, when I found Pentagon at a used bookstore several months ago, I thought, “Oh, great, something of his I haven’t read!” And I saved it until this month, knowing it was there, but wanting to savor it.

There is nothing worse than when you pick up a novel by a favorite author, and hate it. And I hated Pentagon. The ususal Drury-esque attention to detail was there – if you want to know every last detail about what it was like to work at the Pentagon in the early eighties, this book is for you – but if you want a plot, well, half way through the book I could have drawn a map of the building, but I still had no idea where the plot was.

(There is no available image for this book.)

The Quilter’s Apprentice

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The Quilter's Apprentice

Jennifer Chiaverini
I picked this book up on impulse – it looked interesting, and I’ve had quilting on the brain lately – and was instantly hooked. Some of the formatting is annoying, specifically the lack of quotation marks in the ‘flashback’ sequences, but it does a good job of meshing lessons in quilting technique with the plot.

The story is a simple one, a young couple moves from a Pennsylvania college town to another town a bit farther away, because the husband, who has a degree in landscape engineering, has been offered a permanent stable position, and the wife has recently come to realize she hates her job as an accountant.

The husband’s clients include the owner of an estate that used to be owned by a horse breeder, and the wife bonds with the sister of the dead owner, who agrees to teach her how to quilt. From that point, the narrative is interrupted by flashbacks from the woman in charge of the estate, as well as quilting lessons.

There are, apparently, other novels in the series, as well as a website where you can see the quilts mentioned

in the story (some are ugly).