Aunt Dimity Down Under

This is Nancy Atherton's 15th book in the series. I missed #14 because I was given this for Christmas so got them out of order. As I probably said waaaayyy down there on my post about the Aunt Dimity Series these books are fun, cozy and an easy read.

Lori's neighbours, the sweet twin Pym sisters, are seriously ill. No one knows how old they are. They've been a permanent fixture in the village forever. It isn't unreasonable that their hearts would eventually get tired. But they have one last wish and ask Lori to help them. They had a brother, who no one knew about except for their personal lawyer, and they wanted to find him before they died. Their father had banished him from the home when he was a young man because of his wild ways. Aubrey (the brother) made his way to New Zealand and unbeknownst to anyone but the lawyer, made his fortune there. He had set up a fund for his sisters which had been supporting them all their lives without their knowledge. They had always thought their pastor father had invested well to care for them in their future. They never did marry.

So off Lori goes to New Zealand. There isn't so much a sense of mystery in this book as their were in some but I really enjoyed learning about New Zealand. I didn't realize the whole south of the island was a mass of volcanos! Lori doesn't find Aubrey, she just misses Aubrey's son who had died shortly before she got there, and shortly after she arrives his grandson died in hospital, the result of a drunken lifestyle. What she does discover is a great grandneice for the Pyms. But Bree has gotten tired of her dysfunctional situation and now that her grandfather is dead and she doesn't have to worry about him she has taken off on her own. Most of the book is Lori's search for Bree which takes us all over New Zealand which in itself is reason enough, for me anyway, to read the book. I'll never get to go to New Zealand, I loved reading about it.

Lori is finally successful and takes Bree back to England to meet her greatgrand aunts whom she immediately bonds with. They rally and so hopefully we will have them to read about in book #16.

Touching Stars by Emile Richards

Well I had to read it didn't I. It's the next in Emilie Richards Shenandoah  Series. This was a really large book - 520 pages. Again it was slow getting into, I thought it would take me longer than the three weeks allowed by our library but I just reached a point, as I do in most books, that I was so hooked I sat down and finished it in 2 days. I've had a lot of other reading to do because I'm doing two studies at the moment so I guess that's what slowed me down too.


This story is about Gayle. If you've read the series you will remember that she runs a bed and breakfast Inn on the Shenandoah River. She is a single parent with 3 boys plus another boy a lot of the time who she took in to give him a break from an abusive situation.


Her husband is a charasmatic television reporter who goes to all of the worlds most newsworthy spots to bring people the news. He has come back from Ahganistan after a harrowing experience, almost died, to recover and he chooses the Inn to recover at. This does pose a bit of a problem for Gayle - they've been divorced for 12 years - but she also sees it as an opportunity for her sons to spend a summer really getting to know their father the person, not their father who they see on TV.


The family dynamics for all 5 people in this family are interesting. There's a son who hates his father, a son who doesn't really care, and a son who falls over himself trying to get acceptance.


The book ends in a good space. Things that have gone on too long have been resolved. Eric (Gayle's husband) reunites in a positive way with his children.


Now I can't wait to read the next one! I have a request in at my local library for it. It's called Sister's Choice and will again be about Isaac and Kendra Taylor (who we met in the last book Lovers Knot) and Kendra's desire who have a child even though she is unable to in the normal way.

Mary Queen of Scots

I've decided to include the books I've listened to from Librivox Librivox is a site made up of volunteers whose mission is to record all books not in the public domain and distribute them without charge. I listen to the books on an iPod but it looks like they are trying to extend the library so they can be listened to in different formats, such as CDs.

I'm loving Jacob Abbots books. I did some reading for his book on Elizabeth I. His books are so easy to understand and I'm gaining a whole lot about history from them. Mary Queen of Scots was first published in 1876.

I thought I knew about her. She was Catholic and Elizabeth chopped off her head.. what else is there to know? Lots. I didn't know she grew up in France, I didn't know about her marriges, or about her being charged with abetting several crimes.

The names of castles and their location are given, unfortunately when you're listening you can't see the diagrams. He quite often says "which is still standing today" but being written in 1876 who knows if we can still see them in 2010? Maybe outlines though. 

Right now I'm listening to the next in the series Charles I. The beginning of that volume speaks about Mary's son James who took over the throne after Elizabeth. He was James VI of Scotland and James I of England. That gets soooo confusing. But listening to the books I seem to retain it. 

LOVER'S KNOT by EMILIE RICHARDS

This book started out slowly for me. I guess I like the action to begin almost right away. Then part way through the book two skeletons are found wrapped in a quilt in a cave in the Shenandoah Blue Ridge mountains. Well I couldn't put the book down after that. I had to find out who these bodies were and how they got there!

Isaac Taylor was adopted at birth. His life has not been a good one. It has left  him with a workaholic attitude which helps him block out what he doesn't want to face or think about. He is left a quilt and a cabin by his birth grandmother who he'd never heard of. He will have nothing to do with these things but his wife, Kendra, a reporter, has the curiosity of a reporter wants to know more. After a shooting accident she moves to the cabin in Toms Brook to recover, alone, without her husband.

When it comes right down to it this story is about marriage, communication, family. It's also a story that shows how events in our lives, even negative ones, can help us see ourselves in a different light and help us see positives we didn't know were there. Emilie Richards does a great job, as usual, of tying present day to past through the use of bits of old letters, a quilt (of course), and a search for the answer to who the bodies are. The quilt is a Lover's Knot quilt but it is poorly quilted, on first inspection, and although it is made in a signature quilt style the signatures are all written and embroidered in the same hand. It is obvious that this quilt holds clues to something. Kendra goes in search of the message that has been left her husband by a grandmother he never knew.

As with the past two books in this series some of my favorite characters from the other books appear here and there throughout the story giving it continuity and building on what we knew of the characters and how their lives are progressing and changing.

I've already put in a request at the library for Emilie's next book, Touching Stars. I expect to be knee deep in it within a few days.

I still highly recommend this series and this author.

Still Alice by Lisa Genova

I was standing in the line at the grocery store on Tuesday evening. There are always about 5 books featured there. I saw this book. I picked it up and looked at it. It looked like a good book but it was $10.00 Canadian funds for a paperback book! I'm trying really hard to stay within a budget. I told myself I could check at the library for it, I told myself I could check on Amazon or Chapters for it. We have a Chapters card that gives us 15% off books. But the library might not have it and if I ordered it from Amazon I'd have to pay shipping. To get it from Chapters cheaper I'd have to drive into Richmond to get it. Still I tried to resist. The clerk started to ring up my purchases. My hand flew to the book and threw it on with my other things before she finished. I HAD to have this book. I had no idea why.

It's now Friday morning. I've finished the book and I know why I had to have it. It's one of the best books I've read in a very long time. I couldn't put it down. I felt so guilty sitting and reading but I just couldn't let it go... just one more chapter... then one more. I think I need a bookaholics anonymous meeting, if there was such a thing. It's not that reading is a bad thing to do, it's that I read so fast that it gets to be a very expensive thing if I don't get the books from the library.

Still Alice is about a Psychology Professor at Harvard. She has a PhD. She's written numerous articles and books and is constantly travelling to conferences, quite often as a speaker. She's very intelligent and very gifted.

She's 50 years old. She finds herself unable to retrieve words sometimes. That happens to all of us at one time or another once we reach a certain age. She thought it was menopause. She tried ignoring it until one day she was out running and she got lost 2 blocks from home. She recognized the buildings around her, she just didn't know which way was home from there. She reluctantly made a visit to her GP... maybe she needed HRT.  From there she was sent to a Neurologist, although she couldn't understand why.

The Neurologist diagnosed her with Early Onset Alzheimer's Disease.

This book is about her journey. We, the reader, can see the things she's doing that would give others clues that there was something wrong. She doesn't see it in herself, of course. She tries to hide it. She doesn't want to tell her husband or coworkers. Naturally she eventually has to.

The book starts in September of 2003 and goes to September 2005. No one can know what goes on in the mind of someone with dementia or Alzheimers. Lisa Genova is an extremely talented writer and I believe that what she perceives as likely is very close to the truth.. the ability to think but not to get the words out, not recognizing even herself, thinking that she is living 40 years ago. Her long term memory is very clear, her short term memory doesn't even allow her to remember her children's names or even that they are her children eventually.

But she is loved. I think that's what I like best about the book. Even when she can remember nothing else she is surrounded by love.

I was sorry to see the book end and to have to say goodbye to Alice. There wasn't much more to say about her but just reading about her day to day life, how she processed things around her I found fascinating.

Off to the library to get a new book now.

Endless Chain by Emilie Richards

I didn't know when I read Emilie Richards book Wedding Ring that I was reading the first of a series called the Shenandoah Album series. I think I read somewhere that she didn't realize she was writing a series either so that makes us even *LOL*

This book could easily stand alone but it was so nice to see characters from the first book appear now and then, and in one case become a major part of the story.

This book is about a disgraced preacher who has been given the church at Tom's Book, Virginia, in order to prove himself worthy of a second chance at a better church in a more populated area.. at least that's how I saw it. But Sam doesn't want another church, he's making progess here and making a difference here getting the local native Virginia's to accept and help more newly arrived Mexican workers and their children.

That is what I saw as the crux of the story... Sam's spoiled high society fiance has difficulty with his choice of lifestyle. A new arrival in the area, Elise, is everything that his fiance isn't. She's a hard worker but very secretive. She lets eveyone believe she is from Texas, although she is clearly of Latin American descent, and that's why her English is so good. It turns out she has an unknown past history connection to Tom's Brook and that is why she chose it. She's looking for her younger brother who is also on the run and hopes that he will remember about this small community and show up there looking for her.

I'm not giving any more hints to what it's about but I read through this one very quickly and  have Emile Richard's next installment, Lover's Knot, on request at my local library.

Barbara Fradkin - Inspector Green Series

I'm a bit partial when it comes to these books. You see they take place in Ottawa, the place where I grew up and the place I have forever been homesick for since I moved away in 1973. When she speaks of areas of the city, the police station on Elgin Street, the Glebe, LeBreton Flats... I can see them in my mind. There have been a lot of changes in Ottawa in the last 36 years but so much has remained the same that when she talks about Inspector Green heading out the Queensway I am headed out the Queensway myself.

But aside from that Barbara Fradkin is a good author. I wasn't so sure when reading her first book, the story line didn't interest me too much, and yet her writing was so good that it kept me reading. The mystery part of her books are good.. she gives just enough information to make you keep reading, but not enough that you can put your finger on who the possible villan could be. And she will sometimes lead you off thinking that you positively have no doubt "whodunit" and then find out that the one you thought was guilty of the murder is acting guilty for some other reason and isn't the murderer at all. I found her subsequent books much more intriquing and difficult to put down. They aren't what I'd term cozy mysteries but they are good mysteries that any mystery lover will enjoy.

Through all of the books Inspector Green's life and internal struggles and questions evolve. He is a police inspector with all the unexpected overtime things that need doing that any inspector would have. His wife is a psychiatric nurse who has her own schedule, which means that when he doesn't come home from work to look after their son she has to scramble to find someone to take him until either she or his father arrive home. This gives her books a humaness that we can relate to.

#1  Do or Die - 2000
#2  Once Upon a Time - 2002
#3  Mist Walker - 2003
#4  Fifth Son - 2004
#5  Honour Among Men - 2006
#6  Dream Chasers - Sept - 2007

The next book in the Series is

#7  This Thing of Darkness - 2009

which I haven't read yet.