Twenty Five Boxes of Books . . .

     About a month ago, my husband retired, we sold the house and moved across two states to Montana. The kids had all migrated away too, in previous years, and I was missing the grandkids. The move did not come soon enough for me but two old people alone packing and carrying get VERY tired.

     I got myself a couple bundles of two foot by one foot boxes, with handles, to pack my books. As I packed, I weeded out a few novels never read and not likely to be.  I added some deep history of a time period I had never had an interest in to the donation stack.  I returned a couple to a neighbor, having forgotten I had them.  Then started packing.

     Couldn't help myself.  They went into the boxes alphabetically, by subject.  Each box was labeled 'BOOKS' and a note was made below that of any favorite or important book that was in that box, such as The Eight, P&P, Jane Eyre or Michener, or The Thirteenth Tale and The Mirror or Rebecca .  .  .  I might want them before all are unpacked. I might.

     Despite my efforts, I had twenty five boxes of books. Twenty five boxes of books to take from southern Colorado to Montana. Jerry, my long suffering husband, hauled them without complaint and only a couple sideways looks as he lifted the heavier boxes. (The Beatle Anthology weighs a lot, as does a very complete founding fathers bio collection.) But he loves me. He has taken my books from Wyoming to Arizona, then to Montana, to Colorado and now, back to Montana.

     Twenty five boxes of books. (368 books on the Kindle and a couple dozen on the Kindle Fire help, but are not quite the same.)

     Can't wait to unpack them .  .  .

     Can't wait to just look at them on the shelves .  .  .

     Then I will be home again.

Six Years by Harlan Coben

    I think, for me, Harlan Coben's greatest skill is making me care about his protagonist. Jake Fisher, a professor teaching at a small but prestigious college, is someone I like.  He does his job well, follows the rules and lives a quiet life with only one major flaw in it. He can not forget the love of his life, Natalie Avery, who left him suddenly to marry another man, asking him to please leave them alone. Sure, they had not known each other for very long, but their relationship had seemed perfect. He did not understand and has never gotten over it.

    Six years later he sees the obituary for Todd, Natalie's husband, and attends the funeral.  The grieving widow is not Natalie. Jake is puzzled, tries to find Natalie, hoping to understand and reconnect. But no one remembers her. The art retreat where they met is no longer there and no one remembers it ever existed either. But Jake will not give up.  Even when he is threatened, kidnapped, shot at, beaten and arrested.

    The plot was twisted, exciting, and hooked me. (Okay, as always, Coben's plot is a little far fetched at times, but you don't mind. Really.) Jake's best friend, Sebastian, is interesting.The miner characters are also likable, unless they are bad guys, and then they are very sleazy and ruthless.

    A fun read with a satisfying ending.

The Map of Lost Memories by Kim Fey

    I don't do a review on every book I read. Some are done well enough to finish but have no lasting hold on me. Kim Fey's debut novel was one of the good ones.  The book takes place in 1925. Fey's writing style was somewhat reminiscent of the writing of that time also. Not sure why, but something in her writing had that feel.

    The story begins with Irene Blum being passed over for the position of the new curater at the Seattle Brooke Museum. She has spent her life in that museum.  First as a child being brought to the museum by her father and then with the wealthy collector Henry Simms as her champion, she had worked along side Professor Howard, the long time curator.  Doing much of his work and research, but always giving him the credit, the Professor had assured her that the curator position would be hers at his retirement. It did not happen.

     Years before, in her fathers belongings, Simms had found an old diary. This diary written by a long ago missionary, has clues and a map of an area in Cambodia that could lead Irene to to the discovery of ancient scrolls. Scrolls that could lead her to recognition and success in her field.  With Simms' encouragement and  money, Irene might redeem her carrier.  But Simms insists Irene recruit the help of Simone Merlin, wife of a communist reformer now living in Shanghai. Simone was raised in Cambodia.

    Half of this book is a little slow with a long lead-up to the expedition and adventure part of the story.  Many characters introduced and the atmosphere and climate - political as well as tropical- carefully described. But once the main characters are established and they set out to find the scrolls, this book really held me. I did not always like Irene, but I always admired her.

    This was unlike any of the books I have read recently and I thoroughly enjoyed all of it.  Even the slow beginning. I look forward to more fiction from Kim Fey.

     

Every Secret Thing by Laura Lippman

    So, my daughter-in-law gave this book to me for Christmas. I could not wait to get home and read it after enjoying so much the first Lippman book I had read. I had to drive from Tulsa to Colorado Springs and then recover from a rotten case of strep before I could get to it. I was not disappointed.

    Seven years before, two eleven year old girls are found responsible for a babies death and sentenced to child prison. They have now turned 18 and are being released.  The two girls are Alice Manning and Ronnie Fuller. Unlikely friends, Alice was the only child of a Hippie single mother. Ronnie, the only girl in a low-income dysfunctional family. 

    What actually happened that summer seven years before, is squeezed from the characters. Squeezed is the only word that fits the slow, almost agonising way Lippman brings the facts out of the characters in her novels. A little from the babies mother who is the daughter of a black judge. A few facts from Alice's mother. Some information from Alice's public defender. And as we get to know the girls, they give us clues too.

    My theory as to who killed the baby and why, changed three times as I read this book.  Who I thought the people involved were, changed by the ending too.  Each person had so many hidden feelings and knowledge, it seemed impossible to come to a conclusion until just before I was told by Lippman.

    Although I think this book was excellent, I hated the ending, mostly because I was not prepared for it, though in hind site, I should have been.

    Again, one of Laura Lippman's stories haunts me and I can not stop thinking about it. This writer is unique in her ability to keep the reader hanging on, even after you have closed and shelved the book.

    I hear this is soon to be a movie with Dakota Fanning. Can't wait.

Brave Enemies by Robert Morgan

    This is the story of sixteen year old Josie Summers. She lives with her mother and step-father in upcountry Carolina in 1780.  The War of Independence still goes on and the British steal what little they have on their way through. Her mother is ill. Life is hard.

    After killing the stepfather who raped her, Josie dresses in his clothes to disguise herself as a man and runs away. Lost, hungry and afraid, she comes across a young Methodist minister, John Trethman and begins assisting him with his traveling ministry.

    As you would expect, John finds her out and, yes they fall in love, but it is not to be an easy thing. He is riddled with guilt for living with her when he thought she was a boy, she is now pregnant with her step-fathers child, and the British kidnap John. Alone again.

    Later, when Josie finds herself enlisted in the North Carolina Militia, the detail of the soldiers life during the Revolutionary War is wonderfully told and terrible to realise.  Robert Morgan is expert at putting the reader right there, feeling it all.

    I did get my happy ending, but after much grief, pain and the Battle of Cowpens.

    Excellent historical fiction.