A giant dome suddenly appears over the town of Chester’s Mill, Maine one beautiful October day, and the townspeople are left to their own devices. That’s a lame synopsis, but I don’t want to give anything more away. What would you do if you were cut off from the rest of the world? Perhaps more […]
Aslaug has lived an isolated life with her mother in the woods of Maine. A disturbing story is revealed in alternating chapters. One set of chapters reveals the course of Aslaug’s life in the summer of 2003. The other reveals Aslaug on trial in 2007, for a crime that isn’t even revealed until very late […]
The lass is the last child in a family of nine and the fourth unwanted girl. She is so unwanted that her mother doesn’t even bother to name her. When a polar bear comes crashing through the door one night and asks her to live with him in his castle for a while, she agrees […]
“I should have thought it obvious,” I said impatiently, though even at that age I was aware that such things were not obvious to the majority of people. “I see paint on your pocket-handkerchief, and traces on your fingers where you wiped it away. The only reason to mark bees that I can think of […]
On a beautiful July evening, nine-year-old Katie Mackey disappears on her way to the library. And our hearts break. I just don’t know where to start. It’s hard not to compare this to Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, but there’s a huge difference. As I remember it, The Lovely Bones dealt with the family’s grieving […]
Weezie Foley is back and better than ever. She’s trying her best to win Savannah’s historic district decorating contest, but the couple across the street are throwing tons of money into their efforts. To add to her troubles, her boyfriend Daniel always becomes decidedly Grinch-like at Christmas, and she just can’t get him into the […]
We first meet Crystal Spangler when she’s a dreamy twelve-year-old Virginia mountain girl, in the summer before she begins high school. We follow her as her dreaminess leads her to look for meaning, or for herself, in all the wrong places. I adore Lee Smith’s work. She writes about the mountains of Virginia. I’m in […]
Strange things start happening around best friends Zanna and Deeba. A fox appears on the edge of the playground, watching Zanna. They come across graffiti saying “Zanna For Ever!” A woman they don’t know approaches Zanna in a café and tells her what an honor it is to meet her. It all culminates one night […]
I can’t even really say what this is about without giving anything away. Let’s just say that the stupidest angel’s mission to create a Christmas miracle goes horribly, hilariously awry in ways that only Christopher Moore could write about. This wasn’t quite as funny as I expected it to be, but I think since reading […]
4 Stars. It’s been several years since I read this, so I can’t say much about it except that I liked it. And I saved this quote from the book: “There are two kinds of women: those who marry princes and those who marry frogs. The frogs never become princes, but it is an acknowledged fact that a prince may very well, in the […]
3.5 Stars. Charlotte just isn’t quite Henrietta, Letty, or even Mary. She spent much of the book just fantasizing about Robert. While interesting enough, I kept waiting for the comedy of misunderstandings and the adventure of French spies pitted against our faithful British crew to get started. About halfway through, things […]