Sawbones/ Melissa Lenhardt / 432 pgs

This was a 180-degree turn from the short, light-hearted romance I just read. Sawbones is gritty, violent, and not the for the faint-of-heart. And I really liked it.

Catherine Bennett is a female doctor in 1870s New York City. She's a rarity and not always well received. The book jumps right in with Catherine being accused of murdering a patient's husband. In desperation, she decides to run off to the American frontier and disappear. Things do not go as planned. The Texas frontier is a harsh place, which Catherine (now using the name Laura), soon discovers. There's action, humor, female friendship (yay!), and romance here. My one nitpick is that for such a large country, Catherine sure does "coincidentally" run into a fair number of people in Texas that she originally knew from the East Coast. I rolled my eyes and moved on. I enjoyed it all, though I'll repeat my warning that this book has some very dark, violent chapters. Be warned. It's also part of a series, a trilogy I think. I can't wait to read the next one.

The Not-Quite States of America: Dispatches from the Territories and Other Far-Flung Outposts of the USA / Doug Mark / 336 pgs

I've really enjoyed this book! The author visited all of those U.S. territories that most of us know nothing about including Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and really gets a feel for the culture, the problems, the history, and everything else you could ever want to know about these places that are part of America, and yet not quite. I like how the author describes the islands that he visits. He shows the beautiful and the ugly and really gives life to the people who he meets on his journeys. I highly recommend if you're looking for a good book about travel.

For the ReadHarder challenge I am doing, I am using this book for the Travel Memoir category. 

An Echo in the Bone / Diana Gabaldon / 820 pages

Having almost caught up with the author of the Outlander series, I can safely say this has been the most enjoyable series to read.  I find it amazing that while describing time travel and more bad luck than any one family should ever have to contend with, the author keeps the characters themselves realistic.  Beware reading further for spoilers.


One thread that has been running through the last few books was whether young Ian would ever return home - in this book he finally does.  Relations between the Frasers and John Grey come to a head.  While resolving some cliffhangers from past books, this one opened up several new cliffhangers.  I can't wait to see how they are resolved.

O'Hara's Choice / Leon Uris 392 p. American historical fiction challenge

Zachary O'Hara, son of a legendary Marine (as well as one of the first), practically grew up in the Marines.  He is dedicated to the Corp. as was his father Paddy. Paddy won the second Congressional Medal of Honor.  Every year men Paddy saved during battles have a reunion.  Now that the Civil War is over, the Marines are being downsized.  Zachary joins the struggle to keep the Marine Corps alive after the Civil War.   He takes on a giant task that will greatly promote his career.  What he doesn't count on is falling in love with Amanda Kerr.  Both his commanding officers and her rich father are against this relationship.  When she breaks off all contact with him, she develops into a strong woman determined to build a women's college.  Interwoven into the plot, is his desire to keep a deep, dark secret.  The story jumps back and forth in history to tell the need and abilities of the Marine Corp, the fight to keep the Corp alive, the future warfare and battle plans, and the love story.  This was Leon Uris last novel, published after his death.  For a great story about the Marines, turn to his early work, Battle Cry.

Two Brides Too Many / Mona Hodgson / 304

This historical novel is set in 1895 in Cripple Creek, Colorado and is about two mail-order brides.  It is a very easy to read Christian romance novel.  Perfect before bed. 
The author inserts an actual historical figure, Sister Mary Claver Coleman, into the story.  She started the first hospital in Cripple Creek.  Other historical things form parts of the story such as the conditions of the mining town, the fires, and life back then.

John Adams / David Mcullough 791 p. Big Book

Reading those few lines about a signer of the Declaration of Independence in a history book hardly tells anything of the debt Americans owe John Adams for what he did for the United States.  It was John Adams more that any one else who shaped the philosophical basis for the American Revolution.  His letters to his wife Abigail along with his diary provide the most complete account of the happenings at the Continental Congress.  History becomes real under David McCullough's telling of John Adam's life.  He gets into Adam's years at Harvard, his early public life, and his role in the Continental Congress.  McCullough makes it vivid when Adams proposed George Washington to be head of the army.  He gives full measure of the man, a man who served as a commissioner to France and envoy to the Court of St. James, Vice-president to Washington, and the second President of the United States.  McCullough carefully deconstructs the complex relationship between Adams and Jefferson.  Benjamin Rush orchestrated their reconnection after a 11 year silence.  That the entire country was of prime interest of Adams is of no doubt.  It was rivaled by his love of Abigail and his family.  This is also a love story; that between Abigail and John.  Abigail was his muse.  She wrote to him constantly during their long separations. Both Adams were great writers.  Here is what Abigail wrote to John,

“When a friend of Abigail and John Adams was killed at Bunker Hill, Abigail's response was to write a letter to her husband and include these words, 'My bursting heart must find vent at my pen.' ”

“She was particularly curious about the Virginians, wondering if, as slaveholders, they had the necessary commitment to the cause of freedom. "I have," she wrote, "sometimes been ready to think that the passions for liberty cannot be equally strong in the breasts of those who have been accustomed to deprive their fellow creature of theirs." What she felt about those in Massachusetts who owned slaves, including her own father, she did not say, but she need not have--John knew her mind on the subject. Writing to him during the First Congress, she had been unmistakably clear: "I wish most sincerely there was not a slave in the province. It always seemed a most iniquitous scheme to me--[to] fight ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have.”  

And some of John's quotes,

"Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives."

“The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know...do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. This is enough.”  

“Every line from you exhilarates my spirits and gives me a glow of pleasure, but your kind congratulations are solid comfort to my heart. The little strength of mind and the considerable strenght of body that I once possessed appear to be all gone, but while I breathe I shall be your friend.”  

He was a great reader and had a library second only to Jefferson.  (Adams library was donated to the Boston Public library.  Jefferson's collection was sold to be a replacement for what became the Library of Congress.)

He served his state by writing the oldest functioning written constitution in the world...that for the state of Massachusetts.

His life was filled with purpose.

His final words illustrated the depth of his love for his country:

“Adams lay peacefully, his mind clear, by all signs. Then late in the afternoon, according to several who were present in the room, he stirred and whispered clearly enough to be understood, 'Thomas Jefferson survives.' "

It is memorial to note that both Adams and Jefferson died on the same day:  July 4, 1826.

With this work, Adams now takes his place as one of the great founding fathers.

The Heart and the Fist / Eric Greitens / p309

The author describes how, after working as a humanitarian around the world, he realized that he could do nothing to stop violence or prevent people from becoming refugees and soon joined the elite Navy SEALs, where he drew on his humanitarian training as he battled injustice.

I actually listened to this, with Eric as the narrator. If only all our armed forces personnel and politicians could work in the world as humanitarians first. The two go hand in hand. I know this young man was here for a program in our library, I'm sorry I missed it!