The Night Stranger / Chris Bohjalian / 375 pages

Chip Linton is an airline pilot whose plane crashed into the water after flying into a flock of geese which caused the plane's engines to shut down.  Thirty-nine people died in the crash.  Flash forward several months and Chip, his wife, and twin daughters have moved to a small town in New Hampshire.  They have bought an old Victorian house that has a mysterious room in the basement that is sealed shut with thirty-nine bolts.  Added to that is that the people of the town are unusually interested with Chip's twin daughters.  Many of the women of the town are "herbalists" and obsessed with the herbs they grow in their green houses.  Chip starts to see and talk to three of the passengers that died in the crash.  These elements all come together to tell a page turning scary story.

Two Can Keep A Secret/Karen McManus/327 pages

     Two Can Keep A Secret is a young adult suspense novel with a good mystery and great characters.

     Ellery and Ezra are twins spending their senior year with a grandmother they haven't had much contact with while mom is in rehab.  Part of the strange family dynamic started years ago when the twins' Aunt Sarah went missing.  Five years ago a local girl was murdered and now another girl is missing!  Ellery considers herself a junior detective and she and her new friends get in lots of trouble while trying to solve both the cold case and the current case.

     I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.  Its a quick read and while I did suspect the ending, there were several other possibilities.  My one "criticism" is that the teens in the book seemed younger to me that their seventeen years.  I would have pegged them for more like fourteen years old.

  

99 Percent Mine/ Sally Thorne/ 342 pgs

Sally Thorne's The Hating Game is one of my favorite books. I was excited to dive into her next one but unfortunately it didn't quite live up to the first. The story involves Darcy and Tom, and, on the periphery, Darcy's twin Jamie. Growing up Darcy and Jamie's family always included Tom in whatever they were doing and Jamie and Tom became best friends. While Darcy was close with both of them, her family treats her as if she is fragile because of heart defect. After Darcy and Jamie inherit a house, Tom's construction company is hired to fix it up. Thrown together 24/7, Darcy and Tom's mutual attraction becomes hard to deny. This story is a bit uneven, but the author's writing continues to shine.

What a Gentleman Wants/ Caroline Linden / 352 pgs

This is the first book in Linden's Reece Family trilogy. I have already read the third book and wasn't really aware that this book was in the same series, so it was a nice surprise to see how things got started. Hannah is a vicar's widow with a young daughter. Because she has nowhere to go after her husband's death, she's about to reluctantly return to her father's house when a carriage accident lands a wealthy lord on her doorstep. I loved the start of this story because you think it's going to go one way and then the author throws you a curve ball and it goes in a completely different direction. This is a nice little romance with a mystery on the side.

Tea Planter's Wife/ Dinah Jefferies/ 413 pages

The Tea Planter's Wife written by Dinah Jefferies is set in Sri Lanka in the early 1900's.  Gwen Hooper arrives in Ceylon in 1922 to join her new husband, Laurence, on their tea plantation.  She encounters Savi Ravasinghe, a Sinhalese artist who assists her until Laurence arrives.    A drunken encounter with Savi, some months later, leaves Gwen with some confusion.  Laurence's sister, Verity, becomes a thorn in Gwen's side, while Christina, Laurence's business partner wants Gwen to believe she is more than that.  All the while Gwen tries to learn the ways of her new homeland.  This book presents an interesting look at race relations and perceptions.  The reader will enjoy following along as little by little mysteries are revealed and answers are found.

Prodigal Son/Danielle Steel/318 pages

Peter McDowell broke away from his parents and his twin Michael after high school. His trips back to see them were limited to seeing his sick parents once before they died and then their funerals. His life in the New York financial world was complete with a luxury apartment and a wife and two boys until the stock market crashes, and he loses everything. With his wife moving back to her father's home in LA with the boys, Peter restarts his life by moving back to the lake house his parents left him. He tries to stay out his brother's way in town, but Michael seeks him out and makes an attempt to bury the past. Peter happily decides to let go of the past until more information about his brother, the beloved town doctor, comes to light.

This is part of my project of reconnecting with authors I used to enjoy decades ago but no longer read. First up was Mary Higgins Clark a couple of months ago. The book I read did not convince me to start reading her books again. I never was a devout Steel fan, but I had read a couple I had enjoyed. This one started out promisingly, but the last third of the book was just too easy. I wanted a twist, a surprise, something other than what I got. I give this one a "pass."

Sisterland/Curtis Sittenfeld/400 pages

Daisy and Violet are twins who also are psychic. Up until middle school, the girls are happy to play with each other and one other girl. But in middle school, in order to make friends with the queen bee, Daisy tells the twins' secret and the girls are labeled witches. Fast forward to college where Daisy starts going by a variation of her middle name, Kate, and attends school at Mizzou while Vi goes off to Reed College, although only for 6 weeks. From then on, the girls lead very different lives. Kate gets married and starts a family while Vi capitalizes on her senses by becoming a psychic for hire. Everything is more or less okay until Vi predicts an earthquake and Kate inadvertently supplies a date. Vi becomes a national sensation, and the entire St. Louis region is put on edge waiting to see if the predication comes true. Will there be an earthquake or is that just a metaphor for life-altering changes is one or both of the twins' lives?

Set in St. Louis, Sisterland is a fun read if only because you recognize every place they go. The overall description of the attitudes of the area are pretty insulting, though. Sittenfeld has made a name for herself lately by being critical of the region although she chooses to live here. She refused to have her picture on her first few books because she didn't want to be recognized as famous in her hometown. Apparently, she has gotten over that. The ending of the book is quick and a little unsatisfying, but overall, a good read.

Other Half of My Heart / Sundee T. Frazier 296 p.

Bahni Turpin performs this audiobook superbly. What fun to listen to all the characters.
Minny and Keira King are biracial twins. Minny resembles her father--white; while Keira her African American mother. Grandmother Johnson enters them into the Miss Black Pearl Preteen of America. Grandmother is a serious-minded former teacher who dictates how they are to look and to perform. There Minny learns how life treats Keira back their hometown in the Pacific Northwest. Sundee Frazier demonstrates that tension and unfairness still exist between the races. The scene with the dog and its spit will make you LOL. And the trick they play on Grandmother Johnson backfires.

2012 Notable Children's Recordings