Stars Are Fire / Anita Shreve / 256 pages

The Stars Are Fire is a strange little book that reeled me in despite myself. I started out the book not really care much for it. I found it hard to drum up sympathy for the main character, Grace, and I realized that the huge fires of 1947 in Maine, which really did happen, was sort of just a plot device that had really little to do with what the story was about. That said, I did find myself wanting to know what would happen next - always the hallmark of a good book. I decided I was not keen on the author's habitual need of spending countless pages just describing all of the things in a room.

Grace is a young mother of two living with a husband that she really no longer loves. She is pregnant and her husband goes to join the volunteer firefighters when Maine starts burning up after a long drought. After Grace and her children are rescued, she finds herself living with a kind, hospitable family and no way of knowing what has become of her husband, or how her small family will survive with no money or possessions left.

Line of Fire/ Stephen White/ 371 pages

The latest in the in the Dr. Alan Gregory series finds no new homicides. Instead, Alan and Sam, his Boulder police detective friend, have to deal with the possibility that an old secret may come to light. Set against the backdrop of Colorado wildfires, White's story-telling gift brings many of his previous books together in tense story of two friends trying to cover their tracks. Sam made a decision years earlier to protect his and Alan's family from a real threat. Now a previously undiscovered witness and a blackmailer may bring down both men.

I was so excited to get this book that I actually waited 2 days to start it because I knew it wouldn't last long enough. I wasn't disappointed. I am sorry to report that White has announced that this is the second to last Alan Gregory installment. He wraps up many stories in this one, and I'm expecting everything to be tied up in the next one. I just wish he would write faster! Although, knowing we are nearing the end, I'm glad to draw it out. Hopefully, there are other stories to tell from White. And, oh, his Boulder is somewhere I'm dying to visit.