The English Wife by Lauren Willig

   Set in the Gilded Age of New York, The English Wife is a plot-twisting masterpiece.  I would compare this novel to Downton Abbey or Agatha Christie's, Murder on the Orient Express. Each character is incredibly diverse in terms of personality, and the character development is remarkably done.

  Bayard Van Duyvil is a prominent member of society.  He met a burlesque actress by the name of Annabelle Lacey during his visit to England. Through their friendship, they fell in love and married. When Annabelle became pregnant, Bay focused on building a home for his family.  Bay was introduced to an architect by the name of Daniel and started to plan the re-creation of Annabelle's childhood home in England. The two spent countless amount of hours working together and formed a very close relationship.

   Annabelle persuaded Bay into having Daniel move in so that he could focus on finishing the estate. Rumors of Annabelle and the architect having an affair arose. When Mother Van Duyvil heard about the arrangements, she was outraged and demanded that Bay reconsider. Bay refused to let his tyrannical mother run his household. When finished, Bay and Annabelle held a costume ball for New York's finest to come and celebrate the occasion.  During the ball, Janie found her brother Bay with his dagger in his chest and uttered his last word "George", and Annabelle missing.  Bayard's sister Janie is determined to solve the mystery because something wasn't settling well with the incident. She forms an unlikely alliance with an Irish journalist James Burke and finds out more than she anticipated. Recommended for those who love a great historical thriller.
     

"I don't bother myself about gossip. What is it that they call it? The last resort of the idle? I am surprised that you pay attention to such things, Mother Van Duyvil." 

~Annabelle Lacey

~Dani Green

Down a Dark Road

    Kate Burkholder solves yet another mystery/murder but not without putting herself in deep danger.  
    Kate investigates the murder of an Amish woman who was married to one of her childhood friends, Joseph King.  Joseph was tried for his wife's murder that he always claimed he did not commit. After one year in prison, he breaks out and returns to the home of his sister and brother-in-law, who have guardianship of his five children.  He takes Kate and the children hostage and tries to convince Kate that he is innocent. He releases Kate in the hope that she will investigate and get to the bottom of it all. It is an unbelievable ending!

While this book was not one of my favorite Castillo's books, it did hold my interest to the very end.

This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel

Laurie Frankel has written a wonderful book about a quirky, smart, and loving family who is facing an issue that has wreaked havoc on schools across the nation, an issue that many of us don't understand and don't have experience with: gender dysphoria. What do you do if your little boy decides that he feels like he is a little girl instead? The answer for the Walsh-Adams family is: you do the best you can to make your child feel safe, loved, and supported. Isn't that what we all would strive to do? The problem is knowing what the best way to do that is. Penn and Rosie are the parents of four very active, energetic, and smart boys. When their fifth child, Claude, is born, they embrace and love him just as they did the rest of their rambunctious boys. By the time Claude is three, however, it is evident that he is different from their other children. He wants to wear dresses and put barrettes in his hair. In fact he wants to grow his hair long. He identifies with princesses in the fairy tales his father tells them all at bedtime. There are no easy answers in this novel; instead there's a conversation about the many ways people differ on all sorts of scales, gender being only one of them, and what's right for one person may not be right for another. I loved this family. They tried so hard to do the right thing for Claude, and the mistakes they made were done fully out of love. If this is a subject you're interested in looking at from a personal rather than a clinical level, this is a great place to start.

review by
Kelly Currie

Among the Wicked

Another great suspense read by Linda Castillo.

Kate Burkholder, who was raised Amish, becomes the chief of police in Painters Mill, Ohio.   Kate is asked to go undercover in an Amish community in upper New York to solve the murder of a 15 year old girl, Rachel Esh.

Once settled in the Amish community, Kate sets out with her new identity and tries to get other Amish women to discuss the death of Rachel.  Everyone speaks highly of the bishop, but he gives Kate chills that have nothing to do with the cold winter they are experiencing.

Whenever Kate gets close enough to get people talking to her, something always happens that causes them harm or even death. With the help of Marie, Rachel's best friend, Kate is able to uncover some very deep secrets, a series of shocking crimes and finds herself alone and trapped in a fight for her life.

 Facts that the reader does not get until the end of the novel will leave you shocked!

IN A DARK, DARK WOOD by Ruth Ware

     "Why now?" That is the question Leonora Shaw (known to some as Lee, to others as Nora) keeps asking herself. Nora has received a text from someone called Flo and she doesn't know anyone named Flo.  Was this text sent to her by mistake?
       Subject of the text: CLARE'S HEN!!
       The text says, Flo, is Clare's best friend from the university and her maid of honor. The Hen is going to be a weekend away near her old college stomping ground in Northumberland. Nora and Clare Cavendish had been best friends when they were in college at the University at Durham.  Clare and Nora have not be in contact with each other for 10 years and had not left college on the best of terms.  Clare and Nora have some unsolved issues to overcome.
      The Hen weekend ends up being in a dark cold woods in a eerie glass house.  As the first night falls, revelations unfold among friends old and new, and old memories shatters Nora's reserve, and Nora decides to leave. But before Nora and Nina, (who is also a close friend from Nora's college days), can leave a haunting realization creeps in, the party is not alone in the woods.
       Forty-eight hours later, Nora wakes up in a hospital bed, with the knowledge that someone is dead.  She doesn't remember what happened and is wondering, "what have I done?" Nora tries to piece together the events of the last weekend, while the police are waiting outside her hospital door to question her about the chain of events.
      What should have been a cozy and fun-filled weekend deep in the English countryside takes a sinister turn in Ruth Ware's suspenseful, compulsive, and darkly twisted debut psychological thriller. IN A DARK, DARK WOOD is a good, quick read and just in time for Halloween.

The Best of Me by Nicholas Sparks

    In the spring of 1984, high school students Amanda Collier and Dawson Cole fell deeply in love.  Though they were from opposite sides of the tracks, their love for each other seemed to defy the realities of life in the small town of Oriental, North Carolina.
     Dawson was a loner from a violent and infamous local family.  Amanda a golden girl from a well-to-do family with plans to attend Duke University. Amanda saw something in Dawson that spoke to her rebellious and passionate heart.
     As the summer of their senior year came close to an end, events would tear the young couple apart setting them on different paths.  Now, twenty-five years later, Amanda and Dawson are summoned back to Oriental for the funeral of Tuck Hostetler, the mentor who once gave shelter to their high school romance. As Dawson and Amanda carry out the instructions Tuck left behind for them, they realize that neither of their lives have turned out the way they planned and they still feel the same passion for each other that they had when they were in high school.
     A compelling story of young love that makes everyone want to believe that endless love is possible.  Nicholas Sparks is one of the world's most beloved storytellers. The following books written by Nicholas Sparks have been adapted into major motion pictures: The Notebook, The Last Song, Dear John, Nights in Rodanthe, Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember, and The Best of Me.

Dekker Wows Me Again!!

I love Ted Dekker books and many of the ones I have lately read were fantasy. But I have just completed Outlaw, which is not fantasy, and I was absolutely spell bound by it. Dekker is a different writer in Outlaw. I'm not sure why, but it is impressive.

The story only begins casual, because by chapter 3 you are anxiously on the edge of your seat,  looking to how the plot will play out. I caught myself saying many times, "how is he going to do this?"

The story is of Julian Carter. She is telling her story to her son and she is telling her story to us. It is in Chapter 3 we find her and her 2 year-old son on a small boat off the shores of Australia and somewhere near New Guinea.  A violent storm arises which takes the captain's life and eventually the boat.  Julian's son is gone; she can only assume dead. But Julian survives when picked up out of the sea by natives of an unknown and primitive tribe who she hopes to be her saviors but quickly realizes they are her captors.  The plot unravels and unravels more and you are hooked wanting to know how she will survive and how this will all play out. It is not a predictable plot! The stone-age civilization Julian is captured by appears to give her no hope for life; she must be smart and play her cards right. Challenges, trials, terror, personal sacrifice and redemption fills the pages.

As always, Dekker has a deep spiritual message woven into the plot.  And it isn't just simply there, spelled out for us; for me anyway; I have to think it through, "What is he trying to tell us? What is this supposed to stand for?  Oh! Now I get it!" Another reason I love Dekker's stories!  I think you will too!

Bodies of Water by T. Greenwood

A beautiful and haunting story of forbidden love set in the 1960s, Bodies of Water by T. Greenwood is a novel that I just couldn't put down.

Billie Valentine is a thirty-something housewife living in a suburb of Massachusetts with her husband and two adopted daughters. Her marriage is lacking the spark that love should bring to a relationship and her only true enjoyment revolves around summers spent on a lake in Vermont. There she can relax with her children and be away from the critical, alcoholic eye of her husband, Frankie.

When new neighbors move in next door, Billie and the girls are thrilled. Ted and Eva Wilson and their growing family soon twine themselves into the lives of the Valentines and strong friendships are forged. Billie and  Eva spend their free time together while husbands are at work and children are at school and soon the two women realize that what they really share is true love.

What happens when their secret is revealed?

Damascus Countdown

Joel Rosenberg, who is well known for political thrillers that lean toward the prophetic, does it again by writing another amazing, on-the-edge-of-your-seat fiction that coincides right with what is currently astir in today's international headlines. This is a story about Syria, Iran, America and CIA operative David Shirazi's mission to locate and disable two Iranian nuclear warheads before they are fired.  It's intense and wonderful!  I could only read a portion at a time, it was that intense. It will have you checking out the scriptures about Damascus and put you on ready for what is going to happen next in real life!

The Mountain Between Us

Charles Martin has done it again...written another superb book. In The Mountain Between Us, Martin takes you on a journey with Dr. Ben Payne and Ashley Knox, strangers who were scheduled for the same canceled flight. Minutes later, they are together on a small chartered plane, heading home; she for her wedding and he to his work as a Dr..

The story unfolds when the pilot dies midflight over "one of the largest stretches of harsh and remote land in the United States" and crash-lands the plane at 15,000 ft elevation and 50 miles from any civilization. No wheels, no wings, Ben and Ashley, injured but alive, must battle the elements, a mountain cat or two, find food, not freeze to death, and somehow get themselves off the mountains.  Don't be fooled; this is not just a story of survival, though I love survival stories! But it's also a story about mountains.... personal mountains, and specifically Ben's mountain. A mountain he must climb, conquer and hopefully descend!

The Mountain Between Us is well written and holds you til you finish. Matter of fact, I finished this book, sitting outside on a warm, VERY warm, Sunday afternoon...... in the elements! It only seemed right to do so. I was accompanied by a sparrow wetting it's wings in a nearby bird bath, three lazy cats sprawled out on my lawn sleeping soundly and letting the bird bathe, and a best-friend Border Collie, eyes on me, sitting at my feet.  There was a delicate breeze that made it all lovely and bearable as I spent time with Ben and Ashley who were not having a lovely time in their own brutal elements.  I survived the heat; Ben and Ashley, they..... Well! You read it yourself!

Charles Martin also wrote When Crickets Cry and Where the River Ends. Both worth your time. The Mountain Between Us is the June 2012 selection for the Delphi Public Library Faith-Inspired Book Club!