Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (2018) G.P. Putnam’s Sons (7/24)

Southern Fiction at its best.  This is the story of a little girl living in the Marsh of the North Carolina coast.  Her mother, then her siblings and finally, her Father leave here to grow-up on her own.  She attends school for a day but runs away back to her home in the marsh, where she can avoid the truant officers. 

She finally makes a friend with a boy who teaches her how to read.  He provides only textbooks about biology and science.  She also reads the book of poetry that her mother left behind.  He leaves her too, goes away to college and does not return to her.  While he’s gone, the local jock woos her and promises marriage and a new life.  She gives him a shell necklace that she made, and he promises to wear it for the rest of his life.  But she finds he is engaged to marry another girl from the town.  So, she rejects him.  

The college boy comes back and even though she will not trust him, he sees her collections of shells and feathers from the marsh and convinces her to write a book on the subject.  She does and it gets published.  With this money, she pays back taxes on her 300+ acre property inherited from her father.  

The local jock, drunk, reminiscent of her father, traps her in a local lagoon and tries to rape her.  She fights back and escapes but is noticed by some local fishermen.  

She’s invited to go see her publisher at a writer’s conference in Greensboro and takes the bus.  Everyone notices her, because she was dressed a little differently for the time.  While she’s gone, the jock dies, falling off a tower they’ve both been to before.  The mother, retrieving his personal effects, notices the shell necklace is missing.  

The marsh girl is accused of murdering the boy and goes to trial.  But in the end, the jury does not believe there is enough evidence to convict and she is let free.  She never returns to the town where she was shunned and accused of murder.  She does connect with the college boy and they live a life of research and love.  That is not the end of the story.  

Lost Souls by Dean Koontz (2010) Bantam

The fourth volume of his Frankenstein series reveals that Victor Frankenstein's clone, released when he died, has found its way to a small town in Montana - just like Erica five and Jocko on a separate path.

Carson and Michael have moved to San Francisco, married and had a child, whom they named Scout, after the character in To Kill a Mockingbird.  Deucalion (the monster who is much more of a protector) visits them and recruits them to help find Victor.  This incarnation of Frankenstein has revised a new race plan and created something he calls Builders, which can replicate themselves by devouring humans.

Between Shades of Grey by Ruta Sepetys (2011) Philomel Books

The story of Lithuanians who, like other people from Estonia, Latvia and Finland, were displaced by Stalin because they were educated, writers, or teachers, and sent to Siberia in hopes they would provide slave labor and die.  It is a heartbreaking account from one girl’s perspective of how she lost her mother and father.  Her father was a professor and died in prison for the crime of having an opinion that was counter to the invading Soviets.  Her mother died trying to keep her children safe.  The enduring strength of those who survived was met when they finally were able to return home thirty years later only to find their property and even their names stolen by strangers who threatened to turn them back to the Soviets for further punishment on the charge of seeking the truth.  These stories are only coming to light in the last twenty years as time capsules are found in construction sites.

 A Coyote’s in the House by Elmore Leonard (2004) HarperCollins

This is a different kind of book by a master storyteller.  In this tale, the Coyote is the main character and he runs with a gang of coyotes in the Hollywood hills.  He becomes friends with a German Shepard who was in the movies and is now essentially retired.  The German Shepard leads him into his master’s house and introduces him to a Standard Poodle who is a show dog.  The German Shepard wants to join the Coyote’s pack. Hence ensues fun and mayhem.

Way Station by Clifford D Simak (1963) Del Rey Books (7/3)

A soldier comes home from the Civil War to farm with his father.  When the horse runs away with his father and causes his death, the man calmly buries his father, then goes out to the field where the horse is still in its braces and kills the animal. Later a traveler comes by and asks for a drink of water, then recruits the soldier to be the attendant of an inter-galactic way station in his home.

Over time the man meets many different types of people coming through the way station.  He never seems to age because time is suspended in the station.  After 150 years, people have noticed there’s something different about him, but the local culture is to keep to yourself and not mess in other people’s business.  He takes walks into the local woods to watch the sunset or just to look in the sky.  There is a girl, considered by most to be retarded and a witch, since she is able to heal broken things.  Her father is afraid of her and beats her mercilessly.  One day she comes to the station and lets the soldier see her back.  He takes her into the station to apply first aid.  While there she manages to turn on a trinket left by one of the travelers, one the soldier was never able to work.

The soldier’s recruiter visits and reveals a political upheaval in the galaxy due to a missing spiritual token.  It may mean the end of the station.

Harbor Me by Jacqueline Woodson (2018) Nancy Paulson Books (6/28)

Part of a school year of six students passes in a special class in the fifth grade in a school in Brooklyn.  These students know they have been put into the class because they have learning difficulties.  But it’s not a problem with their intelligence, it’s because they’re all trying to deal with different events in their lives because of a kind of PTSD due to things that happened to members of their family.

The story is narrated by a red-headed, girl whose mother was black and the father is Irish.  They were in a car accident that killed her mother and when the man went to get help, he returned to find the police already there and has been imprisoned because he left the scene.  Another is hyper-active because she lost her father.  Another is depressed because his father, from the Dominican Republic, has been taken by the INS.

The teacher has given them an hour each week in a room by themselves to talk.  This is the story of what they talk about and how that changes their lives.

Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith (2015) Mulholland Books

The third C.B. Strike mystery.  Having solved two highly publicized crimes, Cormoran’s detective business is doing well, until someone sends a woman’s severed leg to his secretary/partner.  She was expecting it was flowers sent by her fiancé. 

This gets just as highly publicized and most of their clients call and cancel their contracts, leaving only two.  Cormoran can think of three possible suspects, including two he put away and the man who was accused of killing his mother.  But the police think they have nothing to do with it and ignore all three.

Cormoran, with the help of his assistant/partner, start trading off surveillance on the two people they still have contracts for and Strike’s suspect list.  This leads to Strike trying to keep her out of hard by giving her surveillance he thinks is harmless – of course, it’s anything but.

The writing is gritty and the plot leads inexorably to the murderer, though hints are placed so innocuously that the reader is surprised at the reveal while in agreement that the clues were there all along.

Innocence by Dean Koontz (2013) Bantam (6/15)

The story of Addison Goodheart, who because of his appearance, must hide from man so as to not cause them to attack him.  He was born in the woods in a cottage and birthed with the help of a midwife, who wanted to kill him as soon as he came out from his mother.  Even she, the woman who bore him could only stand to look at him for moments at a time.  Over the first 8 years of his life, she tried to kill him six times, but in the end could not bring herself to do the deed.  After his eighth birthday, she gave him a backpack and insisted he leave – since he had mostly raised himself in the woods, this was not a problem, but the night she sent him away, she took her own life.

He hopped into the back of a heavy-hauler truck and hid beneath a tarp and rode to the city.  There he met a man who was like him and who then raised him and became his father.  But even that came to an end a decade later when two policemen came upon them in a snowstorm and insisted on identification.  When his father removed his ski mask, the police shot him to death and then beat him.  Addison was able to hide away until they left.  Then he disposed of the corpse as he’d been instructed to do.

Another eight years passed with him living in a subterranean room and venturing out only when he was sure he would not be seen.  Then one night, in his favorite place, the city library, he saw a girl being chased by a man.  The girl, Gwyneth, dresses and uses makeup to appear like a marionette.

The story goes from there, showing man’s fear of innocence and how the world ends and is renewed.

Of Blood and Bone by Nora Roberts (2018) St. Martin’s Press

The story continues from Year One with the child who was born to be The One turning thirteen and having grown up with a step father and three younger brothers, she goes with Mallick the Sorcerer to be trained and to get ready for the battle against evil.

She meets elves and changelings, and goes on three quests and finds a white owl, who guards a treasure and will not give it to anyone who climbs its tree, a white wolf who likewise has a treasure to guard and a white horse, whom everyone fears, who turns out to be a combination unicorn and Pegasus.  She eventually reaches into the well of life where she takes up a flaming sword and a shield.  Having accomplished all this, she returns to her mother and family, then begins training them.

When she is ready to go to the town of New Hope, her family goes with her.

Once there she has a battle with three evil witches, a mother, father and girl.  She manages to kill the father, but the others get away.

Obviously there will be a third volume.

Fair Game by Patricia Briggs (2012) Ace

We follow the werewolf enforcer and his wife as they work on the mysterious deaths of three werewolves.  When they get to Boston, there is a currently missing fae, the half-human daughter of one of the ruling lords of the fae.  Our werewolves find her, but she has been hurt badly and will never be able to dance again.  The people responsible are brought to trial, but are declared not guilty by a jury.  The fae lord, declares that the fae are no longer at peace with the U.S. and decapitates the guilty party.

God of the Hive by Laurie R King (2010) Bantam

Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes try to rescue his son, Damien.  Reverend Brothers has survived the incident on Orkney Island, but when he checks-in with his benefactor, he is killed.  Holmes and Russell do not know this.  Russell, with Damien’s daughter connect with a pilot (who took her north in the previous volume) and attempt to fly back to London but are shot at on the way and crash in a forest.  A man who seems like the Green Man, rescues them and gives them shelter.  Holmes older brother Mycroft has been abducted and has his life threatened.  A group of men invade the green man’s home but are stranded when the green man leads Russell and party to their car.  The green man turns out to be a war hero with a tainted past and son of a Lord.  Russell discovers a key in Mycroft’s home and tracks it to a woman who says the key hasn’t been used in ages and in fact the lock was changed years ago.  She also discovers that Mycroft’s secretary has been receiving large sums of money from an unknown source, especially just after Mycroft’s disappearance and then mysteriously disappeared himself.  Holmes has his some secreted away in Holland but returns to London to solve the mystery.  The story culminates with all parties coming together.

The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey (2014) Orbit

A post-apocalyptic science fiction story with a well-thought-out explanation of a cause for the zombie-like devastation of the world.  In Carey’s explanation, a spore spreads through the human race that started in the Amazon on the floor, attacking ants, who try to rub it off, but when infected will climb the nearest tree, attach themselves to a leaf and when the filaments of the maturing spore finish devouring their host, explode and spread their spores further along the floor of the rain forest.  In the humans, it travels the nervous system to the brain, replacing the intelligence of the host but controlling the motor functions.  A bite will infect their target.  But what the scientists discovered is that there appear to be children running around without being attacked but are obviously infected.  They capture some of these, take them to an airbase and then educate them. 

This is the story of how one of the little girls, Melanie, learns how the human race will continue.

Every child in the captured group, lives in a cell by themselves.  An alarm rings in the morning and they get dressed and sit in a wheelchair.  The door opens and two soldiers enter, one with a gun aimed at the child.  The other soldier ties the child into the chair and then wheels them into a classroom.  There, the teachers rotate each day, teaching different subjects.  One day, the base is attacked by Hungries (the zombies) herded by the Junkers (people who are not infected but did not evacuate to the uninfected areas) and the base falls.  Melanie, her favorite teacher, a scientist who was about to extract Melanie’s brain to inspect under the microscope, the Sergeant in charge of the military at the base, and a private escape.  But their way from there is not easy. 

The Junkers pursue them.  They try to hide but find themselves surrounded by the Hungries.  Melanie finds the Hungries do not see her.  They discover an abandoned mobile research vehicle and make their way inside, but it is inoperable.  The Sergeant works on restoring power and Melanie does recon, where she discovers a group of children, but they are operating as a savage tribe looking for protein (people) to eat.  The private becomes their first victim.  The scientist traps one of the kids and starts examining their brain tissue under the electron microscope and leaves the others behind who were looking for the private.  When she comes across a wall of the fungus, she stops and finalizes notes about the difference in the second generation of infected hungries, the kids, and realizes that all is lost.  Melanie tricks her into opening the door and then listens to her as the scientist, knowing she is infected and dying, explains what she has found in the kids.

Make Me by Lee Child (2015) Delacorte Press

In which Reacher steps off the train in Mother’s Rest, a town in the middle of nowhere, just to find out why it has that name.  He expects to find a museum or a visitor’s center or even a chamber of commerce with a history of the town.  What he finds instead, is a town of suspicious people and a woman who is looking for her partner who called her for backup.  Because of the aggressive behavior of the townspeople, Reacher decides to help her.  And of course, become her lover.  The main problem for the bad guys is that Reacher is better than them at the confrontation level.

LaBrava by Elmore Leonard (1983) Arbor House

An ex-Secret Service agent turned photographer lives in a building where the man who owns it, Maurice. is in his eighties and knows an ex-movie star.

LaBrava runs into the woman at a rehab check-in after she was arrested for throwing a beer bottle at a police officer.  Another man comes to see her, to ‘take her home’ and presents a security company badge trying to impersonate a police officer.  LaBrava puts him down until Maurice can get the star into his car and they leave.

The impersonator continues to come around and bother her, so Maurice gets her to come to his building and use one of the empty rooms.  LaBrava remembers her in movies he saw when he was 12.

But, of course, there is more to the story.  There is a murder plot to bilk her for $600G, which she does not have, but which Maurice will lend her so she can stay safe.

The Maze Runner by James Dashner (2009) Delacorte Press

This starts with a teenager, our hero, trapped in a moving box that he finally discovers is an elevator and he is deposited in a world with other teenage boys who run the maze each day, trying to solve it so they can escape.  A girl appears a week later, not the usual month and she’s the first girl to arrive and has a message that the end is coming.  Once the hero figures-out how to escape only 40% go with him.  And in the end, we discover that everything is a lie and that was only experiment A – now on to B.

Warlight by Michael Ondaatje (2018) Knopf 

A post World War II story, covering the life of an English boy whose parents went to other parts of the world and left their teenage children in the care of strangers.  Even the leave-taking was a lie, the father leaving for Singapore, the mother staying until the children’s year in boarding schools could start.  Almost at once, the Moth, whom she left in charge, starts caring for them more like a father than a renter who agreed to watch over them when home.  Then they discover their mother’s traveling trunk in the basement and know she did not leave to meet-up with their father.  The Moth has a lot of friends over to their house in London and they get to know them by playing hooky and running around with the Darter, one of the friends, and getting jobs to earn money.  The boy even has an affair with a coworker, Agnes, from the restaurant where he works.  Halfway through the book, they are kidnapped, and the Moth is killed and their mother suddenly appears with the friends and sweeps the children off to her own ancestral home.  But even boarding them in far-away places fails to solve any problems and the son returns to live with her, learning nothing about when she was away and the daughter insisting on a school too far away for visiting.  Once the boy graduates college, he is recruited to work for the government, going through files to make sure nothing is left that would be incriminating to England.  There, he discovers traces of his mother as a spy for the government with enemies searching for her or her children.  The Moth, the Darter, others were watching over the children to keep them safe from foreign vengeance.  Finally, he finds the address of the Darter and visits the man, to discover he has married and has a 13 year old daughter.  On his way out, he sees a family photo, with the Darter and Agnes and a small girl and realizes that his kidnapping happened just over 13 years ago.  But he leaves the Darter in peace.

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (2008) Macmillan

The story runs from the days of Henry the first to Henry the second and the martyrdom of Thomas Beckett.  It follows the life of two little boys, whose father and mother are killed by soldiers in front of them and rescued by an Abbot, who raises them.  Through their lives as a Prior of a Monastery and a Priest in the service of royalty (a little bit of John Jakes here).  A stone mason, who aspires to build a cathedral becomes the other force to move the story, demonstrating the lofty goals of people who wish the period after Henry I did not devolve into civil war between Stephen (Henry’s nephew) and the Empress Maud (Henry’s daughter) known as the Anarchy.  Follett does an excellent job on the history, getting the players and events correct.  The pivotal event for the story involves a plot to interrupt the succession in hopes for a weak king, the barons conspired to kill his son, William II, at sea.  However, there was a survivor, which they imprisoned to keep him quiet, in fear that he knew enough to bring them to justice.  In Follett’s story, this man is visited in his cell by a woman who lives in the nearby forest.  She is pregnant when they decide to kill him by hanging under a false charge.  A local knight’s son is a ruffian whose family successfully accuses the local Earl of being against King Stephen

United as One by Pittacus Lore (2016) HarperCollins

The seventh and final book in the original Lorien Series (There are additional books since, but they seem to be discarded chapters from different points of view).  In this episode, number eight is a prisoner, but number four, John, gets him to participate in a revolt against the Mogodorians, who think they’ve one.  John discovers he can learn any legacy and goes with the others to the mountain headquarters in West Virginia.  Ra has become something more fluid than ever before and his protege, also thinks she is unbeatable.  Both are wrong as Adam tumbles with her into an abyss, taking her from the formula and number four discovers Ra’s weakness is to be healed.

The Fate of Ten by Pittacus Lore (2015) HarperCollins

The sixth book in the Lorien series.  This volume picks-up from the previous installment with the Mogodorians attacking New York City, going from apartment to apartment, taking prisoners where there is cooperation and killing any resistance or hesitation.  At one apartment, a little girl suddenly discovers that she can levitate and move other objects, like soldiers and kills those who attacked and killed her stepfather.  Nine and Five are killing Mogs and brawling with each other.  John and Sam are leading refugees through the rubble, John healing those he can while they try to find safety.  Six and Seven and Adam have gone inside the Sanctuary and communicated with the entity formerly known as Lorien.  Ella, number ten, is being infused with her grandfather’s genetic mixture in an attempt to control her.

A year later, after his defeat, most of the Lorian have isolated themselves.  Except for number nine, who lost an arm in the final battle, and number ten, Ella, both of whom are teaching the new legacy endowed kids.  John has been fixing the cave that number eight found and creating new pendants.  He visits Adam, who was rescued from the abyss by him chimera, who did not survive.  Adam is in a Mogodorian refugee camp, trying to teach them how to change and live in a world in peace.  Marina, number seven, has found number eight, but will not interact with him as he wastes away.  Number six and Sam are traveling the world.  John leaves invitations for all of them to join him in the chamber he has reconstructed.  He is through with numbers.

When Six, Seven and Adam exit the Sanctuary, they find the skimmers have been disabled by the one Mog who survived the attack.  This means they’re stuck at the Sanctuary in Mexico without word from the others in New York.  Soon, they’re joined by Sarah and Mark and Lexa, the pilot of the second spacecraft that brought Ella from Lorien.

The Revenge of Seven by Pittacus Lore (2014) HarperCollins 

The fifth book in the Lorien Legacies series in which Seven, Marina, has developed a new legacy, the ability to freeze any available moisture.  The cold that comes off of her is palpable.  She and Six and Adam, the true-born Mogodorian son of a general, fly south to a Mayan city and go into a temple that the Lorians altered into a sanctuary to hold the entity known as Lorien.  While they are en-route, John and Sam and Nine go to New York with the FBI to try to alter the outcome of the Secretary of Defense’s assurance to the United Nations that the Mogs are trustworthy allies.

En-route to the sanctuary, Adam bluffs his way past Mog scout ships that intercept him and instead gets an escort to the temple area, which is surrounded by a field that burns any Mog trying to get inside.  Once there, he announces that his father sent him to inspect their setup.  But the leader of the squad knows his father (whom he has killed) in fact, considers him a traitor.  When she drags him to the field to burn him, Number Six and Marina slip behind a gun turret and kill the Mogs, except for the leader, who runs off.  They get to Adam and because he has a legacy, he is able to follow them through the field.

The leader calls Setracus Ra urgently and lets him know the Garde are there and have entered the temple.  He tells her to make sure they don’t leave.  In the meantime, Five attacks Ra and is thrown out of the mother ship while it is still a long ways from the ground.

Four and Nine blast their way through Mog guards to find the Secretary looks like is almost dead.  Four prevents him from committing suicide and heals him.  He wants the Secretary to do the right thing.

Setracus Ra alights in front of the UN building and walks down a ladder with Ten, Ellie, his granddaughter, reluctantly beside him, announcing that they come in peace.  But the Secretary takes the microphone and announces that Ra is a monster intent on the destruction and enslavement of Earth.  Ellie manages to hurt Ra and his concentration make him lose the good looks he had applied to himself and reveal himself as he is.  But the charm he made between them still works and every attempt to hurt Ra reveals itself on Ellie instead.  Five figures this out and knocks first John, then Nine out of the way, but Ellie tells John how she is wounded.  Nine sees Five simply as a traitor and turns to fight him, angry because he prevented Nine from killing Ra (not knowing it would not have worked – only Ellie can hurt him).

Six and Seven and Adam enter the sanctuary, carrying Eight and the charms from their combined chests.  Lorien is awakened and brings Eight back to life for a few minutes so Marina and he can say goodbye.  But the entity is vague in how she can help with the Mogodorians.