We Need No Wings

Finished December 19

We Need No Wings by Ann Dávila Cardinal

This novel really caught my attention and kept it. The main character is Tere Sanchez, an English professor at a New England university. She is currently on leave, almost a year after her husband was unexpectedly killed in an accident. She has been having a very hard time moving on. As the book opens, she is out looking after the garden that her husband loved so much when she found herself having a very unusual experience, she levitates. At first she thinks she might be going crazy, but after having more such experiences, and making some discrete inquires of an older aunt, she remembers that her family is said to be descended from the family of Saint Teresa of Avila, who was also known for levitation. 

On an impulse, she decides to travel to Spain, to Avila, and see what she can learn, both from the place and from a distant cousin who lives there. Her Puerto Rican Spanish will make it relatively easy to get along. 

She lets her son, who lives in California, as well as a university colleague who was a close friend of her husband, know that she's gone to Spain. Once in Avila, she starts by trying to find her relative, a task harder than she expected, and unexpectedly begins to make friends with some locals. The landlord at her apartment helps, as well as a young homeless man that she takes under her wing. When she decides to rent a bicycle, she also finds an friendship forming with the owner of the bike shop.

Her inquiries into Saint Teresa lead her to churches and museums, and give her insight into how women were treated then, and how little has changed in some ways. 

I loved this book and Tere's story of mid-life change. 

The Cemetery of Untold Stories

Finished February 17

The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez

This novel is set mostly in the Dominican Republic. Alva Cruz emigrated to the United States as a child with her parents and three sisters, but often visited her home country. She is a well-known author and has been having a writer's block recently. When her father passes away, she and her sisters divide up the properties he owned with Alma agreeing to a large property beside a dump. She intends to use it as a graveyard for her unfinished works. After organizing them, she engages with a local sculptor to create sculptures for each work that will sit above their resting place. 

Alva finds that she can still hear her stories, even as they revise themselves, as well as hearing other stories. 

The construction of her fenced cemetery and sculpture garden attracts local interest, and Alva ends up hiring one of the locals, Filomena, to be the groundskeeper. She also asks her to spend time at each burial site and listen. 

Filomena can also hear the stories, and she spends most of her time at two of the graves. One has the story of Bienvenida Trujillo, the second wife of the dictator El Jefe. Another is the story of a Dominican doctor named Manuel Cruz, who fought with partisans and emigrated to the United States. 

As we learn these stories, we also learn the stories of Alma, and of Filomena and her sister Perla. 

This is a novel that flows beautifully, with stories weaving themselves into each other and giving us a sense of the country and its people. 

Before the Coffee Gets Cold

Finished December 4

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, translated by Geoffrey Trousselot

This book is the first in the series names for this title. It is a book set in a small basement coffee shop in a back alley in Tokyo. The shop has existed for decades and there is a legend that the shop also gives customers the chance to travel back in time. 

In this book, there are four stories, each with a customer visiting the cafe with the hope that the legend is true and that they can make such a journey. But there are rules around these journeys: One is that the traveller cannot change the present, no matter what they do. Another is that you can only meet someone who has visited the coffee shop. A third is that there is only one place in the shop that you can sit to travel, and you must remain in that seat for the duration. A fourth rule is the limit of the visit, the time is takes from the coffee being poured until it gets cold. And the visitor has to drink all the coffee or they will be stuck as a ghost. 

The visitors here go back for various reasons, and we see all of these visitors in the introduction to the first story. Here Fumiko wants to go back to have a different conversation with her boyfriend Goru who recently went to work in America. 

In the second story, Kohtake wants to go back to before her husband Fusagi, who has early-onset Alzheimer's, forgot who she was. A staff member at the shop says that the reason Fusagi wanted to go back was to give her a letter, but that she can go back to get it herself. 

The third story is the story of sisters. Hirai runs a snack bar near the coffee shop. She came to Tokyo from the outskirts of Sendai, a city a few hours north of Tokyo, where her parents ran an inn. Her younger sister Kumi comes often to the cafe to try to meet Hirai, but Hirai won't talk with her. Hirai left because her parents expected her to take over running the inn and she didn't want to, and they eventually transferred their expectations to Kumi. When something happens to Kumi, Hirai knows that she wants to have that conversation with her sister that she's been avoiding. 

The fourth story shifts the conversations around travelling in time to contemplate travelling to the future and the difficulty of determining whether the one you want to meet with be there at the time you travel to. One of the coffee shop workers decides to do it, with the others promising to do what they can to ensure the meeting takes place. 

I liked the premise of the book, and the parameters around these travels in time. They are very different from what we often see in novels with time travel as a concept. 

A feel-good read that will appeal to a variety of readers. 

Shubeik Lubeik

Finished November 27

Shubeik Lubeik by Deena Mohamed, translated by Deena Mohamed

This graphic novel trilogy in one volume is set in a version of our world where wishes are a commodity that can be bought and sold. One man, Shokry, is the owner of a kiosk in Cairo, where he sells a variety of goods. In conversation with one of his regular customers, Shawqia, he reveals that he has three first class wishes, given to him by his father, but his father also counselled him never to use them. 

Shawqia urges him to sell them, and one of her young relatives makes him a sign. 

We gradually learn more about the world, including the bureaucracy around wishes in Egypt and internationally, and later about the history of these particular wishes. 

Each part of the trilogy deals with one of the wishes and what happens to it. We see the struggle each of the users of the wish undergo as they determine how to use it, and how their situation in life affects that use. The first wish user, Aziza, comes from a working class background and struggles with personal loss, survival, and a bureaucracy that isn't fair. The next wish user, Nour is a college student from a wealthy background and struggles with depression. Nour isn't sure how or whether to use the wish to help himself with his mental state. The last user is Shokry himself, who struggles with the vast need he sees across his community, the personal health of a woman he has come to know, and his father's and his religion's stance regarding the wishes. 

This trilogy was originally written in Arabic and the book is still structured for the right to left reading of it. The novel won awards in its original form, and gives insight into a culture and place I am not personally familiar with. The translation of the title is a fairy tale rhyme that means "your wish is my command" and thus fits perfectly with the contents. 

The Library of Legends

Finished August 13

The Library of Legends by Janie Chang

This historical fiction novel also has elements of fantasy. It is set in China in 1937, as the war with Japan begins to have an impact on the safety of China's citizens. The point of view shifts between a few characters. One of them is nineteen-year-old Hu Lian, who is a scholarship student at Minghua University in Nanking, which was the capital of China at the time. The government has a strong belief that the students at universities from around the country are key to the country's future, and they begin to organize relocations of the students and professors into cities further from the front lines. Some students decide to go home, some choose to enlist as soldiers, but there are many who join the migration of their schools. 

Lian has a secret, she and her mother took new identities after the death of her father and moved to a large city to get away from people who might know them. They didn't have a lot of money, but her mother spoke English and was able to use a typewriter, and that gave her opportunities to earn enough to cover their costs. Lian would like to go to her mother, who has told her that she is heading to a mission in Shanghai, but with Shanghai now in control of the Japanese, she isn't sure exactly where her mother might be, and she is convinced that waiting until she knows where her mother has settled and lets her know via the school will be the only way they can be sure to find each other. So Lian goes on the journey with her assigned group, consisting of students, professors, administrators, and staff who do things like cook their meals. 

One of the professors is Professor Kang, the dean of literature and a recognized expert on classics of the Tang Dynasty. He dresses as a traditional scholar, in a long dark-coloured gown with a high neck. He is particularly interested in a set of volumes that contain folk legends and myths, known as the Library of Legends. Each student will carry one volume of the set and read the stories in that volume along the journey. They will also have to write a term paper on one of the tales in the book they carry. Lian has a volume called Tales of the Celestial Deities. Kang is another of the characters that we sometimes see the thoughts of. 

Liu Shaoming, known as Shao, is a fourth year student who meets Lian after a bombing attack where they both took what shelter they could. He and his servant, a young woman called Sparrow Chen accompany her back to canvas and are part of the same group from the university. We also sometimes see his thoughts. 

As the journey progresses, the travelers encounter hardships, from the danger of bombs and rough living conditions with limited food options, to political differences. They learn how to find footwear that will carry them on their long walk, and friendships as well as rivalries grow. 

Lian and Kang learn that two of their fellow travelers have a link to a folktale in the volume Lian carries, "The Willow Star and the Prince" a story of love that continues over reincarnation after reincarnation, but has no happy ending. They also learn that the times have coincided with a exodus of the many gods, large and small, through the Gates of Heaven which are open to them for a limited time. As they ponder why this change is happening, they also see how it affects the world they are used to. 

I really enjoyed the folktale aspect of the novel, and the way that only some people can see the gods in their true form as the move to leave the places where they've been worshipped and go home to where they came from. 

I also liked Lian as she faced challenges with reason, looking for a way to be her own person, and not rely on others more than she has to. 

A very different and interesting read. 

Expiration Dates

Finished July 1

Expiration Dates by Rebecca Serle

This is a romance book with a few twists. The central character is Daphne Bell, the assistant to a well-known producer, who lives in L.A. not far from where she grew up. 

Daphne has long believed in a higher power that guided her life. All her life, from elementary school to the present, she has known how long each romantic relationship she experiences will be. Either just before, or soon after meeting someone, she finds a slip of paper that gives the first name of the man, and a time period. Sometimes it is only a few days, sometimes weeks, sometimes months. This makes her feel in control in a way. She can enter the relationship knowing when it will end. She has only disclosed this information to one person, and that was by accident. His name is Hugh, and while he once appeared on one of those slips of paper, now he is one of her best friends. She regularly goes to the market with him, meets him for meals, and talks about the latest man in her life. 

As the book opens, she is about to go on a blind date that another friend has set her up on, and this time the paper only has his name. What does that mean? She is shaken by this. Will Jake be her life partner, the one she stays with forever? 

As her relationship with Jake advances, we are taken back through the other men she's spent time with, and we see how she met each one, and how the relationships developed and ended. We also learn that she has another secret, one that may devastate Jake, and she has to decide whether and how to convey this information. 

I really enjoyed the segments that took us back in Daphne's life, showing us her at different stages in life and how she acted in different relationships. This book explores how we act and react in our relationships, and how true to ourselves we are, as well as how we are changed by each experience. Like another book I read recently, The Husbands,  the magic realism aspect of this novel gives it more depth and raises interesting questions to reflect on. 

The Husbands

Finished June 6

The Husbands by Holly Gramazio

This book completely captivated me. 

Lauren returns to her flat one evening, after a hen's night for her best friend's upcoming wedding, and finds a strange man in her home. She lives alone, and doesn't have a boyfriend. The man claims to be her husband Michael, and when she looks more closely, she finds changes to he home: different paint on some walls, some different pictures, new furniture and other changes. When she looks at her phone, she finds him in her address book, and sees pictures showing that they've been together for years. She tries to figure out what has happened that she doesn't remember any of this, and when Michael goes to the attic to change a light bulb, a different man emerges, with her flat changed again in a different way. She soon finds that a trip to the attic brings a different man and as she examines her feelings and relationships, she gradually makes the connection with these changes as trying to find someone or something better instead of just living the life she has. 

It's a really interesting idea, and I liked where she went with it. Sometimes her job changed as well, and that created interesting situations. 

The husbands are a real mix, but she gradually realizes that they are all possible matches for her, each showing some aspect that she likes in a partner. It also illuminated how a woman can be drawn into a relationship for one of those aspects and find that another aspect makes the match unacceptable. A couple of the men that appear as husbands are downright scary in their own way, which makes this even more believable. 

I couldn't put this book down, reading it in a single day. Such a good, interesting, and thought-provoking novel. 

Land of Love and Drowning

Finished June 4

Land of Love and Drowning by Tiphanie Yanique

This novel, set in the Virgin Islands, is one of loss, wonder, relationships, and magic. It takes place from 1916 to the early 1970s, and has a slow pace with lush language and a strong sense of place. As the novel begins, the United States is finalizing the purchase of what is now the U.S. Virgin Islands (previously the Danish Virgin Islands) from Denmark. This sense of being American is taken seriously by the generation born around that time, including two sisters, Eeona and Anette Bradshaw, daughters of sea captain Owen Arthur Bradshaw and his wife Antoinette who is from Anegada, a smaller, less populated island. It is a feeling shared by Bradshaw's illegitimate son, Jacob Esau, by Rebekah McKenzie, a woman whose husband disappeared some time back. Rebekah reads fortunes and is widely regarded as a witch in the community. Jacob is seen and raised as a McKenzie. 

After their father's shipwreck and their mother's death, Eeona takes Anette under her care and the two are forced to move what little they now have into a poor part of town. This book follows their lives into adulthood and lives influenced by where they have come from, and the destiny predicted regarding them. Eeona is a beautiful girl who becomes a beautiful woman, and this beauty is something that she uses as needed to help her advance in life. Eeona is also scarred by her relationship with her father and her unique physical attributes. 

It is interesting to see how the island men begin to understand the racial prejudice of their new parent country when they serve in World War II, and how that same prejudice seeps into the island life, culminating in the protests and the Virgin Islands Open Shorelines Act in the early 1970s. I like learning new facts about places through fiction. 

I also liked the magic realism element here around beauty, foretelling, and the power of words. There was a natural flow to how this was revealed in the book. 

This is a novel that will stay with me for a while. 

The Painted Drum

Finished March 31

The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich

This novel has several timelines, with all of them related to a sacred drum created by an Ojibwe man during a difficult time in his life. The story begins with an Ojibwe woman Faye Travers, who works as an appraiser and antique dealer with her mother. As part of their business they value and clear houses as part of estate sales. When she is called to appraise and clear a home of a man in her own community, she is not surprised to find indigenous artifacts there, as his family is descended from an Indian agent who worked on the North Dakota Ojibwe reservation. What surprises her is that she finds herself compelled to take one of these artifacts, a drum, without listing it as part of the estate contents. She finds the drum calls to her and she treats it with the respect it deserves as she quietly searches for the people it came from. 

The book takes a jump back as we learn of a legend that is related to the creation of the drum, and then forward as the drum is returned to Bernard Shaawano whose grandfather created the drum. The story then moves us into the future as the drum plays a role in the lives of another Ojibwe family that is struggling. 

This is a story that I found myself taking my time to read, stopping to go over passages, and thinking about what Erdrich is telling us here. Slow-paced and with an element of magic realism, this story will return to you long after you have finished reading it.  

Dig

Finished February 25

Dig by A.S. King

This book just blew me away. I had heard good things about it, so borrowed it from my local library and it exceeded my expectations. This story is told in three parts, each consisting of multiple chapters. Part One is Introductions where we get introduced to some of the main players in the plot. Part Two is Our Cast in a Blender. Part Three is Our Cast in a Strainer.

Part One is itself split into sections, and each section has a list of the cast in order of appearance. It is interesting that not all the cast are people, and not all the people have actual names. Some people are named for an attribute or behaviour, others for a relationship or role. Some of the cast are other creatures, some are inanimate objects, and some change names in different situations. 

Part Two starts to really mix the cast members up, having them encounter each other and situations in different ways. 

Part Three takes the cast through defining moments, facing up to difficult situations, decisions, and new knowledge.

The novel begins in April 2018, and then jumps back a few weeks and moves forward from there throughout the rest of the book. Each chapter takes us either to the viewpoint of a cast member, or to a description of a scene. Many of the main cast are teenagers struggling with a variety of typical issues as well as some less typical ones: trying to fit in or define their identity, rebelling against parents, making friends, working, dealing with illegal or illicit substances, exploring sexual feelings, bullying, school, race, and facing loss. Two of the main cast members are older adults, influenced by specific events that happened back when they themselves were teenagers that affected their life views. These two older adults, a couple, have hidden these things from each other, and they are estranged from most of their children, and don't know their grandchildren well, if at all. 

As we see these various cast members cross paths and interact with each other, we also see how they are connected in different ways, and how they are all moving towards the crucial date from the beginning of the novel, where things come to a climax. 

This is a coming of age story and a story of secrets, personas, and hope for a better future. Some of the teenagers have relatively good relationships with some of the adults in their lives, and others less so. There are judgements, and impressions, reactions and defence mechanisms. 

There is just so much to talk about in this book, that it would be a fantastic book club choice. 

I loved this book so much.

The True Story of Ida Johnson

Finished July 28
The True Story of Ida Johnson by Sharon Riis

This short novel is quite different. Ida Johnson grew up in southern Alberta on a farm near a small town. She was a loner and different and her only friend was a young native girl, Lucy, who went to school in town briefly. She and Lucy were very close and spent a lot of time outdoors and playing imaginative games. Ida is now a waitress in another small Alberta town.
A trucker driving from B.C. through the Crowsnest Pass in winter is surprised to see a young man lying by the side of the road. When he stops and approaches, thinking the young man may be dead in the cold, the man sits up. The trucker takes him along, but feels put off by the stranger, who doesn't say much, except that his name is Luke. When they stop at a small town diner, Luke stays. Ida is on shift, but when her shift is over, Luke asks her to sit and talk.
The story moves around in time and viewpoint, sometimes showing us what Lucy did after leaving Alberta when she was young. We hear about Ida's peripatetic life, her triumphs and betrayals. She still remembers Lucy with fondness.
Although it is never stated, one feels like Luke and Lucy are the same person in different guises. And that sometimes Ida is aware of this.
Ida has done some terrible things, and yet she doesn't seem to regret any of them. Her story is matter of fact, not holding anything back.
Because this book was written in the 1970s, some of the terminology is no longer appropriate, and was on the edge even for that time. I really don't know how I feel about this book, it is unsettling and yet because it is told in such an unemotional tone, somehow just a sad story. 
Interestingly, the blurbs on the back of my copy are from Margaret Atwood and Marian Engel, which speak to its uptake at the time it was first published.

A Princess of Roumania

Finished March 2
A Princess of Roumania by Paul Park

This fantasy story has elements of magic realism in it. Miranda Popescu was adopted from an orphanage in Bucharest by an American couple, and grew up in Massachusetts. Now a teenager, she has only a couple of close friends, Peter and Andromeda.
What Miranda doesn't know is that she is actually an important player in a struggle for power that exists between the old dynasty that led the country of Roumania, the Baroness Nicola Ceausescu who has had power and struggles to keep it now that her husband has died, and the German man of power who hold Miranda's mother in a remote tower.
As Miranda's aunt Aegypta looks to contact her through dreams and visions, Miranda is set upon by Ceausescu's men who try to capture her and take her to the woman they are loyal to.
As Peter and Andromeda try to protect Miranda, they also become involved, and it seems that at least one of them has inherited this role of protector through lineage and loyalty to Miranda's family.
This is a story of dreams, visions, magic, strange events, time travel, and change.
Miranda is a girl who doesn't really understand what she is meant to do, and as she struggles to find her way, she makes mistakes that put her and those she cares about in peril.
She journeys far and into strange places, and meets strange people.
This is the first book in a series.

Going After Cacciato

Finished October 27
Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien

This is a classic Vietnam war novel, winning the National Book Award for Fiction in 1979. I've had it on my shelf for quite a while and finally determined to read it this year. I'm not usually a big fan of magic realism, but this book really made it work for me.
The narrator here is Paul Berlin, a young man in good physical condition and with little life experience, like many of the young men that fought in this war. Cacciato always seemed a little removed from the others, almost a kid, but placid, not a whiner. As the book begins, he has walked away from his unit heading west, saying that he'd had enough of the war and he was walking to Paris. The idea is outlandish, and yet somehow appealing. It is eight thousand and six hundred miles. The guy in charge, Lieutenant Corson determines that a group of men closest to Cacciato will follow and bring him back, including the Lieutenant himself. But he's not really the leader here.
The personalities of the men come alive: Doc Peret, the medic for the unit and the leader for much of time; Stink Harris, the giggler who goes off with all guns blazing; Eddie Lazzutti, an indistinct figure; Oscar Johnson the black man who claims to be from Detroit, but seems like he is from Maine; the Lieutenant, who often seems lose, unsure, and unwell; and Harold Murphy, the voice of reason.
We also see the men that have already either died or been injured and sent back either home or to mend for a while. Guys like Billy Boy Watkins who died of fright his first day in battle, Frenchie Tucker who was shot; Bernie Lynn and Lieutenant Sidney Martin who died in tunnels; all of which we are told on the first page, although we learn more of their stories as the book unfolds. And others whose stories get told later: Ready Mix, Rudy Chassler, Pederson, Vaught, Ben Nystrom, and Buff.
There is also a young Vietnamese girl Sarkin Aung Wan, who was traveling away from Saigon with her elderly aunts, hoping to escape the war. She has knowledge and skills that help them, and she too wants to go to Paris, but not for Cacciato, for herself. She wants to make a new home.
Interspersed with the tale of the chase are Paul's reminiscences of his early days in the war, of the men who are no longer with them, of his vigil overnight in a watchtower near the ocean.
What is real and what isn't? Where are these men? What do they see? What is their purpose?
An utterly fascinating tale.

Land Mammals and Sea Creatures

Finished May 24
Land Mammals and Sea Creatures by Jen Neale

This odd novel is set in a small community on the west coast of Canada. Julie Bird has returned to the town she grew up in to find everything slightly askew. Her father Marty, a war vet with a prosthesis and PTSD, seems more depressed and bent on self-destruction. A young woman making a living as a Jerry Lee Lewis impersonator seems to have a hold on him that Julie doesn't understand. When she begins to figure out who this woman is, and her relationship to Marty's past, she feels anger, but also fear for her dad.
When the three go for a boat trip, it culminates in the beaching and death of a blue whale, an event that casts a miasma, both real and nebulous over the town. More odd animals deaths continue to occur, some seem like suicide, and the relationship to animals here has many layers.
This is a story of a past that has a strong influence on the present, of the relationship between humans and their environment, and about a young woman coming to terms with the reality of death.

The New Moon's Arms

Finished July 18
The New Moon's Arms by Nalo Hopkinson

This novel was one I picked because of a challenge over at Following the Thread. The story follows a woman, Calamity, as she undergoes some major changes in her life. Her name as a girl was Chastity, but she changed it to Calamity as it felt more fitting to her. Her family was poor, and when her mother disappeared when she was still a young girl, there were all kinds of rumours that put her on the outside at school. Soon after that, a major storm caused destruction to the island where she'd lived until then, Blessée, and when they evacuated that island, her father was offered a house on Dolorosse. When Calamity was sixteen, she got pregnant, and her father kicked her out. She survived, and made a life for herself and her daughter Ife, and eventually when her father became terminally ill with lung cancer, she returned to look after him. As the book opens, she is at his funeral,
When she was young, Calamity was a finder, who seemed to have the skill to locate things that people had lost, but that disappeared around the time her mother did. Lately though, something like it seems to have returned. Calamity feels warm, and her hands go tingly, and something shows up unexpectedly. Her doctor says it is just menopause, but she thinks it is more than that.
At the funeral, it is her pin, that her mother gave her, that she has been missing since childhood. That appearance is followed by others, some former possessions, some larger than herself, and one hurt little boy on the beach near her home.
As new people come into Calamity's life, from old friends, to new men, she finds herself needing to adjust her attitude, and not every interaction goes well. She hasn't talked to Ife's father in years, but finds herself reaching out to him again, and dealing with Ife's choices for her own life. She fights against the term grandma, but loves her young grandson Stanley.
She believes in things that can't be explained, from her finding ability, to the personality of her car Victoria, to the strange physical attributes of the young boy she has found. She calls him Agway, from a noise he makes often, and finds herself wanting to both protect him, and care for him. He reminds her of a child she met a couple of times when she herself was just a child, and we see these memories. There are also a few times where an employee of the local Zooquarium notices things that are odd about the endangered monk seals, and these are interspersed at key moments in the story.
From the salt factories, to the cashew groves, the monk seals to the pressure of hotel chains and resorts, we see how the island and its inhabitants are under pressure to change.
I've all kinds of ideas percolating in my brain about how to take instances and themes from this book and create something, and will post it when it comes to fruition.

The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin

Finished August 7
The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin by Stephanie Knipper

This novel begins with Rose Martin watching her young daughter Antoinette sleeping. She loves her deeply, but worries over her. We get the sense that something isn't right with the child. We next see ten-year-old Antoinette on her own, leaving the farmhouse to go out to the field of flowers beyond. We see that she responds to nature, but has difficulty moving, and is unable to talk. They live at the home that Rose and her sister Lily grew up on, at a farm near a small town called Redbud, in central Kentucky, near Lexington. The farm is a commercial flower farm.
Rose's sister Lily lives a couple of hours away in Covington, Kentucky, the north end of the state. She works for an insurance company there. Not far, but she hasn't talked to her sister in years, Not since shortly after their parents died, and Rose asked Lily to stay at the farm and help. Lily felt then that staying was a challenge that she wasn't up to, and Rose resented her for that decision. Both women have wanted to reach out many times since then, but neither has the courage.
So when Lily gets a call from Rose, once again asking her to come home, and tells her of her own failing health, Lily goes. She is still wary, afraid of the way she begins to act when she is around her young niece. She is very surprised to find that their neighbor, Seth, a man that Lily once thought she had a future with, is back in Redbud and working at the farm. Lily never really got over Seth, and thus the homecoming is even more emotional that she guessed. As she gets to know Antoinette, she finds that she can relate to the young girl, but when she discovers that Antoinette has healing powers of some sort, she is upset that neither her sister nor Seth has told her. As she learns more, she understands the situation better, and begins to find her place again there.
Lily's neighbor from Covington, Will, a young doctor who is a good friend, has followed Lily south, and shows up unexpectedly. Will has strong feelings for Lily, but also is a sensitive and observant man, and he begins to notice Antoinette's abilities fairly quickly. He also notices something else about them that no one else has, something that makes a big difference.
This is a story of love, of families, of how it feels to be "different," of the sacrifices that people will make for love. It is a story of a woman who comes to accept herself as she is, rather than fighting against her impulses. A story of two sisters who care deeply for each other.

Too Far

Finished July 16
Too Far by Rich Shapero
I received a copy of this book from the publisher.
This is the story of two young children, Robbie and Fristeen. Robbie's parents have moved to Alaska for his father to do graduate study work. His mother is controlling and worries about his safety. His father encourages his sense of adventure and first moves to independence. His parent's marriage is breaking down and Robbie feels that he is to blame for some of the outbursts.
Fristeen's mother is more interested in her next fix than she is in her daughter. Fristeen runs wild, and is not cared for.
For one summer the two six year olds explore the forest around their homes, finding secret spots, learning about each other and both sharing and protecting each other from the two worlds.
In the forest they are led forward by Dawn and the Dream Man. They encounter the malevolent force Shivers that threatens them. This is a summer that will change their lives, and that they will never forget.
An interesting story and a glimpse into the mind of a young child.

Modern Classic

Finished September 25
Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea
I got this book through my Indiespensable subscription, and have been reading it slowly before sleep most evenings. I wanted to savour every bit of it.
Urrea is a real storyteller and this story flows so beautifully it is hard to put down (but I made myself!) I reread passages to see how he had used language to convey so much.
The story is a quest, an adventure, a coming-of-age. It has elements of magic realism and folk tales, and feels like a story that is timeless.
Nayeli is 19 and works at a taco shop in the small village of Tres Camarones in Sinaloa. She often thinks of her father who left to find work in the United States (Los Yunaites). He sent a postcard to her once from there, from Kankakee, Illinois. As she thinks, she realizes that most of the men from the village have left for the north. Unfortunately this has also been noted by a gang of drug dealers, who decide to take over the village.
Nayeli sees the movie The Magnificent Seven at the village theatre and decides that she will go north and find seven men to protect and revitalize her home. Joining her are her girlfriends Yolo and Vampi and her friend Tacho. As they make their way north they encounter many interesting characters, and some of these, like Atomiko, join their group. The U.S. is portrayed as a kind of dreamland, a place where the men went to and never came back from.
There is hope, humour, and a wonderful story here. The characters are great, each with their own defining personalities and idiosyncrasies. Nayeli finds more than she expects, and with the help of her friends and her aunt Irma, finds more than the seven men she went looking for.
Highly recommended.