The Edge of Nowhere

Finished March 29
The Edge of Nowhere by Elizabeth George

I've long been a fan of Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley series, and now she has started writing for teens. This book is the first in a new series. The main character here is Becca King, aka Hannah Armstrong. Becca has an unusual ability to be able to hear other's thoughts. They come to her a bit disjointed, in snatches, and can overwhelm her, especially if she is around too many people at once. She has a device she can wear that help block these. Becca's mom Laurel doesn't always make the best choice when it comes to men, and her current husband, Jeff, is a prime example. Jeff, knowing of Hannah's ability, has used her to assist him in activity that isn't on the up and up. When she learns something about Jeff from his thoughts, she and her mother go on the run, hence the new name.
But Laurel's plan for Becca gets a glitch, and Becca must find a way to survive and stay safe before her mother can come back for her. When a boy in her class is hurt, Becca is first on the scene and finds herself in panic mode. Will her actions put her in danger? Where is her mother? What happened to Derric? Why is Jenn so angry? and many more questions as the young people try to sort out issues in their lives and their feelings.
Set on remote Whidbey Island in Washington State, you get a real sense of the setting, and George is good at brining her characters to life. The ending is what tells me there are more books to come, and I'll be looking forward to them.

Word From New France

Finished March 26
Word from New France: the selected letters of Marie de l'Incarnation translated and edited by Joyce Marshall

This collection of letters includes a helpful opening section of background and history, giving us a brief biography of Marie, and the historical context of her life. She grew up in a middle class family and felt an early draw to a religious life, but her father insisted on her marriage. Her husband died early in their marriage, leaving her with an infant son. She was determined to wait until he was old enough to understand before she entered a religious life though she was continually drawn to it, and finally when he was twelve she entered the convent of the Ursuline nuns. It was a difficult decision, but she stuck with it, and her son eventually followed her into this life.
Early on she had a dream or vision that led her to be one of the first nuns to come to Canada, on a mission to education young girls. The letters selected here are either to people in religious orders back in France, or to her son. They are well-written and full of imagery and not dry at all despite their calls to God's glory. They include much history of the colony of New France, of the interactions with the natives, and of the struggles for leadership.
An interesting and unique view of Canada's early history.

Wish You Were Here

Finished March 26
Wish You Were Here by Graham Swift, read by John Lee

This is a nice slow novel, with lots of character development and description. Jack Luxton grew up in a farming family in Devon. His one escape was a vacation two summers in a row at a caravan park that his mother took him and his younger brother to. The Luxton's had owned Jeb Farm for generations, and ran it as a dairy farm.
In the present Jack and his wife Ellie run a caravan park on the Isle of Wight, and Jack has just received word from the military that his younger brother Tom, who he hasn't seen or heard from in years, has been killed in Iraq.
As Jack reacts to this news, goes to the repatriation and then the funeral back in Devon and returns home to Ellie, you see Jack and Ellie struggle with the past that has brought them to where they are now, and gradually learn what that past consists of. You see the tragedies that befell them, the leavetakings, the impetus for the decision to leave Devon, the intractability of Jack on certain issues and the leader Ellie on most things. This novel is about how people survive, about the toil that takes on them and the relationships they have with others. It is about change in England as people leave the farms and the farms become "country homes" for those from the city. About the life changes that this brings.
The language of the novel takes you on, slowly, sometimes almost excruciatingly slowly, but it just keeps carrying you forward, uncovering the past as it goes.
A wonderful read.

Original Letters from India

Finished March 23
Original Letters from India by Eliza Fay

This collection of letters dates from the late 1700s, and describes two visits to India by Eliza Fay, her return to England from the first visit, and her trip to America from the second visit. She later returned to India and died there in 1816.
The first voyage took more than a year and involved many trials. Her husband, a Barrister, was going out to India to practice, and she accompanied him. They left England in the spring of 1779 and went over to France by ship and overland across France to Italy. This despite the fact that England and France were at war at the time. From Italy they travelled by ship to Alexandria and then on to Cairo. The situation in Egypt was not a good one, and they lost some of their belongings due to the unrest.
From here they sailed to Calicut, where the local Governor, Hyder Ali, took them and other Europeans prisoner. They were imprisoned there for three months, and with assistance from others managed to get off to Cochin, but had lost all their belongings save those they had concealed on their persons. From there, they went first to Madras, and then on to Calcutta.
In Calcutta Mr. Fay was admitted to the Bar and began to do business with the courts while Eliza made friends in society. Mr. Fay, however proved a bad judge of things and made some bad choices professionally and personally and by 1782 the couple formally separated. Eliza stayed with a friend until she made her way back to England later that year.
She returned to India in 1794, and set up a millinery business, but had setbacks and ended up leaving again, by 1795. The book ends with her arrival in New York City, with no record of her subsequent experiences there, her trip back to England, or her final return to Calcutta.
As a record of the times it is very interesting, to see the dangers of travel, the interactions of society, and the politics of the times. Included in this edition, is the original preface from 1817, the introductory notes from the 1925 edition by E.M Forster, which give historical context and commentary, and the new introduction by Simon Winchester which added positively to the reading experience.

Heartbreak Hotel

Finished March 18
Heartbreak Hotel by Deborah Moggach

This amusing novel is in the same style as her previous novel These Foolish Things (read before I started blogging), later made into the popular movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Here we have aging actor Russell "Buffy" Buffery, who is unhappy with the direction his London neighbourhood seems to be going on, taking a chance on the impulse to move to Wales. Why Wales? Well, an old friend of his has died and left him her bed and breakfast house in Knockton, and he decides to try running it himself. He comes up with the idea to  add on a variety of courses to appeal to city folk, as package deals.
Buffy is a fascinating old charmer, who has had three wives (one now dead) and 5 children (by four different women, only two of them his wives). He has decent relationships with all his kids and his stepdaughter, and they all make appearances of some sort here.
Along the way we meet a variety of people all either looking for some sort of change in their life, or who have had change thrust upon them. As various courses attract them to Knockton, they find different sorts of change than they had been looking for, but mostly very satisfactory ones. From postmen to writers, makeup artists to bankers, we meet an interesting group of characters.
A humourous, upbeat novel that will have you laughing out loud, touched, and definitely entertained.

Rounding the Mark

Finished March 17
Rounding the Mark by Andrea Camilleri, translated by Stephen Sartarelli

The seventh book in the series featuring Inspector Salvo Montalbano is a definite winner. It had me hooked from the beginning, when Salvo expressed his unhappiness with the state of police ethics over the outcome of the G8 inquiry (about Genoa in 2001) and wanted to resign. With the police activities around the G20 in Toronto more recently, I could definitely relate.
When Salvo goes for his morning swim, he encounters a dead body, one that has been dead for some time, and exerts himself to tow it to shore. Bothered by the official lack of interest, he and his men begin an unofficial investigation into the man's identity and origin. Later, when assisting a local immigration officer on a minor matter, Salvo is present at the landing of a ship of refugees and sees a small boy try to take off. He manages to catch him and return him to the family group he belongs to, but is bothered by the incident. When he has a later encounter involving the boy, he resolves to figure out what is going on, and finds himself in a case involving the trafficking of minors. With alternating despair and humour, this novel shows a caring man, trying to make a difference in whatever way he can. Very satisfying.

A Mountain of Crumbs

Finished March 16
A Mountain of Crumbs by Elena Gorokhova

This memoir covers Elena Gorokhova's first twenty-four years, spent in Leningrad, and her family's history. There is a short epilogue about the present. Elena was the second daughter of her mother, with two older half-sisters, one on each side of the family. The oldest, the one on her father's side, is seldom mentioned here. Elena's mother is a strong personality and she had a strong influence on Elena's life and choices. She was a doctor, working near the front in the Russian-Finnish war and again during part of the Second World War. She was born and raised in central Russia, moving to Leningrad upon her marriage to Elena's father. Elena's sister Marina defied their mother and became an actress, and Elena was given strong guidance to go into a practical occupation like that of her mother. But Elena also has a strong personality, and was taken by the idea of learning English, and was able to go down a road that gave her different opportunities. She was able to study English through university and had the opportunity to interact with foreign students. This led to her leaving and moving to the United States.
Her story is told in a very open way, including detail about her environment and her feelings throughout. An enlightening look at life in middle-class Russia in the 1960s and 1970s. I found her story fascinating, loving the detail about all aspects of her life, her relationships with family and friends, and her own ambivalence about her mother country.
The title comes from a story from her mother's childhood, during the famine, when her grandmother appeased her young uncle cries of hunger by breaking his bread into crumbs and telling him he had "a mountain of crumbs" rather than a single slice of bread.

Speaking from Among the Bones

Finished March 15
Speaking from Among the Bones by Alan Bradley, read by Jayne Entwistle

This is the fifth in the series featuring Flavia De Luce, the 12-year-old girl who keeps stumbling across crimes. Besides being an avid chemist with a passion for poisons, and her own lab, Flavia is always wanting to know more about her mother, who died when off exploring when Flavia was very young. Here she does learn a bit more about her, and about herself too.
Her older sister Ophelia is about to make her official debut as church organist, and Flavia has been tasked with accompanying her to the church for practice. When Ophelia complains about a deficiency with one of the organ pipes, Flavia is introduced to a behind-the-scenes world of the church she didn't know existed. Returning to investigate later, she comes upon the scene where workers are beginning to disinter the bones of the local saint, Saint Tancred, who has been buried there for 500 years. But unfortunately, another body is found in the tomb chamber, and Flavia is off to discover just who is behind it and why.
Her search leads her to another estate in a nearby village, to the home of one of the choir members, and back to the church again and again.
As the ancestral home that Flavia and her family is threatened due to financial circumstances, Flavia must also begin to face losing the life she is used to. We see more depth from her family members, with Ophelia moving on with her own life, and Daphne beginning to show more sisterly feelings.
Definitely a worthy continuation of this wonderful series.

The Twilight Prisoner

Finished March 15
The Twilight Prisoner by Katherine Marsh

This is the sequel to The Night Tourist, and again the main character is Jack Perdu. Jack finds that even though he is back in the living world, he can still see ghosts, but try as he might he can't find Euri. He decides to move on and try for Cora, a girl in his Latin class that he really likes. He finally gets up the nerve to ask her out and tries to make an impression on her, but finds that things don't go as planned. He is stuck in the underworld again and this time he's involved Cora. Will Euri help them find a way out, and will the guards find them?
Lots going on, with some unrequited love thrown in. Euri finds a way to move forward here, as does Jack, but things aren't easy when you are facing up to things you don't want to happen.

The Smell of the Night

Finished March 15
The Smell of the Night by Andrea Camilleri

This is the sixth book in the series featuring Inspector Montalbano. Here, there are a bunch of upset people in town because they invested their money with a man named Gargano who has disappeared along with their money. It came to Montalbano's attention when one upset elderly man took an employee of Gargano's hostage. As usual, there are things that bother him about what people say and do and that leads him to recheck information and find the truth. The title comes from a description of the one witness that everyone else dismissed, as he describes his way of telling time.
On the personal side, he is worried about his relationship with his girlfriend Livia, and has a violent reaction to the loss of one of his two places that he goes to think.