A Momentary Marriage

A Momentary Marriage by Candace Camp is entertaining and a lovely romance. I liked both James and Laura as they came together. As the mystery of someone trying to kill them unfolded, so did their discovery of each other and their subsequent growing attraction and appreciation. I liked that both were flawed, feisty, and layered. And though the secondary characters were a bit more flat and only moved in and out of the story to move it along, it did not dim my enjoyment too much and in the end I was satisfied with the reading experience. *JK*

Merely a Marriage

Merely a Marriage by Jo Beverley is a Regency/Historical novel. At the start, we meet Lady Ariana Boxstall, who is concerned about the future of her family, especially after the childbirth death of Princess Charlotte. Ariana fears that she would lose her beloved Boxstall residence to her drunken uncle, if her brother dies. She then sets a plan in motion for her brother Norris to marry, but the one condition is she must marry first.

Jo Beverley has been one of my favorite romance authors for years, and it's sad to think that this novel will be the last book after her death from cancer in 2016. *JK*

Moving Forward

What happens when you have lost everything? That’s what happens to Diane, a shopkeeper in Paris. She runs a literary café with her loving, but flighty friend Felix. Life is wonderful when a sudden accident claims the lives of Diane’s husband and her young daughter. She is completely lost. After a year of grieving she decides to go to Ireland. Maybe a change will do her some good.  Happy People Read and Drink Coffee by Agnes Martin-Lugand is a story about coming back to life. The characters are sensitive and familiar. The good news is that a sequel is coming out next year. DB

Guest Review--If Wishes Were Horses by Robert Barclay

Five years ago Wyatt Blaine's wife Krista and son Danny were killed in an auto accident. they were hit by a drunk driver while getting ice cream for Blaine's birthday party. Blaine is still devastated. He decides to re-open Krista's Horse Therapy Program for troubled teens. This program includes group therapy and equestrian training. Gabby Powers, wife of the drunk driver that killed Blaine's wife, has a troubled son named Trevor. His grades are slipping and he has been fighting. He is bordering on being kicked out of school. Gabby hears about the program and must find a way to get Trevor the help he needs. One of Trevor's problems is that he doesn't believe his father caused the accident. He believes Krista was at fault, no matter what his mother and the police reports say. How will Gabby get Blaine to allow Trevor into the program? Can Gabby get Trevor to attend the Program? Blaine wants nothing to do with Gabby or Trevor, but he finds that she will do anything, even beg, for help for her son. Blaine is torn between his anger and the admiration he is beginning to develop for Gabby. If Wishes Were Horses by Robert Barclay is written from Blaine's, Gabby's and Trevor's points of view. Also included are Ram, Blaine's colorful father, and Sadie the very pregnant gray mare that captures Trevor's heart. GDW

The Million Dollar Prize

When your mother, the most remarkable female mathematician in history, dies your world becomes skewed in more ways than one. Alexander Karnokovitch wants to put his mother to rest privately, but it is not to be.  Many colleagues from around the world intend to come and pay their last respects to the remarkable Rachela, and they will not be swayed. Of course it is rumored that she has solved a famous mathematical problem and that solution may be hidden in her home. As the math crowd descends on Madison, Wisconsin—Alexander (Sasha) has to deal with their demanding personalities in addition to his grief. The Mathematician’s Shiva by Stuart Rojstaczer is a funny, introspective, and enlightening novel about academia and family life. DB

A Black Deed

In Diane Setterfield's Bellman and Black, a careless and cruel deed commited in childhood comes back to haunt a man in the worst way. This poetic and mysterious novel by the author of The Thirteenth Tale  tells of William Bellman, who we first meet as a boy out with his friends in the English countryside. William impresses his companions by killing a rook with his slingshot, and as the years go by, he continues to impress. A winning young man with a knack for business, he rises to the top of a local mill, marries and has four bright children, and expects all of his days to be equally blessed. Then disease comes to his town. It takes his wife and three of his children, and, in desperation, William makes a deal with a black-coated stranger. His eldest daughter is spared, but William is unable to face reminders of his happy past. He pours himself into industry, moving to London and opening Bellman & Black. As the years fly by, William becomes a kind of Ebenezer Scrooge, obsessed with work and haunted by the appearance of crows, and Setterfield is our  conscience, reminding us of what coins can and cannot buy.

A Life Well-Lived

A Simple Life is a spare and gorgeously filmed movie that explores the end of life and who we consider to be our "family" when it really comes down to it. Maid Ah Tao has served a single household for four generations, culminating with the last bachelor son, Roger.  After suffering a stroke, Ah Tao decides to retire to an assisted-living facility where she comes to terms with her own mortality and where she and Roger begin to realize that their bond goes much deeper than as merely servant and employer.  HM

Death, Politics, and Roadtrips

Fascinated by presidential killings and their public commemoration, author and NPR contributor Sarah Vowell helms a whirlwind tour of American history in Assassination Vacation.  She visits sites and artifacts related to Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley -- all the while weaving in her trademark humor and social commentary.  If you like this title, check out some of Vowell's other books -- The Partly Cloudy Patriot, The Wordy Shipmates, and Unfamiliar Fishes.  HM

The Little Red Guard: A Family Memoir

In his memoir of growing up during the waning years of the Cultural Revolution, Wenguang Huang frames his experiences around one all-pervasive family event -- his grandmother's funeral.  Though traditional burials were officially banned by the state, Huang Ma asserts her authority and over the course of the author's childhood, manages to persuade the family to build a coffin and secure a grave site in her ancestral village.  Huang's narrative is a mix of bittersweet coming-of-age story and a portrait of a society that is changing at a rapid pace.  HM

Of ghosts and grief

Aaron Woolcott is an editor at his family business. He is a Stanford graduate, slightly crippled, and newly widowed. His wife Dorothy was killed suddenly by accident in the family home in Baltimore. The Beginner’s Goodbye by Anne Tyler follows Aaron’s thoughts and actions through grief and into healing. He is aided by his little group of co-workers, his domineering sister, Nandina.  While the clumsy actions of these well-intentioned characters is interesting, Dorothy, the newly-deceased has returned. Aaron is determined to find out why.Try this easy-to-read, uplifting story. DB   

Winter in the Country.

Fans of Flavia de Luce, the bratty, chemistry obsessed eleven year old, will want to read the latest in the series. In I Am Half-Sick of Shadows by Alan Bradley, it's Christmas, and a film crew is at the crumbling mansion in the country Flavia shares with her befuddled dad and two mean older sisters. When the star of the film turns up with film tied around her neck in a strangulation bow, Flavia solves the mystery in spite of the adults who try to dampen her zest for all things sinister. Engaging writing,a precocious heroine and the gloomy country house that contributes to the mood make this a winner. M.L.

Loving and leaving

Lily Tuck's novel, I married you for happiness starts with the line "His hand is growing cold: still she holds it." Nina has discovered her husband of many years has died suddenly as he was taking a nap. As she sits beside him for one night, her memory ranges over the years of their marriage. Beautifully written, this novel explores the profound depths of memory, chance and marriage. Although sad, not depressing! ML

Death Tells a Story

The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak is narrated by Death himself. Since the story takes place during World War II, death is an appropriate narrator to this story of a young girl, Liesel, who becomes a book thief. The first book she takes, before she has even learned to read, is "The Gravedigger's Handbook" stolen from a gravedigger working on her younger brother's grave. The Book Thief is about Liesel, the books she steals and her life on Himmel Street in Germany. "The Book Thief deserves a place on the same shelf with The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank and Elie Wiesel’s Night. It seems poised to become a classic" (USA Today). SG

Strength and Survival

When a dying father of three loses his wife unexpectedly, life becomes chaotic. The children are sent to live with relatives and he is left to die, alone. His mysterious recovery prompts him to reunite the family and begin again. A surprise inheritance takes them to South Carolina, to live in an old seaside home with an obsolete light house. The property needs a lot of repair work, but so do they… One Summer by David Baldacci examines a young family working to overcome loss and find love. An uplifting read!DB

Which Way to Go?

What would you do if you lost everything that mattered to you? The answer is not clear to Alan Christofferson, whose life changes with a tragic accident. He begins to walk from Seattle to the southernmost point in the continental U.S., Key West. The hope that time and daily encounters will be healing keeps him going. The goodness of the ordinary people he meets is inspiring. His story is told in five books, the first is The Walk by Richard Paul Evans. DB