Finished: Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Kawaguchi) A lovely book about a coffee shop where you can go back in time to relive a moment with someone for a few minutes. There are very strict rules to be followed, such as: you must sit in a particular chair in the coffee shop and cannot leave the chair during your visit; nothing you say or do will change the future, so don't expect that; and most importantly, you must be done before your cup of coffee gets cold, so your time to say or do what you want to do is very limited. The story focuses on a few main characters as we see their stories, read their histories and see why they choose to go back in time. Most involve regret...regret of not telling someone how much you loved them when they decided to end a relationship; regret of avoiding a sibling for years, only to have that sibling die in an accident; regret of not knowing how your spouse truly felt before Alzheimer's set in; and regret of never seeing the baby you have chosen to give birth to, even though carrying her to full term will mean your certain death. All stories woven together with just a few characters, and done so in both a heart wrenching and uplifting way. Good book! 

 Finished: The Glass Hotel (St. John Mandel) Another page-turning book, and totally not what I thought it was going to be. The story begins with Vincent, a young woman working hard in the world to get by, who accepts the proposition of the uber rich investment planner, Jonathan Alkaitis, to pretend to be his wife. I really don't know how to describe the book, so I'm going to be lazy and use the recap from Amazon. :-) It was a gripping story, not only about Vincent and Jonathan, but also about her relationship with her step-brother and Jonathan's relationships with a few of his clients who he considers friends, but has no problem betraying. Amazon recap below. 

Vincent is a bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star lodging on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. On the night she meets Jonathan Alkaitis, a hooded figure scrawls a message on the lobby's glass wall: Why don’t you swallow broken glass. High above Manhattan, a greater crime is committed: Alkaitis's billion-dollar business is really nothing more than a game of smoke and mirrors. When his scheme collapses, it obliterates countless fortunes and devastates lives. Vincent, who had been posing as Jonathan’s wife, walks away into the night. Years later, a victim of the fraud is hired to investigate a strange occurrence: a woman has seemingly vanished from the deck of a container ship between ports of call.

 
In this captivating story of crisis and survival, Emily St. John Mandel takes readers through often hidden landscapes: campgrounds for the near-homeless, underground electronica clubs, service in luxury hotels, and life in a federal prison. Rife with unexpected beauty, The Glass Hotel is a captivating portrait of greed and guilt, love and delusion, ghosts and unintended consequences, and the infinite ways we search for meaning in our lives.

 Finished: The Push (Audrain) This book was so intense that I finished it in a day. The terrifying story of a young woman who gives birth to her first child, a daughter, and doesn't bond with her right away...or ever. Blythe has a history of her own horrific mother and grandmother and feels certain she is also most likely not cut out to be a mother, but her husband, Fox, convinces her she'll be a wonderful mother. When baby Violet is born, there is no connection, but as it turns out, it's not due to Blythe. Very early on in her life, Violet shows sociopathic tendencies, but only Blythe sees it. Fox is blind to anything that Violet may do wrong. As the years continue on, it becomes clear that Violet is definitely a little sociopath, as she becomes responsible for two horrific tragedies involving younger children, one her own one-year old brother when she is just six. Fox and his family think that Blythe is the crazy one when she tries to convince them that Violet pushed Sam's stroller into oncoming traffic. Blythe even comes to doubt herself...did she really see the push? But, she knows that when she gave birth to Sam, she bonded instantly with him, so she knows for certain she's capable of  having the maternal bond that a mother has with a child. Eventually, Blythe and Fox's marriage crumbles after the tragedy, and he has an affair with his assistant and begins a life with her. Violet splits her time between Blythe and Fox, but she always detests having to go to her mother's. She adores her father and wants to spend all her time there. By the time Violet is 13, she's got a new little brother from her father and Gemma (the assistant), and they've become a seemingly happy family. Blythe seeks out Gemma to actually warn her about her own daughter, to watch her around Jet (the new brother). Gemma takes her husband's word that Blythe was the crazy one and that Violet wasn't responsible for the previous accidents. Blythe goes so far as to watch their family through the front window one night, and Violet sees her. As Violet stands with her hand on Jet's shoulder, she looks at Blythe with her cold, blank stare and makes a pushing motion to Blythe, indicating that she did in fact push Sam into the traffic. Blythe again tries to warn Gemma, but she hangs up on her. Eventually she learns to let go of the responsibility and get on with her life. A year and a half later, she gets a hysterical call from Gemma...something has happened to Jet. THAT'S THE END OF THE BOOK! omg, this was such a page-turner, even if the material is so disturbing. We get to read a bit about Blythe's mother's history and her grandmother's history, and finally about how Blythe's mother left her when she was only 11, never to come back. Thankfully, an amazing neighbor lady named Mrs. Ellington becomes a surrogate mother for Blythe, cultivating a relationship that lasts a lifetime. Unfortunately, Mrs. Ellington isn't around when Blythe is going through the worst time of her life and has not a single person to believe her or support her. Heartbreaking, but very good book! 

 Finished: The Last Kingdom (Cornwell) The first book in a series of thirteen about a ten year old Saxon boy, Uhtred of Bebbanburg, who goes with his father to face the Vikings attacking their land, and watches as the ferocious leader of the Danes, Ragnar, kills his father in the great battle loss. When the young boy runs to try and kill Ragnar with his wooden sword, Ragnar is so impressed with his bravery that he takes him and raises him as his own son, as a Viking and a Paegan. Uhtred lives with Ragnar and his family for years and loves them as his own. Not until he's in his late teens, and Ragnar and most of his family is killed by a rival Dane leader does Uhtred find his only choice to be to make his way to Wessex, the last remaining English stronghold that has not been defeated by the Danes. This is where Uhtred begins his love/hate relationship of service to King Alfred (as in the Great). Torn between his Sussex birthright and roots, and his deep love for his Danish family and his Paegan beliefs, Uhtred spends years as a warrior meant to fight against the Danes for King Alfred, all the while staying in touch with his "brother", Ragnar the Younger, Ragnar's oldest son. The book is very good and goes into so much more detail than the television show on which it's based. This first book ends long before the ending of the last season of the show I watched, so I don't know if I'll continue reading the series, but I think I probably will. :-)