Finished: The Perfect Mother (Molloy) A nice page-turner about a group of mothers whose babies are all born in the month of May, so they establish the May Mother's Club. They are all from different backgrounds and don't really know each other all that well, or the one "daytime dad" who is part of the group. The group insists that single mom, Winnie, leave her child with a baby sitter one evening to go and have a night out with the girls. They think she's too serious and clingy to her baby, Midas. So, of course, while they're all out, baby Midas is kidnapped!! After clearing the babysitter of any wrongdoing, soon Winnie herself is arrested for the disappearance of her own child. Some secret relationships come to light, and the narrator of the story, who we don't know, but we know is the wrong-doer, is a surprise reveal! Baby Midas is found safe in the end. :-) Just a nice, light read, but suspenseful read!

Finished: The Shipping News (Proulx) Pulitzer Prize winner filled with beautiful imagery and prose and with a few characters to care about, but this little slice of life in Newfoundland was just a bit too boring for me to read more than a bit a day, and that's not how I like to read. The story centers on a man named Quoyle. He's a father of two young girls who has lost his wife, who was a cheating witch who belittled him at every turn. She finally, one day, accidentally drove over a cliff with her latest lover and died. Quoyle's aunt from his father's side of the family shows up and talks him into moving himself and the girls to Newfoundland to where their family "came from". Quoyle is a large, unattractive, self-conscious, introverted man, who was emotionally and physically abused as a child by both his father and his brother. With no family left, he decides to go with his aunt to the frozen tundra and extremely small-town fishing life of Newfoundland. Quoyle goes to work for the small town newspaper, put in charge of writing the comings and goings of the ships that sail into their harbor, i.e., the shipping news. He's also put in charge of writing about any and all car accidents that happen in the town. His little daughters are still pretty traumatized by their mother's death, but they begin to feel at home there and make good friends with the children of Quoyle's boss's son's family. Quoyle also meets a young woman named Wavey who is a fishing widow, having lost her husband to the merciless northern waters as many wives of the town did. She's the mother of a young boy with Downs Syndrome and they all grow very close. By the end of the story, Quoyle and Wavey have finally come together in a nice kind of love and decided it's time to put their deceased spouses behind them and start a life together. Quoyle, Wavey, the aunt, and the other characters are quirky, but there for each other through northern winter storms, hard times and even death. This wasn't my favorite book in the world, but I'm glad I finally finished it and glad I read it.

Finished: Vox (Dalcher) Vox, which means the voice in Latin, is a very eye-opening book,written in our current times, that is scary to envision our country heading towards. Dr. Jean McClellan is a wife and mother of four, and also a doctor who has just discovered the cure to one particular kind of aphasia, a devastating side-effect of some strokes where the stroke victim can only speak in nonsensical phrases that make sense only to that person. The discovery of the cure remains a secret, however, as the very day after the discovery, Jean, like all other women and girls in the country is outfitted with a "counter" bracelet that will deliver her a violent electrical shock if she speaks more than 100 words a day! Like all other women, she is stripped of her job, and no longer allowed to read or write. She is to be the wife and mother at home, and that is all...not allowed to open mail or even read a cookbook. The little girls are sent to separate schools from the little boys. The girls are not allowed to learn to read or write, but can learn math to balance checkbooks, and learn home-economics skills. The bracelets are put on the girls when they are babies, so they are never even allowed to develop the language skills that most babies develop in their early years. It's a terrible existence! :-( In Jean's family, she's got a teenage son, twin 11 year old sons, and a six year old daughter. It's heartbreaking to see their family dinners where the boys get to talk as much as they want about what they did in school, homework, friends, projects...but 6 year old Sonia must sit basically silent so as not to go over her 100 words. She sadly grows used to being silent. The country is being run by the hideous idiot president that came after the first African American president...and his main advisor, a right-wing preacher who sees himself as the second coming. The preacher basically runs most everything in the country, often coming on the government run television to show what happens to people who don't mind the rules or try to rebel against how things are. They are either executed or sent to prison camps where they are fitted with electronic counter bracelets where they are allowed ZERO words or they will be shocked. So, one day, the preacher and several higher-ups in the government pay a visit to Jean and tell her that the president's brother, who he relies on, has had a stroke and is suffering from aphasia! They need her to resume her research. (They don't know she had already completed it.) She refuses until they tell her that they will take off both her bracelet and her daughter's for the duration of her research and "fix" to the problem. Her husband, also a doctor, works for the government, but does not at all agree with what is going on, however he's a passive man who goes along with things to keep their family safe and keep his job so they can live. When Jean arrives at the lab they have designed for her and two of her former partners to work at, she realizes that this lab had been outfitted far earlier than just a week before when the president's brother supposedly had his stroke. She is to report directly to another man who used to be on her team, but was full of himself and worthless when it came to contributing to the project. There are a few people who have secretly started what they can of a resistance, but it's very dangerous. With the help of her two former colleagues, Lorenzo and Lin, Jean quickly has the cure ready, since she'd already finished it before, but she doesn't want to let them know, because as soon as they know, then she and Sonia will be back in their bracelets. There's a bigger problem, though. Jean realizes that there are actually three different teams working on the solution, and that they are just one of the teams. When she sees the names of the other two teams, she realizes that one is working on developing, not the anti-dote to the aphasia, but something that will CAUSE it in healthy people...and the other group is working to make that agent water soluble. Something much more sinister is at bay. The president and the preacher and the other men in charge are planning to inject as much of the population as possible with the aphasia serum to turn everyone into babbling sheep. Jean and her husband, Patrick, concoct a dangerous plan. The president, all his top aides and the preacher are having a huge meeting in a few days, which Patrick will also be at. With the help of Lorenzo and one guard who is on their side, Patrick plans to sneak in a vile of the serum and put it in the water and coffee of the men and turn THEM into the babbling sheep before they can do it to the rest of the country. The plan works, at the expense of Patrick, who is killed in the effort. However, since the top 10 men in succession to the presidency are also affected, a new president is elected by the people who swears that our country will never again disintegrate to such a horrific state. This was a very interesting and scary book. Much like The Handmaid's Tale, it truly makes you think and wonder how close our county could come to this if we keep voting in leaders like we did two years ago and keep affirming misogynists to the Supreme Court.

Finished: A Prayer For Owen Meany (Irving) I finally finished the book, and I'm glad I stuck it out! It was a book I had to read in small doses, due to Irving going off on a few political and religious tangents at times...but they did relate to the story and all come tied together at the end. This is a story about two best friends, Johnny Wheelwright and Owen Meany, who grow up together in a small New Hampshire town. Johnny comes from a wealthy, town-founding family, while Owen comes from working class, granite quarry-owning parents. Owen is unique in that he is very small and light in stature, and has some sort of larynx damage that causes him to talk only in a high-pitched voice. Even as a young man, he never grows above five feet tall, and he always has the same voice. As children, Johnny and the other Sunday school children make a game of lifting Owen above their heads and passing him around...not bullying him, but just having fun and including him in the fun. Johnny has his own unique upbringing. His mother, Tabby, is a single mother with a beautiful voice who, as a young woman, would take the train into Boston one night a week to secretly sing in a nightclub. When she became pregnant and gave birth to Johnny as a single mom, she would never reveal who the father was, even at her wealthy mother's insistence. Tabby was a positive light and loved Johnny fiercely. She also treated Owen like a second son since he spent so much time at their house and away from his own mentally ill mother, and constantly working father. Tabby meets a loving man, Dan Needham, when Johnny is just six or seven, and Dan and Tabby fall in love. They wait a few years to get married, but when they finally do, Dan treats Johnny just as if he was his own son. He's a very loving and kind man, and adores Tabby. When the boys are eleven years old, they are playing in a baseball game when Owen goes up to bat. Normally the coach makes Owen stand there and take a walk, but on this day, because they're already losing so badly, he tells Owen to swing away. When Owen hits a line drive foul ball, it hits Johnny's mother right in the head as she's walking up to the game, killing her instantly. Naturally, this event has a profound affect on both Johnny and Owen, but they remain best friends. Owen just comes to believe that he is an instrument of God. It doesn't help (Johnny finds out later) that Owen's parents are a bit loony and that his mother insists that Owen is the product of a virgin birth, like Jesus. Owen's father swears they never consummated their marriage and that it's true. They tell Owen this when he's just eleven, so that, coupled with his hitting the first ball he's ever hit, only to kill his best friend's mother, makes Owen believe God is working through him. When Owen is performing in the annual Christmas play, A Christmas Carol, as the ghost of things to come, he has a vision as he's pointing to the prop gravestone and he sees his own date of death! He also has a vivid dream over and over where he sees himself dying as a 1st Lt. in the Army, saving a group of Asian children. As the boys grow older and attend the town private school together, where Dan teaches, it becomes clear how intelligent Owen is. He helps Johnny overcome a learning disability and learn how to read and study. Owen also helps Johnny search for who his father may be, even traveling to Boston with him to search it out. We know (as the readers) that whoever his father is was at the fateful baseball game and took the ball that killed Tabby while no one was looking, but we don't know who the father is. The police and Johnny assume that Owen took the ball and hid it. Only years later does Johnny find out that Owen never took it. The book is very long and full of details, but the main gist is that Owen does become rather Christlike in the eyes of many of the town folks, and even to Johnny's cousin, Hester, who falls in love with him. Owen spends many long hours discussing his faith and  beliefs with the two pastors in town, one of whom, Lewis Merrill, ends up giving "a prayer for Owen Meany" at the student assembly when Owen is kicked out of the academy his senior year in high school for forging draft cards for various students so they can buy alcohol. All the students and parents and most of the town are furious at the new academy dean for kicking out their valedictorian right before graduation. Lewis Merrill is a pastor who has actually lost his own faith, but hides it, and instead of actually saying a prayer, he just asks all the students to bow their heads and say their own prayers for Owen. One of the things that Owen and Johnny like to do in their free time is practice "the shot". The shot is a basketball shot where Owen runs towards Johnny, Johnny throws him the ball and instantly hoists him into the air towards the net, and Owen shoots the ball through the hoop. They practice this shot over and over and over until they can do it in under three seconds. When college comes, Owen has basically lost his love for making good grades, while Johnny goes on to major in English. Owen signs up for the ROTC. He feels strongly that he is supposed to go to war in Vietnam and that is where he will die saving children. Johnny, Hester, Dan and even Johnny's grandmother, who now adores Owen, try to talk him out of willingly going to Vietnam, but Owen insists. However, Owen fails the physical requirements when he can't get over the obstacle course wall. He's assigned to be a casualty officer in Phoenix where he makes the most of being that person who escorts the bodies of soldiers who are killed in action to their families, and comforting those families however he can. Meanwhile, on one of his leaves, he insists that Johnny come to the quarry workshop where they make grave markers with a diamond drill. He wants Johnny NOT to go to Vietnam and get killed, so he talks Johnny into letting him cut off his index finger with the drill so HE will fail his physical. This is all good with Johnny, who despises the war. As a matter of fact, Johnny is narrating the story from Canada, where he has lived  for the past twenty years, not as a deserter (because the finger amputation worked) but as a disgruntled American expatriate...albeit one who finally found his believe in God thanks to Owen. So, we finally approach the date of what Owen believes to be his death, even though he's a bit confused because he's not over in Vietnam or around any small Asian children. He insists that Johnny fly out to Phoenix, though, and spend the day before with him. It is 1968 and the are both now 26 years old. Johnny accompanies Owen while he escorts a body back to a family who is seething mad at the military. The teenage son at home has some definite mental problems, lots of anger and a hatred of the Vietnamese. He's also got all kinds of guns, ammunition and grenades at his home. Johnny and Owen get through that experience ok, and then actually have a really nice time at the hotel pool just hanging out, drinking beer, remembering all about their childhood, and then later staying up late watching television. In his spare time, Owen writes feverishly in  his diary, something he's done from childhood, but never let Johnny see. The next morning, it's time for Johnny to go back home so Owen takes him to the airport. As they wait for Johnny's plane to come in, another plane lands and off disembarks some nuns with a group of tiny Vietnamese children! They are orphans of the war and have been brought to the United States to be placed in homes. The nuns see Owen's uniform and ask him if he and Johnny will take the little boys to the men's room while they take the girls to the ladies. They say of course, and fail to see the angry teenage boy from the day before lurking in the hallways. When they are in the bathroom with the children, everything seems to come to Owen at once as he realizes he is with a bunch of small Asian children and at that moment, the angry teenager comes into the bathroom, cursing at them all. In his high-pitched, child-like voice, Owen says the only two Vietnamese phrases he was compelled to learn. He tells the children to get down and take cover. Because of his small stature and because his voice sounds high like theirs, they calm down and do as he says. The angry teenager takes the pin from the grenade and tosses it into the bathroom. Owen immediately tosses the grenade to Johnny and says, "you know what to do...we have under four seconds". As Owen runs towards Johnny, Johnny tosses the grenade back to him and hoists Owen up to the small, very high, brick window. Owen places the grenade on the ledge, but instead of coming back down, he holds it there with both hands to make sure it doesn't roll back down. Both of Owen's arms are blown off, but Johnny and all the children are ok. As Owen bleeds to death, he tells Johnny now he knows why his voice never changed all those years. It was meant to be this way for the children. And...now he knows why he had to insist that Johnny come and be there that day. They had to do the shot! He dies a hero, just not in the way he had thought it would be. Naturally, Johnny is devastated. As he narrates the book, he even flashes back on some things that happened after Owen died. One time, when he almost fell backwards down some stairs, he swears Owen's hand reached out and held him up. And, the biggest thing....when Johnny goes to see Pastor Lewis Merrill to plan Owen's service, he realizes that the Pastor has no faith left at all...that he's just been faking it for years. Suddenly, Owen's voice comes out through Pastor Merrill's and tells the pastor to open the third drawer of his desk. He yanks it so hard, that the drawer comes out and out rolls the baseball that killed Johnny's mother! Pastor Merrill is Johnny's fatherrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! I didn't see that one coming! Johnny is stunned, upset, and underwhelmed. He realizes that Pastor Merrill (who was married with children when he had the affair with his mother) has been a coward all these years. He also realizes that in all his talks with Pastor Merrill, Owen must have one time seen the baseball and led Johnny to this point now, knowing how much he wanted to know who his father was. All these things, coupled with Owen knowing exactly when he would die, have turned Johnny, who pretty much lost his faith when his mother died, into a believer of God. At the end of the book, we learn that Johnny says a prayer for Owen Meany every day...a prayer to God that he will bring his best friend back to him. ok, so this was a good book, just long. But the message at the end and how it all came together was worth the slow slow read! Really glad I finally read this one! :-)

Finished: Passing (Larsen) Set in 1927, Passing is the story about two African American women, Irene and Clare, who have known each other all their lives. They are both light enough to pass for white. Clare leaves their Harlem neighborhood when she is seventeen, after her verbally abusive father dies. For many years no one hears a word from her. Irene marries an African American doctor and has two sons, settling in New York even though her husband would rather move to South America. One day, while Irene is visiting Chicago and shopping in the unbearable heat, she feels as if she may pass out. Nicely dressed, and light-skinned, she uses this moment, as she does many others, to pass for white and be admitted into a nice hotel rooftop restaurant. When a beautiful white woman walks in, sits near her, and then can't take her eyes off of her, Irene eventually realizes she's looking at her old childhood friend, Clare. Clare, whose lightness and blond hair actually comes from having one white parent, recognizes Irene immediately and strikes up a conversation, insisting that Irene remember her. As it turns out, Clare has been passing for white all these years. What's more, she has married an extremely bigoted white man, never telling him of her African American blood. She's also got a daughter who has no idea she has African American blood. When Irene relents and agrees to meet with Clare again the next week, she also meets Clare's husband Jack. Jack has no idea that Irene is African American, and during the conversation starts belittling African Americans, using the "n" word, saying he'd never touch a filthy "n" or eat near one or even want to be in the same room with their murdering, conniving type. It's truly awful, the things he says. Irene stands there with her mouth hanging open, but says nothing to defend her race. She is furious at Clare for putting her in the position of even having to meet her racist husband. Irene leaves Chicago and goes home. Two years later, she receives a letter from Clare who says she longs to be back among "her people", and that she wants to come to visit the old Harlem neighborhood while Jack is out of town on business. Irene refuses to answer the letter, but Clare comes anyway, barging into Irene's life...charming her friends, as well as her husband! Clare spends more and more time there as Irene becomes more and more disconcerted with the entire situation. One part of her actually worries about what would happen to Clare and her daughter if her husband found out. The other part of her comes to the slow realization that her husband is looking at Clare with passionate looks, long absent from their marriage, and that they must be having an affair! One day as Irene is out shopping with an African American friend, she rounds a windy corner arm in arm with her friend and runs right into Jack who has returned from a business trip and is readying to leave the country soon with Clare. Jack starts to be friendly, but as he looks from Irene to her friend, it dawns on him what he completely missed at their first meeting...that Irene is African American. Irene rushes on, but then starts to worry what will happen if Jack starts really putting things together. Sure enough, at one of the last parties with friends before Clare is set to leave town...a party where Irene can see from across the room that her husband and Clare have grown to care for each other, Jack bursts through the door in a fury. He goes right for Clare and starts calling her the "n" word...berating her. The hostess stops him short by exclaiming to him that he's the only white person in a room full of black people, that he'd better mind himself. Irene takes this opportunity to dash over to Clare, who is standing by an open window. Irene "can't remember" exactly what happens, but the author implies that Irene puts her hand on Clare and pushes her towards the window. Everyone else in the room just sees Clare go through the window in the blink of an eye and fall to her death below! The story ends with Irene at least comfortable in the knowledge that Clare won't be breaking up her family. hmmm...it's an interesting story, and a tragic one all the way around!!

Finished: A Man Called Ove (Backman) A very good book; a tugger of the heartstrings. A Man Called Ove is the story of a Swedish man, Ove, who is grumpy, set in his ways, matter of fact, unfriendly, and at 59, has just been unwillingly retired from his job not too long after his beloved wife, Sonja, has passed away. Ove is a stickler for the homeowner association rules when it comes to the neighborhood, and polices the street willing to confront anyone, including the neighborhood stray cat. He's tired, though, and heartbroken, and simply wants to go and be with his wife, rather than talking to her at her grave every day. He gets his affairs in order, cancels his phone and all his subscriptions and decides he will end his life. He doesn't count on the new neighbors literally barging in, accidentally running over his mailbox, breaking the association rules, and making themselves right at home in his life. He has to teach the young father, Patrick, how to back up a trailer, and he has to drive Patrick's very pregnant Iranian wife, Parvenah, and six & three year old precocious daughters to the hospital when an ambulance comes to collect Patrick when, trying to pry open a stuck two-story window, he falls from the ladder he borrowed from Ove. As the story unfolds, Parvenah comes to depend on Ove, and he on her. He teaches her to drive. She basically interrupts several of his carefully planned suicide attempts because she needs him for some reason or another, until he finally realizes that he IS needed and better stay on this side of things for a bit longer. He takes in the cat when it's attacked by a dog. He takes in a local teenage boy, whose father owns the local cafe, when he comes out as gay and is kicked out of the home. He teaches another teenage boy how to repair a bike, and then helps him pick out a car. And, most importantly, he gets back in touch with the other crotchety guy on the street, Rune, who used to be his best friend and comrade in all things in the association until they had a huge fight over something Ove can't remember anymore. Rune's wife, Anita, had been Sonja's best friend, which had thrown Rune and Ove together...but they never really minded it, and became friends themselves. It has been years since they've spoken, though, and Anita has come to Ove for help with her heater because Rune is suffering from Alzheimer's. What's more, the government wants to take him away and put him in a home. Ove begrudgingly, or maybe not, helps Anita and when he realizes that she's been battling the bureaucracy for two years and they are coming any day to get Rune, he mobilizes his new friends and neighbors and calls a local reporter who he always denied giving a story to when he saved a man off a railroad track one day. So, the new found friends rally around and get Rune kept in his house and promise that they will all be involved in helping Anita care for him. Ove gets more and more attached to Parvenah and her kids. They begin to even refer to him as Grandad. One night, after the oldest girl's eighth birthday, Ove confronts some hoodlums trying to burglarize a neighbor's house and falls to the ground with a heart attack. Parvenah is frantic, but gets him to the hospital where the doctor explains he's got an enlarged heart, but with medication, should be ok for another few years. Not long after, Parvenah gives birth to a little boy, who the author never names, but I can't imagine it's not Ove! Anyway, the book delves into Ove's past, and how honorable and hard-working he was because his single father raised him that way. It explores the day that Sonja bursts into Ove's black and white world with her colorful personality and infectious laugh, and he knows then and there he will marry her. It quietly develops all these new relationships that are thrust upon Ove until by the time he is actually going to die, he's made sure that the gay boy and his father have been reunited and that Patrick and Parvenah's children will all be taken care of with the money he never spent. It's a very good, very heartwarming story which brought tears to my eyes more than once! I really like this author. He's the same buy who wrote Bear Town and it's sequel. I will definitely be seeking out more of his books.

Finished: The Innocent (Baldacci) I've enjoyed a few Baldacci books now, and they're always suspenseful page-turners and great for airplane reading! This one introduces Will Robie, an assassin for a secret department of the United States government who kills extremely bad people who are planning harm to our country. He always follows orders, no questions asked.....until one night he is ordered to assassinate an American mother of two who also works for the government. When he hesitates and decides not to kill her, especially since her two year old son is in her arms, the "back up team" shoots straight through the little boy's head and into the mother's and kills them both. Will Robie goes immediately on the run, knowing that he will now be marked for elimination. He implements his self-survival escape plan and hops on a bus under an assumed name just in time to see what appears to be another assassin sit down behind a fourteen year old girl and move to murder her! Of course, Will intervenes and saves the girl, taking her with him off the bus just seconds before it explodes! The girl, Julie, has just witnessed the murder of her parents and gone on the run herself. A very unlikely friendship evolves between Julie and the forty year old Will as they work frantically together to figure out how their situations, and the victims of their situations, are not coincidental at all, but very intertwined. With the help of FBI agent, Nicole Vance, Will and Julie get to the bottom of who is killing the people around them and why. I may just read the other Will Robie books from Baldacci! We'll see. :-)

Finished: Ghosted (Walsh) This was a pretty good page-turning book! Unlike I usually do, I'm not going to give away the huge plot twist, just in case someone reads this. I don't want to ruin the surprise. :-) This is the story of a 38 year old British woman named Sarah who has lived in the states for the last 19 years since a tragic accident ripped apart her family, which at the time included her parents and her 12 year old sister, when she was only 19. Back in town to see her parents, Sarah makes it a point to visit the sight of the life-altering accident on its anniversary and happens to meet a local man named Eddie. The have an instant connection, with equal interests and easy conversation and spend the next seven days together in his converted barn home falling in love. They both have painful situations, Sarah, her past and Eddie, dealing with his mentally ill mother. They think it's crazy that it happened so fast, but they both can't deny their feelings. Eddie has already got a holiday planned with a buddy to Spain, but he promises to call Sarah, even from the airport. Sarah promises to extend her stay in the UK and meet him at the airport when he lands back in town, where they will then figure out the next step of their future together. Only....Eddie never calls, and he never shows up at the airport. Despite messages from Sarah that get more and more frantic, Sarah doesn't hear a word from Eddie. She tries to convince her friends that something must be wrong, but they just think she's been "ghosted" and that she'll never hear from this guy again. Sarah knows the feelings were real, and she is heartbroken, and determined to get to the bottom of things. What follows are a few revelations that show neither of them had been completely truthful with the other in those 7 days. I'm not going to give any more of a recap than this, because I really don't want to spoil it. :-) A nice, suspenseful, summer read.

Finished: Beowulf (translated by Hieatt) I decided to go ahead and read Beowulf, the narrative story, not the poem. I glanced at the poem in both Old English and translated to modern English and I'm not ready to tackle that yet, lol. Anyway, it was interesting to read the narrative first to get a handle on the characters and the action. In the book I just read, The Mere Wife, that is based on Beowulf, the boy, Gren, is no monster at all, and far more sympathetic than Beowulf's evil monster, the Grendel, who was supposedly an ancestor of Cain's, who had been banished to hell along with all his descendants for killing his brother. And, in The Mere Wife, it never even dawned on me that Ben Wolfe was supposed to be Beowulf, duh. I guess because I assumed Beowulf was a hero with a true heart. Ben Wolfe was a hero after his own purposes. He'd actually been cowardly and shied away from the battle when he fought in the military, hiding in alleyways, and now he was basically just going after the "monsters" to elevate himself in the eyes of Willa and the town. Beowulf in Beowulf is much more courageous and pure of heart. He apparently fights with God on his side. Beowulf does go to the rescue of the Danes who are being mercilessly attacked by Grendel. He takes Grendel down with his bare hands, and then has to deal with Grendel's monster mother who rises from the murky, fiery mere to avenge her son. Beowful also disposes of the mother. It's not until fifty years later, after he has fought many valiant battles and patiently waited to be king of the Geats rather than taking a thrown from his kinsmen, that he is felled by the fiery dragon that plagues the countryside. Once again, though, he goes in valiantly to brave the dragon, and with the help of only one of his men who doesn't run away, he manages to slay the dragon before perishing of his burns. So, now that I know the story and characters, I may tackle the translated poem at some point. :-)

Finished: The Mere Wife (Headley) A very good book about two very different mothers, with two very different sons, who just want to be the best of friends. Apparently a modern take on Beowulf, which I now need to read, the story is about Gren, who is the son of Dana Mills, an American vet who was fighting in a war, was captured, and beheaded on television...or so it was assumed. In reality, she is not actually sure what happened to her, but she woke up six months later in the desert, hugely pregnant. She doesn't know who the father of her child is, but now in an Army hospital in the U.S., she has all sorts of visions of her dead comrades. She flees the hospital and goes to the one safe place she can think of, the underground mountain tunnels where her family lived after being run from their own land. She gives birth to her child, but he's got a full set of teeth and head of hair. He's not like a "normal" baby, so she decides to stay in their underground cocoon, an actual ancient, closed-down railway station, and keep him from the "monsters" out there that would harm him. Their haven is bordered by a mere, an icy lake with a warm hot spring in the middle of it, which seems to have the spirits of past souls making it come alive as well. Gren is smart and devoted to his mother, but by the time he's seven years old, he's lonely and curious about the town that is just within his reach at the bottom of the mountain...the town that forced his family off their land and was even built on some of their burial grounds. Nearest him is a huge mansion called Herot Hall. Herot Hall is occupied by Willa,  her husband Roger, and their little son, Dylan. They are a picture perfect family on the outside, and socially the cream of the small town crop. Dylan is a sensitive boy who takes piano lessons, but whose father also wants him to play sports. Willa spends her time throwing parties and wondering how much of a maternal connection she really has with this little being that came out of her. When Gren's curiousity gets the best of him after he watches Dylan from afar, he actually steals into the house and befriends Dylan. Dylan is captivated by Gren, and together they play on the piano. By the time Willa hears the unusual music and makes it to the room, Gren is gone in a flash, but has left behind what look like claw marks deeply embedded in the piano keys! Dylan cries for his new friend Gren, and Willa thinks a wild animal has made it's way into their house somehow. The police are called, which introduces us to police chief, Ben Wolfe, who will become the nemesis for Dana and Gren. Neither the chief or her husband believe that any wild animal was really in the house, but Willa knows something was there. As Christmas comes and goes and the Herot's prepare for their huge annual New Year's Eve party, Gren watches with  longing from the mountain, through the huge windows of Herot Hall...and Dylan watches every day for Gren from his own bedroom window. At the party, when Dylan begins to choke on a lego and no one at the party knows what to do, Gren is there in an instant, and swoops Dylan up and runs off with him up the mountain. Of course, Dana, who by now has figured out that Gren has come too dangerously close to all the town people, follows him there to protect him. The party is filled with commotion and the sight of the bedraggled Dana and her son puts fear in everyone. They figure out that Dana is the soldier who was supposedly beheaded years ago on television, and the story becomes all about Dana swooping in and kidnapping Dylan! Ben Wolfe leads the charge to go and get Dylan back, but in the hunt, Roger Herot is killed. After a couple of weeks, and the funeral of Roger, Willa and the town assume that little Dylan is most likely dead. In reality, he's in the tunnel with Gren and Dana and is truly happy for the first time in his young life. He has no desire to go back home. However, Ben Wolfe, who we find out is really more about getting the accolades he will achieve and being a hero if he finds Dylan, finally figures out where their underground home is. In a tragic confrontation where Ben severely injures Dana, Gren must make the choice to grab his mother and take her deeper into the tunnel for her own safety, thus leaving Dylan there to be found by Ben before Gren can return and take him with them as well. So, Dylan is returned home, Ben is the hero, Ben tells Dylan and everyone else that he killed both Dana and Gren, the "monster",  Ben marries Willa and they have twin boys, and both Dylan and Gren are miserable. Years pass until both the boys are fifteen and realize that the other is still alive. They come together for a brief, joyous reunion before Ben Wolfe decides to finish the job he knows he never completed. :-( We end with the death of Dylan first, by the hands of his own mother who hallucinated that she was actually killing Gren, and then the death of Gren as he fights to the death with Ben to avenge Dylan, and then finally with the death of Ben, who is killed by Dana who drives a newly refurbished tunnel train right into him, and then off the bridge it was driving on, thus killing Dana in the process as well. In the end, the only one left standing is Willa, who is last seen being carted off in handcuffs for killing her own son. It's a tragic story, which apparently Beowulf is as well. The writing is beautiful, though, with so much description and lyrical prose. And, the story is really so simple...why can't the boys who are so different be friends? Why can't Gren be out in the real world and accepted for his differences? Sigh. A really good book that I'm glad I read!