Finished: Words in Deep Blue (Crowley) A wonderful book about loss, and love, and books, and sometimes having to write letters to people to get your feelings across instead of saying the words out loud. A story about a 17 year old girl named Rachel, who loves her best friend, a boy named Henry, but when her brother, 16 year old Cal, dies suddenly, she's not sure if there's any good in life left anymore. I can't say how much this book means to me. I lost my little brother when he was 36, and though he wasn't 16 like Cal, he might as well have been, or 5 or 10 or 21. I lost him at all those ages when I lost him for good. This book helps me remember what I already know...that he is alive in so many ways. In my memories, in my heart, in music, in his own written words, in his last spoken words, and especially in my own children, as I see so much of him in both of them. Words in Deep Blue is full of characters who will stay with me, Rachel, Henry, Cal, George, Michael, Sophia, Frederick, Martin, who all write letters to each other and leave them in their favorite books for the others to find and respond to. The books are in Henry's family owned bookstore, in a section of books that can only be read in the store and never sold. It is a beautiful story, and heartbreaking but life affirming at the same time. And, that is the blog, There's no "more on blog" this time. Go read the book! 

 Finished: Once We Were Brothers (Balson) The story of two twelve year old boys growing up in Zamosck, Poland right as Hitler is coming on the scene. Ben Solomon is Jewish and lives with his hard-working parents and sister. Otto Piatek is not Jewish, and the son of a down-on-his-luck father and a German mother who deserted him. Desperate for work and to get his son food, Otto's father goes to Mr. Solomon to ask for a job at his factory. Mrs. Solomon immediately takes Otto for food and a bath, and the father leaves Otto with them while he gets back on his feet. Otto ends up becoming part of the family, like a brother to Ben and Becca. They all go to school together, and grow very close. When Otto is 15, his German mother shows up at the door with the father, who had also eventually abandoned Otto. His mother wanted to take him with them since she now had a good job working as a secretary for Himmler, Reich Leader of Hitler's SS. Otto refuses to leave the Solomons, who he now considers family, to go with the people who abandoned him. His mother warns that she knows things and that it is going to get dangerous for the Jewish people. Otto stays and the world goes on. Hitler does gain more and more power and the Jewish people begin to lose their privileges slowly but surely. Despite all the warning signs, the Solomons are like so many Jewish families who really can't believe that things could escalate to dangerous proportions, so they don't leave Poland when they can. By the time Otto and Ben are 17, Otto's mother returns once again and is far more insistent that Otto comes with her. She has secured him a job under Himmler and he needs to get away from the Jewish family and take his rightful place. He refuses again, but then Ben's father talks with him and says maybe he should go so that he could at least be someone they would have on their side on the inside. That is the beginning of the end for everyone involved. Otto becomes part of the SS, and though at first he tries to get the Solomon family and friends food and other supplies, he eventually falls under the "charms" of the Third Reich and becomes one of them. Ben and his beloved girlfriend Hannah, Abraham and Leah Solomon and their daughter, Becca, and all their friends in Zamosc suffer the horrors of the Holocaust as we later learn from Ben who survived. As the story opens, Ben is 83 years old in 2004 and he has dressed up to attend an opera in Chicago with an ulterior motive in mind. He has recently seen a documentary about Chicago millionaire and benefactor, Elliot Rosenzweig and knows that he will be at the opera on the same evening. When Ben comes face to face with Elliot, he pulls out an empty WWII pistol and points it at Elliot's head. He accuses him of being a former Nazi SS Officer known as the Butcher of Zamosc...Otto Pietak! What ensues is a suspenseful, painful story as Ben hires attorney Catherine Lockhart to bring Otto Pietak to justice. However, Elliott denies being Otto and he has the money and power to see that Ben's accusations will never see a courtroom. Or does he? It's a heartbreaking book, as we hear every detail of what happened during the horrific time. Well written and such a compelling story, as all stories from the Holocaust are, but so horrifying to this day. It will never not be horrifying. 

 Finished: Sharks in the Time of Saviors (Washburn) Beautifully written story about a Hawaiian family who barely makes ends meet, but has a very close bond with each other and a very spiritual bond with the island they live on. Father, Augie, Mother, Kalia, oldest son, Dean, second son, Nainoa, and youngest daughter, Kaui are at a crossroads when the sugar cane factory Augie works at closes down and they must ask his uncle in the "city", Honolulu, for work. Before the life-changing move, Augie takes them on one of the tourist boats for one more day of family fun. During the boat trip seven year old Nainoa falls overboard. He is bobbing in the water as the boat gets further away, nine year old Dean struggling with his father to let him jump in, and Kalia, shoving four year old Kaui into a stranger's arms as she DOES jump in. As the captain turns the boat around, Kalia realizes she'll never get to Nainoa in time, as she watches him go under and not resurface. Suddenly, four sharks swimming together pass under her and towards Nainoa's location. Kalia is struck with fear and envisions the water turning the awful red of a shark attack, but to everyone's amazement, one of the sharks surfaces with Nainoa cradled gently in it's mouth. The shark swims past Kalia and back to the boat where Augie pulls his son aboard. The shark has saved Nainoa. Since he was a baby, animals have flocked to Nainoa, encircling him as if they are protecting him, as if he is special, but never like this. The story of the sharks and Nainoa spreads, and when Noa, as he is known, subsequently grabs the severely burned hand of one of Dean's friends and it heals, then Noa becomes a much sought after child. He is now the special one with more of a connection to the gods and land than anyone could imagine. He sees people who come for healing, but as we find out later, it rarely works again for the islanders. Dean and Kaui grow up in the extreme shadow of Noa's light, trying their hardest to be noticed by their parents. Their parents love them, but most of the family focus is on Noa's amazing abilities and his brilliance at school. Kaui excels at school as well, and Dean excels at basketball, but try as they might, they never feel as if their parents love them as much. Noa can't handle the pressure that is placed on him, especially when he feels like he's supposed to be doing more than just helping people in the neighborhood. He feels the calling so strongly, but feels that he is being called to "fix" the entire island of Hawaii, where they first lived. Fourteen years later, Noa lives in Portland as a paramedic, Dean has a scholarship to play basketball in Washington state, and Kaui has just begun studying at a university in San Diego to become an engineer. (Turns out she was truly the smartest one in the family!) They try to stay in touch by calling, but many of the old resentments between the siblings still exist. Their lives take turns that none of them expect. Noa can often feel a person's lifeblood and feel himself helping to heal them as he cares for people in emergencies. He still feels he has a much larger purpose, but doesn't know what it is. Dean has been kicked off the team for getting into partying and having an attitude, and his life goes downhill. And, Kaui, still the top of her class in everything, gets into drugs and climbing the shells of empty buildings, and discovers that she loves her female roommate. One day when Noa is called to the scene of a car accident involving a 36 weeks pregnant woman, he feels certain that by laying hands on her he can bring both the baby and the mother back, but he fails. He cannot get over the loss and gives up his job and goes back home. He's got to find out what more he is supposed to do, what the gods want of him, and how deeply he is supposed to be connected to the island. When tragedy strikes, the remaining family members, all try to find their true purpose back in Hawaii. You really grow to feel for each of these characters and to feel the essence of Hawaii. It's hard to just lay out a plot and not talk about the beautiful, spiritual sense of the book as well. It's just one you'll have to read to see what I mean. There is one passage that I really loved from the beautiful prose of this book. :-)

"How long was I stupid enough to believe we were indestructible? But that's the problem with the present, it's never the thing you're holding, only the thing you're watching, later, from a distance so great the memory might as well be a spill of stars outside a window at twilight." 

 Finished: The Lamplighters (Stonex) The story of three lighthouse keepers who mysteriously go missing from their offshore lighthouse in 1972 with no sign of foul play, and no communications or calls for help. When the relief boat pulls up to the treacherous rocks of the lighthouse off the coast of England, they are alarmed when there is no one there to grab their rope and literally haul the replacement keeper up in the winch. They finally manage to get a man onto the rocks, only to find that there is not a sign of the keepers anywhere, also no sign of a struggle. Everything is spotless. The kitchen table is set for lunch for two (not three), and both clocks in the lighthouse have been purposely stopped at 8:45. The book picks up in 1992 where the author of several best-selling action novels approaches the survivors of the three men in hopes of writing a book. Over the years theories of their disappearance have ranged from everything to pirates, to aliens, to ghosts, to simply a huge wave washing them over the rails. The book flashes back and forth between 1972, where we get the viewpoints of Arthur, the primary keeper, Bill, his second in command, and Vince, the newest and youngest member of the crew; and 1992, where we get the viewpoints of Arthur's wife, Helen, Bill's wife, Jenny, and Vince's former girlfriend, Michelle. They all have their opinions about what happened, and they all also have their secrets that may have had something to do with what happened. As we flip back and forth, we eventually find out about those secrets, plus one tragic event in Arthur and Helen's lives, AND exactly what did happen on the lighthouse. It's a well-written story that kept me interested and reading til the end. :-) 

Run Me To  Earth (Yoon) Heartbreaking story of three teens in Laos in the 1960's, orphaned by the war, doing what they can to survive the constant bombings which have devastated the civilians living in the towns. Told from the perspective of each of the teens and two other main characters, the horror, uncertainty, and desperation affected me deeply, and like so many of these historical accounts, makes me ashamed that I didn't know more or empathize more with what fellow human beings were going through in those times. Even though I was a child, so were they! For Alisak, and his best friends, siblings, Prany and Noi, the bombings are a horrific double-edged sword. The bombs are either dropping and exploding on impact, killing on the spot; or they are dropping and not detonating, leaving fields of dangerous mines. Orphaned at twelve and thirteen, the tight-knit threesome survives on the street for over a year before they are recruited by a doctor, Vang, to help out at a country home that has been turned into a hospital for the injured civilians. They learn to ride motorbikes to and from cities which have medical supplies and other necessities. And, they learn how to painstakingly search fields for bombs so they can mark safe pathways. They become invaluable to the doctor and even learn to give stitches and assist in surgeries. And, they are compassionate with the various victims in the hospital, knowing when someone will most likely not survive, sitting with them, holding their hand, and talking with them. They work with Vang at the hospital until Noi, the younger sister of Prany is sixteen, and the boys, Prany and Alisak are seventeen. One day Vang tells them all that they must evacuate immediately. The helicopters are coming and he wants to ensure their safety. It's time to get them out of the country. After evacuating the patients who can travel, the helicopters are full and the teens and Vang must make haste to the town to get on the next evacuation helicopters. Prany leads the way on his motorbike, with Alisak following,Vang hanging on to him from behind and Noi follows, bringing one of the nurses. Alisak's motorbike skids at one point, and Vang is thrown off. When Alisak looks back, he sees, with horror, that Noi's motorbike has to veer off the safe path to avoid him and then a bomb explodes. Alisak searches frantically for Vang and Noi, unsuccessfully. He forces himself to get back on the motorbike and make it to the helicopter. From here, all their stories diverge. We find out what happens to each of them, how their lives take different paths, who has survived, how there is some freedom involved, but not without immense guilt over those left behind. It's just a compelling, heartbreaking story which will stay with me a long time. 

 Finished: For the Wolf (Whitten) A spellbinding fantasy tale of royal twin sisters born in the kingdom of Valleyda. The first born sister, Neverah (Neve), is marked, by tradition to carry on as the next queen. The second born sister, Redarys (Red) is known as a Second Daughter, and is promised as a sacrifice to the wolf who is one with the mystical forest known as the Wilderwood which borders Valleyda. Second Daughters of royalty have been sent to the Wilderwood for centuries on their nineteenth birthdays as sacrifices in hopes of the return of the five kings of the land who had ventured in to make their own bargains with the Wilderwood hundreds of years before, never to be seen again. Neve, desperate to save Red from her fate, begs Red to run away with, Arick, the young man who loves her, but Red feels a guilt and responsibility to go...ever since the girls, at the age of sixteen, had gone in anger to the edge of the Wilderwood and taunted it with stones after finding out their fates. Red, having fallen and cut herself with her hands landing on the side of the Wilderwood, had been suddenly infused with a bit of the magic of the forest. She had felt the pull of the Wilderwood ever since and knew it was her duty to go, especially to protect her own sister against any uprising should she refuse. After the ceremony to send her away, Red barely makes her way through the Wilderwood, as the forest is decaying in many spots and would love just a spot of her blood to help. When she makes it to the wolf's home, rather than a lair, she finds a small castle with a keep. Making her way in, she meets the wolf and finds that he is nothing more than a man! Or is he? He's actually a man whose own parents bargained long ago with the Wilderwood to give their lives to the forest to keep the dark shadow monsters away from humans forever. To do this, his parents had become one with the forest, i.e., the Wilderwood had infused itself into them both. Only their magic or their blood could heal any breaches in the forest made when the evil shadow monsters, and coincidentally, the five kings, tried to escape. Having given their lives protecting the Wilderwood, their son Eammon then became the next wolf, and had subsequently been protecting the forest all this time. (Apparently the magical words for wolf and warden were so similar that the myth was born that the wardens were wolves.)  Eammon, however, cannot hold off the dark forces for long by himself and the Wilderwood is quite happy to have Redarys there to help him. Naturally, Red and Eammon have an instant attraction, but neither wants the other to be hurt or sacrifice anymore, so a war of wills ensues. Meanwhile, in Valleyda, Neve, who wants only to figure out a way to get Red back, has put her trust in a very suspicious priestess, Kiri. Kiri insists that the only way to get Red back is to weaken the Wilderwood by stealing as many of the white sentinel trees that make up the forest as they can. Kiri doesn't tell Neve that it will be darker magic that accomplishes this AND that hurting the Wilderwood will ultimately hurt Redarys as well. To get her plan going, though, Kiri sees to the death of Neve and Red's mother, the queen, making way for Neve to be queen and under her control. So, the twins unknowingly work at cross purposes...Red helping Eammon try and stop the breaches in the Wilderwood made by the missing sentinels, and Neve helping Kiri with her magic to weaken the forest. What Neve doesn't understand is that weakening the Wilderwood to release the kings will also release all the shadow monsters who have been kept at bay for all these centuries. The book is the first in a series, apparently, and comes to a huge battle climax between Eammon, who has taken back all of the powers within red from the Wilderwood to save her, and the one king who had eeked his way out through Kiri's magic and taken over the physical body of Arick, who had tried to help Neve save Red. There is a happy ending for some, but the futures of many left up in the air which seems will be continued in the next book. I loved this book and it was so nice reading a book set in a fantasy world again. It's been awhile! Looking forward to the sequel! :-)

 Finished: The Plot (Korelitz) Another page-turner, hard to put down! Jake Bonner is a writer who has had one best-selling novel, and now floundered for the few years afterwards unable to get another best-seller penned or anything even accepted by a publisher. He now teaches a creative writing seminar every summer. When an overly cocky, very unpleasant student, Evan Parker, lays out the plot of his "sure thing" novel he intends to write, Jake completely deflates. He knows immediately that Evan's novel, when he writes it, will definitely be a best-selling, national book tour, Oprah list book that will most certainly be made into a movie by an A-list director. (All the things that Evan has bragged that it will be.) Three years after the seminar, Jake googles Evan to see if he ever wrote that book. He knows it would have been big news if it had been written. Jake finds out that Evan died just a few months after the seminar, and that he never wrote his book! It doesn't take Jake long to convince himself to write the book. The plot is too good to never be written. He doesn't use a single line from the few pages of writing sample that Evan had shown him. He writes the complete story on his own, but he does steal the exact plot. And, as Evan and Jake both predicted, the book becomes all those things...Steven Spielberg is even making the movie! Jake is now flying high on never-ending book tours and tv interviews when he gets a very simple email message one day. "You are a thief." Messages like that continue to escalate to Jake, and the mysterious sender even creates twitter and facebook accounts to accuse Jake of plagerizing Evan Parker. What ensues is a journey that Jake puts himself on to learn about how Evan died and if he'd told anyone else about the plot of his book. We learn exactly where Evan came up with his plot, a real life story he partially lived himself. And, we learn what possible family member of Evan's may still be alive that is sending the messages to Jake. Definitely a book that I had to read all the way through to the end in one day to see exactly what was going on! :-) 

Finished: The Last Thing He Told Me (Dave) The fastest I've read a book in a while! A great story between a woman and her new step-daughter that kept me reading furiously until the end. I'm going to be lazy and put the Amazon recap here. It keeps things concise and explains things better than I could. :-)  

"Before Owen Michaels disappears, he smuggles a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her. Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly to whom the note refers—Owen’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey. Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. Bailey, who wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother.

As Hannah’s increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, as the FBI arrests Owen’s boss, as a US marshal and federal agents arrive at her Sausalito home unannounced, Hannah quickly realizes her husband isn’t who he said he was. And that Bailey just may hold the key to figuring out Owen’s true identity—and why he really disappeared.

Hannah and Bailey set out to discover the truth. But as they start putting together the pieces of Owen’s past, they soon realize they’re also building a new future—one neither of them could have anticipated.

With its breakneck pacing, dizzying plot twists, and evocative family drama, The Last Thing He Told Me is a riveting mystery, certain to shock you with its final, heartbreaking turn."

 Finished: The First Day of Spring (Tucker) Intense, heartbreaking, emotional story that begins with an eight year old neglected girl declaring that she's just killed a neighborhood toddler with her bare hands...and she liked the power that it gave her and the way it made her feel inside. Chrissie, as she is known when she's a child, is neglected by completely unloving and irresponsible parents. She's not liked by anyone in the neighborhood or at school, except for one friend, Linda. She's starving every day and must fend for herself for food. The book goes back and forth between Chrissie chapters and Julia chapters. Julia is Chrissie at 25, who now has a five year old daughter of her own. She's overprotective, unsocial, and so worried that she will turn out to be as worthless as her own mother, that she barely takes any time to have fun with her daughter. She also worries that people from her past will find her and take revenge for what she did as a child. She reports to a probationary officer every month who keeps very close tabs on Chrissie's health and mindset, as well as her daughter's. The Chrissie childhood chapters are very disturbing as we read every thought that goes through her mind. When it is finally discovered that Chrissie is the one who took the life of the toddler, she is sentenced to a home for dangerous children until she's 18. Even though it is basically a prison for kids, she has people who are actually caring for her and working with her for the first time in her life. She doesn't want to go when they release her, but they give her a name change and send her into the real world. When she gets pregnant by a coworker, she is determined to make a better life for her own daughter. Will her past and her remorse over her murderous childhood actions ever let her forgive herself and succeed? It's a heartbreaking story for sure, written in a prose that hooks you from the beginning and puts you right into Chrissie's troubled mind. 

 Finished: When The Stars Go Dark (Mclain) A compelling page-turner about Detective Anna Hart, who is separated from her younger brother and sister at the age of 8, enters the foster system, and is adopted by an amazing couple, Hap and Eden, who nurture her, love her and raise her to adulthood. It doesn't stop the guilt and responsibility she feels, though, for her younger siblings, which propels her to work in crimes involving missing and kidnapped children. She's married to her work, lives and breathes it, but also married to her husband. After a tragic accident resulting in the death of her own toddler, her husband makes her leave, since he blames her "work distraction" for the accident. Anna ends up back in the Northern California town where she was raised by Hap and Eden, just in time to help one of her oldest friends, Will, now the sheriff of the town, with the case of a missing 15 year old girl. Anna, Will and their friends, twins, Caleb and Jenny, had all been best friend as teenagers until their own world was shattered by the kidnapping and death of Jenny, a crime that has gone unsolved all these years. Now, 15 year old Cameron is missing and though still grieving the loss of her daughter and the end of her marriage, Anna dives right into the case with Will, letting it get very personal for her as she usually does. This is a very good book and the author writes very lovely prose. For me, the culprit was easy to figure out early on, but there is still enough suspense to keep you turning the pages. And, I love the relationships with both Eden and Hap that Anna flashes back on, having lost them both by the time she was 18. I may look and see what else Paula Mclain has written! :-)