Finished: The War of the Worlds (Wells) I finally read The War of the Worlds after hearing so much about it all my life, and I was a bit underwhelmed...until I realized it was written in the late 1800's and that the action took place in London not too long after that time period. For that, I will give the author good marks on the sheer far-reaching, yet possibly plausible wonderings of his imagination! The story is simple...Mars sends "cylinders" full of Martians and their advanced technology to earth to wipe out humankind and take over the planet. It seems their own planet is dying, or that's the assumption of the narrator anyway, and they need a new place to live. The descriptions of the Martians themselves and then their towering machines they drive and shoot laser beams from are vivid and scary. And, the horrific destruction of entire towns and burning of people is awful. The narrator, who fancies himself the lone survivor anywhere near London, and possibly the world, is then ecstatic to come out of his hiding place and find out that the Martians have all died! Presumably, they got to Earth and encountered all our bacteria (probably while sucking down all the human blood) and died rather rapidly, having not been used to having any bacteria on Mars. However, we find out in the epilogue that when they are autopsied, no bacteria is discovered in any of their bodies. Queue creepy music doo-doo doo-doo, doo-doo doo-doo! Anyway, I'm glad the book was short, since it's really not my cup of tea...but glad I've finally read it! :-)

Finished: The Fiery Cross (Gabaldon) The continuation of the story of Jamie and Claire as they make their life on Fraser's Ridge in America from 1770 - 1772. While I love Jamie and Claire, this book moves along too slowly for me. We get alot of Roger and Bree, but almost too much. Various misadventures happen...like Jamie's near death from a poisonous snake bite, and pirate Steven Bonnett's attempt to kidnap Bree and her baby son, Jem, and the shooting of Bonnett by Bree, and the attack on Jocasta and Duncan by assailants looking for the old French gold, etc. etc. Roger survives a hanging, but nearly loses his voice in the process. And, the citizens of America are banding together and starting to rise up against British rule in various ways. Oh, and Ian returns to the Ridge after living for two years as an Indian with the Mohawks...and he's got Rollo in tow. Everyone is so happy to see him, and he's definitely one of my favorite characters. Anyway...the book is far too detailed at some points which encourages lots of skimming, which I hate to do when Jamie and Claire are involved. They're getting older now, as Jamie hits 50 and beyond...but their love will last the ages it would seem. :-)

Finished: The Big Sleep (Chandler) Considered one of the best of the private eye genre, though no where near my favorite genre, The Big Sleep held my attention as I read through the crisp prose and dialogue with the deep, monotonous, baritone voice of Philip Marlowe in my head. :-) I liked the opening paragraph, and the writing, though the story itself was a little predictable. Millionaire General Sternwood hires Marlowe to find out who's blackmailing his whackadoodle youngest daughter, Carmen. In the process, Marlowe gets himself in deeper than he thought as the story becomes less about blackmail and more about the possible murder of the missing husband of the oldest Sternwood daughter, Vivian. Of course, Marlowe comes out on the other side all right, and in the process, maintains his regard for the General, while gaining the respect of the General as well. It's hard to tell whether Marlowe falls a bit for Vivian, but he's awfully smooth and swell with the women. :-) In all, I'm glad I finally read this one, but I probably won't be actively looking for more private eye books to read. Here's a snippet of the writing that I did enjoy though....the opening paragraph:

It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.

I just loved that, lol. :-)

Finished: Letters of Two Brides (de Balzac) Another fascinating piece of Honore de Balzac's collection of novels on French life, La Comedie Humaine. This one was the tail of two extremely close best friends who leave a convent at the same time when they're 18, only to take two different paths. The entire book is written in the form of letters back and forth, mainly between the two young ladies as they both embark on marriages for different reasons. Renee comes home and is immediately married into an arranged marriage, but by her own consent. She marries Louis, a French soldier who had been brutalized in the war and has come home a mere shell of himself. Rather than marrying for love, Renee marries for what she sees could be a virtuous future where their caring and respect will grow for each other as they remain on the country estate and raise a family. Her best friend Louise chastises her through her letters...complaining that Renee is settling rather than doing as they both promised by going out and finding love through adventure and experience. Needless to say...that's what Louise does. She goes immediately into Paris society with her wealthy family, but is bored with all the good-looking young men who think more of themselves than the women they pursue. It's not until Louise is taking Spanish lessons from Felipe, a 37 year old, "ugly" man that she falls in love with the person inside the man, rather than the outside cover. She also realizes that the man worships her and while she reels him in, she insists that he be her slave in love. They do marry, but Renee chastises her friend as well, telling her she has married not for true love, but for how much this man loves and worships her. She feels this will eventually lead Felipe to feeling so emasculated that he will die broken-hearted. What no one knows is that Felipe is a former Spanish duke who has been exiled from his country after being defeated in a revolution. In other words...he's super rich and is able to keep Louise in the lifestyle to which she's become accustomed. Renee's husband blossoms under her caring and as they have children, three in all, both he and their love for each other strengthens. Renee and Louise continue to write, but sometimes less often as Renee is busy with her children and Louise is busy traveling around with Felipe. Louise actually longs for a child of her own after a few years, but she is never blessed. Suddenly one day Felipe dies. It is not explained how, but implied that he finally exhausted his ability to use his entire soul worshiping Louise. Renee rushes to Louise's aid, and then their lives get back to what they were. Louise has her third child and Renee, now 27, falls in love with Gaston, a 23 year old poet...a poet as poor as dirt. However, he worships her as well and they marry. Louise has a chateau built where she and Gaston can live, never to be disturbed by outside influences...or to even go into Paris, as she used to love to do. Louise is jealous and worried that Gaston might fall for a younger woman. Again, she's unable to conceive a child and so it very distraught. One day she catches Gaston in a lie and sees that he's been to Paris without her. She follows him the next time he goes and sees him with a rather unattractive woman...but a woman that goes by his last name! And, a woman with two little boys by her side that look just like Gaston! Feeling that her love and life is over, she writes to Renee to tell her that she will soon die from a broken heart. Renee rushes to her side again, only to meet Gaston first and find out that Gaston was trying to take care of his brother's widow and her children without burdening Louise and having her think he needed her money! Louise is thrilled to hear this news, but it's too late. She had worked herself into a frenzy and gone out several nights in a row to lay by the cool, wet lake, thus bringing on a bad case of consumption. Louise does die with both Gaston and Renee by her side. The End. :-( Though de Balzac can go into some pretty detailed philosophical opinions, this time about motherhood, and about what circumstances make a better marriage, the book kept me reading as I was anxious to see a happy ending for everyone. I really wanted Louise to finally have a child. Instead...the story ended in tragedy. Ce la vie!

Finished: Drums of Autumn (Gabaldon) Finally read the next book in the Outlander series, which has Jamie and Claire shipwrecked in the American colonies and making their home there...though I do miss the major character of  "Scotland" now. They've got Jamie's nephew, young Ian, there with them as they establish their home on Fraser's Ridge in North Carolina. They also meet the aging and blind Jocasta Campbell, who is the sister of Dougal and Collum McKenzie, as well as the sister of Jamie's mother. She's thrilled when Jamie shows up at her plantation and wants to immediately have him take over and be her heir. Neither Claire or Jamie are thrilled with the idea of owning slaves though, and so they nicely decline the offer and set off to build a home in the mountains. They establish a friendly relationship with the local Native American tribe, and Ian in particular spends alot of time with the tribe hunting, fishing, etc. Oh, and Ian has a really cool part wolf dog named Rollo. I can't help but think of the direwolves in Game of Thrones, and now I wonder which series was written first? hmmm, I'll have to check that out. (P.S. Outlander was published in 1991 and Game of  Thrones in 1996, so there ya go.) Anyway, back in the modern times, Jamie and Claire's daughter, Brianna, has fallen in love with Roger, and he with her. However, they are maintaining a long distance relationship, she in Boston and he at Oxford. When Roger finds an ancient newspaper article that shows Claire and Jamie will die in a fire in January of 1776 on Fraser's Ridge, he destroys it and doesn't tell Brianna. Of course, Brianna, who is doing her own research into her parents' history, finds the same article and then goes through the stones in Scotland, back in time, hoping to find her parents and warn them. This is exactly what Roger was afraid she would do, and when he finds out, he follows her through the stones. Brianna meets Jenny, Ian and their brood at Lallybroch and begins to love being a part of this family she's never known. Both Brianna and Roger take separate ships to America and have their various adventures, or misadventures. Eventually, after landing a few weeks apart, they meet up and while each is angry at first, they make up, declare their love and finally consummate their relationship. Then, Brianna finds out that Roger already knew about her parents and kept it from her and they have a huge fight which causes a lengthy separation that neither saw coming. Brianna is raped by Stephen Bonnett, the same pirate who Roger came across the sea with...AND...the same pirate that Jamie had helped escape from a hanging earlier in the book....AND...the same pirate that then subsequently robbed Jamie and Claire of the three precious jewels, their only source of income, that they had brought with them from Jamaica. Needless to say, later in the book when Jamie finds out that he helped save a man who raped his daughter, the guilt pours upon his shoulders. I don't know about this obsession Diana Gabaldon has with rape, but it's very disturbing to have seen three innocent, good people (Jamie, Mary and now Brianna) brutally raped in her books. One of the most heartwarming scenes in the book is when Brianna and Jamie finally meet! He's never laid eyes on his daughter and they form an instant bond. Of course, they also clash stubborn heads quite a bit since they are just alike! Another great scene is when Jamie takes Brianna home to Fraser's Ridge to see Claire, the mother she never thought she'd see again. The mother and daughter reunion is very touching! And, of course, it ends up that Brianna is pregnant! She's pretty certain that Stephen Bonnett is the father, since he raped her two days after her sex with Roger, during which, she tells her mother that to aid against pregnancy, Roger had "withdrawn" at the end. After having a bit of good family time with Jamie, Claire, Brianna and her cousin, Ian, the stress hits the fan when Jamie finds out Brianna is pregnant and her young maid who sailed with her across the ocean, Lizzie, erroneously informs Jamie and Ian that the man who raped Brianna was "McKenzie". Of course, Roger has taken the name Roger McKenzie for his American crossing, and not Roger Wakefield. However, Brianna has told her parents to be on the lookout for Roger Wakefield. After their huge fight, she still feels like Roger will show up there for her any day! And, show up he does, but he's recognized by Lizzie, who only saw them fight and she tells Jamie and Ian that McKenzie is here. Thinking he's the man who raped their daughter, and  not knowing he's actually Roger, Jamie and Ian beat him senseless and then give him to a less friendly Indian tribe!! Yikes! Anyway....there are so many details in the book that it would take forever to write it all down. When the despondent Brianna sketches a picture of Roger one day, Jamie and Ian go white and realize the man they gave to the Indians was Roger! The whole story about the rape and misunderstanding comes out and Jamie, Claire and Ian set off to find Roger, leaving the now six months pregnant Brianna at River Run with her Aunt Jocasta. Oh, and the lovely Lord John Grey shows up twice in the books...once just to see Jamie and Claire, but with his 12 year old stepson William in tow...the William who is really Jamie's son! And, he shows up again at River Run to keep Brianna company while her family is off hunting for Roger. Jamie, Claire and Ian DO find Roger, a prisoner/lackey of the Mohawk tribe. Jamie strikes a bargain to trade Roger for a bunch of the liquor he has distilled, but they want more. A man for a man...so before Jamie can offer himself up, Ian has beat him to the punch and is already painted, shaved and about to be baptized with an Indian name. He's 17 now, and actually fallen for one of the tribe girls and is so used to the Indian ways that he insists to his uncle that he'll be fine! With no other choice, really, Jamie, Claire and Roger head back to Brianna. This book leaves off with Roger and Brianna about to be married, while the baby, little Jemmy (Jeremiah) has become the light of all their lives. Well...except for Roger's, since he knows that the baby is most likely not his. He loves Brianna though, and vows to love Jemmy as well and raise him as if he's his own. I'm not sure I'm ready to tackle the next Outlander book, which is probably also close to 1200 pages...but I'm sure one of these days I'll break it open and continue with the saga!! :-)

Finished: The Remains of the Day (Ishiguro) Another subtle, yet very good, book by Ishiguro about the waning years of service of Stevens, the head butler of Darlington Hall in England. Stevens has spent years being the "perfect" butler, like his father before him, at the expense of his own personal life...even putting his job before his dying father at one point. In his years as head butler, he develops the closest thing to a relationship he's ever known with another household employee, Miss Kenton. It becomes obvious that the two develop deep feelings for each other, but when Stevens doesn't take Miss Kenton's hint and proclaim his feelings, she leaves the estate to get married to someone else. The book opens 20 years later with the older and more reflective Stevens heading out on a road trip to find Miss Kenton (who he believes, due to a letter from her, to be unhappily married) and ask her to come back to work at Darlington Hall. Lord Darlington has died and the estate has been sold to an American who Stevens now works for. As Stevens takes his trip, he reflects on his past with not only Miss Kenton, but also with his father and with Lord Darlington. Stevens was always completely loyal to Lord Darlington, but as we hear stories of their past, we come to see that Lord Darlington was dangerously close to being a Nazi sympathizer or supporter, which was very distressing to most of the English people that came and went from Darlington Hall. Stevens never suspected this when he worked for him, but his thoughts lead him in that direction as he remembers different events. We also read many flashbacks of Miss Kenton's and Stevens' interactions and see just how much they cared for each other. As Stevens drives towards finding Miss Kenton (now Mrs. Bent), he daydreams more and more that surely she must be terribly unhappy and that he should be able to get her to come back with him. However, when they finally meet up, Miss Kenton informs Stevens that she's happily married and expecting her first grandchild, so she has no plans go back with him. In all, it's a bit heartbreaking, but kind of in slow motion. I'm really liking these Ishiguro books I've read! Finished this one before our Oregon trip and am just now blogging about it!

Finished: Child 44 (Smith) A true page-turner I couldn't put down about a serial killer of children in Russia during the Stalin era...an era when it was illegal to openly recognize that there was such a thing as murder in Russia. Leo Demidov is an MGB (precursor to the KGB) officer who totally believes in the Russian propaganda and has persecuted people who have been arrested before, even if he suspected they were innocent. Once arrested by the State, people were automatically considered guilty and it was just a matter of torturing a confession from them. The people lived in fear of the officers of the State...but the officers of the State also lived in constant fear of failing at their jobs and therefore being demoted and punished themselves. They ALL lived in fear of evidence being manufactured against them, accusing them of being enemies of the State. When the son of an MGB officer beneath Leo is murdered and left by the railroad tracks, Leo's superiors mark it as an accident, saying the boy was fully clothed and sadly killed by the train, playing too close to the tracks. However, the woman that finds his body tells his family that he was naked, with his stomach horrifically cut open, dirt stuffed in his mouth and a string tied around his ankle. The boy's father wants Leo to investigate, and assumes he will as a professional courtesy. However, Leo has to go to the family and show them the report that says the body was found fully clothed and without the other markings. The family is furious, but understands when Leo practically has to bully them into agreeing that it was just a terrible accident. Both Leo and the boy's father know that the entire family themselves can be prosecuted for claiming murder. That doesn't keep the boy's father from terribly resenting Leo, though. Throw in an ambitious, ruthless officer one step beneath Leo, Vasili, who is aching for Leo's job, status and the respect given him by the rest of the MGB force. Vasili sets Leo's wife, Raisa, up to look as if she's a spy! When Leo is asked to investigate his own wife, he actually does it because he's so by the book. However, when his superiors expect him to turn on Raisa and denounce her as a spy, he refuses to do it...knowing that if he does not, that not just Raisa, but he himself and his parents will be persecuted and mostly likely sent to the gulags. It was a huge test by Vasili to see what Leo would do...but he knew what Leo would do all along because Leo was honorable. Leo is kicked out of the MGB and Leo and Raisa aren't sent to the gulags, but sent to a small, cold Russian town where Leo is made to start at the lowest level as a member of the local militia. It's a fate of humiliation and one that Vasili views as being worse than the gulags. Anyway, once in this town, Leo meets his superior at the militia, General Nesterov. Together, they discover that two children have been murdered recently in their area...murdered, stripped, had their mouths stuffed with soil (which really turns out to be tree bark), and had strings tied around their ankles. Leo realizes with huge regret that this must mean his colleague's son back in Moscow truly was murdered like he insisted. They've got a serial killer on their hands! However, since there is no such thing as a good Russian citizen being a murderer, the murders are pinned on a mentally impaired teenager, who just happened to find one of the bodies and cut off a piece of the girl's hair because he liked the color yellow, and a local homosexual who commits suicide when his "abnormal, depraved desires and activities" are outed. Of course, neither one is guilty...but neither one is considered a true, good Russian citizen, so it's OK that they're murderers. Leo and Nesterov quietly travel the countryside bragging about how they caught their amoral killers in hopes that other militia leaders will brag and they'll start to see if there's a pattern of more killings. Pretty smart actually! So...when they get back to their own town they realize that there have been 43 children murdered up and down various towns near the railroad! Leo then points at the map and puts a pushpin in Moscow and says "44...my friend's son was also murdered". From here, the story moves very fast as Vasili realizes what they are up to and is constantly on Leo's tail to arrest him. Meanwhile, Leo and Raisa flee and count on the kindness of Russian town folks, scared for their own children, to hide them while they figure out who the killer is. The killer and how he's related to Leo, of all people, is quite a shocker...but in the end, Leo finds him and kills him....but not before Vasili finds them all! As Vasili makes Leo and Raisa kneel on the floor to be executed, Vasili is killed by the killer who actually saves Leo's life! Leo and Raisa then take Vasili's gun, and at the killer's urging, shoot him dead just as Vasili's officers bound downstairs. Leo is then declared a hero for actually killing the murderer who killed an MGB officer! The MGB write the killer off as someone who had been captured by the Germans during the war and released back into Russia with the "mission" to come and kill little Russian children, thus preventing them from becoming productive Russia citizens, i.e., they still won't admit that a plain old Russian citizen could have become a serial killer. At the end of the book, even though Leo is offered an even higher position in the MGB, he asks instead to head up a new murder investigation task force in case any more people are sent into Russia to cause havoc. Of course, he knows that he'll really be hunting for murderers who are just Russian citizens. During the course of the book, we find out a couple of things about Leo's childhood that are shocking and tie together some of the main characters of the book. The entire thing, despite the horrific luring and killing of the children, was quite fascinating and a fast, good read. :-) I might just have to read the next two books in the trilogy!

Finished: Everything I Never Told You (Ng) Well, that was a depressing book about the death of a teenage girl whose parents pressured her so much, her mother to become a doctor and her father to fit in and have friends, that you think all throughout the book she's killed herself. Of course, she does have those feelings of despair at times, but that's not what she has resolved to do when we finally learn the real truth of her death at the end. Lydia is the nearly 16 year old daughter of a Chinese father, James, and a Caucasian mother, Marilyn, who fall in love and get married in the 60's. Marilyn's mother disapproves and never speaks to her again. Marilyn is determined NOT to be the stay-at-home, baking, homemaker that her own mother was, out to only find a good man for a husband. Marilyn wants to be a doctor and is smart enough to do it. When she falls in love with James, though, she puts those dreams on hold when her first two children, Nath and Lydia are born. When the kids are 7 and 5, Lydia can't stand being "just a mom and wife" for one more second, so she leaves her young family without so much as a word or a note, finds an apartment near a college in another town and begins her studies again. It's devastating for James and the children who have no idea what happened. Not until three months later when Marilyn faints and realizes she is pregnant with her third child, does she go home resigned to never fulfilling her dreams. The children have been painfully traumatized and all little Lydia can think is that she'll do whatever she has to to make sure her mother never leaves again. She will say yes to anything her mother suggests. Of course, Marilyn comes home and gets the bright idea that if she can't live out her dreams, then Lydia shall! She begins coaching and drilling Lydia at the age of five in Science and Math. Instead of regular birthday gifts, Lydia always gets Biology or Anatomy books. On the flip side, as Lydia gets older, her father tries to keep both her and Nath from being the shy unpopular, unaccepted Asian kid that he was. He constantly talks about how having friends, being accepted, being social, going to school dances is the most important thing. Poor Lydia is doomed from both sides! She and Nath are the only two Asian kids in the high school by the time they get there and neither has any friends. Lydia pretends though...so as not to cause anything in the family that might make her mom leave...Lydia sits on the phone chatting into the dial tone for hours to the friends she doesn't have. I probably don't have to even mention the fact that the third child born, Hannah, was basically ignored by her mother and her father. Lydia was their light! Nath discovers space and the moon and an interest in being an astronaut at a young age (while his mother is gone), and his father is so disappointed that he's not good at sports and that he's more introverted, that he snaps at him to be quiet about that space stuff. Poor Nate. He watches all his life as his parents dote on his younger sister. And, he knows it's tough on Lydia as well...that she can't stand it. Even when Nath gets into Harvard to study aerospace engineering it takes second place to the fact that Lydia has a D in physics. Anyway...the morning that Lydia is discovered missing, and then later dead in the lake, neither of her parents can figure out who in their town would hurt such a gifted, smart, popular girl. The story quickly becomes about how the rest of the family fails to cope, falling apart at the seams, as it pieces together what really happened to Lydia...which is really just a tragic accident. I came away from this story with such a bad taste in my mouth for both of these parents who were each so caught up in their own unrealized dreams that they couldn't see their children just longing for their love right before their eyes! Just a terrible, terrible set of parents. Maybe I shouldn't say that because I know bad things can happen to the best of us, and none of us are perfect parents, but sheesh...they were pretty bad! I picked this book from one of those lists that said," Ten Books to Read if You Liked Gone Girl", lol. I'm just glad to be finally done with it. I can cleanse my pallet and move on!

Finished: The Buried Giant (Ishiguro) The "buried giant" being long put away vengeance and discord, this book grabbed me and moved me, but in a subtle, "aha" way. The story of Beatrice and Axl, an elderly "Briton" couple just a few decades removed from King Arthur's reign, takes us on their journey to leave their home and visit their son in a distant village. What we find is that neither can seem to remember much about their lives together....as if a mist hangs in the air and takes away their memories. They don't really remember the good times or the bad times, just that they exist day to day. They don't even really have a clear memory of their son. What's more, this mist seems to affect all the people around them. As Beatrice and Axl make their journey, it's clear they have been married a long, long time and are devoted to one another. They come across a Saxon warrior on their way, Wistan, who has been sent by his king to slay the she-dragon, Querig. Wistan has taken Edwin under his wing, an orphan boy of twelve who had been kidnapped by ogres and bitten before he was rescued by Wistan. The superstitious town he lived in wanted to kill him, because they believed him being bitten by the ogres would turn him into one. Wistan fights the town down and rescues the boy, teaching him along the way his warrior ways. Edwin had been bitten though, but not by an ogre...by a baby dragon! Wistan recognizes the mark and one of his motivations for taking Edwin under his wing is that he knows that once bitten by a dragon, Edwin will feel the pull of the dragon and lead him right to her. Even though on opposite sides of the horrible wars from King Arthur's days, Axl, a Briton, and Wistan, a Saxon, develop a mutual respect. With the aid of an old monk, they realize that the dragon is responsible for the mist of the memory forgetting. Beatrice and Axl would like for Wistan to slay the dragon so they can get all their memories back, good and bad. Meanwhile, Beatrice is not in good health and it becomes clear that her journey may be towards death and the great beyond more so than towards her son. As they meet a boatman who takes people one at a time over to an island where you can "live out the rest of your days", they also meet some very upset widows who have been promised by the "deceitful" boatman that they would be ferried over right after their spouses, but have spent years waiting. Beatrice and Axl are told by the boatman that most people who make it over to the island wander the rest of their time alone, not knowing the other souls who are there with them...but that on rare occasion, if a couple is truly devoted to one another and loves each other no matter what, that the couple can spend the time together, not alone. This makes it more imperative to them that they recover all their memories so they can answer all the boatman's questions honestly when they come back. Meanwhile, as they travel on, they come across Sir Gawain, an old, old knight and nephew of King Arthur. He was charged years ago by Arthur with slaying Querig, but has been unsuccessful. He has traversed the forests and mountains for years in his quest. Gawain immediately recognizes Axl as another of King Arthur's knights....one who brokered a huge peace treaty between the Britons and the Saxons during the war...but Axl has no memory of the war, only a faint tugging at his memory. When Saxon women and children had been slaughtered during the war, breaking King Arthur's promise to not kill innocents, Axl had apparently berated Arthur and quit the knighthood. So...as the unlikely quintet of Axl, Beatrice, Wistan, Edwin and Sir Gawain continue on, sometimes running into each other on the same path, and sometimes splitting off...it becomes clear that they are all headed to the same place....Querig's lair. Sir Gawain is insulted and can't believe that Wistan wants to slay the dragon rather than let him do it. Axl and Beatrice side with Wistan, though, and Gawain finally, reluctantly gives in. It suddenly dawns on Axl that Gawain has actually been Querig's protector all these years and not his persecutor. He admits that truth and explains why. Right after King Arthur's Britons defeated the Saxons, Arthur had Merlin put a spell on the dragon which would remain in place as long as the dragon was alive. The spell caused the dragon's breath to create the memory loss mist that enveloped the land. Arthur never again wanted the people to remember why there had been a war, or to live with vengeance in their hearts, and wanted the Britons and Saxons to live together as friends and neighbors. For some reason, Wistan was impervious to the mist and this is why he was chosen by his Saxon king to slay Querig...not to kill a monster...but to break the spell. The Saxon king WANTED his people to remember the slaughter and devastation instead of living in the hazy peace. The Saxon king was going to start a new war and ravage the Britons as soon as people began to get their memories back. Wistan somewhat wistfully shares his beliefs, though he hates the thought of people being thrown back into the chaos of vengeance and the perpetuated duty to hate one another. However, Wistan does his duty and slays the dragon. He must first go through Sir Gawain, though, who has protected the dragon, and thus the peace, all these years. It's a very respectful fight, but the younger, stronger Wistan does win out and kills Gawain. After the dragon is slain, Axl and Beatrice begin to make their way on towards their son and they both remember that while Axl was away at war, Beatrice had been briefly unfaithful to him, and their teenage son had been privy to their fight when Axl returned. Angered at both his parents, he had left home vowing never to return, only to be killed by the plague that ravaged the town he moved to. Remembering this together, Axl and Beatrice don't hold any animosities towards one another, but both share the blame and their love holds strong. They realize, as Beatrice gets weaker, that their son in on the island that the boatman will cross them to. At the end, they meet a very compassionate boatman who realizes instantly that they'll be a couple who stays together on the island. However, he insists to Axl that he must take Beatrice first and come back for him next. Beatrice convinces Axl that she trusts the boatman, and that is how we are left...with the very weak Beatrice crossing over and Axl still back on the other shore. :-( A very nicely written book. It's hard to explain how it sucks you in and makes you think and care. I've read Ishiguro's great book Never Let Me Go...and now I think I might go back and read his Remains of the Day!

Finished: The Stranger (Coben) Hmm, well I normally love my Harlan Coben books, and this one was another page-turner, but I wasn't pleased with the ending! Anyway, I'm sure I'll continue to read every Harlan Coben book that comes out. This one was about a married couple,  Adam and Corrinne Price, living the "American Dream" in a small New York town with their two teenage boys. One day a stranger approaches Adam and tells him that his wife faked her third pregnancy and miscarriage two years before and there is proof on a website of her purchase of fake pregnancy stomachs, ultrasound, pregnancy test, etc. When Adam confronts his wife, she panics and disappears asking for some time before she explains. In the meantime, the stranger approaches other people...a mom whose college daughter is prostituting herself for tuition...a father whose football star son has begun taking steroids right before recruitment, etc. Adam and the boys get increasingly worried about Corrinne. With the help of a police chief friend of the now murdered mother of the college prostitute, Adam uncovers the blackmailing group that the stranger belongs to...and it turns out....they have no idea where Corrinne is. Instead, Corrinne has been set up by a family friend and co-lacrosse board member, Tripp Evans. It turns out that Tripp is in dire straights for money and he sets it up to look like Corrinne embezzled money from the lacrosse organization. He even hired the stranger's company to find out something about Corrinne's past to blackmail her with. In the end, it ends up that Tripp has, in fact, killed Corrinne and buried her in the woods. It's so sad. :-( Usually the protagonist ends up saving the day in the Harlan Coben books, but this one left a husband in shock and two teenage boys who adored their mom motherless. Oh, and there was the weak explanation that Corrinne faked that pregnancy two years before because she felt her marriage was slipping away, when it reality it was not! Sigh, just a bit disappointed. I always look forward to the HC books coming out!