Finished: Silas Marner (Eliot) One of those books I'm sure I should have read earlier in my life, but didn't, Silas Marner is my third George Eliot book, after Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda, and I'm safe saying it's my third favorite of hers. Still a good book though. :-) Silas Marner is a church-going, honest and earnest man in his early twenties when we first meet him. He has no living parents, but has a dear best friend since childhood, is engaged to be married to a nice girl, and is involved and respected in his community and church. All this changes when he is set up for a robbery, which he is completely innocent of, by his best friend no less. Silas figures out the betrayal of his best friend, but cannot convince any one of his innocence. His fiance breaks off their engagement, and they absolve him of his sins through the church, and he leaves the town...heartbroken, disillusioned, and no longer believing in people OR in a higher power. Silas travels to the small town of Raveloe, which is predominantly working class, with a few upper crust families in the mix. Silas becomes a weaver and lives on his own in a cottage, not befriending anyone. He just does his job and makes money for his weavings from the richer clientele in town. Most of the people in town are actually afraid of him because of his reclusive personality. Silas lives in his own little world for fifteen years, in an old cottage of the muddy rock pit's former overseer. And, for those fifteen years, he collects his money, rarely spending a penny, as he comes to love his growing pile of riches. Silas hides his coins in two large leather bags in a hole in his floor under his weaving loom. Meanwhile, we also meet a couple of the richer families. Squire Cass is one of the richer men in town, and he's raising his sons on his own since his wife's death years before. His oldest son, twenty-five year old Godfrey, is a typical, aimless squire's son who has not been made to work a day in his life or be accountable for anything. He's actually the GOOD son. The next youngest son is Dunstan, and he's a piece of work. He has taken to gambling, drinking and now blackmailing his own brother, Godfrey. It seems that Godfrey, even though he's in love with Nancy Lammeter, the other rich family's daughter...has been giving into his baser needs and has actually married an opium addicted, poor woman who he now detests. His brother has found out his secret, and continuously blackmails him to give him the money he has collected from the various farm tenants for their father. When Godfrey is at a point of being desperate to pay his father the money he collected, which Dunstan took from him, he agrees to let Dunstan sell his beloved horse and bring him the money. Of course, Dunstan makes the deal, but then runs the horse wildly over a fence with spikes, accidentally killing the horse. More upset that he's got to walk home than at the thought that he actually killed an innocent animal, Dunstan tries to figure out what he'll do for the money now. As he walks, he devises a plan to steal the old weaver, Silas Marner's, money! He figures he must have it hidden somewhere, since the town knows he never spends a penny, and he's right. When Silas is out of the cottage, Dunstan goes in, quickly finds the hole, and makes off with the very heavy bags of coins, which he can actually barely carry! When Silas realizes he's been robbed, he finally goes to town for the first time in distress to report what has happened. Several of the townsfolk are actually sympathetic towards him, and an investigation is opened, but it is a fruitless one. One woman in particular, Mrs. Dolly Winthrop, kindly comes by, and without judgment or disdain, offers her help whenever he needs it and tries to talk him into going to their church. She's very upset that all Silas will do now is sit in his cottage and moan and lament. Meanwhile, back at the Cass home, Godfrey comes clean to his father that he gave the farm money to Dunstan, who then killed his horse. Dunstan has never returned home, and his father says good riddance! Squire Cass encourages Godfrey to straighten up and step up his pursuing of Nancy Lammeter, and ask her hand in marriage at the upcoming New Year's party at their home. Godfrey is tormented inside, though, because even though he's glad Dunstan has disappeared, his wife, Molly, has threatened to come and tell his father about the clandestine marriage. On the night of the party, Godfrey does dance with Nancy, but she makes it clear that she doesn't like the changes in him...that she's heard he has become more like his gambling brother, and she will not marry him. It is clear that she does actually love him though. As the party continues on, Molly, dressed in rags and clutching a two year old child to her chest, makes her way through the snow storm to get to the party. She is determined to finally tell Godfrey's father about their marriage and THEIR CHILD! Molly gives in to her craving to use her opium, though, and soon grows tired from it's affects and passes out in the snow. The baby crawls from her arms and sees a bright light. She toddles on to what ends up being Silas Marner's cottage!! She pushes the door open and gets all cozy on the hearth before Silas ever sees her. When he does see her, he is smitten by her golden hair and the way she looks at him. He wonders if it's his gold come back to him in the form of this beautiful baby. When the baby cries "mamma", Silas realizes she wasn't alone and follows her little footprints in the snow to her mother, who appears to be dead. He gathers the child up and runs to the where he knows the town doctor is...at the New Year's party at the Cass home. When Godfrey Cass sees the child, he knows that she is his and that the woman in the snow must be Molly. He insists on going as well, not to see if she's ok...but to see if she's going to say anything if she is. Alas, she is dead. Godfrey's mind goes to how he is now free of the "hateful" woman, and free to pursue Nancy. He has a small pang of guilt about his child, but keeps quiet and doesn't claim her as his. Silas insists that since the child came to him and she has no parents now, that he will keep her and raise her. The town wonders if he can do it, and all kinds of advice comes his way, especially from women...but the only woman he takes kindly advice from is Mrs. Winthrop. She convinces Silas that the baby needs to be Christened and that Silas needs to become a church going man. Silas agrees, and names the baby Eppie after his little sister who'd died as a child. For sixteen years he does everything he can for Eppie. He does become a church goer. He makes sure she gets schooling. And mostly he spends all the time in the world with her and loves her dearly. They spend time in the meadows where she loves the flowers, and he continues his weaving, earning money, but not hoarding it as he did in the past. Godfrey, in his tiny bit of guilt, does provide some things for them over the years disguised as acts of charity. So, for sixteen years, Silas and Eppie live happily together. And what's more...Mrs. Winthrop's son, Aaron, who has come with her on her visits to the Marner house all his life, has fallen in love with Eppie, and she with him. Aaron wants to marry Eppie and move in with her and Silas and become a dutiful son-in-law to Silas. He's a good guy! Meanwhile, over in the Cass household, Dunstan has never returned home to threaten Godfrey again, Squire Cass has passed on, and Godfrey and Nancy have lived the same sixteen years in a childless, married life. Nancy has resigned herself to the fact, but Godfrey cannot stand not having children. Over the years he brings up adopting a child to Nancy (thinking that he'll "adopt" Eppie from Silas), but Nancy always says no. She feels like they should not mess with God's will that they be childless. On the same night that Silas and Mrs. Winthrop discuss Aaron and Eppie getting married, the draining of the mud pit near the cottage for farming reasons, has lead to a gruesome discovery! The bones, and identification of Dunstan Cass are found in the bottom of the pit....along with the two heavy leather bags fulls of Silas Marner's coins! The evil Dunstan had walked right into the watery pit all those years before and drowned! Silas, though not obsessed with money anymore, is happy to have it back so he can give it to Eppie and Aaron to provide for them. When Godfrey finds out his brother is the one who stole Silas' money, something in him snaps and he finally tells Nancy the truth after all these years. He tells her the reason he wanted to adopt Eppie from Silas is because Eppie is his child by a lowly woman he married...the woman in the snow who died. Much to his surprise, Nancy sticks by him and goes with him to see Silas and Eppie and let them know that he's her real father, and what's more, he wants Eppie to come and live with him and Nancy so he can provide for her in the way she should be. Needless to say, both Silas and Eppie are stunned and upset! Eppie insists that she wants no father but Silas, and after going around and around about it, Godfrey concedes and leaves them alone. Again, what a selfish bastard. After all that is said and done, Eppie marries Aaron is a small town ceremony, in a dress provided by Nancy....because Godfrey and Nancy decide that what they really want is for Eppie to be happy, but they will provide for her if she ever needs it. So....even though Silas Marner was done so wrong by his original friends, and then initially treated poorly by his new townsfolk...he finds true love in this young baby who loves him unconditionally as a daughter for the rest of his life. :-) A pretty good book!

Finished: The Moonstone (Collins) Just what I needed...a refreshing mystery written in the 1800's, told by each of the main characters writing letters about what their involvement was in the theft of a one-of-a-kind Indian diamond given to Rachel Verinder on her 18th birthday. The book is over 700 pages, so I'll not be doing a detailed recap.It was very nice to read something for the enjoyment and not be depressed by too realistic of a story. The diamond, the moonstone, is a sacred stone that has been guarded for centuries by Indian religious men. When it is taken by an English Colonel during the Seige of Seringapatam and whisked back to England, the Indian guardians vow to pursue it and bring it back, no matter how many years it takes. Colonel Herncastle is shunned by his own family for taking the jewel in the first place, and so on his deathbed, he bequeaths it to his sister's daughter, Rachel, hoping that it will bring as much discord to his own sister as it did to him. He charges his nephew, and cousin to Rachel, Franklin Blake with delivering the diamond on her birthday. Franklin arrives a month before the birthday and keeps the diamond safe at the bank. In the month that he's at the Verinder estate, of course, he and Rachel fall madly in love (as cousins in the 1800's often did...at least in novels!) After presenting the diamond to Rachel on the day of her party, everything goes awry when the diamond is stolen from Rachel's bedroom that night! Suddenly, Rachel will have nothing to do with Franklin...won't even speak to him, and he doesn't know why. There are many lively characters in the book...from Rachel's mother, Lady Verinder; to the wise, faithful, head servant, Gabriel Betteridge, who has served first Lady Verinder as a young girl, and now her daughter; to the crafty police detective Sergeant Cuff, who is called in when the diamond is stolen; to the charming aristocrat Godfrey Ablewhite, who is also pursuing Rachel's hand in marriage; to Rosanna Spearman, the former thief who has been given a chance at being a housemaid by Lady Verinder; to the three Indian Brahmins disguised as jugglers who have come to town to retrieve the diamond. Everyone becomes a suspect of taking the diamond at some point or another, even Rachel herself! As everyone writes their version of what happened, the details emerge as to what actually happened, what happened to the diamond, why Rachel turned on Franklin, and exactly who the thief ends up being! I will say that this one actually has a happy ending! It is written much in the way that a Sherlock Holmes story is, but a little less dry. This one really kept my attention, kept me guessing, and kept me wanting to know whodunnit! :-)

Finished: Tinkers (Harding) Rather intense Pulitzer Prize winner about an old man who is dying, and while lying on the hospital bed set up in the middle of the living room, has hallucinations about the house falling down around him, and reminisces back on his life, to his childhood, and his father. George Washington Crosby is dying. He's beloved, and surrounded by his wife, his children, and his grandchildren as he lies in the living room going in and out of consciousness in his last days of life. He's an antique clock repairman by trade, a tinker, and his thoughts drift to the intricate workings of clocks and time pieces. Someone is always there with him, but he's pretty unaware of them except for a few lucid moments. The book has very little dialogue, and quite a bit of stream of conscious thinking. George imagines the house coming down on him bit by bit, and then drifts into memories of his childhood. He was the oldest of four children, and his parents counted on him to do all the chores. His father, Howard Aaron Crosby, was also a tinker, but he put his skills to use by driving a wagon full of drawers around rural Maine, selling necessities to his rural customers. He was away from home alot, but usually made it home for dinner. He also suffered from severe epileptic fits. His wife was a rather unloving, no-nonsense kind of woman, but she always shielded the kids from their father's epileptic fits....but years of taking care of Howard finally took their toll on her. One day, when George witnesses an episode, she is at her wits end and actually talks to a doctor about having her husband committed to the "insane" hospital. When Howard sees the brochure on the dresser, he leaves to drive his cart that morning and never returns! He leaves his family and heads to Pennsylvania where he changes his name, marries another woman, and lives as a grocery store clerk for the next twenty-five years. His new wife actually takes him to a medical doctor who prescribes medications that help Howard immensely. There are times that the book goes into Howard's point of view, so then we learn about his own childhood. His father was a preacher, a much loved preacher, who loved his son, but rarely spent time with him as he was always up in his study creating his sermons. When Howard is a young teen HIS father begins to deteriorate, showing signs of what I assume was probably Alzheimer's or dementia. Sadly, Howard's mother has his father sent someplace with four men in black suits one day, as Howard witnesses through the window. He goes to try and find his father, nearly succumbing to hypothermia, but is taken home by some local hunters. It is also around this same time that Howard has his first epileptic seizure. So, all three of the men have very sad stories. George actually has a very happy marriage, lovely children, and a long life. It's just sad for him because he had a tough childhood which is prevalent in his mind as he dies. We flash back to Howard again, and when, after 25 years of marriage, his second wife must travel at Christmas to take care of her mother, Howard borrows a car and drives to George's house. It seems he had kept up with all his children. He leaves the car running, knocks on the door, says hi to George, meets his grandchildren. George is stunned, but happy, and invites his long lost father in for Christmas dinner, but Howard says, no thanks. He just wanted to say hi. This becomes the very last memory that George has as he leaves this earth. As I said, this was an intense one. Many emotions if you've had parents deteriorate before your eyes or pass away not really understanding what's going on. I had no idea this book would be so depressing. I'm on the lookout now for a more light-hearted book!

Finished: The Optimist's Daughter (Welty) Pulitzer Prize winning novel written by Mississippi born Eudora Welty, about a grown daughter who rushes home to be by her father's side when he needs cataract surgery, only to have him never recover his will to live after the surgery. Following doctor's orders to lie as still as possible, Judge McKelva, does that after his eye surgery, with either his daughter, Laurel, or his second, younger wife, Fay, by his side. Laurel reads from him every day from some of their favorite classics, but when the self-centered Fay is there, all she does is complain about the situation he's left her in and bitch at him to finish healing up. It eventually becomes clear that the judge isn't improving, and one night, he seems to give up on life, and dies. Laurel and Fay react differently, Fay making it all about herself. Laurel takes her father home to be buried in Mount Salus, Mississippi, the house she grew up in with her father and her beloved mother, Becky, who died twelve years before. Surrounded by loving neighbors and old family friends, Laurel, though in shock, is able to mourn her father. No one in the town has ever understood what the highly loved and respected Judge McKelva saw in the younger, shriller Fay. True to form, Fay arrives late to her own husband's viewing, and then makes a scene. At least Laurel has the time before she arrives to truly mourn with the people who loved their family. Fay's uncouth, equally self-centered family arrives at the funeral from Texas, and Fay decides to go home with them for a few days. She makes a point of reminding Laurel that the house and everything in it belongs to her...AND...that she can't wait to get rid of some of this "junk" that was important to the judge. :-( Though those closet to her try to convince Laurel to move on back home, Laurel is determined to just spend the weekend there, and then head back to her job in Chicago before Fay gets back. So...the rest of the book is spent with Laurel reminiscing in the house, and it's a tear-jerker! I think it affected me so much because my own mother's death still seems so fresh on my mind....and I will never get over losing my dad, who was also a very beloved and highly respected person...and also happened to be from a small town in northern Louisiana, which is about the same as being from a small town in Mississippi. It all just seemed so familiar and tugged terribly at my heart. Anyway, Laurel spends time in her father's library, looking at his old books, and going through his desk drawers, which she never dared do as a child. The desk alone had been his great-grandfather's and held so many memories for Laurel of her dad sitting there. One of her dearest memories is that of being a girl drifting off to sleep at night to the sound of her father and mother taking turns reading to each other every night from whatever book they were reading. Laurel also spends time outside tending to her mother, Becky's, beloved rose bushes. She keeps drifting back to when she was a little girl, as far as she could remember, once a year she and her mother would take the train to West Virginia where her mother had grown up, to the house in the mountains. When Laurel finds her mother's old writing desk stored away in a little sewing room, she then goes even further into her memories as she finds every letter her father ever wrote her mother, and also finds their "beginning of courtship" memory album. I kept saying to myself, surely she's going to keep some of these things?? Take them with her?? But instead, she just relishes the memories, lives all the feelings all over again, and then, sure enough, heads back to Chicago after the weekend. I tell you, she was a much stronger person that I! It's exactly how my husband is, though...memories and people, not things, he says. I know what he means, but I also like having the few old things I have of my grandparents, and now my parents. I love sitting in my dad's old easy chair, as much as Laurel sunk down into her father's desk chair and let the feeling of him envelope her. This was a very good book, and I wish so much that I had read it while my hubby's Aunt Barbara was still alive. She was born and raised in Mississippi and became a writer and Eudora Welty was her favorite author. I would love to have discussed this book with her. Just one more lesson learned by me....don't put off talking to the people you love about things from the past, memories, or anything at all!

Fnished: Early Autumn (Bromfield) This Pulitzer Prize winner from 1927 is a story of the wealthy Pentland family living in the early 1900's New England. The Pentlands are one of the founding families of the area, and as such, are expected to maintain a level of respectability, even at the expense of happiness. Olivia Pentland is 39 and married to patriarch John Pentland's son, Anson. Anson, is a emotionless, wimpish man, whose only passion in life is working on his genealogy book. Together, Olivia and Anson have two children, 18 year old Sybil and 15 year old Jack. Sybil has just returned from a year of schooling in Paris, and has no interest in the other local, wealthy boys who the Pentlands are trying to set her up with. Jack has been deathly ill since birth, and spends most of his weak days in bed. Their grandfather, John Pentland, has more respect for his daughter-in-law, Olivia, than his own weak-spined son. Olivia, however, is unhappy in a marriage that has been void of physical intimacy since before Jack was born, and has always been loveless. When she chances upon their new neighbor, Irishman, Michael O'Hara, she instantly feels the tinglings of wanting and love that she's never felt before. After many horseback riding mornings, Michael declares his love for her. He has worked himself up from the working class to being quite wealthy. He hopes that she'll leave her husband for him and finally be happy. Meanwhile, Olivia is determined that her own daughter will not be stuck living a loveless life like she has. When a passionate young Frenchman, Jean, who Sybil had met in Paris comes to the estate, Olivia realizes they are in love! When she finds out they'd like to be married, she encourages Sybil and Jean to run off and elope, since she knows her husband will never approve of their marriage. When young Jack finally succumbs to his weak heart, the family is distraught, but mostly Olivia and John Pentland, who adored his grandson. Just when Olivia is beginning to weaken and think she should leave being a Pentland all behind now that Jack has died and Sybil has gone to be happy, old man John Pentland calls her into his study and lets her know that he's leaving everything to her in his will. She's the only person he trusts to handle the finances, maintain the Pentland name and reputation, and keep the family together. She almost defies John, but when he dies in a horseback riding accident, Olivia decides it IS up to her to stay. She loves Michael so much that she also decides that running off with him would not only ruin the Pentland family name, but would ruin Michael's business chances. She begs him to let her go, and he reluctantly does. A bit of a sad ending for Olivia, but a pretty good book. It was written in that way that many older books were written...with lots of prose, and descriptions, and internal thoughts, and little dialogue....but a very good book! :-)

Finished: Bear Town (Backman) I loved this book! I've been thinking about reading it for a long, long time and so glad I did. Frederik Backman does amazing character development, even with the characters who are normally non-sympathetic....he finds something human in them all and puts it all on the page. Amazing. This could have just been another teen hurts teen, teen gets revenge, etc. etc., but it was so much more than that. Beartown is the name of the small northern town, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, that is resting all it's hopes and dreams on their junior hockey team....a team made up of 15 to 17 year old boys. Hockey dominates the town history, the town businesses, the town economy, the town hearts, but the town is fading. Many of the hockey backers in the town feel that the only way the town will stay afloat is if the proposed "hockey" high school gets built there, along with a new rink, bringing in more jobs, more businesses, etc. The hope for this now exists because the best 17 year old to come along since the General Manager himself was a 17 year old is leading their team. His name is Kevin, and he's a machine. He's the boy next door. He's the straight A student. He's the boy all the other boys want as a best friend and all the girls want as a boyfriend. He's obsessed about being perfect in his hockey games. He's got rich parents who expect the world of him, who support the team, but who, oddly enough, don't personally support him. He longs for their affection, but his father is more about teaching lessons, doing his business, going over game stats after games that he doesn't attend, and on and on. His mother basically goes along with his dad. We feel early on for Kevin. He's got one person in the world who understands him, and that's his best friend Benji. Benji is the muscle who protects Kevin on the ice and allows him to score. Benji is also and exceptional player, but he and Kevin have been best friends since they were seven years old, and Benji has always protected Kevin. Benji's father committed suicide when he was young and he was raised by his mother and three older sisters, all who play different, but positive roles in his life. Benji has a tendency to get in trouble alot at school, but is also forgiven quite often as he's got the soulful eyes and personality that make teachers, etc., want to nurture him. Kevin and Benji's friendship is tested and eventually severed when Kevin does the unthinkable and rapes a 15 year old high school girl that he's been flirting with. The girl just happens to be Maya, the daughter of the General Manager, Peter Andersson, who was the last huge star of the town. Peter had been recruited to the NHL and played for a few seasons, but battled injuries. He married his high school sweetheart and they had a son, Isak and little Maya. As Peter learned that he would no longer be able to play hockey, their young son fell incurably ill and died. Shattered, Peter was offered by his old coach and mentor, Sune, to come back to Beartown as GM of the hockey club. The author writes all these characters so, so superbly. He puts you right in the skin of Peter, his wife Kira, Maya, Sune, Benji, and even Kevin. Before his daughter is raped, Peter's biggest dilemma is that the hockey board and sponsors want to fire Sune as the A coach (the level the boys go after juniors), and move the junior coach, David, up with his boys Kevin, Benji, Bobo, Lyt, and the rest....and they expect Peter to do the firing...to let go his lifelong friend and mentor. Before the rape, we learn all about the main team players and we meet Amat, a 15 year old on the boys team, who is so amazingly fast on the ice that he will uncharacteristically be moved up to the junior team to help them win the upcoming semi-final. Amat and his mother live in the poorest part of town, and his mother is the janitor for the ice rink. He would love nothing more than to be successful at hockey and provide for his mother. He's also in love with Maya, and has been since they were kids. In Beartown, the town is so small that all the kids, from primary grades to high school share the same building. They all know one another and have forever. We meet parents, hockey-crazed parents, and more. We meet the teachers and principal that try to guide the kids. We meet the crusty old bar owner whose husband passed away years before, but she's still the respected matriarch of all the old hockey players who never made it to the big leagues, but now work in the town factory, or garage, or anywhere they can get work. We meet Amat's best friends, who along with Amat, came from another country and are outcasts at school...and basically bullied by the members of the junior hockey team on a daily basis, with the huge Bobo and Lyt leading the charge. We meet Bobo's family, who are really good people, and see the dynamic between them and their son and how, truly, Bobo is a good person who is just caught up in trying to fit in himself. When Amat is moved up to the junior team, the day before the semifinal, many of the team are furious, but not near as furious as their parents! The team, you see, has complete faith and trust in their coach, David. He's had them all since they were seven years old. Though disappointed, David manages to make Bobo feel good about himself, while at the same time telling him that Amat will take his place in the semi. In an unexpected turn, Amat and Bobo become friends, as they are really far more alike than either of them ever knew. There's so much detail to the book, that, as usual, I can't possibly recap every detail of every character. That's what reading the book is for. :-) I will say that I adore Benji and he is going to go on my Favorite Character's list, which I don't update often.

So, when the book opens, it starts with two teenagers out in the woods...one who puts a gun to the other's head and pulls the trigger. Then, the story is how they got there.  So, as I read, I kept trying to figure out which of these kids was going to kill who. Kevin's rape of Maya happens about halfway through the book, at the after party at his house, after they win the semi-final. As usual, his parents are out of town, and all the kids from the town are at his house and drinking at the party. As Kevin flirts with Maya, we see Benji get disgusted and leave the party much to Kevin's objection. When Benji indicates that he disapproves of Kevin chasing after a 15 year old, it's the first sign that maybe Benji' knows that Kevin gets his way no matter what, and sometimes it's not a good way. So, Maya goes up to Kevin's room with him, giddy thinking maybe Kevin will kiss her or want to be her boyfriend, never in her wildest dreams thinking anything more would happen, but Kevin is so used to nobody saying no to him, that he just assumes she will want to have sex. As she says no and struggles, he holds her down forcefully, coming close to strangling her and rapes her. When Amat, one of the heroes of the semi-final game, goes looking for Maya and is told she went upstairs with Kevin, he dashes upstairs. This is the girl he loves, and he doesn't know what he's going to do, but he certainly doesn't want her to fall for Kevin. He bursts into Kevin's room in time to see Kevin raping Maya. Amat is a distraction enough for Maya to get free and run. Maya makes her way home and won't return any of Amat's frantic calls. She locks herself in her room, showers away the shame, washes all her clothes, burns her ripped blouse, tells her parents the next few days she is sick, misses school, and basically decides she will bear the brunt of this horror by herself. She knows it will destroy her parents if they know what has happened to her. Amat tries to go about his week, but he's basically in shock. Benji skips school alot and even a couple of practices. As the week passes and leads up to the final game that will be played that weekend, everyone is on edge for far different reasons. Maya's been raped. Peter is going to have to fire Sune. David needs his team to win the final. Amat is struggling between being part of the team and telling someone about Maya. Benji is completely out of sorts. Kevin has the weight of the game and town on his shoulders, and possibly the fact that he raped Maya, but it's hard to tell. Finally, on the day of the final game, right before her father is about to leave to get on the team bus, Maya's breaks down and tells her best friend, Ana, what happened, who convinces her to tell her parents right away so Kevin doesn't rape anyone else. So, Maya goes outside moments before her dad gets in his car to go, and tells her parents the whole story. They are devastated, furious, distraught, and they contact the police. As the team bus is about to pull away from the rink to go to the final, the police board the bus and remove Kevin. None of the team or parents know what's going on and everyone gets in an uproar....everyone but Amat and Benji, who sit quietly on the bus. Amazingly, it's Benji who comes to the team's morale rescue and gives a better pep talk to the team than coach David ever could, and they head off for their final not knowing what is going on with their star player, who they will now play without. As you would expect, most of the town tries to place the blame on Maya. They say she willingly went with Kevin and consented to sex. They say the fact that her parents waited a week to report it, until the day of the big game, is all about revenge for the board making Peter fire Sune, and on and on. It is horrible the way everyone reacts. We see a few glimpses, though, of people who think that Kevin might have actually raped Maya, among them Kevin's own mother. As Kevin is interrogated by the police, along with his father and his powerful attorney, the team goes on to play their hearts out in the final, most of them "for Kevin!!", but lose in overtime. When practically the entire town decides to meet and vote Peter out as the General Manager of the hockey club, Amat finally finds his guts (despite the fact that Kevin's father has tried to bribe him with money and a new job for his mother to stay quiet), and he marches in and speaks to the town meeting. He tells them exactly what he saw in detail. Many people do then believe Maya, but most still do not. Amat is then hunted down by his team, who believe that no matter what, a team should stay loyal to each other, and he is mercilessly beaten. As we see Bobo run to put on his hoodie and join the other team mates, a huge disappointment falls, until you realize that Bobo is there to protect Amat, and they basically both get the tar beat out of them. And, most sad of all, the police finally close the case and drop it due to insufficient evidence, since in a weeks time it was basically all wiped away and has become a he-said, she-said case. So, we come to the end and it's Maya who goes with Ana's father's shotgun and hunts down Kevin where he is running in the forest at night. She pulls the gun and forces him to his knees. He cries, and wets himself and begs her not to do it. She pulls the trigger and he feels himself dying. However, he's not dying, because she took the shotgun shell out. She walks away happy in the knowledge that he will forever be as afraid of the dark as she now is. In the wrap up, the town, mostly due to the crusty old bar owner and the former hockey players, vote to keep Peter as GM of the Beartown hockey club. Sune is not fired as the Beartown A team coach. They're not even sure they'll have an A team or a hockey club if they have no sponsors left. One of the main sponsors, who played on the same hockey team as Peter, finds his conscience and stays in Beartown instead of abandoning to Hed, and says he'll promote the team. Coach David is offered the job of coaching the Hed A team, the team that beat Beartown in the finals. Most of the team and their rich parents, including Kevin, Lyt, and the rest, abandon Beartown and join the Hed team. Kevin's mother believe Amat, and comes to Maya's house to apologize for her son, even though the case has been dropped. She falls to her knees, sobbing, and Maya falls to her knees to help lift her back up. Peter, Kira, Maya and little brother, Leo, grow closer as a family again and do family things. Needless to say, no hockey high school will be built in Beartown. As Peter walks through the stadium halls, up walks Benji. He wants to stay and play in Beartown, even though he'd have far more opportunity to shine in Hed. He's no longer Kevin's best friend. So, as the little kids come to skate camp, the four teenagers who are there who will go on to play Beartown hockey the next year are Benji, Amat, Bobo and Amat's bullied best friend, Zacharias. I can't say enough how well written this book is. AND...I didn't even realize that it was set in another country until the amount that Kevin's father tried to bribe Amat with was 5000 kronor. That is Swiss money!!! The whole time I thought I was reading about an American town and all along it wasn't in America. Just shows you had sad it is to know this could happen literally anywhere, and in my brain, it was happening in America. There is going to be a sequel to this book in June and I will definitely be buying that to read!!!!

Finished: The Underground Railroad (Whitehead) Heart-rending Pulitzer Prize winning novel about a Georgia slave girl named Cora in the 1800's who uses a literal underground railroad to escape her deplorable plantation life. Cora is left on the Randall plantation by her own runaway mother, Mabel, when she is just ten years old, and considered to be a "stray". She makes her way on the plantation and is known for her toughness, but when she's 15 or 16, she stands up for a young slave boy and takes quite a whipping. Being a young woman now, she is also raped by two men. When a young slave man, Caesar, tells her of his plan to escape north, at first Cora refuses...but after these incidences, she sees that things are only going to get much worse as the slave owner's most cruel son has just been put in charge of her portion of the plantation. She agrees to run with Caesar, and is utterly amazed to find that the underground railroad is not a system of safe houses and people willing to help. It is actually a tunneled out, underground, functioning railroad with stations hidden underneath the houses of anti-slavery sympathizers. Thus begins Cora's journey. Cora meets some amazing people along the way who are willing to risk their lives to hide her and protect her. She and Caesar make it to their first stop and it's in South Carolina. They are still not free, but allowed to live in their own area and put to work in rich white people's homes or the factory. They are lulled into a false sense of security and skip taking the next few trains to continue north. Little do they know, the black people of the town are also being medically experimented on and part of a planned sterilization project that will keep their race from procreating. By the time they figure this out, and Cora realizes that they are still being controlled and imprisoned, just in a different way, the twisted slave-catcher, Ridgeway, who has been sent to haul them back to the Randall plantation has entered into their South Carolina town. Ridgeway is doubly motivated. He was the slave-catcher the few years back when Cora's mother, Mabel, ran away and escaped uncaught. The Randall's had never let him forget his failure to bring her back, and Ridgeway is determined not to be humiliated by Mabel's daughter as well. When Ridgeway makes his presence known in town, Sam, the kindly station master is able to get to Cora and send her to the tunnel, but he's too late to get to Caesar and he his mercilessly killed. The book is written so deeply, and the characters so real, that it makes your heart break reading about what they must endure...and makes your blood boil to experience the ignorance of the white people who are claiming they are the superior race. I always feel deeply when I read books about slavery, or about the persecution of the Jewish people during the Holocaust, and this book made me feel so deeply. Just when you've read a chapter about Cora or Caesar, the author throws you for a loop by having a chapter solely dedicated to Ridgeway the slave-catcher, or Ethel the reluctant underground helper, who is only helping because her husband insists, or, sadly, a chapter on Mabel, who while she did runaway, didn't get far before she turned back around to head back to the plantation for her girl...to let her know how far she DID get and what freedom there was out there for both of them under the sky, before she was bitten by a water moccasin and fell dying into the swamp, never to be heard from again. Cora, devastated that Caesar never makes it to the tunnel, takes the next train that comes along, even though the train operator tells her that things are bad and he's not supposed to pick anyone else up. He does so, but he leaves her in North Carolina. A  reluctant station master there, Martin, tells Cora that they are all in danger because North Carolina has just declared itself a white only state. All blacks are being kicked out, most just hung from trees along what is known at the "freedom trail", the road out of town. It's a horrific sight for Cora as she hides in the back of the wagon, and Martin takes her home to his wary wife Ethel where they hide Cora in a little alcove above the attic. Cora stays there for months, in yet another prison, with only a peephole out onto the white people's park, where rallies are held every Friday to string up a random black person who is caught. Cora learns to read a bit there,  with the help of Martin, and develops a love for almanacs, the only books Martin has up in the attic. Eventually, though, Ridgeway makes his way there and finds Cora. Sadly, Martin and Ethel are hung as Cora is dragged out of town in chains. Before taking Cora back to be tortured and killed by Randall, Ridgeway has another runaway slave to pick up in Tennessee, so they head there. In one Tennessee town, Cora is noticed by another black man named Royal who, along with two other men, meets Ridgeway and his two helpers on the road, battles with them, and rescues Cora. Unfortunately, they only chain Ridgeway up and don't flat out kill him! Royal is actually a free and educated black man from the north who has made his way down to help as many of his people as he can.  He takes Cora to a farm in Indiana owned by the Valentine family...a family of mixed black and white blood. Mr. Valentine is all about rescuing and bringing anyone onto the farm to live as long as they pitch in and help. When the farm actually becomes prosperous and starts to become it's own little town with even a few buildings erected, the white people who live in nearby towns get very nervous to have such a large black contingency so close. So, once again, they are raided by evil white people during one of their evening get togethers. Royal and Cora had just become lovers after months of courtship when Royal is gunned down during the melee. His last words to Cora are for her to make her way to the cabin he showed her and take the tunnel under it and go north. But, of course, Ridgeway is sitting right there and hears his words. He grabs Cora and forces her to take him to the cabin to see the actual underground railroad, which he has always suspected to be a real thing, before taking her back to Georgia. Once there, as they are making their way down the steep ladder, Cora throws her arms around Ridgeway, and the weight of the movement makes them fall down and down into the tunnel, leaving Ridgeway severely injured. Cora is injured as well, but not severely. She takes the hand cart, the only thing available in the tunnel, and starts pumping her way down the track. She doesn't even know if she's going to find an exit or a dead end, but she keeps going. Eventually she gets to a cave opening and comes out to the fresh air. A group of three wagons passes, and in the third wagon, an old black man with a brand on his neck is driving. Cora can tell he's a runaway. He stops to offer her food and a ride, and she hops up. He tells her they are going out west to Missouri and then California, and that's where the book ends. It's just a mesmerizing journey that I can't really do justice to in this little recap...definitely a book worth it's reputation. So many descriptive, deep, and poignant passages...and hovering over it all, that horrific, inescapable, most shameful part of our American history, slavery.

Finished: The Woman in Cabin 10 (Ware). This was a perfect page-turner for travel reading, but not as good as one of my Harlan Coben thrillers. It was nicely suspenseful, but a little slow in getting started. It's the story of Lo Blalock, a journalist who works for a magazine. She's sent in place of her female boss, who is on maternity leave, to cover an intimate, super-luxury cruise on a private yacht. The yacht is owned by a wealthy businessman who is providing this maiden voyage to potential investors and journalists to make sure the business is a success. The catch is...the wealthy businessman is only wealthy because of his wife's money. His young wife, who has just survived a four year battle with breast cancer is on board. One her first night on board, Lo hears a scream and a huge splash from the cabin next to hers, a cabin which is supposed to be empty. Lo goes out on her balcony and sees a woman's body sinking in the North Sea, and she sees blood smeared on the balcony glass next door. Of course, by the time the yacht's security arrives, there is no blood and no body, and no one believes her...especially because she was pretty inebriated that evening at dinner. There are about ten other guests on the voyage, so Lo runs through them all as possible suspects in this murder she's sure she witnessed. She is also warned to quit "digging" and threatened, so she knows she's not imagining things. The tail is rather twisty, but it does turn out that no on on board has ever met the rich wife, so as she appears at the yacht dinners, weakly and apparently bald and recovering from chemo, no one suspects that it's not really her at all. Lo finally figures it out. She figures out that the body that went overboard was actually the real wife, and that the person pretending to be the wife is in cahoots with the husband. The fake wife then locks Lo away in a cabin below and when all the other passengers disembark at the journey's end, fake wife tells them that Lo disembarked earlier. Lo is actually able to get through to the  young woman, who has been physically abused by the husband and feels like she has no chance but to go along now. Lo convinces her that once the husband is successful in getting his wife's money, that she, the fake wife, will be next on his list of victims. Together, they concoct a plan to have Lo escape and fake wife stay there to handle the husband, pretending that Lo knocked her out and fled. In another twist, it is reported that the husband is found on the yacht with a gunshot wound to the head....apparently suicide...or is it? Lo is extremely worried about what could have happened to fake wife. A few weeks later, Lo gets a deposit into her bank account for $40,000 Swiss francs, and she realizes that the young woman made it out alive and has access to all the money. So...a pretty good tale, but not the best I've ever read. :-)

Finished: Don't Let Go (Coben) Another great page-turner by Harlan Coben! Napoleon Dumas, Nap as he's known, is a 33 year old New Jersey detective, still living in the same town he grew up in. Fifteen years before, when Nap was a high school senior, his twin brother, Leo, was killed in a horrific train track accident, along with his girlfriend, Diana...the daughter of the town police chief. Though many theories were tossed around, from double suicide, to drug induced tragic accident, Nap has never been able to put the past behind him. He's always wanted to know exactly what happened that horrific night. It also happens to be the night that his girlfriend, Maura, ran away from town, never to contact him again. Both of those losses, plus the death of his father in the recent years, has left Nap flapping in the wind. He's very close to retired police chief, Augie, Diana's father. As a matter of fact, Augie brought Nap into the Police Academy and taught him everything he knew, which has created in Nap, an excellent detective, but one who will not give up. Never able to get over Maura leaving him, Nap is shocked when he's called into consult on a case where another of his old classmates, Rex, now a cop as well, has been executed by the side of the rode. The shocker, though, is that Maura's fingerprints have been found all over the car! As Nap does further digging, with the help of Diana's best friend in high school, Ellie, and now Nap's only and best friend as well....they scrutinize their old yearbook and realize that Leo, Maura, Rex and two other students, Hank and Beth, all wore little pins that indicated they were members of the secret "Conspiracy Club". They were very keen on speculating about the old missile base that was constructed in their town in the 1950's, and abandoned in the 1970's. The Conspiracy Club was convinced that there were still secret government doings going on. And, they were correct. The old missile base was being used to interrogate post-911 terrorist suspects. When the kids get too close one night, Maura's face is caught on camera, and she is chased mercilessly by scary men. She gets away and stays on the run for fifteen years. Leo and Diana aren't so lucky. They are also in the woods that night, seemingly also scoping out the base, but at the same time Maura is spotted by the men, gunshots ring out, and Diana and Leo are killed (or so we think). Their bodies are then placed on the railroad tracks to make their deaths look like a terrible, teenage accident. The bad guys never realized that Hank, Rex and Beth were also part of the club, and they were left alone. However, fifteen years later, Rex has now been executed by the side of the road, and a few days later, Hank is murdered! Beth, now lives in Michigan as a surgeon, and has changed her name and is basically off the grid. Nap, the dog with a bone, begins to put all the pieces together, and confronts the bad guy who was on Maura's tail for so long. The bad guy gets the best of Nap, and is water boarding him to find out what all he knows, when he is killed from behind. Maura has come to the rescue. She's been watching Nap from afar and risks her life to save his. Yes, they fall into bed and declare their love for each other...and Maura promises not to run from Nap again. She had done it only to protect him all those years ago. She will stay with him now and see this through. Nap finally finds Beth, and when he hears the real truth of that night, he's shocked. It's not at all what he expected, and sheds a bad light on his beloved brother Leo...who, by the way, Nap talks to throughout the book. It's so poignant and sad. :-( Anyway, in the end, it ends up that Diana had been planning to break up with Leo, so Leo had convinced the Conspiracy Club to take Diana out to the woods that night and get her high on drugs, which she never did. They agreed to help Leo...well, all but Maura. Maura refused, which was why she was by herself in another part of the woods that night, actually scoping out the base. When Maura got too close, and was captured on camera, and the spotlights flew on and she ran....Diana, who was completely out of it on the drugs, ran screaming towards the spotlights from their different spot in the woods. The men at the base opened fire, thinking maybe one of their prisoners had escaped. Their gunfire did kill Diana, but not Leo. When Police Chief Augie was called in to investigate the ruckus, he arrived to find Leo cradling his only daughter, babbling about how he was sorry and what a horrible plan they had to drug her just because she was going to break up with him. Augie, completely distraught, takes out his gun and shoots Leo in the head. :-( The government guy helps Augie place the two kids on the train tracks and then Augie went home to put on the best act of his life. The bad guys continue to hunt for Maura so they can see what all she saw...and the other kids are safe until the day fifteen years later that Hank, in a mentally unstable rant, talks about the whole thing in front of Augie! When Augie realizes that Hank, Rex and Beth were also involved in Diana's death, he begins taking his revenge. Thankfully Nap gets to Beth before Augie, but he's devastated to find out that Augie was responsible for Leo's death. The only good thing is that Nap and Maura are finally together and can close that high school chapter of their lives. Nap finally, sadly, says goodbye to Leo. Naturally there's so much more detail to the book, much more character development, which makes you feel close to each of the characters, but recapping all that would take way too long. Love my Harlan Coben books!! :-)

Finished: Column of Fire (Follett) Another great (and very long) Follett book...the third book in the Kingsbridge series which began with Pillars of the Earth, and continued with World Without End. Even though the book is hundreds of years apart from the other books, many of the characters are descendents of the characters from the first two books. The town, Kingsbridge, and it's incredible buildings, which were practically characters in the first two books, also remain in tact. Column of Fire centers around a few main characters who spring up out of Kingsbridge and become involved in various ways in world politics. Its is now the 1500's and the big battle of the times is between Catholics and Protestants, and the rulers who support each of those religions. The young Queen Elizabeth comes into power and believes in religious tolerance, to the point of keeping her sister, Mary Queen of Scots, a devout Catholic, who many consider the rightful heir to the throne, as a prisoner. Mary believes in killing Protestants who have broken from the Catholic faith. Elizabeth doesn't want people killing other people over religion. However, in trying to keep this ideal, she ends up being responsible for the death of nearly as many people as the Catholics had been. The main fictional characters end up being instrumental in the support of the various kings and queens. Ned Willard and his brother, Barney, are Protestants. Barney becomes a sailor and spends his life fighting in the open seas, even being part of the group led by Francis Drake who defeats the heavily favored Spanish Armada when it tries to invade England. Ned, after being spurned by the love of his life Margery, travels to London and becomes a right hand man to Queen Elizabeth, basically serving under the men who comprise her secret service, and becomes instrumental in foiling many plots to take her life. Margery Fitzgerald is a beautiful, feisty girl who is as in love with Ned Willard as he is with her. However, after they have declared their love and hope to marry, her father forces her to marry the local son of an Earl. Margery is also a devout Catholic, and so after she and Ned go their separate ways, Margery focuses on helping to smuggle Catholic priests into the country to be paired with wealthy Catholic-sympathizing families. Little does she know that her own brother, Rollo, who is particularly heartless and self-serving, and has ALWAYS been a bully and nemesis to Ned, has gone to work his own Catholic agenda...which actually involves murdering Queen Elizabeth and having Mary of Scots restored to the English throne. He's convinced then that his beloved Catholicism will come back into power, and that he will be made a Bishop at Kingsbridge. The fact that he's willing to kill anyone who foils his plan is beyond his moral comprehension. Ned spends years unmarried, his only devotion his work and Queen Elizabeth, when he meets Sylvie Palot...an equally feisty woman who is just as determined that Protestants be allowed to practice their own religion as Margery is about the Catholics. Ned and Sylvie meet and fall in love right before the horrific massacre of Protestants on what became known as the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. Surviving the bloody day by the skin of their teeth, they realize they are in love and marry. They are happy for many, many years, even traveling back to Kingsbridge at times and seeing Margery and her family. Another major character, who is truly evil and does everything he does to promote himself higher in society is Pierre Aumande. As a young man, he courts Sylvie, then a very young, vulnerable woman, and works his way into her family, gathering information about her father, who is an illegal printer and seller of Protestant bibles. He amasses a huge list of secret Protestants, and on the day he is to marry Sylvie, he arranges for the power-hungry Duke of Guise, who he is working for, and his men to come and raid the wedding party and arrest all the Protestants. It is truly heartless, and Sylvie is heartbroken. Her father is executed and she and her mother become destitute. That is...until she realizes that no one ever found out where her father's secret warehouse of illegal bibles and other literature was! Sylvie takes over the clandestine spreading of "the word" and that is what she's doing when she meets Ned. Pierre is responsible for many other evil plots, and attempts on the lives of important people. He is also a nemesis of Ned's, who in the end, gets his satisfying just rewards...his death at the hands of another woman he has tortured and humiliated for years. The book is so long and detailed, that a more in depth recap would take forever! I did enjoy this book, as I have the others, and hope that Follett keeps writing more about characters from Kingsbridge!! Ned was still alive, and an old man, at the end of the book, and his great-grandson, Jack, has just informed him he'd like to be a builder. If you read Pillars of the Earth, you know that Jack the Builder, step-son of Tom the Builder, was one of the major characters! Love that full circle moment. :-)