Finished: Scarlet Sister Mary (Peterkin) The 1929 Pulitzer Prize winning novel about the lives of a Black community in South Carolina, in the early 1900's, who still live on the grounds of an old, empty plantation on which their forefathers served. They are a town and community like any other, raising crops together, going to church together, helping each other with hardships, and gossiping about each other when there is news to spread. This is a captivating story about Mary, a girl who has just become a young woman, and how she is torn between being a member in good standing at her church and her need to live her life with wild abandon, doing as she pleases, even if it is a "sin" in the eyes of the people of her church. Mary is known as Sister Mary, because at the beginning of the story, she IS in good standing. She was raised as an orphan on the plantation by Auntie Maum Hannah and her son, Budda Ben, who has been crippled all his life. They all attend church together and work hard in the fields to bring crops in for the town. When Mary falls in love with July, the more charismatic, yet less dependable, of the twins, June and July, she falls hard and before they have a chance to get married, she's already pregnant with his child. Enough of the church folk figure it out, and she then becomes Scarlet Sister Mary, for her scarlet sin. Even though she is married at the church as planned, Mary is then cast out and no longer allowed to be a member. Mary and July are in love and happy enough until July gets the wanderlust after their child, Unex, is born. He runs off with another woman, and Mary morns pitifully until she almost starves herself. It takes her months to recover and realize he is gone and not coming back. As she starts to spring back to life, she starts a relationship with June, who has always loved her, and they have a child together, Seraphine. Soon, though, June too decides to leave. He can never marry Mary, since she's already got a husband, and he wants to go and find better work. Mary's heart hardens to actually loving one man, as in her mind now, they are all alike and will leave you as soon as you love them. As the years go on, Mary continues to have relationships with different men and isn't at all ashamed about it. She also has children by those men, and raises healthy, happy, children, having nine children in all. She provides for them by continuing to be one of the best workers in the field and by tending her garden, chickens and goat. She continues to be ostracized by the church, but loved by Aunti Maum and Budda Ben. Soon, twenty years has gone by since July deserted her, and Mary has just had twin boys. Who comes knocking at her door, but July! He thinks that Mary will welcome him back with open arms. He is her husband after all. However, Mary, though she's torn to pieces inside, stays strong and makes him leave, even as he tries to hug and kiss her. A few days later, her firstborn, Unex, shows up at the door. He's lived away for awhile now, and not stayed in good touch with Mary. He's got a little bundle in his arms....his new baby daughter, Emma. He wonders if Mary could raise his little daughter because her mother has died. Mary takes the baby and piles her in with the twin boys. She's so thrilled to see Unex, but her happiness is short-lived when Unex falls sick with a fever and dies within a few days. The town mourns with Mary, but she needs to be alone so goes out into the woods to mourn alone. She doesn't realize she spends all night there, but she has a dream experience where she sees Unex and he talks to her and tells her to pray to Jesus for her sins. He is fine, but he brings a white silk cloth with a red mark across it for each of her children. Mary frantically prays all night, begging forgiveness for her sins, one child at a time. And, the red marks disappear one at a time. When Mary wakes up, it's because the town has been searching for her all night and found her. She's lighter inside than she's been in a long time, and no longer mourning Unex, but rejoicing that he has gone to heaven. She is asked to attend church to tell about her experience and also see if she'll be accepted back into the fold. She does so, and the deacons decide that she can rejoin the church if she's rebaptized. She says she has no problem being baptized again. When the plantation healer comes up to her, the last person to leave, he tells her he guesses she better give him back that charm/potion necklace he gave her years ago to make July love her again. He figures, since she never saw July again to use it on him, that she must have used it on all those other men. She just smiles at him and says, she's happy to be rejoining the church, but she thinks she'll keep her charm necklace just the same. And that's the end. The prose used in the book is so good! The dialogue is written as the people talked to each other, and was at first hard to read, but I got into the rhythm, and with it written the way it was, it really took me right there as if I was witnessing the whole story first hand. :-)

Finished: The Snow Child (Ivey). A lovely, rather spell-binding book, about a couple, Mabel and Jack, who cannot have children, so they move away from their families and up to the harsh wilderness of Alaska to make a go of it, just the two of them. When they create a snow girl, complete with red hat and mittens, their lives change forever. They are just into their 50's when they move to Alaska, barely making ends meet, trying to scrape out a living by farming. They are still grieving the loss of Mabel's only pregnancy, a stillborn baby in the late term. They stick to themselves and don't wish to meet or rely on neighbors, going into town only for groceries and other supplies. Life has become monotonous and hard, with very little joy. One night, during a heavy snow, Jack and Mabel suddenly get unusually playful and start having a snowball fight! Mabel then insists they build a snowman, and like giddy children, they do. With the addition of some red hat and mittens, they decide to make it a snow girl, and Jack intricately carves a lovely face. The next morning, the snow girls is just a pile of snow, but the red mittens and hat are gone. Soon after, both Jack and Mabel keep seeing a snippet of a girl in a blue coat, red hat and mittens, and white-blonde hair dashing in and out of the woods with a red fox always at her side. They worry that this child is alone in the wilderness, and wonder if they are imagining her. About this time, they meet their closest neighbors in town, the Bensons. George, the father, insists on bringing his sons and helping Jack get his fields done, as Jack is struggling and about to go under. Then he introduces them to his wife, Esther, a whirlwind of a person, and suddenly, Mabel and Jack have good friends that they never expected to or wanted to have. It was so nice reading a story where there were actually people who grew fond of each other, and helped each other with genuine concern and compassion with no ulterior motives! Still, most of Jack and Mabel's time is spent thinking of the little girl who appears at random times. Finally, one day, she comes closer and even comes into the house for a meal with them. It takes a long time, but she comes to trust them, but always runs out and back to the woods by nightfall. Her name is Faina. Mabel thinks back to a storybook her father used to read her about a Russian couple who couldn't have children, but created a girl out of snow who became real. She begins to think that Faina must be more than human, as she has a deep need for the cold and outside. When Faina tells them goodbye as the spring thaw arrives, they are devastated. They think they'll never see her again, but she comes back year after year once the snow arrives. She becomes the daughter they never had and she grows to love them just as much. When she is 16 she meets the Benson's youngest son, Garrett, who is passionate about living off the land, trapping and hunting, and they seem to be soul mates. They fall for each other immediately, much to the dismay of Jack, who doesn't like to think of the hours alone they spend out in the wilderness. Mabel can see that they are in love. Sure enough, Faina becomes pregnant with Garrett's child, and they marry and settle into a cabin built by Jack and Garrett. They all worry that Faina will never be able to stay put and have a "normal" lifestyle, caring for her child. Faina gives birth to a healthy baby boy, but her own health deteriorates.  She loves the baby fiercely, as she does Garrett, but she has a high fever and begs to be taken outside to the cold. Garrett fashions her a bed outside, and in the middle of the night, Faina disappears, leaving just her marriage quilt and her bed clothes on the ground. Mabel and Jack grieve the loss of another child, but Garrett searches and searches for her throughout the woods. They all know in their hearts that she is truly gone, though. A few years later, Mabel and Jack are still there, helping Garret to raise Little Jack, along with the Bensons who delight in their share of grandparenting. A finalist for the Pulitzer, The Snow Child is a lovely story, beautifully written, but heartbreaking at the end with the loss of Faina. However, you never really feel like she's far away. :-)

Finished: Laughing Boy (La Farge) Pulitzer Prize winner of 1930 about a pair of Navajo teens, Laughing Boy and Slim Girl, who meet, fall in love, and marry against the wishes of Laughing Boy's family. Slim Girl had been taken from her home as a young girl, after her parents died, and sent to an American school. When sent to work for a preacher's family, she ended up becoming a prostitute when the only people who would care for her when she became pregnant by an American who deserted her were the "working girls". She eventually meets another American who becomes enamored of her and returns to the town again and again, lavishing her with money if she'll be his alone. He wouldn't ever think of marrying her though. When Slim Girl travels to a traditional Navajo dance, which takes place over several days, she meets Laughing Boy. They are instantly drawn to each other, and Laughing Boy asks his uncle for permission to marry Slim Girl. (Interestingly, it was tradition for the family of the boy's mother to make the decision, while his own father just had to go along with whatever was decided.) The uncle, having heard rumors about Slim Girl, first that she'd been "Americanized" and second that she had a certain way of making money, emphatically declared no. In defiance of his family, Laughing Boy returned with Slim Girl to her town, where she had a house on the outskirts. She made up an excuse as to why he could never set foot in the town, and pretended to still go into town to work for the preacher's wife, while she continued to see the American. She loved Laughing Boy, but she wanted to also set them up with a good life so they could go back to his home and live the Navajo way, but start off comfortably. Laughing Boy was a talented silversmith, creating bridles, bow guards, jewelry etc., while Slim Girl learned to weave nice blankets. They were together for a year and a half, traveling back to Laughing Boy's home for a visit, with almost everyone accepting Slim Girl...except his uncle. Eventually Laughing Boy finds out about the American and vows to leave Slim Girl. But then, she tells him her entire story and how she was deserted by everyone but the prostitutes and how she came to live the life she did. She tells Laughing Boy that she loves him and him alone and that she'll leave with him right now to go make their home near his family. Laughing Boy forgives her, and they set out with most of their belongings, to go and live among their own people. Tragically, Slim Girl is killed by the gunfire of a jealous Native American man, Red Man, as they travel home. Set in 1915, Laughing Boy was billed as the "greatest Indian love story of all time". I don't know if that's true, but it did keep me reading, and I'm glad I finally read the story. :-)

Finished: The Overstory (Powers) Pulitzer Prize winner of 2019. A very good book, delving into several characters you get to know very well and their lifelong relationships to trees, and some, to each other. It's more than that, though. I just spent a month reading it because it's definitely not a page-turner, but a read-a-bit-at-a-time-and-absorb-it. So, I'm not going to recap it....but just copy here the description of the book from Amazon. It's pretty succinct and describes the book fairly well. The characters...you'll just have to read and get to know for yourselves. :-)

The Overstory, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of―and paean to―the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers’s twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours―vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.

Finished: Normal People (Rooney) This book will have to sit with me for a bit while I figure out how I feel about it. It's the story of two small-town Irish teens, Connell and Marianne. Connell's mother is a single mom who works as a housekeeper for the wealthier mother of Marianne. Connell and Marianne have known each other for a long time, and probably know each other better than anyone else knows them, but they are totally different...in totally different "groups" at the high school, and even though they like each other, must pretend to barely know each other at school. When their relationship turns sexual, they realize how much they mean to each other, but Connell is the popular one at high school, despite his economic background, and he doesn't want to lose his place among his friends by admitting he likes the very weird, stand-offish, but extremely intelligent, Marianne. He asks Marianne to keep their relationship a secret, even though he's crazy about her. When he asks someone else to the spring "deb" dance, it breaks Marianne's heart and she breaks up with Connell. They end up at the same college in Dublin the next year and it seems the tables have turned. Connell is the one who is completely out of place amidst the super-rich kids (he's there on scholarship) and Marianne suddenly has a group of friends who think she's the best. The book explores the ups and downs of their relationship as they get together on and off during their college years, while also dating other people. When it comes to light that Marianne's older brother has always physically and emotionally abused her, we see why she's got such a low self-worth and why she tends to pick partners who are controlling and abusive towards her, except for Connell. The book is very well written and delves deep into both  Connell's and Marianne's emotions and confused minds. They seem to always give so that the other one can shine, but almost always at their own expense. I wanted more closure when the book ended, so am wondering if there will be more down the road between these two.

Finished: The Boy From the Woods (Coben) A nice page-turner from my favorite mystery/who-done-it author! The boy is actually a man all grown up now called Wilde. He doesn't remember how he was left in the woods or by whom, but he spends a few years of his young childhood living off the land while also befriending the son of one of Coben's other recurring book characters, defense lawyer, Hester Crimestein. Wilde is now a person who can be called on to help find people or solve mysteries. (I have a feeling Coben is going to do another book with this character!) Wilde is contacted by Hester's grandson, Matthew, the son of the now deceased boyhood friend, when a friend of his at school, Naomi, goes missing. Naomi is not a popular girl and is mercilessly bullied by the popular crowd. Matthew feels guilty for standing by and not intervening. While figuring out what has happened to Naomi, Wilde comes upon a much larger scandal involving a fanatical politician with murder in his past, and the wealthy parents of one of the bullies who are trying to cover the tracks of their own involvement in that long ago murder. A pretty good read to take my mind off these stressful times! I hope Coben DOES do another book with Wilde. He's a great character! (And, of course, he solves all the mysteries lol.)

Finished: The Dreamers (Walker) Page-turning book about a mysterious virus that begins at a small college campus in California causing a freshman girl to fall asleep, unwakeable to her room mate, Mei, or anyone else. She's hospitalized and does not survive. Soon, other students on the same dorm floor are falling asleep the same way. As the town realizes the "sleep sickness" is a virus and is spreading very easily, it is forced to self-quarantine, even closing its borders to incoming or outgoing people. The book follows the story of the room mate, Mei, as she escapes the college quarantine and works to help all the people who are falling ill; a survivalist father and his two young daughters; a college professor; a husband and wife, new to the area, with their days old infant daughter; and one of the other young women from the dorm who had just had sex for the first time before falling asleep. Inside her, a baby grows as the young man who she slept with falls into his own bout of sleeping sickness. The strange thing about the sickness is that you can tell that the people are all dreaming by the movements of their eyelids and occasional arm movements. After a few weeks, and much drama where people drop at the most inopportune times, or where one father is shot trying to cross the barrier of the town, some of the people start slowly waking up. Some of the people die. And, some of the people keep on sleeping. The people who awaken have all had dreams of their past in detail, or what they believe is their future. The father of the new baby wakes thinking he's dreamed about a bunch of events that will happen in the future, only to have his wife tell him that everything he thinks is in the future, they already did in the past. The survivalist father has dreamed there will be a fire that destroys the town library, and sure enough, the library, where they have established a children's ward of sleepers, burns down. He manages to save his daughter who has fallen asleep. One heroic boy from the dorm floor saves the tiny newborn baby, but in doing so, he makes the choice to go for the baby first before Mei, who he has worked closely with and fallen for, and Mei succumbs to smoke inhalation. :-( At long last, everyone who doesn't die, wakes up...except for Rebecca, the pregnant girl. She sleeps through her pregnancy, contractions, c-section and her baby's first few months. She dreams that she has a son and goes through life with her son at various ages, very vividly, until she's a grown woman with an adult son. When she wakes up, all she can do is ask where her son is. She can't believe she's only 19 and has a new baby daughter. People eventually return to their normal lives, or as normal as can be, but everyone who fell into the sleep is profoundly affected. It was really surreal reading this book at this moment in time when we are facing this pandemic of the corona virus!

Finished: Sea Prayer (Hosseini) A beautifully written and illustrated book written as a letter from a father to a son just before they are set to journey on the perilous ocean as refugees, escaping their once idyllic, now war-torn Syrian city. The book is less than 50 pages, but powerful and heart wrenching in every word. Inspired by the horrific image of three year old Alan Kurdi, the Syrian boy who washed up on the shore in 2015 after trying to flee Syria, Hosseini paints a vivid picture in his words, and illustrator Dan Williams, beautifully haunting watercolor pictures on every page. Definitely worth buying the real book for this one. I'm not sure the electronic reader would do it justice!

Finished: Greenwood (Christie) A very good book about four generations of the Greenwood family and how deeply trees and forests affect their lives and determine their choices. It begins in 2038 with Jacinda "Jake" Greenwood as she works on the last remaining forested island in North America. The trees all over the rest of the U.S and Canada have been destroyed by a fungal blight and people live in perpetual dust and poverty. Though her last name is Greenwood, she doesn't know she is related to the rich and powerful lumber tycoon, Harris Greenwood. What unfolds in beautiful prose is the history of her family going from 2038 to 2008 to 1974 to 1934 to 1908 and back again until the story ends with Jake and exactly what she's going to do with the family history she has partially discovered. 2008 tells the story of her own father, who she never knew, Liam Greenwood, who has become a master carpenter, a maker of fine furniture and beams from reclaimed wood. He had been in love with Jake's mother, and crafted for her a beautiful viola, but she rejected his proposal of marriage. When she discovered she was pregnant, she sent pictures of little Jacinda, but Liam was so heartbroken that he never responded. 1974 tells the story of Willow Greenwood, Liam's mother and an extreme activist against cutting down trees! When her rich father, Harris Greenwood, leaves her his entire estate upon his death, including that last island which Jake now finds herself working on, Willow gives it all to charity! She takes her son Liam and decides he will not be raised by the money like she was...raised to destroy things of beauty. 1934 tells the story of the Greenwood brothers, Harris and Everett, and the very divergent paths they took in life. Harris, who has been blind since macular degeneration took his sight at 16, has built himself up from nothing to one of the wealthiest lumber/business men in North America. He wants for nothing, except maybe for his illicit love with poet, Liam Feeney. Everett's life takes the opposite turn. When Harris enlists to fight in World War I right before his eyesight begins to fail him, Harris refuses to be medically dismissed. The day before Harris is to sail off, Everett ties him up and takes his place in the military...so all the awards that Everett gets for bravery go to Harris. Harris is livid with Everett and it causes a rift that takes many, many years to heal. Everett suffers from his experiences in the war and becomes a sort of vagabond who lives off the land when he returns home. It is simple fate one day when he is tapping some maple trees while squatting on the land of another rich man, R.J. Holt, when he finds a squalling newborn baby in a blanket cocoon hanging by one of his tapping nails, left for dead he presumes. He takes the baby to warm her up, intending to find her a good home, but falls in love with her along the way. He takes her train jumping, etc., and makes his way to his rich brother, Harris, who he hasn't seen in years. The baby ends up being Willow Greenwood. 1908 tells the tale of how the brothers came to be brothers and live off the land themselves. There is a horrific, fatal passenger train wreck, where one train collides with another, in which all the passengers are killed except for two young boys who seem to be about 10 years old....one from one train with dark hair, and one from the other train with blonde hair. They instantly bond and become wards of the town, though no one will take them in to live with them. The town asks an unmarried woman with a shack on her land if she'll take them in and she says yes, but she only lets them live in the shack. From then on, they are brothers. Their mishaps and purposeful misdoings become well known all around...but both boys survive and grow up, of course, to be Harris and Everett Greenwood. They were given the last name Greenwood by the town because they survived their teenage years by chopping and selling wood, but always selling it green before they were supposed to. So...the story is long, but compelling. I can say there are quite a few unlikable characters, but also some characters who you really root for! I will definitely look and see what else this author has written. :-)

Finished: The Wives (Fisher) A psychological kind-of thriller about a woman named Thursday who marries a man who already has two other wives. Well, not really, because his first wife divorces him when he meets Thursday. And, after Thursday miscarries their late term baby, he finds solace in another woman, who he proceeds to get pregnant. He tells Thursday that his first wife never wanted children, so he wanted children with her, therefore, they agreed that he could go back and forth between the two. After Thursday miscarries, he then adds the third "wife", even though they're not legally married...but now splits his time between the three. At least...that's what he tells Thursday. He also tells her that the other two wives are aware of the situation as well, so Thursday feels like they're all in the same boat loving this "amazing" man, Seth. When Thursday accidentally finds a receipt for the OBGYN in Seth's pocket, she suddenly knows the name of the third wife. They've never known each other's names. Against her better judgement, she googles the name and actually goes and meets the third wife, Heather, without telling her she is the second wife. Things spiral downhill from there after Seth finds out Thursday has spent time with Heather, and that Heather has confided that Seth has a temper. When Seth confronts Thursday, she had been about to confront him about bruises on Heather. She ends up falling and hitting her head and Seth has her taken to a psych ward, where he proceeds to tell the doctor she has had delusions before. He also tells Thursday when she wakes up that she's had delusions and a fantasy life ever since they traumatically lost their baby. It gets pretty convoluted not knowing who to believe...especially when wife number one, Regina, decides to take her revenge. It seems she NEVER agreed to any arrangement and Seth flat divorced her for Thursday because she wanted to focus on her career and not have children. It ends up pretty wacky and you still don't know who to believe...or whether to believe that Thursday really is mentally unstable, until the very end. :-) A pretty fast read, but not high on any favorite books list for me.