Finished: The Iron Flame (Yarros). I finished the sequel to The Fourth Wing yesterday and I'm still reeling a bit from the ending! I've come to love most of the characters, and their relationships to each other. Violet and Xaden, the designated heroine and hero of the story, of course are now a couple in love who will do anything to keep the other safe. Violet has honed her lightening-wielding signet, which she developed in the first book, after bonding with TWO dragons, Tairn and Andarna. Xaden is one of the very best dragon riders and warriors, and he also has one too many secrets from Violet. He's got a secret mission going and he won't tell her about it....mainly because there are dragon riders who have memory reading abilities and he's afraid they'll see what he's up to with the secret resistance that is rebuilding by reading Violet's memories. He's also terrified of what Violet will think of a few of his secrets. Working closely with her presumed dead brother, who is very much alive, and her warrior sister, Violet, Xaden, and both of their teams put their entire energy into trying to figure out how to put power in the "wards", the magical protective barriers that can be raised around cities, by figuring out how the original ones were created, and just what the dragons have to do with it. I love that Violet finally confided in her best friend, Rhi, and their other close friends, Ridoc and Sawyer, the only four left from their wing of the first-years. It also makes it nerve-wracking to read the various battles and dangerous situations when each one of them, or their dragons, could perish at any time. It's another page-turning, really good book, as we watch all these relationships develop, watch the three Sorrengail siblings rebond after six years, and witness Violet and Xaden falling deeper in love. Is there anything that can tear them apart? You betcha. :-( Here's hoping there really are three more books to come! 

 Finished: The Fourth Wing (Yarros) This is such a good book! From the minute that 20 year old Violet Sorrengail steps into the prestigious, yet cutthroat Basgiath War College, the odds are highly against her. She's trained for years to enter the scribe academy, like her father before her. However, she is forced instead to go to the dragon riding academy like her brother and sister before her. Violet is smart as a whip, but small, frail and easily injured all her young life. Her warrior older sister tries to talk the general out of forcing violet in this direction, but the general is cold-hearted and stands by her decision to send Violet for the toughest challenge of all...to survive the dragon riding academy AND to then have a dragon actually select her to be its rider. Yes, the dragons get to choose, and often times burn to a crisp those potential riders who are too weak or not worthy. It's a terrifying process! Added to Violet's troubles is the "wing leader" she is assigned under, Xaden Riorsan. Xaden is a third year student, and the strongest and most respected in the school. He also happens to be the young man who killed Violet's brother in war....and, whose own father was killed during that same war by Violet's mother. Oh, did I mention that Violet's mother IS the cold-hearted general and head of the Basgiath War College?? There is a clear target planted on Violet's back, not just from the looming threat of Xaden, but from the threats of every other son or daughter of the people who rose up against the kingdom to break free. Xaden and the rest of the children had to watch as their parents were executed, and then they had to pledge to serve the kingdom loyally as dragon riders...if they survived the grueling process. There are lots of twists and turns as we see exactly how tough and smart Violet is, where everyone's loyalties lie, and just who is there to actually protect Violet instead of trying to murder her. This was a very entertaining read and hard to put down!! Of course, it ends on a great cliffhanger, but the sequel is out this coming week!!! I can't wait to read it next. :-) 

  Finished: Lessons in Chemistry (Garmus) I don't know why it took me so long to read this book, but I'm so glad I finally did. It really resonated with me and I enjoyed it so much. Elizabeth Zott is a brilliant chemist who works in a lab as a tech, because due to tragic circumstances, she was unable to complete the college education she needed to earn the title of chemist. Calvin Evans is a brilliant, Nobel prize nominated chemist who works in the same lab, but has his own space as he was the most sought after university graduate in the country when he was applying for jobs. Oh, did I mention that it's the 1950's and Elizabeth faces every male-dominated scenario you can imagine in the workplace? Though Calvin and Elizabeth clash over "stolen" test tubes at first, they quickly bond over their shared love of all things chemistry, and of proving their shared theory about abiogenesis, which states that life arose from simplistic, non-life forms. After several years, and lots of spoilers about their story which I won't share here, Elizabeth no longer works at the lab, but hosts a cooking show on television. Everything she cooks and all the choices she makes while cooking have a scientific reason, which she explains to all the housewives across America who are watching her show, soaking up her every word. She speaks to them like they are more intelligent than most people think they are, especially the men of the 1950's, and encourages them to "change the status quo" with the respect she shows them. There is so much rich story between Elizabeth and Calvin and 6:30 and rowing and their "chemistry", that I grew to love both characters. Both have risen about heartbreaking childhoods, stories which are integral to the entire book. It's definitely a book that deserves the accolades it received.  Love, love, LOVED it! :-)

 Finished: Good Bad Girls (Feeney) Another good page-turner by Alice Feeney! She keeps you guessing until the end about all the relationships in the story. Twenty years after a baby is stolen out of its baby carriage at a grocery store, we meet a set of characters who we know must somehow be involved in some way with that baby. We meet a girl who could be the baby, who's the same age. Her name is Patience. She has run away from home and works in a care facility for the elderly. One of the elderly people that she meets and really grows attached to is 80-year old Edith. Edith has all her marbles, but her grown children have placed her in the care home after tricking her into signing away the deed to her home. Her daughter Clio is a lonely person, who used to have a husband and child, but lost them both. She still lives in the same house where she lived with them. We also meet Frankie, who's in her late 30's, lives alone on a house boat, and runs the local prison library. Her daughter has run away a year earlier, and she's desperate to find her. When there is a murder at the care home, everything shifts into high gear as all four of the women we've met become suspects. The story then unfolds all its twists and turns, revealing how everyone is related to (or not) everyone else. :-)  

 Finished: They Both Die At The End (Silvera) It took me a long time to read this book because we've got so much going on in real life. I even said at one point that it wasn't compelling enough to keep me turning the pages. However, I ended up being so wrong. In this book, set in what seems like current times, there is an entity called Death-Cast that calls you on the day before you are going to die. Once Death-Cast calls, there is nothing that can be done to stop your death. It merely gives you  24 hours to live your last day to the fullest. In this story, Death-Cast calls two teenage boys who don't know each other, 18 year old Mateo and 17 year old Rufus. Mateo is a really good, kind-hearted soul who is being raised by his single dad. His mother died giving birth to him. Matteo spends most of his time inside their apartment playing video games when he's not at school. His father is currently in the hospital in a coma, so Matteo is beside himself when he gets the call from Death-Cast. Rufus is a troubled soul who lost his mother, father and sister a few years earlier when Death-Cast called them all on the same day, but didn't call Rufus. He had to watch in horror as they died, and then spend the remainder of his youth in foster care. He has a set of friends from foster care who he now considers family. Death-Cast calls Rufus on the same day that he beats up his ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend....who is not a nice guy. Both Rufus and Matteo sign up for the Last Friend application which is something that gives those who have been called by Death-Cast a last friend to spend their "End Day". Though total opposites, they decide to go for it and spend their last day together. Rufus encourages Matteo to get out and have some experiences that he doesn't normally have. Matteo asks Rufus to go with him to visit his father and Rufus also encourages him to see his best friend, Lydia, face to face to let her know what has happened. Matteo encourages Rufus to break through the tough guy facade and tell him his feelings, and about what happened to his family. They end up becoming very close throughout the day and have one of the best days either has had in their young lives. I didn't like the idea at first, and particularly not in relation to a couple of people who are so young, but it's such a good story. It definitely encourages you to live each day to the fullest every day of your life. 

 Finished: The Whispers (Audrain) A good page-turner by the same author who wrote The Push, which was quite a thriller. It explores the lives of four neighborhood couples who live next to each other whose outer appearances in no way match their inner turmoils. One couple is childless and has been through several devastating miscarriages, having a profound impact on their relationship. One couple is married with one child with a stay-at-home mom who everyone else sees as perfect, but who sees herself as anything but. One couple is the "older" couple on the block who most of the younger couples just dash past on their way here or there. They have no idea that they once had a son who passed away at a young age, and the torment that mother goes through. One couple is married with three children, with a working-outside-the-home mother, who actually hates being a mother and loses her temper and patience with her kids quite often with words that greatly impact her ten year old son, Xavier. When Xavier falls from his upstairs bedroom window in the middle of the night and lies in what looks like an unrecoverable coma, all the actions and histories of the neighbors come to light, including an adulteress relationship among two of the friends. Was it an accident? Did he try to commit suicide? Did his mother lose her temper and push him? A really good lesson in that saying "you never know what someone is going through", even if things looks perfect and shiny on the outside. The very ending is satisfying, but not before the few likable characters go through horrendous heartbreak. 

 Finished: A Long Petal of the Sea (Allende) A very good book, but not a page-turner. Instead, it's a nice, slow read about two people, Roser and Victor, who, though they are not in love, are connected in an inseparable way. Together they must flee Spain in the 1930's when civil war erupts in their beloved homeland. The book uses the poetry of Chilean Noble laureate, Pablo Nerudo, at the beginning of each chapter to highlight the many experiences that Roser and Victor face through the years, as well as the social and political climate in Chile, the country they adopt as their new home after escaping. I'm thankful to my dear friend Nancy Shearer who gave me this book for my birthday! :-)  I'm including the Amazon summary below because I like it and it may give you more insight. 

"In the late 1930s, civil war grips Spain. When General Franco and his Fascists succeed in overthrowing the government, hundreds of thousands are forced to flee in a treacherous journey over the mountains to the French border. Among them is Roser, a pregnant young widow, who finds her life intertwined with that of Victor Dalmau, an army doctor and the brother of her deceased love. In order to survive, the two must unite in a marriage neither of them desires.

Together with two thousand other refugees, Roser and Victor embark on the SS Winnipeg, a ship chartered by the poet Pablo Neruda, to Chile: “the long petal of sea and wine and snow.” As unlikely partners, the couple embraces exile as the rest of Europe erupts in world war. Starting over on a new continent, they face trial after trial, but they will also find joy as they patiently await the day when they might go home. Through it all, their hope of returning to Spain keeps them going. Destined to witness the battle between freedom and repression as it plays out across the world, Roser and Victor will find that home might have been closer than they thought all along.

A masterful work of historical fiction about hope, exile, and belonging, A Long Petal of the Sea shows Isabel Allende at the height of her powers."

 Finished: Homecoming by Kate Morton. A pretty good new book by Morton. I've read her books in the past and she sticks with the same formula of going in between the past and the present and usually has a very "surprise" connection between two of the characters. In Homecoming, Jess is a journalist who was raised by her grandmother, Nora, in Australia. After college she set out to London to pursue her career. Her mother, Polly, is alive, but left her when she was young, thinking it was best for her to be raised by her grandmother. (Mostly because Nora drilled into Polly's head that Jess would hate moving when Polly moved out, and that Polly had zero confidence and was a weak mother.) Now, Nora is very ill in Australia and both women set out to see her. Jess arrives first and her grandmother starts saying things in delirium about her past...don't let him take her from me....the journal...etc. Then the story unfolds as we see the history of Nora, her brother and his wife Isabel, and their four children, and the tragedy that unfolded when their youngest child was an infant. It's pretty easy to figure out in this one that Nora is not the good, moral person that Jess has always thought she was. And, her mother is not an uncaring deserter. We hear the viewpoints of all three ladies, plus Isabel, as the story unfolds. A pretty good book, but took me forever to read because of real life getting in the way, and because it just didn't grab me and hold me down like so many books do. :-) 

 Finished: I Will Find You (Coben) A great new book by Harlan Coben, my favorite thriller/mystery author! It's the story of David Burroughs who is in prison for murdering his three year old son, Matthew, five years earlier. When his ex-sister-in-law brings a picture to the prison and insists that he needs to look at it, he sees what she sees. It's Matthew, alive and well! He just knows, and so does she. David is in extreme danger in prison, as the people who set him up and concocted the elaborate scheme that took his son away from him, want him dead. Until this moment, David had not cared what happened to him. His marriage was over, not to mention his entire world shattered, at the death of Matthew. Once David sees the picture, and believes that Matthew is still alive and was taken from he and his ex-wife, he concocts a plan to get out of prison, and begins confronting people from the past to try and find his son. It's another page-turner, with several twists and turns. I love Harlan Coben's voice of each character, and how he always manages to bring in at least one character from one of his previous books! He's a great story teller and I just wish that I didn't read his books so fast. :-) 

 Finished: The Caine Mutiny (Wouk) Pulitzer Prize winning book that follows the life of Ensign Willie Keith, a wealthy young man who gets assigned to a run down mine sweeping destroyer during World War II. We see the ship through his eyes, and watch as Willie does things we agree with and don't agree with, all the while coming into his own aboard the ship. When a new captain is placed on board not long after Willie arrives, none of the crew knows what a nightmare they are in for. The executive officer of the boat, Steve Maryk, has his hands full being responsible for all the men, being an example to Willie, and being 2nd in command to Captain Queeg, the new captain. As it turns out, Queeg is basically a coward who would rather berate men for the tiniest little details (i.e., shirttails untucked, etc.) rather than get anywhere near actual gun fire. Many incidences occur aboard The Caine which are a result of his incompetence, but he always blames the reasons on the crew to his higher ups. At a critical point in the South Pacific, the ship is hit by a typhoon, and with his irrational behavior, and after weeks of watching the captain deteriorate mentally, Maryk relieves the captain of his duties via an emergency navy rule. Maryk calmly saves the ship that was about to capsize, and when the crew returns to home base, Maryk is court marshalled and stands trial, with Willie named as his accomplice. I've had this book on my list to read for awhile, but was always a bit daunted by its 500+ page length. I'm so, so glad I finally read it! Wouk is such a good writer and develops each character to a tee. His descriptive prose takes you right to each location as well. If you've seen the movie, it really doesn't do the book justice...but it's a pretty good condensed version. :-)