Finished: Warlight (Ondaatje) A pretty good book about two British siblings left on their own with questionable "guardians" as their parents go off to a mysterious job assignment in the year following the end of World War II. Fourteen year old Nathaniel and sixteen year old Rachel are told by their parents that their father is accepting a new job in Singapore and they will be gone for a year before they have the children join them. They expect them to stay at their private schools and live with a mysterious family friend named Walter, who the kids secretly call The Moth. The father leaves first and the mother spends the next few weeks meticulously packing her trunk, involving the kids in all the decisions, and spending as much quality time as she can with them. They are, of course, devastated when she leaves, but they get used to their life with The Moth. The Moth has many friends, just as mysterious, who come in and out of the house and this extended group of friends essentially becomes a family for Nathaniel and Rachel. After a few months, Rachel stumbles upon her mother's neatly packed trunk, hidden in the basement! Did she not really leave? Was she even alive? The kids have all kinds of questions for The Moth, but he can only tell them that their mother is safe. Rachel comes to resent and even hate her mother as she grows into a young woman much in need of her mom. She becomes close to The Moth though, as a father figure. Nathaniel goes to work at one of the hotels that The Moth has an interest in and meets a girl, Agnes, that he begins a relationship with. He also becomes very close to Darter one of the strange friends of The Moth's, who is at the house night and day. Darter convinces The Moth to let Nathaniel run barges with him in the middle of the night transporting illegal racing dogs into London. Nathaniel and Agnes end up living quite the life, sneaking into empty houses for sale to spend alone time, and then traveling up and down the river with Darter late at night. After more than a year, and after the kids realize that their parents are probably not really coming back, Nathaniel notices a strange man following him. The man appears again, and then the third time, tries to kidnap both Nathaniel and Rachel. The Moth and Darter, along with another strange man that Nathaniel recognizes, defend and protect the kids...The Moth paying with his life. :-( When Nathaniel wakes up from the chloroform that the kidnapper used, there is his mother! She appears to be very acquainted with all the protective men, whose job it has been all along to keep the kids safe. We find out then that their mother has been working as an agent in the British intelligence since war time, and is still working for them, tying up loose ends, searching out enemy groups that may try to reassemble, etc. When she sees that her children are in danger from these groups, she cold turkey gives it all up and moves back to the tiny home village where she grew up with Nathaniel. Rachel wants nothing to do with her and never sees her again. Nathaniel finds out a bit more about his mother as they share time together, but they are never as carefree and close again as they were before she left. She enlists her next door neighbor, a farmer, to take Nathaniel under his wing....essentially, she's arranged another protector for him. She never knows when someone from her past may come to exact revenge. By the way, at this point in the story, the dad is just never heard from again and the mother is apparently fine with that because he was a loose canon and not a nice man. Anyway, during this time, we learn all about the sixteen year old boy, Marsh Felon, who first met the mother when she was eight, and how as they stayed in touch over the years, he became the person who recruited her fresh out of college, married and with a baby, to work for the British intelligence. We see how much they grow to mean to each other, and how intertwined they stay their whole lives. When eighteen year old Nathaniel goes off to college in America, he is notified that first semester that his mother has been killed. A relation of one of her former enemies has finally sought her out and killed her. Many people come to her funeral, but it isn't until many years later, after much research, himself working in British intelligence records, that Nathaniel realizes that Marsh Felon was the tall man who came to his mother's funeral and tried to console him. Nathaniel also seeks out some of the people from his past. He can't find Agnes, because he never knew her real name. He does find Darter though, but Darter isn't happy to see him. He is married with a child now and is anxious for Nathaniel to make his visit a quick one. As Nathaniel uses Darter's restroom, he sees a cross stitch on the wall that is an obscure quote that Agnes once said to him. He realizes as he leaves that when he was taken away by his mother, he was never even given a chance to say goodbye to Agnes or Darter, and that with all their empty house shenanigans, Agnes must have been pregnant with his child. Darter, then, even though much older, must have married Agnes to give her and the child a home. The books ends as Nathaniel makes this realization. Warlight is a pretty good book, well written, with good character development and lovely details and descriptions. It just wasn't quite what I expected it was going to be, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. :-)

Finished: Us Against You (Backman) This sequel to the much loved book Beartown was another brilliant look into the lives of the Beartown people, picking up right after the events of the first book, and continuing on like a page-turning freight train around and through each character's hopes, dreams, hardships, failures, realities, etc. Beartown left me needing a sequel, and now Us Against You leaves me hoping the author will write another one! This is the beginning of the Amazon description, and I think it's better than anything I could write, so here goes: "A small community tucked deep in the forest, Beatown is home to tough, hardworking people who don't expect life to be easy or fair. No matter how difficult times get, they've always been able to take pride in their local ice hockey team. So it's a cruel blow when they hear that Beartown ice hockey might soon be disbanded. What makes it worse is the obvious satisfaction that all the former Beartown players, who now play for the rival team in the neighboring town of Hed, take in that fact. As the tension mounts between the two adversaries, a newcomer arrives who gives Beartown hockey a surprising new coach and a chance at a comeback." So, Peter Andersson is still there, and still the general manager of the hockey team in Beartown, but only because this newcomer to town, a manipulative politician named Richard Theo, has supplied an unknown investor who hopes to bring back not only the hockey team, but the factory in Beartown as well. Pete's daughter, Maya, is the teenager who was raped by the star hockey player, Kevin, in the first book. She is still reeling and dealing with the rape. At the end of Beartown, she had found Kevin alone, pointed a gun at him and pulled the trigger. She wanted him to feel helpless, and he did. The gun wasn't loaded, but he didn't know that, and the experience terrified him and humbled him. At the beginning of Us Against You, even though he originally deserted to Hed to play for that team like most of the other players, he's been unable to function, so his mother takes him and they move away. Our favorite and most loyal hockey players, Benji, Amat and  Bobo, have all stayed to play for Beartown. The new coach, Zeckell, is a no-nonsense person who plans to build a team around them, and around Vidar Rinnius, the teenager brother  of Teemu, the leader of the "pack" in Beartown...the band of "hooligan" brothers who most people in the town fear. Life intervenes, of course, as a lifestyle secret about our beloved Benji comes to light and the entire town implodes. Also, Vidar decides as much as he loves hockey, he wants to stand  in the stands with his brothers in the pack at the much anticipated Hed versus Beartown first game of the season. Beartown is down 4-0 after the first two quarters, when both Vidar and Benji decide they will jump in and play. This isn't arrogance on either of their parts. They are both troubled young men who are not sure if they even fit on the team, much less in this life, but they realize they are needed, so they decide to play. As the author says, though, hockey's a sport, not a fairy tale, and they still lose, 4-3. However, Benji and Vidar stay committed to the team and Beartown wins all their reamaining games, as does Hed. There are so many intricacies to the rivalry and escalating "pranks" that get out of hand, that right before their next meeting, which once again will decide the champ and have lasting implications for whichever team wins, a tragedy occurs involving the death of one of the players on Beartown's team. Lives are once again shattered and when the two teams meet, hockey seems so unimportant at the time that the author doesn't ever even tell us who wins and who loses. It's another amazing book that still leaves Benji as one of my favorite characters in all the books I've read. I so hope there is another sequel so I can see how all these people have moved on!

Finished: So Big (Ferber) Pulitzer Price winning novel from 1925 which I had put off reading, but am oh so glad I did! It was a really great story of Selina Peake, a vivacious young woman raised by her gambling father in Chicago in the late 1800's. They go through rich times and poor times, and all throughout, he teaches Selina to explore and enjoy all walks of life...to make every life experience an adventure. When Selina is nineteen, her father is killed, and she must now make it on her own. She decides she'll be a teacher, but must make her start as a farm teacher, miles from Chicago proper into the Dutch farming community. Selina lives with, and becomes close to, the Poole family at first. She's particularly close to their twelve year old son, Roelf, who must now fore go schooling to work on the farm...but who is artistically gifted and who devours all the books Selina brings to the house. The farm life is brutal, especially in the cold months, and especially for the woman of the house who never seems to quit working. Selina is determined that this will just be a phase in her adventurous life, but she doesn't count on falling for the young, handsome gentle giant, Dutch farmer, Pervus DeJong. They fall in love and are married two months after they meet. Unfortunately, Pervus' farm is one of the poorest in the county, and Pervus doesn't want to listen to any of Selina's improvement ideas. Soon, Pervus and Selina are parents to a son, Dirk DeJong. However, Dirk's nickname for most of his life is Sobig...due to the baby game that Selina constantly plays with him, whether working in the run down farmhouse, or out in the fields putting calluses on her once refined hands. Selina never misses a moment to hold her arms out wide and ask the baby "how big is baby?" and answer with "sooooooobig". By the time Dirk is eleven, the farm is barely scraping by and much as he loves his wife, Pervus will still not listen to what a woman has to say about improving farming techniques, laughing at her ordering and reading of various farming books to educate herself. When Pervus dies of a sudden illness, Selina is left to drive their vegetables to market day in Chicago by herself, with only her young son along. Never really accepted by the rest of the farming wives, Selina is now truly shunned, because no woman has ever taken the vegetables to market! It's a man's place. While in town, very few people buy from Selina and she's at her wit's end. She decides to take her produce to the rich side of town and go door to door. In doing so, she runs into an old schoolmate and best friend she'd lost touch with. Her best friend insists that Selina talk with her own father, a successful pig butcher turned richest packer in the country. In turn, the father insists on investing in Selina's farming ideas, as she shows a plan for turning her farm around within two years. She will accept only a loan, and in the two years time, is not only making a comfortable living for herself and her son, but she's able to pay back her loan...AND...her "nonstandard" vegetables like asparagus, become the much desired vegetables of many Chicago restaurants and upper crust families. So, as time goes on, Selina's only desire is to provide for Dirk so that he will never have to be a farmer if he doesn't want to (which he doesn't) and so that he can go to college to become what he wants to. She's disappointed in him, though, when he doesn't really show a passion for anything but picking a profession that will make him rich. We then follow Dirk as he becomes an architect, but one with a low paying salary. After several years of not being able to make the money he wants, he gives up architecture to become a bonds salesman. Selina is dismayed, but Dirk is finally rich. When Dirk meets an eclectic, vivacious artist, Dallas O'Mara, he realizes that her viewpoint on life is far more like his mother's...find the beauty in the world and the various people in the world...not money. As it turns out, Dallas knows the now famous sculpture Roelf Poole! Yes, that Roelf. He'd finally left his parents' farm when he turned seventeen, his mother, the hardworking Mrs. Poole, died in childbirth, and his father remarried a rich widow. Roelf has finally realized his dream of becoming an artist and his work is coveted to boot. When he comes to visit Dallas, who Dirk can see is crazy about Roelf, Roelf realizes that Dirk is Selina's baby boy grown up. Roelf insists they drive out to Selina's farm so she can meet Dallas and so Roelf and Selina can be reunited. Dirk is a bit disgruntled, but goes along. There is a glorious reunion, and Selina adores Dallas. The books ends with Dirk pondering his life and wondering if chasing money was truly the right decision for him after all. So Big is such a good book. Ferber delves deep into the characters, the land, the farming life, the century, etc. Now, to figure out where to put this book in my top 100! :-)

Finished: The Outsider (King) Another page-turner by Stephen King! I'm going to be really lazy and use the Amazon recap for this one, because it's so impossible to recap a Stephen King book!

An unspeakable crime. A confounding investigation. At a time when the King brand has never been stronger, he has delivered one of his most unsettling and compulsively readable stories.

An eleven-year-old boy’s violated corpse is found in a town park. Eyewitnesses and fingerprints point unmistakably to one of Flint City’s most popular citizens. He is Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher, husband, and father of two girls. Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son Maitland once coached, orders a quick and very public arrest. Maitland has an alibi, but Anderson and the district attorney soon add DNA evidence to go with the fingerprints and witnesses. Their case seems ironclad.

As the investigation expands and horrifying answers begin to emerge, King’s propulsive story kicks into high gear, generating strong tension and almost unbearable suspense. Terry Maitland seems like a nice guy, but is he wearing another face? When the answer comes, it will shock you as only Stephen King can.

So, as it says, Terry Maitland is this near saint in this small town...a loving father and husband and beloved little league coach for many years. When his fingerprints AND DNA are found all over the raped and murdered victim, Detective Anderson arrests him in front of the huge crowd at the Little League game that will decide if this year's team goes to the state championships. The town immediately turns against Terry and his family because there are at least two eyewitnesses who saw Coach Maitland with the little boy, Frank Peterson, the day he was murdered, and two who saw him all bloodied up from head to toe right afterwards. The thing is....Terry Maitland was at a conference with three other English teachers for the weekend, in a completely different town, too far away to make it back and forth. AND, he's even shown on video tape asking the author they went to see (Harlan Coben, by the way!!) a question. His fingerprints are also at the convention...so which one is it? Was Terry Maitland in his home town heinously raping and murdering a young boy, or did someone or something somehow mimic his face, his DNA and his fingerprints?? The book is good and suspenseful, with a couple of shocking and tragic deaths of main characters. And, King also brings back Holly Gibney, a main character from his Finders Keepers trilogy, to help solve the big mystery. It's lovely to have her back!! The ending of the book, and frankly the middle, is bittersweet, but Holly and Ralph, with the help of some great new characters, do end up getting their "man"! :-) 

Finished: Song of Solomon (Morrison) Toni Morrison just has a way of writing so beautifully that she takes you completely into whatever world or characters she has created and you pretty much live the story with them. In Song of Solomon, Macon "Milkman" Dead III is born on the same day that his mother, Ruth, and two sisters, Corinthians and Magdalena called Lena, watch as a neighborhood insurance man tries to unsuccessfully "fly" from the window at the top of a building across from the "whites only" hospital in their Michigan town. Milkman is born into a family full of a rich array of characters. His father, Macon Dead II, is the richest black man in town, but rather than take that self-made wealth gracefully, he lords it over the town both literally and figuratively. All he cares about are appearances and making more money to maintain his status. Milkman's mother, Ruth, the only daughter of the now-deceased doctor for the community, is trapped in a loveless marriage, also both literally and figuratively. She takes solace in her last child, and out of loneliness, breastfeeds him until he is four years old. When a nosy handyman and town gossip spies Ruth breastfeeding her son, he instantly saddles him with the moniker Milkman, which stays with him the rest of his life. The book follows Milkman from his boyhood years to his adult life, as he struggles to be more than just a follower in his father's footsteps, and works to fit in with his best friend, Guitar, who grew up in the poorer side of town, one of the many renters of his father's low-rent housing. He is enamored with his father's estranged sister, Pilate, and her granddaughter, Hagar. Pilate was named when her illiterate father pointed to a word in the bible and asked the midwife what name he pointed to. She told him Pilate, but that he couldn't name his sweet baby daughter after Pontias Pilate...that he was literally the man who condemned Jesus to death. The stubborn father named her Pilate anyway. Pilate and Macon Dead II's father is killed in front of them when they are young teenagers, and they survive together for awhile, but soon go their separate ways because of a fight...their two very different senses of morality already showing at this early age and driving a wedge between them. It is the eccentric Pilate who has sparked in the now thirty year old Milkman the desire to find his family roots....but initially for selfish reasons. He believes that Pilate has hidden bags of gold she found in a cave in Virginia as a child. As he goes on this journey, what he finds along the way instead of gold is his actual heritage. He discovers who his grandfather, Macon Dead I, really was and finally the name of his grandmother who had died giving birth to Pilate. Her name was Sing, and not black like Macon, she was Native American, and together they'd traveled in a wagon full of former slaves north to make a life for themselves. Milkman feels more of a connection with the people he meets along the way than he ever did with his overbearing father or his mother and sisters. In a side story, we find out that Guitar is part of a clandestine group of black men who takes revenge when black people are killed and no justice is served. This group takes an eye for an eye. If a young black boy is killed, they will take the life of a random young white boy, and so on. When Guitar finds out that Milkman has gone in search of gold and will split the gold with him, he becomes irrational and distrusting when Milkman takes so long on his journey and believes he's been double-crossed. He actually goes to find Milkman and tries to kill him by uttering the group's secret murder phrase "Your day has come". While trying to kill Milkman, Guitar accidentally shoots Pilate, who Milkman has taken back to Virginia to bury the newly discovered bones of her long dead father in the land where they've finally discovered they are from. In the ending scene, Milkman "flies" from one rock across to the other where Guitar is standing and prepares to die or die trying to stop Guitar. Apparently who succeeds doesn't matter, but the journey and Milkman's ability to finally fly do.

Finished: The Fallen (Baldacci) The fourth book in the Memory Man series, The Fallen takes our FBI special task force agents Amos Decker and partner, Alex Jamison, to the small town of Baronville, Ohio to visit her sister and family. Even though they are supposed to be on vacation, Amos and Alex immediately get involved in the investigation of four recently murdered people. The former mill town has been falling apart for years and an opioid crisis has affected many families. With a new mail order processing distribution center (think Amazon) in the town, could it possibly be a good cover up for the massive drug ring that Amos, Alex, the local police, and the DEA stumble upon when two of the murdered people turn out to be undercover DEA agents? When Alex's brother-in-law is also killed, and then two attempts are made on the agents' lives, Amos Decker knows there is a huge conspiracy, and he sets out to figure it all out before anyone else is killed. He's got the help of a few new friends: John Baron, the son of the rich Baron family who founded Baronville and owned all the mills, but whose great-grandfather was a miserly, unethical, unhumanitarian man who let the town fall apart and didn't leave his own children any money; Agent Kemper of the DEA, a strong female who fits right in working along side Amos and all his memory quirks; and Cindy Riley, the bar owner in town, who is in love with John Baron and determined to see the town stop punishing him for his ancestor's deeds. In typical Amos Decker fashion, he is usually a step ahead of everyone else in figuring things out, but is learning to better communicate his discoveries. The drug selling/insurance scam/buried treasure plot is finally resolved, with a few surprise members of the community involved. A good book, but the series is beginning to follow the same formula a bit too much. Would love to see it break off on a tangent and maybe even have Decker fall for one of these female agents one of these days. :-)

Finished: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Shaffer and Barrows) An uplifting, heartwarming story about a lively young book author in 1946 London, Juliet Ashton, who is looking for the subject of her next book. Enter, the Island of Guernsey, an island in the English channel, along with its inhabitants, all left unprotected by England during World War II, and therefore left to fend for themselves as they became occupied by the Germans. The book is presented in the form of letters back and forth between characters. Juliet stays in frequent touch with her publisher and dear friend, Sidney Stark, and he with her while trying to figure out her next project as well as her life. We meet the quirky, but steadfast and honest people of Guernsey: Dawsey Adams, a quiet man, and the first person to write to Juliet when he finds her name and address in a book of poems he owns; Amelia Maugery, a caring woman in her fifties, who hosted the literary society the night it became a "thing"; Isola Pribby, the unusual, but forthright secretary of the society; Eben Ramsey, the grandfather who lost his own daughter in childbirth during the occupation, and had to send away his young grandson with all the other children of Guernsey as they were evacuated to mainland England; and Will Thisbee, the creator of the infamous potato peel pie...so created because they reached a point during the war that all the islanders had to eat were potatoes. As it turns out, all of these amazing people are caring for the four year old daughter of islander, Elizabeth McKenna. Elizabeth was the daughter of the housekeeper of a wealthy Londoner who owned a home on Guernsey. She happened to be on the island with the man to help him open up his house when the Germans landed. She could have returned to London with him, but instead she stayed on Guernsey to help out where she could. This was just the beginning of the magnanimous things she did for the people around her. Most notably, she invented the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society! One night, Elizabeth, Dawsey, Amelia, Isola, and Eben get together to share a roasted pig, which had been hidden by one of the residents, a punishable offence to the Germans, who insisted on having all the animals for food for their men. They also discuss a few books that some of them had read. When the time gets away from them, they realize they have missed curfew, but brave walking home anyway. Confronted by the Germans on watch, Elizabeth coyly tells them that they were just coming from their meeting of the Guernsey Literary Society where they get together to discuss literature and they are so sorry to have lost track of time. They are forgiven that time, and the society is born! The group gets together regularly after that...but with potato peel pie rather than roast pig. Elizabeth proves herself to be selfless and brave in many other situations...and she also falls in love with a very kind German officer. They decide they will marry after the war, and Elizabeth becomes pregnant. Not soon after, he is sent off to another part of the war and killed. Elizabeth has her daughter, Kit, but continues to take risks. When Kit is a toddler, Elizabeth is arrested for helping to hide a Polish slave who had been brought to Guernsey to build bunkers, and she is immediately sent off to Ravensbruck, a horrific, women-only concentration camp in Germany. At the time that Dawsey writes his first letter to Juliet, Dawsey, Amelia, Isola and Eben have been caring for and raising Kit, with no idea of where Elizabeth is or if she is even alive. This is just one of the many stories that captures Juliet's heart as she exchanges correspondence with her new acquaintances. Juliet is also wooed by rich socialite Mark Reynolds in London, as he whisks her around from party to party, before he finally proposes to her. He doesn't understand, though, that the more she has corresponded with the inhabitants of Guernsey, the more she has been drawn to them. She is determined to visit Guernsey and hear about their experiences during the war as they scraped by for food, for warmth, and to survive while trying to get along with the Germans. She tells him she's got to think about the proposal before heading off to Guernsey. Of course, once there, she falls in love with all the people she's been getting to know, and especially with little Kit. It takes her a while to figure it out, but she also falls in love with Dawsey, and he with her. When the overbearing Mark comes to see her and practically demand that she give up this island nonsense and come back and marry him, she finally gives him an unequivocal "no". It doesn't help his timing that they have all just discovered that Elizabeth did, in fact, perish at Ravensbruck right before it was liberated by the Allies...once again trying to help someone else. :-( Juliet is more determined than ever to stay on Guernsey and raise Kit if she'd be allowed to adopt her...and at the very end, she and Dawsey finally admit their love for one another and plan to marry. And...as far as her book goes...in their never-ending correspondence, Sydney has suggested that she make her book, not just about the various stories of the people of Guernsey, but about Elizabeth McKenna, who touched the lives of every person on Guernsey, and who was the very heart and soul of the story in the first place. Though there is no escaping the horror of what the Germans did during World War II in any story about that war, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a rare uplifting story that left me feeling so thankful I read it! I thank my friend Amanda for keeping the bug in my ear about this book! :-)

Finished: The Half-Drowned King (Hartsuyker) An okay book that didn't keep me turning pages too urgently, but one that I wanted to go ahead and finish to see how the main character, Ragnvald, and his sister, Svanhild, made out after all their travails. I'm absolutely going to be lazy and just copy the summary from Amazon here because I don't really feel like recapping, especially with all the crazy Nordic names lol. Oh, I will say that it does NOT have the sweeping narrative power of Game of Thrones or Outlander. I haven't read (or watched?) Vikings. :-)

An exhilarating saga of the Vikings that conjures a brutal, superstitious, and thrilling ninth-century world and the birth of a kingdom—the debut installment in a historical literary trilogy that combines the bold imagination and sweeping narrative power of Game of Thrones, Vikings, and Outlander.

Centuries ago, in a blood-soaked land ruled by legendary gods and warring men, a prophecy foretold of a high king who would come to reign over all of the north. . . .

Ragnvald Eysteinsson, the son and grandson of kings, grew up believing that he would one day take his dead father’s place as chief of his family’s lands. But, sailing home from a raiding trip to Ireland, the young warrior is betrayed and left for dead by men in the pay of his greedy stepfather, Olaf. Rescued by a fisherman, Ragnvald is determined to have revenge for his stepfather’s betrayal, claim his birthright and the woman he loves, and rescue his beloved sister Svanhild. Opportunity may lie with Harald of Vestfold, the strong young Norse warrior rumored to be the prophesied king. Ragnvald pledges his sword to King Harald, a choice that will hold enormous consequence in the years to come.

While Ragnvald’s duty is to fight—and even die—for his honor, Svanhild must make an advantageous marriage, though her adventurous spirit yearns to see the world. Her stepfather, Olaf, has arranged a husband for her—a hard old man she neither loves nor desires. When the chance to escape Olaf’s cruelty comes at the hands of her brother’s arch rival, the shrewd young woman is forced to make a heartbreaking choice: family or freedom.

Set in a mystical and violent world defined by honor, loyalty, deceit, passion, and courage, The Half-Drowned King is an electrifying adventure that breathtakingly illuminates the Viking world and the birth of Scandinavia.

Finished: The Immortalists (Benjamin) A very good book about the four Gold siblings, ages 13,11,9 & 7, in New York in 1969 who go to visit a seer who tells them all the dates that they will die. The children, spurred on by 11 year old Daniel, thinking it will be something unique, go with that purpose in mind. Of course, she scares them all to death and gives them very specific dates of when they will die. The oldest, Varya, is affected very deeply by the predictions, even though she is told she will live to the age of 88. It affects the rest of her life though, as she feels guilty and responsible since Daniel is given to the age 48, 9 year old Klara is given to the age 31, and 7 year old Simon will only reveal to his siblings that she told him he would be "very young". The book then goes a section at a time with each sibling's story. Klara is the dreamer who has no intention of going to college. She wants to be a magician! When she's 18 she plans to leave home and go somewhere she can start putting together a show. She convinces 16 year old Simon to go with her to San Francisco easily since she has figured out that he is gay in a world where being gay wouldn't work in his New York family. So, in Simon's story, he goes to San Francisco and proceeds to live a very promiscuous life just as the unnamed AIDS has begun to ravage gay men. Does he survive or does he die at the age of 20 (which he finally confesses to Klara was the age the seer told him.) Klara goes on to create a successful, though risky, magic/thrill show after meeting her husband, Raj, and having a baby girl. By the time she's 31, she is haunted by her feelings, her life, her drinking and on the date the seer gave her, she and Raj are just about to have their opening night at the Mirage hotel in Las Vegas, opening for Siegfried and Roy! Will she survive to accomplish that goal? Daniel goes to medical school and becomes the doctor he always wanted to be. He meets the love of his life and marries, but has no children. He is also haunted by the old predictions from the seer and how it has affected his younger siblings, though he has never believed it will truly affect him. As he approaches the date the seer gave him when he is 48, will he be able to live past that date, or will he implode? I'm not giving the answers here just in case someone reads this, lol. Varya's story is last and is equally as compelling given all that has happened in her family. She does feel guilty and responsible and closed off all of her life. She ends up working in research trying to find answers to longevity in human life. She grows closer to some of the monkeys she works with than she has to any other humans in many years. A surprise visitor to her when she's about 50 turns her life around and helps her to open up and realize she's been missing life! It's not too late for her to start living and enjoying life. This was a very good book, a page-turner, and very well written! A bit depressing, because I sure grew attached to all of the characters!

Finished: Force of Nature (Harper) Another great page-turner featuring Detective Aaron Falk, a federal agent in Australia who was introduced in Harper's first novel, Dry. In this one, five women employed by the same family run company head off onto team-building retreat in the remote bush land, and only four come back alive. The retreat is run by an adventure company, but the participants are sent off for three days on their own with no guides. Aaron Falk is called in, along with his partner, because they have been investigating the company for illegal activities, and their mole in the company, Alice Russell, is on the retreat, along with the owner's grown daughter who helps run the company, Alice's young assistant, the assistant's newly employed and troubled twin sister, and a co-worker of Alice's who went to high school with her and has known all her good qualities and bad qualities for years. With absolutely no reception in the remote area, Alice is the only person to get a brief phone signal and the phone call she makes is to Aaron where only a few fuzzy, but frantic, words can be heard before the message cuts out. Working with local police, Aaron helps interview the women who do make it out alive. The narrative goes back and forth between the current investigation and the days that the women actually spent on the retreat, detailing exactly what went wrong and who was responsible for the death of the very unlikeable Alice. With the threat of a former serial killer's son possibly roaming the same remote location which his father used to kill young women thrown in, we're left until the very twisty, turny end to find out exactly what happened. Meanwhile, during the ordeal, Aaron Falk faces some of his own demons as he remembers time spent with his father who died before Aaron could truly make amends with him about past troubles of their own.