My Rating: 4.4
Five friends go the Catskills. They have been friends since college, back before what happened to Alice all those years ago. They are a complicated group with so many personalities, secrets and history (dysfunction).
Lots of "who dunnits" but, I figured out the 'who' about 2/3 of the way in. I didn't get all the 'why' or other details till the end. This was a fast paced light, easy thriller.
My Rating: 4.8
Using the 23rd Psalm as our guide, Max Lucado walks us through a helpful inventory of our burdens. The Burdens discussed in this book are the following:
Along with my Christian book friends, we read two chapters a week and discussed it. It was the perfect pace to be able to absorb everything and reflect on it. I enjoyed his analogies and his insights helped me to look deeper to analyze myself.
My Rating: 4.4
It’s 1950, and as the French Quarter of New Orleans simmers with secrets, seventeen-year-old Josie Moraine is silently stirring a pot of her own. Known among locals as the daughter of a brothel prostitute, Josie wants more out of life than the Big Easy has to offer. She devises a plan get out, but a mysterious death in the Quarter leaves Josie tangled in an investigation that will challenge her allegiance to her mother, her conscience, and Willie Woodley, the brusque madam on Conti Street.
Despite capturing the prostitutes, brothel and their business so well, there was also a wholesome feel to this savey street-wise book. Septeys has an amazing gift of taking a piece of history and bringing it to life. My two favorite books of hers so far are I Must Betray You and Between Shades of Grey. I will continue reading everything that she puts out as her writing really is amazing.
My Rating: 4.9
Claudia decides to run away and asks her younger brother James to accompany her, mainly because he is a miser and will have money. She has it all planned - of how they will get from their home in Greenwich to New York City and live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
This captures both Claudia and James personalities so well. I know many of you have read this when you were younger but, I had never heard of this. So very cute and engaging.
My Rating: 4.9
Set in 1963 in Aurora Minnesota, a small town alongside the shores of Minnesota’s Iron Lake. Cork O’Connor is 12-years-old, and stumbles upon the body of a man he revered hanging from a tree in an abandoned logging camp. It is the first in a series of events that will cause him to question everything he took for granted about his hometown, his family, and himself.
Cork’s father, Liam O’Connor, is Aurora’s sheriff, and it is his job to confirm that the man’s death was the result of suicide, as all the evidence suggests. In the shadow of his father’s official investigation, Cork begins to look for answers on his own.
Together, father and son face the ultimate test of choosing between what their heads tell them is true and what their hearts know is right.
As always, William Kent Krueger writes with masterful story telling and captures so much heart - of a young man, the town and the Indian people. Amazingly well done. Even though this prequel was written later, I decided to start the series with this book. So good and I can't wait to immerse myself in the rest of this series.
