I was very excited to hear that Anne Tyler had a new book out.  I love her quirky characters and their response to life events.  Now that I've had some time to digest the book, I like it a bit more than I did when I first finished it.  Has that ever happened to you when you read?  I'm glad I waited to write this review because it may have sounded quite different a few weeks ago.

Aaron, the main character has just lost his wife in a freakish accident when a tree landed on their house. Aaron is forced to go through the long months of grief, when communication with others seems to be too much of an effort.  During this time he encounters  Dorothy, his wife, as a kind of ghost who visits him on occasion and forces him to have some belated revelations about himself, Dorothy, and who they were together as a couple.

The story explores the foundation of grief and the small, incremental healing that comes from making peace with that presence (now deceased). "The Beginner's Goodbye" is Anne Tyler's 19th book and, although reading it will remind you of her others, this book stands quietly on its own. The author takes complicated feelings and wraps them in a story that can help the reader transcend ...and come away with relationship revelations for themselves.  It's all in Tyler's description.  Consider this response from Aaron when a colleague asks how he's doing: "In a way, it's like the grief has been covered over with some kind of blanket. It's still there, but the sharpest edges are ... muffled, sort of. Then, every now and then, I lift a corner of the blanket, just to check, and -- whoa! Like a knife! I'm not sure that will ever change."

Faith Bass Darling is a descendant of the founding father of the little town of Bass, Texas, living in the family mansion with its accumulated contents. She was long ago widowed and her son died as a teenager. Now she's getting messages from God that she needs to hold a yard sale.  Faith's daughter returns to Texas after receiving an emergency call from a childhood friend that her mother has slipped a cog. What she finds is a mother who is trying hard to hold on to her memories while knowing that she's losing them. It's a story of coming to terms with the past and preparing for the future. A good read

Ed and Allard save a new neighbor from drowning after she falls thru the Baker River near their New Hampshire home.  This sets up a lifetime of friendship for her family and the boys' family.  The three grow up together with an inseparable bond.  The youngsters plan to start  "Baker River Productions", a wildlife media studio.  Allard and Sarah get engaged and plan a wedding after college, but a week before the wedding, Ed and Allard go camping for Allard's last fling beofre tying the knot.  On the return trip from the camp, Ed meets up with an accident and is stuck under a boulder.  Allard goes for help, but by the time he gets back, Ed has succumbed to hypothermia.  Unable to deal with his guilt, Allard disappears and then starts working with various production companies in the Northwest.

A few years later, Sarah signs on for the same project as Allard.  They end up working together to film some narwhals, whales with a unicorn tusk.  Sarah has a hard time forgiving Allard for abandoning her and they talk a lot about why.  Since Sarah is already engaged to another man, Allard must work hard to win her back.

Will Allard be able to win back his first and only love?  Read the book and see.

Charles Lenox, an amateur detective, has taken a case at the request of a friend. A servant has died and the authorities are ruling it a suicide, but Lenox suspects it was, in fact, murder. As Lenox investigates the house full of suspects, another death occurs. This one is most certainly murder and seemingly unrelated. Can Lenox solve the case, or will the murderer get away?

Phenomenal! I have always been a fan of Sherlock Holmes, and the character of Charles Lenox is quite similar. The plot was so complex that I found myself taking notes and still had not figured it out before the murderer was revealed. In addition, there was a twist that took me by surprise as well. I do love a good mystery and I can't wait to read the rest of the series. Brilliant!

I highly recommend A Beautiful Blue Death to fans of the traditional sleuth mysteries.  If you love Sherlock Holmes, you’ll love Charles Lenox.  Five stars!

I will begin by saying; you probably do NOT want to read Fifty Shades of Grey if:

1. You are under the age of 18.

2. Your reading habits tend to lean to the extreme conservative end of the spectrum.

3. You abhor S&M/BDSM.

4. You have been abused or assaulted.

5. You are close to someone who has been abused or assaulted.

Now, I will share with you the plethora of reasons for which I loath Fifty Shades of Grey.

First, it is about ninety percent BDSM, which is absolutely not my taste. Aside from the problem I have with BDSM in general, I have more specific problems with what goes on in this book. Anastasia has never experienced this lifestyle before and is not even quite terrified or repulsed by the idea of it, merely diffident. Once she is a “willing” participant, Christian tells her she likes it, so she does. I find it hard to believe that it would be that simple.

Second, the characters have no depth. Christian is a man with a secret and horrible past, which he cannot seem to overcome. That’s about all we get. Anastasia is a student graduating from college who has never loved anyone, until now, and was an independent woman, until now. I have been reading nothing but books about sardonic teenage girls lately and I’ve managed to break away from that into ineffectual young women. Is that an upgrade or a downgrade? It really sends a horrible message to young women: Be yourself, until you meet a man who wants to beat you but is so good looking that you can forgive him for it; when that happens, you should be whomever or whatever he wants you to be. Really? And, while the author has some lines about Christian learning to compromise, make no mistake, it is Anastasia who does all the compromising. The only compromising Christian does is by adding one thing at a time instead of immersing her in “his world” all at once.

I also take issue with the writing. The story is set in Washington, USA and the characters, we are to assume, are American. The author is British. If you didn’t know this about the author, it would be evident by the very British colloquial phrases that the American characters use. That kind of thing flat out irritates me. It’s like watching a movie containing actors whose accents come and go. There were a couple of sentences that I seem to remember from Twilight. I can only guess James changed a word here or there because it smacks of plagiarism. Also, if one cannot describe a character as being intense without using the word intense half a dozen times in the same chapter, one should not be trying to describe an intense character. It’s a bit ironic, because later in the book, it seems as though James used her thesaurus function to purposely make her words dissimilar. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s inconsistency, and, from the writing to the plot, this book is full of it.

Speaking of plot… Girl interviews man, man stalks girl, man declares he is dangerous and can’t give girl what she wants, girl falls in love with man and tries to devise a way to get what she wants, man proves what he said is true, girl is heartbroken. The End.

Sounds like a story we all want to read, doesn’t it? E. L. James herself says she’s *“not a great writer” and I couldn’t agree more. This was probably the most traumatic reading experience I’ve ever had and I definitely will not be reading the rest of the trilogy.

*See video of interview.

This is the story of a family in the northeast, the father, David, is a vet, the mother, Sarah, is a stay at home mom, Sam is the older child and his sister, Mia, is the baby of the family.  The family has a normal life, the dad answers vet calls from home.  One day he and Sam decide to go hunting, and an unknown person accidently shoots Sam, who falls from the tree and hits his head.  Sam falls into a coma.  The family gathers round him for a log vigil.  The police can not find any clues to who fired on Sam, but awhile after the incident, the family begins to get calls where the caller will not say anything when they answer.  The family slowly begins to become unhinged as David imagines that every person he meets is the gunman.  He also begins to imagine that a spaceship comes at night and only he can see it.

One day, Sam wakes up from his coma but even he has no clue who shot him.  A few weeks later a stranger comes to the door.  David imagines it must be the shooter, but it turns out to be his a son he did not know he had. (He became a sperm donor in college, to pay the bills).  The son tries to help David find the gunman, but can only guess who it mught be.  Then the son, Mark, asks something of David, that he can hardly believe and it turns the family on its end.  Mark needs his father's kidney to get off dialysis.  Sarah is greatly opposed to the idea, so one day DAvid just slips away and goes to the hospital and donates his kidney. 

Will the family ever find out who shot Sam or ever be the same after David's donation?  Read and see.

My favorite genre of books normally includes anything biography.  For Book Talk, I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone and try something different.  Wide Open by Deborah Coates is set in a small South Dakota town featuring main character Hallie Michaels a sergeant serving in Afghanistan.  Hallie goes home on leave to attend her sister Dell’s funeral.  From the beginning, Hallie does not believe her sister’s cause of death is suicide.  When she begins investigating into the circumstances leading to Dell’s death, Hattie stumbles unto the supernatural.  The closer Hallie gets to the truth, the more she puts herself and others around her in danger.  Wide Open can be described as being work of fantasy, mystery and ghost story rolled into one, and although these are not usually my favorite genres, I did enjoy this book.

This was a fairly good book about 3 sisters, Cordy, Rose and Bianca, and their parents.  Their mom has cancer and their dad is a professor of Shakespeare at the local university.  They have grown up immersed in Shakespeare lore since they were tiny babies.  After leaving home to be on their own, Bianca "Bean" and Cordy return at the same time when their mother is diagnosed.

Each sister has her own problems to solve, besides trying to help their parents cope with Mom's cancer.  Rose can't decide if she wants to marry her fiance and move to England or not.  Bianca embezzled some money form the company she worked for and also owes others.  Cordy has a hippy lifestyle and comes home pregnant.  While they care for their mother, they must solve their own problems.  The problem is that as they said in the book, "We love each other as sisters, but we don't like each other."  Secrets are kept between them and somehow they must learn how to straighten out their lives. 

Can they learn to help each other solve their problems and become more close to each other?  Read the book and see.