Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

Publisher: Putnam Adult
Publish Date: July 29, 2014
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 460
ISBN: 978 0399167065

A murder…a tragic accident…or just parents behaving badly?

What’s indisputable is that someone is dead.  But who did what?

Big Little Lies follows three women, each at a crossroads: Madeline is a force to be reckoned with.  She’s funny and biting, passionate, she remembers everything and forgives no one.  Her ex-husband and his yogi new wife have moved into her beloved beachside community, and their daughter is in the same kindergarten class as Madeline’s youngest (how is this possible?).  And to top it all off, Madeline’s teenage daughter seems to be choosing Madeline’s ex-husband over her. (How. Is.  This.  Possible?).

Celeste is the kind beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare.  While she may seem a bit flustered at times, who wouldn't be, with those rambunctious twin boys?  Now the boys are starting school, Celeste and her husband look set to become the king and queen of the school parent body.  But royalty often comes at a price, and Celeste is grapping with how much more she is willing to pay.  New to town, single mom Jane is so young that another mother mistakes her for the nanny.  Jane is sad beyond her years and harbours secret doubts about her son.  But why?  While Madeline and Celeste soon take Jane under their wing, none of them realize how the arrival of Jane and her inscrutable little boy will affect them all.

Big Little Lies is a brilliant take on ex-husbands and second wives, mothers and daughters, schoolyard scandal, and the dangerous lies we tell ourselves just to survive.

My Thoughts

This was such a well crafted story of parents behaving badly on the school yard.  It was witty and humourous and the "who done it" kept me guessing up until the end.  I do have to say the the adult playground gossip was a bit juvenile and sometimes it irritated me and then sometimes I would laugh out loud.  I loved the suspense build up and the police questioning snippets at at the end of each chapter - added some nice humour.

The only reason I held back and couldn't give it 5 stars is because the "murder" wasn't as grand as I would have hoped.  The author did such a great job building and building up the ending and then it just fell a bit flat to me.  I was hoping for a juicier murder - If that makes sense.  Other than that I loved it and was very entertained.

This was my first novel by Moriarty, and can't wait to read more!

My Rating: ««««

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The reviews made here are my personal opinion. I’m not being paid to review any of these books. I am by no means a professional book reviewer or editor.  I do this for the love of books.

The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian

Publisher: Random House Audio
Publish Date: July 17, 2012
Format: Audio
Discs: 9
ISBN: 978 0307917379

When Elizabeth Endicott arrives in Syria, she has a diploma from Mount Holyoke College, a crash course in nursing, and only the most basic grasp of the Armenian language.  The First World War is spreading across Europe, and she has volunteered on behalf of the Boston-based Friends of Armenia to deliver food and medical aid to refugees of the Armenian genocide.  There, Elizabeth becomes friendly with Armen, a young Armenian engineer who has already lost his wife and infant daughter.  When Armen leaves Aleppo to join the British Army in Egypt, he beings to write Elizabeth letters, and comes to realize that he has fallen in love with the wealthy, young American woman who is different from his wife he lost.  

Flash forward to the present, where we meet Laura Petrosian, a novelist living in suburban New York.  Although her grandparents’ ornate Pelham home was affectionately nicknamed the “Ottoman Annex,” Laura has never really given her Armenian heritage much thought.  But when an old friend calls, claiming to have seen a newspaper photo of Laura’s grandmother promoting an exhibit at a Boston museum, Laura embarks on a journey back through her family’s history that reveals love, loss – and a wrenching secret that has been buried for generations.

My Thoughts

"How do a million and a half people die with nobody knowing?  You kill them in the middle of nowhere."

I have to admit that I had never heard about the Armenian Genocide before this book.  It's sad, I know, but I'm defiantly not alone.  But once I started reading I needed to know more and spent hours devouring the internet to educate myself on this horrific event that is widely unknown.  The author take you away on such a heartbreaking journey of war and grief, love and loss and I loved how each character leaves a huge impact in unfolding this incredible story.  

I listened to this on audio and absolutely loved the alternating narration with Elizabeth and Laura - I think it's important in audio to have different voices if a story from multiple points of view.  It just makes for a more enjoyable listen in my opinion.

This was such a powerful and insightful novel that was overall unforgettable.  I encourage everyone to read this novel of an important piece of lost history.  This was my first novel by Chris Bohjalian and I am eager to read more.

My Rating: ««««

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The reviews made here are my personal opinion. I’m not being paid to review any of these books. I am by no means a professional book reviewer or editor.  I do this for the love of books.

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

Publisher: Algonquin Books
Publish Date: September 18, 2012
Format: Trade Paperback
Pages: 368
ISBN: 978 1616201937

When She Woke tells the story of a stigmatized woman struggling to navigate an America of a not-too-distant future, where the line between church and state has been eradicated and convicted felons are no longer imprisoned and rehabilitated but chromed – their skin colour is genetically altered to match the class of their crimes – and then released back into the population to survive as best they can.  Hannah is a Red; her crime is murder.

In seeking a path to safety in an alien and hostile world, Hannah unknowingly embarks on a path of self-discovery that forces her to question the values she once held true and the righteousness of a country that politicizes faith.

My Thoughts

This would have never been a book I would have chosen for myself and was a bit skeptical - it was selected at my local library as the January Book Club pick - and I ended up really enjoying it.  I found the concept to be brilliant and devoured this novel in just a few days.  It really got me thinking - is this where we could actually be heading?  Imagine walking among criminals.  Chroming (maybe not totally like this) could be a way of the future - you just never know.  We already microchip pets, why wouldn't we start doing something like that with babies at birth?  

I have to say though that I did enjoy the first half of the book better than the last half.  It started to get a little too preachy and felt rushed.  I also felt like Hannah's character made a drastic change and by this I'm referring to the Simone encounter.  I just found it added no value and unnecessary to the plot of the story.  I understand what the author was trying to relay - that Hannah's outlook on gay people were wrong, but I still found it irrelevant.  The ending just didn't have enough closure for me.  I was left with too much wonder about some of the characters and how they fared.  I need closure in a novel - I crave it.  Even an Epilogue would have been amazing.  I would be okay with a sequel, I'm interested in seeing Hannah now living her new life.  Just leave Simone out of it.

Having never read The Scarlet Letter, I am very interested in reading it as there seem to be a number of similarities.

It is also good to know that the future still has Target and McDonald's...

My Rating: ««««

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The reviews made here are my personal opinion. I’m not being paid to review any of these books. I am by no means a professional book reviewer or editor.  I do this for the love of books.

A Place of Secrets by Rachel Hore

Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Publish Date: February 1, 2012
Format: Audio
Discs: 12
ISBN: 978 

Can dreams be passed down through families?  As a child Jude suffered a recurrent nightmare: running through a dark forest, crying for her mother.  Now six years later her six-year0old niece, Summer, is having the same dream, and Jude is frightened for her.

A successful auctioneer, Jude is struggling to come to terms with the death of her husband.  When she’s asked to value a collection of scientific instruments and manuscripts belonging to Anthony Wickham, a lonely 18^th century astronomer, she leaps at the chance to escape London for the untamed beauty of Norfolk, where she grew up.

As Jude untangles Wickham’s tragic story, she discovers threatening links to the present.  What have Summer’s nightmares to do with Starbrough folly, the eerie crumbling tower in the woods from which Wickham and is adopted daughter Esther once viewed the night sky?  With help of Euan, a local naturalist, Jude searches for answers in the wild, haunting splendor of the Norfolk forests.  Dare she leave behind sadness in her own life and learn to love again?

My Thoughts

Was this a story about trying to understand the reason for Summer's bad dreams or Jude finding love again or solving the mystery of the Wickham family and what happened to Esther or tracking down her grandmother's long lost childhood friend?  I'm not really sure because there were so many sub-plots going on that each got lost.  It was very slow paced and I just found the overall plot to be boring and uninteresting.  The novel had so much potential - why couldn't it just be about Jude unraveling the mystery of Esther and be done with it.  The dream aspect was just plain unrealistic and held no value to the story.  I also found the love story to be unnecessary and boring.  I felt zero engagement with the characters and couldn't wait for the story to end.

I listened to this on audio and I have come to the conclusion that I strongly dislike British narrators!  I have listened to a number of them and the attempt at doing different voices for each character (especially a man or child) makes my skin crawl.  

It had been a few weeks since I listened to this book and I can't real how it even ended.  Hate when that happens.

My Rating: ««

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The reviews made here are my personal opinion. I’m not being paid to review any of these books. I am by no means a professional book reviewer or editor.  I do this for the love of books.

A Murder at Rosamund's Gate (Lucy Campion Mysteries #1) by Susanna Calkins

Publisher: Minotaur Books

Publish Date: April 23, 2013

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 352

ISBN: 978 1250007902

 Lucy Campion, a seventeenth-century English chambermaid in the household of the local magistrate, life is an endless repetition of polishing pewter, emptying chamber pots, and dealing with other household chores until a fellow servant is ruthlessly killed, and someone close to Lucy falls under suspicion.  Lucy can’t believe it, but in a time where the accused are presumed guilty until proven innocent, lawyers aren’t permitted to defend their clients, and – if the plague doesn’t kill the suspect first – public executions draw a large crowd of spectators, Lucy knows she may never find out what really happened.  Unless, that is, she can uncover the true herself.

Determined to do just that, Lucy finds herself venturing out of her expected station and into raucous printers’ shops, secretive gypsy camps, the foul streets of London, and even the bowels of Newgate prison on a trail that might lead her straight into the arms of the killer.

My Thoughts

I'm a cover lover - there is no doubt about that and I found this particular cover so haunting and beautiful I knew I had to read it.  Then reading the synopsis and a promise of a good mystery set in the seventeenth century I was sold.  I loved the time period, loved the setting and the description of London and the premises of the story.  However there too much going on for me to fully engage in the story.  In addition to Lucy trying to solve the mystery of her friends murder there was also a number of other sub stories going on as well.  There was a romance budding with Lucy.  The plague struck and then became a focal point of the story.  There was also the political aspect and how during that time London had a corrupt justice system.  While the author did a great job of weaving everything together I found that it was all a bit too much. 

I liked her writing and glad that she chose to use modern language as opposed to what would have been used in the seventeenth century.  As she explains in her author's notes this is much easier for the reader, and as a lover and avid reader of historical fiction this is something even I appreciate.

This is the first book in a series and while I found the introduction to the series a bit slow I think it is a series worth reading and will continue on with the second book From the Charred Remains as I believe Calkins has so much room to grow as a storyteller.  I think Lucy is an interesting character and although not very complex (which is refreshing sometimes) am intrigued as to where the author takes her.  Although I didn't love the novel I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Calkins or this novel.

My Rating: «««

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The reviews made here are my personal opinion. I’m not being paid to review any of these books. I am by no means a professional book reviewer or editor.  I do this for the love of books.