The Thorn Birds

Fiction by Colleen McCullough

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This book was published in 1977 and is considered a classic by many readers. I'd heard of it (mostly because of the early 1980's miniseries version on TV that everyone talked about at the time) but had never read it, or watched the TV show.

It's a family saga type of novel, beginning in the early 1900's and set in Australia. I really liked the characters and enjoyed the story. I did feel like it was more tragic that it needed to be; when I become fond of characters I'd really prefer they end up happy. I mean, this IS fiction. The author can do what she wants with these folks, so why not make them happy? Still, this is a good book.

Sad Cypress

Fiction by Agatha Christie.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com
In this story, Elinor Carlisle stands accused of murder, and it really looks like she did it. But, since this is an Agatha Christie mystery, the reader knows she cannot have, because the obvious solution can't be the correct one. Only Hercule Poirot can save her!

On a side note, I love this cover but I don't love the title. I noticed the French version of this novel is called Je ne suis pas couplable, which means "I'm not guilty." I like that title better.

I also read recently by this author: One Two Buckle My Shoe

The Girls at 17 Swann Street

Fiction by Yara Zgheib.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/

I wasn't sure what this book would be about based on the title; what is this house at 17 Swann Street and why do only girls live there? I thought perhaps the address mentioned contains a block of student apartments, or a brothel? But 17 Swann Street is not a house; it's a treatment center, and the patients there are all suffering from eating disorders. So... that's why they are all girls....

This book contains a sometimes-too-realistic portrait of what it's like to have anorexia, and how hard it is to recover.

Smoke Screen

Fiction by Terri Blackstock

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/

In this story, a small-town young woman called Brenna is afraid of losing her children to her ex-husband. Things are further complicated by the arrival in town of the man who was convicted of her father's murder fourteen years before, newly pardoned by the governor. Plus her old flame from high school shows up, a guy who happens to be the son of said recently-freed convict.

This is a very rich plot set up and the story was good, but I did feel like it was a little rushed. The book seemed like it ended too quickly to me.

I also read recently by this author: Never Again Goodbye

Golden Child

Fiction by Claire Adam

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This story is set in Trinidad, which is not a place I know much about at all. It's got an exotic feel, not in a pretty way, but in a foreign, Other-kind of way.

At the beginning of the book, a man called Clyde comes home from work to find that Paul, one of his twin 13-year-old sons, is missing. We don't find out until near the end what has really happened, but most of the story is about the family, especially Paul and Peter, his twin.

This is not a thriller, but more of a family story. It's good but somewhat sad.

The Silent Patient

Fiction by Alex Michaelides.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com
At the beginning of this story, Alicia allegedly shoots her husband Gabriel in their kitchen, and then she completely stops speaking. She is convicted and confined to a mental institution, but never regains her voice.

Seven years later, psychotherapist Theo Faber contrives to get a job at this institution expressly for the purpose of working with her. He says he wants to help her, but the ethics of his single-minded interest in a female patient seem pretty iffy to me.

Did Alicia really kill her husband? Why doesn't she speak? What is really going on here? The ending was quite a surprise.

The Misenchanted Sword

Fiction by Lawrence Watt-Evans

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Several of my friends have done this thing on Facebook in which they post The Ten Books That Have Impacted Me The Most, or something like that. They post a picture of one book each day and then "challenge" their friends to do the same.

(I am not doing that, no matter if they challenge me or not, by the way. They can look at THIS BLOG to see what books I read, for crying out loud! Not that anyone does. Sigh.)

Anyways, one of my friends stretched this challenge to TWENTY books, posting one in the morning and one in the evening for the prescribed ten days. I noticed that almost all of his books were sci-fi titles that I hadn't heard of with rather old and battered covers. This book was one of them, and I decided to try it.

This was kind of a fun little story about a soldier in a mythical land whose sword gets enchanted rather badly by a wizard who either doesn't like him, or isn't very competent, or both. (Hence the title.)

I really liked the book but I don't necessarily recommend the audiobook version that I got; the narrator reads as if he were a radio announcer instead of a storyteller.

The Long Call

Fiction by Anne Cleeves

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/

I had this author recommended to me by someone who mentioned her Detective Vera books, so when I saw that she had a new series beginning I decided to try her out. (I've mentioned before that I feel like series detectives get a bit stale after several books, so that's why I'm often reluctant to jump into an established set of detective stories.)

DI Michael Venn (introduced with this book) is definitely of the brooding tortured variety of detective, although I think I like him well enough. This story was good but not great; I was surprised by the ending and also rather let down by the sordidness of the solution to the mystery. I'm not sure if I want to read more of these stories or not. Still, it was an absorbing read.

One Two Buckle My Shoe

Fiction by Agatha Christie

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/
In this story, Hercule Poirot, famous detective, goes to the dentist. Oh no! Will someone be murdered there? Yes, I think so!

I also read recently by this author: Hercule Poirot's Christmas

We Must Be Brave

Fiction by Frances Liardet

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/

Oh, this was a lovely story!

At the beginning there is Ellen, living in a small English village in 1940 trying to cope with various war evacuees. Ellen finds a motherless little girl called Pamela and takes the child in, although she has told her husband from the beginning of her marriage that she doesn't want children, knowing that he cannot physically father any. When her husband protests, Ellen explains slightly scornfully, "I don't want children. I want Pamela."

This story resonated with me a good deal. A mother's love is an amazing and fierce love, a very personal love of a particular human child. It doesn't matter how many children she has, a mother loves each one for him or herself. That is why it's ridiculous for people to say, in the terrible event of a loss, "Well, at least she has other children. She won't miss that one." But she will. She will always miss that one.

I'm getting a little maudlin with this description, but this book really affected me emotionally. It is not a war story, or a thriller, which I think maybe the negative reviewers I read on b&n.com were disappointed by. It's a life story instead. I loved it.

Murder 101

Fiction by Maggie Barbieri

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This is a light mystery about a woman who teaches at a small college and stumbles into a murder case. I liked it some, but I had trouble really being interested in the characters.

Still, the story was pretty good.