A Piece of Cake

 Nonfiction by Cupcake Brown. 

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This was also an interesting memoir of the Harrowing Childhood variety, but it's not the same as The Pale Faced Lie.

An eleven-year-old girl, called Cupcake by her mother and LaVette by her father, wakes up one day to find her mother dead and her life completely upended. She goes through many terrible things as a foster child, a runaway, a gangbanger, and a "trash-can" junkie, before finally finding herself and God's purpose for her life.

This is not a Christian story; for one thing, there are way too many cuss-words for that! Still, it is a story about the living God and His mysterious ways in one woman's life. 

The Pale Faced Lie

 Nonfiction by David Crow

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

David Crow grew up as the second of four children on a Navajo Reservation. His family was not Navajo, but his father worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and claimed Cherokee heritage. His father was also a crazy man with an anger problem who had served time in San Quentin Prison. This was an interesting memoir of the Harrowing Childhood variety.

The story begins with the sentence, "I was three and a half the first time my dad told me we had to get rid of my mother." It's very absorbing to read.

The Girl in the Red Coat

 Fiction by Kate Hamner

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This story is told from two points of view, eight-year-old Carmel's and her mother Beth's, with alternating chapters. It took me a little while to get interested in it, because the beginning was not really the beginning. Chapter Seven is literally titled "Day 1." So chapters one through six were, what, a prologue? This was very odd.

Still once the actual story began it was very interesting. After taking about a week to read those first six chapters, I read the rest in a day. I wanted the ending to be a little more detailed; after such a long prologue there certainly could have been an epilogue.

Ashes in the Snow

 Fiction by Ruta Sepetys

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

What happened in Lithuania during the Second World War? I did not know anything at all about it before reading this book. 

I have read a lot of historical fiction about World War Two, and most of it focuses on countries affected by the Germans: France, Austria, Poland, Holland, and the like. Under the direction on Hitler, the Nazi Germans rolled over theses smaller countries, deported their people to concentration camps, and confiscated their lands and goods. Well, the Nazis lost, and therefore the many war atrocities they committed were on full display for all to see. We know all about that. 

But guess what? The Russians under Stalin were doing THE SAME THING to countries like Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia. But since the Russians were our allies, and WON the war, nobody really talks about what was going on over there. This books gives a little idea of what happened to some of those people. 

The author herself is of Lithuanian descent; however, her ancestors were able to escape into Germany before the Russians conquered her land. She has done extensive research into what happened to those of her family left behind in 1940's Lithuania, and has produced this book.

It's a good story, although I did feel it ended too abruptly.

The copy I read (pictured above)was the movie tie-in version, but the original title was Between Shades of Gray. I thought the cover of that one was pretty: 

The Dream Daughter

 Fiction by Diane Chamberlain 

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

In 1965 Carly meets Hunter, a strange young man who is a patient at the hospital where she is training as a physical therapist. The doctors and nurses all say Hunter is uncooperative, but as soon as he spots Carly, he insists on having her work with him. She finds him to be surprisingly sympathetic, but she is already engaged. Still, her sister Patti is single...

This story begins with these two people, who are fated to meet and ultimately save the life of a child in a wildly unexpected way. It's a very good book!

I also read recently by this author: The Lies We Told

The Most Mis-Used Verses in the Bible

Subtitled: The Surprising Ways God’s Word is Misunderstood  

Nonfiction by Eric James Bargerhuff

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This was an interesting book; most of the information was not exactly new to me, but some of the author’s takes on popular Bible verses were very insightful. It’s a great reminder that we should always look at the context of the entire Bible instead of cherry-picking the verses we like in order to get an accurate picture. 

Where the Forest Meets the Stars

 Fiction by Glendy Vanderah. 

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Jo is a graduate student in ornithology, and she’s taking a summer to do field research in a remote cabin when she gets an unexpected visitor. It’s nothing creepy, however; it’s just a little girl. But where did she come from?

This is the beginning if a really lovely character story that I enjoyed a lot. 

If You Tell

 Nonfiction by Gregg Olsen.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/

This is a truly disturbing story of the real family of Shelley Knotek, dubbed by the media as "The Most Evil Mom in America." It's pretty horrible but also fascinating, and not for the faint of heart.

I also read by this author: The Last Thing She Ever Did

The Blessing Way

 Fiction by Tony Hillerman

https://www.audible.com

This is a mystery set in Navajo country in 1970. It was good but not great. 

Be Frank With Me

 Fiction by Julia Clairborne Johnson

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Alice works for a literary agent at a big publishing company in New York. Her boss's most famous client is Mimi Banning, a reclusive author who, at only nineteen years old in the early 1970's, had written a novel that was considered both a bestseller AND a classic. Since that time she has not published even one more word. But now Mimi is broke and needs to write something new, and fast! So Alice is sent to California on a a glorified babysitting mission to make sure the new book happens.

There are plenty of challenges waiting for Alice, not least of which is Mimi's prickly personality. But Alice is a capable sort, and deals with everything, including Mimi's nine-year-old son, Frank, a decidedly odd but kind of endearing child. 

This was a fun little story that I enjoyed a lot.

Whiskey and Charlie

 Fiction by Annabel Smith

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Charlie and his identical twin brother William are estranged as adults, although they had been very close as children. Back then they used to play walkie-talkies, and memorized the NATO phonetic alphabet. (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc.) That's when William began to use the name "Whiskey," which was the designated word for the letter W, and he was called Whiskey ever after that, except by his mother.

When Whiskey is involved in an accident and languishes in a coma, Charlie is racked with guilt and afraid he'll never have a chance to make up with his brother. The book goes back and forth between the past and present, juxtaposing the current vigil at Whiskey's bedside with the story of the twin boys' growing-up years.

I liked the story, but I found the construction of the book's plot a little awkward. For one thing, each of the 26 chapters about the past was named after a letter of the phonetic alphabet, which felt forced to me. It was like, "Oh, we're on 'M', so let's introduce a character named Mike!" Also I didn't like being continually pulled back to the present business of hanging around Whiskey in a coma. These things bothered me bit and slowed down my reading.

Overall, this was a good book though.