Kirkus Reviews has put together a list of the top 10 new novels perfect for summer reading:
Wind Chime Point is book two of the Ocean Breeze Trilogy. It would be helpful to read the first book, Sand Castle Bay, although the author does a wonderful job of tying in book one’s
story.
Hardworking, ambitious, and independent Gabriella Castle is facing personal and professional challenges that prove too daunting for her to handle alone. She retreats to her grandmother’s home in Sand Castle Bay, NC. and the welcoming arms of her family.
Wade Johnson is a cabinet-maker and wood-carver with a tragic and secret past. He’s been intrigued by Gabriella whenever she’s visited and is happy when she returns to town. He’s also a friend of Emily’s finance, Boone.
Gabi is having a lot of trouble deciding what to do about her future. For the first time in her life, she is plagued with doubts and uncertainty. She finds a friend in Wade and his easy-going style and good listening skills are both helpful and comforting. She didn’t expect or plan for her feelings for Wade to blossom into love. Wade knew he had strong feelings for Gabi, but he is unsure if he’s ready to take the next step.
Although this book focuses mainly on Gabi and Wade, the secondary characters play an important part in the story. Gabi’s sister Emily is busy planning her wedding and her other sister, Samantha is facing her own crisis about her career. Grandmother Cora Jane is still playing matchmaker and the sister’s father, Sam, has an expanded role in this book.
Sea Glass Island is the third and final book of the trilogy. Samantha has been living in New York City pursuing her dream of being an actress. But lately, the parts she auditions for are all going to younger actresses. She goes home to North Carolina for her sister’s wedding and to reflect on what to do with her life.
Ethan Cole is a doctor at the local clinic in town. He lost a leg while serving in Afghanistan, and his fiance dumped him shortly thereafter. He’s having a hard time overcoming the hurt caused by his finance. He doesn’t know that Samantha has had a crush on him since high school, or that her family is relentless on their determination to get them together.
There are several interesting subplots in this book and plot lines from the previous two books are tied up quite nicely.
These are captivating, realistic, heartwarming romances. The setting is a place you want to visit and the characters are people you want to know. This is a character-driven trilogy with witty dialogue, beautifully descriptive scenes, warm and loving family interactions, and sweet love stories. This trilogy is Ms. Woods best work yet.
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut is our July pick for the Cheshire Cats Classics Club. It was chosen largely to appeal to men and to those who like more modern classics. This is not my typical fare, necessarily, and was not even on my to-read list. Far from it, actually.
I’m not sure what I thought Slaughterhouse Five was going to be, but whatever notions I had where quickly dispelled. I think I heard that it included a fictional planet, and time-travel and thought “Not for me…” First impressions are often wrong, prejudiced, and just down right stupid.
Slaughterhouse Five is a crisp 275 pages, easily read, and likely easily misunderstood. Some may find the scenes of Tralfamadore ridiculous, the war depictions brutal, the episodes of sex raunchy, but they unfortunately have missed the essence of the book. And don’t let the ease of reading the book fool you: Vonnegut is trying to send an important message on the destructiveness of war, finding happiness, and mental illness.
Slaughterhouse Five, to me, is an anti-war novel on the surface. The subtitle, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance With Death alludes to the fact that so many of the men who bravely fight our wars are merely boys. They are dancing with death in a way many of us will never experience.
What Billy Pilgrim experiences and views at the bombing of Dresden forever changes him and shapes the novel. Billy’s “strange” behavior of time traveling and episodes on Tralfamadore are manifestations of his PTSD. Knowing that Vonnegut himself saw the bombing of Dresden makes you wonder how much of this was truly Billy Pilgrim’s story and how much of it was autobiographical. Anyone who has seen actual warfare is never the same.
I listened to this book, as I try to do with all of the classics we read for the club. Ethan Hawk was the reader for this version, which included an interview with Vonnegut. All in all, I was pleasantly surprised with this book, having gone in with low expectations. Hawk’s reading of it was admirable, although the mixing on the recording was very low and he was often difficult to hear, and the story moved.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars (but it’s a hearty 3 stars)
Julie Hyzy
One of cozy mystery’s premier authors, Julie Hyzy, recently wrote a very interesting article for the Huffington Post about cozy mysteries. Her new book, Grace Takes Off, was published July 2.
Here are some other cozy mysteries out this month:
1. Tarnished and Torn (A Witchcraft Mystery) by Juliet Blackwell
2. Tulle Death Do Us Part (A Vintage Magic Mystery) by Annette Blair
3. A Custom-Fit Crime (A Magical Dressmaking Mystery) by Melissa Bourbon
4. Woof at the Door (A Call of the Wilde Mystery) by Laura Morrigan
5. Final Sentence (A Cookbook Nook Mystery) by Daryl Wood Gerber
6. Laced With Poison (A Sweet Nothings Lingerie Mystery) by Meg London
7. Dyeing Wishes (A Haunted Yarn Shop Mystery) by Molly MacRae
8. Yarn To Go (A Yarn Retreat Mystery) by Betty Hechtman
9. One Dead Cookie (A Cookie Cutter Shop Mystery) by Virginia Lowell
To view a previously published post about Cozy Mysteries, click here.
Susan Choi
One of the most anticipated books of 2013 is My Education by Susan Choi. Susan is the author of three previous novels. Her first novel, The Foreign Student, won the Asian-American Literary Award. American Woman was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and A Person of Interest was a finalist for the PEN/Faulker Award.
My Education is a steamy, but very well-written book. It’s about Regina, a graduate student, who is warned about a notorious professor who sleeps with students. She becomes his teaching assistant and, in a surprising twist, has an affair with the professor’s wife. The story spans fifteen years of Regina’s misadventures that are both erotic and catastrophic.
This novel is Amazon’s best book of the month – July 2013. It has received rave reviews from many sources, including Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, the Boston Globe, Vanity Fair, The Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post.
Available at the Cheshire Library.
Note: For sensitive readers, this book contains profanity, sexual references and overt sexual scenes.
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