Adult Fiction

Author Profile/Book Review: Against the Edge by Kat Martin

/ Linda / 1 Comment

kat martinKat Martin is a New York Times bestselling author of over fifty historical and contemporary romance suspense novels.  She currently lives in Missoula, Montana with her husband.  Kat is a graduate of the University of California where she majored in Anthropology and studied History.  Before starting her writing career in 1985, she was a real estate broker.  That’s where she met her husband, Larry Jay Martin, author of more than 20 westerns and mysteries.

Most of her ideas for books just pop up in her head, but she does occasionally get ideas from newspapers and television.  Her books are published in twenty foreign countries.

Against the Edge is book number eight in the Against series.  You  don’t need to read the others in any order as they stand alone just fine.

Former Navy SEAL Ben Slocum receives the shock of his life when a stranger appears on his doorstep announcing that a child he didn’t even know he had is missing.  Claire Chastain is a friend of the boy’s late mother and is desperate to find him and seeks Ben’s help.  They band together to track down the kidnapper, all the while trying to fight the attraction they feel for each other.  Ben enlists the help of his fellow private investigators and end up traveling through several states in search of an off grid survivalist group who might have his son, Sam.  To add an interesting twist to the story, Claire’s old boyfriend shows up with his own trouble that Claire gets drawn into.

This book is filled with drama, suspense, action, romance, and likeable characters.  It is fun to watch Ben and Claire’s relationship take hold.  The author weaves a believable story of both characters’ pasts that adds great interest to the book.  The secondary characters (some have been introduced in past Against books) add another enjoyable layer.

Why Gone With the Wind Is My Favorite Book

/ Jenn / 3 Comments

On May 3rd, 1937, more than 76 years ago, Margaret Mitchell won the Pulitzer

Gone With the Wind

Prize for Fiction for her epic Gone With the Wind. 76 years later, GWTW is still a powerful book, read anew by readers young and old.

My husband had recommended for a long time that I read GWTW, and it was on my to-read list for some time. We had distractedly watched the first half of the movie sometime in spring 2010, but I did not start reading the book until April 2011 for our Classics Club here at the library.

GWTW can appear to be a daunting book for those who do not typically read lengthy tomes. But from that opening page, when we are introduced to the indomitable Scarlett, on her way to a party, and we are drawn into a world we will never want to leave, or stop reading.

Oh, Scarlett, Scarlett. Some who have read the book or seen the movie, simply “can’t stand Scarlett.” Well, that’s the point. We are not meant to like Scarlett. She’s perhaps literature’s most misunderstood character. When we first meet Scarlett, she is an impetuous 16 year old lusting after Ashley and looking for excitement. Scarlett stumbles on her journey, making terrible choices, wrong decisions, and sometimes ruining the lives of others (and sometimes purposely). She can be annoying, manipulative, and deceiving. But Scarlett at her core loves her home and her family. By the end, Scarlett has realized how her foibles have affected others. She has lost everything.

My husband has rightly pointed out that Scarlett is representative of “the Old South” before the Civil War. The South had to lose everything in the war, including some of that impetuousness like Scarlett has, before they can learn from their mistakes and rebuild. Scarlett is torn down, lost everything, just like the South was during the Civil War, but together the two can start anew.

We rewatched GWTW while I was reading it for Classics Club, and I’ll never forget the ending. I had not reached that part in the book yet, and I yelled at the tv. “What! What! This is not right! This is not how it happens in the book! It can’t be!” And I ran up the stairs, grabbed the book and read the ending. Oh my. It was how the book ended. I’m still indignant over the ending. But I have two sequels to make the story complete, in my eyes.

GWTW is, in my opinion, our American novel. It speaks to our American experience in terms of struggle, triumph, and the American dream. It’s an epic novel about a society that no longer exists, a way of life that will never be again. GWTW is about more than Scarlett, it’s about a way of life that was destroyed and a people who have to find their way in an unfamiliar world.

GWTW is one of the few books I give 5 stars.

Top Twenty Book Club Picks

/ Linda / 1 Comment

book clubBelow is a list of the top 20 favorite books for book clubs.  How many has your club read?

  1.  The Help – Kathryn Stockett
  2. Water for Elephants – Sara Gruen
  3. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – Mary Ann Shaffer
  4. Sarah’s Key – Tatiana de Rosnay
  5. Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn
  6. The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
  7. The Art of Racing In The Rain – Garth Stein
  8. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson
  9. The Glass Castle – Jeannette Walls
  10.  Hotel On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet – Jami Ford
  11.  Snow Flower and the Secret Fan – Lisa See
  12.  The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
  13.  The Night Circus – Erin Morgenstern
  14.  Little Bee – Chris Cleave
  15.  Cutting for Stone – Abraham Verghese
  16.  Life of Pi – Yann Martel
  17.  The Memory Keepers Daughter – Kim Edwards
  18.  The Paris Wife – Paula McCain
  19.  Still Alice – Lisa Genova
  20.  The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold

BOOK REVIEW: All You Could Ask For by Mike Greenberg

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Is it possible for the anchor of a highly popular ESPN sports show to write believable women’s fiction?  The answer is YES!

mike greenbergMike Greenberg joined ESPN in September 1996 as an anchor for ESPNEWS.  He is  usually seen each Monday evening on SportsCenter.   He was named co-host of Mike & Mike in the Morning (along with Mike Golic), a weekday morning drivetime show, in 1999.  He has various other responsibilities within ESPN that include play-by-play for Arena Football League games, various hosting duties, and TV specials.  He is a New York Times Best Sellers author and was nominated for a Quill Award.  He is married with two children, and lives in Connecticut.

All You Could Ask For is about three woman traveling different paths who become connected when each is diagnosed with cancer.  Brooke is happily married to her college sweetheart, Samantha finds out on the second day of her honeymoon that her husband is cheating on her, and Katherine is 40, single, and has a high-power job and salary in New York City.  The book is written in the first person and in two parts.  The first part sets the stage to allow you to learn about these three women.  Part two delves into how these women deal with their cancer diagnosis and life around them.

The format of the book may not be to everyone’s liking, and you probably think a man could not write such a sensitive story from a woman’s perspective, but the author delivers this novel with grace, humor, compassion and insight.

Mr. Greenberg was inspired to write this book after a friend of his wife, Stacy, was diagnosed with breast cancer.  He watched in amazement at the depth to which her circle of friends gathered around to support, love and nurture this woman.  Mike and Stacy have created a foundation called Heidi’s Angels to honor Stacy’s friend.  All of the profits from this book will be donated to The V Foundation for Cancer Research to combat breast cancer.

BOOK REVIEW: Widow of the South

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May’s pick for our When Johnny Comes Marching Home: A Civil War Book

Widow of the South

Discussion is The Widow of the South by Robert Hicks.

This book had been sitting on my to be read bookshelf for more than 8 years (and yes, I do have an entire bookcase of books that I have not read yet!). I remember picking it up in the grocery store, of all places, when I was out shopping with my grandmother, and thinking it was intriguing enough to go in my cart. Eight years later, the book finally made it to the top of my list for this book club.

It’s November 1864 and the Civil War has waged on for more than 3 1/2 years now. Carrie McGavock is sitting in her bedroom, rocking back and forth in her chair when General Nathaniel Bedford Forrest comes knocking at her door. Her house is being taken as a field hospital. Her town of Franklin is now a battlefield.

All throughout town men are falling, wounded or dead. Carrie’s plantation has now become a field of the battle scarred. Four generals lie dead on her porch and the pile of limbs grows taller and taller. One soldier taken to Carrie’s plantation is Zachariah Cashwell, a Confederate soldier from Arkansas. Cashwell was struck with a bullet in the leg when he attempted to raise the colors. He’s in tough shape- he needs his leg amputated but would rather die.

What ensues between Carrie and Zachariah was recently named by Amazon as one of the Top 50 Love Stories. Initially angered at Carrie’s interference in the amputating of his leg, Zachariah grows to love Carrie. Theirs is a relationship that will never be anything more, they care deeply for each other.

While I enjoyed Zachariah and Carrie’s friendship- really what I found the “love” story to be- what I enjoyed the most was the telling of the battle of Franklin and Carrie’s quest to honor the men and boys who fought and died there. Too much time was spent on matters that were not pertinent to the heart of the story, which was Carrie and the cemetery.

Based on the true story of Carrie McGavock and Carnton plantation, McGavock’s backyard became the final resting place for 1,500 Confederate soldiers. She was known for her meticulous care and keeping of the cemetery, which she tended until her death some 50 years later.

I listened to this book, which was a full cast audio, switching between the voice of Zachariah and Carrie, as well as a narrator. The readers were just OK in my opinion- the woman who read for Carrie sounded much older than her 35 years.

Hicks, to me, what at his best and most passionate in his Author’s Note, when he told the story of Carrie and her cemetery. Hicks had worked for many years as the driving force behind the preservation of the Carnton Plantation, and he was intimately acquainted with the property and those who lived there. I wished the rest of the story could have been so eloquently told as his Author’s Note.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars.