The One I Left Behind

 

 

The first thing she does when she wakes up is check her hands. She doesn't know how long she's been out. Hours? Days? She's on her back, blindfolded, arms up above her head like a diver, bound to metal pipe. Her hands are duct taped together at the wrist--but they're both still there.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Jesus, sweet, sweet Mother Mary, both her hands are there. She wiggles her fingers and remembers a song her mother used to sing:

Where is Thumpkin? Where is Thumbkin?

Here I am, Here I am,

How are you today, sir?

Very well, I thank you,

Run away, Run away.

The One I Left Behind

Jennifer McMahon

 

Another quick read; well-written. Jennifer McMahon has an extensive backlist--some I've already read and more to anticipate.

 

A serial killer. Suspense. A bit of a psychological thriller.

 

 

Tomorrow River

 

I'm sure you've heard it said that a person can't begin to understand another's troubles until they take a stroll in their shoes. Also maybe you'd . . . would you do me the favor of slipping on my little gal sneakers and taking forty giant steps backwards in time? Go stumbling around the summer of '69 the same way I did? Once you see what I was up against, I'm hoping you'll come to believe that my heart was tender and my intentions pure, and that's got to count for something.

Tomorrow River

Leslie Kagen

 

 

That's Shenandoah Wilson Carmody speaking, twin sister of Jane Woodrow Carmody, daughter of Evelyn, who's been missing for just about a year, and His Honor Judge Walter T. Carmody.

You gotta love Shenandoah. She's a whiz with words, passionate about all that she loves and experiences, protector of Woody, and determined to find out what happened to her mother just one year ago, come the Founders' Festival.

A quick and very satisfying read. Looking forward to more great storytelling and beautiful stories by Leslie Kagen.

 

The Aviator's Wife

 

 

Historical fiction. Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Her story, through her eyes.

 

 

I love Gift from the Sea; it's quiet tone and deep insights. Of course, anyone born in the 20th Century recognizes the name of Charles Lindbergh, and many his wife, Anne. Forever in his shadow, yet so much more than just the aviator's wife.

 

Melanie Benjamin (Hauser) writes a thought-provoking and sensitive novel about a real woman, an artist, a daughter, sibling, wife, aviatrix, mother... But, most importantly she crafts the story of a real woman. A woman earnestly seeking to be complete. To be enough, in her own eyes.

 

Revolution

 

 

An amazing book.

 

The French Revolution. Modern-day Brooklyn. Time Travel. Loss. Grief. Angst. Music history. Resolution. Redemption.

 

Jennifer Donnelly is a superb writer and researcher. She takes writing, as an art form, to its highest level. Her characters are complex and compelling; she brings stark and vivid reality to dusty, ambiguous history.

 

If only the French Revolution and any war before or after could have really changed the world. This Revolution insists we can only change ourselves.

 

 

 

The Pink Suit

For those of us who fell under her spell.

Introduction

"What a strange power there is in clothing." Isaac Bashevis Singer

November 1963

There was that odd thing where he seemed to tilt to one side as if to whisper something to her, as lovers often do. Her head turned, the perfect hat still in place, and she, out of instinct, leaned in as if for a kiss.

His face softened.

It took a moment for her to understand.

It was then that something--gray, dark--tumbled down the back of the limo. She pushed him away and followed after it. Held it in her hands as if it were a broken wing.

The film shows this: the agent jumped onto the 1961 Lincoln and pulled her back into the seat. Unseen are the thirty-six long-stem red roses tumbling to the floor and the agent pushing her on top of her husband and then covering them both with his own body.

Heartbeat upon heartbeat. Then silence.

"Oh, no," she whispered.

It was not a wing at all.

In the chaos of the moment, the agent focused on the suit. He knew she was crushed beneath his weight. He couldn't help that. He knew her face was pressed into her husband's. He couldn't think about that. But he could focus on the pink beneath his body.

She was so quiet. He expected her to scream, but she didn't.

Beautiful suit, he would later write in his memoirs.

Most who can recall that day in Dallas think of the film's grainy black-and-white footage. Those who were there remember the suit.

The Pink Suit

Nicole Kelby

My Amazon Wish List

It was time to sort through my Amazon Wish List. I researched each book title, eliminated a bunch, and ended up with 27 books that I still want to read.

The few weeks after New Year's compel a lot of us to clean and sort, and eliminate. That's good. That's great. Now when I go to the library or online to buy a book, I have a go-to list that is real and possible.

All the Light We Cannot See

 

 

All the Light We Cannot See

Anthony Doerr

 

"A novel to live in, learn from, and feel bereft over when the last page is turned." – Booklist

"This jewel of a story is put together like a vintage timepiece, its many threads coming together so perfectly. Doerr’s writing and imagery are stunning. It’s been a while since a novel had me under its spell in this fashion. The story still lives on in my head." –Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone.

"All the Light We Cannot See is a dazzling, epic work of fiction. Anthony Doerr writes beautifully about the mythic and the intimate, about snails on beaches and armies on the move, about fate and love and history and those breathless, unbearable moments when they all come crashing together." –Jess Walter, author of Beautiful Ruins.

 

Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six, she goes blind, and her father builds her a model of their neighborhood, every house, every manhole, so she can memorize it with her fingers and navigate the real streets with her feet and cane. When the Germans occupy Paris, father and daughter flee to Saint-Malo on the Brittany coast, where Marie-Laure’s agoraphobic great uncle lives in a tall, narrow house by the sea wall.

In another world in Germany, an orphan boy, Werner, grows up with his younger sister, Jutta, both enchanted by a crude radio Werner finds. He becomes a master at building and fixing radios, a talent that wins him a place at an elite and brutal military academy and, ultimately, makes him a highly specialized tracker of the Resistance. Werner travels through the heart of Hitler Youth to the far-flung outskirts of Russia, and finally into Saint-Malo, where his path converges with Marie-Laure.

Doerr’s gorgeous combination of soaring imagination with observation is electric. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, a finalist for the 2104 National Book Award, an international bestseller, the 2014 Book of the Year at Hudson Booksellers, the #2 book of 2014 at Amazon.com, a LibraryReads Favorite of Favorites, a best book of 2014 at the Washington Post, and a #1 Indie Next pick, All the Light We Cannot See is his most ambitious and dazzling work.

Anthony Doerr sees the world as a scientist, but feels it as a poet. He knows about everything—radios, diamonds, mollusks, birds, flowers, locks, guns—but he also writes a line so beautiful, creates an image or scene so haunting, it makes you think forever differently about the big things—love, fear, cruelty, kindness, the countless facets of the human heart. Wildly suspenseful, structurally daring, rich in detail and soul, Doerr’s new novel is that novel, the one you savor, and ponder, and happily lose sleep over, then go around urging all your friends to read—now. –JR Moehringer, author of The Tender Bar