The Outer Banks House: A Novel Review

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The Outer Banks House: A Novel ReviewNags Head, The Outer Banks, North Carolina - the Civil War is over and the slaves freed. Once prosperous plantation owner Noland Sinclair builds a cottage at the beach and brings his family for the summer. Noland asks his daughter Abigail to tutor local fisherman Benjamin (Ben) Whimble. Abigail is repulsed by a very smelly, unwashed, barefooted Ben, but he proves an apt pupil and the two soon strike up a friendship. Abigail's mother is more interested in her own problems than those of her children and papa Noland is busy scheming with an early-day KKK group to find and punish a runaway slave - and he hopes to involve Ben in his nefarious scheme. Hector Newman, an affluent doctor's son courts Abigail and he plans to wed her despite the Sinclair's current financial status.
Ben continues to challenge Abigail into thinking about the hypocrisies of her parents and friends and the two become very close - which man will she chose? And that's pretty much it in a nutshell. While the book had a lot going for it story wise - setting, social mores, bigotry against the freed slaves, etc. - it just didn't quite deliver what I'd hoped for. Abigail's parents were painted just a tad too *black*, I would have preferred the characters fleshed out a bit better. As for the grand love between Abigail and Ben? I loved the idea, but again it just didn't quite come off as well as I'd hoped - I didn't pick up on much chemistry between the two, let alone how quickly she got over her revulsion to his very dirty smelly person (or did he start taking baths all of a sudden and I missed the boat again?).
A good book and a nice first outing for this author, it just doesn't have enough pizzazz for me to give it a higher rating. 3/5 stars.The Outer Banks House: A Novel Overview

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Missing Links Review

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Missing Links ReviewThink you play good golf? Try hitting a 3 iron "...while keeping one foot on a sprinkler head that never goes off..." Welcome to Ponkaquogue Municipal Golf Course! Named by Golf Illustrated as 'possibly the worst golf course in America', Ponky, as the course is called, is the setting for Rick Reilly's incredibly funny novel, Missing Links. The story-teller and main character of this off-the-wall saga is Raymond Lee Hart. Anxious to go on the tour, his dreams are put on the line when he plays the match of his life with his father. "...my father hasn't talked to me in 5 years..." Raymond says, "...but that's o.k., I haven't listened in 10." You'll also meet Hoover, "an irredeemable hack," Crowbar; Thud; and Two-down, so named because he always says, "Boys, the bets don't start until I'm two-down." Then, after playing "...like a diseased yak on the first four holes...he comes barreling back making pars from behind dumpsters and bottoms of lakes." Rick Reilly has written a fast-paced,riveting story. The knock-out one-liners will get you going and the all-or-nothing finishing game will keep you hooked until the last page. Read Missing Links and you'll never see golf in quite the same way again.Missing Links Overview

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The Night Counter: A Novel Review

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The Night Counter: A Novel ReviewScheherazade could learn a thing or two about storytelling from Alia Yunis, who uses the 1001 Nights conceit to tell the tale of Fatima Abdullah, an 85-year-old matriarch who trades beauty tips with Scheherazade as she counts down the nights she thinks she has left to live. Both Fatima and Scheherazade display a lot of L.A. lip, which is not surprising given that Yunis is a filmmaker from L.A. Fatima, a purple-haired Detroit Tigers fan, is a character hard to beat, but she gets competition from her highly dysfunctional family. How glad I was that I didn't have to wait 1001 nights to hear all their stories. But The Night Counter is more than a collection of wonderfully zany characters. It's also a cautionary tale about how living in the past can keep you from living in the present and how little families understand each other.
The Night Counter: A Novel Overview

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The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove: A Novel Review

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The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove: A Novel ReviewYes, Bezellia is a "poor little rich girl" but she's not the typical tragic princess you're thinking of. She's no hero, and that's why I like her so darn much. She's as imperfect as any other teenage girl and her world is just as narrow. And that's a good thing. It makes her real, makes her someone I can relate to. Bezellia is spunky but she's powerless to change her world, just as most of us feel. She loves the wrong boy at the wrong time--a white girl cannot be with a black boy in Bezellia's world. The issues of race are dealt with here with a lot of depth. I like that Gilmore doesn't sugar coat the discrimination of the 1960's South. But what I like even more is that Gilmore doesn't make her white characters into heroes, people too good to be real. They are just as flawed as the real people you know. For every good deed that is done, motives are questioned. For every reach across the racial gap, hearts are hurt as often as they are healed. Gilmore doesn't try to leave us with the impression that all is right with race in the South, even now. She keeps it real. She keeps it honest, as bitter as that pill may be to swallow. And she does it all in a rich, beautiful language that is a pleasure to read. There are several passages I read over and over because I loved the poetry in them. It's a great story told with the gravity the subject deserves.The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove: A Novel Overview

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The Bird Sisters: A Novel Review

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The Bird Sisters: A Novel ReviewThe Bird Sisters is Rebecca Rasmussen's debut novel and what a debut it is! I've been looking forward to reading Rebecca's novel for quite a while now and it was well worth the wait. I also have to mention the cover because I think it's unique and beautiful and really fits with the story. I would describe The Bird Sisters as a tall drink of ice tea on a really hot day - deeply satisfying. Rebecca's beautiful writing of this story of two sisters who remain faithful to each other throughout their lives will resonant in your soul long after you turn the final page.
The story opens with Milly and Twiss, two elderly sisters living alone in Spring Green, Wisonsin. They are known as the bird sisters because Twiss tends to injured birds while Milly tends to the people who bring them in by listening to their stories. Their lives are pretty sedate now with Twiss, if she's not tending to an injured bird, wandering their land and Milly wandering the house; both living in their memories of the past. The story itself weaves seamlessly between the past and the present giving us insights into how the sisters end up alone and together for all of their lives.
Milly has always had dreams of a family - she wanted a husband and children. She even had names picked out for them along with a boy she has set her sights on. Milly is a really sweet character, always trying to please people. She loves to bake for everyone as it is something that will make a person smile and be happy. She is also described as being very pretty; a girl who could have her pick of boys if she wanted. There was never a doubt that Milly would marry.
Then there was Twiss, a few years younger than Milly, who I have to say was my favorite character. She is full of spunk and sassiness as a young girl; a classic tom-boy. Twiss spends most of her days out on the golf course with her golf-pro father and she loves it. If she's not doing that then she's off looking for trouble somewhere else.
Then comes the summer of 1947 and everything changes for them. Milly and Twiss are teenagers. Their father has an accident that puts a distinct end to his golf career and he moves himself into the barn, refusing to live in the house anymore. Their parents are at odd ends and the girls try their hardest to bring them back together. Then cousin Bett comes to stay for the summer. She's different from anyone else the girls have known and ultimately she turns their lives upside down before the end of the summer arrives in ways that they never could have expected.
So you, as the reader, know how the story will end with the sisters as spinsters with only each other for company. It is the heart wrenching journey that the author takes you on to get to that point that will tug at your heart and have you fully invested in these woman's lives. As with all of our lives it is the events that take place and the decisions that we make that ultimately shape our lives and bring us to where we are. Rebecca weaves this story in such a captivating way that we are hanging onto every word as we learn the single most devastating event that changes the lives of these girls forever.
Rebecca Rasmussen artfully recreates life in a small town and that of the sisters living on a farm. The novel is full of quirky, unique characters and Milly and Twiss will no doubt find a way into anyone's heart and the way these two sisters give up everything for each other will forever touch you. The writing is absolutely beautiful and I found myself rereading several passages just to experience them again. The Bird Sisters goes onto my keeper shelf. I'm sure I will revisit this beautiful novel and Milly and Twiss again in the future. I would recommend this novel to anyone who loves a good, well written story that will allow you to escape for a while into a different time and place.The Bird Sisters: A Novel Overview

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Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen Publisher: Broadway Review

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Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen Publisher: Broadway ReviewCatherine Grace Cline was six years old, and her sister Martha Ann was four, when their mother drowned. Their daddy is the preacher at the Baptist church in their small Georgia town. When their father is busy, Gloria Jean, a neighbor and old friend of their mother's watches the girls. Catherine Grace loves Gloria Jean because she's the only person who will talk about her mother.
Catherine Grace and Martha Ann head down to the Dairy Queen every Saturday for a Dilly Bar. That's when Catherine Grace does her dreaming and planning. She longs to get out of their small town and head to Atlanta and can't understand why Eddie Franklin is content with his life - working at Dairy Queen in a small town.
When Catherine Grace causes a commotion at a church function, her father punishes her by forbidding her to go to Dairy Queen for the rest of the summer. Gloria Jean comes up with a plan to keep the girls busy and help Catherine Grace earn money for her get-away all at the same time.
After she graduates from high school and turns eighteen, Catherine Grace heads to Atlanta with her savings. She finds a job and a place to live and things are going pretty well for her when she's called home because of a family emergency. She gets some shocking news when she gets home and finds out that she may have been looking for happiness in the wrong place all along.
Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen is the wonderful debut novel of Susan Gregg Gilmore. (It's hard for me to believe this is her first book!) There is so much more to this book than appears on the surface. It's about love and acceptance of friends and family. It's about having a dream and having the guts to follow it. Mostly it's about forgiveness, though.
This book is full of fantastic characters, too. I just loved Catherine Grace and could relate to her restless, curious spirit. She misses her mother so much and feels guilty because she doesn't remember her as well as she thinks she should. She also feels some pressure to be perfect since she's the preacher's daughter. Gloria Jean was a wonderful, loving character who was just a little bit different. She provided so much for the girls including a strong female role model. A lot of the secondary characters were great too. I was really able to get a feel for the small Georgia town they all lived in.
I'll readily admit that I'm partial to books set in the South, but I would have loved Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen no matter where it had been set. I can't wait for Susan Gregg Gilmore's next novel.Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen Publisher: Broadway Overview

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