Finished AND THE MOUNTAINS ECHOED

Have you ever been invited to something that you would not normally, because of skin color, religion, era, culture, or sex have been invited to?  That is how special and privileged being invited to the culture and emotions within this book is.  There are only a few authors who have given me this: Achebe, Tan, Hosseini, Auel, the Gears come to mind.  This has been a bittersweet sojourn in a foreign (to me) world for which I will be ever grateful and from which I will be ever changed.


 
I am now returning to By Blood We Live, short stories by contempory authors about vampires.  I am reading this in sections, simply because too many vampire stories, all with a certain basic sameness, puts me on overload.

Finished LIGHTER THAN AIR

I can't stress enough how much I love Henry Melton's books.  Inventive, suspenseful, teen heroes worthy of the name, smart, and extremely readable.  I stayed up late to finish this, and I've ordered six more of his books.

I have now started Khaled Hosseini's And the Mountains Echoed, my third book by this author.  Each time I've started one, I've looked at the size of the print and size of the book and have sighed, "Do I really want to start something this prodigious now?"  But he charms me right away with wonderful characters, a story, an environment.  In this, it was a story one of the characters told his children--beautiful, and I am hooked.

Finished THE DAWN COUNTRY

These books just keep getting better.  I had trouble putting this one down.  You put children in danger and you have me hooked.  Ground has been laid for the next book.  People of different tribes have bonded by working and surviving together.  A few enemies are now friends.  How can they possible go to war with each other again?

I have now started Lighter Than Air by Henry Melton, the author I met at a fan convention here in Dallas, where he lives.  This will will be the fifth book I have read by him, and I haven't read a bad one.  Jon is attracted to his neighbor's experiments with a new material that is the same weight as air.  George has a number of ideas for how to use it.  Meanwhile Jon's sister is working on something on his mother's antiquated dial-up computer.  Her mother doesn't want her working on it since she has already proven a lack of discretion.  George has told Jon he can work for him, but he must get his mother to sign off on his working with dangerous materials, which he knows his mom will never agree to.

Finished I'VE GOT YOU UNDER MY SKIN

As good as all other books I have read by this author, I again had to stay up until I had finished it.  Exciting.  But, I think another reason I really like Mary Higgins Clark is her sense of justice.  I can count on her not making me angry at the end.

I have now started The Dawn Country, the second book in the People of the Longhouse series.  This series is fictional. giving a suggestion of how the Iroquois of the Finger Lakes region of central New York to western New England in about 1400 a.d. may have made the decision to leave their violent ways and and form the five nations confederacy the Iroquis are known for.

Finished A SONG IN THE DARK

I loved this book.  Though I admit that my favorite book in the world is the one I am reading now (or just finished reading), I think this one was the best one yet.  It came closer than any other book I remember in this series as being really suspenseful.  I could not put it down.  Loved the surprise at the end.

I have now started I've Got You Under My Skin, by Mary Higgins Clark.  Timmy's father is shot and killed while his 3-year-old son is right there watching.  As the murderer leaves, he says, "Tell your mother, she is next.  Then it will be your turn."  He has not been caught.  Now, five years later, his mother is embarking on producing a new unsolved crimes television show.

Finished NEMESIS

Once again red herrings abound and nearly everyone could be a suspect.  I narrowed it down as Miss Marple did, but I had the wrong murderer.  I did know where the body was, but I missed the motivation of other red herrings entirely.  I do love Agatha Christie.

I have now started Song in the Dark by P. N. Elrod.  This is #11 in her Vampire Files.  Jack Flemming was an investigative reporter before he became a vampire.  Now he owns a nightclub in 1938 Chicago and, though he is not a gangster, he is friends with them.  Most tend to respect him since he has proven time and time again that he is unkillable.  But now he has taken over one of his friend's operation while Gordy is recuperating from the effect of a foiled hit.  And the rest of gangland does not like him or the way he is doing the job...  Writen in the noir style of the time period.

Finished BLOOD CANTICLE

The fantasy worlds Anne Rice creates are lush, beautiful, relaxing and disturbing.  I love all her books.  In this, another member is added to Lestat's family and we learn more about the Taltos.

I am now reading Agatha Christie's Nemesis.  In the first chapter, Miss Marple's reverie attempting to remember names and circumstances in which she had known a familiar name she reads in the obituaries, had me laughing.  Already very entertaining.