If It's a BOOK, Let's Have It

 Very intriguing non fiction memoir. Part 1 is the story of Sandra and her dysfunctional family being raised in Chicago.  Her father is emotionally and verbally abusive to the children and their mother.  He is wealthy, but not happy.   A housekeeper is hired and she stays with them for the next 30 years.  She never gives any personal information and closes up when questions are asked about her former life, but she is warm and helpful and supportive of the six children.  All the family adore her. Finally, after many years, the wife has the courage to divorce her husband and she and Lou (the housekeeper) move together to a small town home where they live in peace and harmony.   Part 2 tells the story of the Housekeeper's secret.  On her death bed, she asks Sandra to write her story.  However, Sandy has no information about Lou and her background.  Through a series of interesting coincidences, she learns about Lou and her story.  Which...

  DELIGHTFUL!  Favorite book of the summer.   CeCelia's mentally ill mother either takes her own life or is accidentally hit by a truck one day in the small town in Ohio where they live.  CeeCee's distracted, absent, cheating husband sends CeeCee to Savannah to live with a great aunt.   12 year old CeeCee is angry, upset, and hateful to her father for doing that to her.  But, in Savannah, she is surrounded by older women who love her and help her to overcome her anxieties and to see herself as a wonderful young lady.   The characters are rich and unique and hilarious and generous and colorful.  There are some humorous incidents and some sad incidents relating to the Blacks in the story.  Just before school starts, she meets a girl that will become her friend, which has not happened before because of her mother's mental illness.   So, in the end, CeeCee realizes that when her father told her she would be glad he did that for her, she agre...

  Best Book of the summer.  Bonnie Rawson recommended this book to me.  It was available while I as waiting for other books, so even tho it didn't sound too interesting, I read it. And, I LOVED it.  Maybe it's because my neighbor, Fred Calder, used to keep bees.  Maybe it's because I have always found bees fascinating, but knew little about them.  And, this book teaches A LOT about them and the art of beekeeping. But, it's more than that.  It's a story about a young girl whose parents get divorced.  She and her brother move with their mother from Vermont to California to live with her grandparents.   There begins a very difficult life for Meredith over the next 12 years or so.  Her mother stays in her bedroom day after day as the divorce totally sent her into a deep depression.  Plus, I'm sure she has some very deep emotional trauma because her own father beat her - OFTEN as a child growing up.  The mother is totally incapable ...

 I have no idea where I heard about this book or if a friend recommended it. It's a disaster of a book.  I felt rotten and disgusted after I finished reading it.  No, it's not explicit or sexual.  BUT, until the end of the book (the last three chapters or so, the reader has NO IDEA that 3 of the four main characters were all murderers.) Billed as a psychological murder, I was just happily going along wondering who murdered the psychiatrist and what happened to her body.  At the end, I was disgusted and I felt tricked and deceived. The story opens as a young couple, married for six months, are looking to buy a home.  They get stuck out in the woods, with no cell service, and are forced to spend a couple of nights in the creepy home where a psychiatrist lived and who disappeared but was never found.  They seem like a normal couple and they seem to love each other. As the story progresses, some of their character flaws emerge, but it is not until at the f...

 Recommended by Bonnie Rawson.  This is the story of two sisters who have not spoken since their parents' funeral ten years ago.  The parents were killed by a drunk driver who was Olivia's best friend thru out high school.  After the accident, Olivia's sister reaches out to Josh to say she has forgiven him, and this infuriates Olivia.  So, this back packing trip along the shores of Lake Michigan is supposed to help them talk things out and heal the wounds.  Little does Olivia suspect that Josh has actually asked Melanie to marry him.  The trip could not have been more disastrous; floods, a bear in the camp, falling in the river, arguments, and more.  A very mysterious man appears and helps them win their most dire and trying circumstances (a reference to Christ.)  I give it about 3 stars.  It's so painful to read about fractured families.  Oh, how I pray that never happens in our family.

  Morgan is in jail for an accident she did not commit.  Her boyfriend was driving drunk and ran into a girl, who became paralyzed for life.  The boyfriend - SOME boyfriend - ran away explaining he had a scholarship to law school and can't get in trouble.   One day two women came to get Morgan out of jail.  She has to restore a very old painting before the art gallery opens.  While restoring the painting, Morgan is surprised at some of the gruesome details on the canvas.  She became enamored with finding out about the artist who drew the wall painting for a post office in a small town in North Carolina. The story is told in two time frames; one of Anna Dale - the artist who painted the original mural and Morgan Wallace - the young girl trying to get it restored.   It's a mystery; well-written, good characters, engaging story.  I sort of guessed the ending before I found out the entire details.  It's a fairy tale story for sure, but I giv...