While a simple and straight forward read, it almost seemed like this should have been a book for children. It is the story of a young Nigerian boy who learns the important lessons of life as he ignores the advice of adults and falls in with other students who lead him astray.

This was an interesting book about 4 physicians who share a medical practice. Their practice also serves a nearby boarding school. The author does a good job of carefully overlapping the action between the school and the doctor’s personal lives. It’s a good and different read.

I could not wait for this book to be over. It is an autobiographical novel about the author’s experience growing up gay into young adulthood. The trouble is that it reads like a list of her sexual exploits beginning when she was 9 years old. And what little story there is revolves entirely around the fat that she is gay, as if that is the determining factor in every event that happens.

This might very well be the best book I read all summer. It combines two of the genres that I love, fantasy and horror. I am a Stephen King fan, and as I read this, I could hear him commenting “Well done”. A 9-year-old boy who is socially isolated becomes a central part of a series of horrific events, during which he is befriended by an 11-year-old girl who lives near him. But she and her family seem to understand what is happening and provide him with protection. And on top of all this wonderful action, the writer provides the perfect narrative with just the right amount of emotion and description. If you like these two genres, you’ve got to try this!

While I am not always a fan of his stories set in Scotland, I did enjoy this one. Isabel sets out to get a present for her husband for Valentine’s Day but in the process becomes entangled in a situation which looks like she will either need to renege on a promise or fail to help someone who is truly in need. But leave it to the philosopher in her to work out the right answer.

Now that I’m done, I can say it; What the heck was this? A person who was an editor and writer once told me that readers have to be able to like, empathize, or at least understand a character in order to be able to enjoy a book. In this book NONE of the characters are likeable, and what’s more they are all verbally abusive to one another; mother to child, child to father, sister to sister. Set in India, the mother keeps her teenage daughters locked in their rooms for most of their lives, supposedly to keep them safe, but then says things to them like “Your days are numbered” and “I wish you were dead”. And the book starts off with one of the daughters being approached by a man in town, and there is this whole back and forth between the two where he goes after her, then she goes after him, then he drives her home and……nothing. Nothing more is said about the relationship or what happened. I could not wait for this book to be done and then felt like I needed to wash.

It is really hard to say much about the plot of this book without giving a lot away, so let me just say that a woman goes into an Ikea in Oregon and something terrible le happens. And there is something about this woman’s situation that make it even worse. Now what I can tell you is that it is an amazing book! The author does a wonderful job of taking you thought the array of emotions the central character experiences. And you will not be ablet to put it down.

I would say that the central part of this book is solid and enjoyable, but some of the peripheral stuff I could do without, including names of many people who have little or nothing to do with the story. And maybe it is just me, but I found the ridiculousness of the names, virtually all of them, to detract from the serious central plot. There is a god story in here, but you just have to wait for it to rise to the top.

This is a most touching story of a grandfather and his relationship with his son and grandson as he devolves into Alzheimer’s. We experience his thoughts as he begins to live inside the past as the present slips away. It is beautiful and sad and told from the grandfather’s point of view. Everyone should read this.

Guess who Mary Russell marries? Go on, guess! Nope, she marries Sherlock Holmes! And what a wonderful job this author does telling this tale. She crafts, for us, the background story of Mary, while keeping the personality of Holmes aligned during what would be an unlikely event for him. What a wonderful read!