Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah

On their father's deathbed, Meredith and Nina's father extract a promise from them that they will get the full fairy tell their mother always told them when they were children. Their mother, Anya, has been distant their entire life and appeared to not love them. After his death, Nina is able to get Anya to start telling the fairy tale only its not a fairy tale at all, but the story of her life in Stalin's Leningrad before she met and married their father. It is a story of love and loss, surviving in the harshest of circumstances, and the things we are forced to do and how they stay with us and influence the rest of our lives.

This book reminded me of why I love historical fiction. I loved this book. Great story, great characters. I hope she writes another historical fiction because out of all her books I have read, this is by far the absolute best.

5 stars

Im Dreaming of a Black Christmas by Lewis Black

Let me start by saying I love Lewis Black. Not many people can make me laugh as hard as he does. However, this book is just too far. I get it, he is Jewish and doesn't celebrate Christmas. I was hoping for a funny book where he makes fun of the holiday and all of the fuss and what I ended up with was him continually whining over the fact that he is 61, not married and doesn't have kids, how the marriage wagon passed him by, and about those he has lost in his life. Dwelling on those I have lost in my life is the reason I am depressed from November to January, I don't need to read about someone else's misery. When he isn't going on about that, he is going on about what a glutton he is, how he doesn't give enough to charity, and his addiction to clothes. I am really glad this was a free download and I didn't pay for it. The only reason it got 2 stars is because the final chapter about his USO Tour was wonderful.

2 stars

Top Ten Books of 2010

1. The Long Walk by Stephen King

2. The Machiavelli Covenant by Allan Folsom

3. The Blood Detective by Dan Waddell

4. The House at Midnight by Lucie Whitehouse

5. I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Wells

6. Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer

7. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

8. American Gods by Neil Gaiman

9. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

10. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Best Debut - I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Wells

Best Series - John Wayne Cleaver series by Dan Wells

Best Classic - The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Best Book to Lose Yourself In - The Machiavelli Covenant by Allan Folsom

Best Nonfiction - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Biggest Disappointment - The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larson

Best Suspense Book - The House at Midnight by Lucie Whitehouse

Best Historical Fiction - Claude and Camille by Stephanie Cowell

Best Vacation Book - A Proper Pursuit by Lynn Austin

Magic Hour by Kristin Hannah

Deep in the Pacific Northwest lies the Olympic National Forest– nearly one million acres of impenetrable darkness and impossible beauty. Even in this modern age, much of it remains undiscovered and uncharted. From the heart of this old forest, a six-year-old girl appears. Speechless and alone, she can give no clue as to her identity, no hint of her past. . . . Until recently, Dr. Julia Cates was one of the preeminent child psychiatrists in the country, but a scandal shattered her confidence, ruined her career, and made her a media target. When she gets a desperate call from her estranged sister, Ellie, a police chief in their small western Washington hometown, she jumps at the chance to escape. In Rain Valley, nothing much ever happens–until a girl emerges from the deep woods and walks into town. She is a victim unlike any Julia has ever seen: a child locked in a world of unimaginable fear and isolation. When word spreads of the “wild child” and the infamous doctor who is treating her, the media descend on Julia and once again her competence is challenged. State and federal authorities want to lock the girl away in an institution until an identification can be made. But to Julia, who has come to doubt her own ability, nothing is more important than saving the girl she now calls Alice. To heal this child, Julia will have to understand that she cannot work alone and must look to others–the people in the town she left long ago, the sister she barely knows, and Dr. Max Cerrasin, a handsome, private man with secrets of his own. Then a shocking revelation forces Julia to risk everything to discover the truth about Alice. The ordeal that follows will test the limits of Julia’s faith, forgiveness, and love, as she struggles to ascertain where Alice ultimately belongs. In her most ambitious novel to date, Kristin Hannah delivers an incandescent story about the resilience of the human spirit, the triumph of hope, and the mysterious places in the heart where love lies waiting.

Took me an incredibly long time to read even though it's not that long. I keep not being impressed by her books but I keep reading them. The whole interaction with Alice and trying to get her to speak kept reminding me of the old Tarzan movies my dad made me watch. I think that was the reason I had such a hard time finishing it.

3 stars

Favorite by Karen McQuestion

On my eleventh birthday, my mother disappeared. That morning my mom drove Jason and me to school. When we arrived, she helped me carry in a large Tupperware container full of cupcakes, made small talk with my teacher, told me to have a good day and kissed me good-bye. I never saw her again. Five years have passed since Angie Favorite’s mother, Laura, disappeared without a trace, and Angie still hasn’t recovered. Sure, things look normal on the surface—she goes to school, works her summer job, and argues with her older brother Jason—but she can’t shake the feeling that Laura didn’t leave by choice. Angie’s dad does the best he can, but his work as a musician keeps him on the road and away from home, where it’s up to Angie’s grandmother to keep an eye on the kids. She can’t be with them all the time, though, and she can’t help Angie when she is snatched from a mall parking lot by Scott Bittner. The girl narrowly escapes, and Bittner is arrested, but he takes his life in jail before he can offer an explanation for his crime. When his mother contacts Angie, begging forgiveness on her son’s behalf, the girl agrees to meet with her in hopes of finding answers to the seemingly random attack. But when she arrives at the massive Bittner estate, she is overcome by an unshakable sense of foreboding… Part thriller, part coming-of-age tale, Favorite is an engrossing young adult novel in which nothing—and no one—is as it seems.



Very predictable, but something about it kept me reading even when I knew everything that was going to happen. Good YA book, but I wouldn't rave about it to others.



2 stars

The Grove by John Rector

Dexter McCoy wakes up after a blackout with no recollection of what happened the night before. He finds out from the town sheriff that he got into an argument with his estranged with the night before and threatened to kill her. Later that day when he goes out into his grove, he finds the dead body of a teenage girl from town. For some reason he decides to leave the body there and try to find out what happened to her. Then the dead girl starts showing up and speaking to him herself.

This was so bizarre. I am not even sure what the whole point was. Did Dexter do it? Do you really care? It is a fast read, only took me a couple of hours, but it is just so completely out there I have already forgotten most of the plot.

2 stars

Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah

In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain. Then, to her amazement, the “coolest girl in the world” moves in across the street and wants to be her friend. Tully Hart seems to have it all---beauty, brains, ambition. On the surface they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn. Tully, steeped in glamour and mystery, but with a secret that is destroying her. They make a pact to be best friends forever; by summer’s end they’ve become TullyandKate. Inseparable...
So begins Kristin Hannah’s magnificent new novel. Spanning more than three decades and playing out across the ever-changing face of the Pacific Northwest, Firefly Lane is the poignant, powerful story of two women and the friendship that becomes the bulkhead of their lives. From the beginning, Tully is desperate to prove her worth to the world. Abandoned by her mother at an early age, she longs to be loved unconditionally. In the glittering, big-hair era of the eighties, she looks to men to fill the void in her soul. But in the buttoned-down nineties, it is television news that captivates her. She will follow her own blind ambition to New York and around the globe, finding fame and success . . . and loneliness. Kate knows early on that her life will be nothing special. Throughout college, she pretends to be driven by a need for success, but all she really wants is to fall in love and have children and live an ordinary life. In her own quiet way, Kate is as driven as Tully. What she doesn’t know is how being a wife and mother will change her . . . how she’ll lose sight of who she once was, and what she once wanted. And how much she’ll envy her famous best friend. . . . For thirty years, Tully and Kate buoy each other through life, weathering the storms of friendship---jealousy, anger, hurt, resentment. They think they’ve survived it all until a single act of betrayal tears them apart . . . and puts their courage and friendship to the ultimate test.
Firefly Lane is for anyone who ever drank Boone’s Farm apple wine while listening to Abba or Fleetwood Mac. More than a coming-of-age novel, it’s the story of a generation of women who were both blessed and cursed by choices. It’s about promises and secrets and betrayals. And ultimately, about the one person who really, truly knows you---and knows what has the power to hurt you . . . and heal you. Firefly Lane is a story you’ll never forget . . . one you’ll want to pass on to your best friend.

OK, so I totally didn't write that summary. I read this over a week ago and don't really remember much of the plot. This was my first book by Hannah and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I was on vacation and needed something easy to read and this was perfect. The characters are kind of one dimensional and the ending was a bit contrived, but it was a good read none the less.

4 stars