"Maple Melodies" by B. R. Goodwin

I did it!  I read all four Sugartree books by B. R. Goodwin this year during the seasons in which they are set :-)

I would rank them thus, from favorite to least-favorite:

1. Maple Melodies

2. Major Fireworks

3. Southern Snow

4. Honeysuckle Breeze

Yup, I liked this one best.  It had fun You've Got Mail (1998) overtones, it had none of the things that kind of drive me nuts in romance books (such as miscommunication -- it had a deliberate withholding of information, but that is different), and it somehow felt like a faster read than the other three.  Maybe because it doesn't flip back and forth between past and present the way the other three did, which was sometimes disorienting and made the books easier to put down and go do something else.

In Maple Melodies, the youngest Remillard sibling, Ginny (who wants to be called Virginia now because she is not a kid anymore, okay?) finally admits to herself that her longtime crush on Ryan, her older sisters' best friend, is more than a crush.  And he is spooked by that, for reasons of his own.  

There's a lot of discussion of music in this one, as you might expect from the title.  And hijinks and shenanigans and a lot of PDA and so on. 

Random: I really like that all the book titles involve the middle name of whichever Remillard sibling it's about.  That was a nice touch.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-16 for occasional vague and mild innuendo about what various married couples want to do together, lots of attraction between a man and a woman, many instances of dialog between friends being pretty open about their attraction to other people, and several not-extremely-detailed kissing scenes. No smut, but more smoochy content than I would hand to a young teen. No cussing or violence.

"Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes" by Robert Louis Stevenson

Every year for the past... while... I've been participating in the "Victober" reading challenge that goes around Bookstagram every year.  The idea is to read some Victorian literature during October.  This year, I reread Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, my favorite novel ever, kind of on a whim.  But I also decided that I wanted to read some more Robert Louis Stevenson because I really love the way he writes, but it's been a long time since I tried one of his books I hadn't read already.

Fellow bookstagrammer Andy @places_and_books recommended this book to me, I found a cool copy on AbeBooks that arrived in a timely fashion, and off I went!

Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes is exactly what it sounds like -- Robert Louis Stevenson buys a donkey to carry his homemade sleeping bag and other supplies and walks through a part of France known as the Cévennes for a couple of weeks in late September and early October.  And then he wrote a really funny little travelogue about it.  

The introduction to my copy says that this was his first really big literary success, which is kind of surprising because I would expect readers back then to have picked it up because it was by Stevenson, like I did, but no!  They read it because it sounded interesting all by itself.

And it really is a fun little real-life adventure.  He gets lost, he has to make camp in the dark, he encounters all sorts of quirky local characters, he stays at a monastery for a while, and so on.  All told with light and winsome humor that made me chuckle aloud more than once.  

I definitely recommend this illustrated edition because it's a nice size, about 8"x11", and is filled with photos and paintings from the area he describes, PLUS Stevenson's own sketches that he made during the journey!  I'm so glad an internet friend I've never met who lives all the way over in Britain recommended this to me, because I might never have read it otherwise, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Particularly Good Bits:

M. Élie Berthet has made him the hero of a novel, which I have read, and do not wish to read again (p. 57).

We speak of hardships, but the true hardship is to be a dull fool, and permitted to mismanage life in our own dull and foolish manner (p. 81).

And yet even while I was exulting in my solitude I became aware of a strange lack.  I wished a companion to lie near me in the starlight, silent and not moving, but ever within touch.  For there is a fellowship more quiet even than solitude, and which, rightly understood, is solitude made perfect.  And to live out of doors with the woman a man loves is of all lives the most complete and free (p. 93).

And if we find but one to whom we can speak out of our heart freely, with whom we can walk in love and simplicity without dissimulation, we have no ground of quarrel with the world or God (p. 115).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for scenes at the beginning where Stevenson can't figure out how to get his new donkey to move unless he hits her.  He regrets this, and anyone who's had to deal with a donkey will understand it, but it might worry some younger readers.

This has been my tenth book read and reviewed for my fifth Classics Club list.

"George Washington: The Crossing" by Jack E. Levin

Tiny, but insightful!

This is not exactly a picture book (I found it in the adult non-fiction at my local library), but it's full of pictures.  Maps, paintings, woodcuts, all kinds of artwork all illustrating how and why George Washington ended up leading troops across the Delaware River on Christmas night, and why it worked.  The art is made up of historical pieces depicting the people, places, and events that made up this daring military coup.

The artwork is paired with clear and concise explanations of the Revolutionary War leading up to this moment, the different people involved, and how the raid affected the whole war.  If you're looking for a quick non-fiction read about the American Revolution, this would be a good choice.  Or if you've always wondered why this one event got so famous, it will help you with that too.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  Good, clean, any-age-appropriate history lesson.

This has been my 11th book about the American Revolution that I've read this year for my #RevolutionaryWarReads challenge!  When I got it from the library, I didn't think I would count it because it's so short, but I actually learned several things from it, so I'm counting it after all.

Top Ten Tuesday: In a Word

This week, our Top Ten Tuesday prompt from That Artsy Reader Girl is: One-Word Reviews for the Last Ten Books I Read.  Thought-provoking and fairly quick -- I like it.  Here we go, in order from most-recently finished on backward through time:

Maple Melodies by B. R. Goodwin = quirky

Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes by Robert Louis Stevenson = winsome

George Washington: The Crossing by Jack E. Levin = succinct

The Dream Diviner by Charity Bishop = illuminating

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte = beloved

Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing by Lisa R. Howeler = bright

Liberty's Children: Stories of Eleven Revolutionary War Children by Scotti Cohn = educational

Murder at Somerset House by Andrea Penrose = satisfying

The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie = sprightly

Scars of the Revolution by Megan Soja = uplifting

Have you read any of these?  Would you agree with my assessments?

"The Dream Diviner" by Charity Bishop

It's been a while since I read a Charity Bishop book, mainly because her last few books have been horror-ish fantasy and that is not my jam.  So I jumped at the chance to read an ARC of her new historical fiction book, because I love her historical fiction.

The Dream Diviner does not disappoint.  It's the first in a new Biblical fiction series called The Claudia Chronicles that will fictionally explore the life of Claudia Procula, wife of Pontius Pilate.  Charity Bishop wrote a book about this same historical figure ten years ago, but realized she had a lot more to say about Claudia and wanted to delve more deeply into the world she inhabited.  Well, that's great news for all of us who enjoy Biblical fiction, because it means we have lots of good stuff coming our way, beginning with this book!

In this fictional imagining of what her life could have been like, Claudia is the illegitimate daughter of Roman Emperor Tiberius's wife.  Not his daughter, but his wife's daughter.  Tiberius likes her anyway, and his heir Drusus loves her like a full sister, so Claudia lives at the palace.  Drusus's wife Livilla hates Claudia, mostly because Livilla's son Gemellus loves Claudia more.  Claudia is kind, sensible, and warm-hearted, so it's not hard to see why her little nephew loves her... or why the resourceful and ambitious soldier Lucius Pilate grows to love her too.

Claudia often has disturbing dreams that obviously contain meanings about future events, but she can never decipher them in time to make the dreams useful.  She seeks out wise men and teachers of many faiths in hopes that they will help her interpret these dreams.  When she listens to a Jewish teacher, Avram, she realizes he could be the one to help her.  While seeking his guidance for interpreting her dreams, she comes to believe that the God he worships, Adonai, is the one true God.  She stops worshiping all the Roman gods she grew up with, but her decision comes at great cost.

Bishop excels at writing about palace intrigue and politics in a way that humanizes them and keeps me invested, and she uses that ability to great effect here.  I never got lost in who was conniving against whom, or which person was planning to trick which other person.  That's not always the case for me and books that involve a lot of that, so I think it's a testament to Bishop's writing that I remain engaged and unconfused.

Particularly Good Bits:

"If Adonai gave you these dreams, it is to call you to him, not to make you a seer for Rome.  He is a jealous God.  He will not share you with idols of stone."

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for mentions of illegitimate children and extramarital affairs, plus violence and a scene of flogging as punishment.  No cussing and no smut.

I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher, but was not asked or required to review it.  All opinions are my own.

Top Ten Tuesday: The Monster Mash

For Top Ten Tuesday this week, That Artsy Reader Girl has given us a Halloween freebie.  I'm choosing to share my Top Ten Favorite Monster Books.  By which I mean, books that have monsters in them.

If the song I used for a title for this post is getting stuck in your head, you can listen to a really fun version right here on YouTube to see if that will help.

I don't read much horror.  At all.  I don't do well with modern horror, as my imagination is just too vivid.  I'm haunted by memories of the three or four modern horror movies I foolishly watched while in college.  The one exception tends to be vampires --  I understand how to defeat vampires, so they don't terrify me, generally.  (This may come from being a firm fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer [1997-2003] and its spin-off Angel [1999-2004].)  You'll notice that there are multiple books involving vampires on this list, heh.

All those links lead to my reviews here on this blog, if you are curious about them.  The movie-style ratings are how I rated them when I wrote those reviews, but I haven't always done ratings, so one of these doesn't have one. 

1. Break the Beast by Allison Tebo (PG-13) -- Beowulf retelling in which Grendel gets a chance to learn how to be something other than a monster

2. Dracula by Bram Stoker (PG-13) -- evil, as personified by a vampire, cannot defeat humans who trust in God

3. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (PG-13) -- an orphan is raised by ghosts and a vampire and various monsters

4. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (PG) -- wizards and witches and sentient scarecrows and fire demons all are no match for the power of kindness and good sense

5. Crack the Stone by Emily Golus (PG-13) -- retelling of Les Miserables in which Jean Valjean is a goblin

6. From the Dust Returned by Ray Bradbury -- an undead family protects a human boy, who writes down their life stories as he grows up

7. Coraline by Neil Gaiman (PG-10) -- a girl stumbles into a nightmare parallel universe trying to usurp reality

8. Night of Wonders by Charity Bishop (PG-13) -- a love story set in India with creepy ghosts who have backwards feet

9. The Goblin and the Dancer by Allison Tebo (PG) -- "Steadfast Tin Soldier" retelling where the villain/goblin isn't evil

10. The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald (PG) -- a princess and a commoner become friends and have some adventures which tangentially involve goblins 

Have you read any of these?  Are you also a horror lightweight?  Did you do a TTT post this week?  If so, what was it about?  Do share!

"Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing" by Lisa R. Howeler

Mysteries are my favorite genre, but I'm not usually a fan of books labeled "cozy mysteries."  I've tried a few over the years, and they tend to be cutesy in a way that grates on me.  So I have been hesitant to read the Gladwynn Grant books because they do have that Cozy Mystery label.

However.

I follow author Lisa R. Howeler's blog, Boondock Ramblings, as well as her Instagram, and she's really fun.  We're into a lot of the same kinds of movies and books.  And she tends to describe this series as having a vintage feel, which absolutely attracts me.  Plus, my 14-yr-old is really into mysteries right now and has been reading her way through all the teen-appropriate mysteries I've got.  (Don't think she's ready for hardboiled detective fiction yet.)  I knew the Gladwynn Grant books are Christian fiction and have a reputation for being clean, so I thought, I will read this and see if my daughter will like it.

I think she'll like it, but also... I liked it!  

This book has none of the twee things I associate with cozy mysteries.  Oh, there's a small town, and there are cats.  It's also cozy in that there are no gory murders.  But the small town feels like a real place, not a weird fictional town where everyone dresses up like Santa on December 1 to go to the coffee shop or competes to see who can pile the most pumpkins on their porch, etc.  And, since I don't enjoy reading about gore, I appreciated its absence here.  

This really did feel like it could have been written in the 1940s, like a Nancy Drew book starring an adult.

Gladwynn Grant has just moved in with her grandma because she just lost her job and broke up with her boyfriend, and she needed a fresh start.  So she gets a job as a reporter for the local newspaper in her grandma's small town and starts over.  The first thing she reports on is a near-fatal car wreck, which leads her to meet an attractive fireman AND an attractive state trooper.  And leads her to start asking questions about some strange, seemingly unrelated occurrences elsewhere in town.  (There's also an attractive single pastor at her grandma's church.  I laughed aloud at one point during the book where Gladwynn points out what a high percentage of the small town's single men are hot.)

I really liked that Gladwynn did not try to keep information she uncovered as secret from law enforcement, but consistently did her best to leave the real detective work to detectives.  And she didn't do dumb things like fail to tell anyone where she was going before marching straight into obvious danger.  Howeler neatly sidestepped a lot of those female-detective tropes and traps.

I liked this book so much, I ordered the next two books as soon as I finished reading this one, and they landed on my doorstep last night :-)

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-10 for some mentions in dialog about people having extramarital affairs, plus some attempted murders.  No cussing or smut or on-page violence.