"A Name to Remember" by Hannah Hood Lucero

This is my first Hannah Hood Lucero book, but it definitely will not be my last!  Wow.  I get the hype now, fam.

Compelling and befriend-able characters?

Check.

Alluring North Carolina small town setting?

Check.

Horses?

Check.

High, yet believable, stakes?

Check.

Suspenseful climax?

Check.

Made me cry multiple times for happy and poignant reasons both?

Check.

Made me laugh aloud?

Check.

Yup, I'm a fan :-D

(I've actually met Hannah, and she is a whimsically maniacal delight to hang out with, so I was already a fan of her as a person before this, but now I am a fan of her writing as well...)

High school senior Isobel Lee gets recognized everywhere she goes, but not for a happy or fun reason: her Army medic dad recently died in combat overseas, and strangers and acquaintances alike all want to either thank her for her family's sacrifice or tell her all the reasons they disagree with American military operations like the one that killed her dad.

Isobel and her mom move in with her grandmother in a small North Carolina town.  Gran owns horses and is a sass-master extraordinaire, but also sweet and kind and warm and everything a grandma should be.  

Her first day at her new high school, Isobel makes friends with Hank Olsen, though she doesn't realize who he is when she befriends him.

Hank Olsen is also famous in their small town, but not for good reasons either.  His dad went to prison for murder and his mom is a druggie, and Hank is considered to be trailer trash just like his parents.  But that's not what Isobel doesn't realize about him -- she doesn't realize at first that he is the sweet boy she got an instant crush on five years earlier, when she and her parents were visiting Gran one summer.

Isobel and Hank both feel sparkage toward each other, but they first build a solid friendship before moving on to holding hands and kissing and inviting all the warm fuzzies of young love into their lives.  They both have some emotional issues to grapple with, and some real-world problems as well.

This small NC town is plagued with fires every winter, and the fires all seem linked to Hank somehow.  Most of the town suspects he's a firebug, and when new fires break out, soon there are people calling for his arrest or banishment or both.

Man, this book was so good!  I inhaled it in just a few days, and now I want to read Lucero's book Cathey's Creek Road, which is also YA and also set in the same basic area.  In fact, I ordered a copy as soon as I finished A Name to Remember, so it should be hitting my doorstep pretty soon!

One quick theological note: there's definitely some decision-based theology in this book, which some of my readers will want to be aware of.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for violence, portrayal of mental illness in teens (including self-harm and violence toward others), mentions of military violence and PTSD, and romantic yearning between teens that acknowledges temptation/desire to do more than kiss.  No cussing; no smut; no gory violence.

"The Summer of Yes" by Courtney Walsh

While I wouldn't really call this "Christian Fiction" (though it is marketed as such), it's certainly clean and uplifting.  Characters do vaguely mention the Bible and praying a couple of times.  But for it to be Christian Fiction, I would want to see a lot more active faith on the part of the characters, and that should somehow be involved in their character arcs.

However, it's a really fun book the way it is. Kelsey is a wannabe book editor working as an assistant at a big NYC publisher, and getting hit by a car one morning completely changes her life.  Not because she is injured -- she's basically fine -- but because she briefly shares a hospital room with Georgina, a middle-aged Girl Boss who just wants to be left alone to die of kidney failure in peace.  But Kelsey is bad at accepting "no" for an answer, and a buddy comedy ensues.  The kind where the main characters don't like each other very well (think Lethal Weapon, with Danny Glover as Georgina and Mel Gibson as Kelsey) but end up bonding over a lot of mishaps that the audience finds very funny.  

Also, there's a romance, because Georgina's estranged son is hot, and Kelsey is cute, and this is a cute summer book.  But the main focus is the reluctant friendship between Kelsey and Georgina. 

I didn't love this book, but I enjoyed it a lot and will be hanging onto my copy.

Particularly Good Bits:

My life rolls out in front of me like an art film that nobody understands (p. 14).

Independent doesn't have to mean alone, right? (p. 34).

She's practically bouncing up and down, wearing her excitement like a fancy new party dress (p. 85).

But then it occurs to me that where one lives so often determines how one lives (p. 157).

"If you learn nothing else from my life, learn this.  Don't wait to love the people you love" (p. 363).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for discussions of dying, kidney dialysis, the car accident and resulting injuries, etc.  No cussing or smut or violence.

"The Ark" by Margot Benary-Isbert

I read The Ark several times as a teen -- our rural North Carolina library had it and the sequel, Rowan Farm.  I still remember they were both bound in that weird orange hardcover binding that library books so often got rebound into when their original covers wore out.

I actually tried to find this book again every now and then as an adult, because I remembered loving it.  But I didn't remember the author's name, or the name of the sequel.  Do you know how hopeless it is to search the internet for a book called The Ark that is NOT about Noah???  Pretty hopeless.

And then one day, a few months ago, a new acquaintance casually mentioned that Purple House Press had released this book.  I went tingly with hope.  Was this the same book called The Ark that I remembered???  I investigated.  It certainly sounded like the same book!  So, I ordered it, and the sequel.  And then, over the past few weeks, I read The Ark aloud to my kids.  And it is definitely the same book I remember from thirtyish years ago!!!

The Ark is about a mother and her four children in postwar Germany of the late 1940s.  They are refugees from Pomerania (a region of Germany next to Poland) living in West Germany and waiting for their father to be released from a Russian prisoner-of-war camp in Siberia.  Matthias and Margret, the oldest siblings, find work at a farm outside the town where they have been relocated.  They gradually fix up an old train car on the farm for the whole family to live in.  Meanwhile, their mother takes in sewing to help support the family, and younger siblings Andrea and Joey attend school and make friends and have adventures.

This is an amazingly heartwarming and hope-filled book, especially considering it is based on the author's own experiences after WWII.  As soon as I finished reading this book aloud, my kids insisted I begin reading the sequel right away instead of reading something else in between.

Particularly Good Bits:

"Well, what about you, Margret?" Mother asked, taking her daughter's hands in hers.  As she did so, she felt how hard and rough those delicate child's hands had become.  But this did not trouble her; she knew that calloused hands are good for getting a firm grip on life" (p. 163).

The human beings, too, withdrew within the house and within the shell of their own selves.  After the intense activity of summer and hares there followed the time of quiet contemplation, of gathering forces, though within it the stirrings of the next spring were already present (p. 210).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for discussions of death (including a sibling who died during the war), war, and imprisonment that might be too intense for young readers.  No cussing, smut, or on-page violence.

This is my 34th book read and reviewed for my fourth Classics Club list.  It's also the first book finished from my #25for25 list.

"All is Calm; All is Bright" by Colleen Coble

This book is two Christian fiction mystery novellas, All is Calm and All is Bright, and although they both belong to other series Coble has written, they stand on their own perfectly well too.  Which is good, because we read this for my church's book club this month, and none of us had read any of her other books before.  But I plan to look for more now!

All is Calm is part of the Lonestar series, which takes place in Texas (obviously).  A woman accused of helping sabotage a race horse runs away -- with the race horse -- and finds sanctuary at a ranch that helps kids with emotional problems.  She had stayed there as a teen and remembers that it was a place of comfort and hope.  Once there, she teams up with an injured veteran to figure out who actually sabotaged the horse... and they end up clearing up a couple other mysteries too.  And falling in love in the process, because of course they do!

All is Bright is part of the Hope Beach series, which is set in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  In it, a bright and helpful woman is targeted by an unknown assailant who forces her car off the road and into the ocean.  She survives, but she and the local sheriff can't figure out who would try to harm or kill her, since she's the most helpful person you've ever met.  Of course, they eventually do solve the mystery and catch the culprit, while starting to fall a little bit in love in the process.  

Of the two, I liked All is Calm better.  Part of that was the location -- a Texas ranch is always going to be catnip for me -- but part of it was that I simply felt like we got to know the characters in it really well.  I had a little bit harder time connecting to the people in All is Bright, but I did enjoy it a lot anyway.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-10 for some mild violence and characters in peril.  Both romances are clean and wholesome.

This is my second book read and reviewed for A Literary Christmas and my 57th read from my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2022.

"Christy" by Catherine Marshall

I'd read this once before, back in the mid-'90s when the TV series based on this book first aired.  Which is why I have a TV-tie-in cover, of course.  It was such a BIG deal when that show aired, to the people where I lived right then!  You see, I lived in western North Carolina, only a couple of hours from the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee where this book is set, and where the series was partially filmed.  And if you think that Appalachian mountainfolk weren't simultaneously excited for a big TV series to be all about people like their forebears, and also terribly apprehensive of how those forebears would be portrayed... well, you need to think again.  

You see, a lot of times, pop culture portrays the mountain folk of Appalachia as being half-witted and ornery and generally useless.  The hillbilly caricature is awfully prevalent in movies and TV shows in particular, and naturally, people who actually live in the Appalachians are sensitive about this.  It's true that things like feuds, moonshining, superstitions, and hardscrabble farming were parts of life in the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains for some people, generations ago.  But when those things get turned into the sum total of a fictional character, then you end up with a caricature instead of a representation of life.  Anyway, that's why the people I grew up around were cautious about the show.  

I think just about everyone I knew at the time watched the show.  And then discussed it with everyone else.  Certainly, all my friends and all my mom's friends did.  It's been years and years since I watched it, but I have the whole series on DVD and am now seriously considering pulling it out to see how my memory of it compares to the actual show.

Anyway.  This is supposed to be a book review.  All of that was just to explain to you why I'd read this 25 years ago, as a teen.  I reread it now because my book group chose it for our summer read, and here we are.

This book just flew by.  I was so engrossed.  It was a very nostalgic read for me, not because I felt nostalgic for being a teenager and reading it the first time, but rather, it made me nostalgic for the Appalachians of North Carolina, so close to Tennessee, so similar in so many ways.  All the descriptions of mountain scenery just hit me right in the feels, and yeah... I became an odd mixture of hyped up and melancholy at times.

Christy is based on the life of Catherine Marshall's mother, Leonora, although it's highly fictionalized.  Her mother did grow up around Asheville, NC, and go teach school in the mountains of Tennessee at a mission school.  Some things, like walking seven miles through snow to reach the school, are based on fact.  There really were an inspiring woman and a handsome young preacher leading the mission.  But enough of the book is made up that it's considered fiction.  If you want to know more about the fact vs. fiction, I recommend reading this and this.

But on to the fiction.  Christy Huddleston is a college student in 1912 when she listens to a presentation about work being done to help educate the people in remote areas of the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee.  She learns they need a teacher and volunteers to teach for one year even though she hasn't finished her own schooling.  Even though she grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, also part of the Appalachians, she feels as if she's entering a whole new world when she reaches Cutter Gap, TN.  At first, she looks down on the mountain people there, assuming that because their lives are simple and hard, lacking in things like indoor plumbing, basic sanitation knowledge, electricity, and other modern "necessities," the people living there must be simple and backward too.  

But she learns, sometimes painfully slowly, that her assumptions about these people can lead to more than just simple misunderstandings.  She sees things like moonshine and thinks of it as evil and contemptible until she learns how and why people come to depend on it for their livelihoods.  She looks at the feuds between families and sees only hatred and ignorance until she learns about their histories, sometimes needing to learn about hundreds of years ago when these people's ancestors came here from Scotland, and why.

Most of all, Christy learns to look and think before she speaks and acts.  And that includes taking a hard look at her own beliefs about God and Christianity, and looking at her own reasons for coming there, and for staying to teach even when things get hard.  She is befriended and mentored by several women, romanced by the mission's minister, and challenged by the local doctor to think and believe and act for herself instead of always following the example of those she admires.  It's a coming of age story, more than anything.  And I'm very fond of those.

Also, Miss Alice Henderson is my hero.  As the quotations below will show, hee.

Particularly Good Bits:  

"'Before God,' he would often say to me, 'I've just one duty as a father.  That is to see that thee has a happy childhood tucked under thy jacket'" (p. 71).

But to Miss Alice it was lack of joy that was the heresy (p. 117).

There was something I had noticed too: an initial acceptance of herself as she was and so of other people with their foibles.  And so she did as little scolding or criticizing of others for their foolish behavior or their sins as anyone I had ever known.  it was not that she was willing to compromise with wrongdoing or poverty or ignorance, just that she was a long step ahead of wasting emotional energy on fretting.  And she never put pressure on the rest of us to accept her opinions.  The secret of her calm seemed to be that she was not trying to prove anything.  She was -- that was all.  And her stance toward life seemed to say: God is -- and that is enough (p. 174).

"Such morbid introspection," Miss Alice added crisply, "was nonsense.  Either God exists -- or He does not.  If He does, either an individual has a relationship with Him -- or that relationship has been severed.  Indigestion or arthritis can't change the bottom fact that God is or the unfailingness of a single one of His promises" (p. 376).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-16 for violence, a long section about a typhoid epidemic that can get pretty disgusting, and a discussion of a child's grooming and rape by a serial child molester (it happened in the past and is related as the backstory for a character, but still, it's not something I'd let a young teen son or daughter of mine read).

This is my 23rd book read and reviewed for my third Classics Club list.

"Something Rich and Strange" by Ron Rash

It took me a verrrrrry long time to read this book, considering it's only 434 pages long.  That's because most of the short stories included were, well, rich and strange.  I would read one a day, maybe.

I absolutely loved that nearly all the stories took place in the mountains of western North Carolina.  Them's my stomping grounds, folks.  Many stories mentioned towns like Boone and Blowing Rock that I have spent many happy hours in (including my honeymoon).  Some involved actual places like Mast's General Store that I have also been to.  And one took place in a fictionalized version of Tweetsie Railroad, this wonderful wild-west-themed amusement park that I went to many times as a kid, and now go to with my kids and my parents whenever we visit down there in the summer.

I did not love all the stories, though.  I wasn't meant to.  Most of them involve harsh things like drug use, poverty, and death.  He seems to be saying that life on the edge of existence is not very pretty.  But neither is it always ugly.  

Rash's writing is vivid and thought-provoking.  I was continually amazed at how much character development he could pack into just a few pages.  I read this collection as much to study his writing as to enjoy the stories he told.

My favorite stories are all ones with happy endings:

"Lincolnites," in which a young mother whose husband is away at the Civil War encounters an enemy and triumphs over him.

"Their Ancient, Glittering Eyes," in which some old coots obsessed with catching an enormous fish actually do, but can't prove it.  That one reminded me of "The Old Man and the Sea," but humorous.

"The Dowry," in which a pastor takes his role as servant and protector of his flock very seriously, and makes a great sacrifice for two of his church members.

"Twenty-six Days," in which two parents work two jobs each to save up money so their daughter, who is away on a tour of duty to Afghanistan, can go to college when she gets home.

"The Harvest," in which people secretly harvesting cabbage's from a widow's field turn out to not be stealing them, but harvesting them for the widow without her having to tell them thank-you.

Particularly Good Bits:

Easier for the victors than the vanquished to forgive, Pastor Boone knew (p. 230, from "The Dowry").

The young could believe bad times would be balanced out by good.  They could believe the past was something you could box up and forget (p. 328, from "Last Rite").

Fog could stay in our valley for days.  It was like the mountains circling us poured the fog in and set a kettle lid on top (p. 383, from "The Harvest").

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  either a hard PG-13 or a soft R.  There's a lot of drug use, mostly meth, always portrayed in a very negative way.  There are some sexual situations, none detailed.  There's some bad language.  There's some violence.  Individual stories would probably mostly be PG-13, but a few instances might bump that up to R.

Top Ten Tuesday: Most-Read Authors

This week's theme from The Broke and the Bookish is "Top Ten Authors I've Read The Most Books From."  I've decided to list only authors I've read primarily as an adult, as otherwise my list would be entirely overrun by the likes of Ann M. Martin, Beverly Cleary, Franklin W. Dixon, Lois Gladys Leppard, and Marguerite Henry.

I'm listing these in alphabetical order by last name because for some of them I don't have an exact count on how many of their books I've read.

Jane Austen

I've read her six major novels, plus some of her juvenilia, Lady Susan and what there is of The Watsons and Sanditon.  My favorites are Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, and Northanger Abbey.  I like Austen for her caustic wit, shrewd observations of human nature, and fully realized characters.

Raymond Chandler

Chandler is my absolute favorite author, so it's no surprise I've read all 7 1/2 of his novels (the 1/2 is cuz he never completed Poodle Springs, but Robert B. Parker did an entertaining job finishing it) and many of his short stories and essays.  I don't exactly have a favorite of his books, though I'm very fond of The Big Sleep, The Lady in the Lake, and Farewell, My Lovely.  I like Chandler for his surprising descriptions, acerbic dialog, and brisk pacing.

A. Conan Doyle

Of course by now you know I'm a devoted Sherlockian.  I read the entire canon in 12 months not long ago, but I'd read nearly all of it many times before.  I've also read The White Company, which is the only non-Holmes book of Doyle's I've read so far.  My favorite Holmes adventure is The Hound of the Baskervilles, and I also dearly love "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" and "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" and many of the other short stories.  I like Doyle for creating the coolest detective and chronicler ever and for his inscrutable but logical plots.

Ernest Hemingway

I almost didn't put Hemingway on here, but then I counted up how many of his books I've read and realized that I've read 6 1/2 of his books (Garden of Eden is unfinished) and all of his short stories, plus a good many of his essays and articles, so he belongs firmly on this list.  My favorites of his are The Sun Also Rises and A Moveable Feast, and I'm quite fond of his Nick Adams stories too.  I like Hemingway for his terseness, his attention to detail, and his ability to make me understand characters who are very different from me.

Jan Karon

Reading Karon's books about Mitford is a little like making a visit home for me.  Why?  Because she set Mitford in the mountains of North Carolina and patterned parts of it after the town of Blowing Rock.  My family moved to NC's foothills when I was 12, and Blowing Rock quickly became one of our favorite places to visit, so much so that when Cowboy and I got married, we honeymooned there.  I haven't read the last few of her books, though I own all of them and look forward to beginning the series over again one of these days.  I've read the first six or seven, and am very fond of them.  I like Karon for her warm humor, quirky characters, and heartwarming storytelling.  

Laurie R. King

I've read all of King's novels of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes (my favorite is The Beekeeper's Apprentice), all of her Kate Martinelli mysteries (my favorite is To Play the Fool), several of her stand-alone novels (my favorite is Keeping Watch), and the first of her Stuyvesant & Grey books.  In fact, there are only 2 of her published novels I haven't read yet, and I'm kind of holding off on them so I have something to look forward to, other than her upcoming releases.  I like King for her strong female characters, exciting mysteries, and especially for her excellent characterization of Sherlock Holmes.

L. M. Montgomery

I've read all 8 of her Anne of Green Gables books numerous times, her Emily of New Moon series, and I'm currently reading a bunch of her short stories.  My favorites are Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Windy Poplars.  I like Montgomery for her happy endings, fanciful characters, and beautiful descriptions.

Patrick O'Brian

I have read all 20 of Patrick O'Brian's novels about Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin's adventures in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars.  I also have his unfinished 21st book in the series, but I'm kind of saving it for when I reread the whole series.  I like O'Brian for the way he immerses me in a world I would otherwise never visit, and for the complex and endearing characters he created.

J.K. Rowling

I have, of course, read all the Harry Potter books.  And the book of stories by Beedle the Bard.  My favorite is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, hands-down.  I like Rowling for her deft wordplay, humorous dialog, and ability to communicate hard truths simply and kindly.

Rex Stout

I'm not even sure how many I have read of Stout's mysteries featuring Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.  I know I've read 16 of the books I own, plus probably 6 or 8 more from the library over the years.  I've also read a couple of his non-Nero Wolfe mysteries, which were nice, but it's the characters of Archie and Nero that keep me coming back for more.  I like Stout for his snappy dialog, twisty mysteries, and memorable characters.

"The Cove" by Ron Rash

Isn’t it interesting what will get someone to read a book? We all have things that automatically interest us in a book. One of mine is the state of North Carolina. My parents moved there when I was 12, to the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I did my real growing up there, and it still feels like home to me. When I read the description of Ron Rash’s The Cove, I was drawn to it by the fact that it is set in those mountains.

The Cove begins with a man in the 1950s walking into a shadowy, creepy cove, which in this book is a dark valley, not a place where you keep boats. He stops at an abandoned homestead to draw a bucket of water from the well and finds something in that well that tells readers that this will not be a happy book, that it will not end well, that something very bad indeed has happened here.

Then the book flashes back to that same cove, but in early 1919, when the cove is the home of a sister and brother, Laurel and Hank. Laurel has a large, purple birthmark on her shoulder that has led the superstitious mountain folk to believe she is either cursed or a witch. As a result, most people shun her, and she is very lonely. Hank lost an arm in the early part of WWI, and is having a hard time patching up their farm as a result. A stranger arrives in the cove, a speechless man bearing a flute, sixty dollars, and a note explaining that his name is Walter. Hank hires him to help fix up the farm, Laurel falls in love with him, but an ominous shadow looms over all the happiness springing up in the cove. As I read this, I always had that opening scene in the back of my mind, the well’s contents and what they could mean.

I can’t say much more, as I’d be spoiling the story for anyone who would like to read it. If you like beautiful writing and learning about the impact our decisions have on the lives of others, The Cove could delight you. However, the characters do engage in activities that some readers may not appreciate. And it is dark and sometimes bleak, I will warn you of that, though it deals with joy and happiness as well. I found it a good book for the end of winter, when I am weary of grey skies and bare trees, but know spring will brighten the world again soon.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate it:  PG-13 for non-explicit sexual situations and alcohol use.  Also contains a few swear words.

(Originally published on Novel Book Ratings on March 7, 2013.)

"The Pawn" by Steven James

I actually read this almost three weeks ago, but haven't managed to blog about it until now. Thank the Lord the rest of my summer looks calm and empty!

Anyway, my mom recommended Steven James' books to me when I was at home in NC last month. We were watching an old ep of Bones together, and I told her she should read Kathy Reichs' books that inspired the series. I said one of the things I liked best about her books is that they take place partly in North Carolina, my adopted home state. Mom said. "Oh, you should read the Patrick Bowers books by Steven James! The first one takes place here too!" So when I got back to CT, I got the first one, The Pawn, out of the library.

Ironically, I had warned her that Reichs' mysteries can get rather gruesome and spooky, and I wasn't sure if they'd bother her because of that. Turns out, I needn't have worried, because The Pawn was more gory and creepy than any of the four books I've read by Reichs. A goodly chunk of it is written from the point of view of a sadistic killer, and it creeped me out so much, I had to read it in just three days because I wanted to get it over and solved and behind me as fast as possible.

The Pawn is about FBI Criminologist Patrick Bowers tracking down a serial killer in the mountains around Asheville, NC. Bowers is recently widowed and alienated from his teen stepdaughter, and his personal life gets tangled up in his work and vice versa. Overall, the book is taut and suspenseful.

I think this is James' first mystery thriller, and as a debut in the genre, it's pretty good. The only thing I didn't like, besides it being a little creepier than I care for, was that I kept seeing the author in the book. By that I mean there were things that made me go, "Oh, he's setting up the workplace conflict here," or, "Here's the obligatory Special Ability that will come in handy at the book's climax." As the book went along, it had fewer obvious Mystery Components, and there were quite a few twists I didn't expect, so I'm betting the other books in the series (it totals four so far) are smoother and bear fewer authorial fingerprints.

Anyway, I liked James' style, so if I can get more of his books from the library, I probably will read more. So yes, if you like suspenseful mystery thrillers, you'll probably dig this book.

(Originally posted on The Huggermugger Blog on Jul. 5, 2010.)