So you already know that Clair M. Poulson is my favorite author, which means that I love to share his books. "Relentless" is one of his that I really relate to because my over active imagination loves to think about what I would do if I were kidnapped. I like to think that most people have thought about how they would act in that kind of situation, but maybe I am just weird.
"Relentless" is about Erika, a young girl that is on a camping trip in Colorado with her family and, after deciding that she is tired of campfire food, she goes into the small town near her campsite to pick up some groceries. The town is buzzing with the news of how local boy Butch Snyder escaped prison and is coming back to exact revenge. The townsfolk are a little on edge and a friendly police officer warns Erika to hurry back up to her family in case Butch were to decide to come back.
Erika stops by a little gas station to grab her groceries and then get out of there, but her quick stop turns into a living nightmare as a handsome young man pulls a gun on the old man behind the cash register and tells nobody to move. Butch isn't stupid, he knows that he has to have hostages for the cops to let him leave alive. For different reasons though it seems like his hostages are slipping through his fingers. All but one. He is not letting Erika go. He knows she is too frightened to try and run, plus she is very attractive so she wouldn't be too bad to have around through all of this. With a gun in her ribs and a knife to her throught he manages to escape the gas station where the cops had him cornered. Once they leave town though the cops are hot on their trail and Butch, with Erika in tow, flees to the mountains. This leads to an intense game of cat-and-mouse between the cops and Butch, all the while Erika is wondering if she will make it out of this alive.
This book is gripping right from the start and will keep you on the edge of your seat with it's fast-moving story line and plot twists. You won't be able to put it down because you are afraid of what will happen to Erika if you're not there to keep reading the story. Poulson sucks you in and makes you feel like you are right there in Butch's clutches. It also has a kind of coming-of-age story intertwined as young and immature Erika grows during her time with Butch and realizes that there are more important things than her own safety. If you are looking for a book that is not very long but will completely take over your life while you are reading it, then this is it. It's fun, it's clean, and it's thrilling. Go get your copy right now!
And then, of course, let me know what you think!
I discovered this book at my local library when I was in high school. Since then I have read this book at least once a year, I just finished it again for the umpteenth time and it's just as good as the first time I picked it up. I've put off sharing "The Crown Rose", by Fiona Avery, because I didn't know what to say about it. It kind of makes me nervous to put this book on here because it's almost like putting my own child out there for the world to criticize. "The Crown Rose" follows the true story of princess Isabelle of France, but the author takes some creative liberty of course. Isabelle is an amazing young woman who decides that the life of a princess is not the life she really wants. She doesn't want to get married off to whoever her mother chooses and play the part of a proper royal. She has bigger plans. She wants to help people, and do good. She wants to take people off the streets, help them get back on their feet, and start a new better life.
Her family doesn't take her seriously. To show them just how serious she is, she decides to join the church. This puts her family in an uproar, but there is one person she knows who would understand and possibly be proud of her. Him. The man that saved her from a rabid dog when she was a child. He had so much raw power about him, yet seemed so in control and at peace. Neci, her governess, knew about Him, yet she had made Isabelle promise never to speak of him. Just because she can't tell anyone, doesn't mean that she doesn't think about him. No man in her eyes could ever live up to that. He made her feel so safe.
Then, years later, Jean Adaret Benariel comes into the royal family's lives. There is something about him that is so familiar to Isabelle. It couldn't be Him, could it? He wouldn't have aged a day. Yet he has that same peaceful power to him. Jean stays with the royal family and helps them through many trials, including the war with England. He has a great influence on the royal family, especially Isabelle.
This book has some religious content in it, which is part of why it's so dear to my heart. This is the type of book that makes me want to be a better person. The characters are inspiring and they will stick with you for a long time after you have finished the book. I'm not saying what is in this book is true, that's for the reader to decide. Whether it's true or not doesn't change the fact that this is an absolutely amazing book. It is written incredibly well and will suck you in and won't spit you out until you have finished it and pondered it for a few days. It is a thicker book and will take a few days to get through, and I wouldn't recommend it for anyone younger than high school age simply because some of it is hard to understand. All in all this is an amazing book and I very highly recommend that you read it.
Let me just start by saying that this book is adorable. "My Fairy Grandmother", by Aubrey Mace, fulfills every little girl's dream to be special. When 9-year-old Kaitlin finds out that she is a descendent of fairies she is absolutely thrilled. A part of her knows that it is most likely not true, but the greater part of her (the part that wants to be special) believes every word that her grandmother tells her. Viola, the grandmother, has an amazing past and she has been waiting for the right moment to share her heritage with her granddaughter. So when Kaitlin and her mom, Megan, come for a visit she decides that it's time to share her life story with her son's daughter.
Viola is part fairy. Because of this she has certain gifts, one of which is a heart-breakingly beautiful voice. The gifts don't come without some consequences though, and when the wrong person hears about her voice, he decides to kidnap her and make her his own personal songbird. After years of captivity she has to use one of her gifts to escape and save her only friend in the process. The book switches back and forth between the current story of Megan and Kaitlin visiting Viola, and Viola's past being told as if it were happening right then. I'm glad it was written like this because it makes Viola's story that much more engaging and I found myself not being able to put the book down until I finished a section of Viola's past.
This book was a complete surprise. I kept putting off reading it because I thought that it would be just some cheesy little kids book about a grandma with wings and a wand that makes her granddaughters wishes come true. I could not have been more wrong. It's actually a very engaging story that takes the fairytale of fairies to the next level and makes it seem very real. It is a light and easy read. This is what I would call a 'vacation book', because it's perfect for relaxing. It would also be a really neat book to read with your kids. Check it out!
I've been trying to expand my horizons a little bit and read more non-fiction books. My Mom recommended "A Lucky Child", by Thomas Buergenthal. It is an amazing tale about a young boy who survives the holocaust. I didn't know this, but apparently almost all of the children were killed instead of put in concentration camps. They were pulled away from their parents and blown up, shot, or put in gas chambers so that the Nazi soldiers wouldn't have to deal with them. Amazingly, Thomas Buergenthal, was able to avoid being pulled away with the other children. In some cases it seems like divine intervention, other times it was the ingenuity of his parents, but his mom claimed that he was just plain lucky.
His parents go through a tough time as they are driven from place to place trying to find somewhere safe for their family. They end up in a Jewish ghetto in Poland where they think they will live until the war ends. Little did they know what was in store for them. Thomas shares some very incredible stories about how his family was able to stick together for the first part of the war, and then once they were separated it gets even more amazing. He survives Auschwitz and the well-known death march. How a 10-year old boy could have the wits and courage to be able to do what he did to survive...well, it truly is just incredible.
This book probably won't make you cry; although it shares horrible ugly events, it's told in a detached way which seemed to help dampen the sadness. Only the first half of the book is on what happened during the war, the rest of the book is about what happened after the war. I love that the author included this in his book because a lot of stories end when the war ended, but there was so much that happened after that. He explains how hard it was to go back to Germany and live among people who only months before were responsible for the awful things he had to go through. Despite it all, he became a pretty incredible person. If you are into WW2 stories, then this is definitely one to check out.
My husband bought me this book for Valentine's day. It was a big surprise, I think this is the first book he has ever bought me, so I wasn't expecting it. I don't know where he found "Big Little Lies", by Liane Moriarty, but he said it was supposed to be really good from what he could tell. I started the book with a lot of excitement, but could tell pretty quickly that my husband didn't do his homework when he chose this book. It's a complex story that jumps back and forth between characters and their personal lives. So it is almost like a bunch of little stories that all tie together. All of the main characters are mom's who have kids going into kindergarten together. I only made it through the first 250 pages, but up to that point the story was all about the drama going on in each of the different mom's lives.
One mom is single and has some crap in her past that traumatized her, another mom has a great relationship but her husband occasionally beats her, another mom is controlling and judgmental and makes the other moms feel bad about themselves....really, that's the book. At the end of each chapter it jumps to the future and has a couple of paragraphs about someone that was murdered at a parent meeting at the school. I didn't get far enough into the book to find out what that was all about. Plus there was a lot of content that I would deem as 'inappropriate', which is why I didn't finish the whole book.
I know that there are people out there that feed off of other people's drama, this book is made for them. I try to stay away from 'drama' in real life, there is no way I'm wasting my precious reading time on it. There was also a handful of swear words in every chapter and some sexuality. All in all I would say that this book is probably not worth your time. The only reason I stuck with it as long as I did was because the author does have a way of making her characters come to life. I felt attached to them, almost like I was personally invested in the crap going on in their lives. Even now I can picture the fun and spunky Madeline and what she would be like if she were real.
However, that's not enough to make up for how mind numbing this book is. When I read a book I want to feel like it's impacting me in some positive way. Whether it's a story that really hits home, or the character becomes a type of role model for me, I want to have a good feeling when I get done reading. Every time I put this book down I felt the same way I feel when I browse through a magazine while standing in line at the grocery store. It's just something to distract me while I wait, just a waste of time really. If you haven't read this book, good, don't. If you have read this book, however, great tell me what you thought and I would love to know how it ends without actually having to read it myself!
