The Memory Weaver

This newest fiction release from Jane Kirkpatrick is based on the life of missionaries Henry and Eliza Spalding.  They served the Nez Perce Indians in the Pacific Northwest.  More accurately, it is based on their oldest child Eliza's (named for her mother) life after the Whitman Massacre in 1847. The Whitmans were fellow missionaries at a mission farther west.   Eliza was witness to the massacre as a child and dealt with those memories much of her adult life.  She happened to be at the Whitman mission when it occurred.  She was taken hostage and as the only survivor who spoke the Nez Perce language, she was made to serve as interpreter between the indians and the missionaries.  The attacking tribe was Cayuse but spoke the Nez Perce language.
The memories Eliza has are not all accurate, only the way she remembers them and much of her life after that was influenced by those memories.  She grows into a strong independent young woman but struggles with her husband's desire to take his cattle to range in the area close to where the massacre happened.
From the back cover:
 "Haunted by memories and hounded by struggle, Eliza longs to know how her mother dealt with the trauma of their ordeal.  As she searches the pages of her mother's diary, Eliza is stunned to find that her own recollections tell only part of the story."

This is a well written novel with good dialogue and picturesque descriptions of the Pacific Northwest.  I appreciated the care taken to ensure the grammer and sentence structure were accurate.  It is told in the first person by Eliza with every few chapters being interspersed with pages from her mother's diary.  It took me a few chapters to understand that all the diary writings are from Eliza's mother, with the bulk of the story being Eliza's telling of her life.  Mother and daughter both named Eliza required a little more attention than I normally give. That's not a bad thing, though.
This is my first time to read a Jane Kirkpatrick novel.  I was impressed with the talent and skill that is evident in her writing.  It is difficult to write about history, making it a novel and still keeping the accuracy of the events, while fictionalizing some of the daily life and characteristics.  Mrs. Kirkpatrick does a good job with that.  I recommend The Memory Weaver  and give it five stars.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from Revell for the purpose of an honest, unbiased review.  These words are my opinion.
Thanks so much for being here!

Jeri~

The Martian by Andy Weir

Wow!  White knuckle reading for sure.  But, it did take a while for me to get to that place.  It begins with the reader being made aware that astronaut Mark Whatney has been left behind on Mars by his crew.  They think he is dead. A hellacious storm is headed their way and the crew makes haste to get from the HAB to

 the MAV to abort mission and head back to their space station home, the Hermes.  On the running (as much as you can in a spacesuit) trek to the MAV "flying wreckage slammed Watney carrying him off into the wind."  This detail comes halfway through the book, which is ok.
The author starts this story with Astronaut Watney regaining consciousness and realizing that he has been left behind by his crew.  Not their fault.  Truly an accident.
Andy Weir tells the story of Mark surviving alone on Mars, in the MAV and HAB utilizing everything he can find.  I do mean everything.  He tells it with humor that gave me a laugh-out-loud frequently.  The protagonist is an extremely resourceful and intelligent individual.  He is an astronaut, after all.  His calling is botany with mechanical engineering thrown in.
This book is well written, grammatically correct and sentence structure is good.  I did find it a little dry during the time that Watney was into a daily routine doing all things he knew he needed to do to survive.  I read through that and it picked up when he established communication with earth.  It was pretty exciting from that point on.
I know this has been made into a movie, with Matt Damon playing the part of  Watney and I could see Matt as the character of Mark Watney from the first page.  My copy is the newly released movie tie-in version so it may not read exactly as the original-not sure about that.
This is a debut novel from Mr.Weir that was first published in 2011.  The movie tie-in version which I read just came out and the movie is due soon.  It is a good book, and I recommend you get a copy and check it out.  I give The Martian four stars.  I received a complimentary paperback copy of this book from Blogging for Books, in exchange for an honest review.  These words are my opinion.
Thanks so much for being here!
Jeri~

Rare Earth

Let me begin by telling you this book was a 2013 Christy Award winner for "Best Suspense Novel".  In this story of suffering refugees which is really so much more than that, Marc Royce is thrown into a Kenyan refugee camp as a last minute hire for the United Nations, sent to replace the man who had trained extensively for this assignment.   He was to audit the organization that was providing relief and support to the refugees.  Davis Bunn wrote this about the greed for power and money that displaces people and nations.
Marc is pulled into the suffering and cannot help but look beyond that suffering to begin to put together odd pieces of a puzzle that do not fit the picture he sees.  Thus he finds the machinations of Lodestone, the relief organization that he is to audit.  He gets to know the Kenyans that are being evacuated and in time, gains their trust and respect.  They begin to tell him about how they are being evacuated because a volcano is erupting nearby.  Whole villages are being moved; a culture and way of life are being destroyed.  Wrapped up in all of this is the Christian/Islamic/Judeo conflict in that part of the world.
I was unfamiliar with rare earth minerals until I read this story.  In fact, I had never heard of them before this.  I researched the topic and found that they are real and they are used  in our cell phones and computers, tablets, smartphones;  all of that.  These minerals are only found in a few places in the world.  That fact, of course, makes for much competition in the rare earth market, worldwide.  They are irreplaceable to the technology industry.  China has the monopoly on the rare earth market and the world buys from them.  I had no clue, quite honestly.  The United States buys these minerals from China.
The author writes with such honesty and conviction that it brings the story to life.  He draws the characters realistically with their fears, secrets, all the humanity that is in us.  Davis Bunn writes Christian fiction and I appreciated the fact that God was a big part of the story and His working was evident.  When I am able to read a novel in which the author has included the faith of the main characters, and God's hand in the solution, that is a good book.  And yet, the realistic horror of war and the violence that takes place give the book authenticity. Mr. Bunn has other Marc Royce novels which I intend to read.  His writing reminds us that God truly is everywhere, even when He seems most distant.
 I highly recommend Rare Earth and give it five stars.  I pulled this book from my TBR stack to read and review for you.  It is the 2nd in a series of three.  Lion of Babylon is the first in the series; Strait of Hormuz is the last.  I will be reading both of these.
You can read more about Davis Bunn books and the Marc Royce series at Davis Bunn / Rare Earth.  
Read more about rare earth minerals at Rare Earth Minerals.  You may be amazed.

Thanks so much for being here!

~Jeri

The English Girl by Daniel Silva

Once again, I started in the middle of a series!  This is the second book in Mr. Silva's Gabriel Allon series.  First came The English Assassin, published in 2002.  The English Girl was released in 2013.  This year the third book was published on June 30.  It hit the NYT best-seller list on July 19. You have probably seen it advertised.  If you are a fan, you may have already read it!  Gabriel is an art restorer who also is a spy, who also is an Israeli.  He is the good guy.

I was drawn in from about the first page.  It is an excellent example of an international spy novel, with murder thrown in.  Madeline Hart is the English girl and the story weaves around her kidnapping but more intriguingly the reason for that kidnapping.  She is snatched up while on holiday in Corsica with friends.  Gabriel is called in to find and rescue her and has seven days to complete the mission and bring her home alive, or the kidnapper will kill her.  There is so much more going on here, which makes this novel a hard one to put down.  What I love is when I am surprised by what happens and whom I didn't suspect was involved in those happenings.  That was this book.  Madeline is an up and coming young member of the UK political scene.  The kidnapping reveals Russian collusion with Britain and much more that I will not go into. I would end up telling you the whole story.  It is hard for me to tell you about a book I have read without telling you the whole thing!  I have procured a copy of The English Assassin, the first in this series and will be reading The English Spy also, which is the just published third book.  

Daniel Silva has been called a "master spy novelist" and I agree.  He has published 18 thriller and espionage novels.  I read The Rembrandt Affair a few years ago and it was an excellent read as well.  I think I will probably start reading through most all of his novels.  

I highly recommend The English Girl. It is a curl up and read type of novel.  Or, this time of year, a book to sit with under a shady tree and sip a large iced tea!

I give The English Girl five stars!  I took this book from my collection of TBR's.  

You can read more about Daniel Silva and his writing at Daniel Silva

Thanks for being here!

Jeri~

Island of the Red Mangroves

In a nutshell, this is the story of a mixed race young woman in Jamaica, 1753.  It includes a lot of historical fact woven into the story.  It is drawn from the history of Jamaica and the slaves who lived there.
Deirdre is the daughter of an Englishwoman and a slave.  Hence, there is your story.  She is raised by her mother and stepfather and grows up well-loved by both in a privileged environment.  Her parents have slaves but they are the best treated and cared for slaves on the island.  This leads to a little animosity on the part of the other plantation owners.  However, they are still well liked.  Deirdre comes of age and falls in love with a young doctor, Victor.  They marry and depart for Saint-Domingue on Hispaniola.  Their hope is that Deirdre can live a life free of the stigma that a mixed background brings her.  There is another protagonist in this story who also wishes for a new life.  She is not privileged and not cared for.  I will stop there, in case you are inclined to read this book.
I was not so much intrigued as I read this.  It did not have the character development that I look for to make the characters seem real and absorb my attention.  It is well written, though not deep.  It is one of many stories from history that are much the same.  If you love Caribbean history and are eager to always read fiction about it, then you will like this book.  I love settings in a tropical locale and I love history, but this just did not strike a cord with me.  In fact, I was not able to make myself read all the way through it.  I think when I saw the familiar story line taking place, my attention started to wander.  I am willing to say it is probably a good read for many but did not turn out to be my cup of tea.
This is my first read of a Sarah Lark novel and I am not sure I will try another one.  If you are a fan, you will want to pick up a copy of this and get started.
I give Island of the Red Mangroves three stars.  I received a free e-book copy of this novel from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  My opinion is my own.  My thanks to them for the opportunity to read and review.
You can read more about this book and author at NetGalley
Thanks for being here!
Jeri~

The Fold by Peter Clines

So, this is pretty much my first foray into to the (soft) science fiction genre.  This is not true science fiction.  It is written in an easy to read style, with a basic scientific concept being the plot.  That makes it easy to read for those of us who want to read something different but are not sure if we want to read science fiction.  That basic concept centers around the ability to fold dimensions so to be across the world quickly by stepping through something called the Albuquerque Door.  It's distance travel, not time travel.  The Door opens up a whole Pandora's box of dimensional possibilities; ie; alternate realities, which are mostly not good ones.  Hence, the story unfolds upon nasty things (beings?) coming back through the Door.  Hmmm, is that a spoiler?  Sorry.  Our protagonist Mike, is offered the opportunity to travel to the lab the Door is in and observe the process of the scientific team fine tuning it, whom, by the way, have been traveling over and back from one site, or lab,to another on the same property for some time and logging their trips.  They say it is ready to go but are quite secretive and somewhat defensive.  Oh, and this is a Dept. of Defense funded project.  They are under the threat of maybe losing their funding.  Probably because they will not give out their secrets.  I mean, if you hold the purse strings, you want the scoop on what your money is buying, right?  So, Mike is offered a summer job (he is a school teacher by trade) to observe and determine if the Door should continue to get funded. He has a photographic memory and never forgets anything--that's a nervous breakdown right there!  That is why his long time friend Reggie, the head of the finances for the project, recruits him.  Mike accepts the job, makes observations, reports to Reggie, but--along the way he finds something wrong with the Door.  Before he can figure it out and decide to report it to Reggie, things start to happen.  At this point, you will be halfway through the book.  When the action finally takes off it is a pretty good read and I kept seeing it as a movie while I was reading it.  I think it may be a better movie than a book.
The characters are a good assortment of scientific types with their odd quirks and are pretty believable.  One character continuously replies with the "F" word which grows old pretty quick.  She uses it so much, I felt a yawn coming on every time she began to speak.  The grammar is good in this book, which is a pet peeve of mine, so that is at least one star.  I did find the author writing about Mike's injuries as "fishhooks" of pain and referring to it like it was a new thing several times.  If something is an ongoing presence it becomes "the fishhooks" so the reader knows the same problem is still showing itself.  This always leads me to wonder "where was the editor?"  At any rate, I will not tell you what the "something wrong" is that Mike finds.  That really would be a spoiler and I wouldn't do that.  Also when I read the part that reveals the reason behind the team not revealing their secrets I thought, "Seriously?!? That's what all the secrecy is about? A team of scientists, one who is famously published, is no smarter than that...!?"  What a letdown.
It is worthy of reading, but no blockbuster here.  I really linger between three and four stars on this.  Definitely not four, but not so bad as three, so I give The Fold three and a half stars.  Those stars are for ease of reading and good sentence structure, not so much for a fantastic story with a killer plotline.
None the less, pick it up.  Everybody has different tastes.
I received a copy of this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review.  These words are my opinion.
Thanks so much for being here!

Jeri~

Sunshine Hunter (A Susan Hunter Mystery - Book I)

I am just discovering Chick-Lit, also known as cozy mysteries, from what I hear.  I have stayed away because I thought they were just so much fluff on top of a mediocre story.  I was wrong about that, I think.  Sunshine Hunter has good plot lines and the story-telling by Ms. Cochere is first rate. It had everything needed to keep me turning the pages to the end so that I could find out who was stalking whom (one of two central characters) and why.  I had no idea who the bad guy was until it was revealed near the end.  I could see the depth of character in Sunshine Hunter as I watched her battle back and forth with decisions and situations.  She attracts trouble like white on rice!  As I read, I could see trouble about to  happen but the author writes the character so well, I could tell she never saw it coming!  Susan works in a weight loss center by day and a racquetball club at night.  As the story goes, she takes off for Florida with a friend for a week after finding out that her boyfriend is married.  She just needs to get over him and clear her head.  See, this is why I have never read these kinds of stories!  Is that a cliche plot-line, or what?!  However, there is murder, stalking, accidents, car chases, mysteries abound.  She ends up in the Gulf of Mexico on a flaming fishing boat!  I am telling you, check this out. It is light and breezy, easy to read and the perfect beach read, too. Lots of laughs and also lots of surprises.  I give Susan Hunter five stars!  I loaded this as a free read on my Kindle app, it is not a new release.  
This is Book One--I am checking out the rest!   

Thanks so much for being here!
Jeri~