Yellow Crocus by Laila Ibrahim

This is a deeply moving story set in the mid 1800's American South.

Lisbeth is a young woman, an heiress who lives on a plantation with a wealthy family and every privilege. Lisbeth was raised, from the minute of her birth, by her nurse, Mattie, an enslaved young African American woman owned by her family. Mattie must leave her own newborn to be the wet nurse for Lisbeth.

With a strict and very conservative mother, Lisbeth's relationship with Mattie grows, and Mattie and her family begin to feel more like family than Lisbeth's own family. Mattie and her young charge develop a strong and loving bond.

Years later, Mattie marries Emmanuel and has another child. With this new life comes the need to escape their life of slavery and to head north in hopes of finding a better life. While Lisbeth is sad to be separated from Mattie, she understands and is happy when she manages to escape.

Lisbeth is finding her own life to be shallow and unfulfilling. She is encouraged by her mother to accept the proposal from the son of the richest plantation owner in the area. However, when she finds out that her fiancee has been abusing the slaves, she is disgusted and calls off the engagement and moves north, also in hopes of living a better life, wondering if she'll ever see Mattie again.

This is a touching novel. A book I highly recommend.

One more...

Gotta love this book dedication!

Amazing!

The English Patient, Had, Caught, It, On the Beach, I should Have Stayed Home, She Said, Now, She Was, In Quarantine, In The Dark, House of Splendid Isolation, Still, Hope Springs Eternal, With a Little Bit of Luck, Common Sense, And, Personal Hygiene, The Corona Book of Horror Stories, Must End Soon, Always Remember, Clean Hands Save Lies, And, When In Doubt, Don't, Go, Out!

Muahhhh

Interesting origins of authors.

- Helen Hooven Santmyer. a librarian, saw her grand work, "And Ladies of the Club" published when she was 80 years old. 

- Agatha Christie's mother did not want her to learn to read and did what she could to keep Christie uneducated until the age of 8. The Queen of Crime wrote her first of  book on a dare (from her sister). A career that might not have been if not for sibling rivalry. She wrote sixty-six detective novels and fourteen short story collections. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, The Mousetrap, as well as six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott.

- Patricia Polacco is dyslexic and has a learning disability and did not learn to read until she was 14. She is a well known children’s author who has published many books.

- Diana Gabaldon - editor of a software journal, and professor in scientific computation, decided to try writing a book "for practice", "to learn how". That book was Outlander, the first in an internationally successful series, and know an equally popular TV series!

- Louis L'Amour was a grade school dropout, worked as a cattle hand, frontiersman, sailed the world while working as a seaman on a tramp steamer, and won 51 professional boxing matches. During World War II, he served in the US Army as a lieutenant with the 362nd Quartermaster Truck Company. He wrote 89 novels, 14 short-story collections, and two full-length works of nonfiction) At the time of his death, all were still in print, and he was "one of the world's most popular writers".

- Erich Segal wrote a movie script and when nobody in Hollywood seemed interested he converted it into a novel, "Love Story". The novel spent more than a year on the New York Times best-seller list before being made into a movie starring Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw.   

- Lee Child was fired from his job at age 40, and thinking "I have to earn a living" took up writing and went on to publish more than 20 best selling crime novels.

- J. K. Rowling was a penniless single mother on welfare who wrote on serviettes in cafes because she could not afford to buy paper, whose first Potter book was rejected by 14 publishers before it was accepted and published and became on of the best selling novels of all time.

- Stephen King wrote Carrie, his first novel, and it was rejected by 30 publishers. He threw it away and his wife retrieved it from the trash and encouraged him to keep working. It was eventually published. He went on to publish more than 63 novels, including seven under the pen name Richard Bachman, and five non-fiction books. He has also written over 200 short stories, most of which have been compiled in book collections.

- Madeleine L'Engle's book "A Wrinkle in Time", was rejected 30 times before being published and becoming a massive best seller.

- Terry Pratchett was a journalist, then a press officer for Central Electricity Generating Board, covering 4 nuclear power stations before becoming one of the UK's best known and best loved authors.

- Kurt Vonnegut dropped out of Cornell University to join the military. He was then deployed to Europe to fight in World War II and was captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. He survived the allied bombing of Dresden by taking refuge in a meat locker of the slaughterhouse where he was imprisoned. He went on to become a best selling author of many novels including "Slaughterhouse Five".



Do you have any interesting author facts? Please let me know, I'd love to share them!

                                  

The Magic Hour by Kristin Hannah

Another great novel from this author. Magic Hour is the story of Dr. Julia Cates, once one of the most respected child psychologists in the country. Now, after a terrible tragedy involving a previous client, Julie is hounded by journalists, she has lost her confidence and her career is spiraling out of control.

One day Julia gets a call from her sister who is the chief of police in a small town in Washington state. In this small town surrounded by miles of forests, a small child has inexplicably wandered out of the woods, completely alone, completely isolated and fearful.  This feral little girl doesn't speak, or seem to even understand, English. 

Jumping at the chance to escape the chaos and scandal enveloping her own life, she heads to Washington to help her sister with this case and unravel the mystery of the strange little girl that she calls "Alice". In helping this tiny, lost child, she is able to rebuild the ruins of her own life and career.

A marvelous book full of mystery, scandal, family, and discovery.

Books. Books. Books.

Someone once wrote that all novels are really letters aimed at one person. As it happens, I believe this, I think that every novelist has a single ideal reader; that at various points during the composition of a story, the writer is thinking, "I wonder what he/she will think when he/she reads this part?" For me that first reader is my wife, Tabitha.
~ Stephen King

Heaven by V.C. Andrews

I'll admit it. I was wild for this book and this series when I was a teenager and remember them fondly. I still have my raggedy old paperback copies.

This is the story of Heaven Casteel. She is pretty and bright and lives in extreme poverty in a tiny shack the back hills of West Virginia with her extended family. Unfortunately, the Casteels were considered the scum of the hills. The worst. 

Heaven and her brother Tom have dreams of education and rising above their poverty, unfortunate circumstances and horrible family reputation. Heaven's sister, Fanny, cares for nothing except boys. Her step mother, Sarah is a large, hard working but miserable woman. Also living in the tiny 2 room cabin are her elderly grandparents, 2 youngest siblings who are hungry and sickly much of the time, and her father, Luke, a good-for-nothing abusive, hard drinking man who seems to hate Heaven for reasons she cannot fathom.

All nine of the Casteels live in this shack with no plumbing or electricity or heat. They can feel drafts between the floor boards and have to scrounge mightily for food. They walk miles to school and back, sometimes without shoes or proper clothes for the weather. All of this determines Heaven to educate herself to overcome her  obstacles.

Not too intellectual, strictly a fun read for entertainment, but I enjoyed it immensely.

Followed by four other novels that further her story, all worth reading.

A Fish out of Water by Helen Palmer

This beloved children's book was first published in 1961 and was one of my favorites. 

This charming story is wonderfully illustrated by P.D. Eastman and begins with a young boy buying a small goldfish and naming him "Otto". The man at the store, Mr Carp, gives the boy instructions on how to care for his new fish.

Once the boy is home with Otto in a new bowl he feeds the fish some food. But Otto still looked hungry, so he fed him some more. An Otto grew. And grew. And grew.

Soon the boy was was scrambling to find homes big enough to hold Otto. A pan, a bathtub... the city pool!

My goldfish.

Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Just finished this novel and while I was skeptical due to all of the hype, I had enjoyed one of her other books (Daisy Jones and the Six), so I gave it a try and man, was I blown away! I absolutely loved this book!

Monique Grant, a writer for a NYC magazine, in the midst of a divorce, is surprised when she is selected by Evelyn Hugo, the 79 year old Oscar winning actress and film legend, to write her memoirs.

What follows is the story of an amazing life. 

Beginning with her childhood in Hell's Kitchen, NY with no mother and an abusive father, it follows her fight to escape to a new life and her incredible ambition, then spans 30 years of Evelyn Hugo's marvelous career. It explores her rise to stardom based on her incredible beauty, her many daring film choices, her friendships (and the occasional enemy), her life choices, her secrets, the scandals she found herself in (and the many she was able to avoid), the love and loss of her only child, her seven husbands, and the REAL love of her life. It then follows her story after she left fame and the limelight, leaving behind the chaos and dishonestly in order to live life to it's fullest in a quiet, peaceful and honest way.

This is one of the best novels that I've read and I'll be adding it to my loooong list of favorite books. 

Chocolat by Joanne Harris

This SWEET novel was so DELICIOUS! 
Okay, I'll stop.

I did enjoy this novel about Vianne Rocher, a mysterious young single mother and her little daughter Anouk (and Anouk's best friend, an invisible rabbit named Pantoufle).

They arrive in a small French village named Lansquenet. There, Vianne opens an enchanting little chocolate shop and is almost immediately an outcast as the people of the village are very traditional, tight,  religious people who follow Father Reynaud teachings of self denial.  Reynaud is furious that a shop such as this could open in his village and he preaches to his parishioners to avoid her wicked ways.

Meanwhile, Vianne and Anouk manage to befriend a few village characters with their endearing magic, many outcasts like themselves, as well as a few of the river gypsies who visit the village occasionally to restock. Vianne and her daughter who have mostly lived a nomadic life, decide that they like this little village and try to make a home there with their new friends, but Reynaud and his followers plan to make that very difficult.

A TASTY story with lots of FLAVOR.
Okay, I lied.

Also made into a lovely movie starring Juliette Binoche, Judi Dench and Johnny Depp.     

Millions of Cats by Wanda Gág

Another of my childhood favorite books, as a cat addict myself, I can appreciate it.

This book written (and illustrated) by Wanda Gág in 1928. It won a Newbery Honor award in 1929, one of the few picture books to do so. Millions of Cats is the oldest American picture book still in print as of 2020. 

This is the story of a lonely couple, and old man and his wife. They decide to get a cat to keep them company, and the man sets out to find the perfect, prettiest cat for them. However, he finds not one, but hundreds, thousands, millions of cats!

This is the story of how they choose the perfect cat for them... out of millions of cats.

                                                          Author Wanda Gag with cat.

                                                       Author Wanda Gag, also an artist.

Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Technically a "young adult" series, these novels are some of my absolute favorites. I read them all, in my 40's, and then my teenage daughter read them... and she loved them just as much as I did. Years later, we still talk about them sometimes.

Life As We Knew It, the first in the series, is about 16 year old Miranda, her family, and her life after the world changes forever.

One day an asteroid hits the moon... and knocks it closer to the earth causing all sorts of natural calamities like earthquakes, tsunamis, and violent storms. 

This is the story of how she and her family survive when food becomes scarce due to the climate change, people are terrified and dying, and the world has become a brutal place to survive.

The second novel in the series, The Dead and the Gone, is the story of  Alex Morales and his life and reactions to the same global disaster that Miranda describes in the first novel, but from his completely different perspective, location and family. 

In book three of the series, The World We Live In, Miranda and Alex combine their stories a year after the asteroid hit the moon, and in the final novel, The Shade of the Moon, is the story of the new society created post asteroid.

Fascinating novels. I highly recommend them!