Reading in the Garden

Eilis Uleashed Brooklyn by Colm Toibin. A young Irish woman moves to Brooklyn in the 1950s where she forges a new life for herself.   Eilis works in a department store and attends night classes to become a bookkeeper.   Eventually she meets someone special and things seem to be going her way.   Then, news arrives from her home in Ireland, leading her on a complicated path of emotions. These complications brought about frustrations for me, as a reader.   At times I wanted to slap her and say “What’s wrong with you? Snap out of it!” While most of the book held my interest with charm and a sense of anticipation, it later switched gears and held my interest with a sense of irritation and expectation. It left me feeling a bit ambivalent, but it also opened the door for a good discussion at our book club meeting. My book club members thought pretty much the same thing. Two people did have a more forgiving view, which makes me wonder if I was too judgmental....

Holiday Horror And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie .  Ten people are invited as guests or hired help on Indian Island, off the British Coast.  As they are all assembled after their arrival a voice suddenly announces that they are charged with murder indictments and the voice proceeds to list each of their victims. At this point they realize they are stranded on the island in the hands of a yet-unseen, mysterious and obviously “dangerous and probably insane” host.  This isn’t the vacation they signed up for.  They’re ready to leave.  Unfortunately the boat that delivered them has left and won’t return until the following day.  One person quickly winds up dead, and the group chalks it up to suicide, but then another person is found dead, and then another. It takes a bit before they realize how a poem about ten little Indians is directly connected to their situation. Soon they start suspecting each other all the while hoping the boat would c...

Maggie, the Magnificent H is Majesty’s Hope by Susan Elia MacNeal.     Maggie, a member of the elite British Special Ops Executive, is sent on a mission to Nazi-controlled Berlin in 1941. Her first assignment is extremely dangerous especially for a female spy. It’s something she’s trained extensively for, but what happens when training meets reality? I found this book in a Little Free Library and I’m glad I did. This is an exciting mystery wrapped in history.   In this fast, action-packed book, I got lost in Maggie’s daring adventure while being reminded of the unthinkable horrors of the Holocaust. The author commingles fictional characters with historical figures in a way that brings history to life like no text book can.   Yes, it’s fiction, but events ring true with obviously well-researched, heart-wrenching realities. I found the book smart, informative, and exciting—hard to put down. This book is part of the Maggie Mystery series.   And while ...

Family Matters We Have Always Lived in the Castle  by Shirley Jackson is a novella narrated by 18-year-old Mary Katherine Blackwood who tells how she, her sister, and uncle are ostracized by the townspeople because of something that happened six years ago.  That’s when most of their family members were murdered by arsenic which was added to the sugar bowl.  Constance, Mary Katherine’s older sister, was arrested, tried, and acquitted—by the courts. But the people in town don’t believe true justice was done, so they dole out their own punishments by harassing them. No surprise, the three family members isolate themselves as much as possible from their hatred. They rarely let anyone into their little world — until Cousin Charles comes around one day and turns their world upside down.  This novella quickly drew me in with with its eccentric set of characters and kept me going with the subtle suspense of where it was all leading. I really e...