Mailbox Monday/It's Monday! What are you reading?

Mailbox Monday comes around so very fast!

            

Both courtesy Netgalley.

Hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. Reading this one right now.

The weekend was very good. Not so much of reading done but the weather in Ginigathhena was cool, misty and not hot at all. I hated to leave last night but work is in Colombo and I have to return. 

The Bishop's Wife by Mette Ivie Harrison

This was a "culturally challenging" read (for me that is). I knew and still know very little about the Mormon faith. Lot of it as depicted in this book and given in much detail is difficult to accept or handle but that is neither here or there.

The story is narrated by the Bishop's wife - she stands slightly apart in this story - as if relating the story from a distance. She is not part of the common ground of the Mormon church, I felt, despite her husband being a bishop who is trying to protect and guide his flock in very difficult circumstances.

A member of the parish goes missing. The husband is suspect. There is also a little girl left behind. Husband's father is belligerent at best and rude most of the time. The wife's parents first come across as being very protective of their daughter. Further revelations reveal abuse of the most horrible kind. When her body is discovered and when the media descends on this town the community has to dig deep to find the courage to support one of their own.

There is a lot of Mormon ritual and daily life described in the book. Apart from being wedded together for eternity and so much more I felt the book went on and on too much of every aspect of Mormon life, apart from the  story that it was meant to depict.

The book is aimed I think at non Mormons to gain a wider audience. In that way it was a success as it certainly educates one on the workings of a normal Mormon home. 

This was a book which was sent to me by Edelweiss

The Measure of Katie Calloway by Serena Miller

This was a free download from Amazon and was a light, romantic read with a lot of descriptive detail thrown in of a hitherto unknown subject for me!

The world of lumber and how the whole system operates is done in great detail in this book. Strangely enough it is not dull or boring. The author has made it so alive and interesting that even though the main story is about Katie, the background of lumber is very much alive.

Katie is in an abusive relationship. Getting out of it is no easy task for women of this era. After a particularly bad night, she escapes taking with her her eight year old brother and a bag of coins. After considerable adventures, she becomes the cook at a lumber camp and even reading about the food she turns out is mouth watering. From flapjacks to doughnuts for breakfast to apple and peach pies and in enormous amounts to feed the appetites of these hard working men was no easy task and Katie falls to it with a will.

On the sidelines of course is the villain of the piece, her husband Harlan who is determined to find her and take her back home. He feels that she is his ruination, and though he did try to murder her once and marry a rich widow - he still wants her back. The other suitor is the owner of the camp who is unaware of Katie's chequered past.  

Set at the time of the end of the Civil War in America with destruction widespread, so many homes without their husbands and brothers, this story was a very compelling one, despite its airy tone.

Enjoyed very much the details of how a camp operates and how this industry first started in America.

Meeting Rozzy Halfway by Caroline Leavitt

This was a tough one to read. A very normal family of mother, father and two daughters and what happens when one of them is stricken with mental illness of a psychotic kind. 

Rozzy is the apple of her father's eye. He thinks the world of her when she is born, and believes she is capable of greatness. His ambition for her is boundless. When Bess is born, she comes a poor second for the father and this is apparent throughout the book. But what does Ben do when his bright star turns out to be really ill. He locks her out of his mind and heart, as if she did not exist at all, showing no care, love or remorse for her.

The story of Rozzy and how her faithful sister tries at every turn to protect and help her so that she does not fall into even greater trouble than she tends to do is a greater part of this book. At the same time Bess is embarrassed by Rozzy's illness and the negativity that surrounds both of them as a result. Not relying on either their mother and father, the sisters try to manage their affairs on their own. Bea the mother seems also distant, not really a part of the crisis though she certainly feels more than Ben. Bea herself seems to be someone who takes the path of least resistance so that she is on the fence all the time. She wants to be able to appease Ben at all times rather than to reach out to her daughter. 

It was a difficult read because it showed how human the family unit actually is and that everyone has their frailties which cannot be faulted in anyway. How the parents and sister had to handle Rozzy's illness and her behaviour in society and how each of them tried to at the same time get on with their own lives is not easy.  Ben's behaviour was horrible and I detested him. The mother came a close second.

Despite being a tough read the story was an excellent one, very well narrated.

The book was sent to me by Netgalley courtesy of  Open Road Integrated Media.

Mailbox Monday/It's Monday! What are you reading?

Coming very late on Monday night!

            

The first is from Netgalley and the second from Open Library (waited twenty days for this one!)

          

All three Amazon downloads free.

The following are wins from the author herself.

            

Series is Love at Pemberley and I got all three of them!

Hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Medieval part of English history and we are dealing with a surgeon Sir Hugh. So far very nice.

Monday was a holiday in Sri Lanka due to the Haj festival. Came back to Colombo after a long weekend out of home and now rushing to finish this!

A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie

A strange notice appears in the local paper - a murder is to take place at 6.30 p m at Miss. Blackstone's house. The local populace is quite in an uproar as to what is actually happening - they presume its a murder party and though no one is specifically invited, everyone trots around on some excuse or the other, other than the Vicar's wife who is simple and straightforward.

Miss. Blackstone thinks the announcement is in bad taste, Dora who lives with her is frightened and the young cousins who also live with her think its a hoot. The time comes, everyone is assembled with sherry and pastries, the electricity goes off, there are a couple of shots and when the lights come back, a young man is found dead.

This is where Miss. Marple on the invitation of the Inspector comes in. As usual, with a very gentle air and seemingly unaware of anything happening around her, Jane Marple follows a system of deduction and observation closely and results are always assured.

Of course one never will guess who the murderer is, the reasons (always convoluted and complicated) for the murder and that is the beauty of Agatha Christie.

As usual loved the book.

This was a download from Open Library.

The Missing One by Lucy Atkins

Some people want to know their history, their ancestors, who did what, from where they came. For Kali it was always hidden - the history of her mother and father and who was she. Her mother seemed to have a side of her which was hidden, and which she did not want to divulge. All Kali knew was that her grand parents were dead. Her mother was a housewife and her father an accountant who was always busy and away from home and could not be bothered very much with questions from his daughter. Kali also felt that her parents specially her mother favoured her sister Alice over her and that she was almost an oversight. Not a very pleasant start for Kali who is now a mother of a toddler and who is determined not to make the mistakes that her mother made.

With her mother's death from cancer, Kali wants to unravel her past. She comes up against so many obstacles, so much of hidden history and so much of enigmatic questions with no answers. Taking the toddler with her she leaves her husband Doug, whom she suspects of having an affair and flies to Vancouver to meet up with someone called Susannah who has sent post cards to her mother for thirty seven years. She does not contact anyone before hand but just turns up first in Vancouver and then drives herself to a very remote area of Canada to try to find out anything about her mother.

On this remote island she soon realizes that she has made a mistake but there is no way out of the island as bad weather has set in and no one will venture out on these seas. When Susannah takes her baby son and flees to another island Kali realizes that this is now a fight to the death for not just her survival but also of the survival of baby Finn. 

How family secrets can endanger the family itself and whether these should be aired and discussed once children are of an age of understanding may be a good question for a book club. Should these secrets be hidden and hopefully die off?  

Very descriptive of isolated islands off the coast of Canada and specially about whales and orcas which was a major part of the story, this was a good one.

This was a a free download from edelweiss