Written In My Own Heart's Blood by Diana Gabaldon

Now you know why it has been so long since I have posted about the next book I have read this summer. Diana's book is 814 pages long and every page is worth it! So it took a few days to read it.

I love buying the hard backs so that they can be a presence on my book shelf. That and Harry Potter and maybe two more sequels play a big role on my shelves. They are keepers.

I don't have to tell the Jamie and Claire followers how fantastic these Gabaldon books are and I guess you also know that it will be on TV this August. Yay for all of us!!!! And Diana never disappoints us readers, does she? I like to take my time and soak up every word thus the time lapse since my last 'review'.

If YOU haven't read these books then you must start with the first one in the saga so that you can get the whole shebang effect. If you have been to Stonehenge like I have then you will love the fact that Diana has woven a love story about time travel through stones where soul mates meet from different eras. If two people know how to love one another and be there for each other, no matter what, then Jamie and Claire are IT. I want to be them!!! But maybe not want to go through some of the terrible things.

So here's to Diana ... YOU ROCK !!!



The Road to Gandolfo by Robert Ludlum

 

 

Here's an old paperback (yes ... found at Goodwill) that kept me reading. It doesn't take time to breathe so you are swept away in the movement of the scenes. I think the little bit that Ludlum writes at the beginning of the book explaining how this idea for this story came about is fun to read. We all like to know how authors get their inspiration, don't we?

 

Anyway this  is about a plot to kidnap, of all people, the pope!! How does one do that? Well it takes someone who has been in the military with four voluptuous ex-wives and the time to pull it off and the gumption to raise millions of dollars to finance the escapade.

 

Bring in a twin brother of the pope and the stage is set.

 

I'll leave you to it to read this one and see how the caper is pulled off. It would be a good read at the beach during your summer vacation. 

Divining Women by Kaye Gibbons

 

A friend gave me this book to read. I picked it up one weekend and enjoyed it. It is about a young woman who goes to her aunt's home to help her through the last stages of her pregnancy. It's back in the days when there was no air conditioning to help you struggle through the humid, hot days of summer. Then the winter arrives and one is glad for the respite if only one could get out of bed.

 

But this pregnancy is a difficult one. However the young niece not only helps her aunt physically, but emotionally and mentally as well. After all she is worth being loved even if her husband is heartless. It's time to be strong and stand up for yourself!

 

I wouldn't say that this is a happy book nor a page turner to the point where you just want to stay on the couch with a cup of tea, coffee or a cool coca-cola but it was the next book in line in my pile of three books to read. Sorry I couldn't have been more enthusiastic.

A MIDWINTER'S TALE by ANDREW M. GREELEY

 

Here we go again. Another book found at the local Goodwill when I took my Dad with me. As you know by previous blog entries, my mother loved reading this author. The allure? He writes romances and he's a priest!

 

This one starts off slow and you wonder if it will be any good but then you find yourself hooked on the characters and you want to see what happens to the main subject and his love interest. I have loaned this book to my sister so I regrettably cannot remember the character's name. Awful of me I know.

 

But he is a young Italian man growing up in N.Y. ending up being sent to war. We read about him growing up but also yearning to hear of news back home. Is that brat of a neighbor girl whom he swears he has no feelings for, but whom he rescued one night from drowning, still being good or bad? His sister can keep him updated while he falls in love with a young German girl.

 

Well you have to cut your teeth on love somehow, somewhere and with someone, right? I mean you are ten billion miles away from home and you do seem to rescue damsels in distress. It's your nature although you try to deny it. You can't just leave this starving waif of a girl stranded nor proceed not to rescue her whole family from distruction, can you?

 

So I will probably put this one on my shelf and wonder if my mother read it and if she liked it and what she would have said if we had been able to discuss it. And what a lovely cover! It makes me want to see snow.

All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot

 

I have probably read this book about three times and it is always good. Just like The Andy Griffith Show or I Love Lucy. Always entertaiing. Never going sour.

 

Mr. Herriot writes down to earth yet descriptively and you find yourself reading and reading and reading. Then when you look up from the pages you wonder where the time has flown and did the sun actually set? It's no wonder since you have been transported to Darrowby helping this country vet deliver lambs, calves, stitch up dogs and wrestle ornery cats. You feel as if you have been there with James as he placates yet another old farmer who knows better than you how to castrate his bull and tells you so while he leisurely leans up against the fence and puffs on his pipe filled with aromatic tobacco.

James weaves every story with humour and each chapter is its own tale.

 

You want to breathe the air he is breathing and have a pint at the end of the day in the nearest pub. It's a sad day or evening when you read the last page and have to close the book, putting it back on the shelf to await another good read in about a year or two.

 

Thank you, James.

LAST breath by marian STEWART

 

I accidentally reread this one! Have you ever done that? You pick a book off your shelf and begin reading the first page and at the back of your mind you are having a deja vu but putting it down to your imagination. But as you keep turning the pages you say to yourself, "Yes I do believe I have read this already". But you also remember it was good, and that you don't have another book in the wings, so you continue and enjoy it all over again.

 

This one has archaeology in it (I minored in Anthropology so Archaeology is a close second) and a lost civilization (who doesn't love that) which was found in 1908 by Dr. Daria McGowen's great-grandfather. He brought the lost treasures back to his University which he founded in the states. But the guardians of Shandihar didn't take kindly to that act so for one hundred years they have been biding their time until they can get their hands on the goods again and punish those that defiled their goddess.

 

But Dr. Daria McGowen (a renowned archaeologist), who has been asked by the president of Howe University to resurrect the collection in the abandoned museum on campus in order to garner much needed money for the school, knows nothing of the tragedy that has and will continue to befall those who have acquired the treasures. It's life and death and you are not sure who will be next or who are the guardians that have made it their life's mission to avenge Shandihar and carry out the evil punishment.

 

But an FBI agent comes to the rescue. And a dog.

 

Woof!

The Final Planet by Andrew M. Greeley

Once again, a good find at Goodwill. And what a surprise it was to me to see that Andrew Greeley had written a Sci-fi! Then I read 'about the author' at the back of the book and learned he had written God Game before this one so I may have to find it and read it as well.

As you may have read previously in one of my blog entries, I bring my Dad with me sometimes to pick out books to read. He loves going to Goodwill because "some of these books are like brand new" he declares! He likes to get hard backs. I do too. Why? I guess they feel more substantial. They have beautiful jacket covers like this one. And I love a good jacket cover. I like to see if it also matches the story inside the covers. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. Then I want to design one myself or go to the Publishing House and say, "What were you thinking? That's misleading and doesn't depict the story at all, at all." (You'll get that double wordage if you read this book).

I saw this book and nearly jumped for joy. Why again? Well because my dear mother loved this author. She liked his style of writing but most of all she was intrigued that a priest was a writer and that he wrote about women. What?!!!

She always wondered if he had experiences with women before he became a priest. She was brought up Catholic, so to have a priest write about making love to a woman was compelling. He certainly writes about women in this book. He will write "She" in referring to God as well. So as I read this book I also wonder and wish my Mom was hear so we could discuss it. I kind of do it mentally with her. Sort of like a spiritual ESP. My mom would like that notion. She had a good sense of humour and we 'got' each other. Are you smiling up there in the great beyond?

At any rate I picked this book off the shelf in honor of my mother and wondered if she had read it. We would talk about the books she read and I don't have a memory of a chat about a sci-fi. But she could remember the names of the characters long after she read the book and, if I had read it even recently, I would be rummaging around in my brain for the names. She had a great mind. I loved her mind.

But back to this book ... it was published in 1985, so in its day that was pretty original in itself to be written by a priest. But in the standard of sci-fis today it is mild. Nevertheless it's really a love story between Seamus Finnbar Diarmuid Brendan Tomas O'Neill (a red bearded man of the Holy Order of St. Brigid and St. Brendan who travels on a space ship called the Iona, a pilgrim vessel). But the Iona is old and crumbling so the pilgrims on board have one final trip they can make ... to find a place to land and call home. Seamus is sent down to check it out.

Enter Seamus O'Neill's 'proper woman' who he meets on the planet Zylong and falls in love with even though she is a formidable young woman by the name of Marjetta. And she's a Lieutenant. But that doesn't stop him wooing her gently as they figure out together how to save the planet from itself.

I haven't finished it but I just wanted to write about it today on this overcast, book reading/writing morning.

It feels good to write.

Here's to you, Mom. We'll discuss the ending when I get to it.