Touchstone

Review: The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

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I won’t go into a long review. I’ll just say that I loved this book. Papa especially broke my heart. I can just feel his warmth coming forth from the pages. I felt his heartbreak and courage time and time again. That’s not to say that I didn’t love everyone in this novel. For I did. I loved them all.

My only wish is that this book had been a thousand pages longer. I hated to leave everyone behind when I finished this novel. However, I’m not so sure I did. I still feel my heart pounding with love for them all.

Finally, I know many people will view Marshall as a villain. I know most will absolutely hate him. However, I still remember the boy at the start of the novel. I know who the real villains of this story are…and I still remember the victims that were left behind and suffered through their abuse.

Yes, my heart aches for Marshall as well….

Until next time…
Urania xx

Buy it now The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

Review: The Salt House by Lisa Duffy

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Full of beauty and sorrow at the same time.  Heartbreaking but also uplifting.  A tale of despair yet also one of hope.  All of these things together make this an unforgettable story.

Hope and Jack have a great life.  They have three beautiful daughters, a nice home, a successful business.  Happiness.  But then tragedy strikes. And they are left with just two daughters.  Each family member copes, or doesn’t, in their own way.

A year later, they are at a standstill.  Time has put distance between them and their grief, but they haven’t really moved on.  Jack loses himself in his lobster fishing.  Hope loses herself in the memories of her lost daughter.  And the younger girls just go on being kids.

Everything comes to a head when a forgotten part of Jack’s past shows up at their door.  High school rivalries are reignited, this time with adult consequences.  Through it all Hope and Jack struggle to move past their grief and save their family.

Tragedies happen, families have to find ways to deal with them.   Told from alternating perspectives, this book takes us deep inside one family’s grief and their attempts to overcome it.  Each family member is dealing with their own struggles along with the collective struggle of the family.  It’s beautifully written, almost poetically so.  A story I won’t soon forget!

~Thalia

Buy It Now:  The Salt House

 

Review: The New Neighbor by Leah Stewart

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I love a book with an ambiguous title.  What exactly does “new neighbor” mean?  Is that a good thing or a bad thing?  And who is the new neighbor?  Even better when the story itself is just as much of a conundrum.

Margaret is alone, but she prefers it that way.  Living for ninety years means she’s seen and heard her share of things.  So she’s fairly content (or so she claims) to live out the rest of her years in her little house by the lake with her mystery novels to keep her company.  Then one day she notices a new neighbor across the lake.  Mildly curious at first, she schemes her way into finding out who exactly this person is.

And Jennifer…who is she really and where did she come from?  Surely she and her young son, Milo, have some kind of history somewhere.  But when you change your name and cut ties to your past, that must mean you’re running from something.  Of course Margaret is intrigued as she fancies herself somewhat of a mystery buff.  The deeper she digs, the more questions she has.

The bigger mystery is, who has more to hide? Is it Jennifer with her new name and her desire to make her son forget everything they left behind? Or is it Margaret with her burning need to finally tell her story to someone who will listen?

This book was such a thriller from the beginning ’til the very end. The author does an outstanding job of dragging you along, feeding you little tidbits along the way to keep you following. You just know that some kind of big secret is going to be revealed, but you’re never quite sure who that secret is going to be about. It’s not until the last chapter that it all comes together. And it’s what you expected while not being what you expected. Intrigued? Good!

~Thalia

Buy It Now: The New Neighbor