A Finished Book

Look at me, all done reading a book!  And not knowing how to explain why it’s been so long since the last time I did that.

I remember reading Kate Morton’s other books…

• The House at Riverton
• The Secret Keeper
• The Forgotten Garden
• The Distant Hours

…so I didn’t think it would be a stretch to like The Lake House.  And I did like it.  I just didn’t love it.  There was way too much messing about getting to the point.  And far too many coincidences and characters and back stories and sub plots and descriptions and hopping around in time.  Just too many words.  I guess that’s why I could never write an entire novel, lacking the patience to expand everything to death without giving the ending away in the first chapter.

A child disappears and it takes seventy years to solve the mystery of what happened to him.  People with secrets!  You just want to give them a shake.  How’s that for a book review?

If the reading of this book hadn’t started well before Christmas and proceeded in fits and starts up until this afternoon I suppose I might have found it shorter.  Mostly I read in bed when I was already tired and rarely came across anything riveting enough to keep me awake.  Not even half way through I found myself no longer caring what really happened or why, but FINALLY the end arrived and it all came together in the neatest little package ever, tied with a bow.  I don’t know why that felt trite and disappointing, but it did.  Just too darned neat and tidy and resolved.

Anyway, it’s a story and it’s been told.  If you like Kate Morton you will enjoy this.  But I don’t think you will be blown away.

Another Best Seller

I am in awe of Kate Morton for writing yet another novel that held my undivided interest from beginning to end.  If you haven’t read

– The House at Riverton

– The Forgotten Garden

– The Distant Hours

– The Secret Keeper

just pick one and get started.  They’re all great stories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the book description from Amazon:

From the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of The Distant Hours, The Forgotten Garden, and The House at Riverton, a spellbinding new novel filled with mystery, thievery, murder, and enduring love.

During a summer party at the family farm in the English countryside, sixteen-year-old Laurel Nicolson has escaped to her childhood tree house and is happily dreaming of the future. She spies a stranger coming up the long road to the farm and watches as her mother speaks to him. Before the afternoon is over, Laurel will witness a shocking crime. A crime that challenges everything she knows about her family and especially her mother, Dorothy—her vivacious, loving, nearly perfect mother.

Now, fifty years later, Laurel is a successful and well-regarded actress living in London. The family is gathering at Greenacres farm for Dorothy’s ninetieth birthday. Realizing that this may be her last chance, Laurel searches for answers to the questions that still haunt her from that long-ago day, answers that can only be found in Dorothy’s past.

The history and the family secrets are fun, the characters are strong, her writing is a treat to read.  Over four hundred pages flew by, layer upon layer of the story revealed, past to present and places in between until the final mystery was solved.

If you’re not hooked yet, read the excerpt on Amazon.  And I’ll see you later – 450 pages later I expect.

Over the Second Cup

Good morning world.  In my little spot on the planet the snow is coming down so heavily it looks like a thick fluffy blanket hanging from the sky.  We’re stuck in one big crazily shaken snow globe.  I’ll be out there driving in it soon.  Yay.  But not before I finish my second cup of coffee while writing yet another installment for the ongoing saga of my life in lists.  Man, I love lists.  Whoever invented lists is my hero.

These are my random thoughts for the day, in no well thought out order whatsoever.

1. The election is over at last for our American friends, and, for whatever it’s worth, this Canadian is happy with the results.  What’s good for you is often also good for us.  And I’m so sick of hearing all things political at the moment but I’m sure my little sigh of relief was lost in the great collective one to the south of us.  Time for some serious back to normal.

2.  Having a house husband around certainly has its perks.  I can give him a grocery list, and he goes off and buys stuff.  Last night when I came home he was barbecuing pork chops in the garage.  Yes, I think he does realize it’s November, but his barbecuing compulsion is proving to be a hard one to shut down.  Maybe by Christmas he’ll give it up.  Then I’ll get him going on the George Foreman Grill.  I may never cook again.

3. W has just informed me that we have a heavy snow fall warning in effect in our area and that it’s supposed to keep right on snowing all day long.  See how useful he can be?  He loves his snow blower even more than he loves the barbecue.

4.  December is the deadest month there is in the optical business.  Nobody that I know of ever decides to put a brand new pair of glasses in a childs stocking.  For the rest of this month and into the next, my working hours have been cut back, supposedly to make the wages number look better on paper.  But I also have been given the time off over Christmas that I requested, so I am not going to utter even one word of complaint.  Well, okay, maybe one.  But no more than that.  This will give me more time to shop and to make probably twice as many lists as I would have done with a normal work schedule.  So everybody wins.

5.  Thanks to sillyliss, one of my awesome blogging friends, for a lovely comment in which she mentioned the name of an author I greatly admire. I have downloaded the newest Kate Morton book to my kindle – The Secret Keeper.  That would no doubt be a great one for curling up with when we’re snowed in.  And can’t make it to work.  Even though it’s like a ten minute drive away on a normal day.  Well it’s a nice thought anyway.

My second cup is empty.  My list is done.  As long as the world never runs out of coffee, I feel like I can face anything it throws my way.  Or at least have the strength to make a list of all the reasons why I can’t.