The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society,Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrow

A member of my local book club suggested this book for our next book club and I am so grateful. She tends to offer up really great stories which I may enjoy because we are two of three girls in the club, we always have to be careful not to choose chick books. This one falls close to that category but not quite.

This is written in a new style for me. It is offered up in letter style, as if you are reading some one's personal correspondence without all the boring passages included. The story is of a successful city career woman who finds herself drawn to the Channel Islands to write a story of their occupation during World War II. While passing letters to & from the residents of the town of Guernsey she falls in love with them and their lifestyle although she doesn't quite realize it at the time. She moves there to research the story more and completely falls in love with the people, the place and the pace of the town.

There is a love story hidden in the midst of a mystery and drama. There is also humor in this drama as the town members share their stories of the German occupation and the terrors of it all. As in Zoo Station I was a affected by the stories of cruelty and the story of children being shipped from the islands for safety, but there was so much more to this one than Zoo Station that I was able to focus on the overall story more and enjoy it for what it was. A wonderful read, a heart rending love story of a woman and a tow.

Lions and Tigers and Bears, oooo just Tigers.

Definitely Dead, Charlaine Harris. I am loving the new character, Quinn. I love the idea of the big bad Tiger and the chemistry between Sookie & Quinn.

Again, I enjoyed this one more than some of the previous ones. I liked the story lines, getting Sookie out of Bon Temp & I like getting her away from Bill. He's boring to me. I really enjoyed her involvement with the Queen of Louisiana, researching her cousins death and the realization that she has fairy blood. Finally a reason that these supernaturals all go gaga over her.

I wonder how I would feel about Sookie if I weren't already introduced to her from the HBO series True Blood, and Anna Paquin. I don't care for her in the role which I think affects how I take these novels. She gets on my nerves.

This novel doesn't though. Enjoy it!

Dead as a Doornail, really.

So now someone is singling out shifters in an attempt to rid the world of them one at a time. Of course Sookie gets involved and is there to help save the day.

This was the first Sookie Stackhouse novel I didn't cringe so much when I read references to the previous novels. Either there weren't many of them or they just didn't bother me too much. At any rate I enjoyed this one more than the others.

There were many layers & stories in this novel as well. Alcide needed Sookie's help with his fathers bid for pack leader, Sookie's house partially burnt down. There was much drama in Bon Temp.

Read it, it was a lot of fun!

Hmmm

Zoo Station, David Downing...The opening of this novel hurt my heart, I expect it would draw other readers in but with an 12 -18 month old son it tore at my heart and almost left a hole. The setting was a train station in Berlin, I assume it was Zoo Station but don't really remember. The scene was full of children and their parents, the children were being shipped out of the country because of the soon coming war. This is what hurt my heart, the thought of having to say goodbye to my son for his protection, not knowing if we would ever be together again, man, a kicker.

The setting of the story is Berlin Germany in the years before World War II, I found the changes in the city before the war, I think in my subconscious the war happened overnight & the people of Germany accepted it that way. This historical novel / mystery describes life for Germans before the war, the fear they lived with for breaking any laws, the arrogance and lawlessness of military personal. It is written in first person, the character can hold either British or US citizenship so is protected to a certain extent from the punishments passed on to German citizens. He's also a journalist and has the curiosity of a journalist. So when a suspicious death of an acquaintance happens, he can't avoid getting into the thick of it.

This novel didn't thrill me. The opening set the stage for me & where I am with my life, this wasn't a good thing. Five years ago it wouldn't have affected me the way it did, now, is a different story. Something seemed to run very slow for me as well. This may have been my inner apprehension because of the opening, or it may have been the writing itself. This was the first of a long series so many seem to like this but I'm not sure if I will read another in the series.