I admit it - I am jumping the gun. We picked our third book that we are reading together as a group and even though it's due next month I already finished. It was a smart, suspense-filled art heist of a ride. For those people who enjoy USA's "White Collar" and such movie classics as "The Sting"  but are in the mood for some romance, this is perfect.

B&N Says ~

Where passion lives...

The Maine air was bitter cold and frigid as Dr. Miranda Jones returned to the family home after a busy lectur...

I totally judged this book by it's cover and I was soooo RIGHT!! Ha-HA!! I saw this on a display while at work and immediately wanted to be the girl in the beautiful patchwork jacket with the blonde braid riding a fierce black horse. Who wouldn't want to be her? The book starts out with an Anne of Green Gables feel: young girl living with her grandma on the edge of a small community. The girl is more at ease with nature and doesn't fit in at the school in town and can't stand to be inside lea...

I did it, and I liked it.
 Holding the Dream was well written, suspenseful and fun - a great relaxing read. Of course there was plenty of romance but I was not expecting the mystery aspect and it really reminded me of a grown-up Nancy Drew.  I found myself needing to continue and read Finding the Dream  and will probably go back and read the first sooner or later too.

B&N says ~  Roberts continues her three-part saga of the Templeton Hotel dynasty with the story of Kate Powell, the serious, p...

Definitely a change of pace from what I have been reading. Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork is classified a teen book but it doesn't follow the recent trend of "paranormal romance". We follow 17 year old Marcelo through a summer of experiences outside of his comfort zone which sounds ordinary enough except for the fact that he lies possibly somewhere along the Autism spectrum. He refers to himself in the third person, he can hear "internal music" and his special interests lie i...

Another successful meeting! What a great group of ladies we have in this book circle that read such a variety of different things - it's always inspiring!! Since the last meeting I managed to get two more books under my belt. The first came highly recommended from a fellow bookseller.


The Sixty-Eight Rooms by Marianne Malone explores the Thorne Rooms which are housed at the Chicago Art Institute. I've been there and somehow missed these - kicking myself, and will have to go back someday.  Jac...

Our first book that we read as a whole group - and I would call it a success.  A very dear friend of mine recommended it as something fun and lighthearted and she wasn't wrong. We time jump between 1991 with a graduate student working on her dissertation and then back to the Salem Witch Trials. The beginning reads a little campy like a mystery or innocent romance novel but after the halfway point the plot picks up speed and the ride is a lot of fun. It made me want to read more things about t...

After having loved the movie "Little Women" with Susan Sarandon, Claire Danes, Winona Ryder, etc... since I was a little girl I was flabbergasted to know that Ms. Alcott had written additional books about the March family. My grandmother gave me a beautiful copy of Little Women when I was young and I had to give it a few goes before I actually got through it.  Finding Little Men in a collection of children's classics for my Nook was a true treat. It also reminded me of part of the reasons tha...

I just finished a book called WingNut by Mary Jane Auch, a local author who has been a favorite since she visited my elementary school. A quick read, but emotionally moving. It reminded me of the books Ingrid Law recently wrote called Savvy and Scumble. WingNut doesn't have the magic element of the other two but there are definite correlations of young struggling families with strong preteen kid characters that really start to figure out what is important in life. The relationships that are c...

I read some really wonderful books last fall and they are definitely worth a mention. I highly recommend all six of them.

The Grimm Legacy by Polly Shulman
Perfect for the bibliophile who loves fairytales!
B&N says ~ "Elizabeth has just started working as a page at the New York Circulating Material Repository - a lending library of objects, contemporary and historical, common and obscure. And secret, too - for in the repository's basement lies the Grimm Collection, a room of magical items st...

Picture the Dead by Adele Griffin & Lisa Brown


Recommend ~ This was lent to me by a friend on the thought that it might strike my fancy. I read it all in one evening so I guess they were right. It reminded me of a cross between the movies "The Others" and "Cold Mountain" as the story is set in the time of the Civil War with more than a few ghosts hanging around. It's easy to develop sympathy with Jennie's character as she is now stuck in a passively hostile house where her place has been comp...

B&N says ~ "An ancient pain...

Okay, so the website has just been launched. Let's see how this goes!

Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
I reread the first three books in the series including Anne of Avonlea and Anne of the Island. They were actually more wonderful than I had remembered and completely put me in the little girl spirit for the holidays.

Here's the B&N Description: "Precocious, talkative Anne comes from an orphanage to live on a Canadian farm, where the lively 11-year-old transforms her guardians' plac...