May's Book of the Month

Hello Everyone! I chose the picture posted above because it reminds me of reading to my daughter Mareena when she was little. Every afternoon until she was about eight or nine years old, we would take one of her books that she wanted to read or that she was reading and we would curl up together on my big bed. 

We would spend an hour or so reading a chapter of her book, and then take a nap together. Her absolutely favorite author at that time was an English author named Enid Blyton. Ahh, nice memories...

My picks for 'Books of the Month' will be decidedly more adult these days, but they will be from almost any genre. May's Book of the Month is: 

Faithless by Karin Slaughter

Published as: Faithless in January 2005

Publisher: Dell

Birth Name: Karin Slaughter

Born: 6 January 1971 in Atlanta, Georgia

Canonical Name: Karin Slaughter

Pseudonyms: None

Faithless by Karin Slaughter was the twenty-eighth book that I read in 2011. I have had a copy of this book on my TBR bookshelf since August 17, 2010. I actually began reading this book in April of 2011, although I finished the book 5 days later in May of 2011. I have sent it off to another good home on July 18, 2011.

Till we Meet Again, Glow Brightly as Moonlight

Anita Shreve - Body Surfing

31. Body Surfing by Anita Shreve (2007)
Fortune's Rocks Series Book 4
Length: 291 pages
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Started: 25 May 2011
Finished: 28 May 2011
Where did it come from? From Bookmooch
How long has it been on my TBR pile? Since 25 May 2011
Why do I have it? I like Anita Shreve as an author and have read and enjoyed several books by this author in the past.

Sydney is once divorced, once widowed and decides to tutor the teenage daughter of the Edwards family. She arrives at their cottage and immediately the two older sons try to get to know her. There are tensions in the Edwards house that escalate when the daughter disappears and the closeness between Sydney and the brothers is threatened by jealousy in many forms. I enjoyed this book and give it an A+!


A+! - (96-100%)


Till we Meet Again, Glow Brightly as Moonlight

Janice Graham - Firebird

Re-read: Firebird by Janice Graham (1998)
Length: 301 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Originally Read: 10 October 2009
Re-read Finished: 23 May 2011
Where did it come from? Originally from a Library Book Sale, then from my "posted" shelf.

I had first read this book two years ago, and despite Mareena's assurances that I had read it before, I couldn't remember the plot. It was very good except towards the end.


Till we Meet Again, Glow Brightly as Moonlight

Anita Shreve - Resistance

29. Resistance by Anita Shreve (1995)
Length: 284 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Started: 5 May 2011
Finished: 15 May 2011
Where did it come from? From Bookmooch
How long has it been on my TBR pile? Since 5 May 2011
Why do I have it? I like Anita Shreve as an author and have read and enjoyed several books by this author in the past.

Set in a Belgian village during World War II, Claire Daussois is struggling to keep her marriage alive amidst severe depletions in her Nazi-occupied village. All the happiness and joy seems to have bled out of her marriage. She and her husband have been sheltering refugees from the war - Allied pilots, fleeing Belgian soldiers and Jews are among some of the people they help.

Claire nurses the wounded, acts as interpreter and waits anxiously for the war to end. One day, when Henri, her husband is doing Resistance work, Claire discovers a downed American B-17 Bomber and a young boy turns to her for help in nursing the injured pilot. As the pilot Ted Brice recovers in Claire's attic, she awakens to the possibility of love. For twenty days, Claire and Ted are sheltered until the war returns with shocking suddenness leaving them with haunting memories of their time together.

I really enjoyed this book, even though it was extremely sad. I give this book an A+!


A+! - (96-100%)


Till we Meet Again, Glow Brightly as Moonlight

It's my Second Blogiversary!

Hello everyone! I hope that you are all having a wonderful day for yourselves! :) Yes, today is my Second Blogiversary! I can't believe that I have been blogging for this long already! It's time for me to crank up the jukebox and party down. With my arthritic knees the way they are these days, that's a strong impossibility for me to actually dance around, but I'll just sit in my big, fluffy oversized armchair and jig my feet around instead! :) 

I checked on an anniversary website and discovered that the traditional gift to celebrate two years together is to give your partner anything Cotton. The more modern gift is to give your partner China. The second anniversary gemstone is garnet, the anniversary color is red and the flower that you usually give your partner on your second anniversary together is Cosmos which stands for modesty.

There are currently 20 to 26 species of Cosmos which are native to Mexico, Florida and the southern United States, Arizona, Central America, South America and Paraguay. The first species of Cosmos was discovered by Spanish priests who grew Cosmos in their mission gardens in Mexico. The evenly-spaced petals led the priests to christen the flowers Cosmos, which is the Greek word for 'harmony' or 'ordered universe.'

I just started reading Resistance by Anita Shreve on 5 May 2011.

Anita Shreve (born 1946) grew up in Dedham, Massachusetts (just outside Boston) as the eldest of three daughters. Early literary influences for her were reading Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton in junior high school - a book that she says is still one of her favorites - as well as everything ever written by Eugene O'Neill that she read as a senior in high school. She began her writing career while working as a high school teacher in Reading, Massachusetts. One of her first published stories, Past the Island, Drifting won the O. Henry Prize in 1976. 

She finally decided that she couldn't really make a successful living writing short fiction, switching to journalism and traveling to Nairobi, Kenya, where she lived for three years, writing for an African magazine. Anita Shreve then moved back to the United States and began writing and editing several magazines in New York. She published her first novel in 1989, Eden Close, and since then has written 15 more books.

Anita Shreve is happily married to a man who she first met when she was 13 years old. She has two children and three stepchildren and currently lives in Longmeadow, Massachusetts.

Till we Meet Again, Glow Brightly as Moonlight

Karin Slaughter - Faithless

28. Faithless by Karin Slaughter (2005)
Grant County Series Book 5
Length: 576 pages
Genre: Contemporary Mystery
Started: 27 April 2011
Finished: 3 May 2011
Where did it come from? From Bookmooch
How long has it been on my TBR pile? Since 17 August 2010
Why do I have it? I like contemporary mysteries and Karin Slaughter is a new author for me.

The victim was buried alive in the Georgia woods - then killed in horrifying fashion. When Sara Linton and her husband Jeffrey Tolliver stumble on the body, they both become obsessed with solving the case. It will test their relationship and bring dozens of lives into contact with them. This is my first Karin Slaughter book that I've read and I loved it. I give it an A+!

A+! - (96-100%)

Till we Meet Again, Glow Brightly as Moonlight

Reading Wrap-up for April at Moonshine and Rosefire

Hello everyone out there and I hope that you all had a terrific reading month for yourselves. I am known as Rosefire around the Internet and this is my new personal reading blog. I originally posted my reviews over at my daughter's blog, Emeraldfire's Bookmark but am now in the process of transferring them all over to my own blog. My daughter makes blogging look like so much fun that I thought that I would try it out for myself! :)

Anyway, I started out April with 658 unread books lying around the house and ended the month with 649 books unread. All of the books that I acquired this month came from a Library Book Sale that we went to on the 18th (50 cents for paperbacks, $1.00 for hardcovers). The money goes to help our library's upkeep and stocking some latest releases.), Bookmooch and Paperback Swap.

Let me try to break down the influx for you:  

Re-reads
- Secrecy by Belva Plain  

Changes to the TBR pile Read from my TBR pile (Yes! I am a reading machine :))
- Gone to Her Death by Jill McGown
- A Change in Altitude by Anita Shreve
- The Black House by Paul Theroux
- When Darkness Falls by James Grippando  
- The Wingless Bird by Catherine Cookson
- Unsavory Delicacies: Three Short Stories of Suspense by Russell Brooks
- The Best of Friends by Joanna Trollope
- Murder in Mayberry: Greed, Death and Mayhem in a Small Town by Mary Kinney Branson and Jack Branson

Added to my TBR pile (oh well, you win some and you lose some! Not too bad though, I suppose:))
- Thornyhold by Mary Stewart
- Testimony by Anita Shreve
- White Oleander by Janet Fitch  

Taken off my TBR pile and sent to a new home (Yay! Happy Dance! :))
- How Stella Got Her Groove Back by Terry McMillan
- Blind Instinct by Robert W. Walker
- The Architect by Keith Ablow
- Ghostlight by Clare McNally
- Forgiving by LaVyrle Spencer
- Honor Among Thieves by Jeffrey Archer
- Unsavory Delicacies: Three Short Stories of Suspense by Russell Brooks
- Sink or Swim by Stacy Juba

Well, there it is...the breakdown! All in all, a very good reading month for me. Here's a further breakdown:

Books Read: 9
Pages Read: 2,704
Grade Range: A+! to B+!


So, there you go! The reading month that was April. I hope that you all had an equally good reading month; if not a little better. :) See you all next month! :)


Till we Meet Again, Glow Brightly as Moonlight