115. Wings of Fire

BY:  Charles Todd
Rated 4.5 Stars
From:  Library

I am reading this series all out of order but I don't think it makes the slightest bit of difference since there is no back story running through any of them.  Each one is pretty much a total stand alone.  I love this series.  It is so well done and the period is probably my favorite one to read about in all of history.


PUBLISHERS DESCRIPTION:
Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge is dispatched to Cornwall to investigate three deaths?seemingly a double-suicide and an accident?that have occurred within weeks in the Trevelyan family. Still recovering from shell shock sustained while serving in France during WWI, Rutledge carries in his head the challenging voice of Hamish MacLeod, a Scottish soldier about whose battlefront death Rutledge experiences profound guilt. In the village of Borcombe, Rutledge learns that one of the apparent suicides, Olivia Marlowe, wrote as O.A. Manning, a poet whose work had uncannily captured both the misery of war and the passion and beauty of love. Olivia Marlowe and her devoted half-brother Nicholas Cheney died of poisoning within hours of each other. Another half-brother, Stephen FitzHugh, the only family member opposed to selling the family estate where Olivia and Nicholas lived, fell down the stairs to his death not long after the funeral. Searching for answers about the deaths and for an understanding of the poet, Rutledge finds himself on a decades-long trail of cleverly disguised murders. Todd's cast is sometimes hard to keep straight, but readers will find it hard to resist following Rutledge on this emotionally intense quest. Memorable characters, subtle plot twists, the evocative seaside setting and descriptions of architecture, the moors and the sea fully reward the attention this novel commands.

114. Saffron Dreams

By Shaila Abdullah
Rated 3 Stars
From:  Library

My main problem with this story is that I never developed a connection with Arissa the main character.  She came across to me as a rather emotionally shallow person.  Perhaps it was the authors writing style that bothered me but I felt like the whole book was skimming the surface of her life and her feelings.

I realize Arissa had multiple problems to deal with, a handicapped child, being a widow and single mother and being a muslim in America.  But the only thing in the whole book I felt like she truly connected with was her child and that her relationship with him was almost an obsession.  I thought she used her in-laws and was glad for them when they finally walked away from her.  I dunno, this book just didn't really click for me. 

LIBRARY SUMMARY:

Pakistani-born Arissa Illahi moves to New York City to be with her husband, who had taken a job at the World Trade Center's Windows on the World restaurant to allow time for completing his novel. He perishes when the towers collapse, and Arissa nearly crumples herself as she struggles with tremendous grief, a troublesome pregnancy, and the various trials she faces as a Muslim when others ignorantly associate her with the terrorists. Abdullah excels at examining the complexity of moving on after this historical event, especially from Arissa's unique perspective as a writer and artist struggling to rear a child with special needs. But this debut novel deals with more than just survival in the aftermath of 9/11, also examining the nature of motherhood by juxtaposing Arissa's supportive mother-in-law and less than maternal mother.