104. Crawfish Mountain

By Ken Wells
Rated 5 Stars

Loved this book!

"Justin Pitre's marsh island, a legacy of his trapper grandfather, is a scenic rival to anything in the Everglades, and he has promised to protect it from all harm. But he hasn't counted on oil bigwig Tom Huff's plans to wreck this bayou paradise by ramming a pipeline through it. When cajolery doesn't sway Justin to sign the land over, Huff turns to darker methods. But Justin and his spirited wife, Grace, prove to be formidable adversaries - and the game is on." "Into the fray comes the charismatic Cajun governor, Joe T. Evangeline, who seems more interested in chasing skirts than saving Louisiana's eroding coast. The Guv, though, is a man on the edge, upended by a midlife crisis and torn between a secret political obligation to Big Oil and the persuasive powers of Julie Galjour, a feisty environmentalist. Julie is clearly out to reform more than the Guv's ecopolitics, but will his tragicomic Big Oil deals wreck both his career and his chances with the brash and beautiful activist?" "As Justin and Grace battle to stop this Big Oil assault, the plot thickens - and the Guv becomes snared in the web. Featuring a gumbo of eccentrics and lowlifes, a kidnapping, a sexy snitch, a toxic-waste-dumping scheme, a boat chase, and a fishing trip gone horribly awry, Crawfish Mountain, spiced with Ken Wells's keen eye for locale, showcases his adventurous storytelling."--BOOK JACKET.

103. Coming Home

By Rosamund Pilcher
Rated 4 1/2 Stars

This is another one of Golden Oldie rereads.

From the BOOK JACKET: "Against the backdrop of an elegant Cornwall mansion before World War II and a vast continent-spanning canvas during the turbulent war years, this involving story tells of an extraordinary young woman's coming of age, coming to grips with love and sadness, and in every sense of the term, coming home... In 1935, Judith Dunbar is left behind at a British boarding school when her mother and baby sister go off to join her father in Singapore. At Saint Ursula's, her friendship with Loveday Carey-Lewis sweeps her into the privileged, madcap world of the British aristocracy, teaching her about values, friendship, and wealth. But it will be the drama of war, as it wrenches Judith from those she cares about most, that will teach her about courage...and about love. Teeming with marvelous, memorable characters in a novel that is a true masterpiece, Coming Home is a book to be savored, reread, and cherished forever."

102. September

Rosamond Pilcher
Rated 4 1/2 Stars

Another re-read this is a sequel of sorts of The Shell Seekers combines old and new characters from all over the world to the little town of Strathcroy, Scotland, for an extraordinary birthday party. A heartwarming story of family joys and sorrows.

101. The Shell Seekers

By Rosamond Pilcher
Rated 4 1/2 Stars

This month I am doing Rosamond Pilcher as my Great 2007 Rereading Adventure continues. She writes my kind of books. Below is the summary from the library web site:

Set in London and Cornwall from World War II to present, The Shell Seekers tells the story of the Keeling family, and of the passions and heartbreak that have held them together for three generations. The family centers around Penelope, and it is her love, courage, and sense of values that determine the course of all their lives, Deftly shifting back and forth in time, each chapter centers on one of the principal players in the family's history. the unifying thread is an oil painting entitled "The Shell Seekers," done by Penelope's father. It is this painting that symbolizes to Penelope the ties between the generations. But it is the fate of this painting that just may tear the family apart.

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox

Maggie O'Farrell
Rated DNF

In spite of rave reviews all over the internet this book was just way too depressing for me at this time. Perhaps later. Below is a summary from my library website.

Iris Lockhart leads a solitary if spicy life, managing her clothing shop in Edinburgh and dallying with her married lover. But when Iris learns that she has a great-aunt Esme waiting to be released from Cauldstone Hospital, where she has been locked away for 60 years, it is as if a bomb has dropped. The hospital is closing, and someone must collect Esme, who upon inspection seems frail, quiet, and a little quirky but hardly mentally ill. As far as Iris knew, her grandmother Kitty had no siblings; Kitty is still alive but suffering from Alzheimer's. The secret of Esme's existence is only the first of many family secrets revealed in a tale told through shifting viewpoints, among them Kitty's fragmented recollections.

100. Just Jane

By Nancy Moser
Rated 4 Stars

A fictional account of the life of Jane Austen that's woven around what events in her life are known. It's pretty good but its not skillfully enough written to make me forget that it IS fiction.

Still, a pretty good read for what it is.Definately worth carrying home from the library but I wouldn't recommend spending any money on it.

99. Run

By Ann Patchett
Rated 3 1/2 Stars

Ann Patchett is a hit and miss author for me but even when she hits I don't really understand her books. She writes way over my head I guess.

Run is a story about aproximately 24 hours in the life of an X-politician (white). One of his two adopted children (both black) is hit by a car and the story is about how the accident affects all the different characters in the book. While I am enjoying it I have wondered a couple of times why Ann Patchett found it necessary to write this book. I really had to reach once or twice to suspend my disbelief.

98. The House of Lanyon

By Valerie Anand

In Exmoor, England Richard Lanyon always resented the fact that his father was a tenant farmer working for aristocratic affluent Sweetwater clan. Richard wants to be free by owning his land not slaving for someone else to gain the profits of his toil; as the case with his recently deceased dad. Ambitious, he will shape the future through his son.

His goal seems achieved when he arranges for his offspring Peter to marry wealthy Liza Weaver. However, Peter loves Marion Locke and his fiancée loves someone else. Neither are pleased with the arrangement, but both accept the inevitably of their marriage as they understand their duty to family. Meanwhile the widow Richard is attracted to Marion. While his brokenhearted son and equally despondent daughter-in-law struggle together, Richard has a dark secret that fosters a deep guilt that haunts his gut and a fear that if revealed THE HOUSE OF LANYON will topple like a deck of cards.

97. Lord John and the Hand of Devils

By Diana Gabaldon
Rated: 4 Stars


This book contains a short story titled Hellfire and two novellas. Hellfire has finds Lord John swearing vengeance in London for a murdered government official, leading him to a deconsecrated abbey where members of the political elite indulge their basest desires.

The first Novella pits Lord John against a succubus that plagues his Prussian encampment, and combines humor with military strategy and supernatural myth. And the second Novela finds Lord John investigating the cause of a cannon explosion in the English countryside that results in a fellow officer's death.

96. Scarlet

By Stephen Lawhead
Rated 4 1/2 Stars

This is the second book in the King Raven series, told in the first person it's a completely re-imagined tale of the man known as Robin Hood, but told in a totally different way from the story that many of us know. I am enjoying this series very much and I think I probably liked this book even better than I did Hood.

As the story of King raven continues, the stakes are getting higher and the lives of Bran's band become more precarious with every passing day. Will Scarlet is about to be hung after being caught in a failed attempt to kidnap sheriff Richard de Glanville Meanwhile Bran discovers a secret that leads them on a sea voyage to France in a daring attempt to reveal a plot against King William by his brother, Robert. Will his efforts increase the sheriff's determination to destroy King Raven.

95. Beatrix Potter:

1866-1943 : the artist and her world
Rated: 4 1/2 Stars

A companion to the Tate Gallery Exhibition, this is a definitive work on the art of Beatrix Potter. Her life, work, the influences of contemporary artists, and later work as a conservationist are demonstrated with over 450 reproductions of her work.

An excellent biography. I had no idea that BP was also an avid naturalist, conservationist and farmer as well as a writer and illustrator of children's books. I ordered the movie from the library and while it was good naturally the book was much better.

94. A Sailor of Austria:

In which, without really intending to, Otto Prohaska becomes Official War Hero No. 27 of the Habsburg Empire

By John Biggins
Rated 4 1/2 stars

A Sailor of Austria is a great historical novel of WWI, accurately recalling the final days of a little-known European empire. Before I read "Until the Last Salute" last month I had no idea that Austro-Hungary even had a navy, let alone a submarine fleet.

The story is told in a gently sardonic style in which the author conveys the crumbling pretensions of the Austro-Hungarian empire and the utter meaninglessness of its military efforts in this tepid backwater of the War to end all Wars. Part of the allure of the story for me was the very obscurity of the campaign Biggins is describing and his hero and narrator, Otto Prohaska, is a likeable sea-dog, with a healthy cynicism regarding the doddering Empire he serves, but whose loyalty to that same crumbling edifice remains steadfast until it literally falls to pieces around him.

The final scenes aboard his submarine as the Austro-Hungarian flag is taken down for the last time and his crew prepares to break up are among the the most moving in the book. The book has plenty more to recommend it - humour, romance, intrigue, in short a must-read for anyone interested in war and the sea.