Silver in the Blood

Silver in the Blood by Jessica Day George

Seventeen year old cousins, Dacia and Lou, finally get to embark on their long awaited trip to see their mothers' native country of Romania. Dacia and her aunt are traveling ahead of Lou and her parents and so this story takes place with the two cousins exchanging letters as they travel through Europe on their way to meet their maternal cousins and grandmother.

The closer they get, they begin to discover their family's dangerous secrets and the unlikely centuries-old bond they have with the Dracula family and how it will affect their future.

This book really had a slow start and it wasn't until about 100 pages in that I felt like the story was ready to begin. I also didn't really understand the need of keeping the girls in the dark for so long about their transformative abilities. Once the story got started, George did a good job of giving a classic folktale new life.

Children's Fairytales, Fables and Folklore!

When I Found You

When I Found You by Catherine Ryan Hyde

Over the years, Nathan McCann had drifted into a steady but monotonous rhythm with his life and marriage.  The only thing he had left that he really looked forward too were his early morning duck hunts with his faithful hunting dog, Sadie.

On a chilly Fall morning as he and Sadie set out to hunt, Sadie, who was a well trained and obedient hunting dog, went off on her own and would not listen when he called her. As Nathan went to figure out what had Sadie so riled, he found an abandoned baby boy that could not be more than a few hours old.

Nathan, who had never had children of his own, felt an inexplicable bond with this little baby boy and immediately began to plan a future where he would raise him as his own. When the boy's grandma came forward to claim the infant, Nathan was unaccountably disappointed and against his normal passive personality, insisted that the grandma one day bring the boy to meet him.

As a teenager, the boy becomes to much for the grandma to handle and when she has no where else to turn, she remembers her promise to Nathan and takes the boy to meet his rescuer.

This is a touching story of a man's conviction to helping a young boy, who is angry and lost and needs an unconditional love and support that is otherwise so hard to find.

Out of the Easy

Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys

Josie Moraine is seventeen years old and lives on her own above the bookstore where she works. Her second job is cleaning a French Quarter brothel where her mother works. Her mother is a self absorbed thieving prostitute that doesn't even want to admit that she has a daughter.

Josie is determined to leave life in the Big Easy and her mother's reputation behind and attend the prestigious Smith College in Northhampton. She is saving every penny she can to achieve her goal and just when she feels like she might have a shot at it, her mother gets her entangled in the death of wealthy businessmen and leaves her with a mob debt that Josie might end up paying for with her life.

This was a captivating read with well developed characters, especially Josie who, despite being abandoned by both her mother and her father, was able to create a unique family of her own that included the madam of her mother's brothel, a local taxi driver and the owner of the bookstore where she works.

USU Extension Class

Come join us on Thursday for a class on how to prepare fresh vegetables by the USU Extension Office.

Don't Forget!!

September Book Club at the Library Thursday (tomorrow) night!!

Whether you have had a chance to read the book or not...come join us for some fun and games!

All The Light We Cannot See

By Anthony Doerr

Set in World War II France and Germany, All the Light We Cannot See is a long, rich novel populated by a range of imperfect characters, some who try to transcend that imperfection, others who cannot see it.

The cast of characters includes Marie-Laure, blind since age six, with a quick mind and a great deal of self-confidence; her father, locksmith for the Museum of Natural History in Paris; Marie-Laure’s great-uncle, an agoraphobic haunted by ghosts since he returned from World War I; the great-uncle’s elderly housekeeper, who finds the courage to join the French resistance; Werner, a German orphan who is a prodigy in the creation and repair of radios; Werner’s sister Jutta, left behind when Werner is accepted into a science academy for Hitler Youth that offers more political indoctrination than science; and a whole host of others.

Anthony Doerr brings this wide assembly of individuals to life, moving among them, slowly drawing them nearer one another, fleshing each of them out so that even those we might expect to be stereotypes are much more multifaceted.

And among these multifaceted characters lies a multifaceted stone: a diamond with a legendary history. In less able hands, the diamond would have dominated this story, which would have degenerated into a variation on Raiders of the Lost Ark, but it’s the characters who are the heart of All the Light We Cannot See. There are a few we hate, but for the most part, we can’t help but see the better parts of them. The question is whether they will discover these better selves in time to make a difference of some sort in a world quite literally in flames.

Amazon Review