What Happened to Hannah by Mary Kay McComas

What Happened to Hannah is one of those novels that you pretty much know from the start what is going to happen, but it is so well written that you don't mind. Hannah Benson has returned to her hometown after 20 years to settle her mother's estate as well as take custody of her niece. Now, Clearfield Virginia is the last place that Hannah wants to be, as it brings back nothing but very dark and disturbing memories. Not only that, but some very dark and disturbing secrets may be uncovered. Throw in the fact that Hannah's high school sweetheart is now the town sheriff, and well, you can just imagine...

Karen

The Genesis Secret by Tom Knox

In the deserts of eastern Turkey, archaeologists are unearthing a stone temple, the world's most ancient building. When Journalist Rob Luttrell is sent to report on the dig, he is intrigued to learn that someone deliberately buried the site 10,000 years ago. Why? Meanwhile, in London, a bizarre attack is baffling the police. When a weird killing takes place on the Isle of Man, followed by another in rural Dorset, DC Mark Forrester begins to discern a curious pattern in these apparently random murders. What weaves together these two stories is the Genesis Secret: a revelation so shocking it may threaten the social structure of the world.

The story is compelling and the characters well-drawn, but I almost couldn’t finish this book. The killings are gruesome, described in great detail, and escalate in both areas as the story unfolds. The killer’s personality, when revealed, makes it all plausible, but that doesn’t change the fact that I found the amplified depictions gratuitous.

This is obviously a mixed review, but I wanted to share both sides. The Genesis Secret is a good read for those with strong stomachs or the ability to skim.

CAS

Paganini's Ghost by Paul Adam

A priceless violin once owned by composer-violinist Paganini, a young Russian prodigy who plays it at a special concert, and a dead Parisian art dealer found with an antique gold box and a torn scrap of the piece played the night before at the concert: what better setting could there be?

In Paganini's Ghost, Paul Adam’s second novel (after The Rainaldi Quartet), we are once again transported to Cremona, Italy to the home of luthier (violin-maker) Gianni Castiglione. Gianni is pulled into the mystery by his friend, Detective Guastafeste, because of his expertise in musical history and violins. The two travel across Europe tracking clues to both the current murder and also a century old mystery tied to Paganini, the Bonapartes, and Russian Empress Catherine the Great.

History, mystery, music, and likeable characters – download some of Paganini’s works to play in the background and settle in with this great read! 


CAS

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

I didn't know a lot about Steve Jobs before I started reading this biography. I, of course, knew that he died after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. I also knew that he was the founder and leader of Apple, and that he helped create many of the Apple products of which I'm a huge fan.

There are few things I learned after reading this book. For example, Jobs was the CEO of Pixar, the company that brought us such movies as Toy Story, and Up. I also learned that Steve Jobs was quite the crier. He was known to get teared up, sob, and lose his composure pretty frequently. That was surprising to me, considering he was a high-powered CEO.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. Isaacson interviewed anyone who might shed some light on the man behind Apple. He didn't just interview people who had good things to say, he also interviewed people who didn't think so highly of Jobs. It made for a well-rounded book, and gives readers a full picture of Steve Jobs. If you'd like to know more about the founder of Apple, I'd recommend Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.

Carrie

The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt by Caroline Preston

Scrapbookers, family historians and anyone with an affinity for the Roaring Twenties will cherish this first-ever novel in pictures.  Frankie begins compiling the scrapbook novel in June 1920 after high school graduation by typing text on her father's old Corona and incorporating pictures and memorabilia.  The scrapbook details the next eight years of her life, including her studies at Vassar (where she meets Edna St. Vincent Millay) followed by her life in New York and Paris and her return home.  It vividly brings to life the New York literary scene as well as the bohemian lives of expatriots (think Hemingway and Joyce) in Paris.  The reader feels like she is paging throuogh her grandmother's scrapbook instead of turning the pages of a novel, and thus the pure genius of the book arises.  (Gertrude Stein types may be dismayed by the book's ending, but Romantics will sign with delight.)

Dawn

http://bit.ly/AcRCXY

The Odds by Stewart O'Nan

The odds of a contemporary middle-aged couple relating to the characters and events in this book?  About 1 in 2.  O'Nan's gem of a book, set appropriately in Niagara Falls on Valentine's Day, is about Art and Marion Fowler's attempt to "go for broke" to save their marriage and their dignity.  As empty nesters dealing with unemployment, an unpayable mortgage and an impending divorce, they cash out their life savings and risk it all in a casino in the Canadian Falls--the same casino they visited on their honeymoon 30 years earlier.  As they stumble along from one fiasco to another, the reader is rooting for them to beat the odds, perhaps thinking "there but for the grace of God go I."  Reading this book during Valentine's week made it especially timely, but anyone who is a romantic at heart will be cheering for the Fowlers to succeed.

Dawn

http://bit.ly/wZfzu6

Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman by Friedrich Christian Delius

Continuing in a line of books that play with the title of James Joyce’s novel Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (my two favorite titles of this sort are William Eastlake’s Portrait of an Artist with 26 Horses and Laurie Foos’ Portrait of the Walrus by a Young Artist), Friedrich Christian Delius’ Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman has the distinct achievement of containing only one sentence. Yes, you heard me right. There is only one sentence in this book. Of course that sentence is very long, continuing for over 100 pages. The book ends up flowing like an extended series of thoughts on the part of the young German woman at its center. For me at least, the single sentence really didn’t make for challenging reading, beyond the fact that it’s hard to find a good place to take a break from the novel. There are still paragraphs in the book, and the paragraphs make Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman more reader friendly than it might have been otherwise.

What really made the book off-putting and a challenge to get through, despite its short length, was its almost complete lack of plot.  The book takes place in Rome during World War II. The woman is pregnant and her husband is stationed in North Africa. The woman wanders around Rome pondering her life, interacting with next to no one, and successfully putting this reader to sleep. It reminded me of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, another book that seemed to go on for ages and has little in the way of a traditional plot. Despite my dislike of Virginia Woolf’s writing in general and Mrs. Dalloway in particular, I have talked to many people over the years that like or even consider themselves fans of Mrs. Dalloway. It could be that I’m just missing something.

John