Book Opinion: Caroline Little House, Revisited by Sarah Miller

My 1970’s era copy of Little House on the Prairie, a hardcover version bought for my daughter, and the new version, Caroline, bought recently.

As a long time Laura Ingalls Wilder fan, imagine my delight at discovering Caroline Little House, Revisted, a reimagining of Laura’s book Little House on the Prairie, told from the perspective of Caroline Ingalls, mother of the Ingalls brood. I was not disappointed.

This retelling of the tale delves into Caroline’s emotions, snippets of her history that Laura’s books didn’t address, her fears, her relationship with her husband, her love for her children, and the intestinal fortitude required of the pioneer generation. It includes stories that my fellow prairie-ties will recognize. The leaving of home and family, crossing the frozen Lake Pepin, fording a flooded river in the wagon, arriving in Independence, wolves, prairie fires, Indians, and best of all, MR. EDWARDS. It also clears up a few things, including the fact that the Osage war dance described by Laura didn’t happen. The Ingalls’ were likely frightened by the mourning songs sung by the Osage women after the Osage leaders met with federal Indian agents and agreed to peaceably sell their lands and relocate to Oklahoma. We also learn that the Ingalls family were not removed from their land by the government. Rather, Gustav Gustafson who bought the house in the Big Woods, reneged on the deal, the property reverted to the Ingalls and since they did not yet own their Kansas claim, they had to go back.

The emotions in Laura’s books were the emotions of a child, in this book, we get insight on what the pioneering experience must’ve been like to the women who gave up their entire lives to go west. The fear of giving birth alone, surviving sickness without family, worry for the children, long stretches of time alone on the claim with children while the husband went to town or went out hunting.

This book probably has a very specific audience, people like me who grew up on Laura’s books or the television show. Honestly though, anyone with interest in history or the pioneer era would enjoy this book. By the way, if you’ve never read Laura’s books, and your knowledge of the Little House universe is limited to the Micheal Landon show, I beg you to read the books, and read them to your kids. You’ll never look at that tv show the same way.

Have a great weekend everybody. Spend some of it with a good book, and spread kindness. ❤️

Book Opinion:Faithful by Alice Hoffman

Alice Hoffman is one of my favorite authors. She’s the one who brought us Practical Magic, which delights my soul in both book and movie form. Her latest, Faithful, is equally satisfying.

High school students Shelby Richmond and her best friend Helene were in a terrible car accident.  Shelby was driving and almost died, Helene was injured so badly she remains in that twilight area between life and death where so many find themselves. Confined permanently to her bed and machines, Helene becomes something of a celebrity in their town because she was the beautiful, popular girl who is now in a coma and the tragedy of it all attracts exactly the kind of attention that tragedy always attracts in our society.  Shelby meanwhile is paralyzed by guilt and depression and suffers through her own physical injuries, followed by emotional breakdown, mental hospital confinement, rescue by her mother and self-imposed isolation at home.

The book takes us through the story of Shelby’s return to life. It is a long, convoluted path that involves boys from high school, love, dogs (the best people and saviors of many), work, education, heart-break and happiness, mysterious postcards designed to keep her from the edge and the guardian angel who sends them to her.

This is a great book for anyone who has experienced overwhelming tragedy and/or mental illness of any kind. Shelby is a survivor even though she doesn’t really know it. She shows the reader that you can come back from just about anything and create a life that while different from what you expect, can be better than what you dreamed it would ever be again. It is possible to come to terms with your life.

As usual with Alice Hoffman, the writing is clean and flows well. She writes at a high, lyrical level and it’s dense with feeling and subtlety, but she does it with such skill that it’s a very easy read. I was on a five-hour flight from Seattle to Fairbanks AK and read the entire thing on the plane.

If you’re looking for a good book to keep you company on these chilly winter days, this one might be a good choice.

Have a wonderful week, read a good book, and be kind to people. We need that now more than ever. Be the change you want to see in the world, and make it positive. 😊

Book Opinion: Look Who’s Back by Timur Vermes

Adolph Hitler.

I was raised by parents and grandparents who lived through WWII and the Great Depression. I didn’t realize until about ten years ago, that the America I grew up in was very post war in its sensibilities. I was surrounded by the greatest generation and their independence and strength. I was raised on those values, and one thing that has always fascinated me because of its extremity is WWII era Germany. I couldn’t understand it, and Adolph Hitler was and is, the ultimate boogie man. One minute you see him smiling and petting his dog in what looked like a scene that anybody would be in, the next minute you see him screaming and shaking his fist, spittle flying, weird little bangs separating, thousands of sycophants Seig Heiling and snapping up that infamous salute.

The pageantry created by the Nazis was second to none. Red, black, and white go so well together after all. The uniforms were flashy and they made every effort to show mainly tall, well-built, handsome, blue-eyed blondes to reinforce their agenda. The parades, the bonfires, (hey, are those BOOKS in there?) the snappy flags and the shiny black cars. Then you find out about the beatings, murder, destruction, concentration camps and world domination ambitions, and the contradiction that was Nazi Germany becomes something that you try to figure out, but can’t.

When I saw this book at Jo-Beth Booksellers, I couldn’t resist. I read the book jacket, so I knew it was satire, but I had to see what Timur Vermes imagined the Furher (sorry, I don’t know how to do umlauts) would do if he came back. What I found was more an indictment of modern civilization than an indictment of Herr Hitler, although I guess you can’t really make him any worse than he already is.

So anyway, Adolph wakes up on a beautiful, blue sky, sunny day in a vacant lot somewhere in Berlin. At first, he looks around for signs of the war going on, but sees none. He is in full uniform, it’s a little smudged and smells like gasoline from a cleaning attempt, but overall, he’s in pretty good shape. He winds up being taken in by a newspaper kiosk guy who tells him the year and helps him out. He also hooks him up with tv producers because he thinks the Hitler thing is an act.

Hitler is a smart guy obviously and figures out really quickly that something strange has happened and he wants to get his political career going again. To make a long story short, he learns about modern technology and people and finds all of it ridiculous, still hates Jews etc., and becomes a big celebrity. And of course, nobody believes him. The entire country is furious that he won’t reveal his real name, because they don’t believe him, and he’s ready to call in the SS to take care of the people who keep asking. Just like vampires, werewolves, and witches, modern society doesn’t believe in the monster, and ultimately, it’ll cause them trouble.  By the end, you can see that if he remains persistent, the modern sheeple are going to end up following him.

I enjoyed the book overall. It made me think about how ridiculous modern society is. It pointed out yet again, that even though a threat, or a negative anomaly can be as plain as the nose on your face, we often, in our enlightened modernity, deny it, even as it’s taking over our lives. I’d kind of like Vermes to write a sequel, where the monster really comes roaring back, in all of his muderous, evil, mastermind glory, not funny this time.  It would be the most successful horror story of all time.

If you enjoy satire, you might want to give this one a look. It really did have a number of LOL moments, and the way the speeches he makes are laid out in the book, you can almost hear that old black and white boogie man screaming, and shaking his fist, spittle flying, and weird little bangs separating.

Have a great day, and spend part of it with a great book. 😊

 

So I’m Reading THIS Crazy Thing…

 

This right here is an intrigue. Strange, yes. Do I like it? Maybe. Full on Opinion in the next few days…

Book Opinion: Ashley Bell by Dean Koontz

 

I’ve reviewed a couple of Koontz’s books on here over the last couple of years, and I had some issues with them. They had great story lines, but the writing wasn’t what I was used to from one of my favorite authors. I chalk it up to changes somewhere in his pipeline of editors etc. Well, let me say, he’s baaaaack…

It’s going to be very hard for me to talk about this one because I don’t want to ruin it for you. This book has an incredible twist that caught me off guard, and that doesn’t happen often.

The heroine of our story is a woman in her early twenties named Bibi Blair. Bibi was brought up by surfer/successful business people parents in California. Bibi is very intelligent and has been all her life. As an adult, she is a successful, but still up and coming author. She’s engaged to a Navy Seal named Paxton, who is on a super secret mission in the Middle East, and he’s out of reach for much of the novel. One day, pretty much out of the blue, Bibi begins to have odd physical symptoms. She calls her mother who gets her to the hospital where it is discovered that the intrepid Bibi has brain cancer. Serious, incurable, brain cancer. What follows is Koontz at his best.

The Valient (capital V on purpose) Bibi’s story is filled with suspense, mystery, the ever present in Koontz’s work, golden retriever or two, some murder, a few interesting characters, a quest to save Ashley Bell, and most important, some supernatural events. I really can’t go into too much more detail because I absolutely do not want to spoil it for you.

If you are in need of a well written, interesting supernatural thriller to keep you company while it’s cold outside, you might want to give  /Ashley Bell/ a chance. Much like one of his other beloved characters, Odd Thomas, I think we’ll be hearing from Bibi Blair again.  I was driving in my car this morning thinking about this book, and I realized that it reminded me in certain ways of a very famous work of fiction that has been made into a technicolor extravaganza, and since the wildly successful film, has woven bits of itself into much of our culture. Sadly, I can’t tell you WHICH technicolor extravaganza I refer to because it might spoil the surprise. It breaks my heart and hurts my brain to not tell, but I have to be brave.

Have a beautiful day and be kind. 😊

Book Opinion: All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

I have an English degree and I have been reading intensely since I was a small child.  I used to just read whatever was put in front of me without regard for the actual writing.  As I’ve gotten older however, unless a book just hooks me with an entertaining story, I tend to put poorly written books in the donate box.  All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, will NOT end up at Goodwill, but will stay front and center on my bookshelf.

I am fascinated by WWII.  My parents were children during it, my grandfather was an air raid warden, and growing up in the 1970’s I was bombarded by stories from that time.  It has only been recently that I’ve realized what a post-war world I actually grew up in.  All The Light We Cannot See offers a unique perspective on the war and a unique way of representing the thin red thread that connects us all.

The heroine of the story is Marie-Laure, a young girl living with her father in Paris.  At the age of six, she loses her sight and her father creates a three dimensional model of their neighborhood so that Marie-Laure can memorize where everything is so she can get around.  He takes her out with her cane and has her lead them home.  He also takes her with him to the Museum of Natural History where he is the key master.  She spends her time exploring the space and all of it’s treasures which end up informing her future.

At the same time, young Werner is growing up with his sister Jutta in an orphanage in a mining town in Germany.  Werner is brilliant, and his quick mind causes him to live in dread of the day he will be forced into the mines.  They find an old radio, which Werner works on and makes funtional.  The children listen to it at night and hear broadcasts from France (they can all speak and understand French because the house mother is from France) about science. His mind continues to expand and he becomes an expert in radios.

When the Nazis approach Paris, Marie-Laure and her father leave the city, possibly carrying a priceless treasure from the museum and go to Saint-Malo to stay with her great-uncle Etienne.  Simultaneously, Werner’s brilliance with radios is noticed and he is chosen to attend a school run by the Nazis.  We are taken on a back and forth journey between Marie-Laure’s life in France, with glimpses of the French Resistance, the constant threat of sudden arrest, and the general quest to just survive the Nazi assaults; and Werner’s life in Germany as he struggles with things that happen at school, the pressure he feels from his beloved sister to resist what she is afraid the Nazis will turn him into, and HIS general quest to just survive the maze of treachery and horror that follows Nazi bureaucracy wherever it goes.

Eventually, the teenage Werner is thrust into the fighting by way of his magical radio skills and his life intersects with Marie-Laure’s life during the siege of Saint-Malo.  Although they part, the story of their intersection continues into the next generation and for the next many years.

This story makes you ponder so many things with regard to war, and people being forced to fight for things they don’t necessarily believe in or agree with.  It causes you to marvel at the strength of human beings and their spirit.  It really reinforces the notion that we are all connected in ways we cannot imagine, and the things we do have impacts far beyond our immediate sphere of influence.

If you are in search of a beautifully written, multi-level story, give All The Light We Cannot See a try.  I think you’ll like it.

Have a beautiful day 🙂

Book Opinion: Prince Lestat by Anne Rice

What to say, what to say…

When I was a teenager, I found Interview With a Vampire. I liked it and proceeded to read the rest of the books, along with the ones about the Mayfair Witches and all the rest. I was excited to see she was writing another vampire story. Then I read it.

The thing people who have not read these books don’t realize, is that Lestat is kind of the chorus girl who breaks out and eclipses the star. Interview With a Vampire is Louis’ story, not Lestat’s. He figures strongly in it of course, but the book is about Louis. After that one, Lestat became the focus. Such a mythology has built up around him and he has such a strong voice in her writing, that it’s almost like he’s real. In fact, go to New Orleans on a regular Tuesday, and I guarantee you that within an hour of wandering the French Quarter, you will find some guy dressed up like him, purply glasses, long blonde hair, velvet frock coat and all. Just walking down a dusky street. This new book does none of that justice.

The gist of the story is that one of the original vamps has inhabited the body of another ancient vamp, but in spirit form and he is physically telling older vamps to burn fledglings. They are all scared and are looking for a gathering of the older vamps and begging for a leader, guess who? The story is pretty good, and definitely do-able, the problem with this book is the mechanics of it. Without going too deeply into details about glossaries and appendices etc, because it may take you two weeks to read this post like it took me two weeks to read this book, I’ll sum it up. Because it’s been so long, and because the author wants to add to her audience, we are treated to a dictionary of sorts of vampire terminology as it’s used in the Vampire Chronicles. Then, we get a big fat commercial for about a third of the book for the EARLIER books. The Vampire Chronicles and/or names of individual books are mentioned four thousand, three hundred and fifty seven times in the space of the first section of the book. I exaggerate of course, but you get my drift. We then get a different vampiric author for each chapter, giving back stories, world history, etc, etc. I am yawning just remembering it. Then suddenly, we get a Lestat chapter. It flows well, you can hear his voice, especially if you are a long-time fan, you get in a reading groove because it’s well written, then it switches back to someone else, and it takes you a day and a half to read one chapter. Then at the end of the book, we have an appendix of Anne Rice supernatural characters with a little blurb about each one, and then another appendix of Anne Rice supernatural themed books with a short paragraph describing each one. Again, it’s a commercial for the entire cannon of vampire stuff.

There are a couple of interesting surprises involving a young man named Victor, and a young woman named Rose, which set us up for more vampire stories, which if they are done properly could be enjoyable. Now that the commercial that is this book is finished, I can only hope that whatever creepy spirit possesses her when she is writing in Lestat’s voice, will show up and spare us glossaries, dictionaries, appendices, further mention by name of the earlier books, long flowery descriptions of clothing and overuse of the word “bespoke,” as well as an absence of long drawn out, boring world and vampire histories. You made me a little sad Anne, but I’ll chalk it up to the fact that it’s been something like ten or eleven years since you wrote a book and clearly your publisher/editor person didn’t really care what you wrote because they knew it would sell a lot and make a butt-ton of money regardless of the content. It probably won’t work out so great along those lines next time, so tighten it up girl; and if you are surrounded by yes men, get somebody who will tell you the truth and actually WORK with you. I still love you though, and I look forward to being able to give you another chance.

Have a great day everybody, stay warm and be nice 🙂

Book Opinion: The Wives of Los Alamos by Tarashea Nesbitt

I was attracted to this book because when I first got married, my husband was in the Air Force and stationed at Holloman AFB in Alamogordo, New Mexico. I gave up my home, my friends and my car and moved to the middle of nowhere with him. I’m from Ohio, so I’m used to green, and water, and soft spring air. I’m used to mist and rain and vegetation so lush at certain times of year that it feels like a rain forest. I’m used to sweet smells like honeysuckle and rich dark earth. Then, I moved to the desert.

The wooden seat of my grandmother’s rocking chair cracked from the dryness. I couldn’t ride my bike because of the altitude. It made my head whirl and my stomach sick to exercise, so I gained about twenty pounds. My skin dried out, my lips cracked and the inside of my nose would peel off and bleed every time I blew it. The anchor stores in the mall were K-Mart and some janky little place called Beall’s that I’d never heard of and did not like. We had one car and I was without it most of the time when my husband went to “work” on the base, and I put “work” in quotes, because most of what they did was play cards and stupid tricks on each other. Nine out of ten work days resulted in my husband coming straight home, or being home in about two or three hours because there was nothing to do and they sent everyone home. That was a good thing because my loneliness knew no bounds. Friends of ours got an illicit kitten, illicit, because our complex did not allow pets. I wanted one because I was lonesome, so we got a tiny black kitten I named Sara. She slept on my chest and chased away nightmares.

On the plus side, we had a lot of fun. It was like being in college. There were parties every weekend, and we went to most of them. Our friend Dan had us over for dinner one night and cooked steaks on the grill. I like mine well done, but these were charcoal. I yummed, and put ketchup on it and ate the parts with actual meat left in them. I drank some Seagram’s Seven in coke and like to died. To this day, I cannot stand to see even the label on a bottle in the store. Finally the day came when most all of our friends left and my husband got out of the service and we stayed. He went to work for a civilian contractor on the base, doing the same job and making three times as much money. When our friends left, it no longer felt like college, he actually had to work, and I got lonelier. Eventually, we too left and moved on to bigger and better things, but that part of my life, while miserable in so many respects was also a happy time for us. Nobody built a bomb, or did much that was top secret, but the parallels between that experience and the experiences described in /The Wives of Los Alamos/ were definitely there.

The book is written in first person, but uses “we” and “our” for example instead of “I” and “me.” For the first couple of pages, it was a little confusing, but it soon became comfortable. It was used to great effect to illustrate the communal, “we’re all in the same boat, and one is much like the other” circumstances these women found themselves in. The husbands were all physicists, recruited to work on the atomic bomb and as part of agreeing to do so, they demanded that they be allowed to bring their families. The families had no idea where they were going until they got there, and once they knew, they were not allowed to tell anyone at home. Their letters were read by censors, care package treats were stolen by censors, cars were searched, requests to leave denied and husbands were largely absent and stressed when they WERE around.

We learn about the difficulties of being without the familiar, with drying out like the desert sand, having very little water, relationships, kids, pregnancies, loss, fear, worries about the war and the brothers and friends who were fighting it, getting comfortable and then leaving. We also learn about the joys of friendship, parties, finding ways to pass the time. There are brief mentions of Oppenheimer and some of the other famous names associated with the project, but nothing too specific. This is definitely the women’s story, and really, you could call it the woman’s story, because as unique as each individual was, once they arrived at Los Alamos, they were all more or less the same.

I highly recommend this book, and not just because it reminds me of my own life. It is historical fiction from the point of view of the overlooked. It didn’t matter what these women did before they ended up in Los Alamos, or what they did after they left; while they were there, they were the wives of the men who ended a war and changed the world, for better or worse is a matter of opinion.

Have a great day and spend part of it with a great book 🙂

Book Opinion: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Homelessness and extreme poverty are a problem where ever there are people. In our modern times the hows and whys of both have been debated endlessly. Fingers are pointed, politicians, corporations, heartless right wingers, teachers and just about every other group you can think of have been blamed. Getting out of such conditions has been deemed next to impossible and governments the world over have bankrupted their countries with social programs designed to “rescue” the homeless and the poor. All, apparently, to no avail because there are still millions of homeless and poor people all over the world.

/The Glass Castle/ addresses these topics and may cause you too look at these issues from a different point of view. The Walls family, Rex and Rose Mary and their four children are the epitome of a dysfunctional family. Neither parent is ever regularly employed for any length of time. They roam like nomads all over the American southwest living in dusty, dying little towns in whatever housing they can find. They regularly leave behind everything in the middle of the night to escape debt collectors or children’s services. Having a steady supply of the basics of life, including food seldom happens.

As the children grow older, they start trying to fill the responsibility void left by their parents, but it is hopeless. Their parents want to be outside the norm of society. They are negative about every social convention that makes life comfortable for everyone else. Rose Mary is an artist, and finds money for canvases and paint when her children have no food. When her kids talk her into using her teaching degree to work and get them food and clothing, they have to make her go to work and they grade papers and fill out forms for her. The teaching jobs never last long, because even schools in dried up, dying desert towns want teachers who actually work. Rex is even worse. He is a brilliant man with a variety of ideas that he promises to work on, but never does. He is a desperate alcoholic who’s brilliance shines less and less as he gets drunker and drunker. His brushes with sobriety never last and make the drunk spells even sadder, because you realize that if he’d stop drinking, he could do so much.

The family’s situation gets so bad that they eventually make it across the country to the dismal mining town in West Virginia where Rex grew up. The landscape, the people, his family and the elements do not make their situation better. As the children get older, they begin to separate from their family; they develop plans to get out and make actual lives for themselves. During conversations with their parents, especially as they get older, they truly come to realize that their parents have chosen to live the way they do. They have no desire to live in a different way. They do not want to change their circumstances. There is not one thing that their children, or social workers of any kind or the government can do to make them change.

There is a beautiful wedding photo of Rex and Rose Mary at the beginning of the book. They look like any other newly married couple you’ve seen, beautiful and full of promise. There is no clue in that picture of the way they will choose to live their lives and raise their children. It’s a little sad really, to look at it after you’ve read the book.

/The Glass Castle/ is a well written memoir that illustrates all too clearly some hot button issues in society, and a very different way of looking at them. Most people who are homeless and/or profoundly poor, want to be anything else, but I now know that there ARE some people who for whatever reason, CHOOSE to live in a way that I cannot imagine. It also reminds us that no matter how desperate your situation may be, if you have the desire to change your life you can. It won’t necessarily be easy, and it won’t happen overnight, but it CAN be done. This book is incredibly interesting, and frustrating and infuriating, but it’s great.

Have a great day and READ something 🙂

Book Opinion: Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen

When I was a teenager, my Mom and Dad and I went to Florida several times on vacation. We always drove and we always stopped at the Quality Inn in Valdosta, Georgia on the way down. This hotel screamed “The South” to me; plantation shutters, beautiful gardens, a pool that I loved and a small-ish, original to the property house all graced the place. We ALWAYS ate dinner at the Ho-Jo’s across the street then came back and my Mom and I would wander the grounds before my solo swimming sessions at the pool. Mom would sit there and watch me swim “in case something happened” but she would’ve not been much help if something HAD happened because she couldn’t swim. My Dad would usually stay in the room smoking and watching t.v.

Even though we always only stayed there one night because we were just passing through, I loved that place. I entertained some of my most vivid Gone With the Wind fantasies inside my head as my Mom and I walked the grounds. I kept waiting for Rhett Butler to come around a bend and fall in love with me, and beautiful girls in hoop skirts to be flirting with handsome boys at a barbeque on the lawn. I loved it so much that when I grew up, I wanted to stop there with MY family, so one year when my daughter was little, we got off the highway and went to the hotel. It was some other chain by then, but the plantation shutters, gardens, pool and house were still there. They were shabbier than they had been and I realized that the property was literally RIGHT next to the highway. When I was a child, the grounds had been so lush that you couldn’t SEE the highway, so I had no idea. It was a little chilly, so we couldn’t get in the pool, which was disappointing, and if it had been warm, I would never have let my baby in it anyway because it wasn’t really clean and THAT was disappointing. The Ho-Jo’s was gone as were Rhett and the rest of the gang and THAT was disappointing. The whole experience left me feeling let down and I was glad to leave the next morning. The only way I’ll ever go back is if I win the Power Ball and go buy it and return it to it’s former glory, so when I heard about Sarah Addison Allen’s new book Lost Lake, I felt that I might be able to relate.

Sarah Addison Allen is one of my favorite authors. I have all of her books and I love them all. They are all lyrical, and a little magical. One of her books has a protagonist who enchants with her baked goods, another book has mysterious lights in a garden. They are lovely, beautiful stories, and Lost Lake is no different.

Kate is a young widow with a daughter named Devin, and a mother-in-law named Cricket. After the loss of her husband, Kate “goes to sleep” for a year. When she finally snaps out of it just as she is about to take her daughter and move in with Cricket, she finds a postcard from her great-aunt Eby who owns a lake resort in southern Georgia. Eby is the last relative Kate has, and on a whim, Kate decides to load Devin into the car and drive down to visit Eby who she had only met once, when as a child, she and her family had spent several weeks at Lost Lake.

When Kate arrives at the lake, it is obvious that time has taken it’s toll. The property has fallen into disrepair, the guests who summered there for years are aging out of coming back, and Eby has decided to sell and retire. During the course of her visit, Kate reconnects with people she met before as well as meets a whole new cast of characters. Without giving too much away, there is a mute French woman, a ghost in a chair, a ghost alligator, a mystery, and a lovely man to occupy her time.

Lost Lake is a beautiful story about families, new beginnings, endings, tying up loose ends, grief in many of it’s forms, forgiveness, understanding, letting go of the past and embracing the future. You can’t go home again, but you CAN use your past to make your life move forward. Sometimes ghosts can help you learn how to go on. I enjoyed reading this book in the middle of winter, because it transported me to summer; to cool drinks by the water, lanterns in the trees and dancing in the moonlight. Thank you Sarah Addison Allen for giving me another beautiful story to think about and another book to add to my stack. It’s a keeper.

Have a great day and read a great book 🙂