I recieved this book as an ARC from Library Thing and at first put off reading it as I was into about 3 other books at the time.I picked it up on Friday and finished it Sunday. It is fast paced and a very believeable read.

The book deals with an Iraq vet and his daughter who are homeless and what the system of govt tries to do for them believing they know best. It truly makes you think about what home really is and family and that sometimes in trying to do good the system actually does harm when it seperates families who are only guilty of poverty. The book is loosely based on actual events that took place here in Portland in 2004 I believe.The city in the story is actually Portland and the Park is Forest Park in Portland. There is another book based on this event called My Abandonment which is a good book to read along this with this one

. I found at the end of the story what actually happened to the girl in the real story. I feel that Jennie Shortridge who is from the Seattle area also gets the culture of the Nortwest and Oregon down to a T. This is the first book of hers that I have read but will read more.

I didn't know about this book when I started reading it as I had heard some mixed reviews but I really liked it from the start. The setting and pace of the novel reminded of Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman. I learned a good bit about the history of Salem and the witch trials and about women in the colonial era. I found myself following along with the main character in the book on a treasure hunt to find the history of Deliverance Dane.I found myself hoping that she was my ancestor too.
The only flaw I found was the ending which was a little too hard to believe but all in all a really good fast read and one that is excellent for this time of year as we near Halloween.

I loved this book.I really loved it. It is well told with wonderful chracters and a magical setting. I have been to the falls and they are truly majestic.
This story captures the majesty and the history of this area at the turn of the century and opens your eyes to the history of this place .This is all enfolded withina love story.
If there is a special natural place that you love. YOu will empathize with Tom Cole in this book.
I will look for more books by this author.This was an unexpected gem of a book that I will remember for a long time.
I have several places that I love as Tom Cole did in this book.The first is the Oregon Coast,then the mountains of NC, the MS Gulf Coast and the low country of South Carolina.

{Life changes in an instant. On a foggy beach. In the seconds when Abby Mason - photographer, fiancée soon-to-be-stepmother - looks into her camera and commits her greatest error. Heartbreaking, uplifting, and beautifully told, here is the riveting tale of a family torn apart, of the search for the truth behind a child's disappearance, and of one woman's unwavering faith in the redemptive power of love - all made startlingly fresh through Michelle Richmond's incandescent sensitivity and extraordinary insight. Six-year-old Emma vanished into the thick San Francisco fog. Or into the heaving Pacific. Or somewhere just beyond: to a parking lot, a stranger's van, or a road with traffic flashing by. Devastated by guilt, haunted by her fears about becoming a stepmother, Abby refuses to believe that Emma is dead. And so she searches for clues about what happened that morning - and cannot stop the flood of memories reaching from her own childhood to illuminate that irreversible moment on the beach. Now, as the days drag into weeks, as the police lose interest and fliers fade on telephone poles, Emma's father finds solace in religion and scientific probability - but Abby can only wander the beaches and city streets, attempting to recover the past and the little girl she lost. With her life at a crossroads, she will leave San Francisco for a country thousands of miles away. And there, by the side of another sea, on a journey that has led her to another man and into a strange subculture of wanderers and surfers, Abby will make the most astounding discovery of all - as the truth of Emma's disappearance unravels with stunning force. A profoundly original novel of family, loss, and hope - of the choices we make and the choices made for us - The Year of Fog beguiles with the mysteries of time and memory even as it lays bare the deep and wondrous workings of the human heart. The result is a mesmerizing tour de force that will touch anyone who knows what it means to love a child. }

The above is the review from Good Reads. I really liked this book and read it in a day and a half. I loved her descriptions of San Francisco and Costa Rico. I also think she vividly described how it feels when a child goes missing. The biggest fault I had with the book was that most people couldn't take a year off without work to go searching for the child and in that respect I felt it was unrealistic but all in all a good book.

I really enjoyed this book and its descriptions of Cornwall. It was just a happy feel good book and I loved it.Here is the review from Good Reads.

{Newly divorced, Andrew Stratton lives in his head and not with his heart. He teaches architectural theory but has never built a building. He writes about “The Anatomy of Livable Places”– communities where form and material are in harmony–but has no sense of where he belongs. He is capable of deep, tender emotions but is unable to express them. When his wife leaves him for another man and excoriates his cautious nature in the process, Andrew is like a house shaken off a faulty foundation. Sifting through the rubble, he must figure out what should be salvaged and what should be scrapped. Escaping from the predictable routine of his university life in Philadelphia, Andrew travels to England and channels his pain into a weeklong course on building stone walls. In the village of Boscastle, he discovers a magical landscape of dizzying cliffs, jagged coastline, lush valleys, and hills lined with stone hedges that have stood the test of time. At the Stone Academy, Andrew immerses himself in the grueling task of piecing together rock into intricate walls. Under the tutelage of his weathered instructor, he learns there is more to laying stone than hard labor. And he soon falls under the spell of Boscastle’s rhythms and quirks, which include a weekly sing-along, a museum devoted to witchcraft, and a colorful group of residents ranging from a precocious nine-year-old girl who communes with nature to an offbeat reverend who has been known to give referrals to the town witch.Moved by the warmth and connectedness of the village, Andrew begins to shed his sheltered self. But his willingness to open his heart is tested when he falls for Nicola Rhys-Jones, an American expatriate seeking to escape a history of abuse. Thorny, sarcastic, and sexy, Nicola is an artist who paints tranquility panels for hospitals. But her life before Boscastle has been anything but peaceful. As their verbal sparring veers into darker territory, Andrew grapples with his status in Boscastle. Is he just a tourist on holiday or does he now have a stake in the village that has welcomed him? Readers new to Will North’s work as well as fans of The Long Walk Home will be swept away by this bittersweet novel about love, loss, and the power of nature to alter our lives. }

I am really into beach reads right now . I have also really fallen in love with this writers style of prose and her gorgeous lowcountry settings.

In the first book Between the Tides which I like the best we see a woman fighting demons from her past that wasn't even her fault and uncovering hidden secrets of her family that she didn't know was there.I give it 5 *****{The scene of a childhood tragedy that forced her family to move, Seaboro, South Carolina, is the last place Catherine Leary wants to see again. But her father's last wish to have his ashes scattered there, and his young colleague's desire to write an article about him, conspire against Catherine. Hoping to stop her family's secrets from being exposed, she travels to her once-beloved Lowcountry town-and embarks on a poignant trip into the past...a journey that might lead her into a new life of love, forgiveness, and self-discovery. }

The thing I like best about Patti C. Henry's writing is her lyrical way with words . I can almost hear her southern drawl and see the low country in my mind. I go home to the south just a little bit when I read her books.

In The Art of Keeping Secrets it also deals with familial drama but in a different way. I sometimes didn't like the main character in this book as I felt she was a little to genteel and pampered for my taste but I still like the book all the same.{Synopsis from Good Reads:Annabelle has finally made peace with the loss of her beloved husband. Until she finds out he wasn’t alone when he died…Since a plane crash killed her husband two years ago, Annabelle Murphy has found solace in raising her two children. Just when she thinks the grief is behind her, she receives the news that the wreckage of the small plane has been discovered—and that her husband did not die alone. He was with another woman. Suddenly, Annabelle is forced to question everything she once held true.Sophie Parker knows the woman who was on that plane. A dolphin researcher who has lived a quiet life, Sophie has never let anyone get too close. But when Annabelle shows up on Sophie’s doorstep full of painful questions, both women must confront their intertwining pasts—and find the courage to face the truth. [close] I give it 3***

I am about to start her new book Driftwood Summer tonight.I need a dose of home for the next few days.

I have finished 3 books for the reading challenge but I did substitute a few since I listed them. I plan on trying to read the remaining two before August.

Time Is a River

I loved this book and would recommend it to all who like good storytelling. I tend to stay away from romance books but this one was rated high and I thought why not. I was so surprised at how good the story actually was.It was so much more than a romance novel.

I read it for the Southern Reading Challenge . Mrs. Monroe had me hooked from the very first pages and never let me go like the mythical Mr. Big the Brown Trout she sought in the Mountains Streams of my other soul home in the North Carolina Mountains. I was transported back to the Asheville area and its beautiful mountain streams as I followed the main characters developing love for fly fishing and her recovery from breast cancer. I think the metaphors she used to demonstrate Mia's recover from cancer could be used to describe any event in your life you have to get to the other side of .

I can so tell that the author loves the south like I do and you can hear it in her lyrical descriptions of the mountains and the people and the food. When I read a novel by a good southern writer I am immediately back home .I loved the back story here of Kate Watkins and the time period in which she lived.

It was such a good story and I will be reading many more by this author.

I would give this book 4 of 5 stars.
I really enjoyed this book. It was very good and set during the period of pre WWII and the post war era of the 50's . It shows the stories of picture girls and arranged marriages and what the immigrant experience was like for the people who came from Asia to our shores.It tells the story of this war from the Chinese perspective and also explores the deep and personal bonds of sisters.I didn't care to much for Peony In Love but in this story Lisa See redeems herself.It is a book that deals with the immigrant experience and the depth of a mothers love .
Here is an overview from Good Reads:
May and Pearl, two sisters living in Shanghai in the mid-1930s, are beautiful, sophisticated, and well-educated, but their family is on the verge of bankruptcy. Hoping to improve their social standing, May and Pearl’s parents arrange for their daughters to marry “Gold Mountain men” who have come from Los Angeles to find brides.But when the sisters leave China and arrive at Angel’s Island (the Ellis Island of the West)—where they are detained, interrogated, and humiliated for months—they feel the harsh reality of leaving home. And when May discovers she’s pregnant the situation becomes even more desperate. The sisters make a pact that no one can ever know. A novel about two sisters, two cultures, and the struggle to find a new life in America while bound to the old, Shanghai Girls is a fresh, fascinating adventure from beloved and bestselling author Lisa See.The ending was a bit unexpected but I look forward to seeing with the author does with it.All in all a thought provoking novel.