The Secret Keeper - Kate Morton

Title: The Secret Keeper
Author: Kate Morton
Paperback: 463 pages (ARC version)
Publisher: Atria Books
Published date: October 2012
FTC: Received from Atria as ARC


This is my first book of 2013 and wow, I wished I had read it right when I received it.  I loved this book.  I kept thinking that an almost 500 page book would take me forever to read.  Nope.  Blew right through this one.

Synopsis from Goodreads:

1961 England. Laurel Nicolson is sixteen years old, dreaming alone in her childhood tree house during a family celebration at their home, Green Acres Farm. She spies a stranger coming up the long road to the farm and then observes her mother, Dorothy, speaking to him. And then she witnesses a crime.

Fifty years later, Laurel is a successful and well-regarded actress, living in London. She returns to Green Acres for Dorothy’s ninetieth birthday and finds herself overwhelmed by memories and questions she has not thought about for decades. She decides to find out the truth about the events of that summer day and lay to rest her own feelings of guilt. One photograph, of her mother and a woman Laurel has never met, called Vivian, is her first clue.

The Secret Keeper explores longings and dreams, the lengths some people go to fulfill them, and the strange consequences they sometimes have. It is a story of lovers, friends, dreamers and schemers, play-acting and deception told against a backdrop of events that changed the world.

My thoughts:

This is the type of book I was waiting for.  I was in a bit of post holiday reading slump and this was the perfect book to jump start me again.

The book starts out in the 1960 rural England where Laurel witnesses a crime.  I was a little nervous about the vagueness of the crime but don't worry.  Fifty years later, present day-ish and Laurel is a fairly famous actress.  Her mother is in the hospital and doesn't have too much longer to live.  Laurel begins to wonder about that day back in the sixties: what really happened, what she kept as a secret, and what her mother's secret is.  Lots of secrets.

The best part of the book is that it isn't linear at all and is narrated by multiple characters -- Dorothy in the 1940's during the London Blitz, Dorothy's early paramour Jimmy who was a war photographer, and Vivian, the mysterious woman in a photograph that Laurel uncovers.  Through these characters eyes and their stories, the mystery starts to unravel and secrets start leaking out.

The way the book is written makes it so hard to put down or stop for any amount of time.  I just HAD to know what really happened.  And then the ending!!!!!!!!

Please comment (and say SPOILERS!) or email if you've read this book and want to discuss the ending or any part of the book.  If you've read it, did you love it?  Did you uncover any of the secrets first?

More books from Kate Morton:

I think that I'm going to collect Kate Morton books.  I read and reviewed and own The House at Riverton.  I have hardback version but I love the paperback cover:

I also have an ARC of The Distant Hours - I'll have to buy the paperback though since my ARC really has no cover, it's just blue:

I've also snagged a copy of The Forgotten Garden at a library book sale.  Again I have a different cover but love this version more:

Funny side note: 
As I was asking my husband to grab my copy of The Secret Keeper while he was upstairs in our house, he yelled down that I should have 50 cats.  What?  Apparently ol' hubby thinks it looks like a cat lady book.  Which is actually funny because he loves cats.  What do you think?

Also Reviewed By:
Caribous Mom
A Reader's Journal
S. Krishna's Books
Reading the Past

2013 Science Fiction Experience

As some of you might have noticed, I do love a bit of science fiction.  My dad was a huge fan of science fiction and after he passed away I inherited quite a few of his paperbacks and books.  While he was alive I didn't really read much science fiction but I remember watching a lot of sci-fi movies with him -- he was a big Doctor Who fan, loved the movie Dune, and of course we watched Star Trek together.

I love when Carl over at Stainless Steel Droppings hosts his yearly Science Fiction Experience.  It gives me a chance to pull off some books I'd normally not get around to reading and enjoy the world of sci-fi.  I also love that he started off his post with my favorite quote:

“For my part I know nothing with any certainty,
but the sight of the stars makes me dream.”

~Vincent Van Gogh

Last year I LOVED John Scalzi's Old Man's War.  I'm going to have to do a post on that awesome book soon.  It totally reminds me of the movie Starship Troopers which I love.  I'll probably be picking up another one of his books too.

My brother recommended his favorite book Leviathan Wakes - a MUST READ.

Other than that, I'll just let my browsing take me where it wants to go.  I just snagged these two from my shelves that look interesting:

And Connie Willis is one of my all-time favorite authors.  How cool does this book look?

2012 Wrap Up

Just a bit belated right? O well.  Right now I'm reading the second Game of Thrones book right now so that should give me some good time to catch up on all my backed up reviews.

I saw this wrap up survey over at Books. Lists. Life. and she got hers from Perpetual Page Turner.  So here we go...

I read 57 books this year
10 YA  books
10 Audio books
7 Classics

1. Best book you read in 2012? (You can break it down by genre if you want.)
YA: Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
Sci-fi: Old Man's War by John Scalzi
Classics: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Overall: Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

2. Book you were excited about and thought you were going to love more, but didn't?
I surprisingly had quite a few of these this year. I hate being disappointed.

The first one was Advent by James Treadwell.  I was expecting a good Harry Potter-esque feel and while the first part of the book was awesome and it had a great story/idea, it just fell flat as it went on, to the point that I'll probably not pick up the next books in the series.

The next one was City of Dark Magic by Magnus Flyte.  Also another history/magic/Prague/time travel book...how could you go wrong?  It did.  For a book with one of the most ingenious time travel ideas I've ever heard of and a awesomely interesting plot, the dialogue was juvenile (especially for a bunch of professionals in their fields), the sex scenes were crude and embarrassing, and the romance just unbelievable.

3.  Most surprising (in a good way!) book?
Sister by Rosamund Lupton was an amazing book.  The back of the book makes it almost sound like a Lifetime movie (which isn't my cup of tea) but it's really a beautifully written book and it just sucked me right in.  Loved it.

4.  Book you recommended to people most?
I loaned out a few of my YA books including Cinder and Shadow and Bone because you have to read those if you are into YA books.  I also lent my book Old Man's War to my brother who LOVED it...and he works at a book store so he's got good taste.

5.  Best series you discovered?
Again there's a few this year.
Game of Thrones - why oh why didn't I listen to my friend and read this series years ago?  Awesome!  Shadow and Bone - NEED to read the rest of the series when they come out.
The Dark Unwinding by Sharon Cameron looks like it has potential so I'll be checking that out too.
Cinder -- the next book Scarlet will be coming out and her series looks like it's going to be fun.
Old Man's War - must read more!!

6.  Favorite new authors you discovered?
A ton!
I'm going to have to pick up some Charles Todd books. I read The Walnut Tree and if it's an inkling of what his Bess Crawford series is like then sign me up!  
John Scalzi - Old Man's War was awesome and I can't wait to read more of his Old Man's War series and then some of his stand alone ones like Red Shirts
Susanna Kearsley - After reading The Winter Sea, I think she's going to be one of my go-to I know I can curl up and love her books type of authors.
Sarah Waters - I read my first Sarah Waters this year, The Little Stranger, and know she's going to be a favorite. Good thing I have a few of her books on my shelf waiting to be read.

7.  Best book that was out of  your comfort zone or in a new genre for you?
Hmmm. Not sure I really read anything that was outside of my genre. I definitely read some books that weren't my favorites. I even had a not-finished book this year.  But nothing really outside of what I normally read.

8.  Most thrilling, unputdownable book?
Shadow and Bone - since it's YA it was super fun and easy to read right through..

9.  Book you read in 2012 that you are most likely to reread again next year?
Possibly Shadow and Bone since it's a quick read and I like to remember what's going on when the new book comes out.

10.  Favorite cover of a book you read?
Again, Shadow and Bone comes to mind. I think it's just simple and beautiful:

I also love some historical fiction covers that I read.  Restoration is just gorgeous:

And Juliet Grey's Marie Antoinette series always has beautiful covers:

11.  Most memorable character?
This one is hard because there are so many great characters.  So I'll go with Gemma in The Flight of Gemma Hardy.  I just loved her character in the book even though she was not always perfect.  I adored this book.

12.  Most beautifully written book?
Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver.  For having a plot that doesn't sound that thrilling and a main character who sometimes made me want to slap, it still came out as my favorite book this year.  Man, Kingsolver has proven that she can write.

13.  Book that had the greatest impact on you?
This one is definitely Between Shades of Grey by Ruta Sepetys.  I listened to the audio book and wanted to cry at certain parts and then actually did during the author's talk at the end.  I think this should be mandatory reading for everyone in school.  Wow.

14.  Book you can't believe you waited until 2012 to finally read?
A Game of Thrones, definitely.  YEARS ago my friend told me I should read it and I never did. Drat.

15.  Favorite passage/quote from a book you read?
Hmmm.  I sometimes dog ear (I KNOW!) pages but I really don't mark down a lot of quotes.

16.  Shortest and longest book you read?
Longest book is Outlander by Diana Gabaldon at 850 pages.  Not sure about shortest.

17.  Book that had a scene in it that had you reeling and dying to talk to someone about it? Be careful of spoilers.
Sister by Rosamund Lupton -- the ending!! That's all I'm saying. I'd LOVE to know if anyone else saw it coming.  I definitely did not.

18.  Favorite relationship from a book you read?
Again Sister by Rosamund Lupton.  I love how you are so immersed in the relationship between the sisters and even get to know the younger sister and you don't even meet her.  Beautifully done.

19.  Favorite book you read in 2012 from an author you had read previously?
So that I pick something other than Barbara Kingsolver's book,  I'll go with The Technologists by Matthew Pearl.  I read The Last Dickens a while ago and enjoyed it but The Technologists made me a Matthew Pearl fan.  I also listened to and enjoyed The Poe Shadow and still need to review that one.

20.  Best book you read based solely on a recommendation from someone else?
Well I read some books for TLC Tours that I had never heard of before but one that sticks out is Old Man's War.  I honestly can't remember which blogger I heard about it from, it could have been Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings.  All I know is that I recognized it at a library book sale and snagged it up.  So glad I did. It's awesome.

The holidays and stuff

I hope everyone has been having a great holiday season this year! We had a great Christmas here in Las Vegas.  So far the weather is more wintery while still having beautiful blue skies and sunny days.  We even got a bit of snow one night and can see snow in the mountains.

I'm so blessed this Christmas to have my mother-in-law in town -- she keeps a constant smile on our little Rocket's face and gives me much needed breaks to take naps or read frivolous holiday books.  Here's a couple photos from Rocket's second Christmas:

My New Year's Resolution is to clear of my read/to-review shelf.  I can't tell you how many books I've read that I've yet to review.  So while there are many great ones the reviews might be a little "eh" because it's been a while since I've read them.  But my goal is to spew these out so that I can move on.  Kind of like how cleaning house sort of cleans out your brain.

One last picture, I love how my little guy is starting to be such a book worm:

Flight Behavior - Barbara Kingsolver

Title: Flight Behavior
Author: Barbara Kingsolver
Hardcover: 448 pages (my version is ARE)
Publisher: HarperColllins
Published date: November 2012
FTC: Received ARE for review for TLC Book Tours


Barbara Kingsolver is one of my favorite authors.  I devoured and loved The Poisonwood Bible and it's still one of my favorite all-time books. Even my husband adored it and he's very very picky.  Over the last few years I've been collecting her books.  Oddly enough I still hadn't read anything else besides The Poisonwood Bible. I think I was nervous that her other books wouldn't be as good.  So when I heard she was coming out with a new book and I had the opportunity to be on the TLC Book Tour for it I jumped at the chance.  O. My. Gosh.  This proves it...Barbara Kingsolver is one of my favorite authors...I MUST read her other books.


Back of the book:

Dellarobia Turnbow is a restless farm wife who gave up her own plans when she accidentally became pregnant at seventeen. Now, after a decade of domestic disharmony on a failing farm, she has settled for permanent disappointment but seeks momentary escape through an obsessive flirtation with a younger man. As she hikes up a mountain road behind her house to a secret tryst, she encounters a shocking sight: a silent, forested valley filled with what looks like a lake of fire. She can only understand it as a cautionary miracle, but it sparks a raft of other explanations from scientists, religious leaders, and the media. The bewildering emergency draws rural farmers into unexpected acquaintance with the urbane journalists, opportunists, sightseers, and a striking biologist with his own stake in the outcome. As the community lines up to judge the woman and her miracle, Dellarobia confronts her family, her church, her town, and a larger world, in a flight toward truth that could undo all she has ever believed.


My thoughts:

Barbara Kingsolver proves again to be an amazing writer.  Similar to The Poisonwood Bible, she also proves to be a fascinating writer of biology which I was not surprised to discover she has a degree in.  I went into this book not knowing much - which made it hard to write this review.  I really want you to go into into it with that same wonder unraveling.  If you are like me and are going to read this book, stop right here and go pick it up.  Come back later and tell me what you think.  For the rest of you who need more info....ok it's not really a spoiler so here we go....

First couple of pages we meet Dellarobia, mother of two, twenty-eight years old and married for over a decade.  She's literally fleeing from her life - in a small Tennessee farm town where everyone knows everyone else's business - having an affair would rip her small world apart. But she is prepared to do it until she comes across a jaw-dropping discovery on the mountain behind her house: trees that are apparently aflame but without noise or heat.  It's only a few pages later that we discover that what Dellarobia thought was flame without her eyeglasses was really an entire forest covered in monarch butterflies.  Normally wintering in Mexico, these beautiful creatures have inexplicably settled in the Appalachian mountains during one of the wetest and weirdest winters in remembered history.

Told entirely through Dellarobia's perspective, Barbara Kingsolver does an amazing job bringing this story to life.  While I'm usually drawn into her unique settings, it's usually the characters that end up stealing the show.  Dellarobia is a beautifully drawn out character and while she doesn't have more than a high school education, I loved that Barbara Kingsolver made her voice real without overemphasizing her lack of education or Southern accent.  How refreshing.  While Dellarobia is a character that is striving for something more out of her life, she is also struggling to find her place in her family.  Her in-laws basically rule the roost, her husband doesn't seem to have anything in common with her, and while she adores her two children it just isn't enough for her.  As a side note, there was quite a few things that irked me about Dellarobia but it was interesting that she usually called herself out on them or her best friend Dovey would.

I was a bit nervous after reading the synopsis and then starting the book that the whole religious zealousness over the monarchs on the mountains would be overplayed.  While there is some talk of Dellarobia having a "vision" or being "touched by God," I was relieved to find that Kingsolver didn't make that the focus of the story.  Instead the themes were family and Dellarobia finding her path all with an awesome backdrop of a simultaneous beautiful butterfly appearance and a threatening question of what their appearance means for the world's ecological problems due to global warming.  I loved that Kingsolver was able to really emphasize an aspect of global warming and show the dangers and sadness that is involved.

Barbara’s Tour Stops

Tuesday, November 6th: A Reader of Fictions

Wednesday, November 7th: Dolce Bellezza

Thursday, November 8th: The Blog of Lit Wits

Monday, November 12th: Caribousmom

Tuesday, November 13th: Bookish Habits

Wednesday, November 14th: 50 Books Project

Thursday, November 15th: Unabridged Chick

Monday, November 26th: Book Snob

Tuesday, November 27th: What She Read … – joint review

Wednesday, November 28th: Becca’s Byline

Thursday, November 29th: A Patchwork of Books

Tuesday, December 4th: Much Madness is Divinest Sense

Wednesday, December 5th: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Thursday, December 6th: The 3 R’s: Reading, ‘Riting, and Randomness

Friday, December 7th: A Library of My Own

Monday, December 10th: 50 Books Project

Tuesday, December 11th: Man of La Book

Wednesday, December 12th: Tina’s Books Reviews

Thursday, December 13th: Seaside Book Corner

TBD: Reading on a Rainy Day

Just for fun, my growing stack of Kingsolver books:

Eve & Adam - Michael Grant & Katherine Applegate

Title: Eve & Adam
Author: Michael Grant & Katherine Applegate
Paperback: 291 pages (ARE)
Publisher: Feiwel and Friends/Macteen
Published date: October 2012
FTC: Requested from Shelf Awareness

I'll admit that I like reading good, fun, clever YA books. This one is up there. It's no Hunger Games or Divergent - it's not even a dystopian book.  So if you are kind of burnt out on dystopian, you still might like this one. Does anyone know if this is going to a be a trilogy or a stand alone? I just read that there is going to be at least a sequel...

Back of the book:

In the beginning, there was an apple. And then there was a car crash, a horrible, debilitating injury, and the hospital. But before Evening Spiker could even lift her head out of the fog of unconsciousness, there was a strange boy checking her out of the hospital and rushing her to Spiker Biopharmaceuticals - her mother's research facility. Just when Eve thinks she will die - not from her injuries, but from boredom - her mother gives her a special project: Create the perfect boy.

Using an amazingly detailed simulation that her mother claims is designed to teach human genetics, Eve starts building a boy from the ground up: eyes, hair, muscles, even a brain, and potential personality traits. Eve is creating Adam. And he will be just perfect...won't he?

My thoughts:

First of all, the beginning of the book is intense and draws you in. I really won't be giving away too much and you can go over to MacTeen to read part of the first chapter, but there's an apple, a good lesson about texting while doing anything, and a debilitating car crash which propels Eve into her mother's Biopharmaceutical complex.  There she is treated by Terra Spiker's specialized doctors and staff -- she also meets the Spiker gopher, a boy her age named Solo.

What I really enjoyed was that the narrative alternated between Eve (goes by E.V.) and Solo.  I really enjoyed Solo's story and perspective.  I think had it just been Eve's perspective it would have been a bit boring - even with her crazy best friend who has serious boyfriend troubles thrown in the mix.  Just be aware that there is a bit of violence with Eve's friend Aislin and her druggie boyfriend.

While Eve is recouping and extremely bored at her mom's work complex, Eve is tasked by her mom to try out a new genetics simulation program that is supposed to help students understand how genetics works humans.  She is supposed to create a human being from scratch - any gender any age - and of course she creates a perfect boy her age -- or is he?  And this is just a silly computer program, or is it?

While this is definitely a teen/YA book, there is interesting underlying questions of morality and ethics. When it comes to the medical field, just because we have the technology, is it still ethically or morally  right to do certain things?  How far is too far?  Even Aislin's relationship with her boyfriend brings up a lot of interesting topics that I think would appeal to teens.

Since it appears that there's going to be at least a sequel, I am curious to see how the story plays out.  The ending of the book leaves a lot hanging and a lot of questions unanswered.

Also Reviewed By:

Luxury Reading
At Home With Books

Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow WINNER!

The winner of my contest, thanks to Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours, is LISA!  I emailed you so please send me your snail mail address so I can forward it on and get this lovely book out to you.  Thanks to everyone who entered!  If you haven't already, check out my review of Juliet Grey's novel Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow.