There are a lot of layers to this mystery that spans centuries and continents. We get to know several characters, both in the present and past. While is seemed that this might be the second in the series, all the pertinent information was slowly revealed about the characters' backstories. In a sense this is a mystery on several levels - the good guys, the bad guys, the history, the old and new murders, and the motives. Once it is all pieced together, the puzzle is a gruesome one!

Like so many other first readers/reviewers, I had a tough time at the start. Once she gets to Scotland the story picks up. Those readers hoping for more "adventures in bookselling" will not find it here. There is a good bit of 20 something angst. But the Scottish adventure and the romance should keep most readers engaged and perhaps inspire a few "wild hair" trips.

Hildy is a quirky, wonderful, if sometimes unreliable narrator, whose voice and stories immediately invite you into her life and her small town. She doesn't always see the truth of things, but then who among us does. The style of writing is light and easy, though there is certainly a message here, as well as some action and humor. The back of the book suggests it is "hilarious." I wouldn't go that far, but this is definitely an entertaining and inviting read.

Harold and Maureen are in a loveless, lifeless marriage when a letter from Harold's former co-worker arrives. She's got cancer and is writing to say goodbye to Harold. Harold writes a reply and in his docksiders, trousers, shirt and tie sets off to the postbox. When he gets there, he cannot bring himself to post the letter. Eventually, he does mail the letter, but so too begins his journey to see his old friend again before she dies in a hospice 500 miles across England. Lovely book! Anyone who liked Major Pettigrew's Last Stand will surely enjoy this subtle novel about failed relationships, past regrets and seemingly bleak futures. While it wasn't completely plausible at all times, I still found myself cheering Harold on as he walked through not only the unfamiliar physical landscape, but his emotional landscape was well. Well-written with convincingly flawed characters and a compelling theme, this was a GREAT book!

The premise is certainly dark. We know Clementine is counting down the days before she kills herself. Yet some of her antics in the days leading up to her "due date" are quite funny/light. We can certainly see the darkness that fills her life, but there are such wonderful elements to her days as well, elements we hope she will realize are really quite wonderful. You'll find yourself hoping Clementine will reevaluate her decisions. This was a great read!

While I enjoyed the historical aspects of this book, there were too many storylines to follow, too many characters to keep up with. The main characters needed a bit more "fleshing out." I found myself wanting to read more about the historical characters, however fictionalized they were in these scenes.

After after a string of heavier titles, Heat Wave is a great light book to get lost in for awhile. The plot is a bit predictable and the characters could use a some more depth, but it is still worth the investment of time to check out Thayer's latest book. She covers everything from family ties, parenting, loss, business, new love, and betrayal in Heat Wave. It would be perfect to sit on the shore while reading about this Nantucket community.

When her mother dies and her boyfriend breaks up with her, Lily Berry retreats into books. After being fired from her job for reading, she seeks solace in England with Literature Live, a novel re-enactment that her local Indie bookseller is involved with. Her dream of living in Mansfield Park as her favorite Austen heroine, Fanny Price, is quickly dashed as she comes to understand the social hierarchy of the actors, academics and volunteers involved with the production. This is certainly a book about using literature as an escape, but Lily is able to realize that regardless of the setting, she is never the protagonist in her own novel/life. As she struggles to understand her self and make sense of her situation, "her" Jane Austen is a shadowy figure in the periphery, offering looks of encouragement and consternation. Lily is a great character - a dash of Bridget Jones, Lizzie Bennet and Fanny Price. This is definitely a fun, engaging read for those who are Austen fanatics and those who are not!

I wanted to like it. I certainly enjoyed the erudite language, the plentiful allusions and the premise -"music-club" men collecting authentic English songs before they were lost to time. This was a slow read. I was hoping for a more engaging mystery and a bit quicker pace. Sometimes that clever language and reference-rich prose became tiresome.

This book started with such potential – Natalie has been invited to an archeological dig in Africa shortly after getting her PhD. This is the clean break she is looking for as she mourns the death of her mother and the rejection by her lover. The bits about the roaming herds, the discoveries in the dig, and the descriptions of the politics are all interesting, but the book lags with the overly done descriptions of Natalie’s struggles to maintain her reserve in the small group of scientists. We read again and again about her grief, her reluctance to enter into a new relationship, her distrust of her colleagues’ intentions and her various accidents, all of which she is able to miraculously recover from. I wanted to like the characters, but overall, I couldn’t truly embrace them or their trials. The ending was a bit too pat and anticlimactic.

Before I began reading this fictionalized account of the Bronte sisters, I was vaguely aware of their lives and despite having read read Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Throughout my reading, I found myself checking facts of their lives on the Internet, wondering if that was “how it had happened” or if this or that passage had come from a primary source. Gael’s writing is engaging and draws the reader in to the lives of these reclusive, painfully shy women who were so intellectual, but were so bound by their status as women and by their poverty that they had to pay to publish their early works under male pseudonyms. The sisterly bond and the loneliness Charlotte feels after her sisters’ deaths drive the work. The romance seems ancillary, just as the author seemingly intended based on Charlotte’s views of life and love at the time she married. The weaving of their actual works with Gael’s characterization of the sisters is fascinating. Gael suggests that Charlotte’s heroines were thinly veiled versions of herself at different times of her life. It has made me want to read all of their published work with a new portrait of the artist in mind. Had only my English teachers made the authors so real, the assignments of the Brontes’ works might have been more palatable. Even the bits about the walks on the moor, the family servants and the family pets seem well-researched, but seamlessly blended with fictional conversations that portray the sisters' struggle to reconcile their intense shyness with their passion for writing and their aspirations to become respected authors. The novel was a bit slow to start and bogged down a bit towards the end, but overall, it was a satisfying read, especially for those who already have a working knowledge of some of Charlotte Bronte’s books. I was saddened to find that the ARC did not include the promised Author's Note, but I will read it in the published book and hope to find that Gael admits to relying heavily on the reality of Charlotte's life in her creation of this story.

Andrew Stratton is running away from a divorce, Lee is the quirky kid who relates better to adults than people her age and Nicola is fleeing an abusive ex-husband. These three, along with some colorful ancillary characters, bring this quasi-predictable storyline alive with some excellent characterization, unlikely friendships and a tender romance. The setting, the beautiful Boscastle, England, almost becomes a character as well when Andrew must grapple with his physical and metaphorical stones in his hedge-building class. (Hedges are those picturesque English stone walls - called walls in some parts of the country and hedges in others.) Noth ties in actual Boscastle history and the history of witchcraft to bring about a well-written, gentle novel. While there is physical abuse "off the page" and a harrowing rescue scene, the book has the pace one might imagine in of a small tourist town in Cornwall.

I started reading this book when I had a cold and was slightly feverish. Lima Nights was an appropriate choice as the pace in the first part of the novel is also slightly feverish. I found myself appalled and attracted to Bluhm, the older husband who sees Maria at the bar/dance club called Lima Nights one evening. They dance the tango and she slips a note into his jacket pocket. Later, he sees her working at the grocery store and becomes obsessed with her despite the fact that she is only 13, younger than his youngest son. So begins their attraction and relationship. I didn't like him for cheating on his wife. I didn't like him for pursuing a relationship with a poor young girl. I didn't like Maria, though I did not blame her for trying to better her situation. And yet, I couldn't put the book down.

The second section, which takes place 20 years into their relationship, is more slow-paced. We don't know the characters well, as mirrored in the fact that they don't know one another despite having been together for 20 years under the same roof. Bluhm has let his family go for Maria while Maria clings to a false sense of security that living under Bluhm's roof seems to provide. The mix of fighting, voodoo and even some psychotherapy is still not a substitute for the shallow character development, which is ultimately the author’s point. The characters are as stagnant as their relationship.

The first half of the book was much more interesting, albeit disturbing, than the second half. Regardless of the flaws, the story was still compelling enough to finish. I wanted to know how it all worked out, though seemingly there couldn't be a happy union between "a chicken and a goose", two very different characters who had only a tenuous love and flagging sexual desire to keep them together.

This is an excellent, horrible book. It is wonderfully written and very engaging. The story is basically told in reverse; we know what happens but not necessarily why until the last few chapters. The plot and characters truly embody the idea of the "sins of the fathers." No one in the book is blameless and few are likable, and yet it is too engaging to put down. The disturbing issues of political climate, class issues and headline crimes in Malaysia are a backdrop for the even more unsettling relationships between husband and wife, lover and lover, parent and child, brother and sister, old and young, servant and landowner. The book does end with some hope and is well worth the read! There were times when I was revolted and disgusted, but I kept on reading.

Signed Mata Hari is an interestingly written as well as an intriguing tale about one of histories most mysterious and scandalous woman. The author has written short vignettes about her life, alternating between first, second and third person points of view depending on the time and situation being described. We meet her as a young girl crossing Ameland in the North Sea during low tide. She prides herself on being able to escape death before high tide comes in and this is a recurring image throughout the book- one that helps remind her that she is a survivor during some of the more difficult times of her life. Later we find her unhappily married and she seems at times to barely be a participant in her own life. Her one weakness is her children. Her drive to dance, to spy and to take lovers stems from her need to earn money to pay the lawyers who claim to be working to get her custody of her daughter Non.

The writing style, as well as the famous subject matter, certainly casts the Mata Hari of history in a different light. While most readers know of her impending doom, many will not see her as a spy but as a victim of men, especially her husband, and as a loving mother who wants only to see her daughter again. The novel is a nice blend of historical information as well as a more human look at the sexy dancer whose image was immortalized on Mata Hari cigarettes and biscuit tins.