"To eat a meal when hunger struck her, to smile without thinking, to wear a dress that fit her well, to place upon the wall a picture she had made, to love a person of her choosing." These are the simple yet unattainable desires of Josephine the "house girl" to Lu Anne Bell, aspiring artist and mistress of a Virginia tobacco farm.

This story had my attention captured from page two to the final sentence.

Readers who enjoyed The Help or Salvage The Bones will find two new heroines to love in The House Girl.

I was originally skeptical about how the story could honestly address the pros/cons of reparations without sounding preachy or dismissive, but Conklin managed to give the issue the respect it deserved, without losing the character focused flavor of the book.

Like all good books (in my opinion) The House Girl gives us characters we care deeply about, and asks us to think about some tough issues.

This wonderful book will stay in your heart and mind long after you have finished the last page.

While I liked the tone and gradual build up of tension in this book, I was very frustrated by the inconsistency of some of the characters, Claire in particular. In the first half of the story we hear the history of the Baumsarg ranch and Claire's single-minded focus on making the business profitable and keeping the ranch in the family. Even after tragedy strikes she still chooses to value the land more than her family and winds up alone rather then leave the ranch with her daughters and husband.

The second half of the book is completely out of character for the Claire we have come to know. She allows Minna (a virtual stranger) to jeopardize the ranch (after we've been led to believe that she will sacrifice EVERYTHING in her life to protect it).
It just didn't feel as though Soli knew who she wanted Claire to be and the result for me was that I neither found her or her actions the least bit believable.

This would possibly make a good book-club disscussion though. I know my group would dig right into the debate over loyalty to place vs. loyalty to people.

Salvage the Bones blew through my life much like Hurricane Katrina roared through Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and the lives of the Batiste family.
The day to day details of life for pregnant 14 year old Esch and her brothers are often brutal and difficult to read, but Ward's gorgeous writing and her ability to help us see through Esch's eyes and love with her heart make it worth the discomfort.
I adore a strong character-driven book and Savage the Bones is bursting with heroes! This would be a fantastic choice for a book group. Savage the Bones shines a light on one of America's greatest tragedies and gives a voice to some of it's most invisible inhabitants.

Outside Wonderland was a sort of Alice In Wonderland story. It follows the lives of three siblings: Alice, Griffin, and Dinah who lost their parents at a very young age. We root for them as each (now adult) struggles to discover what love really looks like, and what home means to them.

Like Alice, they ultimately discover that the answers most often lie within, and that what is already around us is often the very thing we are desperately searching for.

This would probably be a good book for book groups and might lead to some thoughtful discussions. I gave this an average rating because the images of the parents watching from someplace "not unlike heaven" was too predictable and sweet for my taste.