This is an interesting book, especially for someone who has flown many times and may have wondered what being a flight attendant was like. The experience of going through the process of getting hired and trained is well documented. The many experiences on the job and spending time in cities all over the world sound fascinating. Although dealing with all the many tasks involved as well as with sometimes difficult passengers must have been challenging she never lost the love for the profession she chose. I wonder what her college classmates headed for the financial and business worlds who were skeptical of her career choice would have thought of everything she saw and learned. I loved that a little girl achieved her dream; that does not always happen.

I thought 'The Temple House Vanishing' was really engrossing from the first page. The story is told in first-person narrations alternatively by Louisa, a scholarship student, and by the journalist trying to unravel the mystery (or is it mysteries) of two disappearances many years later. Both Louisa and charismatic art teacher, Mr. Lavelle, are gone without trace. While the journalist tries to solve the mystery, very different stories are revealed. These stories revolve around Mr. Lavelle and the relationships he has with two students and whether either story has any truth to it. I will certainly be looking forward to any further books by Rachel Donohue.

'Raft of Stars' is a fast moving but really unlikely story. If you are looking for a book that never drags, that keeps your interest, you may enjoy it. The actions the characters took required too much of a suspension of belief for me; I found some of the behaviors just too hard to swallow and others just irritating. Unlike happenings in real life, all the loose ends are neatly resolved at the conclusion of the tale, which makes for a happy ending. Reality isn't that way, but it's still satisfying when fiction is.

'I Want You to Know We're Still Here' cannot be read easily or quickly. It is difficult to picture having to do painstaking research with scant leads to find your family's past when I have always known my own.

To me this is a story of determination and unwillingness to give up, both of a protagonist with the ability to track down leads and follow up clues with very little information and of people who fought to stay alive despite being caught up in the evils of a terrible time. It is heartening to read how willing people not closely related or not related at all were to help. Despite the horrors of the Holocaust, the goodness of many people is what stayed with me when I finished reading. I couldn't help thinking of Pandora's Box; if opening it unleashed the evils then that goodness and determination to tell the story is the hope that emerged.

This memoir left me optimistic about people and their ability to overcome and prosper, while remembering and memorializing the past.

Author Hazel Prior has written a warm and charming story in 'Ellie and the Harpmaker'. From the first, I loved the two main characters, each of whom was vulnerable in his or her own way, and had a hard time putting the book aside. The changes in their lives as they become closer are positive; the discoveries they make about themselves make them stronger. The ending is very satisfying. I loved it and look forward to more of this author's books. It would make a great 'beach read' and a good counterbalance for any dark, unhappy tale.