Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Posted on by lynndellwatson
Tremendously honest, heartbreaking and soul healing!

Kya lives in the marshlands of North Carolina with her poverty stricken family. Her father is abusive and, one by one, her siblings leave and, eventually, so does her mother. Her father stays and he seems better for a time, even kind. Then he falls back into his old ways again and ends up leaving too. Kya tries school for a day but after being bullied, she doesn’t return. She makes it completely on her own and digs mussels to sell to the local store to bring in money for food. Tate, a boy a few years older than Kya, loves to explore the marsh. They become friends and he teaches her to read. With reading, she discovers and teaches herself to be literate and all about the marshlands and its nature. She illustrates and collects samples of everything she finds in her marsh area. Tate leaves to attend college and becomes a biologist and works in the marsh. He submits Kya’s illustrations and notes to a publisher and she becomes a published author several times over. She adds comforts to her house and lives well by her own wealth. She lives simply but she gets electricity and running water and other basic comforts that she’s never had. When Tate went away to college, he realized that his life would be difficult for Kya. So, he doesn’t visit her for years. While he’s away, the local and popular Chase moves in on Kya. He tricks her into thinking he’s going to marry her, all the while dating other women. Kya eventually sees his engagement article in the local newspaper and ends it with him. Later, he attacks her, trying to rape her and he beats her up. She fights back and escapes. His body is found later and it looks like he fell from the fire tower in the marsh. Since he was a local celebrity, the police are pushed to investigate for foul play. Kya is arrested and faced with a murder trial. The whole time I’m reading the part after Chase attacks Kya, I’m hoping she killed him but I also don’t want her to be found guilty. The suspense builds to intensity and I couldn’t put the book down! Tremendously honest, heartbreaking and soul healing! 5 stars!

These Fleeting Shadows by Kate Alice Marshall

Posted on by lynndellwatson
An unusual story with twisted ideals!

Helen travels with her mom and stepdad Simon to Harrow; the place where her maternal family has resided for decades. Her grandfather has died and left Harrow and the responsibility of being the master of the manor and the family to Helen. If she doesn’t agree to stay, everyone in the family will lose their entire inheritance. Mystery surrounds the manor and the family. Several girls have disappeared through the years and it seems that Harrow is in the middle of the suspicion. An old journal is found describing the founder of Harrow, Nicholas Vaughn. In the journal are descriptions of poison and separating body parts of victims to control a being known as the Other. Nicholas wanted power and control and he found both by sacrificing girls to this being. Things have gotten out of control and the power is loose. Helen discovers more than she’s ready for and she wants to stop the violence but she’s going to need help. An unusual story about greed and twisted ideals, 4 stars!

How To Money by Jean Chatzky, Kathryn Tuggle and the HerMoney Team

Posted on by lynndellwatson
A must-have guide to all things money!

How To Money is a must-have guide for every parent who wants to teach their children about money and for teens who want to learn about money on their own.
This book teaches:
creating a budget and sticking to it
Scoring that first job and what the paychecks mean
Navigating student loans and avoiding student debt
Getting that first credit card and what credit is
Investing like a pro and why it’s important

All so you can earn more, save smart, invest wisely, borrow only when you have to, and enjoy everything you’ve got!

Wonderful advice from an interview with Ilhan Omar, a US Congressional Representative for Minnesota: “refuse to give oxygen to people who don’t have your best interests at heart”.
This piece of advice doesn’t have anything to do with the subject of money but of self-care, which I struggle with. I’ve always found it difficult to put myself first, so it’s great that teens reading this book will hear the advice early on in their lives.

A must have money information guide that covers everything from how to correctly fill out a check and deposit slip to saving for retirement and the important reminder to take care of yourself and your health. I will be purchasing this book for the high school library, 5 stars!

Gone Dark by Amanda Panitch

Posted on by lynndellwatson
Her survival skills might keep her alive!

Zara’s father is a survivalist that lives on a compound. Zara and her mother used to live on the compound too, until seven years ago. Now she lives with her mother and attends public school far away from her father’s compound. Her father’s survival lessons are drilled into Zara’s head and she replays them often. When there’s a widespread blackout, Zara uses her survival knowledge to get away from a strange man chasing her, to find her mother and to help her friends. As they travel looking for safety and to reach her father’s compound for protection, they come across a lot of danger and strange, sometimes creepy situations, cult communities, religious communities, families stealing supplies from them and people that will do anything for self preservation. Interesting, unique dystopian story, 4 stars!

Turning by Joy L. Smith

Posted on by lynndellwatson
A story that gives readers perspective!

Genie is a dancer who has lost the ability to walk. Ballet has been her life and was going to be her future but she fell and everything changed. Genie now uses a wheelchair to get around. She’s keeping a secret hidden from her family and she has more than one secret that’s pulling her down. Her ex-boyfriend is pushy and she has to force him to listen to anything she tries to say. This frustrates Genie tremendously and she wants to move on. She meets Kyle in physical therapy and he has his own tragedy that he’s struggling with. The two of them become friends. When her secrets are revealed, Genie will hopefully have the love and support she needs. A realistic fiction story that helps readers realize that troubles and struggles could be much worse. 4 stars!

The Hacienda by Isabel Canas

Posted on by lynndellwatson
I did not want this book to end!

Beatriz marries Rodolfo. He’s a businessman and owns a large estate. He leaves to do business so Beatriz runs the estate in his absence. Juana, Rodolfo’s sister, believes she’s the one in charge and she treats everyone gruffly. Beatriz starts to feel like she’s being watched and things get creepier from there, to the point that she’s afraid for her life. She asks the local priests for help and all but one shun her. Padre Andres helps her under the guise of being a priest to help the estate workers. He has knowledge from his ancestors that can help exorcise evil. The house has an extremely powerful, angry spirit and it’s harmful. This is an elaborate and beautifully written horror story that I didn’t ever want to put down. I also didn’t want it to end. 5 stars!

The Last Beautiful Girl by Nina Laurin

Posted on by lynndellwatson
Wonderfully spooky!

Isa moves from Brooklyn, where she loves her life, to a small community that doesn’t seem to have much to offer. Isa, her mom and dad move into the Granger House, which was elegant and decadent a century ago but has faded and become decrepit. The house also has deaths in its history. The community is in awe of the Granger House because of the mysteries surrounding it. Bodies have been found, supposedly homeless vagrants; a teenage girl has disappeared from there; and the home owners’ unknown endings. Isabelle Granger was a beautiful model who many artists painted portraits of. These portraits are all over the house. Isabelle’s husband was discovering new art forms dealing with photography but his shop was burned to the ground but no one knows what happened to him. Isa meets an aspiring photographer at school and together they recreate Isabelle Granger’s portraits through photography and post them on an Instagram account that becomes very popular. Isa’s personality begins to change and she becomes impatient, arrogant and self-important. Her family and friends notice and they try to intervene before tragedy strikes. This is a spooky, suspenseful book that I thoroughly enjoyed reading, 5 stars!

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

Posted on by lynndellwatson
Morbidly fascinating!

Weird. Psychologically twisted. Wow… This story is a mystery in itself because of the narrators. As I read, I was unsure if I could trust any of the narrators. They all seem unreliable in some way. Ted, the man with extremely odd behavior and lifestyle, Olivia, Ted’s cat, and Dee, a woman who moved into Ted’s neighborhood who’s secretly looking for her younger sister that’s been missing for years. Ted supposedly has a daughter, Lauren. It’s difficult to decipher her age and maturity. Also, it seems that Ted’s mother handicapped Lauren so she’s unable to walk. It took me a few chapters to get into the story but then I needed to finish it to figure it all out. By the time, I read the entire book, I was fascinated, albeit a bit morbidly. I completely appreciate the author’s notes at the end of the book, explaining everything and making sense of it all and her spoiler alert at the beginning of her notes. So, don’t read her notes until after you’ve finished reading the book. She shares her research also, which is impressive! I want to read more of Catriona Ward’s books now. She wrote an intricate and complicated story, The Last House on Needless Street, showing the fragility and capabilities we all have within us. 5 stars!

Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves by Meg Long

Posted on by lynndellwatson
A wonderful mix of dystopian, science fiction and adventure awaits!

Running from someone she stole from, Sena ends up accidentally hiding inside a feral wolf’s cage. She’s caught by the den boss, Kalba, so he makes a deal with her that she’ll pay her debt by healing the wolf. The wolf’s name is Iska. Kalba named his prized fighting wolf after Sena’s mom. This irritates her horribly. She agrees to help heal Iska but she gets sidetracked more than once with trying to steal enough to pay her way off the ice planet. After a few misadventures, Sena ends up with a racing team that’s planning scientific studies of the exocarbon that the planet is known for. Sena is angry with herself because she vowed that she would never race. She learns how much she can truly handle and how teamwork helps tremendously with problem solving. I enjoyed this read, even through Sena’s pessimism and stubbornness. A wonderful mix of dystopian, science fiction and adventure awaits readers who want to plunge into another world, 5 stars!

The Forest of Stolen Girls by June Hur

Posted on by lynndellwatson
Love the historical aspects of this story!

A young woman disguises herself as a man to look for her missing father. She visits the sister she hasn’t seen in five years and there’s still much animosity between them. The sisters have a history in the forest. When they were younger, they were lost and then found unconscious in the midst of a crime scene. Now the sisters work together to find out what’s happened to their father after he went searching for thirteen missing girls in the forest. The mystery surrounding the missing girls and their father twists and turns until the sordid truth is unraveled. Based on the forced sacrifices of young women of Korea around the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the historical aspects are the most fascinating parts of the story and the danger builds suspense. 3.5 stars!