Every Last Fear by Alex Finlay

Hello everyone.  I hope you're enjoying your day.

When there is a lot of buzz about a book are you driven to read it or do you refuse, not wanting to follow the crowd. If the book is something I "must" read, look out, that book is coming my way and everyone around me must leave me alone until it is complete.  But sometimes when there is a big buzz around a book I wonder how good it really is and how much is hype and I refuse to read it.  However, when it's rumored to possibly be the hit thriller of the summer (you know how I love thrillers), AND when the identity of the author is a secret and everyone is guessing who it might be.  You cave in, order the novel, read it and every time it gets really good you cuss at the book.  How dare anything with such buzz actually be entertaining!

I recently read Every Last Fear by Alex Finlay.  This is the story of a family who has died of carbon monoxide poisoning in Mexico.  There are two surviving sons, Matt is in college in NY and Dan is in prison for killing his girlfriend.  With the FBI's help it's determined that perhaps the family's death wasn't so simple and could somehow be linked to Dan, despite him being in jail. The writing is fast paced, weaving easily from the past to present day, pushing us to discover what really happened and why.  Often the chapters end on a cliff hanger, which propels the reader forward for answers.  While the story includes government and police corruption, cartels and a boy that won't take no , be assured that these often unpleasant topics are brief and are necessary to the story.   

Okay, I admit it, I really enjoyed this book, I didn't want to but I did. Now I'll go hang my head in shame for following the crowd, at least it was to a book store.

ps.  Who do you think the author really is?

Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson

Hello everyone.  I hope you're having a nice day.

As a history lover, nothing in the US could be better than Virginia, which is loaded with both revolutionary and civil war sites.  People used to stand on the site of todays Tidewater Community College to watch the clash between the two iron-clad ships, the Monitor and the Merrimac.  The Merrimac becoming an iron-clad in Portsmouth. Virginia is home to lots of native American sites, the famous Pocahontas for starters and is also the site of the real first Thanksgiving, not the pilgrims. There is the historic triangle of Jamestown, Williamsburg and Yorktown.  Jamestown the site of the first permanent English settlement, Williamsburg the first colonial capital, and Yorktown where the revolutionary war came to an end. These sites are just a few of those in southeastern Virginia, not the entire state. It is really quite amazing. To get from Williamsburg to the next major town, Richmond, you might take Route 5, which parallels the James River. It was first a native American trail, then a carriage path, now a state route.  This road runs through a small area you've probably never heard about, Charles City County.  The James River Plantations live here, where some of our most famous founding citizens owned farms.  In fact, not only are there several signers of the Declaration of Independence residences but two Presidents who were next door neighbors.  Bet you never heard that before! If you go to Williamsburg or Virginia Beach on vacation, be sure to stop and tour some of these sites.  Sometimes, however, with the sweet comes the sour and with beautiful large plantations that means slaves.  People ripped from their lives, their families, and their homes to be forced to work without pay, often brutally. 

I recently read Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson.  This book follows the life of Pheby Delores Brown, a slave, who lives on a plantation is Charles City County.  The story is well written and grabs you immediately.  The author is very successful where many authors often fail, in making you care and connect with the characters.  No matter your age or race, you will hurt and root for Pheby and all the other people in this tale.  Be warned that this book doesn't sugar coat the slaves' treatment and frankly, I wonder if it got much worse...in fact, I know it did.  Most of all, this book will make you cry for our past and hope for our future.  I am amazed that a black woman could bear to write this but I cannot imagine it being penned by anyone else.  While not a feel good book, I promise you that if you read Yellow Wife, you will not regret it.

The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin

Hello everyone. I hope your day has been a pleasant one.

I wasn't always a housewife, I used to actually work (outside the home). I worked in the credit cards industry for years, doing everything from starting a new card program to seeing it sold off and all aspects in between. Want to know about credit card fraud or merchant services, I'm your girl. For real fun, (read with a sexy whisper) I'll show you how to compute an average daily balance. 

When it became more practical for me to stay home, I wanted to do the housewife job well.  I wanted to clean like a dream (I'm laughing so hard now I might fall out of my chair). I wanted to know all the little tricks from packing the perfect suitcase, to making silver shine.  I wanted to be able to cook like a world class chef, but just for my family.  Let's face it, I wanted to be a Stepford Wife, heck I still do I just start to lose my lunch every time I even think about dusting.

I recently read The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin. Now if you are a youngster and have only seen the more recent movie, it's nothing like the book. The original movie, however, sticks much closer to the novel.  We see how the women of the town of Stepford only have time to clean their homes and take care of their husbands and children. The reader witnesses Joanna desperately trying to get the women to do something together that doesn't involve dirt removal.  Like the movie, it doesn't work and she is left without friends except for one, Bobbie. Sadly, one day all Bobbie wants to do is clean her house. As Joanna's dissatisfaction grows, so does the distance between her and her husband, Walter.  Now, she's sure he and others from the town are up to something nefarious.  This fun book is  rapidly read, requiring barely more than an hour as it's just over one hundred pages.  Interesting to note, Ira Levin also wrote several other books including Rosemary's Baby.

Think I'll see if I can get someone to hypnotize me so I love cleaning house and want to do nothing else.....or better yet, hypnotize my husband.  I bet he can dust with the best of them!