Amy Kay
Hooked on Books
The staff of the County of L&A Libraries are avid readers and always eager to share their recent favourites. Here are some recent favourites.
Marg suggests Closer by Sea by Perry Chafe
Set on a remote island off the coast of Newfoundland in the early 1990s at the height of the Cod Moratorium, Closer by Sea is part coming of age tale, part mystery and totally entertaining.
Twelve-year old Pierce Jacobs is trying to cope with the death of his fisherman father while his mother struggles to make ends meet. In fact the whole community is struggling with the recent collapse of the fishery. When Annie, a local teen who is the object of Pierce’s attention, goes missing he and his friends set out to solve the mystery of what happened to her all while dealing with an eccentric, reclusive stranger and neighborhood bullies.
Location was definitely an appeal factor for me as I grew up in Newfoundland so I enjoyed the literary trip back home!
Karen suggests Inheritance by Nora Roberts
Inheritance is the first book in Nora Roberts’ new Lost Bride Trilogy, and I loved it. It reminded me of her older trilogies. Sonya has inherited a huge old Victorian house in Maine from an uncle she never knew existed. His will (of course!) says she must live in the house for three years to inherit it. Having broken up with her fiancé and between jobs, Sonya heads off to Maine.
At first, Sonya tends to think she’s just been overstressed when she walks into the kitchen and finds it already cleaned up when she doesn’t remember doing it or her bed made in the morning but eventually has to concede that her new house is indeed haunted. Turns out, a centuries old curse has resulted in the house being haunted by seven ‘lost brides’, all killed by a vengeful witch, as well as the ghosts of anybody who’s died there in that time. The brides need Sonya to find the seven lost wedding rings the witch stole from them, and gradually feed her clues and information.
I loved getting to know the ghosts; from a child who trains Sonya’s new dog to do tricks, to the ghost of a maid who does the bed-making, dishes and keeps the place miraculously free of dust, to the flower child who turns out to be Sonya’s biological grandmother.
Throw in Sonya’s best friend who is from Louisiana and whose grandmother is quite witchy, and a love interest, and this book is a good deal of fun on many levels. You have a mystery, some suspense, romance, humour, magical realism, and a doozy of a cliffhanger! I can’t wait for book two!
Kristin suggests Once Upon a Wardrobe by Patti Callahan Henry
From the bestselling author of Becoming Mrs. Lewis, comes another enchanting novel that explores some possibilities of what inspired C. S. Lewis to write The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. This novel revisits the year C.S. Lewis spent in Oxford working on his most famous book.
Where did the concept of Narnia come from? How did this man create such a magical world and what inspired him to do so? Well, a logic-minded student of mathematics and physics sets out to try and answer these questions for her dying 8-year-old brother, George. He has requested his older sister ask the author of the recently released novel The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe these important questions and report back to him with the answers.
As luck would have it, Megs attends Somerville College at Oxford University, a short walk away from where Mr. Lewis teaches at the Magdalen College for men. Despite her timidity about approaching the famous author, Megs soon finds herself taking tea with the man himself along with his own brother, seeking answers from them both about the mythical Narnia. What she ends up receiving though are more stories, including those of Jack Lewis’s life, which she takes home to George.
Throughout this thoughtful, heartwarming and sentimental story, readers will learn alongside Megs and George that there are many truths about life that science and math simply cannot fully answer. To survive and get the most out of life, we need to love, hope and not be afraid to imagine or enjoy fantastical stories. In summary, this novel truly is a love letter to books and it highlights how stories really are nourishment for our souls.
All of these titles can be reserved with your library card at your local branch of the Lennox and Addington Libraries or online at www.CountyLibrary.ca.