The Windsor Knot

 by SJ Bennett

This is a mystery about a murder that takes place at Windsor Castle.  A young pianist who performed at the castle is found hung in a closet in his room at the castle.  Scotland Yard and MI 5 suspect the Russians but Queen Elizabeth thinks they are pursuing the wrong line of enquiry.

She enlists the services of her personal assistant to dig out information which the Queen subtly feeds to the police so they think they solved the case.

This was a cute story, told with affection for the Queen and Prince Phillip but perhaps not all the royals. It was a fun read.

Sparks Like Stars

 by Nadia Hashimi

This books is about a young girl whose entire family is killed when they are at the Presidential palace in Kabul when there is a coup.  The girl's father had been a senior advisor to the President.

The girl is found alive and is taken away from the palace by one of the guards, a guard she believes executed her family.  He keeps her locked up at his home but eventually takes her to the home of an American diplomat.  The diplomat and her mother try to figure out how to get the girl out of Afghanistan.  They believe that if the leaders of the coup find out she is alive they will try to kill her.

They decide that the girl will take on the name of her deceased sister.  This sister was born when the parents were studying in the U.S.  They feel this will be an easier case to sell.  While the diplomat is doing her best to convince officials to save the girl, the diplomats mother convinces some Americans who are passing through Afghanistan to take her and the girl to Pakistan.  They make their way to the U.S. embassy in Pakistan but not after being in a vehicle accident on a treacherous road.  The U.S. officials are skeptical even after hearing from the diplomat.  But when the Pakistan embassy is under attack the old woman and girl are able to get on a flight to the U.S.

The girl is put in a horrible foster home.  She is traumatized by what she has been through and wants to know what happened to her parents.  She keeps asking to see the old woman but eventually learns that the old woman has died, possibly because of injuries from the crash.  The diplomat eventually adopts the girl and they travel around the world because of jobs in the diplomatic service.  The girl eventually returns to the U.S. and becomes a successful surgeon.

The girl has a boyfriend, she has never been able to tell him the full story of her life. When he announces he has political aspirations and wants her to marry him she realizes she cannot make that kind of commitment and breaks off with him.  She realizes politics will always be foremost in everything he does including having a non-white wife, a successful surgeon,

She is shocked one day when the soldier who kidnapped her and who she thinks killed her parents comes to her for treatment for cancer.  She keeps asking him what happened and he finally tells her that he did not kill her parents and instructed a soldier to bury them on a hill where they would have av view,

News comes out that some graves have been located in Afghanistan which are believed to hold the remains of the murdered President and his family.  The girl convinces her mother and a journalist who has written books about Afghanistan to go back with her.  She pushes her way in to see officials in the Ministry of Interior who tell her that the remains are only the president and his family.  She is about to leave dejected when she recalls that there were trees and a hill near the prison where the other remains were found.  She convinces the government officials to try digging on the hill and they find the remains of her family.  She is finally able to lay them to rest, and it appears that she now may be able tl let herself love someone, the journalist.

Parts of the book were very distressing but it was a very well written and interesting story.  This is another author for which I will be looking for previous books.

Dig

 by John Preston

A movie of this name recently came out.  The book is pretty much the same story as the movie/.

The story takes place just as WW II is starting. The story about a woman in England who finds a man with archeological site excavation experience to come to her property and excavate some of the ancient mounds there.  They don't make much progress initially but eventually find an ancient ship and extensive gold and other artifacts.  One of the best finds ever of an English site.  The site is called Sutton Hoo.  The artifacts are incredible and are now at the British Museum.

As soon as officials find out about the potential value of the site the local museum and the British Museum start to 'fight' over who has the right/responsibility to continue on with the dig.  They try to push the original digger out of the picture but the owner fights to keep him involved.

Apparently this man did not get any credit initially for his work but eventually he was acknowledged by the British Museum.

It was an interesting story but not much different from the book.

Town Called Solace

 by Mary Lawson

I read Crow Lake by this author a few years ago and really enjoyed it.

This book certainly did not disappoint.  It was a touching book with very interesting characters.

The story features three main characters, a young girl Clara, her elderly neighbour Mrs. Orchard and a 30 something recent divorcee named Liam Kane.

Clara is very upset, her older sister has run away from home.  She is also worried about her neighbour Mrs. Orchard.  Clara has been going into Mrs. Orchard's house to feed her reclusive cat.  Clara is upset when she sees a young man enter the house and start packing some of Mrs.Orchard's things.  Mrs. Orchard has died but her parents don't tell her this.  Liam and she become friends but Liam tells her she can only be in the living room so her parents can see her through the window, so they don't suspect him of anything.

The stories develop through the course of the book, some of the chapters are about Mrs. Orchard who is dying in the hospital, some about Clara and her family and some about Liam.  We find out that Liam has recently divorced and quit his job.  Mrs. Orchard had looked after him as a young boy and loved him so much she tried to kidnap him from his parents.  As she is dying Mrs. O. finally takes responsibility for what she did and the people she hurt, including her husband.

Liam has come to the town preparing to get the house fixed up and put on the market.  He soon meets a local repair man who puts him to work in return for doing repairs on the house and later starts to pay him. He starts what he thinks is a temporary relationship with the local librarian.

Clara's sister is eventually found in Toronto, a victim of traffickers.  The sister is devastated by the experience.

It sounds like a simple story but she did a great job of portraying the characters and very gradually giving us glimpses of their lives.  I am looking forward to reading some of her other works.

 

Memory Collectors

 by Kim Neville

This is a book by a BC author.  It is an unusual book, but unlike Peaces, I enjoyed it.

The story starts with a young girl who likes to help her father collect old furniture and restore it.  Then we find out that the girl and her sister became orphans.  The girl, Ev, now dumpster dives to find things with good feelings about them.  She has a sensitivity to the energy/stories contained in objects.  She seeks and sells the good feeling ones because she knows they will appeal to people.  We learn that she and her sister were raised in foster homes and now are estranged.

Ev has a friend, an artist, Owen, who also dumpster dives to seek objects for his art projects.  He befriends Ev.  One day they discover some potentially interesting boxes in an alley but are chased away from them by a woman, Harriet.  The boxes are hers.  She had them in the hallway of her apartment building and one of her neighbours has thrown them out on her.  Owen offers to take them back to her apartment and finds she is a serious hoarder.  Harriet senses that Ev is special and wants to make contact with her.  

Harriet has received an eviction notice and in deciding what to to do decides to buy an abandoned building and make a museum of happy objects.  She wants Ev's help but Ev is reluctant at first because some of Harriet's objects have very evil or unhappy feelings and these really upset Ev.  She finally agrees to help when Harriet agrees she can decide what doesn't get kept.

Ev's sister, Noemi shows up, she keeps bugging Ev for what she knows about their parent's murder suicide.  Ev claims she doesn't remember.  

As the story progresses we find that Harriet has stored boxes of the girl's family possession in her old family home.  The girls eventually break into the house to retrieve what they consider their property.  Noemi eventually leaves with the boxes in her car.  By this time Ev has told her she had nothing to do with the murder and actually saved her little sister from the father.  They find that Noemi also has some of Ev's powers but she is more selfish and self serving so we do not know how she will use them.  ONe nice thing she did for her sister was get her sailing lessons.

Harriet eventually sets fire to her house, Ev develops a company going to houses to cleanse them.  She has learned that she can take the evil out of things.  Owen takes Ev to live with him.

The only puzzling part of the story was Harriet went to the library to find out about Ev and her backstory.  However, if she had bought all their stuff at the estate sale why wouldn't she already know the history of the family?

It was an interesting read, nice to see peculiar people treated with kindness and acceptance.

Peaces

 by Helen Oyeyemi

This book has been getting a lot of buzz and the reviews have been good.  That is why I bought it.  However, I felt the book was unusual but not interesting or engaging.

The story is about two gay men who are given a free "honeymoon" trip on a mysterious train by the aunt of one of the men.

The young man, relative of the aunt, was bounced around from one set of relatives to another as a youth as he was an orphan.  His aunt is the only one who seemed to care about him.  On one of the trips when he was travelling from one relative to another he is alone in a train car.  A man and his young daughter join him.  The young boy is attracted to the girl.  Later a woman joins them and attacks the man, if I remember because of some past history.  The man's daughter ends up killing the woman.

Back to the "present" the two young men board the train, destination unknown, with their pet mongoose.  While they are travelling they are upset to learn that the former boyfriend of one of them seems to have dropped in to visit the aunt.  They are suspicious of his motives.  While on the train a clown? gets on and the men get him tossed off

They are told they should make no effort to meet the owner of the train, a recluse.  They do meet her, find out that she plays the thermin and also has a mongoose.

As they tour the train they also run into a woman who is the girl who killed the woman on the train when the one man was a boy.  As the story progresses they learn that the recluse is isolating on the train because of a will she is close to inheriting.  If she can stay sane for a few more days she will inherit the wealth.  The man who is on the verge of leaving her the money had an adopted son (was he the clown) but decided to leave him nothing and leave the money to her.  The woman had come to the man's house to play the thermin during the night to comfort the son.

As the story ends it appears the woman has reached her deadline to inherit and the other people on the train can no longer see the young men....

Weird, no idea what the point of this story was.  I like unusual stories but this one didn't grab me at all.