Book Review: Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris

Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the first book in this series featuring Harper Connelly and her step-brother, Tolliver Lang.  After being struck by lightening as a teenager, Harper has the ability to find dead bodies and to determine how they die.  She’s sees their last moments, but not who did them in if it’s murder.

The books are told from Harper’s point of view and she comes across as cold and almost non-emotional.  It’s almost as if she’s just existing and not living.  Aside from jogging, everything she details from movies they watch to the books they read or listen to (when driving) there is no excitement; no sense for who Harper is as a person.  We learn even less about Tolliver.  The relationship with Tolliver, as others have mentioned, is just odd.  She almost relies on him too much.  As the book went on, I actually think the dependence is due to their less than ideal childhood.  They relied on each other then and still do.  But, you have to wonder if they should find a way to separate a bit or if Harper should be a bit more independent.  Though, I can’t say I’d recommend she travel around doing what she does alone, so that’s a little catch-22.

The mystery is good and had a twist I didn’t see coming.  However, it is set in the South and it’s almost like the author, who lives in the South, catered to every stereotype that exists for the South and I found that slightly annoying.  This is from the Sheriff to the families involved and in some respects to the resolution.

Given all of that, by the end of the book, I was wanting to know more about Harper and Tolliver.  And, after reading an excerpt from the second book, I think I’ll read and see what I think about where this series is headed.  Basically, recommended.


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New Recipe Challenge - Whole Wheat & Millet Banana Bread

I a member of a cooking group aimed at cooking for one or two people that has a challenge to try a new recipe three times per month.  I finally realized that this includes all recipes, including baked goods!  While I am trying true meal recipes, I love to bake so am including some of the baked goods recipes I try as part of the challenge.  And, since my surgery, my stomach doesn't appear to be as happy with goodies from various bakeries as it used to be.  Such is life.  So, I hope to explore more recipes for baked goods as well as for meals.

A couple of weeks ago, I ran across the Whole Wheat & Millet Banana Bread recipe on Joy the Baker's blog and knew I had to try it.  Maybe it was the pictures or that it used millet seed or maybe it was the fact that it makes two loaves (I'm good at sharing and freezing baked goodies).  At any rate, today I tried this recipe -- with a few modifications.  I used spelt instead of whole wheat, because that's what I had.  I used an organic egg product because, well, it needed to be used, but it did have the benefit of reducing the calories.  And, because I knew I'd be calculating the calories for this recipe, I substituted apple sauce for half of the oil.

I happy to report it tastes as good as it looked on the blog.  Maybe a tad rich. Trying to decide if it's the oil and if maybe I can just replace it all with applesauce the next time, because yes there will be a next time.  Recipe recommended.

Book Review - Never Buried by Edie Clair

Never Buried by Edie Claire
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This mystery starts out with Leigh Koslow finding an embalmed body in the hammock in her cousin Cara’s yard.  It's not a recently deceased person.  This find is followed by several other unsavory events that basically lead to warnings for the girls to get out of the house.

Leigh is staying with her cousin, who is pregnant, while her husband is overseas. While it starts out with somewhat of a bang, it doesn’t carry through.  Leigh comes across as a bit wimpier than her cousin, who she’s constantly trying to reign in because she’s pregnant.  Because of the warnings to get out of the house, Cara is convinced that there is something in the house that someone doesn’t want them to find (apparently she found a ledger of sorts when remodeling the house).

Believing that the body is related to something having to do with the house, Leigh does a little research and comes up with an 50 year old murder.  However, all of this is intertwined between stories of missing mother’s with Alzheimer’s and Cara’s false contractions.

Overall, the mystery was okay, though I felt like the wrap up was quick and the guilty person sorta came out of nowhere, but the clues were there.  Sorta.  I just couldn’t really get a feel for any of the characters.  I liked the relationship between Leigh and Cara until the husband came back and then I felt like he was a bit heavy handed in how he handled things.  Leigh is supposed to be friends going back to college with one of the cops on the local police force, Maura, but it didn’t always come across that way.  I don’t feel like I really got to know any of the characters and at the end it didn’t matter much to me.

I read this on my Nook and it was either free or less than two dollars.  I’ve given it three stars because the mystery was basically good and it moved at a nice pace.  Not sure if I’ll be reading other books in this series.

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Book Review - The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book tells the story of many people - Vida Winter, brother and sister Charlie and Isabelle, twins Adeline and Emmeline, Aurelius, and Margaret.

Vida Winter is a very well known writer who has spent her life keeping others from knowing the story of her life.  As she is dying, she asks Margaret, a twin and someone who seems to live a good portion of her life through books rather than in the “real world,” to write her biography.  Thus begins the story of twins Adeline and Emmeline.  Vida’s story of the past is interspersed with Margaret’s current life and her research to verify what Vida is telling her.  This research brings her to the current day home of the twins and to Aurelius, who it turns out, in the end, is part of the story.  He also becomes a friend to Margaret, which it appears is something she doesn’t have.

This tale has classic elements - big houses and gardens, family secrets with a few twist and turns.  All is not what it seems.   What it doesn't have is romance and not everyone has a happy ending.

To me, this was a story of people who fell through the cracks.  I wondered if someone had intervened on behalf of Charlie and Isabelle, and later for the twins, how different their lives might have been.  I felt like the telling of the story gave Vida Winter closure with her past and in some ways allowed Margaret to make peace with her feelings about being a twin and to actually start living her life.

The end answers some questions, but raises others that can never be answered.  And, maybe they shouldn’t, because life doesn’t always give us answers.  All in all, I enjoyed this book and recommend it.  

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