Whistling Past the Graveyard

Whistling Past the Graveyard by Susan Crandall
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Nine-year old, fiesty Starla has had it with living with her strict grandma - who tells her she's going to end up in reform school or turn out like her mother. Well Starla knows her momma is going to be a famous Nashville singer, that's why she left Starla's daddy. When a neighbor calls her "a no-good, cheap trash, just like her momma" Starla hits the road for the big city. Along the way and determined not to die, 'cause it will make her grandma happy, Starla catches a ride with a tall, skinny black woman driving an old rickety truck. When she hops in, Starla finds on the floorboards, a tiny, wrinkled, white baby wrapped in what looks like a pillowcase, and the adventure begins - full of people's kindness, darkness and truth.

Wonderful writing told from the viewpoint of a nine-year old girl in the turbulent '60s of the deep South. Eula and Starla, worlds apart and different colors, are complete treasures...

Favorite quotes:
"My daddy says that when you do somethin' to distract you from your worstest fears, it's like whistlin' past the graveyard. You know, making a racket to keep the scaredness and the ghosts away. He says that's how we get by sometimes. But it's not weak, like hidin'... It's strong. It means you're able to go on.."

“Here’s the thing ‘bout gif’s.” Eula stopped buttering her toast and looked straight at me. “A body don’t know how many the good Lord tucked inside them until the time is right. I reckon a person could go a whole life and not know. That why you gotta try lots of things, many as you can…experiment.”



View all my reviews

The Wily O'Reilly

The Wily O'Reilly: Irish Country Stories: Irish Country Stories by Patrick Taylor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A compilation of the famous Dr. Fingal O'Reilly stories before he became so famous. Patrick Taylor originally wrote about the Irish doctor in a series of columns published in Stitches: The Journal of Medical Humour before publishing them as a book in later years. Doc's antics will crack you up as he interacts with his Ulster town residents at the pub, the Mucky Duck, and in his surgery. Our favorite characters are back like Kinky, Donal Donnelly, and O'Reilly's leg humping, very large dog, Arthur.

View all my reviews

An Irish Country Wedding

An Irish Country Wedding by Patrick Taylor
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I adore Patrick Taylor's series on my favorite country doctors. Reminiscent of All Creatures Great and Small and the BBC series Balleykissangel, the cast of characters are loveable and hardworking. Set in Ireland, in the small village of Ballybucklebo, the doctors Flahertie O'Reilly and Barry Laverty continue their GP duties, with an eye to also help their neighbors. O'Reilly is set to wed his love Kitty O'Hallorhan while Laverty has found a new girlfriend. The kitchen wonder Kinky Kincaid comes down with a possible hernia and is rushed off to the hospital, leaving the two men helpless, since neither can cook! The village residents step up to the plate to make sure their favorite docs don't do without.

This is book seven and I personally hate to see an ending to this series....

View all my reviews

The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat

The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat by Edward Kelsey Moore
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Talk about a sense of outrageous humor - this book is laugh right out loud funny, braying like a donkey until your eyes tear up funny! The Supremes are three best friends, now in their fifties, who talk daily and meet at their local diner, Big Earl's, for lunch every Sunday after church. The women have always been there for each other through the many ups and downs that life has handed their way. Barbara Jean has faced the horrifying loss of her only child, Clarice is still dealing with her husband's affairs, and Odette will soon learn she is facing her life's biggest challenge. The ladies and their spouses, who know each other's strengths and weaknesses, go from wanting to strangle the other to crying and hugging their neck.

Edward Kelsey Moore has previously written short stories and this successful novel is his very first.



View all my reviews

Christmas with Tucker by Greg Kincaid
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The prequel to A Dog Named Christmas, Christmas with Tucker is a wonderful companion read. George McCray goes back in time, when he lived on the McCray farm with his Grandma Cora and Grandpa Bo and became a man at the tender age of 12. George's beloved father had just died in a farming accident and he was torn between joining his mother and sisters in Minnesota or staying on the Kansas family farm and helping his grandparents. During his great loss and difficult choices, George remembers his father's simple rule, "No matter how much falls on us, we keep plowing ahead." A very touching and heartwarming book for everyone...

View all my reviews

The Clothes on Their Backs

The Clothes On Their Backs by Linda Grant
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An unusual story of love and loss in many ways, The Clothes On Their Backs is a novel of great depth - Vivien Kovacs is the only child of Hungarian refugees. Timid and mousey, her parents had fortunately escaped their home country only months before the war. They only want to assimilate themselves into the quiet London neighborhood where lonely Vivien grows up - the only child on the block. When a neighboring spinster passes away, Vivien and her mother scoop up the clothing that has been left behind and Vivien begins to identify herself through the material worn on her skin. To her surprise, she also finds a scandalous uncle that her parents never told her about - but then, they never told her anything about their younger days in Hungary or even of other family members. Questioning the boring, quiet lifestyle of her parents, Vivien searches for this outlaw of an uncle that has been labeled a monster of a slumlord - a criminal that has spent many years behind bars, and begins to write his life story - and Vivien finds truth - the reasons for her parents mousiness and her uncle's greediness.

Vivien says, "The clothes you wear are a metamorphosis. They change you from the outside in. We are trapped with these thick calves or pendulous breasts, our sunken chests, our dropping jowls. A million imperfections mar us. There are deep flaws we are not at liberty to do anything about except under the surgeon's knife. So the most you can do is put on a new dress, a different tie. We are forever turning into someone else, and should never forget that someone else is always looking."

View all my reviews

The Scent of Lilacs

Ann Gabhart wrote that this book was her first attempt at inspirational writing and it is the beginning of a series set in a small town in Hollyhill, Kentucky in the 1960s. A much simpler time and way of life but people faced the same distractions, temptations,and problems as now. Jocie, at only 13 and daughter of the local pastor, prays for her sister to return and a pet dog to love. Her father also is a newspaper editor and Jocie hangs out at the shop and helps out by taking pictures of local events and writing stories. They both share their home with Jocie's stern Great Aunt Love, who loves to quote scripture and handout chores. When Jocie was a baby her mother left in the middle of the night, taking with her Jocie's older sister, Tabitha, finally settling in California and never returning. One night at the beginning of summer, the family returns home from church to find someone sitting on the porch in the dark, waiting for them.

The main characters are so well written and your heart will break for sweet Jocie and the secrets that will change her summer and her life.

The Help

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I'm afraid my review is not going to do justice to this wonderful novel. I had heard a lot of good things written about The Help by Kathryn Stockett and couldn't wait to read it for myself.

The novel focuses on three women, Aibilene, Minnie, and Skeeter trying to live their very different lives in the turbulent 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi. Skeeter who wants to be more than an adornment for a husband, has just graduated from college and wishes to be a writer. Minnie and Aibilene, both maids, work for Skeeter's best friends. The three women form a unlikely alliance, in the the midst of fear and oppression, in hopes of changing Jackson.

I can't wait to see the movie and I hope it does the book justice.



View all my reviews