The Tortilla Curtain

The Tortilla Curtain

by T. Coraghessan Boyle

Pages: 355 

Rating 4 out of 5 stars 

Topanga Canyon is home to two couples whose lives are intertwined, Delaney and Kyra Mossbacher wealthy liberals and Candido and America Rincon illegal immigrants from Mexico. This timely novel written in 1995, asks hard questions of those who believe they are the good guys and are doing everything they can for those who want to better themselves. Makes you consider how small everyday choices affects others lives. 

Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

 Ordinary Grace 

by William Kent Krueger 

Pages: 307

Stars: 5 out of 5 Stars

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE 2014 EDGAR AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL
WINNER OF THE 2014 DILYS AWARD
A SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF 2013

Frank remembers his 13th summer when everything in his family's life changed with the wisdom that forty years later and adulthood brings.

The summer of 1961 in the small town of New Bremen, Minnesota begins with a grim death assumed to be an accident, but then there is a murder. Frank and his younger brother Jake lose their childhood innocence as grim events continue in the small town. His father, a Methodist minister has taught his sons about grace, forgiveness and faith, but this summer will test everyone in Frank's family. Frank learns the terrible price of wisdom but also the enduring grace of God.

Skylight Confessions by Alice Hoffman

 

Skylight Confessions 

by Alice Hoffman

Pages: 264

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Cool, practical, and deliberate, John is dreamy Arlyn's polar opposite. Yet the two are drawn powerfully together. John builds a house made of glass in the Connecticut countryside, the pinnacle of his career. But he appears to love the house more than Arylyn and their son or daughter. Glass breaks, love hurts, and families make their own rules. Ultimately, it falls to their grandson, Will, to solve the emotional puzzle of his family and of his own identity.

Sycamore Row (Jake Brigance #2)

 Sycamore Row
by John Grisham
Pages: 447
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Revisit Jake Brigance and Ford County, the setting of John Grisham's first novel, A Time to Kill. Life hasn't been kind to Jake Brigance and his family since he took and won the Hailey case. He still has police protection at night. Now, he receives a letter from a dead man. The letter's instructions may give him an even more controversial case.

A slower paced story than most of John Grisham's early novels but he continues to improve his writing style. An enjoyable tangle of a puzzle with believable characters.

I'll Be Your Blue Sky

 I'll Be Your Blue Sky
by Marisa De los Santos
Pages: 320
Rating: 5 out of 5


Clare Hobbes meets an elderly woman named Edith Herron on the weekend of her wedding. She already had doubts but her conversation with Edith gives her courage to break off her engagement. Three weeks later, Clare learns that Edith has died and left her a house in a seaside town in Delaware. Unsure if she will keep the house, Clare goes to Delaware to learn more about Edith. Her search for Edith's past helps her to find her future.

The description and prose in this work are beautiful. Go along with Clare on her journey. You won't regret it.

How to Stop Time

How to Stop Time
by Matt Haig
Pages: 325
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Tom Hazard learns as a teen that he is different. His mother dies because of his secret. He is a man lost in time. Though he looks like an ordinary 41-year-old he is really, much, much older. He has a rare condition that causes him to age incredibly slowly and boosts his immune system to fight off disease. He has fell in love once and still mourns her loss. He has meet Shakespeare, Captain Cook and F. Scott Fitzgerald but what he really wants is to be ordinary. To be able to enjoy ordinary things, have friends and connect with other people without endangering them.

But the Albatross Society tracks down everyone with Tom's condition and enforces strict rules of behavior including rule number one -- don't fall in love. Can Tom actual form a friendship and maybe even fall in love again or will he be forever stuck in the past with the leader of the Albatross Society?

The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls

 The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls 

by Anton DiSclafani

Pages: 418

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

A debut novel set in South in the 1930s in the  midst of the Great Depression. Thea Atwell's family suffers a tragedy and for her part in it, she is sent away to an equestrienne boarding school. Life in the Blue Ridge Mountains at the school is far removed from her free and easy childhood in Florida. Thea deals with her secrets and how a rash decision forever alters her life.