Hi Girls!
Sorry for the delay in this post. But here I am now - so lets get picking books! I'll post my suggestions in the comments below as per usual and you can all do the same.
A couple of notes:
A big thank you to Heather for hosting a lovely meeting last Sunday!
Lets all welcome to our newest member Renuka to the group (again)! It was very nice to meet you Renuka.
I *think* we agreed on a tentative date for the next meeting as the second week of January, being that it is the next time everyone is free, but we are still looking for a volunteer to host the next meeting. Please post in the comments if you would like to host!
Now lets get reading...
14 comments:
This is my only suggestion for now, I'll post more if I can think of something!
The Soldier's Wife
"An unexpected gem... The war is played out in a macro and a micro fashion in Vivienne's lovelife, giving real emotional punch to the story... The novel demonstrates that to attempt to step outside of history is a dereliction of one's duty, even if doing one's duty is heart-breaking and emotionally illogical." History Today
A novel full of grand passion and intensity, The Soldier's Wife asks "What would you do for your family?" "What should you do for a stranger?" and "What would you do for love?"
As World War II draws closer and closer to Guernsey, Vivienne de la Mare knows that there will be sacrifices to be made. Not just for herself, but for her two young daughters and for her mother-in-law, for whom she cares while her husband is away fighting. What she does not expect is that she will fall in love with one of the enigmatic German soldiers who take up residence in the house next door to her home. As their relationship intensifies, so do the pressures on Vivienne. Food and resources grow scant, and the restrictions placed upon the residents of the island grow with each passing week. Though Vivienne knows the perils of her love affair with Gunther, she believes that she can keep their relationship--and her family--safe. But when she becomes aware of the full brutality of the Occupation, she must decide if she is willing to risk her personal happiness for the life of a stranger.
"With its stunning and evocative description of the Guernsey landscape, its subtle and astute depiction of a woman's relationship with her children, her lover, and her husband, this absorbing novel is utterly beguiling."
--Rosamund Lupton, author of Sister
"A riveting story of betrayal."
Stylist magazine
"[The Soldier's Wife] is a very moving and sensitive read, dealing with issues unique to wartime and universal to women at the same time."
medievalbookworm.com
Here's another one I think could be good!
The Kitchen House: A Novel
When a white servant girl violates the order of plantation society, she unleashes a tragedy that exposes the worst and best in the people she has come to call her family.
Orphaned while onboard ship from Ireland, seven-year-old Lavinia arrives on the steps of a tobacco plantation where she is to live and work with the slaves of the kitchen house. Under the care of Belle, the master's illegitimate daughter, Lavinia becomes deeply bonded to her adopted family, though she is set apart from them by her white skin.
Eventually, Lavinia is accepted into the world of the big house, where the master is absent and the mistress battles opium addiction. Lavinia finds herself perilously straddling two very different worlds. When she is forced to make a choice, loyalties are brought into question, dangerous truths are laid bare, and lives are put at risk.
The Hunger Games
by Suzanne Collins
In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the other districts in line by forcing them to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight-to-the-death on live TV.
One boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and sixteen are selected by lottery to play. The winner brings riches and favor tohis or her district. But that is nothing compared to what the Capitol wins: one more year of fearful compliance with its rule. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her impoverished district in the Games.
But Katniss has been close to dead before - and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.
Acclaimed writer Suzanne Collins, author of the New York Times bestselling Underland Chronicles, delivers equal parts suspense and philosophy, adventure and romance, in this stunning novel set in a future with unsettling parallels to our present.
Left Neglected
by GENOVA LISA
Sarah Nickerson is like any other career-driven supermom in Welmont, the affluent Boston suburb where she leads a hectic but charmed life with her husband Bob, faithful nanny, and three children-Lucy, Charlie, and nine-month-old Linus.
Between recruiting the best and brightest minds as the vice president of human resources at Berkley Consulting; shuttling the kids to soccer, day care, and piano lessons; convincing her son's teacher that he may not, in fact, have ADD; and making it home in time for dinner, it's a wonder this over-scheduled, over-achieving Harvard graduate has time to breathe.
A self-confessed balloon about to burst, Sarah miraculously manages every minute of her life like an air traffic controller. Until one fateful day, while driving to work and trying to make a phone call, she looks away from the road for one second too long. In the blink of an eye, all the rapidly moving parts of her jam-packed life come to a screeching halt.
A traumatic brain injury completely erases the left side of her world, and for once, Sarah relinquishes control to those around her, including her formerly absent mother. Without the ability to even floss her own teeth, she struggles to find answers about her past and her uncertain future.
Now, as she wills herself to regain her independence and heal, Sarah must learn that her real destiny-her new, true life-may in fact lie far from the world of conference calls and spreadsheets. And that a happiness and peace greater than all the success in the world is close within reach, if only she slows down long enough to notice.
The Virgin Cure
by Ami Mckay
"I am Moth, a girl from the lowest part of Chrystie Street, born to a slum-house mystic and the man who broke her heart." So begins The Virgin Cure, a novel set in the tenements of lower Manhattan in the year 1871. As a young child, Moth''s father smiled, tipped his hat and walked away from his wife and daughter forever, and Moth has never stopped imagining that one day they may be reunited - despite knowing in her heart what he chose over them. Her hard mother is barely making a living with her fortune-telling, sometimes for well-heeled clients, yet Moth is all too aware of how she really pays the rent.
Life would be so much better, Moth knows, if fortune had gone the other way - if only she''d had the luxury of a good family and some station in life. The young Moth spends her days wandering the streets of her own and better neighbourhoods, imagining what days are like for the wealthy women whose grand yet forbidding gardens she slips through when no one''s looking. Yet every night Moth must return to the disease- and grief-ridden tenements she calls home.
The summer Moth turns twelve, her mother puts a halt to her explorations by selling her boots to a local vendor, convinced that Moth was planning to run away. Wanting to make the most of her every asset, she also sells Moth to a wealthy woman as a servant, with no intention of ever seeing her again.
These betrayals lead Moth to the wild, murky world of the Bowery, filled with house-thieves, pickpockets, beggars, sideshow freaks and prostitutes, but also a locale frequented by New York''s social elite. Their patronage supports the shadowy undersphere, where businesses can flourish if they truly understand the importance of wealth and social standing - and of keeping secrets. In that world Moth meets Miss Everett, the owner of a brothel simply known as an "infant school." There Moth finds the orderly solace she has always wanted, and begins to imagine herself embarking upon a new path.
Yet salvation does not come without its price: Miss Everett caters to gentlemen who pay dearly for companions who are "willing and clean," and the most desirable of them all are young virgins like Moth. That''s not the worst of the situation, though. In a time and place where mysterious illnesses ravage those who haven''t been cautious, no matter their social station, diseased men yearn for a "virgin cure" - thinking that deflowering a "fresh maid" can heal the incurable and tainted.
Through the friendship of Dr. Sadie, a female physician who works to help young women like her, Moth learns to question and observe the world around her. Moth''s new friends are falling prey to fates both expected and forced upon them, yet she knows the law will not protect her, and that polite society ignores her. Still she dreams of answering to no one but herself. There''s a high price for such independence, though, and no one knows that better than a girl from Chrystie Street. -
I'm sorry, I've posted 3 books... but they just keep getting better! I am searching books and thought these might be good! But i'm done now.
Wow! So many great books to choose from! I don't want to add any more for fear of making it even tougher to decide. I am totally interested in reading the virgin cure! It looks gripping! Anyone else? Any other ideas?
Hey Everyone,
I am on the same page as heather! There are so many great books already to choose from I dont want to add to the list an make it harder. I think ill keep my picks for next time.
I would be intrested in reading either the hunger games (but I believe some of you may have read it already) and the Virgin Cure.
It looks like the Vigrin Cure is making the top cut.I read the Birth House by the Ami McKay (Author of the Virgin Cure) and it was really good, so I think I would like this one too.
I know the hunger games is supposed to be really good, but I don't really think it is mny type of book. It sounds almost horrer-story-ish? I still like the sounds of my suggestion, the kitchen house, too.
Harmeet - I think you're the deciding factor here. Vote away :)
Hi everyone,
I like the Virgin Cure, sounds really interesting. Also I won't be able to host for January but I would like to volunteer for February!
Sweet! The virgin Cure it is! :)
I can buy this one if you'd like! How r we sharing them on the kobo? Do you need my account login?
Yay I am looking forward to reading this one! Heather - how we have been doing it with the kobo is we all log into one account. It was originally my account but we each just change the payment information when we buy something. I can email you the log in info if you would like.
However if you have other books on your kobo account right now you can't have your kobo synced to both accounts (you can always sync it back to your account later though).
Sounds great! I'll buy the book ASAP. :)
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