Friday, March 14, 2014

Only Time Will Tell (The Clifton Chronicles, #1)Only Time Will Tell by Jeffrey Archer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fast paced, family mystery storyline that hooked me from the first read/listen (audio book). The writing is skilled and is loaded with twists and turns, which Archer does better than most, but it does not approach fine literature. It is narrated first person by the 5 main characters with each of their unique viewpoints.
Kudos to Jeffry Archer for always creating an interesting tale, with sympathetic characters, that is difficult to put down…all this with no foul language or gratuitous descriptive sex. I have read several of his novels and will read the sequel to this.
Warning: the end of the novel is a cliff hanger and what happens next is told in at least two sequels.


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Saturday, March 8, 2014

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Flavia de Luce, #1)The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Delightful book! I loved the main character Flavia, a quirky precocious 11 year old, and will definitely read more in the series. It is a real authorial feat to make a murder mystery so light-hearted and humorous.

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The Sound and the FuryThe Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Faulkner: You know it is going to be depressing, tragic. You can also count on it being real with characters you have known or recognized at some point in your life. Benjy, a nonjudgmental, personally involved narrator, gives a fractured portrayal of a deteriorating fractured family. I read this because it was the only one of his books I had not read and it was on my bucket list. Counted as one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, I reveled in Faulkner's mastery of language and characterization, his humor, and his heart wrenching empathy, the talents that made it a classic, nevertheless I did not love it.

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