Sea View 12

My 2 cents: Mary Alice Monroe loves monarch butterflies. She grows milkweed in her Isle of Palms garden to feed them on their journey each year, as the big orange and black butterflies fly thousands of miles from America's northernmost parts to southern Mexico. In her book, The Butterfly's Daughter, newly out in paperback, Luz Avila sets out toward Mexico in an old VW bug to take her beloved grandmother's ashes home; and ends up following the butterflies. Luz's story is one of loss and discovery, forgiveness and redemption, sorrow and happy times. She must grapple with the loss of the grandmother who raised her, while forging a relationship with the mother who abandoned her. All the while on a journey to relatives she's yet to meet in Mexico. Once there, Luz finds resolution in more ways than she'd ever imagined. Length: 382 pages Worth Your Time? Yes, Mary Alice Monroe is a master of telling stories about mothers and daughters, and weaves i...

My 2 cents: Sherryl Woods' new adult fiction novel, Sand Castle Bay, is now available on compact disc with Brilliance Audio. Read by Shannon McManus, the novel is easy and entertaining to listen to. In this novel, childhood sweethearts Emily Castle and Boone Dorsett are reunited on the North Carolina coast after a decade apart. Now, with two successful careers on opposite sides of the country, and a child (Boone's son B.J.), will Emily and Boone find a way to make their relationship last this time? The lovely, lulling backdrops of wintry Colorado and the Outer Banks of North Carolina add to the flavor of the story, as does Emily's grandmother's beloved restaurant, “Castle's.” Length : 9 hours and 25 minutes (Unabridged on 8 cds) Worth Your Time? Yes. If you're standing in the kitchen peeling and chopping vegetables, driving long hours or tackling a challenging chore - and you just want a little company while you do it - this is the audio...

My 2 cents: My daughter, who's 12, asked me last week about John F. Kennedy. Aside from the automatic “he was our president when I was a little girl” answer, I found myself hard-pressed to give her an idea of who President Kennedy really was and what he meant to our country. So when I walked into our small library and saw a beautiful, oversized book on the “New Books” shelf called Capturing Camelot, I picked it up immediately. Featuring Stanley Tretick's Iconic Images of the Kennedys , the text is written by Kitty Kelley, New York Times bestselling author. Strolling across the front cover is President Kennedy and young son, John, in a famous 1963 photograph of the two at the White House. Inside is a scrapbook of color photographs, black and white snapshots and portraits, memorabilia, captions and more of John and Jacqueline Kennedy, their children, Caroline and John, and the Kennedy family, as well as friends and colleagues from the 1960s. The book shows onl...

My 2 cents: To Kill A Mockingbird is almost as old as me. Written by Harper Lee, the Pulitzer Prize winning novel celebrates its 53 rd anniversary in 2013. I listened to the 11-CD collection, read by Actress Sissy Spacek, recently. Books on audio is a great way to fill the empty moments and time spent driving, cleaning house and organizing paperwork. Who can resist a good story? Harper Lee's novel, is above all, and after more than fifty years, still a good story. Scout's constant questions, and her relationships with her father, Addison Finch, her brother, Jim Finch, and the family's housekeeper, Calpurnia, are still compelling. Learning about the Finch's neighbors in a small Alabama town through Scout's eyes is still fascinating; Arthur “Boo” Radley, still tragic and heroic; Bob Ewell, still mean and low-down; and Tom Robinson, still innocent and doomed. Hearing Scout's story as an adult, I identified more this time around with Addison ...

My 2 cents: Sarah Dessen is one of my favorite authors. Reading her Young Adult novels is like putting on a favorite pair of jeans, specifically your size 8 pair from high school that fit perfectly and were faded and soft. What Happened to Good-Bye , Dessen's tenth book, was just released in paperback. Written for teens, this book is so good, their older sisters and moms will beg to borrow it. (But, then they'll want to go out and buy their own copy, because it's just one of those books you want to keep on your shelf). Mclean Sweet is a high school senior, who has moved four times in the past two years, with her charming dad, Gus Sweet. Gus is a restaurant “fixer”. He's hired by a former pro-basketball player (who sure resembles Michael Jordan) to travel around the country, and improve ailing restaurants, so they can be sold for a profit. Before that, Gus and Mclean's mom, Katherine “Katie” Sweet, owned and ran a restaurant called the Mariposa, wh...

My 2 cents: The Casual Vacancy is J. K. Rowling's new fiction novel for adults, and was published in September, 2012. Young adults who grew up reading the Harry Potter books are, no doubt, thrilled to have a new book by Rowling to read. Late to the Harry Potter phenomenon, I recently tore through The Sorcerer's Stone and The Chamber of Secrets (Years 1 and 2 of the Harry Potter series) . I loved reading and talking with my daughter about muggles and wands, Hogwarts, Hermoine and Ron, Professor Dumbledore, Hagrid and the magical holiday feasts. I loved it all. The Casual Vacancy is no sequel to Harry Potter, obviously. Which is not to say it's bad. But it is different. The best thing about The Casual Vacancy is the writing. I read one reviewer's opinion that Rowling's new novel “has no magic,” but that's not entirely true. The writing is superb. The plot opens in a way familiar to Harry Potter fans – with a death. Specifically, the sudden, unexp...

My 2 cents: If I were to take a test on Jonathan Safran Foer's newest book, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, I'm not sure I'd come out with a high score. There is much in the book I found confusing, and I'm pretty sure I didn't connect all the dots. Yet, Foer's book made me think really hard, and look at the events of 9/11 from an entirely new perspective. In fact, I doubt I'll ever see 9/11 the same way again, and I thank Foer for this. Oskar Schell, an unusual, highly intelligent, amusing 9-year-old boy, finds a key tucked inside a blue vase high up on a shelf in his father's bedroom closet, one year after Oskar's father, Thomas Schell, is killed in the Twin Towers on 9/11. One word is written on the envelope holding the key - “Black.” That one word launches Oskar on a quest – to find the lock the key fits into – and to find the lock, Oskar reasons, he must find the person  named “Black.” Oskar's search takes him all over Ne...