One of our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper FForde

This is a pure fantasy novel so if that’s not your genre you won’t enjoy the book. However, if you have a great imagination and love books and have always wondered what happens really inside a book when the reader stops reading then this series is for you.

This is the 6th book in this long running series. The main premise of the series is that there is a book world that exists alongside the real world. Thursday Next is a literary detective who can jump between the real world and the book world to solve problems. We first met her in The Eyre Affair where she was instrumental in stopping a criminal who was kidnapping book characters and holding them for ransom. Over the years, she’s gotten married, had children (named Tuesday and Friday of course) and continued to bridge the gap between the real world and the book world.

While I was writing this I decided that it’s impossible to give the plot line for this novel. If you haven’t read the series you won’t have a clue what’s going on; so if you’re interested start with the first book The Eyre Affair. Having said that, this is a great continuation of the series. It’s funny, very imaginative and totally believable in an odd fantasy sort of way. There are actually a few pictures in the book, art that adds to the written text in helping you to imagine what the settings look like.

I hope I’ve piqued your interest enough to give this series a try. It's definitely worth reading.

In Plain Sight by Lorena McCourtney

This is the second in the Ivy Malone series. I enjoyed this book even more than the first one. Ivy Malone is a feisty senior with wit and wisdom. This book made me laugh out loud several times as she again encounters murder and mayhem.

Finding her home town a bit dangerous as a crime family is now targeting her (read the first book Invisible to find out more about that story) Ivy decides to go away for a while and ends up in another small town looking after her teenage great-niece. Ivy quickly becomes involved with her neighbours, takes on a second job and, oh yes, finds another body. All this while looking over her shoulder wondering if any of the bad guys have caught up with her yet.

If you haven’t read the first book you can certainly still enjoy this one. There’s enough of the back story to know why she is getting out of town and who is after her. But I think this is a series that you will want to start at the beginning.

Labels

I was thinking recently that it would be hard to find a specific review if someone was looking for it on my blog. So I've embraced the world of labels. I've organized most of my reviews by genre. If I've reviewed a specific author more than once they get their own label. And since The Guernsey Literary Peel and Pie Society is currently my favourite book and in a class all its own, it also gets its own label. If you have any other suggestions as to how this blog could best be organized feel free to share your comments. And by the way, I haven't said thanks for reading lately, so thanks for reading my blog, I hope you enjoy it and the books I review.

The Principle of the Path by Andy Stanley

The Principle of the Path is not rocket science or even a brilliant new way of looking at the Will of God. What it is though, is a very readable and thoughtful book about choosing the right paths in life. If you have a high school or college or grad in your family this year, this is the book I would suggest getting for them to read.

He talks about how good intentions aren’t the fuel that’s needed to reach the destinations we choose. His premise is that the path determines the outcome. For example if you’re on a path that is leading to an unhealthy lifestyle, that’s the destination you will reach no matter how much you may want to be healthy. You need to choose another path, i.e. a healthy lifestyle to get the desired destination.

The rest of the book fleshes out that premise. There are plenty of biblical stories and illustrations that help to prove his point. One part that particularly resonated with me was his statement that “Divine direction begins with unconditional submission. Not information” (pg.88). I think most of us would prefer the information first but that’s not always how it works.

Ultimately there’s nothing new in this book especially if you’ve been a Christian for a long time and have done a lot of reading on finding the will of God. However, what makes this book worth picking up is its readability and common sense approach. There’s something here for everyone who needs help in finding the right path.

One was a Soldier by Julia Spencer-Fleming

This is the latest installment in the Rev. Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne series. Clare has just returned from a tour of duty in Iraq as a helicopter pilot. She resumes her pastoral duties and relationship with the Chief of Police. Despite telling everyone that she is “just fine” she’s not fine. She joins a therapy group specializing in war vets and helping them reintegrate back into their regular lives. The therapy group might have been successful if the participants weren’t so invested in making sure everyone knew they were “fine”. Of course all this stuffing of real feelings eventually begins to seep out and they all start to unravel in their own ways.

As is usual in this series there is a good mixture of the sacred and secular. Clare’s faith is a very real one and her failures are very real ones as well. The characters in this series are flawed and in this book the flaws are visible to everyone but the character. The plot centers around a very good mystery but the sub plots are about dealing with transition and loss.

The author uses a strategy that I’m seeing more in more in novels which is to tell the story moving back and forth in time. I find it a bit disconcerting to start with until I’ve figured out the sequence of events. On a Kindle it’s not so easy to flip pages back and forth and I wish I’d remembered that the table of contents was organized by dates; that might have helped me orient myself in the beginning. But after a while the story is good enough to not be distracted by the style.

This is a solid entry in this series and the ending suggests that series will continue which makes me happy.