Kate’s 2¢: “Log Jam” by Monica Hughes

“Log Jam” by Monica Hughes

Kate’s 2¢: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,     describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

   I enjoyed this YA story. I thought the characters were portrayed realistically.

From the WEB:

Monica Hughes was born Monica Mary Ince in Liverpool, England, on November 3, 1925, to biologist Phyllis Fry and mathematician E. L. Ince. Her family soon moved to Egypt, where Ince headed the math department at the University of Cairo.

Date of birth: November 3, 1925

Place of birth: Liverpool, England

Date of death: March 7, 2003

Place of death: Edmonton, Alberta

Principal Works

Long Fiction

Gold-Fever Trail: A Klondike Adventure, 1974

Crisis on Conshelf Ten series, 1975–77

The Tomorrow City, 1978

Beyond the Dark River, 1979

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

Log jam DBG00804

Hughes, Monica Reading time: 5 hours, 18 minutes.

Eleanor Yourex. A production of CNIB.

Growing Up

Adventure

Human Relations

Family

Young Adult

Fourteen-year-old Lenora does not want to go on a camping expedition in the Alberta foothills with her mother, new step-father and two new step-brothers. Her attitude changes when she encounters 17-year-old Isaac Manyfeathers who has escaped from jail. For junior and senior high readers. c1987. Marrakesh title.

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Kate’s 2¢: “The ventriloquists” by Evan Roxanna Ramzipoor

“The ventriloquists” by Evan Roxanna Ramzipoor

Kate’s 2¢: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,     describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

   The narrator, Nancy Peterson, does a very good job of speaking in the various accents of the characters. Sometimes, it is too thick to catch, if you’re not listening carefully.

   Ramzipoor uses a time-line to organize the narrative arc in this compelling story of Nazi occupation. It is hard to imagine the hardships people endured in war torn, occupied countries, but, the human spirit prevails.

   I like having Ramzipoor tell us at the end of the story, exactly where she stretched the truth to put together a seamless piece of creative non-fiction.

From her web-site:

Evan Roxanna Ramzipoor is a writer based in California. She also works as a content marketer, writing about cybercrime and online fraud. She studied political science at UC Berkeley, where she researched underground literature in resistance movements and discovered the forgotten story of Faux Soir. Her writing has been featured in McSweeney’s and The Ventriloquists is her first novel. She lives with her partner and a terrier mix named Lada. She is never far from a notebook or a pair of running shoes.

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

The ventriloquists DB96433

Ramzipoor, E. R. Reading time: 20 hours, 22 minutes.

Read by Nancy Peterson.

Historical Fiction

Brussels, 1943. Twelve-year-old street orphan Helene survives by living as a boy, selling copies of Le Soir–the country’s most popular newspaper-turned-Nazi-propaganda. When she befriends rogue journalist Marc Aubrion, she is drawn into a secret underground network. But Aubrion catches the attention of a high-ranking Nazi. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2019.

Kate’s 2¢: “Flight” by Laura Griffin

“Flight” by Laura Griffin

Kate’s 2¢: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,     describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

   I enjoyed this story. It wasn’t heavy reading, but it did keep my interest as to who was doing the killing. There were several suspects and the final perp was a surprise  to me.

From the WEB:

Griffin started her career as a journalist and preferred hard-news stories. She attributes her experience to her desire to write suspense fiction, since she’s able to make justice prevail and give the characters happy endings.

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

Flight DB107527

Griffin, Laura. Reading time: 9 hours, 18 minutes.

Read by Teri Clark Linden.

Mystery and Detective Stories

Former forensic photographer Miranda Rhoads has moved to the seaside town of Lost Beach, determined to make a new life as a wildlife photographer. When she encounters a couple in a canoe one morning, she first assumes they’re asleep, but soon realizes they’re dead. Detective Joel Breda tries to unravel the case, and is intrigued by Miranda. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2021.

Downloaded: June 1, 2022

Kate’s 2¢: “Death with a double edge a Daniel Pitt novel: by Anne Perry

“Death with a double edge a Daniel Pitt novel: by Anne Perry

Kate’s 2¢: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,     describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

   Although I liked this story, I found the constant repetition of what happened time consuming and really slowed down the narrative arc.  I think it was obvious who killed the mistress, but, the other relatives were a surprise.

anne perry.us

Anne Perry (born Juliet Marion Hulme; 28 October 1938) is an English author of historical detective fiction, best known for her Thomas Pitt and William Monk series. In 1954, at the age of fifteen, she was convicted in the murder of her friend’s mother, Honorah Rieper. She changed her name after serving a five-year sentence for Rieper’s murder.

   Born in Blackheath, London, the daughter of physicist Dr. Henry Rainsford Hulme, Perry was diagnosed with tuberculosis as a child and sent to the Caribbean and South Africa in hopes that a warmer climate would improve her health. A 1948 Auckland Star photograph of Juliet arriving in New Zealand was discovered by Auckland Libraries staff and written about in the Heritage et AL blog.[1] She rejoined her family when she was 13 after her father took a position as Rector of Canterbury University College in New Zealand. She attended Christchurch Girls’ High School, located in what became the Cranmer Centre.[2]

Murder and trial[edit]

Main article: Parker–Hulme murder case

In June 1954, at the age of 15, Hulme and her best friend Pauline Parker murdered Parker’s mother, Honorah Rieper.[3] Hulme’s parents were in the process of separating and she was supposed to go to South Africa to stay with a relative. The two teenage friends, who had created a complicated fantasy life together populated with famous actors such as James Mason and Orson Welles, did not want to be separated.

On 22 June 1954, the girls and Honorah Rieper went for a walk in Victoria Park in their hometown of Christchurch. On an isolated path Hulme dropped an ornamental stone so that Rieper would lean over to retrieve it. Parker had planned to hit her mother with half a brick wrapped in a stocking. The girls presumed that one blow would kill her but it took more than 20.[4]

Parker and Hulme stood trial in Christchurch in 1954 and were found guilty on 29 August that year. As they were too young to be considered for the death penalty under New Zealand law at the time, they were convicted and sentenced to be “detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure”. In practice they were detained at the discretion of the Minister of Justice. They were released separately five years later.

Parker and Hulme are not believed to have had any contact since the trial.[5]

The events formed the basis for the 1994 film Heavenly Creatures, in which Melanie Lynskey portrayed a teenage Pauline Parker and Kate Winslet the teenaged Juliet Hulme. At the time of the film’s release, it was not generally known that mystery author “Anne Perry” was Juliet Hulme, whose identity was made public some months after the film’s release. Although some presumed Hulme and Parker’s relationship to be sexual, Perry stated in 2006 that, while the relationship was obsessive, the two “were never lesbians”.[5]

Later life[edit]

After being released from prison in November 1959, Hulme returned to England and became a flight attendant. For a period she lived in the United States, where she joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1968. She later settled in the Scottish village of Portmahomack where she lived with her mother. Her father had a distinguished scientific career, heading the British hydrogen bomb programme.[6]

Hulme took the name Anne Perry, using her stepfather’s surname. Her first novel, The Cater Street Hangman, was published under this name in 1979. Her works generally fall into one of several categories of genre fiction, including historical murder mysteries and detective fiction. Many feature recurring characters, most importantly Thomas Pitt, who appeared in her first novel, and amnesiac private investigator William Monk, who first appeared in her 1990 novel The Face of a Stranger. By 2003 she had published 47 novels, and several collections of short stories. Her story “Heroes”, which first appeared in the 1999 anthology Murder and Obsession, edited by Otto Penzler, won the 2001 Edgar Award for Best Short Story.

In 2005, Perry appeared on the Trisha show to discuss the crime on a special themed show.[7] A 2009 documentary film, Anne Perry Interiors, gave a snapshot of her life and the people close to her.[8]

In 2017, Anne Perry left Scotland and moved to Hollywood in order to more effectively promote films based on her novels.[9]

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

Death with a double edge: a Daniel Pitt novel DB107521

Perry, Anne. Reading time: 9 hours, 42 minutes.

Read by Samuel Roukin.

Suspense Fiction

Historical Fiction

Mystery and Detective Stories

Legal Fiction

Junior barrister Daniel Pitt is summoned to the scene of a murder in London’s Mile End district. He knows only that the victim is a senior barrister in his firm. He believes the firm’s head, Marcus fford Croft, knows more than he admits. Daniel and his close friend Toby Kitteridge investigate on their own and find their paths blocked. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2021.

Downloaded: May 19, 2022

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 Kate’s 2¢: “The Diamond Eye” by Kate Quinn

“The Diamond Eye” by Kate Quinn

Kate’s 2¢: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,     describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

   I found this story fascinating. I guess I really like creative non-fiction/Historical Fiction.  A few take-outs:

–Qusinn writes about the official memoir, then, shares the private memoir of what really happened.

— :Fate and fortune grant us health,: I quoted my Mother. “For everything else, we wait in line.”

— When she and her friend enlisted, they found the officers were more of a problem than the rank and file.

— She dealt with sexual advances with a breezy kind of no nonsense toughness she perfected as a tom boy running with the local boys.

— Every successful hunt is successful in its own way.  An unsuccessful day for a sniipper is when you miss and end up dead.

— What do you believe in?  Knowledge to light the path for human kind and a rifle to protect human kind when  we lose that path.

— My moon had a midnight side.  The official tally stands at 309. A list achieved without blood thirstiness. Every shot fired in simple defense of hearth and home.

— Many of the front-line lives lost were women. The USSR was the only nation to employ women on the front-line.

— Without the Eastern front soaking up Germany’s manpower, the Allies might never have prevailed.   

— Quinn explains a few of her literary licenses she employed to add the fictional American sharp shoot and his stalking of Lady Death, however, the basic facts of the Russian snipper were taken from her memoir and other substantiating documents.

   This story takes place during WWII, when Ukraine was part of Russia. Today, Russia has invaded Ukraine to try to take it back.  War is a lose/lose situation.

From www.katequinnauthor.com

Quinn is a native of Southern California. She is based in San Diego.[1] She graduated from Boston University with a master’s degree in classical voice.[1]

Quinn’s 2017 historical fiction novel, The Alice Network, was a New York Times[2] and USA Today bestseller.[3] Her 2019 follow-up (and eighth novel),[1] The Huntress, earned positive reviews in The Washington Post[4] and Kirkus Reviews.[5]

FromNLS/BARD/LOC:         

The Diamond Eye DB107522

Quinn, Kate. Reading time: 12 hours, 54 minutes.

Read by Saskia Maarleveld.

Historical Fiction

Bestsellers

Kiev, 1937. Bookish history student Mila Pavlichenko organizes her life around her library job and her young son–but Hitler’s invasion sends her on a different path. Given a rifle and sent to join the fight, Mila becomes a deadly sniper–a lethal hunter of Nazis known as Lady Death. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. Bestseller. 2022.

Downloaded: May 19, 2022

Download The Diamond Eye

Kate’s 2¢: “The prodigal daughter” by Mette Ivie Harrison

“The prodigal daughter” by Mette Ivie Harrison

Kate’s 2¢: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,     describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

   I suspect this brings up the quandary many young women of the Mormon faith wrestle with from time to time. I don’t think this story will assist them in making a decision.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mette Ivie Harrison (born 13 September 1970) is an American novelist. She writes young adult fiction and in 2014 began publishing an adult mystery series. Her background as a Mormon has influenced her topics of interest as a writer, especially in the A Linda Willheim Mystery series which focuses on a Mormon woman within her religious community. Her novel, Mira, Mirror won the Utah Letters About Literature award in 2006, and three other novels were finalists for the AML Awards in 2007, 2014 and 2015.

   Mette Ivie was born on 13 September 1970 in Summit, New Jersey.[1] Her father was Evan Ivie (d. 2020), a computer scientist who worked for thirteen years at Bell Labs and being involved in developing Unix programming language. She was the ninth of eleven children,[2] eight of whom followed their father into careers involving computer programming.

   When she was ten years old, Evan Ivie moved the family to Provo, Utah, where he began teaching computer programming at Brigham Young University, a position that he would hold for twenty years.[3]

   As a teenager Mette Ivie studied German, and she spent 1985 attending a German gymnasium. In 1988 she received BYU’s “Ezra Taft Benson Scholarship”.[2] She graduated from BYU two years later with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in German Literature. She received a full scholarship to attend Princeton University and in 1995 earned a PhD in Germanic Languages and Literatures. She wrote her dissertation on the female Bildungsroman of the 18th century.[4][2]

   She was married to Matt Harrison, and they had six children. In 2021 the couple are finalizing a divorce.[3][2]

   In 2017 she was diagnosed with high-functioning autism, which initially made her hyper-aware of her differences from neurotypical people. She wrote about her experience with high-functioning autism in Sunstone magazine, where she noted that participation in the LDS Church helped her to make social connections that she otherwise would not have pursued. She described how her lack of “normal facial expressions” leads other church members to underestimate the depth of her feelings, especially depression.[5] Since Harrison does not intuitively understand human interactions, she attributes her proficiency in portraying human interactions in her writing to her need to analyze human behavior closely.[5]

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

The prodigal daughter DB107011

Harrison, Mette Ivie. Reading time: 6 hours, 17 minutes.

Read by Kirsten Potter.

Mystery and Detective Stories

Bishop’s wife Linda Wallheim has grown increasingly disillusioned with her faith and has begun marriage counseling with her husband, Kurt. But when the teenaged babysitter of one of her grandchildren vanishes, Linda begins investigating. She discovers the girl was the victim of a terrible crime and searches to find her. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2021.

Downloaded: April 30, 2022

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Kate’s 2¢: ‘The Writer Magazine’ April, 2022

‘The Writer Magazine’ April, 2022

Kate’s 2¢: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,     describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

   Every now and then, I like to read a periodical geared to the craft of writing. This months reading time is 4 hours, 57-minutes. Here are a few take-out points from this issue.

–Always have an idea before you write. There may be an over-production of articles, but, there’ll never be an over-production of ideas.

–“Salvage the Bones” and “Men We reeked” by Jasman Ward:    The story begins and ends with the death of her younger brother, using a complicated plot structure. The memory broke her in certain ways, but hopefully, mend in a healthier way.

–Horror needs an emotional chord for impact, deeper reader engagement, and catharsis.

–Digital publishing has benefited literary and visual artists, and their work. Check guidelines carefully for multi-media submissions

–Don’t over use the ‘m-dash’. It’s not special when it is over-used. Traditional punctuation, used properly, is usually best.

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

The Writer (April 2022)

Reading time not available.

Read by Ameenah Rose; Shawn Hertel; Mary March; Seth Dhonau.

Downloaded: April 15, 2022

Download The Writer (April 2022)

Kate’s 2¢: “Ocean country: one woman’s voyage from peril to hope in her quest to save the seas” by Liz Cunningham

“Ocean country: one woman’s voyage from peril to hope in her quest to save the seas” by Liz Cunningham

Kate’s 2¢: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,     describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

   When I read an odyssey like this, I wonder how all the travel, equipment, and lodgings are paid for.

From the WEB:

Ocean Country is an adventure story, a call to action, and a poetic meditation on the state of the seas. But most importantly it is the story of finding true hope in the midst of one of the greatest crises to face humankind, the rapidly degrading state of our environment.

Elizabeth Cunningham (born 1953) is a feminist visionary novelist and author of The Maeve Chronicles, which includes the books The Passion of Mary Magdalen, Magdalen Rising (a prequel), Bright Dark Madonna and Red-Robed Priestess. Earlier books include The Wild Mother and How To Spin Straw Into Gold.

Alma mater: Harvard University

Genre: Poetry

Nationality: American

Occupation: Novelist

Elizabeth Cunningham – Wikipedia

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

Ocean country: one woman’s voyage from peril to hope in her quest to save the seas DB94069

Cunningham, Liz Reading time: 10 hours, 31 minutes.

Ellen Jaffe A production of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress.

Travel

Business and Economics

Nature and the Environment

After a near-drowning that left her temporarily paralyzed, the author traveled the globe to understand the threats to the world’s oceans. Stops along the way included the Turks and Caicos Islands, the California coast, the Coral Triangle, the Mediterranean, and the Silver Bank. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2015.

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