Vampires and Cannibals and Siblings, oh my!

DEXTER IS DELICIOUS by Jeff Lindsay, 2010.
I stayed up till almost midnight finishing this fifth instalment in the Dexter series. This one finds Dexter learning to be a new father to Lily Anne, plus dealing with the return of his psychopathic killer brother Brian and helping his sister Sergeant Deborah Morganwith a horrific case involving murdered victims being eaten and finding a missing teenage girl who could be next on the menu. Loaded with Dexter's dark humor, with enough sex and violence to keep the story moving at a fast pace, this is enjoyable and thrilling. Dexter is such an interesting character in this novel, with his attempts to change himself for Lily Anne, to give up his listening to the his Dark Passenger, and to lead a more human life with Rita and their family. Events conspire against him all through the book, and it doesn't help matters at all that near the end of the book his frustrated sister makes a request that startles even Dexter. The very premise of this series has intrigued me from the beginning, and Lindsay has kept my interest up with each succeeding adventure. I find them generally suspenseful, humorous, exciting, and totally entertaining. With plenty of unresolved issues at the end of this story, I'm looking forward to the next chapter in Dexter's life.

THE HORSE IN VIRGINIA by Julie A. Campbell, 2010.

Excellently put together coffee table style book about the history of the horse in Virginia. The first horses came on ship to Jamestown in 1609 and ended up being eaten along with dogs, rats, and practically anything else that could be found, during the "Starving Time," that horrendous winter of 1609-10. After the colony was more established, more horses arrived and flourished. Campbell divides her book into time periods, with plenty of wonderful illustrations. Lots of good material here on Civil War horses, and more modern horses like Secretariat, as well as horse racing history in the Commonwealth. It's a good browsing book, not as in-depth perhaps as some would like. I found it pleasant to dip into, enjoyed my favorite parts of it, and skimmed the others. If you are interested in a brief history with beautifully done photos and historical illustrations, then this will serve you well. Campbell gives a good bibliography of sources, too, for further reading.

HONOLULU by Alan Brennert, 2009.
With a well written, smoothly flowing narrative, Brennert's second novel depicts the lives of four Korean "picture brides" who journey to Hawaii in 1914 to marry men they have never met. Regret (so named by her parents because daughters in Korea were considered unimportant enough for formal names) is the main character of the story. A somewhat feisty and independent girl, she is determined to obtain an education (not usual for girls in Korea) and make a different and better life for herself. A sympathetic relative helps her learn to read in secret. Then, seeing a chance to help her family financially and escape from her strict father, Regret and her childhood friend Sunny decide to make the journey to the island paradise of Hawaii to marry wealthy and handsome men who will give them good lives. All they have are photographs of the men they will marry. On the steamship they meet more girls--Beauty, Wise Pearl, and Jade Moon--all of whom become part of Regret's (now called Jin) circle. When they reach Honolulu, Sunny changes her mind and takes the return ship back to Korea; the other girls are quickly married off to their suitors--none of whom are what they expected. Disappointment, bitterness, backbreaking work, illness, horrific abuse, childbirth, disease, and violence becomes part of their lives, but they are resilient, smart, determined, plucky, and fiercely loyal, and these young girls create a support system which eventually enables them each to find happiness. Brennert follows these women through their triumphs and tragedies, ending the main story in 1937, but includes a 1957 afterword to further tie up loose ends. He is excellent with his historical details about Hawaii, Korea, the various customs and foods and clothes, politics, living conditions in the city and on the plantations, etc., all portrayed realistically and shockingly at times. He weaves through his narrative the stories of the real people who became the characters Charlie Chan and Sadie Thompson, and involves his fictional characters in the sensational scandal concerning rape and lynching known as the Massie case. He includes the racial issues of the time concerning Koreans, Japanese and Hawaiians, the problems of the government, prostitution, workers' strikes, etc., in convincing and interesting ways. Jin is a sympathetic  and believable heroine, and if some of the storylines' resolutions seem a bit too pat, it is still an enjoyable piece of fiction. I would say that it isn't as compelling or as emotionally involving as Moloka'i, his previous book, but a good tale nonetheless.

THE THREE MISS MARGARETS by Louise Shaffer, 2003.
If you enjoy the likes of Fannie Flagg, this may appeal to you. Set in a small town in southern Georgia, the  main part of the story involves a dark secret buried for years. Laurel Selene McCready, a white trash reporter for the local paper, starts digging around after meeting an out of town writer working on a book concerning a former resident, Vashti Johnson. Miss Peggy, Dr. Maggie, and Miss Li'l Bit, who have known each other for years, are solid citizens of Charles Valley, Georgia, and thirty years before, they helped do a terrible thing--they hid the truth about a murder in order to protect someone close to them. In so doing, however, other lives were affected in various ways. When Laurel starts poking around and asking questions, old memories are stirred up and loyalties tested. These women must decide whether it's the right time to reveal the truth about what happened. Enjoyable, suspenseful, with plenty of quirky characters, strong regional flavor, and humor. It's partly a mystery, but it's mostly about friendship, loyalty, righting wrongs, and forgiveness.

FRAGMENT by Warren Fahy, 2009.
I just finished this last night. A fast moving adventure suspense thriller similar to the novels of Michael Crichton. Paper thin characters, but lots of action and violence. Plot concerns an unexplored island in the South Pacific where the ecological system has developed completely and evolved undisturbed for millions of years. The island is remote and only has one way in--and of course, humans eventually discover it. First up is the cast and crew of a TV reality show called "SeaLife", with horrendously bloody results. Next in are the U.S. government and navy, with boatloads of scientists and state of the art equipment. What they find are nightmarish creatures and "plants" that exist in an "everything is food" environment, where all have evolved into animals with many and very startling characteristics and parts--multiple limbs and eyes and brains, abilities to mate in the womb and give birth continuously, are always in motion, and everything eats everything--including each other. When it is realized that these creatures have no natural enemies and no introduced predators can control them and the risk of their escape is too great, it is decided that the island must be destroyed. Meanwhile, it is discovered that salt water repels the attacks of the animals, earthquakes begin, fissures open, and the island is thrown into more chaos. Then, a benign, intelligent life form is found, and it becomes a race against time by a small group of people to save this creature at all costs before the island habitat is totally destroyed. Read this for the excitement and creativeness, I enjoyed the whole environment in chaos thing with weird animals and plants, good page turner with plenty of suspense, but a bit of a letdown toward the end. A really fast read, though.

THE LITTLE STRANGER by Sarah Waters, 2009.
I stayed up past midnight the other night reading this, as I just had to know how it ended. Set in post-World War II English countryside, the story involves a crumbling estate and its owners, the Ayers family. The narrator of the story is Dr. Faraday, a middle aged local GP who has been fascinated with Hundreds Hall since he was a young boy and visited there. The current family consists of the lovely and delicate Angela, her spinster daughter Caroline, and her war scarred son Roderick, and they are struggling with changes in society, have sold off most of their land, have only one full time servant to wait on them, and are strapped for cash. Dr. Faraday becomes involved with the family when he is called to Hundreds to treat their servant, Betty, who is having some trouble adjusting to life at Hundreds. After a disastrous dinner party in which a young guest is seriously injured by the family dog, Faraday finds himself drawn to Hundreds and becomes a frequent visitor. Over time, he comes to realize, as the Ayers do as well, that something isn't quite right in the old Georgian mansion, that the strange creaks and tappings and the series of "accidents" are being caused by something that is dark and menacing. As their lives intertwine, each of them experiences genuine fear and horror over the sinister events at Hundreds Hall. A wonderfully compelling gothic story, full of quiet, unnerving incidents, interesting characters, and a great eerie atmosphere. Waters is a good storyteller and manages to pull the reader in fairly easily and keep those pages turning. If you have enjoyed novels like The Turn of the Screw or Rebecca or The Haunting of Hill House, that are full of creepiness and give you goosebumps, this has a lot of the same elements. I found it quite enthralling, and I am still thinking about it...

A PARCHMENT OF LEAVES, by Silas House, 2002.

Recommended by a friend and colleague, I found this novel to be a very moving and somewhat haunting story set in the Appalachian region of Kentucky during World War I. It involves a young man, Saul Sullivan, who is looking for work near Redbud Camp, and falls on sight for Vine, a young Cherokee girl who lives there. Even though his mother, the tiny but strong-willed Esme, is against the idea of mixed marriage, the two are wed and come to live on God's Creek, Saul's homeplace. There, Esme and Aaron, Saul's younger brother, take to Vine very quickly (and she to them) and they form a close family unit. However, Vine has a bad feeling about Aaron, as she realizes over time that his admiration of her turns to an obsession. When Aaron leaves home for an extended period and then returns with a bride of his own, when Saul is forced to do war work in another county for nearly a year, and Vine's parents are forced to move to North Carolina, relationships change and conditions deteriorate within the family until disastrous violence erupts and Vine is forced to live with a terrible secret. Only months after Saul comes home for good  and Esme has died is she able to finally unburden herself by forgiving others as well as herself.
The author has a wonderful writing style--you can hear the birdcalls and smell the mountain air when reading this book. It's poignant and evocative, filled with rich historical details of life in rural Kentucky during the early years of the last century, especially how women lived and worked, gave birth, loved, and died. His characters are real: the hardworking and stable Saul, who loves Vine and his family; the matriarchal and kind Esme; dreamy, bitter, and self absorbed Aaron; the tough talking and funny midwife Serena; Aaron's wife, Aidia, who so much resembles Vine and suffers for it; and Vine herself, patient, loving, faithful, haunted, determined to be true to herself, one who loves nature and her people, yet has to be separated from her people and see her old home destroyed. The novel deals with so many things: the idea of Cherokee culture being slowly destroyed from within by the older people refusing to talk about it as well as from outside forces, lumbering in the mountains and the making of turpentine for the war effort, the isolation of the hollers, religion in the characters' lives, issues of race. The author's use of accurate dialect and his descriptive passages of things natural add so much to the feel of the story, too. One of my favorite lines is "Maybe the trees were God." Overall, an emotional, thoughtful  and beautifully written novel. Highly recommend it.