Tag: #summerreads

No Two Persons

~ Lisa Helm ~ Leave a comment

by Erica Bauemeister

No Two Persons is an amazing story about the power of books. In this novel we trace the impact one story can have on numerous people.
The story starts with the author Alice who has always known she would be a “magician”and create new worlds using words. At first Alice doubts her ability to write. She is consumed by heartbreak after the loss of the one person who believed in her gift and who loved her unconditionally. However it is because of this heartbreak that she manifests her novel Theo. Bauermeister writes of Alice’s inspiration in such a beautiful way it has become one of my favourite parts of the book.Theo eventually becomes published and then the rest of the book is filled with individual chapters that tell the stories of varied individuals and their spiritual encounter with Alice’s novel. Each character’s story shows us that one book can weave its magic in everyone whether it be a famous movie star, a homeless teenager, or a middle aged caretaker. The power of story knows no bounds. I was also so grateful that such a beautiful story possessed a satisfying conclusion.
I would definitely reccomend this book to my High School Students. It would also be suitable for critical analysis, and for studying symbol, theme, character, and style. A highly reccomended mentor text.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for the free copy.

Ever Since

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by Alena Bruzas

The novel is a real and raw story centered around the dynamics between a group of friends the summer of their freshman year. It is about their friendships, their fallout, loyalty, betrayal, and forgiveness.
The novel deals with really weighty subjects: sex, sexual abuse, date rape, alcohol abuse, and emotional abuse.
The characters are diverse in ethnicity and gender identity.
Again, it is REAL.
If you’ve got a teenager in your life, this novel would offer AMAZING points of discussion around sexuality, friendship, victimization, healing, and empowerment.

Thank you to Penguin Teen and Netgalley for the free copy.

The Radcliffe Ladies Reading Club

~ Lisa Helm ~ Leave a comment

by Julia Bryan Thomas

This is an easy quick read perfect for summer.
It’s 1954 and Alice Campbell has decided to make a big change in her life, giving up everything for independence. So she buys a small bookshop in Boston and makes it her own. One day, Alice decides to create a book club where individuals will meet once a month to discuss books of her choosing…and they just so happen to be books about and/or written by women who are, themselves searching for a life to call their own. Alice’s little book club is made of four young women (Tess, Caroline, Evie, and Merritt) who just happen to be attending nearby Radcliffe College, all are young and edited with their own newfound independence.
I liked this book well enough. It was a very quick read that was suitable after a workday where I had to tax my brain. I found the description of Alice’s bookshop and the details of the simple life she has created for herself is simply charming. I also enjoyed the simplicity of characterization, it was easy to understand the choices and motivations of each. My favourite part of the novel was how the author attempted to weave the various themes of the books studied in the book club with the lives of the characters who read them. (Jane Eyre, Age of Innocence, Essays of Virginia Wolfe).

Trigger warning for sexual assault and miscarriage.

You will be able to purchase this book June 18th!

Thank you to Source Books and Netgalley for the free copy.

Lady Tam’s Circle of Women

~ Lisa Helm ~ Leave a comment

by Lisa See

“Friendship is a contract between two hearts. With hearts united, women can laugh and cry, live and die together” (Lady Tam’s Circle of Women)

I love it when I start reading a book and it immediately transports me into a world where I am captivated by the characters, intrigued by the plot, and seduced by the setting. I started reading this novel one Sunday and my world stopped for the entire day until I was finished. 

The story follows The life of Tan Yunxian, one of the few female doctors in 15th Century China. We first meet Yunxian when she is 8 where her feet are newly bound and her mother is teaching her traditional ways in which to be a wife and mother. However, upon the unexpected death of her mother, Yunxian is sent to live with her father’s parents. Her grandparents are of a different sort, they are a noble family, but not merchants or politicians but rather, her grandfather and her grandmother are doctors. They soon realize that Yunxian is a brilliant girl and her grandmother begins to teach her how to be a ‘doctor of women’ focusing on the four components of Chinese medicine: listening, looking, touching, and most importantly asking.

Obviously, it’s not easy being a woman in 15th century China where women are treated as belongings and the gaps between social classes are vast, so as Yunxian grows older she has to navigate her traditional role as a wife and mother in a noble family and as a doctor for women of every class without bringing “shame” upon her husband’s family.

This is a wonderful book about female friendship. The bond between mother and daughter, and the bond between women friends is beautifully developed and I found myself tearing up in scenes where the love and loyalty between characters shone. As women we truly are stronger when we stick together through adversity, support each other in our successes, and laugh and cry with each other through heartbreak and joy. 

You will be able to buy this novel June 6th!! An awesome addition to your summer reading list!

Thank you to Simon and Schuster and Netgalley for the free copy.

Closer by Sea

~ Lisa Helm ~ Leave a comment

by Perry Chafe

It’s been 3 years since 12-year-old Pierce Jacobs lost his father to the sea, and his heartache and guilt haven’t gotten any better, not even with the support of his two friends, Bennie and Thomas. The only person who seemed to know what he was going through was Anna Tessier, a girl a couple of years older than him, but now she, too, has disappeared.
Pierce has always felt the authorities gave up too soon when finding his father. He is determined not to let the same thing happen to Anna, so with the help of his friends and Bennie’s cousin Emily, they go “undercover” to determine who is responsible for Anna’s disappearance. Living on tiny Perigo Island, just off the coast of Newfoundland, their suspects are few. Could it be the “outsider” Solomon Vickers, a recluse who lives on the island for part of the year? Or maybe it’s one of the “Arseholes”, a group of older boys who take pride in bullying the younger kids? Then there is the assortment of visitors on the island, many of whom have the potential to kidnap a young girl. Then there is also the sea itself. Unforgiving and unrelenting in its beautiful destructiveness.
I really loved this book. As soon as I started reading it, I knew immediately it would be perfect for a novel study for junior and senior high. It possesses beautiful imagery, an interesting assortment of characters, and a variety of themes (friendship, grief, coming of age, industrialization, identity, and environmentalism, to name a few) with the potential for rich classroom discussion.
Thank you to Scribner Canada and Netgalley for the free copy.

The Secret Book of Flora Lea

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by Patti Callahan Henry

Well, this was an absolutely wonderful book.

At the beginning of the book our main character, Hazel is working at an antiquarian bookstore unpacking and itemizing rare books (my DREAM JOB)! However, she is soon off to bigger and brighter experiences moving on to a much more elitist job at an auction house in London. But before she leaves this charming little shop, she comes across a storybook that possesses a tale that shakes her to her very core. You see, when she was a young girl she used to tell her little sister Flora the story of  “Whisperwood” , an imaginative world where they would be safe and happy and distracted from the war. Hazel and Flora have had to flee their home and parents in London to escape the bombing and it is up to Hazel to protect her little sister while they are away. Tragically, one day Flora disappears, everyone believing she accidentally tumbled into the river and drowned. And now, like a ghost from the past, the story she has told to only her little sister has appeared. Hazel then sets out in search of the author of this book in the hopes to find out information on her sister’s disappearance or maybe, hopefully, finding her sister alive after all these years.

A lovely, lovely, story. Well written, suspenseful, wonderful plot complications and characterization. Definitely one to put on your summer reading list.

Thank you to Atria Books and Netgalley for the free copy. The Secret Book of Flora Lea is in bookstores now!

What Moves the Dead

~ Lisa Helm ~ Leave a comment

by T Kingfisher

What a horrifically beautiful cover!

This was the perfect book to start off my summer. The novel starts with our narrator Alex, who is on their way to visit their dear friends Madeline and Rockrick Usher. Before they even arrive, Alex is mesmerized by the woods in which he travels. Although the lake and trees seem to possess a threatening and ominous air, the mushrooms and all things “fungal” seem to enthral Alex the most. The mushrooms “ grew out of the gaps in the stones of the tarn like a tumour growing from diseased skin [Alex] had the strong urge to step back from them and an even stronger urge to poke them with a stick.” Before they get the opportunity to do so, an older woman Eugenia Potter stops them. Eugenia is one of my favourite characters; eccentric and bold; she paints the various fungus she finds with the ambition of having her own name in the books recognized by the “Mycology Society”.
Second, only to Eugenia Potter, Alex is in themselves a fascinating character. As “Sworn Soldier”, Alex carries the courage they possessed on the battlefield in t the horror that awaits at the Usher’s estate. Alex discovers that their friends Madeline and Roderick have wasted (rotted?) away both physically and mentally.

Can Alex determine the cause of this decline before they too succumb to the madness and death surrounding them?
What moves the Dead, a gothic tale inspired by Edgar Alan Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher”, is well crafted with viscerally vivid detail even though it moves at a rapid pace. It is the perfect novel to add to your summer tbr pile.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan-Tor for the free copy.

A Rip Through Time by Kelley Armstrong

~ Lisa Helm ~ 1 Comment


I love Kelley Armstrong. My favourite Series of her’s is the Cainsville Series.” I started the first one, Omens, and then proceeded to stay awake all night reading it. There are 5 titles in this Series if you’re interested.
Armstrong’s newest novel is A Rip Through Time which sets us up for a whole new series; this one is about serial killers and time travel. HOW FUN DOES THIS SOUND!
Mallory, our heroine, is a homicide detective from Vancouver. She is in Edinburgh, Scotland, to be with her dying grandmother. While on an evening run she hears a scream and goes to investigate just to be knocked unconscious. She then wakes up in the year 1869, inhabiting the body of a young housemaid named Catriona. Mallory soon discovers that Catriona was strangled in the same alley more than a century before Mallory was attacked.
Mallory now takes it upon herself to solve Catriona’s murder, all the while trying to figure out how to get back to her own time and place in history.
My favouite thing about Armstrong’s writing, besides the incredibly imaginative and entertaining plot, is the voice of her protagonists. The first-person narration presents Mallory as a funny best friend relaying a crazy story over a bottle of whiskey. But, of course, the more you drink the crazier the story becomes, and you laugh and laugh and laugh until your belly aches.

A Rip Through Time will not be published until June 2022 making it the perfect addition to your summer reading list.

The Toll by Cherie Priest

~ Lisa Helm ~ Leave a comment

“The things I take are mine to keep” (135)


One of my favourite genres is Gothic Literature so one day, a couple of months ago I Googles “Contemporary Gothic Literature” and up popped a wonderfully detailed list of titles. One of the titles on this list was “The Toll” written by Cherie Priest. The caption under the title reads “Southern Gothic Horror with a Contemporary Twist”. Perfect.

Admittingly I bought this novel thinking it was an escapist pulp fiction – something easy to read and entertaining enough to distract me from the realities at hand. I soon found out; however, this novel is not only entertaining but wonderfully written as well—a combination of horror, mystery and humour.

What is it’s the premise? A bridge appears where no bridge should be. Right in the middle of the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia. If you happen to be driving along the road when this bridge appears you just might be “taken” or rather there is a good probability you WILL be taken. By whom? By what? And what is it that lurks in the water….watching….waiting.

This novel possesses a variety of memorable characters however I absolutely adore the “godmothers” Miss Daisy and Miss Claire two rick as 80-year-old heroines who “[know]about everything that [goes]on within a hundred miles (pg. 11).

I found this novel highly entertaining, and because I love her writing so much I definitely will be reading more of Cherie Priest’s novels.

Legendborn

~ Lisa Helm ~ Leave a comment

Legendborn
Tracy Deonn
Love, love, loved this novel. From the first page until the last I was swept away in the story Deonn has written. I’ve always been a sucker for stories about secret societies that may or may not exist on campus, any campus. What would make someone special enough to be admitted to one? What rituals take place? Is there a price to pay?
Bree is our protagonist. She is beautiful and brave and has a huge chip on her shoulder since the trauma of her mother’s fatal accident. Needless to say when she has the opportunity to attend a boarding school for gifted students she jumps at the chance if only to escape the memories of her mother’s death and the guilt she possesses for the cruel way she spoke to mother at what would be their last conversation.
Strange things start happening right from the onset of her move. She can see “things” other people cannot see. What are these terrifying flying creatures that create mayhem and chaos among her fellow students? And who if the breathtakingly handsome young man who is trying to modify her memory?
Bree soon finds out the answers to these questions but in the meantime faces a plethora of other questions about her identity, her legacy and most importantly, the identity of her mother.
Spoiler alert…this story touches upon the Arthurian Legend, which is a tale I adore!

With the importance of the Black Lives Matter movement, I have been consciously trying to read more novels written by black authors. I was so grateful that Netgalley and Simon and Shuster Canada sent me a free advanced copy to read.
Legendborn will be an obvious addition to any classroom or school library. It will also make a perfect novel for a choice in classroom literature circles. Not only is the plot entrancing, and the characters dynamic, the discussion of the various themes presented would be beneficial in any classroom. It is also so well written it can serve as a mentor text.