Book Journey

Morning Meanderings…. Camp Benedict 2015

Published on June 9, 2015 by Sheila (Book Journey)10 Comments

Sitting in Crosslake this morning at my usual space in the main lodge of Camp Benedict. This is the camp I am on the Board of, and normally I am here the whole week Monday – Friday, but this year I only came for yesterday and will leave this afternoon. That is all I think I can do this year.

I am so tired – I feel I have been going non stop for over a week now and it is taking its toll. Mt plan is after today I am lying low for as long as it takes and if things don’t get done…

well…

they don’t get done.

I have no push left in me.

I just want to BE.

Book Journey, Camp Benedict, Camp Knutsen, Sheila DeChantal — My sleeping quarters

Book Club tonight…. we are reviewing The Pearl That Broke It’s Shell. I did not get it done. Too deep for me at this time.

So that’s me… day to day.

The Lost Recipe For Happiness by Barbara O’Neal

Published on June 8, 2015 by Sheila (Book Journey)10 Comments

In apparently continuing with my trend of reading foody books (they feel pretty safe), I bring to you a review of a woman, her dog, a restaurant, and learning to let go. ~Sheila

Elena Alvarez has just been offered the deal of a lifetime. She has been offered the opportunity to run her own restaurant, something she has only dreamed about. Being an experienced Chef, this is the first time she will be in the leading role from staff hiring, restaurant look and feel, and the menu planning. Haunted by an accident that she alone survived with her back broken in 4 places, Elena knows what it is like to withstand the odds. Arriving in Aspen Colorado with a restaurant project may just be the change she needs to reboot her life and it doesn’t hurt that her new boss, Movie Writer Julian Liswood is easy on the eyes.

For Elena, every move she makes is a risk. The restaurant business is physically hard on her body and the ghosts of the past, do not let go easy.

There is a lot to like about The Lost Recipe For Happiness. I liked the idea of a fixer upper project with Elena the one to call the shots. I do like a good project! I also found I liked Elena. For what she has literally lived through, she is a strong independent woman with dreams and goals. I also enjoyed the back up players in this book, while I never did get a full handle on Ivan, I think (I think) I liked him. Patrick is wonderful and you have to love Julian and his daughter Portia. Ivan the dog? Also pretty awesome.

What I didn’t like so much was there are a couple off intimate descriptions that the wording actually made me cringe… I think the opposite of what the author would be looking for at that moment. It also took me a while to understand the ghost part of the book and the first appearance of Elena’s sister, well, I thought she really was there.

All in all I think there is a lot of cultural history within this book that is slowly mixed in and that was interesting because I did not know about the Day Of The Dead traditions, or about the meal. While the book was not an over the top “wow” for me, I did find it interesting enough to follow it all the way through.. curious about the Julian and Elena storyline, as well as the restaurants success.

Paperback: 464 pages
Publisher: Bantam Discovery (December 30, 2008)

Morning Meanderings… Reducing The Push

Published on June 7, 2015June 8, 2015 by Sheila (Book Journey)32 Comments

Sitting here this morning with COFFEE CUP close by. I have been up for HOURS but that is nothing new. I finished a book this morning, cleaned my kitchen, started laundry, cleaned the deck furniture, cleaned out the fridge. I helped my husband pick up the empty boxes in the garage. I cleaned up all the papers on my kitchen table, the cards I need to still enter into my spreadsheet.

“Be kind to yourself” is the repeated mantra I hear from friends and family. SO often I am told this I have to look around and wonder…

how?

Life does not stop for my grief. I still have commitments and even though I take on a reduced role, I still feel for whatever reason (right or wrong) that I need to function at some level. I helped at this past weekends Children’s Book Sale. I had two meetings for the library and coming up the next two days I am going to try to help out at camp. Each time I do these things it costs me. Each time I hold it together while in a public setting or trying to handle my normal things… once I am alone I lose control.

Life does not stop for my grief.

All I think I can do right now is remind those that I am on committees/boards with is to please understand that I am nowhere near 100%. At times I think I can look like I am but inside my heart is racing like a scared rabbit. Please please please by kind to my heart. Please please please understand I am so broken and can’t handle being pushed. I can get things done. I can function. Just let me move at my own pace for now.

As I type this I wonder why I am saying this here. You probably were looking for some bookish topic and instead you picked up on my head ramblings like a radio that was moved to the wrong station.

I am unbelievably sad. Even when I smile and carry on what appears to be a normal conversation please know that it is taking everything I have to hold it together. Some day soon I will put a message like this on Facebook. Maybe today. I don’t know.

Anyhoo… books. Still listening to Out Of Orange on audio. I finished The Lost Recipe For Happiness this morning and if all goes as planned (plans…. ) I will have a review up today.

Next up I am vacuuming ans shampooing carpets. If the weather holds I will mow my lawn a bit. This afternoon some great gals and EXCELLENT friends are coming over to my home for a little book event on Dorthea Benton Frank’s new book, All The Single Ladies. It’s a small gathering of people who “get me”. I am hopeful to enjoy a couple of hours of relaxing with friends. I am still working on doing small things as I can.

Enjoy your Sunday everyone. One of these days soon I will start posting the Monday What Are You Reading again.

Morning Meanderings…. 60 Days

Published on June 3, 2015June 3, 2015 by Sheila (Book Journey)21 Comments

60 days. How does that even register? It doesn’t. Yesterday I spent most of the day in bed. After company for 4 days and lots of activity around a wedding I was wiped out. It is amazing how quickly my energy drains. I read between napping and found myself all over the board there too…. I am listening to…

The real-life Alex Vause from the critically acclaimed, top-rated Netflix show Orange Is the New Black tells her story in her own words for the first time – a powerful, surprising memoir about crime and punishment, friendship and marriage, and a life caught in the ruinous drug trade and beyond. I have been fascinated with Pipers story and now hearing the side of Alex Vause has been very interesting.

This one I found at the last Library Sale. Wally Lamb has run a writing workshop at the York Correctional Institution, Connecticut’s only maximum-security prison for women. Writing, Lamb discovered, was a way for these women to face their fears and failures and begin to imagine better lives. Couldn’t Keep It to Myself, a collection of their essays, was published in 2003 to great critical acclaim. With I’ll Fly Away, Lamb offers readers a new volume of intimate pieces from the York workshop. Startling, heartbreaking, and inspiring, these stories are as varied as the individuals who wrote them, but each illuminates an important core truth: that a life can be altered through self-awareness and the power of the written word.

My speed of reading right now draws me to books like this. It’s the opportunity Elena Alvarez has been waiting for–the challenge of running her own kitchen in a world-class restaurant. Haunted by an accident of which she was the lone survivor, Elena knows better than anyone how to survive the odds. With her faithful dog, Alvin, and her grandmother’s recipes, Elena arrives in Colorado to find a restaurant in as desperate need of a fresh start as she is–and a man whose passionate approach to food and life rivals her own. Owner Julian Liswood is a name many people know but a man few do. He’s come to Aspen with a troubled teenage daughter and a dream of the kind of stability and love only a family can provide. But for Elena, old ghosts don’t die quietly, yet a chance to find happiness at last is worth the risk.

So that’s what I am doing. Day to day doing what I can. Working a bit on projects I have to get done but making the steps slowly. So slowly.

The Cake Therapist by Judith Fertig

Published on June 2, 2015May 18, 2015 by Sheila (Book Journey)10 Comments

Claire “Neely” O’Neil finds her way back to her home town of Millcreek Valley Iowa to open a bakery. Claire feels she needs the break from her own life to sort out the flavors of what decisions she needs to make as well as the desire she has to bring flavors and tastes to others. Claire has an unusual talent of adding the right flavor combination together to bring out a customers secrets, fears, desires… a talent Claire does not always want, but one that has brought great success when helping potential clients choose a wedding cake that suits them both, or a flavor to mend a broken heart.

Claire certainly doesn’t have to worry about much down time as messages and packages keep arriving from her husband she is separated from, her goth girl employee tries to cover her secrets and pain with dark-colored make up, an older woman of the neighborhood brings about stress, and a handsome man from Claire’s past makes her wonder what would have happened if she had chosen the path not taken.

There is plenty going on around Rainbow Bakery to keep even the pickiest customer coming back for more.

The Cake Therapist was a light and sweet read. Early on in the book the story jumps into Claire’s talent of knowing what flavors work with what customers however I found that part confusing and if I had not first read the synopsis I would not have understood what was happening when Claire opens the bakery door and describes the flavors separating into light. There is also a lot going on in this book. A LOT. Between Claire’s own storyline unfolding, her employee Jett’s troubles, and a story set 100 years earlier following along in alternating chapters, the book felt a little choppy too me. I had trouble figuring out what the historical story had to do with the current story and things did not flow well until half way through the read.

The Cake Therapist was a good read and I enjoyed the characters although there was no great aha moment. When things do piece together in the end it is quick and eve though answers were revealed I don’t think enough of it was said earlier on for the reader to have that true “Oh! Of course!” moment. When the story ends it feels as though more could be said – but not enough for a second book.

My recommendation is to try The Cake Therapist for yourself as with my current life happenings I do not necessarily trust my feelings on this one. As a lighter read this book would make for a good summer read. Don’t expect a lot of “wow”, but you can expect to feel good.

Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Berkley (June 2, 2015)

Tamarack County by William Kent Krueger

Published on June 2, 2015June 2, 2015 by Sheila (Book Journey)6 Comments

Cork O’ Conner loves the quiet beauty of Northern Shores of Minnesota.

Most of the time.

During a blizzard one cold December night, the wife of a prominent Judge disappears. All that is found is her abandoned car on a road she shouldn’t have been on and of course with the blizzard, no signs of a struggle… no signs of anything at all.

Cork O’ Conner is the ex- Sheriff of Tamarack County and he notices details of the disappearance that others miss. When a dog that is owned by a friend is brutally killed, Cork starts to see a disturbing pattern that brings up an old case where quite possibly the wrong man went to prison. A pattern so disturbing that its trail leads right to Cork’s own family.

With the cold winter continuing and no sign of letting up, Cork knows he only has so much time before someone else is going to pay for the sins of others.

This would be my first of William Kent Krueger’s books that involve his continuing protagonist, Cork O’ Conner. In fact, I have only read one other book by this author and that would be Ordinary Grace. (Excellent read).

Cork is an interesting character. His wife was killed (probably details of this in an earlier book), and he has three almost grown children. Even though this is the 13th mystery with Cork O’Conner, I did not feel like I needed the previous books to understand what was going on or who people are. Krueger does an excellent job of making you want to know these characters better but at the same time you can read his books as standalone and be just fine with that as well.

I enjoyed the story line and the mystery itself. As Cork travels through the pages I liked the comfort of the familiar areas he explored. I do plan to read more of this mystery series. Windigo Island is on my shelves right now just waiting to be read.

Cop bases mystery lovers will enjoy this book with its masculine flavor. Women to will enjoy this read due to the family aspect and a little light romance.

Series: Cork O’Connor Mystery Series
Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Atria Books; Reprint edition (July 1, 2014)

Morning Meanderings… Back from The Cabin/ Bitter Sweetness

Published on June 2, 2015 by Sheila (Book Journey)12 Comments

Morning. It’s been a long weekend of activity. On Friday my husband Al’s brother’s Joe and Chris came to Minnesota for Al’s sisters wedding. On Friday afternoon I drove the 3 1/2 hours to the North Shore to our cabin to stay there with Al, Chris, and Joe, and on Saturday we drove to Wisconsin to the wedding. On Sunday We drove back to Brainerd where the boys stayed with us the last two days and this morning they will leave.

It’s been nice to hang out with family yet it still amazes me how much energy it takes for me to be with people constantly. It is of course also hard to be at events that I know Justin would have loved to have been a part of which kept me n a pretty subdued state all through the weekend and wedding. I am still struggling through day-to-day.

Today I plan to lay low and read a bit and definitely nap. My sleeping is off and the end of this week is the Children’s Book Sale that I am a part of and that will be both time-consuming and exhausting all rolled into one. I also hope – it is fun.

Review should be up today of Tamarack County by William Kent Krueger. He is a Minnesota author and one that will be at Wine and Words this year. Have several books I would like to start we will see which on e actually takes.

Inside The O’Briens by Lisa Genova

Published on June 1, 2015May 29, 2015 by Sheila (Book Journey)15 Comments

44 year old Joe O’Brien is proud of his police career. He is happily married and has 4 adult children. Life has treated him well and Joe can not say he has any complaints.

Until now.

When the bouts of anger start he chalks it up to stress. The inability to hold a thought or remember what he was doing is all a part of just having a busy full life. Yet when the involuntary movement of Joe’s arms, legs, and even eye brows start happening, even Joe has to agree that something may not be right. When Joe is diagnosed with Huntington disease and finds out it is hereditary life changes in a heartbeat.

Each of Joe’s children have a 50% chance of having inherited the gene. As Joe learns the real hard facts of what this disease will eventually do to him, scrambling his words, leaving him with an inability to work as well as most likely putting him in an assisted living home at an early age – each of Joe’s children must make the decision for themselves if they want to be tested to know if they carry the gene.

Lisa Genova does it again. This authors ability to take an extreme life change much like she does in Still Alice (now a movie), and in Left Neglected; Lisa Genova takes us on an intimate up close look at what happens to a person when the life as they knew it is no more.

Incredibly heart-felt, Inside The O’Brien’s was an engaging listen that captured my heart and attention right from the beginning. Skip Suddeth does a wonderful job of narrating this audiobook. The story itself left me feeling for this family on the verge of adulthood finding there was through devastating news. I learned a lot about Huntington’s Disease. In typical Lisa Genova style, she is able to take an illness and make it three-dimensional to the reader. Suddenly, I found myself caring and feeling for the O’Briens and I think that is the magical touch of an excellent writer.

In audio, or book format, this is one not to be missed.

Audible Audio Edition
Listening Length: 11 hours and 13 minutes
Program Type: Audiobook
Version: Unabridged
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Audible.com Release Date: April 7, 2015

Moonlight At Butternut Lake by Mary McNear

Published on May 30, 2015May 28, 2015 by Sheila (Book Journey)9 Comments

The final book in the Butternut trilogy. The past two days I have reviewed Up At Butternut Lake and Butternut Summer. This final installment of the series is an excellent completion that left me wanting more time at Butternut Lake. ~Sheila

Mila Jones is running from her past. When an opportunity comes up for her to take a Home Care Nurse position over 200 miles from her current situation she takes the offer. After all, staying in a cabin on a lake in a quiet town like Butternut Minnesota sounds like the perfect escape. Taking care of a wheelchair bound man named Reid Ford sounds like a pretty easy task compared to the life she is trying to escape.

Reid Ford however turns out to be anything but easy.

After Reid’s car accident that left him wheelchair bound, Reid has become a bitter shell of the confident always on the go man he once was. Hating to rely on anyone for help, Reid has already chased off many in home health care aids with his biting sarcasm and unwillingness to help himself in any way. When Reid takes one look at the young small woman named Mila he sees someone else who will be easy to run off. Yet Reid notices something in Mila’s eyes he did not see in the other home care aids, a stubborn look of determination.

This…

could get interesting.

I really enjoyed Moonlight on Butternut Lake, perhaps even to the point of saying it was my favorite of the three books. I liked Mila’s background story. Reid is the brother of Walker Ford who we meet in the first book which helps the reader have a peek into the man that Reid was before the accident. The change in him is startling and believable. I found this book to have strong topics that felt realistic and I enjoyed how the characters from the past books play a role as this final story plays out.

Mila and Reid make for great protagonists. Their differences played well off one another.

I have to admit, the Butternut Lake books brought me a nice comfort while I spent time with them. I enjoyed how they all were separate books but together lay out quite a nice story about the powers of a small town in Minnesota.

Series: The Butternut Lake Trilogy (Book 3)
Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (May 12, 2015)

Butternut Summer by Mary McNear

Published on May 29, 2015May 28, 2015 by Sheila (Book Journey)5 Comments

Yesterday I reviewed Up At Butternut Lake, the first in this trilogy. While Butternut Summer can be read as a stand alone, I think you will find that you may enjoy the residents of Butternut Minnesota enough to want to meet them all. I would recommend the whole series. ~Sheila

Caroline has had no trouble running a diner and raising her now adult daughter Daisy on her own. That said, you can imagine her shock when her ex-husband Jack who she has not seen in 18 years strides in one day looking tan, strong, and healthy. Double the shock when Caroline discovers that this is her daughter Daisy’s doing. When Caroline learns Jack is trying to make amends for his leaving them all those years ago she is furious with his confidence, and admittedly a little flattered that he would try….

Daisy is also finding herself in unusual circumstances. Always the girl who put her schooling before pleasure she finds herself to be distracted by a guy she used to know in High School. Did Will always look this good? Has he changed his bad boy ways?

One thing Caroline and Daisy can be sure of…. summer can bring about a lot of things and change is certainly in the air.

Butternut Summer is the second book in the Butternut trilogy. While characters from the first book pop in and out of the story line it is not a necessity to read the first book to know what is happening. Butternut Summer is mainly centered around Caroline and Daisy, Jack and Will. I found this book to not be as good as the first one. Many situations in Butternut Summer seem to resolve themselves too easy. On one page a character may be upset but it never escalates and all is forgiven in another page or two. While an ok read and I was very happy to spend more time in Butternut Minnesota, this one is my least favorite of the trilogy due its easy resolutions and non happenings.

Still… enjoyed the pace of the read.