Svetlana's Reads and Views

Name of Book: Angels Watching Over Me Author: Lurlene McDaniel ISBN: 0-553-57098-6 Publisher: Laurel Leaf books Part of a Series: Angels trilogy Type of book: bone cancer, miracles, Amish, angels, 1990s, hospital Year it was published: 1996 Summary: Happy Holidays! Bah humbug. "Happy" is not the way Leah Lewis-Hall would describe herself at the moment. She's spending her twelve days of Christmas in an Indianapolis hospital, while her mother is thousands of miles away on a honeymoon with husband number five. Leah went to the doctor with nothing more than a broken finger, but he ordered her to undergo some tests. Now she's stuck in the hospital, alone. Then Leah meets her hospital roommate, a young Amish girl named Rebekah, and her big family. Cynical sixteen-year-old Leah has never known people like this before. From Rebekah's handsome brother, Ethan, who can barely look Leah in the eye, to her kind older sister, Charity, the Amish fami...

Fulfilling the requirement:  The Z requirement for title alphabetically Summary: Against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution and World War I Europe, Zoya, young cousin to the Tsar, flees St. Petersburg to Paris to find safety. Her entire world forever changed, she faces hard times and joins the Ballet Russe in Paris. And then, when life is kind to her, Zoya moves on to a new and glittering life in New York. The days of ease are all too brief as the Depression strikes, and she loses everything yet again. It is her career, and the man she meets in the course of it, which ultimately save her, as she rebuilds her life through the war years and beyond. And it is her family that comes to mean everything to her. From the roaring twenties to the 1980's, Zoya remains a rare and spirited woman whose legacy will live on. Lesson learned: The story is never ending and continues Link to review: click here

Fulfilling the requirement: The X requirement for author's last name Summary: Divided into five volumes, of which The Debt of Tears is the fourth, it charts the glory and decline of the illustrious Jia family (a story which closely accords with the fortunes of the author's own family). The two main characters, Bao-yu, and Dai-yu, are set against a rich tapestry of humor, realistic detail and delicate poetry which accurately reflects the ritualized hurly-burly of Chinese family life. BUt over and above the novel hangs the constant reminder that there is another plane of existence- a theme which affirms the Buddhist belief in a supernatural scheme of things. Lesson learned: People should be in control of their own destinies, rather than their families. Link to review: click here

Name of Book: Emma Author: Jane Austen ISBN: 0-7607-0166-0 Publisher: Barnes and Noble Classics Type of book: Regency England, 1800s, marriage, fear of diseases and colds, "humor", friendship, class rigidity Year it was published: 1816 (version I have 1996) Summary: Pretty, bright and born atop the social strata of the English village of Highbury, Emma Woodhouse has all anyone would want. But she is fated to become the victim of her own irrepressible willfulness. Because of hte recent marriage of her friend and governess, Emma fills the void in her life by attempting to "improve" Harriet Smith, a sweet, pretty 17-year-old of unknown parentage. Emma's good-hearted attempts to rearrange the lives of Harriet and other marriageable townspeople are then the incitement to the book's subtle, intricately constructed plot. Austen employs a sympathetic, gentle satire as she portrays the provincial townspeople-all of whom are good-hearted, but h...

Name of Book: Song of the River Author: Sue Harrison ISBN: 0-380-72603-3 Publisher: Avon fiction Part of a Series: Storyteller trilogy; cry of the wind, call down the stars sequels Type of book: mainland Alaska, Native Americans, prehistoric novel, 6480 BCE, 6460-6459 BCE, competition, enemies, revenge, healing, war, mystery Year it was published: 1997 Summary: Eighty centuries before our time -- in the frozen interior of a place that would someday be called Alaska -- a clubfooted babe was left in the snow to die...until he was rescued by a young woman ravaged by her enemies and sworn to vengeance. Twenty years later, the child, called Chakliux, has grown to manhood and occupies an honored place as his tribe's treasured storyteller, while his adoptive mother K'os has grown cunning and cold. But in the neighboring village of the Near River People -- where he has been sent to make peace by wedding the shaman's daughter -- a shocking double murder occu...

Name of Book: For Better, for Worse, Forever Author: Lurlene McDaniel ISBN: 0-553-57108-7 Publisher: Laurel Leaf books Part of a Series: As long as we both shall live Type of book: death, widowhood, second chances, cancer, brain tumor, suicide, St. Croix, 1990s Year it was published: 1997 Summary: April thinks she and Mark will be together forever. But since Mark's death, she has never felt more alone. Then Brandon Benedict comes into her life. Brandon is lonely and angry- he and April have a lot in common. Their closeness helps them both heal. But April cannot tell Brandon about her illness. When April's medical problems suddenly return, she must decide what to tell Brandon. Can the strength of the love she has felt before help her now? Characters: April does change a great deal in the sequel, especially towards the end and tries to appreciate everyday. I also found it sweet that Brandon is there to help her and encourage her while he can. There are se...

Fulfilling the requirement: The H requirement for the author alphabetically Summary: Alone in exotic Chungking, beautiful foreign correspondent Stephanie Ryder is warned to keep silent about the atrocities she witnesses in the city’s teeming slums. Defying a brutal Kuomintang officer, she is swept to an electrifying first meeting with Dr. Jen Yong, a handsome, dedicated and compassionate Chinese surgeon. For Yong, a sexual liaison with an American woman could mean a death sentence. For Stephanie, an affair with an Asian man would cause an irreparable breach with her Texas millionaire father. But just when danger threatens to separate them forever, their passion bursts into flame…and carries them on a fabulous romantic journey from the stormy depths of fear and desire, to the moving affirmation that enduring love is truly a many-splendored thing. Lesson learned: No matter how hard you'll try to fit into something you can't, you will not be able to. Link to review: cl...

Fulfilling the requirement: The Y requirement for the tile, alphabetically Summary: The year is 4372 B.C.E a beautiful girl is poised on the brink of womanhood and her culture is about to undergo one of the most momentous transformations in human history. So begins Mary Mackey's dazling tale, a page-turning saga that revisits the wild and panoramic beauty of ancient Europe to tell a story of extraordinary love and passion in the midst of intrigue and war. The Year the Horses came vividly evokes the violent moment in prehistory when marauding nomads brought horses, male gods and war to a Europe that had known peace for thousands of years. Against this perilous backdrop, a passionate, dangerous love develops between Marrah, a brave and gifted priestess, and Stavan, one of hte warriors sent to invade her peace-loving land. Brilliantly capturing the lives of those women and men caught in this life-shattering crossfire, Mackey traces the young Marrah's treacherous path ac...

Name of Book: Remember Me Author: Christopher Pike ISBN: 0-671-73685-X Publisher: Archway Paperback series Part of a Series: Remember me series Type of book: ghosts, death, life, incest, 1990s, clairvoyance, Ouija board Year it was published: April 1989 Summary: When Shari Cooper awoke at home after being at her girlfriend's birthday party, her family acted like she wasn't there. They didn't hear a thing she said. They wouldn't even look at her. Then the call came from the hospital. Her father and brother paled. Her mother started to cry. Shari didn't know what was wrong. Not until she followed them to the hospital. There she found herself lying on a cold slab in the morgue. The police said that it was suicide. Shari knew she had been murdered. Making a vow to herself to find her killer, Shari embarks on the strangest of all criminal investigations: one in which she spies on her friends, and even enters their dreams -- where she comes face-...

Name of Book: Zoya Author: Danielle Steel ISBN: 978-0-307-56706-2 Publisher: Dell Type of book: Russia, 1917-1970s, America, history, multi generational family saga, Year it was published: 1988 Summary: Against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution and World War I Europe, Zoya, young cousin to the Tsar, flees St. Petersburg to Paris to find safety. Her entire world forever changed, she faces hard times and joins the Ballet Russe in Paris. And then, when life is kind to her, Zoya moves on to a new and glittering life in New York. The days of ease are all too brief as the Depression strikes, and she loses everything yet again. It is her career, and the man she meets in the course of it, which ultimately save her, as she rebuilds her life through the war years and beyond. And it is her family that comes to mean everything to her. From the roaring twenties to the 1980's, Zoya remains a rare and spirited woman whose legacy will live on. Characters: V...

Name of Book: The Debt of Tears Author: Xueqin Cao, Gao E ISBN: 0-14-044371-1 Publisher: Penguin Classics Part of a Series: The story of the stone Type of book: China, Manchurian Dynasty, soul mates, 1700s, wealth, death, true love Year it was published: 1760 ( Version I have 1982) Summary: Divided into five volumes, of which The Debt of Tears is the fourth, it charts the glory and decline of the illustrious Jia family (a story which closely accords with the fortunes of the author's own family). The two main characters, Bao-yu, and Dai-yu, are set against a rich tapestry of humor, realistic detail and delicate poetry which accurately reflects the ritualized hurly-burly of Chinese family life. BUt over and above the novel hangs the constant reminder that there is another plane of existence- a theme which affirms the Buddhist belief in a supernatural scheme of things. Characters: Although the author tries to keep semblance of the characters from the first thr...

Name of Book: Love is a Battlefield Author: Tamara Morgan ASIN: B006ZBSC8U Publisher: Samhain Part of a Series: Games of Love Type of book: Re-enactments, highland, Jane Austen, pride, honor, half Guam/half American male/American female Year it was published: 2012 Summary: It takes a real man to wear a kilt. And a real woman to charm him out of it. Games of Love, Book 1 It might be modern times, but Kate Simmons isn’t willing to live a life without at least the illusion of the perfect English romance. A proud member of the Jane Austen Regency Re-Enactment Society, Kate fulfills her passion for courtliness and high-waisted gowns in the company of a few women who share her love of all things heaving. Then she encounters Julian Wallace, a professional Highland Games athlete who could have stepped right off the covers of her favorite novels. He’s everything brooding, masculine, and, well, heaving. The perfect example of a man who knows just how to wear his hi...

Fulfilling the requirement: The P requirement for author's last name Summary: For young Reuven Malter, it is a time of testing. With his teachers, he struggles for recognition of his boldly radical methods of scholarship. With his old friend Danny Saunders-who himself had abandoned his legacy as the chosen heir to his father’s rabbinical dynasty for the uncertain life of a healer-he battles to save a sensisitive boy imprisoned by his genius and rage, defeated by the same forces of an unyielding past that challenge Reuven. Painfully, and, at last, triumphantly, Reuven grows into a guardian of the ancient, sacred promise to his people, while earning his hard-fought right to make his own beginning. Lesson learned: Even if you don't like the change, you have to figure out a way to accept it. Link to review: click here

Fulfilling the requirement:  Alphabetical author the J letter. Summary: As America hurtles through the final explosive events of the nineteenth century, a young German immigrant named Pauli Kroner is about to realize his dream. He will taste a life of privilege in the Chicago mansion of his uncle, Joe Crown, head of a brewery dynasty. But Pauli's ultimate clash with that stern, proud patriarch will force him to a risky existence on the city's dark side. Here he will become Paul Crown, a bold, ambitious man driven by a powerful vision. His rise from penniless newcomer to pioneer newsreel cameraman will span a tumultuous decade of strikes, war, family scandal, and heartbreak in the country he has chosen as his... Lesson learned: A home can be earned through pain and good things. A home is unexpected. Link to review: click here

Name of Book: The Monk Author: Matthew Lewis ISBN: Project Gutenberg Publisher: Project Gutenberg Type of book: 1400s, Inquisition, religion, Catholic, death, incest, demon, temptations, Spain Year it was published:  1796 Summary: Set in the sinister monastery of the Capuchins in Madrid, The Monk is a violent tale of ambition, murder, and incest. The great struggle between maintaining monastic vows and fulfilling personal ambitions leads its main character, the monk Ambrosio, to temptation and the breaking of his vows, then to sexual obsession and rape, and finally to murder in order to conceal his guilt. The only edition of this key gothic novel available, The Monk now offers a new introduction and notes that make it especially accessible to the modern reader.. Characters: There is no depth to the characters, although the author tries to create depth, especially in Ambrosio the monk. He tries to link all the characters together but none of them are interestin...

Name of Book: Till Death Do us Part Author: Lurlene McDaniel ISBN: 0-553-57108-7 Publisher: Dell Laurel Leaf Part of a Series: As Long As We Both Shall Live Type of book: brain tumor, CF, racing, death, marriage, 1990s, wealth, true love, soul mates Year it was published: 1997 Summary: A change is coming. April Lancaster's fortune cookie tells her: Be prepared. But how could she be prepared for the news that she has an inoperable brain tumor? April's life will never be the same. Then she meets handsome Mark Gianni. Mark has cystic fibrosis, but he also has a passion for life...and for April. He shows April how to keep living in the face of life-threatening illness. And when he asks April to marry him, she's happier than she's ever been. Characters: I think I was more of told than shown the changes that April had gone through from being self-centered young woman to someone who truly loved Mark. April is a beautiful redhead, an only child of her pa...

Possible Spoilers from: A House Divided by Pearl Buck East Wind, West Wind by Pearl Buck For countless centuries China was the strongest power in Asia and its culture passed down to other Asian nations such as Korea and Japan. (I often use this analogy: United Kingdom is to the West, as China  is to the East,) However in 1800s, great changes happened: Great Britain was waging wars and it needed a lot of revenue from its colonies. Perhaps they desired to conquer and control China (wouldn't surprise me one bit,) and China wouldn't buy or see use for English products, thus the story is that they came up with a deadly idea of using poppy flower and created something called opium, which caused China to weaken and European nations pounced on it like lions fighting over antelope. With opium trade as well as European nations treating China like a turkey carved for Thanksgiving, change became inevitable. Just like anywhere else, there were conservatives and liberals in China, one si...

Happy mother's day to those who are celebrating it :)

Fulfilling the requirement: The "D" author's last name  requirement Summary: 'If this book burns' proclaimed Baudelaire, 'it burns as only ice can burn.' Marie-Antoinette kept a bound copy of this notorious study of sexual intrigue in her private library; and it was condemned by a criminal court forty years after its publication in 1782 and publicly incinerated. The satanic hero and heroine of this greatest of eighteenth-century novels- a pair of depraved aristocrats- plot and achieve the seduction of a young convent girl with the calm detachment of mathematicians solving an algebraic formula. Honest to the point of cynicism, this is a fascinating exposure of an aristocracy shortly to perish in the French Revolution. Lesson learned: Be careful of the tricks one plays on someone else, because you might eventually fall for them yourselves. Link to review: Click here

Books I need to Review: Remember Me- Christopher Pike Song of the River- Sue Harrison 'Till Death Do Us Part- Lurlene McDaniel For Better; for Worse, Forever- Lurlene McDaniel Books I'm Reading: Emma- Jane Austen 99/448 Jacob the liar- Jurek Becker 20/266 The Living Reed- Pearl Buck 51/478 Primal Calling- Jillian Burns 37/218 O Pioneers!- Willa Cather 12/122 'Till Morning Comes- Suyin Han 54/620 The Monk- Matthew Lewis 137/223 Gone with the Wind- Margaret Mitchell 328/1037 Heavy Sand- Anatoli Rybakov 58/381 Ivanhoe- Sir Walter Scott 44/405 Coyote Dreams- Jessica Davis Stein 19/364 The Series: The Story of the Stone- Xueqin Cao 4. The Debt of Tears 195/384 The First Native Americans Series- W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear 3. People of the Earth 101/587 The Storyteller Trilogy- Sue Harrison 2. Cry of the Wind 21/474 The Angels Trilogy- Lurlene McDaniel 1. Angels Watching Over Me 19/156 Remember Me- Christopher Pike 2. Remember Me 2:...

Name of Book: Getting Physical Author: Jade Lee ISBN: 9781426838910 Publisher: Harlequin Blaze Part of a Series: Modern Tigress, The Tao of Sex prequel Type of book: Hong Kong, Chinese mogul, incubator, Tigress, romance, adult, 2000s Year it was published: 2009 Summary: When savvy business student Zoe crosses paths with sexy international businessman Stephen--a Tantric master--she's about to get a transcendent learning experience The sex is incredible, mind-blowing, life changing Unfortunately, it also comes with a time limit. Because Stephen's home is on the other side of the world. Still, Zoe's going to enjoy every moment with her skillful, exotic lover. But it isn't long before she realizes she'll have to choose. Does she want to hold on to the life she has...or have a lifetime of feeling his body move against hers? Like there's a choice... Characters: The characters are much more mature than Nathan and Tracy in Tao of Sex. Ther...

Name of Book: Homeland Author: John Jakes ISBN: 0-553-56499-4 Publisher: Bantam book Part of a Series: Crown Saga Type of book: Germany, 1890-1900, America, Spanish revolution, immigration, brewing, movies, flickers, panorama of American life, true love, reverse-Cinderella story Year it was published: 1993 Summary: As America hurtles through the final explosive events of the nineteenth century, a young German immigrant named Pauli Kroner is about to realize his dream. He will taste a life of privilege in the Chicago mansion of his uncle, Joe Crown, head of a brewery dynasty. But Pauli's ultimate clash with that stern, proud patriarch will force him to a risky existence on the city's dark side. Here he will become Paul Crown, a bold, ambitious man driven by a powerful vision. His rise from penniless newcomer to pioneer newsreel cameraman will span a tumultuous decade of strikes, war, family scandal, and heartbreak in the country he has chosen as his... C...

Fulfilling the requirement: The "L" Requirement for author's last name alphabetically Summary: Ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen and her best friend Ellen Rosen often think about life before the war. But it's now 1943 and their life in Copenhagen is filled with school, food shortages, and the Nazi soldiers marching in their town. The Nazis won't stop. The Jews of Denmark are being "relocated" so Ellen moves in with the Johansens and pretends to be part of the family. Then Annemarie is asked to go on a dangerous mission. Somehow she must find the strength and courage to save her best friend's life. There's no turning back now. Lesson learned: The less one knows the more brave that person becomes Link to review: click here

Fulfilling the requirement:  The "B" Letter for author's last name alphabetically. Summary: East Wind: West Wind is told from the eyes of a traditional Chinese girl, Kwei-lan, married to a Chinese medical doctor, educated abroad. The story follows Kwei-lan as she begins to accept different points of view from the western world, and re-discovers her sense of self through this coming-of-age narrative. Lesson learned: There's a celebration when two unlikely pairs unite Link to review: click here

Emma- Jane Austen SR: April 16th, 2012 FR: May 29th, 2012 Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen SR: May 29th, 2012 FR: N/A Jacob the Liar- Jurek Becker SR: April 1st, 2012 FR: N/A The Living Reed- Pearl Buck SR: May 1st, 2012 FR: N/A Once a hero- Jillian Burns SR: May 21st, 2012 FR: N/A Primal Calling- Jillian Burns SR: May 1st, 2012 FR: May 21st, 2012 O Pioneers!-Willa Cather SR: May 1st, 2012 FR: N/A The Foreign Student- Susan Choi SR: May 28th, 2012 FR: N/A 'Till Morning Comes- Suyin Han SR: May 1st, 2012 FR: May 28th, 2012 Homeland- John Jakes SR: February 1st, 2012 FR: May 2nd, 2012 The Monk- Matthew Lewis SR: May 3rd, 2012 FR: May 16th, 2012 I'll Be Seeing You- Lurlene McDaniel SR: May 12th, 2012 FR: May 26th, 2012 Gone with the wind- Margaret Mitchell SR: February 1st, 2012 FR: N/A The Italian- Anne Radcliffe SR: May 16th, 2012 FR: N/A Heavy Sand- Anatoli Rybakov SR: April 1st, 2012 FR: N/A Ivanhoe- Sir Walter Scott SR: February 1...