Book: Rain Before Rainbows

 Book: Rain Before Rainbows

Author: Smriti Prasadam-Halls

Pages: 32

This is my 82nd read for the year

What Amazon Says: 

In this heartfelt story about courage, change, and moving on, a girl and her companion fox travel together away from a sorrowful past, through challenging and stormy times, toward color and light and life.  Along the way they find friends to guide and support them, and when the new day dawns, it is full of promise.  With gorgeous, richly realized illustrations and immense hope at its heart, Rain Before Rainbows holds out a ray of sunshine for anyone looking for light.

Cute book I read for a reading challenge.

Stars:4

Book: Winterdance - The Fine Madness of Running The Iditarod

 Book: Witerdance - The Fine Madness of Running The Iditarod

Author: Gary Paulsen

Pages: 272

This is my 81st read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Fueled by a passion for running dogs, Gary Paulsen entered the Iditarod - the 1180 mile sld-dog race through the Alaskan wilderness - in dangerous ignorance and with a fierce determination.  For 17 days, he and his team of dogs endured blinding wind, snowstors, frostbite, dog fights, moose attacks, sleeplessness, hallucinations - and the relentless push to go on.

This was a good book.  I have always been interested in the Iditarod, and it was neat to read about it from a first hand view of someone who did this race as a rookie.  How he trained, how he found the dogs he wanted to use, and the rules of the race and care of the dogs.  It is amazing what these dogs can do - especially the lead dog.  I think about my two lazy doodles and cannot even imagine them being able to drag us around the yard let along 1180 miles.  Pretty cool

Stars: 4

Book: The Mystery Knight

 Book: The Mystery Knight

Author: George RR Martin

Pages: 160

This is my 80th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Westeros is eerily peaceful.  King Aerys I sits on the Iron Throne.  A ravaging plague has abated.  Yet beneath te surface, tensions linger 16 years after a failed rebellion.  In these restless times, noble hedge knight Ser Duncan the Tall - Dunk, to his friends - and his precocious boy squire, Egg, travel the Seven Kingdoms performing chivarlrous deeds, though Egg's bloodline must be concealed at all costs.  After heading north for Winterfell, Dunk and Egg are lured off the kingsroad by a wedding feast - and an unusuall lucrative tournament.  The champion jouster will claim a rare trophy indeed: a dragon's egg.  Dunk, always better in a melee, would be satisfied with a hot meal, a cup of wine, and a purse full of coins.  But a treasonous plot is more likely to hatch before another dragon ever stretches its wings.  Someone's on to Egg. And a mystery knight with designs on an even bigger prize soon throws the entire affair into chaos.

This was a good graphic novel.  I will read anything in the Game of Thrones world, and since this year there was the HBO show "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" which was about the two main characters in these novels, it may be get back into them.  It is a well written story, and I do like graphic novels.  Especially when it comes to fantasy worlds - gives good insight into the mind of George RR Martin.  This is the 2nd book in this series.  

Stars: 4

Book: Direction of the Wind

 Book: The Direction of the Wind

Author: Mansi Shah

Pages: 318

This is my 79th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Sophie Shah was six when she learned her mother, Nita, had died. For 22 years, she shouldered the burden of that loss.  But when her father passes away, Sophie discovers a chache of hidden letters revealing a shattering truth: her mother didn't die.  She left.  Nita Shah had everything most women dreamed of in her hometown of Ahmedabad, India - a loving husband, a doting daughter, financial security - but in her heart, she felt like she was living a lie.  Fueled by her creative ambitions, Nita moved to Paris, the artists capital of the world - even though it meant leaving her family behind.  But once in Paris, Nita's decision and its consequences would haunt her in ways she never expected.  Now that Sophie knows the truth, she's determined to find the mother who abandoned her.  Sophie jets off to Paris, even though the impulsive trip may risk her impedning arranged marriage.  In the City of Light, she chases lead after lead that help her piece together a startling portrait of her mother.  Though Sophie goes to Paris to find Nia, she may just also discover parts of herself she enver knew.

Stars: 2

Book: Black River Orchard

 Book: Black River Orchard

Author: Chuck Wendig

Pages: 640

This is my 78th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

It's autumn in the town of Harrow, but something besides the season is changing there.  Becasue in that town there is an orchard, and in that orchard, seven most unusal trees.  And from those trees grows a new sort of apple: strange, beautiful, with skin so red it's nearly black.  Take a bite of one of these apples, and you will desire only to devour another.  And another.  You will become stronger.  More vital.  More yourself, you will believe.  But then your appetite for the apples and their peculiar gifts will keep growing - and become darker.  This is what happens when the townsfolk discover the secret of the orchard.  Soon it seems that everyone is consumed by an obsession with the magic of the apples - and what's the harm, if it is making them all happier, more confident, more powerful?  Even if something else is buried in the orchard besides the seeds of these extraorinary trees: a bloody history whose roots reach back to the very origins of the town.  But now the leaves are falling.  The days grow darker.  It's harvest time, and the town will soon reap what it has sown.

This was an excellent book.  I really like Chuck Wendig's books.  He is a talented writer.  His books are toms, but I could not put this down.  I had some good solid reading time this week, so I was able to get through this one quickly.  The story is wild.  Even though you know this is going to be an off the rails sci-fi story, it starts innocently enough.  I wasn't really sure where it would take off to, but it was a crazy story.  There are a lot of interesting characters, a bit of apple history, a bit of history of Bucks County PA (which is where the author lives, and the home of my son's college Lehigh).  It has a good wrap up ending and a nice epilogue (which are always my favorite).  So good.

Stars: 5

Book: Electric State

 Book: Electric State

Author: Simon Stalehag

Pages: 144

This is my 77th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

In late 1997, a runaway teenager and her small yellow toy robot travel west through a strange American landscape where the ruins of gigantic battle drones litter the countryside, along with the discarded trash of a high-tech consumerist society addicted to a virtual-reality system.  As they approach the edge of the continent, the world outside the car window seems o unravel at an ever faster pace, as if somehwere beyond the horizon, the hollow core of civilization has finally caved in.

Stars: 4

Book: Bookshops and Bonedust

 Book: Bookshops and Bonedust

Author: Travis Baldree

Pages: 352

This is my 76th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Viv's career with the notorious mercenary company Rackam's Ravens isn't going as planned.  Wounded during the hunt for a powerful necromancer, she's packed off against her will to recuperate in the sleepy beach town of Murk - so far from the action that she worries she'll never be able to return to it.  What's a thwarted soldier of fortune to do?  Spending her hours at a belaguered bookshop in the compnay of its foul-mouthed proprietor is the last thing Viv would have predicted, but it may be both exactly what she needs and the seed of changes she couldn't possibly imagine.  Stll, adventure isn't all that far awa.  A suspicious traveler in gray, a gnome with a chip on her shoulder, a summer fling, and an improbable number of skeletons prove Murk to be more eventful than Viv could have ever expected.

This was a great second book in this series.  It is actually a prequel to his first book, and it gives us a little more insite into Viv's past.  IT is well written with good character development.  You cheer for everyone in Viv's circle.  There is a cozy adventure and a sweet character that is made all of bones that you can't help adore.  Looking forward to reading the next one.

Stars: 4.5