Book: The Memory Collectors

 Book: The Memory Collectors

Author: Dete Meserve

Pages: 336

This is my 174th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

What would you do if you could spend an hour in your past?  4 stragers in the beach town of Ventura, California are about to find out.  Elizabeth aches for one more precious hour with her son who died in a senseless accident.  Any is desperate to find his first love who vanished after a whirlwind romance.  Logan craves the rush of surfing and mountain climbing, yearning to reclaim the freedom he lost after a misstep landed him in a wheelchair.  Brooke is looking for an hour of relief from the guilt of an unforgivable mistake.  Enter Aeon Expeditions, the groundbreakingime travel invention of Mark Saunders - which allows some lucky clients the chance to spend an hour in their past.  Even though Aeon's technology ensures time travel can't alter the furture, all 4 clients, including MArk's ex-wife Elizabeth, yearn to revisit the hour that changed their lives forever.  But when their hour extends beyond 60 minutes, they find themselves stranded in the past.  As their paths intertwine unexpectedly, they unreath shocking secrets hidden in the shadows of their shared history: All their lives were shattered the same night on a secluded highway by the beach.  As they delve into the hidden truths of thatpivotal hour, a startling revelation emerges.  They were not alone.  Someone else was present, harboring dealy intentions.

This book was infurating.  I liked the idea of it, but the characters made we crazy.  Once they decided they were going to change their fate, and then couldn't because fate is inevitable, the book lost me.  Did not make any sense.  The people all knew what they were trying to change what happened, and yet they all did the exact same thing they did in the future.  Just no.  

Stars: 2 

Book: Sorry I Missed You

 Book: Sorry I Missed You

Author: Suzy Krause

Pages: 335

This is my 173rd read for the year

What Amazon Says:

When Mackenzie, Sunna, and Maude move into a converted rental house, they are strangers with only one thing in common - important people in their lives have "ghosted" them.  Mackenzie's sister, Sunna's best friend, and Maude's fiance - all gone with no explanation.  So when a mangled, near-indecipherable letter arrives in their shaed mailbox - hinting at long-awaited answers - each tenant assumes it's for her.  The mistmatched trio decides to stake out the coffee shop named in the letter - the only clue they have - and in the process, a bizarre kinship forms.  But the more they learn about each other, the more questions(and suspeicions) they begin to have.  All the while, creepy sounds and strange happenings around the property suggest that they ghosts from their pasts might not be all that's haunting them.  Will any of the housemates find the closure they are looking for?  Or are some doors meant to remain closed?

Stars: 3 

Book: The Burning Side

 Book: The Burning Side

Author: Sarah Damhoff

Pages: 336

This is my 172nd read for the year

What Amazon Says:

When April and Leo's house burns in the middle of the night, they escape with their 2 young children and the quiet knowledge that the fire is not the only thing threatening their family.  They retreat to April's childhood home in Dallas, where her spirited parents and siblings provide both comfort and complication.  As the family reckons with the aftermath - grief, guilt, logistics, and memories scorched and intact - the fire exposes the cracks already forming in April and Leo's marriage.  Te Novel unfolds in alternating perspectives: from April, who feels the crushing weight of motherhood, marriage, and sel-blame; from Leo, a high school history teacher shaped by a lonely, fractured childhood; from Deb, April's generous and no-nonsense mother who has to contend with her husband's recent Alzheimer's diagnosis; and from flashbacks that trace April and Leo's relationship from its earliest days of connection to the devastating decisions that led them here.  A family sage suffused with humor, longing, and heartbreak, this book is about what we inherit and what we choose, about forgiveness and the ache of being known.  It is about the meaning of home and the costs of long love.

stars: 3 

Book: Breathless

 Book: Breathless

Author: David Quammen

Pages: 416

This is the 171st read for the year

What Amazon Says:

This is an analysis of SARs-CoV-2 and its fierce journey through the human population, as seen by the scientist who study its origin, its ever-chagning nature, and its capacity to kill us.  David Quammen expertly shows how strange new viruses emerge from animals into humans as we disrupt wild ecosystems and how those viruses adapt to their human hosts, sometimes causing global catastrophe.  He explains why this coronavirus will probably be a "forever virus" destined to circulate among humans and bedevil us endlessly, in one variant form or another.  As scientists labor to catch it, comprehend it, and control it, with their high-tech tools and methods, the virus finds ways of escape.  Based on interviews with nearly one hundre scientists, including leading virologists in China and around the world, Quammen explains that infection disease experts saw this pandemic coming.  Also the precise origins of this virus may not be known for years, but some clues are compelling and some suppositions can be dismissed.

Stars: 4

Book: The Left Hand of Darkness

 Book: The Left Hand of Darkness

Author: Usula Le Guin

Pages: 336

This is my 170th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

On Gethen, human envoy Genly Ai has been sent to convince the planet's leaders to join the Ekumen, a loose confederation of planets who do not rule one another, but who cooperate in matters of interest to all Ekumen members.  Barriers to Ai' success include Gethenian pride, antipathy and discord between that world's rval nation-states and Ai's lack of understanding in a global culture fueled by the ambisexual nature of Gethenians.  The only native who believe sthe Ekumen can save Gethen is Estraven, a native whom Ai regards with suspicion. But when politics casts Estraven in a criminal light, Ai is dragged into a fierce powerplay and finds himself imprisoned, beaten, and left for dead.  Only by abandoning his prejudice - and learning to trust the Otherness of his savior - can he survive his ordeal.

Stars: 4 

Book: Caller Unknown

 Book: Caller Unknown

Author: Gillian McAllister

Pages: 352

This is my 169th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

There is nothing that Simone won't do for her daughter, Lucyt.  The 2 have always been close, and with Lucy about to leave home for university, they depart the UK for a vacation to Texas to spend some quality time together.  But when Simone awakens on their first morning in the desert, Lucy is gone, missing from their retnal cabin.  In her place is a cell phone, and a voice on the other line issues a shocking ransom demand.  Don't tell the police.  Come to this location.  And be prepared to do a deal.  Though Simone's husband urgest her to bring in the authorities for help, she knows she can't take any chances.  The kidnappers might kill Lucy if she tells anyone.  No mother would take that risk.  Instead, that night, she drives to the isolated meet-up.  What she finds there changes everything.  The mysterious kidnapper doesn't want money.  They want Simone to do something.  The unthinkable.  A catastrophic chain of events is set in motion, with chiling consequences that extend beyond simone and her family.  What follows is a heart-pounding jouney through the small towns and punishing desert of remote Texas, in which Simone's courage - and morality - is pushed to the brink as she discovers what it truly means to be a mother.

This book was just okay.  I have read a few other books by this author and liked them, but this one missed the mark.  Did not really care about the characters.  There was a lot of over writing (saying the same thing 3 different times in a row for page filler is something I really dislike).  The execution got repetitive.  And it did drag a bit.  The ending was okay.

Stars: 3

Book: The Beauty of the End

 Book: The Beauty Of The End

Author: Debbie Howells

Pages: 320

This is my 168th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

"I was 14 when I fell in love with a goddess".  So begins the testimony of Noah Calaway, an ex-lawyer with a sideline in armchair criminal psychology.  Now living an aimless life in a inherited cottage in the English Countryside, Noah is haunted by the memory of the beguilling young woman who left him at the altar sixteen years earlier.  Then one day he receives a troubling phone call.  April, the woman he once loved, lies in a coma, the victim of an apparent overdose - and the lead suspect in a brutal murder.  Deep in his bones, Noah believes that April is innocent.  Then again, he also believed they would spend the rest of their lives together.  While Noah searches for evidence that will clear April's name, a teenager named Ella begins to sift through the secrets of her own painful family history.  The same age as April was when Noah first met her, Ella harbors a revelation that could be the key to solving the murder.  As the 2 stories converage, there are shocking consequences when at last, the truth emerges.  Or so everyone believes.  

Stars: 3