Leota's Garden by Francine Rivers

Francine River published in 1999. Leota's Garden is a wholesome, throoughly human tale by this author who has always written decent stories.  I had this on my "To Read" shelf for sometime having purchased it at a book sale.  It only topok me two weeks of evening reading to get through its 423 pages with some heart jerking teary spots. Wonderful; characters, I could relate to them all and felt I have known similar people throu life.  The setting is Northern Ca, Oakland, San Francisco and features Leota Reinhardt, an 84 year old grandmother who lives alone and can no longer tend to her garden.  It begins with Corban Solstek, a Berkeley College student who is indignant at getting a B instead of an A on a Sociology paper and is challenging his professor who made no edits nor notes to it.   Corban wants an A.  The professor tells him it was "well presented" for what he had but that he was missing the human element.  He is sharing his apartment with Ruth who tells him to just do what the professor suggested to get the A.  So he volunteers at a local charity to help an elderly person with grocery trips to gain human perspective.  After all his family was ion Connecticut and his mother had remarried an investment broker after his father's death and they were likely off to Switzerland for holidays. 

Next main character is  Anne Lynn who has just told her mother she does not want to attend  one of the Ivy League schools but attend an Art Institute in San Francisco.  Her mother Nora is furious and has groomed her thru life for  the  pinnacle to go Ivy League and make connections and marry right.  Background, Nora is Leota's daughter but has little to nothing to do with her and Anne has had little contact with her grandmother, Leota.  

How all these and more characters weave together  is the work of this novel,.  I give this a 4**** only because it is so similar to the threads of other works by this author, if this were the only one I'd read by her I'd give it a 5 *****.  room.  Actually as I reviewed  and quoted it here I thought it is really a 5 ***** because of the realness of the thoughts and situations.  The tale may be fiction but the threads are of life.  Weary she sat.  Nothing wrong but I would have liked it to end differently with a happy ever after together for Corcoran and Anne Lynch.  Yet the author has strong women and Anne Lynn is one. 

By page 23 we begin to learn about Leota and her challenges.  Her home needs repairs and is in a neighborhood that  is not as it once was.  She  is outside and notices the neighbor girl and she thinks, "Oh Lord  of mercy, will anyone care when I'm gone?  Or will I lie dead in this house for so many days until the stench of my decaying body brings someone to check on me?"  Wow  that got me,  I can relate at 81 now and living alone.  Though I do  try to keep in touch and have human contact daily it doesn  't  always happen. There is a lot of background to Leota's life leading to  where she now is, how she worked through WWII to support her husband's family while he too was away at war.  How her son and daughter, Nora, were more with their paternal grandmother than with her because of her job.  How Nora resented that.  How we  sometimes know little of the truth when we see only our perspective.  I can relate to this so well growing up without a father who was a  Lt. pilot in WWII whose plane went into the Atlantic months before my birth this left Mom a young widow.  And she worked.  She remarried though but I spent more time with my grandmother and aunt than with Mom.  My Mom remarried and I always felt like I did not belong even though my half brother and I were raised together.  I preferred to be with my grandma than at home.  

Page 30 has Leota reflecting. "Leota slammed the refrigerator door and walked into the living room, weary, she sank down into Bernard's old easy chair.  It fit her perfectly.  After Bernard died , she'd spent the better part of 3 weeks covering it with a thick pretty aqua fabric.  The work had been good therapy.  Now after 30 years of wdowhood, she had worn down the nap, leaving the chair arms, headrest, and seat cushion almost bare--as well as permanently indented.  But it fit her, te way it had fit Bernard after all those nights of sitting and staring.  ....She was becoming like him....Thinking about the past. ...Her thoughts were often of the good times she had had over the years.  Sometimes just getting old was the hardest cross to bear."  She contemplates how she wanted to travel and see Europe and still would. But she gets weary just walking the 4 blocks and back hoime from the grocery store.  She wonders if it would be better if she had company, anyone.    I've been a widow 5 years now and truly can understand these feelings.   

In summary Corban arrives as a volunteer to helpo her get groceries after she calls the agency.  He is surprised because she insists on walking back and forth to the grocery store and the bank.  But this continues and they become a bit acquainted.  Meantime Anne Lynn has moved to San Francisco and is rooming with ta friend.  One day she decided to go across to Oakland where her grandmother lives and visit on the spur of a moment.  Leota is thrilled but nervous.  That relationship will bloom beyond expectations with Anne learning how to tend to and clear up Leota's now run down garden.  Nora, is furious.  She resents her mother and thinks she has widened the  gap between she and AnneAnne continues to visit and finally as Leota ails she moves there to care for her.  Meantime she has met Corban on his visits.  But her old want to be boyfirend is also interested in her.  Anne is above this all.  She meets the neighbors and organizes get togethers with the children.  There is so much going on as the novel continues, a good story, well told, very lifelike.  

By page 287 Nora has reluctantly shown up still hoping Anne Lynch will give this up and return home and go East to that Ivy League setting.  In one scene Leota is considering her possessions, her treasures.  "She glanced around the living room trying to see things through their eyes.  She supposed most of what she possessed was junk by their standards.  They didn't know that every knicknack, stitchery, picture, and stick of furniture meant something to her.  Everything in her house held a special meaning and sparked a memory.  These are not just things to gather dust....." Oh so realistic.  I am the same way, my collections amassed over a lifetime, many inherited, my grandmother's china, Mom's special dishes, stitchery and doilies made by my aunt,,,,,I could go on and on.  Some are valuable but who will ever know or care? 

At any rate, Leota becomes very ill and things are hard for Anne caring for her but she persists.  After Leota passes and the family, Nora and George the son and Anne are called to the attorneu's office for the will, there is a surprise as Leota has left the home to Anne.  The son George is irritated until he learnes about the stocks that Leota left to him and Nora.  Meantime Corban has continued to show up and he  has strong feelings toward Anne.  Buy she does not reciprocate those feelings.   That's why I wish it had ended differently.  

The Family The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty by Kitty Kelly

 I have had this book on my To Be Read shelf for awhile and thought I would enjoy it.  It is a first edition published in  September, 2004, and  has 634 pages  followed by extensive notes.  But I have been struggling with it for a couple weeks and simply cannot get into it.  So I will put it in my donate pile and move along.  I usually enjoy political histories and this tome certainly must be that of the Bush family but it is just not readable to me.  That says a lot that I am not even going to keep it and just place it on my political collection shelf.  After weeks I was only on page 63, I do give up.  Haven;'t done this since???

With that I will not even attempt a rating of stars. 

The Keeper's Son by Homer Hickman

   I have read other novels by Homer Hickman about the coalminers and rocket boys but for some reason had set this one aside on my shelf until  now.  Published un 2003, 420 pages, paperback.  It is fiction but just maybe of some historical  truth too.  I was fascinated by the subject involving the people of the Killakeet Island in the Outer  Banks and the German U boats that  were along that coast.  Maybe because of my father's flight disappearance into that deep Atlantic with his entire flight crew and plane, WWII.   This is a well told tale with great characters.  

Jack Thurlow returns in the Coast Guard to his  home roots on Killakeet Island where his father  Jack is the last in a line of lighthouse keepers.  Joh has not interest in continuing that line.  When he is a young boy he is out  in a boat with his toddler brother Jacob who is swept away and never found, not a trace.  This will haunt Josh and his father through life.  

Dosie Crossan has returned to the Killakeet home  of her family seeking to restore something of peace and determine her future.  Otto Krebs is a famous German submarine U-boat captain with another back story of heartbreak.  .  

Back Cover

This review is from Amazon.com and succinctly covers this good tale:.... " In 1941, Killakeet Island of the wind-swept Outer Banks of North Carolina is home to a tiny, peaceful population of fishermen, clam stompers, oyster rakers, and a few lonely sailors of the Coast Guard. Dominating the glorious, raw beauty of the little island is the majestic Killakeet Lighthouse, which for generations has been the responsibility of one family, the Thurlows.

However, Josh Thurlow, the Keeper's son, has forsworn his heritage to become the commander of the Maudie Jane, a small Coast Guard patrol boat operating off Killakeet. Josh is still tortured by guilt, seventeen years after losing his baby brother at sea. Then his life is complicated by the arrival of the beautiful Dosie Crossan, who has journeyed to lonely Killakeet to escape the outside world and perhaps find a purpose in life. While Josh's heart is stirred by the often-vexing Dosie, he continues his search for his brother, even after a wolfpack of German U-boats arrives to soak the island's beaches with blood and oil.

One of the U-boats is captained by Otto Krebs, a famed and ruthless undersea warrior. Krebs, a man also scarred by lost love, comes to Killakeet, however, with more than torpedoes and plans for war: He may also have the answer to the mystery that haunts Josh Thurlow.  The Keeper's Son is a rousing, romantic tale of the power of the human heart forever searching for redemption.  "

First page prologue

   There is a historical interweave about Ben Franklin, and  penance and the Founding Fathers on pages 146--155.

Page 68Josh thinks about the snapping turtles he caught from the creek as a young boy,  " they were always so angry. ..he couldn't imagine going through life always mad at everything.  Keeper Jack had explained it to him.  Anger is sometimes just another way of being afraid..."

The townspeople, the sailors whom Josh is training for war despite their and their mothers' protests, the UBoat  Captain who begins to doubt himself, the  island Preacher,  and there are so many more characters.  

This was a very good read, 5 *****.  Although it was not a fast read for me, it took concentration and was not something that I could  whiz through.  Well worth the time.  

The Widow by John Grisham

  I do not know the last time I read a John Grisham novel/mystery but see no others posted to this blog.  I know I've read them though, likely long before I started this.  And I do not know why I have waited so long to read a Grisham book.   This one caught my eye on Amazon, maybe the title. Once I stated reading it was one I really hated to put down, but since I read  in the evenings I couldn't stay up all night to read more.  No doubt I will get another Grisham novel very soon.  The Widow is 404 pages, published in 2025.

This one is about a small town lawyer, Simon Latch who is struggling, going through a divorce, barely keeping things going  in his solitary law office. He has one employee, long time legal assistant/secretary, Tillie. Then an elderly widow  walks in, Eleanor Barnett, who has had a will prepared by another local lawyer.    When Simon reviews it he knows the other lawyer. became greedy and has over done his control of assets.  Eleanor is an 85 year old  widow with no children, two stepsons with whom she has no contact, no family, no one close enough to be her executor., 

Pg 40, Chapter 7 begins,   "Eleanor refused to meet again at Starbucks, said she felt too old there, as if at the age og eighty-five, there was a place where she might feel young.  Simon didn't argue and suggested they meet in his office at 6:00PM....."

Simon takes an interest in her and begins to establish a reluctant friendship, taking her to lunch and paying the bill each time,. She is supposedly wealthy but sometimes he wonders.  Ultimately he has prepared a new ill for her.  And then one day, Eleanor is in an automobile accident, her fault, driving another widow friend  home after the  ladies gather for a card game; she had over indulged in alcohol.  While she is in the hospital,

  Simon has her sign a healthcare power of attorney and finds himself in charge of that.  She is recovering in the hospital but gets pneumonia and things go downhill from there.  At 84 she does not recover and dies.  Simon asks for cremation and things proceed.  Then things begin to twist.  Her story of wealth may have been a story, he cannot  confirm assets.  His divorce is going along and he misses his children.  

Then the bottom falls out of everything when he is accused and arrested of poisoning Eleanor while she was in the hospital. One of the stepsons shows up and hires an attorney.  His secretary ends up in an affair with that stepson.   He is convicted by the  jury despite proof and despite the efforts of his excellent defense attorney.

  Simon Latch is innocent, but what can he do.  Ultimately he pursues and begins his own investigation using a hacker and finally resolves this crime.  He is innocent but the ones I suspected while reading along were not the culprits, neither the secretary nor the stepson who appeared and claimed to have contact with Eleanor.  The crime is a real twister as Simon resolves to prove his innocence.  This is a 5 ***** read.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

 This highly acclaimed novel, published in 2014,  was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. It took 10 years for the author to finalize this work.   I had not read it until it was selected by Word on Fire Book Club. So I purchased it and read along  in September through early November, all 530 pages.  I admit to having difficulty continuing at times.  The writing is truly beautiful in descriptive but I was having trouble switching back and forth and around the characters who ultimately are woven together for an ending.  Had it not been a selection of WOF I likely still would not have read it.  I have read other works by this Author in the past and do not recall what I thought of those.  

The primary setting is before during and after WWII in Europe and France.  There are a couple main characters -- Marie, a blind girl living in Paris with her father who is a master maker of locks and employed sat  the Louvre. and Werner an orphan living in Germany.   

I still hesitate to give this novel 4 **** but given the acclaim I am doing so.  I suppose reflecting back it was a good choice for me to read because I'd not have chosen on my own despite my interest in WWII and history.

Below is the front flap which better gives the overview.  

Front flap 

Here is the introduction to the book from Cybthia Adkins, Word on Fire who co facilitated this with her husband Dr. Michael Adkins.  

Cynthia Adkins Intro  Con't below

 Cythia Adkins

Killing the Witches by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard

 I have read nearly all the O'Reilly/Dugard Killing series of books.  This one I had not so had to order a copy to complete my collection of this series.  I started reading it October 31 and did not finish until November 23 although if I had time I would have read thru all 280 pages in a few days.  Published in 2023 this covers the horrors of the Salem, Massachusetts witch trials in 1692-93. 

I was not very familiar with this historical trauma and learned a lot from this book. The hysteria that ruled and the executions carried out are a black mark of our history and show that the Puritans were not always kind people.  The novel  goes beyond that through the Constitutional Convention of the US and includes a section on the Exorcism of the demonic based on a 1949 true happening to a young boy and even  covers the making of the popular horror film, the Exorcist.  It covers a great deal of the tensions amongst the founding fathers which is not usually revealed in history books.  The conclusion and Author's note is caution about  demonic that still exists.  I truly believe there is demonic evil around.  The recent Charlie Kirk assassination's is an example.  The author expounds about the current cancel culture and the trans activists and how that hysteria has demonic undertones. 

 An excellent read,  5 *****.

Cover flap

Killing the Witches back cover

 

Pages 220 221  today's demonic?

Before Women Had Wings by Connie May Fowler

Published in 1996 and made into a movie in 1997, I had this copy on my shelf to read for awhile.  I finally opened it in September.  What a wonderful story, to me it has some of the same feelings as Where the Crawdads Sing though the stories are not alike.  268 pages. 

 This review excerpt is from Goodreads online:        "My name is Avocet Abigail Jackson. But because Mama couldn't find anyone who thought Avocet was a fine name for a child, she called me Bird. Which is okay by me. She named both her children after birds, her logic being that if we were named for something with wings then maybe we'd be able to fly above the shit in our lives. ". ..  So says Bird Jackson, the mesmerizing narrator of Connie May Fowler's vivid and brilliantly written, Before Women Had Wings   Starstruck by a dime-store picture of Jesus, Bird fancies herself "His girlfriend" and embarks upon a spiritual quest for salvation, even as the chaos of her home life plunges her into a stony silence. In stark and honest language, she tells the tragic life of her father, a sweet-talking wanna-be country music star, tracks her older sister's perilous journey into womanhood, and witnesses her mother make a courageous and ultimately devastating decision.   Yet most profound is Bird's own story--her struggle to sift through the ashes of her parents' lives, her meeting with Miss Zora, a healer whose prayers over the bones of winged creatures are meant to guide their souls to heaven, and her will to make sense of a world where fear is more plentiful than hope, retribution more valued than love. . . .

 

Page 1  The story begins

Pgs 28-29  Catholic   Baptist

There is a lot of good writing and almost lyrical descriptions of emotions, forgiveness, grief.  On pages 28-32 Bird relates how her sister Phoebe becomes Catholic just like Mama and Bird so wants to do the same.  But Mama insists no she must be Baptist like her non church going Baptist declared father .Bird is not happy about this.  

On to Page 77 where Bird is somewhat dealing with the grief over her father's death though she is almost in denial.  "Daddy's death didn't seem final to me."    

Pages 76-77  Grief from death denia;

 I noted her impression of forgiveness as the "mystery of love" pages 103-105  Bird hears  her Mama talking with Mr. Ippolito and decides that "just maybe forgiveness exists not to excuse the sinner but to heal those who suffered. "    

Here are pages 103  and 105 which I cannot align side by side

Their lives unfurl and Bird has found respite and rescue with Miss Nora.  Bird has been beaten often by Mama who is clearly out of control.  Finally Miss Nora comes to tend Birds strap marks and then meets up with Mama.  Pg 255. Birds emotions--

Pages 254-255

Mama gives in and agrees to let Miss Nora take Bird away with her while Mama heals and gets rehab. Though Bird wants to stay to help Mama realizes she must face and conquer this alone. Page 261  "when you can't imagine the future and the past is too powerful..."

Pages 260-261 Future, past

This is a wonderful book to read though it can  bring tears.  I give it 5 *****  I just  found in researching more about this book that a movie was made and I will try to get it on Amazon or Netflix.  Now that I've reviewed the book it would be interesting to watch the movie.