Great Reads

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How awesome is this pic?  Looks like heaven to me, being the bookworm that I am. :)  I'm off to a good start on my goal to read more books in 2012.  Considering we're only 20 days into it.  Ha!

Wanted to share a couple of good reads that I'll be adding to my Amazon store (in the right side bar).

Right before the holidays I finished off Wendy Wax's Ten Beach Road.



This was loaned to me by a friend, to whom I had loaned Magnolia Wednesdays about a year or so ago. She knew I'd enjoy and she was right!  The story of three strangers from different walks of life, bankrupted by a Ponzi scheme, and thrown together as joint owners of a delapidated beach property, this book has much more to it than meets the eye.  Wax has a gift for character development and weaving a mystery into a fun, engrossing read.  While our three gals circle each other warily and try to come to grips with their shared predicament,  they cast their lots on the side of friendship and a common goal.  They'll battle secrets, betrayal, despair and humiliation, but discover courage, loyalty, and true friendship.  Tuck this one in your bag for your next vacay.

Over the holidays, I picked up Jan Karon's In the Company of Others, her most recent tale of Father Tim with the Mitford ties. 



Though this is the 9th or 10th Father Tim book, you need not have read them all to appreciate this stand-alone gem.  Father Tim and Cynthia embark on a long over due trip to Ireland, but end up confined to a small fishing B&B and reluctantly embroiled in a family's bitter feud and the mysterious disappearance of valuables.  During their confinement, the Kavanaughs find themselves serving as confidantes, mentors,  and detectives to help their hosts and new-found cast of friends.  Karon is a gifted story-teller and she does not disappoint, especially in the chapters of an Irish doctor's 150 year old journal that shed light on their surroundings and the on-going mystery.  I was charmed, as always, by her lyrical prose and character sketches.  She is a breath of fresh air in modern literature.

Lastly, I just put down the marvelous Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant.



This was my book club's January pick and I. Loved. It.  Quite unexpectedly, I might add.   Set in a convent in Ferarra, Italy in the mid-1500's, this book offers intriguing insight into the inner workings of a convent during the late Renaissance and the lives of its inhabitants.  Portrayed as a veritable microcosm of society, the nuns of Santa Catrina maintain an independent economy and hierarchy of authority, quite contradictory to the place of women in Renaissance society outside the protective walls of the cloister.  A young entrant, confined to convent against her will and in the throes of a doomed love affair, threatens to upset the delicate balance of spiritual serenity and order, exposing and exploiting an underlying power struggle within the convent itself.  A cast of all female characters and ripe with intrigue, deception, and cunning, this one had me cheering on the she-warriors in the habits.  This is no light read... be prepared to dig in, but it's worth the ride.

Happy Reading, folks!  What good books have you immersed yourself in lately??