Get Lost in Literature

  "It was unseasonably warm for June. The table was set as though for a banquet: Cornelius must know of her taste and refinement, that she honored him and would provide a gracious home." Asta Eicher is mother to three wonderful children: Annabelle precocious and imaginative, simple but sweet Grethe, and protective Hart. She takes care of her sick mother-in-law Lavinia, and is loved deeply by her on/off again boarder Charles. But Asta is a widowed artist who finds herself in debt, on the edge of losing everything she and her husband had worked so hard for... So she must find a new husband, one of means, and with room in his heart for her whole family.  Then the family goes missing. Our main characters disappear and are replaced with new ones, Emily Thornhill and William Malone. Emily is an investigative journalist charged with finding out the truth about what happened to the family. William Malone, a banker, is driven by guilt; he knew something was wrong and couldn't stop...

  “Desire, love hate, fear, repulsion--you feel these things in your muscle and bones, not just in your mind. That is how this little heartbreak felt: like a physical injury, deep inside my body, an internal bleeding, a nick that would continue to seep.” One morning, a young boy is found murdered, stabbed to death in the park. It’s a horrifying crime in suburban Massachusetts, but it’s business as usual for Assistant District Attorney Andrew Barber. Andy sets out to investigate and prosecute the crime himself, but an ambitious young colleague is about to blindside him. Neal Logiudice is climbing his way to the top; he knows the case is high profile and he sees his chance to make a name for himself. Neal wants to follow the evidence straight back to Andy’s own son, Jacob. Andrew, finding himself pushed out of a job, must figure out how to save his son and hold his family together… I couldn’t put this book down. I admit it’s a slow burner; it isn’t a fast paced, overwhelmingly eventf...

 The older Strike got, the more he’d come to believe that in a prosperous country, in peacetime – notwithstanding those heavy blows of fate to which nobody was immune, and those strokes of unearned luck of which Inigo, the inheritor of wealth, had clearly benefited – character was the most powerful determinant of life’s course. PI Robin Ellacott is approached by cartoonist, Edie Ledwell, who has been harassed to the brink of a nervous breakdown. Edie rose to fame when her an her boyfriend Josh Blay created The Ink Black Heart, for YouTube and it generated a massive following with a devoted fanbase, complete with overly obsessed superfans. One fan in particular, screen name Anomie, has devoted their life to ruining Edie's, harrassing her through social media and using an online game to help whip the fandom into an angry mob hell bent on punishing the cartoonist. Edie's desperate to learn Anomie's true identity. Robin turns down the case and, a few days later, Edie Ledwell is...

"Make friends with fear, Lucien always said, because it will not go away, and it will destroy you if left uncontrolled." I'm a long time fan of the film, just reading the book for the first time. The story takes place in rural, 1980s Mississippi, where two men brutally assault a ten year old girl. Her father, Carl Lee Hailey, believes they'll get away with it because his daughter is black while the perpetrators are white... and he seeks revenge. Jake Brigance is a criminal lawyer who is called to represent Mr. Hailey and defend him from the ultimate punishment: death. I've never been to Mississippi so I can't say as to whether or not the public racial tensions depicted in this book are entertainingly cliche or disturbingly spot on. Segregation legally ended, but in the hearts of the citizens of Clanton, it ended too soon. White on Black on White crimes invite protests, Klansmen, excessive use of the N-word, more violence, and the National Guard... It also illu...