Finished 4-14-11, rating 4/5, fiction, 318 pages, pub. 2001

There were worse reasons to keep a person hostage.  You keep someone always for what he or she is worth to you, for what you can trade her for, money or freedom or somebody else you want more.  Any person can be a kind of trading chip when you find a way to hold her.  So to hold someone for song, because the thing longed for was the sound of her voice, wasn’t it all the same?  The terrorists, having no chance to get what they came for, decided to take something else instead, something that they never in their lives knew they wanted until they crouched in the low, dark shaft of the air-conditioning vents: opera.  They decided to take that very thing for which Mr. Hosokawa lived.

Chapter 3

Terrorists of an unnamed South American country invade a party held at the home of the vice-president so they can kidnap the president.  Only the president did not attend and the terrorists are left with a house full of hostages and no way out.  There were too many hostages so they let all of the women go, save one, the world renown soprano Roxane Coss.  Now they are left with 59 men and one women and little chance of success.  When the days turn into weeks and the weeks into months, the line between hostage and terrorist is blurred.

All of the men, terrorists included, fall in love with Roxane and her golden voice.  She sings every day for the house.  Mr. Hosokawa feels responsible since the party was held in his honor and he requested Roxane even though they had never met.  Since this house is full of important men, from all over the world, it is Mr. Hosokawa’s translator, Gen, who becomes the most important person in the house.  He spends his days having conversations for people and becomes indispensable to the terrorists as they negotiate with the Red Cross.

There are lots of characters in the house and it was confusing at first.  Actually I tried to listen to the audio, but then switched to paper and had better luck keeping everyone straight.  Each character had an important role in the house, but that didn’t mean I really cared about the characters, at least at first.  It is a slow read until the last third.  They were held hostage for so long with nothing happening except the forming of relationships that it took me a while to really get engaged in the story.  I was actually ready for it to be over and them, wham, the end comes and it was poignant, shocking in its speed and left me considering, even the day after.  I loved it.  For me, the ending saved the book from an average rating. 

I don’t want to give the impression that the first two-third of the book was completely boring, it wasn’t, bit it made me take my time and sometimes I got impatient.  The opera played a  huge part in the story.  It was used to inspire, to heal, and to comfort and I think music lovers will appreciate the story.

This is from my personal library chosen by Golda and Heather.  Here’s what Heather had to say…”I’m reading this right now, and it ’s great so far.”

Finished 4-6-11, rating 4/5, fiction, 304 pages, pub. 2011

Three generations of women living together could be a reason to celebrate and appreciate, but not in Joanie’s house.  She’s recently divorced with a teenage daughter and a judgemental mother forced to live with her because of the recession.  Joanie is  the glue and that’s not saying much since she and her mother spend ample time not speaking to each other.  She is struggling with a new job and a daughter with pink hair.  Oh yeah, and her ex-husband is expecting a baby with his much younger girlfriend. 

Mary Margaret was the kind of friend she laughed and gossiped and drank with, though.  She wouldn’t be interested in Joanie’s doubts about herself.  You had different friends for different facets of your life, Joanie supposed.  There were friends you talked to and friends you listened to.  It was a rare friendship that combined both.

page 13

Caroline is your typical teen, struggling with popularity, unrequited love, trying drugs and, yes, serving said drugs to her grandmother.  She was my favorite character.

There was something sobering about being listened to and treated with respect by an adult.  But it reminded Caroline of something she didn’t really want to know: She was a small actor in a big world of many people.  Her own worldview-dominated by herself and her misery and her inadequacies and her crazy family-wasn’t the way other people viewed life.  She might be smaller and less significant than she ever wanted to know.

page 215

Ivy is easy to dislike.  She is prejudiced, judgemental, and a cold fish.  She doesn’t even bother calling her granddaughter by her name, preferring to refer to her as the girl.  I spent most of the time really disliking her, but I won’t tell you if she redeems herself, you’ll have to read it to find out.

Suddenly, Ivy missed the company of someone who had known her for years.  Who had seen her hair grow gray, then white.  Who had watched her middle thicken, and her shoes turn lower and stockier.  Someone who knew who she used to be and how she’d come to be what she was.  Someone who knew she  hadn’t started out like this; she had once been someone else, someone vibrant and energetic.

page 106

This is an easy to read book about people who you’ll recognize.  Although it dealt with weighty issues, it never became a heavy book.  It managed to maintain its light feel while still touching you.  My only disappointment was that the end seemed to just peter out.  It really needed more of a conclusion, or if you are going by the title, a breakthrough.  It was still a very enjoyable book.

This was graciously sent to be by PR by the Book

Finished 3-17-11, rating 4/5, romance, 379 pages, pub. 2011

Book 9 in the Francesca Cahill series  (Book 1) (Book 2) (Book 3) (Book 4) (Book 5) (Book 6) (Book 7) (Book 8)

“You are assuming that our relationship was founded on love.”  He stared.  “Let me offer some advice-you do not want to have this discussion with me.”

No one could miss the warning in  is tone.  Her heart with more alarm, more fear.  “I never meant to stand you up!”

His gaze finally flickered.  “It is for the best.”

She cried out “What?  I love you.  Missing my wedding was not for the best!”

“Good day, Francesca.”  He sat abruptly down, pulling a folder forward.

Chapter 4

Francesca Cahill, blueblood and sleuth, is lured away on her wedding day by someone intent on destroying her relationship with finance, Calder Hart.  She was told she’d finally find her portrait, a nude, but she escaped without it and in 1902 New York City society a nude portrait would ruin her and devastate her family.  When Calder realizes that she left him at the altar his pride is hurt and he thinks she has had second thoughts.  These insecurities feed into his fear that she will always love his brother best and he ends their engagement.

Francesca is a great character, full of smarts and spunk and loyalty.  Calder is a great hero, dark, flawed, and dangerous.  I love the two of them together although his reaction after being jilted at the altar felt like I’d read it before in the series.  A couple can only go back and forth so long before something’s got to give.  I was worried that the whole story would feel done already, but the story recovered and took off.  Rick, Francesca’s good friend and Calder’s half-brother, is police commissioner and the three of them race to find Francesca’s portrait before it becomes public.  It seems like more people know of its existence than should.

It was nice to have the gang all back for this one even if none of them were really a focus like they’ve been in past books.  It was nice to see Francesca’s brother, Evan, start to admit his feelings for the poor widow and mother, Maggie and confront his ex-mistress.  This was a good contribution to the series, but not my favorite.

This is from my personal library.

Finished 3-14-11, rating 3/5, fiction, 353 pages, pub. 2010

Panic seized him.  He wasn’t prepared.  He had nothing to suggest.

He hung up.

In the quiet his emotions drifted from disgust to depression.  There was, however, no escape from his behavior, his acting like a lovesick teenager, not a person who uses his mind for a living, and he wondered if he had lost through nonuse what others had, the ability to communicate on a personal, even intimate, level.

page 45

Norm Armstein is a very successful corporate lawyer who has always been in love with his sister-in-law, if only his thick-headed brother hadn’t found her first they may have enjoyed a very happy life together.  After his last ill-fated trip back home to Isaactown, and Bev, he believes he sees her walking in Manhattan and follows her.  Only it’s not her, but a younger woman who befriends him.  Norm’s job is like a noose hanging around his neck and Harriet and her daughter are much-needed in his life.

Norm is like many who are lucky enough to have high paying jobs and not enough time to enjoy the fruits of his labor.  His attraction to Bev has colored his dating life for over 20 years and he has never truly been in love.  So, the story is about Norm finding a life in his middle age and how that life might fit in with a girlfriend and her daughter.

The story itself was good, but it was a slow read.  It had a lot of detail that really slowed the whole story down to a crawl, but that may have been purposeful, since the story was introspective.  As much as I enjoyed the idea of Norm’s story I found it hard to really care about him and even Harriet.  At first I felt for Bev and the life she chose/got stuck in, but in the end I didn’t care for her character either.  Solid writing and story, just not the story for me.

This was generously sent to me by the author.