Salem, Massachusetts: Home to Witches and the... Titanic?

So, back in June I found a new author that I'm really enjoying!  Adriana Mather is one of those Mathers--the ones all tied up with the Salem Witch Trials.  Back in 1692, Cotton Mather wrote a book on uncovering witches and started one of the most infamous events in American history.  Ms Mather is the 12th generation of her family in America, and her family history has more legs than an octopus.

However, as one of those Mather's, it's fitting that her first book centers around the Salem Witch Trials.  In Modern Day America, fictional Mather descendant Samantha moves to Salem from NYC with her stepmother.  Her father is in a coma, and they are moving to save the money for her father's medical bills.  Sam's dad, Charlie, had kept his family away from Salem for reasons that we don't really discover in this book, so this is Sam's first trip.  Sam and her stepmother, Vivian, move into Sam's grandmother's house.  Mrs. Mather had died some years previously.  Her first day in town she meets the cute neighbor, Jaxon, and his mother Mrs. Merriweather.  On her first day of school she meets the Descendants.  The Descendants are a group of five who are descended from the original accused witches of the town, but they are not the only descendants in the town.  John and Lizzy, from the get go, really don't like Sam and are openly aggressive.  Mary, Susannah, and Alice outwardly dislike her, but aren't as suspicious, and eventually will help Sam.  Susannah seems the most sympathetic. 

Things start going wrong for Sam from the very beginning.  Her classmates are sick from pastries she brings in.  Someone throws a rock with the word "Die" written on it.  Her locker is vandalized.  And there's a mysterious boy who keeps showing up and telling her to leave.  As she discovers her grandmother's journal, she finds out that the whole town is cursed.  When someone from every family involved in the trials is in Salem, people start dying.  With the help of the mysterious boy, who turns out to be a ghost from 1692, Elijah, Sam works against time to figure out How to Hang a Witch

 and how to save her family and her new town.

I enjoyed this book when I read it, and I enjoyed it even more the second time round.  Sam is brash and, to me, funny.  She's very relateable, particularly in her desire to see everyone around her safe, even if it means hurting herself in the process.  She's a bit self sacrificing.  The rest of the characters all feel fleshed out just as much as they need to be for the story, and the pieces of their stories came to the reader exactly when they needed to for the reader to sympathize.  And at the end of the day, everything works out, even if it is a bit shocking when the villain is revealed.

So, a few days ago, I discovered that Ms. Mather had written a sequel!  Haunting the Deep was published about a month ago on September 27.  It's been months since the events of How to Hang a Witch, and Sam has been doing her darndest to avoid anything remotely related to witchcraft, including avoiding Mary, Alice, and Susannah, who have been trying to talk to her.  However, her peace is over when she sees the ghost of a young girl, Ada, at breakfast one morning.  Sam tries to avoid her, but Ada is only one of the ghosts that she sees over the course of that day.

When she arrives at school, Sam discovers that the Spring Fling dance theme is the Titanic.  Fitting, since the story takes place in early April.  The history department has also agreed to spend two weeks or so teaching the Titanic as part of their curriculum.  All of Sam's ghosts seem to be from that tragedy.  Mary, Susannah, and Alice finally manage to corner Sam when she wants their help to banish the ghosts.  However, there is something much worse going on.  Someone is collecting the ghosts of the Titanic.  And with the help of a cursed dress supposedly having come from long-dead aunt who survived the tragedy of the Titanic, Sam now gets trapped on the ghost ship in her dreams.  Can Sam, Mary, Susannah, and Alice figure out what's going on before people start dying?

This second book was just as good as the first!  I was a little skeptical about the connection to the Titanic, but of course, Ms. Mather's family was there and she has documentation to back it up.  All our favorite characters are back, including Elijah, and we get to know more about Sam's dad, Charles.  It also, without naming it, takes a look at PTSD in the characters after the events that occurred in the first book.

I hope you enjoy these books, and I really hope Ms Mather writes a third book with Sam & Co.!  According to Goodreads, a first book in a new series (that does sound interesting) has been picked up, so we will be seeing more of her, but we just don't know when!!

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

I read all kinds of books, as you will discover the more that I write, and some of my favorites are actually young adult books.  They're fun and overall, they're usually hopeful.  They're also very quick reads for me, so I generally look at thrift stores and libraries for them.  About a week ago, I was running around with my boyfriend, I found The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith.  I didn't actually read it until Friday.  It only took me a couple of hours, but I really enjoyed it.

The story is pretty straightforward.  Hadley is off to England to see her father remarried, but she missed her flight by four minutes. The airline puts her on the next flight to London.  While she is waiting for her flight, she meets Oliver, a British college student who is flying home for a family event.  They share some dinner,  and discover that they are sitting next to each other on the plane after boarding.  They spend the hours of the flight getting to know one another, and their connection is deep and fairly instant.  We don't learn a lot about Oliver, but it's really Hadley's story.  When they arrive in London, Hadley is off to her father's wedding, and Oliver is off to his event--yes, I'm being vague on purpose.  After talking to her father, meeting her new stepmother, Charlotte, and dashing across London, Hadley's life view changes, and she realizes that things aren't always as they seem.

One of the biggest things that I love about this book is that the emotions are so real.  Hadley's father went away for a semester, met someone else, and left her mother.  And Hadley is angry about it.  She's not okay with it, and she's not apologetic about how she feels.  Only with talking to Oliver, meeting Charlotte, and reconnecting with her father does she start to come to terms with what's happened.  By the end of the book, which is only twenty four hours after it starts, Hadley herself is much more open to the things that happen around the world. 

Now, I don't know if I believe in love at first sight.  Relationships may have an initial spark, but they still take a lot of work.  Remember for yourself that no matter how good the spark is, if you don't work on your relationship, it will fail.  Don't stay because of that spark.  Family relationships take work as well.  Family loves you, but that doesn't mean they like you.  Be your best person.

What do you think.  Is love at first sight real?

Lady Sophia's Lover

I've had a hard time finding new books that I want to read, so I've gone back and reread a few favorites from bygone years.  I have a soft spot for a good historical romance and I have a few favorite authors in the genre. 

After Kleypas's Wallflowers books (more about those later!), Lady Sophia's Lover was the next of her books that I read.  It's the middle book of a trilogy, not that I knew that at the time, but I rather like spunky Lady Sophia Sydney  Sophia is the daughter of a viscount who died when she was young.  She and her younger brother, John, fell on hard times, and the pair ended up separated.  While Sophia went off to work for a maiden aunt, John fell in with some highwaymen and ended up getting arrested and dying on a prison hulk at the hand of a magistrate.

Years after her brother's death, Sophia goes to work for the same magistrate who sentenced her brother to the prison, Sir Ross Cannon.  Sir Ross, at this point in the story, is in charge of the Bow Street Runners, a detective group that serves the Crown.  He's also doing the work of about seven men and is known as the Monk of Bow Street.  He was in search of an assistant in the Bow Street offices, and ends up hiring the lovely Sophia as assistant, but more as a housekeeper at his adjacent residence.  Sophia's plan is to make Sir Ross fall in love with her, then to break his heart as revenge for her brother's death, but when it comes to it, can she really do it?

Sir Ross starts to fall for his beautiful young housekeeper, but he has his eyes set on the jewel for the Bow Street Crown:  Thief-Taker and Thief, Nick Gentry.  Gentry has been a thorn in Sir Ross's side for years, but he can never seem to get enough on the young man to have him arrested and charged.  The story raises a question:  Who is Nick Gentry?

And I'll leave you there!  I wouldn't want to give away the ending.

So, why is Lady Sophia's Lover one of my favorites?  The usual: the characters and the time period and the story.  Sophia and Sir Ross are both characters who have flaws.  They have beliefs that aren't true, and they have emotions that are real.  At the same time, neither is afraid to confront what they believe and change their minds.  I also really love this time period, and I read a lot of books that are set in the early 1800s.  There are so many societal conventions, and it's always fun to see how an author makes their characters act within those, especially the women.  Here, Sophia has gone from a Viscount's daughter to a woman who works, but she still knows the ins and outs of both worlds so we get to see both worlds.  We also get glimpses into the legal world of Regency England.

Go out, read, and enjoy!

Watson and Holmes

Just about everyone in the English-speaking world-and I imagine some in the non-English-speaking world-knows the name Sherlock Holmes.  If one hasn't read the original mysteries penned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the late 1800's and early 1900's, then they've seen the movies or the BBC show Sherlock.  However, Brittany Cavallaro has reinvented the famous detective for "young adults."

At twenty-five, I still count as a young adult right?

Anyway.  Cavallaro's Holmes is the teenage, boarding school student Charlotte.  She is just as eccentric as her ancestor, complete with violin, deductive skills, and drug problems.  She is sent to Sherringford Academy for a not really talked about situation with a Moriarty (more on that later).  Of course, the original stories are told by Dr. John Watson, and so the Charlotte Holmes trilogy is not complete without it's own Watson--fifteen year old Jamie Watson.  Jamie, who lives in London with his mother and sister, lands at Sherringford due to a rugby scholarship.  With both a Watson and Holmes in residence, the game is afoot!

The first book in the series is A Study in Charlotte, and takes place during the fall semester at Sherringford.  When Watson's temper pushes him to punch another student and that student ends up dead, Watson and Holmes find themselves framed for murder.  As they work together to try and solve the crime, Watson finds himself more and more frustrated by trying to figure out the enigma that is Holmes.  He truly believes that he and Holmes are meant to be together as friends at the very least because they are Watson and Holmes.  However, they finally manage to have a "big bonding moment", in which we learn that Holmes has as much of a crush on Watson as he does on her, but she has no idea what to do about it because her childhood was really quite dreadful.  After this, they manage to solve the mystery and find out that there were Moriarty's behind the case!

Professor Moriarty was, of course, Sherlock Holmes' arch nemesis.

In Charlotte Holmes' time there are four important Moriarty's--Lucian, Phillipa, Hadrian, and August.  These four characters are important in the plot line of the second novel in the trilogy, The Last of August.  In this second book, Watson and Holmes are in England for Christmas, and end up at the Holmes' estate in Sussex with their relationship on the rocks.  Here we learn about the rather.... unorthodox... fashion in which Charlotte grew up and her family members.  She is not particularly close to either of her parents--Alistair and Emma--but has a fairly close relationship with her brother, Milo (who appears in A Study in Charlotte , but not as much as in this book).  However, Charlotte's favorite relative is her Uncle Leander, the only normal Holmes in the bunch and a close friend of Watson's father.  Leander is working on an art forgery case in Germany, but retreats to Sussex to talk to Alistair Holmes, and to meet Watson.  When he goes missing, Watson and Holmes head to Berlin and Milo.

Back to the Moriarty's.  Moriarty A, the villain from A Study in Charlotte, is being watched closely in Thailand.  Moriarty's B and C are heavily into the art crime scene in Berlin, and Holmes' suspects that they are behind her beloved uncle's forgery case and his disappearance.  Milo sends the pair off with the perfect guide to the Moriarty's and the art world--August Moriarty.  You learn about midway through the first book that August faked his death to separate from his family, and ended up working for Milo.  He's a bit of an aberration in the Moriarty family, wanting peace with the Holmes' and not wanting to be part of the criminal world.  August's presence drives a wedge further between Watson and Holmes.  As The Last of August unfurls, you begin to question if everything and every relationship is as it appears, and if the motivations that are presented for things are true.

But the ending.  The ending leaves you with a pit in your stomach.  I don't want to spoil it, but its truly an implosion in the characters' lives, leaving the third as-yet-unpublished book to clean it up.   I'm quite looking forward to The Case for Jamie's publication in March, 2018.  I really don't want to wait that long, but it is what it is, and there is plenty to read in the meantime.

I would recommend for anyone to read these books, as long as they are over the age of about fifteen.  There is some adult subject mater (mostly in drug addiction and rape trauma), but it is handled well enough that it does not become the main topic of the book but rather pieces that make characters who they are.  They are fairly quick reads.  I took my time on them and it still only took me about two days a book.  Getting started in each book is the hardest part, but then it drags you in.  They are great mysteries in the traditional Sherlock Holmes fashion!

Web of Lies

Alright, so here's where I admit that Kathleen Brooks is one of my favorite authors.  Her first book, Bluegrass State of Mind, was published in November, 2013 and I found it about three months later.  I've been hooked on Kathleen's writing ever since.  The majority of her books focus around the fictional town of Keeneston, KY and it's residents.  Besides those, she's now written two separate series.  The first, Women of Power, I'll talk about in another blog post sometime.  This one is focusing on The Web of Lies trilogy, with the final book published today!  I read fast, so here it is, only halfway through the day and I'm finished.  But that also says something about Kathleen's writing.

So, the series.  At the heart of the series is a set of love stories, like always, but this time, the stories are caught up in a conspiracy so huge that the whole world is in trouble.  The first book, Whispered Lies, introduces us to many of the main players for the series.  Ex FBI agent Elizabeth James is searching for the people responsible for her father's death.  When Vice President Birch Stratton becomes the President, he discovers that State secrets are being sold.  He had worked with Lizzy's father, and so he turns to Lizzy and helps her to build a team to discover what is going on.  And what they uncover is monumental.  Lizzy sets up a team with the help of President Stratton that includes the President, his Chief of Staff, Humphrey, tech guru and hacker extraordinaire Alex, White House Press Secretary Tate James,  Pararescueman Dalton Cage, ex DEA agent Valeria McGregor, and Marine One pilot Crew Dixon. Whispered Lies sets the stage, and it manages to bring Lizzy and Dalton together.

Rouge Lies is the story of Tate and Birch.  Tate lands right in the middle of the trouble with the secret group Mollia Domini, and uses her position in the White House to investigate the group.  It becomes obvious that some of the big players are in the media.  Of course, the electricity crackles between Tate and Birch!  Through the book, we uncover more of the players in the web of secrets that has been building from the first book.  Tate has to put herself in some interesting positions, but it all works out in the end.  It becomes more dangerous and more frustrating to the characters as they try and bring everything down.  During this book, Valeria disappears with no warning to, as we later discover, follow the money.

The series finishes with Shattered Lies.  When Valeria is found out by the Mexican cartel, she needs to get out fast.  At the same time, Lizzy and Dalton are in Europe following a lead and Tate and Birch are injured.  Lizzy and Dalton do what they can for their comrade, who is running for her life in Mexico.  Their solution? Sending in Dalton's former comrade Grant Mckay.  With the information Valeria has gathered in Mexico, the team finally has some solid leads.  However, once again, those leads are pointing to Birch Stratton's oldest friend.  Is Sebastian Abel running Mollia Domini?  You'll have to read to find out!

So on to the details.  Like I said, Kathleen is one of my favorite authors.  I love her characters and the worlds she creates are so real.  It doesn't feel forced, but rather like something that could actually happen.  The characters have their own sets of skills and fears and goals.  Even the secondary characters are well fleshed out.  They might be characters that show up in every book, like Buzz and Snip, two old ex-military barbers, or they could be characters you only see for a few moments, like Janet Stirling, the head of the DEA (she's in the last book for maybe the last quarter, and she is freaking hilarious.  I'd like to be her when I grow up).  I will admit, it took me a while to actually sit and read these books.  I bought them when they came out, but I was always jonesing for Keeneston, so I waited.  Then I got the audible version of Whispered Lies because it was on sale and I listen to a lot of audio books when I drive.  And I finally started the series.  It still took a little bit to get into for me, but once I did, I was in.  Web of Lies wasn't the romance with a little danger that I had come to expect; it kept me much more on the edge of my seat.  These are definitely worth the read, and when you're done, head over to Keeneston for some more fun!


 Links to the books on Amazon can be found by clicking on the individual titles.