Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout.✔✔✔✔✔

Well, I just devoured this one! A mother-daughter story, Amy is 16, Isabelle is her mother, and the story takes place over the course of one summer, a summer which has begun with Isabelle's startling discovery that her daughter has become sexually involved with her math teacher at high school! There is no father, no siblings, and Isabelle, since their move to this small town, has made Amy the focus of her life. At the mill where she works, Isabelle has a secret crush on her employer, Avery Clark, and dreams of the day when they can be together, even though Clark gives no indication of any interest in her apart from their work together. When Amy's involvement with her teacher is discovered by Avery Clark, Isabelle is disgraced and yet, oddly, jealous of her daughter, envious that she has found someone to love her, envious of the attention she has received. This discovery is made even more harrowing by the punishment Isabelle inflicts on her daughter, a punishment which reflects this jealousy. The distance between them seems almost insurmountable until Amy makes a startling, traumatic discovery, and Isabelle nurtures her through this time.

The novel is rich with characters, most particularly other women from the mill like Fat Bev, the Mother Earth figure, Dottie Brown, whose husband leaves her after she has a hysterectomy, as well as the snotty church ladies who, at least in Isabelle's eyes, look down on her; Stacy, Amy's friend, whose father is having an affair with one of those snotty church ladies, and who is unrepentably pregnant and full of hate for her parents, plus the characters we never meet, like little Debby Dorne, and Jake Cunningham, Amy's real father.

This author obviously loves people, loves the ordinariness of their lives and predicaments, and writes with both humor, compassion, and power. At times, I found it hard to read, and found myself in tears, simply because it was so compelling a story.

Another big favorite this year, and one not easily forgotten.

The Double Comfort Safari Club by Alexander McCall Smith. ✔✔✔

This is the eleventh novel in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series by Smith- I've read each and every one of them and enjoyed them all. This time, Mma Makutsi's fiance has an accident, Mma Ramwotse has to find a Mrs. Grant who left an inheritance for tour guide, as well as be a private investigator for a woman who is disappointed when Precious finds out her husband ISN'T having an affair!

Now that we've had the HBO series, I can put faces as well as voices onto the main characters - Mma Makutsi is my absolute favorite!

The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny. ✔✔✔

Louise Penny is a Canadian mystery writer and, according to an interview I heard on CBC, a former journalist and recovering alcoholic. This is the third of her mysteries that I've read. Each book has the Chief Inspector Gamache, his closest fellow detective, Beauvoir, plus his protegee, Isabel Lacoste. The setting for these books is Tall Pines, a small town in Quebec - one of those places like Wakefield, Quebec, with bistros, bakeries, a village green - in short, I'd love to live there. The people are all wonderful - Olivier and Gabri, a gay couple, run the B&B, Myrna has the bakery, Clara and Peter are artists, but a murder has disturbed the tranquillity of Tall Pines, and Gamache is sent to investigate and solve the crime. .

The victim in this novel was a hermit who lived in a cabin deep in the woods - no one even knew he was there until his body was found in Olivier's bistro. Gamache has to find the identity of the Hermit, a quest which takes him all the way out to the Queen Charlotte Islands, plus the identity of the killer, as well as figure out why the body was moved twice before it was discovered.

Louis Penny is obviously very intelligent, and has a good knowledge of arts, culture and food. She is also enough of a craftsman to keep you guessing all through the story. Well-written, entertaining, easy to read, no car chases or high-tech warfare - actually, rather homey and, well, Canadian!

The Wives of Henry Oades by Johanna Moran.✔✔✔✓

This is a novel about good people caught in impossible situations. The Oades family - Henry, his wife Margaret, their two children, John and Josephine - relocate from England to New Zealand in the late 19th century. They find a home out in the country, twins are born, and they are settling into the community when Margaret, their four children, plus a neighbour's boy, are suddenly and viciously kidnapped by Maori warriors while John is in town at work. John searches for them for a few years, then books passage to San Francisco, certain that he will never see his family again. While there, he marries a young widow with a young baby - more a marriage of convenience than anything since the young woman, Nancy, is penniless, Henry loves children and is able to protect them both. Meanwhile, some seven years later, Margaret and the children are released by the Maori after they become ill with smallpox. Margaret eventually is able to book passage to the USA, writes to Henry telling him of their escape and their upcoming journey to re-unite with him - a letter he gets after Margaret and the children have already arrived on his doorstep.

It isn't long before the haughty, righteous, pious women of the town find out that Henry has two wives, charges of bigamy are laid against Henry, Margaret, and Nancy , and a court battle ensues.

I couldn't put this book down. It's not very long, for one thing, but I found the story fascinating, as well as the legal issues.

Helen of Troy by Margaret George✔✔✔✔

This book has been sitting on my shelf for close to three years, and every once in a while I'd look at it, then put it back on the shelf. This time, I chose to read it, probably because , once again, I wasn't looking for anything too involved. I already have George's "Mary, Queen of Scots", and I may also have had "Mary Magdalene" at one time, too, but it probably ended up in the Museum book sale. ( When you know the beginning, middle and end of the story, it's not all that entertaining)

At some 635 pages, "Helen of Troy" was a long read, but thoroughly enjoyable. This is a story I really didn't know - oh, I knew "the face that launched a thousand ships" part, many of the characters' names were familiar to me, probably from teaching Grade Nine English many, many years ago, I certainly knew about the famous "horse", plus the fact that Troy was ravaged in the end by the Greeks, but not much else. I didn't know how Helen and Paris met - it is a wonderful love story- I didn't know Helen may not ever have even existed, and certainly didn't know much about life in those ancient days, so all in all, I brought a lot of curiosity to this read, and my curiosity was certainly satisfied.

George has done her research very well, and the story of these people comes alive on the pages. I enjoy historical fiction, first because it informs me in an entertaining, easy-to-read style, and secondly because it's a quick, easy read. Now I'd like to read George's "The Autobiography of Henry VIII."