The Illegal by Lawrence Hill ***

I thought I already posted this, but I guess not! Another disappointment, all the more so because a strong opening did not lead to a strong main line. I still don't know who was more corrupt than honest, and there were two main characters so similar it was hard to distinguish between them. Together they would have made a strong finish, but no luck. This wasn't even close to the good writing of The Book of Negroes.

The Birthday Lunch by Joan Clark ***

I was disappointed with this novel. Joan Clark wrote An Audience of Chairs and Latitudes of Melt, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed, somI was looking forward to this novel. It's a week in the life of a family in New Brunswick, centred around the death of Lily, the wife, mother and sister of the remaining characters. Clark obviously wanted this to be- as she says in her acknowledgements - " as tight as a drum", but for me, it ended up being like a reporting of events, rather than a deep look into each character, to find out why Laverne and Hal hated each other, why Laverne let the driver of the truck that killed Lily off the hook, why she put water in Hal's gas tank. I know it was jealousy, but I just didn't get involved with this book at all. 

I haven't had much luck with good reads this fall- I read 700 pages of The Edge of Eternity before I just couldn't stand it any longer. Yuck- good thing I've got my jigsaw puzzles and the Blue Jays!