The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker

As often happens, I was intrigued by the title and the book cover for this novel. Fortunately, it turned out to be one of my favorite reads this year, with a really good story, a variety of characters, some mysteries, betrayals, and of course, it held my interest all the way through. I read the book through the Bay County Library.

Here's the book jacket description:

When Truly Plaice's mother was pregnant, the town of Aberdeen joined together in betting how record-breakingly huge the baby boy would ultimately be. The girl who proved to be Truly paid the price of her enormity; her father blamed her for her mother's death in childbirth, and was totally ill equipped to raise either this giant child or her polar opposite sister Serena Jane, the epitome of feminine perfection. When he, too, relinquished his increasingly tenuous grip on life, Truly and Serena Jane are separated--Serena Jane to live a life of privilege as the future May Queen and Truly to live on the outskirts of town on the farm of the town sadsack, the subject of constant abuse and humiliation at the hands of her peers.

Serena Jane's beauty proves to be her greatest blessing and her biggest curse, for it makes her the obsession of classmate Bob Bob Morgan, the youngest in a line of Robert Morgans who have been doctors in Aberdeen for generations. Though they have long been the pillars of the community, the earliest Robert Morgan married the town witch, Tabitha Dyerson, and the location of her fabled shadow book--containing mysterious secrets for healing and darker powers--has been the subject of town gossip ever since. Bob Bob Morgan, one of Truly's biggest tormentors, does the unthinkable to claim the prize of Serena Jane, and changes the destiny of all Aberdeen from there on.

When Serena Jane flees town and a loveless marriage to Bob Bob, it is Truly who must become the woman of a house that she did not choose and mother to her eight-year-old nephew Bobbie. Truly's brother-in-law is relentless and brutal; he criticizes her physique and the limitations of her health as a result, and degrades her more than any one human could bear. It is only when Truly finds her calling--the ability to heal illness with herbs and naturopathic techniques--hidden within the folds of Robert Morgan's family quilt, that she begins to regain control over her life and herself. Unearthed family secrets, however, will lead to the kind of betrayal that eventually break the Morgan family apart forever, but Truly's reckoning with her own demons allows for both an uprooting of Aberdeen County, and the possibility of love in unexpected places.

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimimanda Adiche

This is one of our Book Club selections for this year. I started reading it en route to Florida, but just now, at 167 pages, I gave up on it, because I'm bored with it. I've met the three main characters: the twin sisters, and the houseboy, who is probably the most interesting character, but nothing has really happened yet, and I find I'm just not interested in what happens to them. There are just too many good books waiting to be read!

The Earth Hums in B Flat by Mari Strachan

This is a lovely story, set in a small town in Wales. Gwenni, 12 years old, is the narrator, her sister Bethan is a shrew, and her mother Magdalen, appears to have some secrets that have caused her to take some powerful tranquillizers, especially after Gwenni's friend, Elin Evans, and her two children, leave town after Elin's husband is found murdered. Gwenni is very close to her father, known as Tada. The Welsh nomenclature was a bit puzzling at first, but this was a lovely story, charmingly told,and the author is obviously well-versed in the way young people can sometimes misinterpret things, or indeed, clarify things that otherwise might not be discussed at all.

Gwenni has a wonderful imagination: I especially enjoyed Mrs. LLewellyn Pugh's fox stole, which Gwenni swears blinked at her in church! And, let Gwenni herself explain the title:

When I sang the note to Mr. Hughes he said it was B flat but he laughed when I said it was the note the Earth hummed. He doesn’t know how the Earth’s deep, never-ending note clothes me in rainbow colors and fills my head with all the books ever written. I could stay up here forever without the need for anything else in the whole world.

SOUTH OF BROAD by Pat Conroy

Twelve years ago, I read Beach Music by Conroy while we were in St. Martin, and enjoyed it immensely, so I put this title on my list of "Must Reads" when it was published. Sandra loaned it to me to take with me to Florida, but I got it read in a matter of days- even had to put the oven timer on to limit my reading time so I could get packing and preparations for Florida done!

Once again, Charleston is the setting, with 10 young people the cast of characters, from their meeting as teenagers at the high school where the main character's mother, Dr. King, is the principal. Leo, her son, has just returned from time in a mental institution after Leo's older brother committed suicide. His friends include Sheba and Trevor Poe, twins from across the street whose mother is an alcoholic and the father is a prison-escapee; Starla and Niles, runaways from the mountains of Appalachia, socialite Molly, her boyfriend Chad. and his sister, star basketball player Fraser.

The story takes place across two decades, from the beginnings of racial integration in the south, through the AIDS crisis of the 80s to a horrific hurricane in Charleston in 1990. It was a really good story, interesting characters, some heart-stopping tragedies, and a travel postcard of Charleston to boot.

One of my favorites for 2009, for sure.

Bruno, Chief of Police by Martin Walker

I loved the cover, and the reviews on Book Browse, for the most part,talked about the charm of this mystery novel, which is set in a small town in France where Bruno is called the Chief because he's the only policeman, his best friend is the Mayor, he's a gourmet cook, etc, etc, so when I found the book n Chapters in Waterloo, I bought it. It's some 262 pages, and it took me a while to figure out why it was taking me so long to get through it, when I realized my attention was drifting away from it quite easily, and I'd have to force myself back. Then I decided to think about why this was happening, and I realized the author was trying to not only set the stage for this mystery, but was giving us a history lesson too, as well as a taste of life in rural France, and a romance with a karate king police investigator. Too much, way too much, and I ended up being interested in no aspect of this book, except of course for the cover which really is charming and sweet. Was the author trying to educate us, or cash in on the charms of Alexander McCall Smith? No contest- Smith accomplishes far more, and I'm sorry I bought this book. I'll donate it to the library, so someone else can hopefully enjoy it more than I did.

The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson

Wow! I love a page-turner, and this was a great one. I read the first in this trilogy last year ( see 2008 entries), enjoyed it okay, but this one was REALLY good, so much better than the first one, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. My only criticism is that the author assumed you had read the first book; I did, but I had forgotten a lot of the details of Lisbeth's earlier experiences. She's a wonderful heroine, completely mystifying to those around her, and she goes through a lot in this book for sure. I enjoy thrillers when they're well-written, which means you just can't surmise what happened and you have to keep reading- you want to- to find out. Great stuff!!

Leaving Earth by Helen Humphreys

This past Saturday, we discussed the novels of Helen Humphreys, and this particular novel sounded intriguing to me, so I borrowed it from Ann. It is based on true events in Toronto in the 30s, more specifically, two women aviators circling the City of Toronto non-stop for 19 days, trying to break an endurance record. On the ground, a 12-year-old girl named Maddy is fascinated with Grace, one of the two women fliers, and even believes that Grace is her mother, not too hard a stretch because her actual mother doesn't appear to care for her. Maddy's family is Jewish, and are persecuted by Nazi sympathizers in the city- I remember reading about this in another novel based in Toronto entitled The Stubborn Season by Laurie Davis. Grace is married to Jack, another aviator who has set a record for endurance flying, and Grace has set off to break this record. Jack, who flies up every eight hours to refuel the two-seater Moth and to bring food, is quite jealous of his wife's attempt, and does everything he can to sabotage the women's efforts.

Humphreys' novels are easy to read, but have a lot of food for thought. This one was my second favorite of them, the first favorite of course being The Lost Garden.