On My Wishlist #4

On My Wishlist is a fun weekly event hosted by Book Chick City and runs every Saturday. It's where you can list all the books that you desperately want but haven't actually bought yet. They can be old, new or forthcoming.

The Butterfly Garden by Chip St. Clair

From Goodreads:

Fear rocked Chip St. Clair's world. As a boy, he never knew what would set his father off--maybe the ice cubes had melted in his glass of Tab, maybe dinner was overcooked or undercooked or the gravy was too runny. Regardless, the beatings always came. As did the twisted games of cat and mouse--being thrown from a rowboat into frigid Lake Michigan, the middle-of-the-night moves to different states, or being left to dangle over a ten-story balcony while his father watched from inside. But one fateful night when the police answered the call, the truth came to light from the shadows, sparking national headlines: Chip St. Clair's entire life--his name, even his date of birth--had been a lie, and the man he called 'Dad' was an impostor, an escaped child killer who had been on the run for over two decades. The stunning revelation would send one of America's Most Wanted to justice and another on a quest for his true identity. With chilling detail and a riveting, lyrical narrative, The Butterfly Garden reveals St. Clair's struggle to piece together his haunted past before it consumes him and shares his inspiring metamorphosis from victim to victim's advocate. The Butterfly Garden is a timeless triumph, a reminder that hope can be the most powerful of all emotions, freeing us to soar despite the past and the odds against us.

Cakewalk: A Memoir by Kate Moses

From Goodreads: From the author of the internationally acclaimed Wintering: A Novel of Sylvia Plath comes a funny, touching memoir of a crummy—and crumby—childhood. Growing up in the 1960s and ’70s, Kate Moses was surrounded by sugar: Twinkies in the basement freezer, honey on the fried chicken, Baby Ruth bars in her father’s sock drawer. But sweetness of the more intangible variety was harder to come by. Her parents were disastrously mismatched, far too preoccupied with their mutual misery to notice its effects on their kids. A frustrated artist, Kate’s beautiful, capricious mother lived in a constant state of creative and marital emergency, enlisting Kate as her confidante—“We’re the girls, we have to stick together”—and instructing her three children to refer to her in public as their babysitter. Kate’s father was aloof, ambitious, and prone to blasts of withering abuse increasingly directed at the daughter who found herself standing between her embattled parents. Kate looked for comfort in the imaginary worlds of books and found refuge in the kitchen, where she taught herself to bake and entered the one realm where she was able to wield control. Telling her own story with the same lyricism, compassion, and eye for lush detail she brings to her fiction, coupled with the candor and humor she is known for in her personal essays, Kate Moses leavens each tale of her coming-of-age in Cakewalk with a recipe from her lifetime of confectionary obsession. There is the mysteriously erotic German Chocolate Cake implicated in a birds-and-bees speech when Kate was seven, the gingerbread people her mother baked for Christmas the year Kate officially realized she was fat, the chocolate chip cookies Kate used to curry favor during a hilariously gruesome adolescence, and the brownies she baked for her idol, the legendary M.F.K. Fisher, who pronounced them “delicious.” Filled with the abundance and joy that were so lacking in Kate’s youth, Cakewalk is a wise, loving tribute to life in all its sweetness as well as its bitterness and, ultimately, a recipe for forgiveness

The Sky Always Hears Me: And the Hills Don't Mind by Kirstin Cronn-Mills

From Goodreads:

I borrow the car again from Grandma and drive out to my hill. I scream I AM A BIG FAT ZERO, plus I AM SWEARING OFF KISSING FOREVER, and I HATE BEING A SECRET SEX FIEND, about sixteen times each. Then I sit very still and watch a hawk swirl over the fields. I have to get a new life before I go crazy.

Sixteen-year-old Morgan lives in a hick town. Her mom was killed in a car accident when she was two, her dad drinks, and her stepmom is a non-entity. Her boyfriend Derek is boring and she can't stop staring at her coworker Rob's cute butt. Then there's the kiss she shared with her neighbor Tessa . . . But when Morgan discovers a devastating secret about the one person she completely trusted, her entire world crashes and she must redefine her life and herself.

Compelling and complex, The Sky Always Hears Me is a fast-paced narrative with raw humor and a heart-wrenching twist.

What books are on YOUR wishlist?

Hop on down!

It's Friday! Time to do the Book Blogger Hop!!! Join in the fun! Go visit Jenn at Crazy For Books and join us!

Here are some new friends that I have met at The Hop!

Jeanne at A Cup Of Tea And A Cozy For Me

E.J. Stevens from From The Shadows

Priya Parmar from The Plum Bean Project

TGIF!

Friday Finds hosted by Should Be Reading asks us to share what great books we heard about or discovered in the past week.


Today my find is Torn by Amber Lehman, which I found while browsing Shellie @ Layers Of Thought's Goodreads shelves!

It was different this time; we weren t acting on a dare. I knew our motive; we were practicing the act, hoping to impress the right boy when it came time. But then something happened in the mix of the moment, in the mix of the alcohol. It wasn t planned, but somehow our kissing experiment turned into something else. Things went further . . . and once they had, once I returned to earth from the euphoria . . . I wrestled with my feelings at that frank realization, questioning whether our said objective was entirely true.
When fourteen-year old Krista McKinley transfers from Catholic school in Ohio to California s public Crestmount High, she discovers she has a lot to learn. Luckily, she is befriended by Carrie and Brandon and things start to look up. But when a simple dare tests Krista s values, it sends her entire world spiraling into a confusing series of events that leaves her questioning her identity as well as the people around her.

• Perfect Paperback: 404 pages
• Publisher: Closet Case Press; First edition (July 15, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0979593360
• ISBN-13: 978-0979593369

What did YOU find today????

Book Review - No Place Safe by Kim Reid

From Amazon.com:

In this compelling memoir, Kim Reid hauntingly transports readers to the innocent world of a childhood protected by a loving home, yet threatened by a danger beyond any child's understanding...

Thirteen-year-old Kim Reid will never forget the summer of 1979. In those precious free moments when she is not taking care of her little sister while her single mother works as a cop, Kim's days are filled with thoughts of boys, makeup, and starting high school in the fall. When a heartbreaking discovery along a quiet Atlanta road makes the news, Kim's mother instructs her girls to be careful. Accustomed to her mother's warnings, Kim feels she already knows how to stay alert and carry herself as if she's not scared.

But as the shadow of danger lengthens over Kim's once-sunny landscape of friends and family, she learns there is no place safe. While her mother becomes preoccupied with her increasingly high-profile job, Kim feels life unraveling. Straddling the worlds of her black neighborhood and her wealthy white school, teetering on the brink between girl and woman, Kim is torn between fitting in and finding her own voice; between becoming strong and clinging to the last traces of her childhood.

In this deeply intimate, powerful narrative, Kim Reid weaves an unforgettable story of growing up and the events that shape us forever...

My Thoughts:

From the minute I picked this book up until I finished it, I was engrossed in Kim Reid's life growing up in Atlanta in the late 70's/early 80's. There are a lot of references to music, fashion and other things that were popular back then, and it was fun to read about Kim enjoying the same things that I did during that same time period. Her story centers around the Atlanta Child Murders that occurred over a three year time period, from 1979 to 1982. Kim's mother was a police officer/detective and was assigned to the task force that was formed to investigate the murders. Kim's mother did not share a whole lot of information with Kim and her sister, Bridgette, but she did what she could do as a single mom to take care of her girls during that time. Kim was there for her mother whenever she would get home after a rough day of searching/interrogating, and would often be more like a friend to her rather than a daughter. During this time, Kim and her sister were not allowed to do most of the things that they used to enjoy doing. Kim loved to play basketball out in the street at dusk in the summertime, loved to go to parties in her neighborhood, and go shopping. One by one, all of those things were "taken away" because of the murders. Although Kim resented her mother for making the new rules and working long, hard hours, she constantly reminded herself of what the effect of the murders was having on her mother. Kim Reid's memoir is honest, gritty and unforgettable. She experienced a lot of turmoil during her junior high/high school years...having to grow up fast and be the adult to her sister, get a job and help her mother with the bills, and be a teenager all at the same time. She held her head up high and was proud of who she was, where she lived, and who her mother was. This is a beautifully written memoir. Anyone who loves memoirs like I do will love it. It is an unforgettable story written by a very talented author.
Please visit Kim's website at www.kimreid.com.

Very Good!

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Dafina (October 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0758220529
• ISBN-13: 978-0758220523

~200 Followers Giveaway~

My way of saying "Thank You!" to all of my followers! I appreciate each and every one of you! Soooooo......to show my appreciation, I am giving away one $20.00 Amazon.com gift card!

You must be a follower to enter! The deadline to enter is midnight on April 28th, 2010. The winner will be announced shortly after.

Thanks to all of my friends here in the blogosphere that read my blog and help me to keep it going.

XOXOXOXO

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read*
* Open to a random page*
*Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page *

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers! ;)

My teaser today is from No Place Safe: A Family Memoir by Kim Reid

~No amount of money can equal a soul, but to take a child away, to make his family ache for the hole his taking leaves, for two hundred dollars was just plain meanness. In my mind, this could only be someone who saw no value in the life of that child and wanted to make sure the world knew it, the way diners who've received bad service will leave a penny instead of no tip at all, to make sure the waiter gets the point.~ pg. 127

What's YOUR teaser today????

Let's Go To The Hop!

It's Friday....and you know what that means! Another Book Blogger Hop, hosted by Jenn at Crazy for Books!

This is a great way to find new blogs, visit your old friends, and make lots of new ones!!

Visit her blog for more information and to sign up! Just click the link above.....and.....I'll see you at The Hop!

Friday Finds!

Friday Finds hosted by Should Be Reading asks us to share what great books we heard about or discovered in the past week.



My finds are from browsing on Librarything.com:

When the Finch Rises by Jack Riggs:

When the Finch Rises is the debut novel of an author whose work will be read as classic literature for a long time to come. It is a story full of truths and revelations, transcending its fictional bounds to become something so real and so finely wrought that it will simply astonish. Jack Riggs has created an emotional testament to the myriad shades of the human condition.

It is the late 1960s in the small North Carolina mill town of Ellenton. Twelve-year-old Raybert Williams and his best friend Palmer Conroy live in cramped homes in a working-class neighborhood, but they use the vast outdoors as their personal playground. Yet hardships are never far away. Raybert’s father disappears for days at a time, only to come home broken and battered. Raybert’s mother is a loving woman who battles her own demons while struggling to keep it all together. Palmer’s family life offers no better refuge for the adventure-seeking boys.

But Raybert and Palmer have each other. And in that glorious friendship, they are significantly blessed. They dream together of space flight and moonwalks. They construct a bike jump to rival Evel Knievel’s–and they’ll run it once they work up the courage. Knievel tempted fate and won, taking a leap over twenty buses on faith alone, soaring high and landing safely, even after many crashes and broken bones. Palmer and Raybert have their own plan that, once executed, will take them all the way to the ocean, landing them intact and together on the other side of freedom.

Through the scrim of adolescence and poverty, Jack Riggs offers a glimpse of universal human foibles and singular moments of transcendence. Fiercely honest and beautifully narrated, When the Finch Rises flashes like the sharp rim of the eclipsed moon on the night when Raybert and Palmer’s fate is finally revealed.


Manhattan, When I Was Young by Mary Cantwell:

Former writer and editor for Vogue and Mademoiselle, Cantwell locates her memories of work, friends, marriage, and motherhood in the places where she's dwelled. Five Manhattan apartments act as mental guide in retracing the footsteps of her past. From neurosis and near anorexia to the awe of her first Paris trip, Cantwell's memoir speaks intimately, honestly, and in a generous way that makes readers feel as though they were listening to a personal account retold only for them. Her earlier work, American Girl: Scenes from a Small-Town Childhood (1992), garnered attention and praise for the strength of its language, choice of details, and resonance of subject matter. This book, too, has all that plus Manhattan's eloquence in the 1950s and 1960s. Although this chronicle could easily succumb to politically correct revisions of the past or become a sentimental trip down memory lane, Cantwell avoids those pitfalls through sincerity--a true attempt to recall accurately and learn from her past. Somewhat literary, offering a little superficial fashion world "glam" and New York savvy, this book should appeal to many different kinds of readers.

What did YOU find today???

What Are You Waiting For?

Waiting On Wednesday is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

My WOW pick today is Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship by Gail Caldwell.

Product Description

“It’s an old, old story: I had a friend and we shared everything, and then she died and so we shared that, too.”

So begins this gorgeous memoir by Pulitzer Prize winner Gail Caldwell, a testament to the power of friendship, a story of how an extraordinary bond between two women can illuminate the loneliest, funniest, hardest moments in life, including the final and ultimate challenge.

They met over their dogs. Both writers, Gail Caldwell and Caroline Knapp became best friends, talking about everything from their shared struggle with alcohol to their love of books. They walked the woods of New England and rowed on the Charles River, and the miles they logged on land and water became a measure of the interior ground they covered. From disparate backgrounds but with striking emotional similarities, these two private, fiercely self-reliant women created an attachment more profound than either of them could ever have foreseen.

Rich with the joys of raising dogs and the rivalries of competitive sports, their friendship helped them define the ordinary moments of life as the ones worth cherishing. Then, several years into this remarkable connection, Knapp was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.

With her signature exquisite prose, Caldwell mines the deepest levels of devotion and grief in this moving memoir about treasuring and losing a best friend, and about coming of age in midlife. Let’s Take the Long Way Home is a celebration of life and of the transformation that comes from intimate connection—and it affirms, once again, why Gail Caldwell is recognized as one of our bravest and most honest literary voices.

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Random House (August 10, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400067383
• ISBN-13: 978-1400067381

What are YOU waiting for today?

Book Review - Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

Product Description

I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ.


Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas.” As her family lay dying, little Libby fled their tiny farmhouse into the freezing January snow. She lost some fingers and toes, but she survived–and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, Ben sits in prison, and troubled Libby lives off the dregs of a trust created by well-wishers who’ve long forgotten her.

The Kill Club is a macabre secret society obsessed with notorious crimes. When they locate Libby and pump her for details–proof they hope may free Ben–Libby hatches a plan to profit off her tragic history. For a fee, she’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings to the club . . . and maybe she’ll admit her testimony wasn’t so solid after all.

As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the narrative flashes back to January 2, 1985. The events of that day are relayed through the eyes of Libby’s doomed family members–including Ben, a loner whose rage over his shiftless father and their failing farm have driven him into a disturbing friendship with the new girl in town. Piece by piece, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started–on the run from a killer.


My Thoughts:

I gave this book three stars because I was surprised at the end. It was not what I expected at all, and I love to be surprised!

As for the rest of the story.....none of the characters were particularly likeable, especially Libby. I didn't care for the storyline about The Kill Club, but it was necessary in order for Libby to re-connect with all of the people from the past who were involved with the murders. There were parts that I particularly enjoyed and there were parts where I just cringed while reading and thought "Ok. I don't have to finish this book if I don't want to...." then the story would pick up again.

Ehh, I dunno. You will have to read it for yourself. I did not enjoy it as much as I did Sharp Objects, but it did have its moments.


Good

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Shaye Areheart Books; First Edition first Printing edition (May 5, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307341569
• ISBN-13: 978-0307341563

No time to post.......

Hi All!

Just a quick note to let you know that I'm still here....I won't be able to read/comment/post on a daily basis anymore (at least right now). I spent a lot of my "down" time at work blogging and visiting other blogs, and I have just been bombarded with some extra work. So! That leaves me time to blog in the evenings only.....and sometimes when I get home from work I am so wiped out. I will try to do a short post every evening, and spend the weekends getting caught up reading blogs, so please don't think that I am ignoring you. Don't these people at work know that I have personal business to attend to during the day????LOL!!

Thanks for hanging in there with me.....thanks for the comments.....thanks for being my friends. You all are awesome.


XOXO

Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page.

The following books came to me from Paperbackswap.com.







Meeting Lizzy by Sarabeth Carter

Neverland by Douglas Clegg

The Opposite of Me by Sarah Pekkanen

Before I Say Goodbye by Ruth Picardie

Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah

Velva Jean Learns to Drive by Jennifer Niven

Arcadia Falls by Carol Goodman


What books came into your house last week?

On My Wishlist #3

On My Wishlist is a fun weekly event hosted by Book Chick City and runs every Saturday. It's where you can list all the books that you desperately want but haven't actually bought yet. They can be old, new or forthcoming.


In This Way I Was Saved by Brian DeLeeuw
Book Description:

On a chilly November afternoon, six-year-old Luke Nightingale's life changes forever. On the playground across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he encounters Daniel. Soon the boys are hiding from dinosaurs and shooting sniper rifles. Within hours, Luke and his mother, Claire, are welcoming Daniel into their Upper East Side apartment -- and their lives.

Daniel and Luke are soon inseparable. With his parents divorcing, Luke takes comfort in having a near-constant playmate. But there's something strange about Daniel, who is more than happy to bind himself to the Nightingales. The divorce has cut Luke's father out of the picture, and as his increasingly fragile mother struggles with the insidious family depression, Daniel -- shrewd, adventurous, and insightful -- provides Luke both recreation and refuge.

As Luke grows from a child to an adolescent to a young man, he realizes that as much as his mother needs him, Daniel needs him more. Jealous of Luke's other attachments, Daniel moves from gestures of friendship into increasingly sinister manipulations. In the end, Luke finds himself in a daily battle for control of his own life -- wondering whether he or Daniel will emerge victorious.

Brian DeLeeuw's debut is a haunting and provocative story of a family's love and madness that you will not be able to put down.

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (August 4, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1439103135

Pig Candy: Taking My Father South, Taking My Father Home, A Memoir by Lise Funderburg.
Book Description:

Pig Candy is the poignant and often comical story of a grown daughter getting to know her dying father in his last months. During a series of visits with her father to the South he'd escaped as a young black man, Lise Funderburg, the mixed-race author of the acclaimed Black, White, Other, comes to understand his rich and difficult background and the conflicting choices he has had to make throughout his life.

Lise Funderburg is a child of the '60s, a white-looking mixed-race girl raised in an integrated Philadelphia neighborhood. As a child, she couldn't imagine what had made her father so strict, demanding, and elusive; about his past she knew only that he had grown up in the Jim Crow South and fled its brutal oppression as a young man. Then, just as she hits her forties, her father is diagnosed with advanced and terminal cancer -- an event that leads father and daughter together on a stream of pilgrimages to his hometown in rural Jasper County, Georgia. As her father's escort, proxy, and, finally, nurse, Funderburg encounters for the first time the fragrant landscape and fraught society -- and the extraordinary food -- of his childhood.

In succulent, evocative, and sometimes tart prose, the author brings to life a fading rural South of pecan groves, family-run farms, and pork-laden country cuisine. She chronicles small-town relationships that span generations, the dismantling of her own assumptions about when race does and doesn't matter, and the quiet segregation that persists to this day. As Funderburg discovers the place and people her father comes from, she also, finally, gets to know her magnetic, idiosyncratic father himself. Her account of their thorny but increasingly close relationship is full of warmth, humor, and disarming candor. In one of his last grand actsFunderburg's father recruits his children, neighbors, and friends to throw a pig roast -- an unforgettable meal that caps an unforgettable portrait of a man enjoying his life and loved ones right up through his final days.

Pig Candy takes readers on a stunning journey that becomes a universal investigation of identity and a celebration of the human will, familial love, and, ultimately, life itself.

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; Original edition (May 12, 2009)Language: English
• Language: English

By Accident by Susan Kelly

A grieving mother finds solace from her son’s death in a relationship that quickly blurs the line between friendship and intimacy. By Accident portrays a year in the life of a woman after the accidental death of her teenage son. Laura Lucas is numbed by the loss, a loss that is paralleled in the spate of upscale construction—and attendant destruction—in her starter-home neighborhood. It’s about Laura's relationship with a young tree surgeon who slowly becomes a replacement for her son—but also an object of desire.

The story reveals the delicate nexus where solace becomes sex; the role of men and women as unmarried friends; and examines grief in a marriage. It portrays the pain of change and the poignancy of acceptance through Laura's eyes, and occasionally, through the quirky outlook of her ten-year-old daughter. And before the story ends, another brutal, random accident will redefine Laura's life once again.

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Pegasus (May 5, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1605980889

What's on YOUR wishlist today?

Friday Finds - April 2, 2010

Friday Finds hosted by Should Be Reading asks us to share what great books we heard about or discovered in the past week.


My find today is The Rope Walk by Carrie Brown.

From Amazon.com:

The Rope Walk brings us the dazzling story of a pivotal summer in the life of Alice, a redheaded tomboy and motherless girl who is beloved and protected by her five older brothers and her widower father, a professor of Shakespeare. On Memorial Day, at her tenth birthday party in the garden of her Vermont village home, Alice meets two people unlike any she’s known before. Theo is a mixed-race New York City kid visiting his white grandparents for the summer. Kenneth is a cosmopolitan artist with AIDS who has come home to convalesce with his middle-aged sister. Alice and Theo form an instant bond and, almost as quickly, find themselves drawn into the orbit of the magisterial Kenneth. When the children begin a daily routine of reading aloud to the artist, who is losing his eyesight, they discover the journals of Lewis and Clark and decide to embark on their own wilderness adventure: they plan and secretly build a “rope walk” through the woods for Kenneth and in the process learn the first of many hard truths about the way adults see the world, no matter that they are often wrong.

The great gift of The Rope Walk is its exquisitely poised writing. Alice’s narrative is a profound experience of innocence, of perception balanced between childhood and adulthood. The flying spark of new friendship, the first intimation of adult love, the consolation of devotion, which allow Alice and Theo to shed light in the midst of darkness and to find joy in mutual understanding: these glistening threads are drawn together in a timeless story–profound, seductive, wise, and moving, from first to last.

What did YOU find today?

My Favorite Reads

My Favorite Reads is hosted by Alyce at At Home With Books, where she spotlights a favorite book that she has read in the past.

I have chosen Lily by Cindy Bonner for my Favorite Read today!

From Kirkus Reviews

Bonner's beguiling first novel--about love between a hard- working farm girl and an outlaw in 1883 Texas--manages to be thoroughly romantic without romanticizing violence: a wonderful evocation of time and place and the voice of a strong, hopeful 15- year-old girl. Lily DeLony never meant to go wrong. Why, she wonders, did she have to be different from all the other decent people in town, and be able to see the good in Marion Beatty instead of just the bad? She was maybe more vulnerable than most--motherless and overloaded with endless responsibilities, with no softness or comfort in a hardscrabble life--but Lily is no one's victim or fool. She is moved not just by Marion's charm, good looks, and their stolen kisses but by his own terrible situation: the small town of McDade judges the whole Beatty family no good; Marion has been condemned for his wild older brothers' sins. Not only that: the Beattys get blamed for every violent crime that takes place in the country, even when Lily knows for a fact--or close to it--that they are being falsely accused. As she watches virtuous people, including her father, step over all moral lines in acts of vigilante violence, Lily takes Marion's part. By the time she finds she's been overly optimistic about his innocence, Lily has bit by bit given up old ideas of right and wrong and is committed to her outlaw for better or worse. Even readers who don't approve of Lily's love-choice will cheer for her all the way.

It has been every bit of sixteen years since I read this wonderful story...and it has stayed with me! I, as a rule, do not read any historical fiction...I just don't like it. This book, however, sucked me right in to the days of the old west. Innocent 15 year old Lily falls in love with Outlaw Marion Beatty and they begin a whirlwind romance despite how others in the town, including Lily's family, feel.

Trust me, this book is worth the read. I am going to purchase a copy of it for my own library. I remember when I finished this book, I sat back, hugged the book to my chest, and let out a contented sigh.

• Hardcover: 350 pages
• Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill; 1st edition (October 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0945575955
• ISBN-13: 978-0945575955

For information about Cindy Bonner, please visit http://wiredforbooks.org/bonner.htm