Tag Archive | A2Z

X for the unknown – You Are My Only, by Beth Kephart (fiction)

Apr27

Every mother’s nightmare.
Her baby kidnapped!

Every teen girl knows that her mother really doesn’t understand her.
That’s just the way it is – rules that don’t make sense,
being grounded for no good reason.

We know that the stories of Emmy as a young mother and Sophie as a teen several years later must be connected somehow – author Beth Kephart as much as tells readers this from the start of the book.

But how the connection was made and how it falls apart, that’s the real story, conveyed by the distinctive voices of Emmy in the mental hospital and Sophie in yet another rental house, longing to be with Joey in the world outside.

Published in fall 2011, You Are My Only should be available at your local library or independent bookstore now – don’t miss it!
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Book info: You Are My Only / Beth Kephart. Laura Geringer Books / Egmont USA, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]

My Recommendation: Someone stole tiny Baby from her swing, leaving Emmy to face her husband’s wrath, the unbelief of the police, the dark of the mental hospital. Fourteen years later, Sophie and her mom move often, the teen homeschooled and alone, the mother overworked and burdened, always looking to stay ahead of the “No Good” as they find what others have left behind in the rental houses, but never talk about her past.

Then a boy spots Sophie in her upstairs window. Shouldn’t he be at school right now? She would never dare to be near the windows when people were nearby – Mom would be so angry, and the No Good might find them. A young man, Joey, who wants to teach her to throw a baseball, to make cookies with his aunts, to listen as he reads Willa Cather to them to make up for the journeys they can no longer travel together.

Emmy and her vibrant, jangling roommate Autumn have been thinking for years of how they would leave the mental hospital and its moaners and shouters and squeaky linoleum halls. Does anyone on the Outside still remember that they are there? When a message arrives from Arlen, who helped Emmy escape from her abusive husband after Baby was stolen, they know that it’s time to fly.

Sophie wants answers. Joey knows how he was orphaned by a car wreck, knows how he arrived at the home of his aunt Cloris and her sweetheart Helen, knows how they are dealing with Aunt Helen’s failing health. Sophie thinks that answers might be hidden in the boxes marked “personal” that they move unopened from house to house, so she creeps into the basement when Mom is at work.

Mysteries and histories, Cather and cookies, Archimedean solids and wisps of perhaps… alternating chapters told by Emmy and by Sophie weave their stories into a net to catch memories and maybe even the truth. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

W for Widdershins and witches – Body of Water, by Sarah Dooley (book review)

Apr26

book cover of Body of Water by Sarah Dooley published by Fiewel and FriendsWednesday – her home is gone in minutes.
Wondering why her best friend has gone into hiding.
Widdershins, her wonderful dog – gone forever?

Why can’t people just be nice when they don’t understand someone? As nature-centered Wiccans, Ember’s family stands out too much in this small Southern town, no matter how quiet they are. Her mom reads tarot cards for townspeople who call her a witch behind her back and won’t even say hello to her at the store. Ember uses her spells only for peace, for clarity, to ward off Ivy’s nightmares.

Her continuing search for loyal dog Widdershins – “who was a good dog and came when I called her – six times out of ten” – and for objects that the fire left behind brings her close enough to former best friend Anson’s place every week that he might speak to her, tell her why he set the fire… but his silence is very, very loud.

Float out on the lake with Ember, find balance and clarity on her favorite Body of Water, feel how being homeless doesn’t mean being hopeless.
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Book info: Body of Water / Sarah Dooley. Fiewel and Friends, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site]

My Recommendation: Three hours after the fire, Ember wonders if Anson did it, if her best friend torched her family’s trailer house everything they owned, if that would keep his father from doing worse things to them for their beliefs.

Just because folks in the little Southern town call them witches doesn’t make them bad people. Dad calls their beliefs Wicca, Mom says not-quite-Wicca and teaches young teen Ember spells for clarity and balance with nature and peace. She also says that revenge is a bad seed to plant in your mind as it just might take root in your heart.

So now they’re homeless, Mom and Dad and Ember and little sister Ivy. She can’t find her dog Widdershins, and big brother Isaac is away at college. No room in Grandma’s tiny apartment, as if that devout lady would welcome her pagan son and family anyway, so eventually they find themselves at Goose Landing Campground, beside the lake where Grandpa drowned, the event that stopped Mom and Dad’s wanderings.

Ember ventures back to her burned-out home every week, searching for things that the fire might have spared – half a pair of Mom’s sewing scissors, a soup ladle – and for Widdershins. She mourns the loss of her spell journal, of Ivy’s random collections, of her former best friend. The only place she finds peace is floating far out in the center of the lake, where the water and the sky hold her.

And now it’s time for school to start. How can Ember and Ivy attend when their address is a pup tent, when they have no notebooks or decent clothes? Can they ever find a place to live when Dad can’t find a job? Did Widdershins perish in the fire or run away to find a safe home? Will Ember even be able to speak to Anson when she sees him again?

A story that circles back again and again to home and family and hope, Body of Water brings readers along on Ember’s search for clarity and balance and peace. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

V for vampires, preparing for The Hunt, by Andrew Fukuda (book review)

Apr25
book cover of The Hunt, by Andrew Fukuda. Published by St Martins Griffin | recommended on BooksYALove.com

As a human in his vampire-majority world, Gene learned survival rules from his father:
Never smile.
Never sweat.
Never sleep in public.
Never stand out.
Never forget who you are.

Having to drink water in secret, to remove all body hair, to train himself to always react exactly as his schoolmates react, to stay a loner even after being orphaned – it’s a wonder than he’s made it undetected into his teens.

If the other members of the Heper Hunt discover that Gene is a human with false fangs, then there will be one more heper to be chased and devoured alive by the unimaginably swift and vicious vampires.

Publication date in the USA is May 8, 2012 – The Hunt begins!
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Book info: The Hunt (The Hunt, book 1) / Andrew Fukuda. St Martin’s Griffin, 2012. [author’s website] [publisher site] [UK book trailer] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Book Talk: No one in his classes sweats or smiles or cries or has trouble seeing in dim lighting like Gene does. He can’t run fast, doesn’t thirst for blood. As a human “heper” in the vampire world, he’s hiding in plain sight, just trying to make it through another night alive. Then the Hunt is announced – a lottery for the right to chase and kill the last known hepers – and his number is called.

His father drilled rule after rule into him as he grew up: don’t giggle, never get any suntan, don’t fall asleep away from home, keep his grades only average. Somehow he knew that Gene would have to survive on his own someday, would have to pass for a true vampire all alone, just a number instead of a name. One look at their house with the unused sleeping perches and drinking water would doom him to immediate death and dismemberment by ravenous vampires.

The Ruler announces the Heper Hunt one night during school hours, and the Director of the Heper Institute explains the rules – training days, Hunt date, and the added bonus of providing some weapons to the slow, warm-blooded Hepers to make the Hunt last more than a few minutes. Everyone rushes to their computer terminals to get their lottery numbers, waiting for the night when the Hunt winners will be drawn. The excitement at school is unbearable – two students will join the Hunt, Gene and a girl he’s always called Ashley June.

And so his nightmare begins. There’s really very little training for Hunt members to do – the waiting is meant to build up the suspense for citizens who will avidly watch the last humans die in a haze of bloodlust and bone-cracking. How can Gene keep his own human sweat from alerting the vampires when there’s no running water at the Heper Institute to wash with or drink? Will someone come into his room and find him sleeping on the floor instead of hanging from his sleeping perch?

When he finds the Scientist’s journal and watches the heper group through the thick glass dome, Gene realizes that they’re much smarter than any vampire imagines. Can he alert the Hepers to the perils ahead? Is he going to survive waiting for the Hunt to begin? Will Ashley June be the one who discovers his secret?

First in a series, The Hunt takes readers to a dim and hungry future where humankind has one last chance to survive. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

U for Underworld – Abandon, by Meg Cabot (fiction)

Apr24

The underworld, the afterlife…
We always wonder what it’s like, after we die,
but Pierce knows.

If she hadn’t tried to save the dying bird, she wouldn’t have fallen into the near-freezing water, wouldn’t have drowned, wouldn’t have flatlined in the emergency room.

And finding herself in the Underworld, seeing the young man she met in a cemetery as a child, realizing that she’s dead… Pierce just can’t stay, and somehow she escapes back to the world of the living. But she’s never completely here.

Well-known author Meg Cabot retells the Persephone myth with a dark, modern twist in this first book of the Abandon trilogy. Book two, Underworld, will be published May 8, 2012, so hurry to read book 1 at your local library or independent bookstore first.
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Book info: Abandon (Abandon, book 1)/ Meg Cabot. Point Books, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]

My Recommendation: A new start in a tropical paradise…that should cheer up Pierce, right? Somehow, she’s not recovering from her near-death experience very well. Part of her heart must have stayed in the Underworld, with him.

So Mom brought her to Isla Huesos, where she grew up. New house, new school, her uncle and cousin and grandmother nearby – living among the Florida sea breezes and bright flowers of “the Island of Bones” should help her readjust to being alive, to fully recover from being clinically dead after that accident two years ago, to escape from the strange things that happened at her last school.

People ask if she saw a bright light as she died, but not about her seeing John in the Afterlife or escaping from death itself. They don’t know that Pierce met handsome, dangerous John Hayden during her childhood when she tried to revive a dying bird at her grandfather’s funeral in Isla Huesos and succeeded or that he’s given her a necklace that warns her of danger approaching.

Isla Huesos High School has an odd tradition of “Coffin Night,” celebrating a hurricane so fierce that it lifted all the coffins from the cemetery. But this year, Coffin Night has been cancelled because someone has broken the cemetery gates and overturned gravestones. When John caught up with Pierce in the cemetery last night, he didn’t think that they’d be attacked by dark forces – striking back did a bit of damage, but they’d escaped, leaving Pierce’s necklace behind.

When the cemetery sexton shows up at school with her necklace darkening in its danger mode, Pierce has to meet with him later, despite John’s warnings. Does Mr. Smith know about John or is he just trying to frighten the newcomer? Why does her mother warn her about some local families and not others? Why are the storms strengthening so early in the season? Why does Pierce feel drawn to return to the cemetery again and again?

This eerie retelling of the Persephone myth takes readers to the Island of Bones and beyond, as strong winds and stronger feelings take Pierce far beyond herself. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

T for Traitor’s Son, by Hilari Bell (fiction) – ecology, mythology, and rescue

Apr23

His father turned away from his heritage.
His grandfather turned away from his son.
He’s a city kid who avoids the wilderness even more than his dad shuns his Native Alaskan roots, and it’s up to him to turn back ecological disaster.

This parable about a possible future world mixes bioengineered plant plagues with Native American/First Peoples/Native Alaskan mythology and symbols as a reluctant hero must decide whether to get involved in the struggle to rebalance the earth’s ecology using a medicine pouch and ley line nodes and other stuff that freaks him out, like that raven.

The Raven Duet begun in Trickster’s Girl  brings fresh awareness of humankind’s effects on our ecosystems as we read this second book to see if the Traitor’s Son will really come through. We’d better make every day Earth Day.
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Book info: Traitor’s Son (The Raven Duet, book 2) / Hilari Bell. Houghton Mifflin, 2012. [author’s website] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Recommendation: The leather pouch that she tosses to him must be contraband, drugs, something illegal. Jason can’t imagine any other reason that the teen would risk being shot – with real bullets – to get it over the Alaskan border. He certainly couldn’t imagine that it was the only hope for healing the Earth.

He’s only at the border station to pick up his father’s client and drive him back to Anchorage in the vintage electric sportscar he loves so well. Lots of well-earned perks for a Native Alaskan lawyer who was willing to leave his village and defend a lawsuit that made anyone less than one-fourth Native blood – like his own son Jason – ineligible to inherit Native properties and made his people call him a traitor.

Maybe it’s time to visit his grandparents again, Jason thinks, especially after he dreams of an old Native woman who warns him of a young man coming to steal the leather pouch. Then the new Native girl at his school starts him thinking about heritage and ecological disaster and even nature (strange for a city boy like him).

Odd, disturbing things happen when Jase visits his grandparents’ Native village, each one proving that the girl Raven is right about the earth’s ecology falling further out of balance. When she transforms herself into a real raven, Jase begins to believe she might really know what the medicine pouch can do to heal the earth.

How much is this city boy willing to risk to see if she’s right? Being only three-sixteenths Native Alaskan, can he truly step into the spirit world to fight? Traitor’s Son completes the story begun in Trickster’s Girl in this high-tech, high-security future United States whose only hope is the magic recounted in ancient folklore. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

S for Schizophrenia – Border Crossing, by Jessica Lee Anderson (fiction)

Apr21
Being an outsider, a minority, a “half-breed“.
Hearing mocking laughter from privileged people.
Hearing voices in his head telling him to do something about it.

Manz has only his mom’s stories to tell him about his Mexican father and how he died a crazy man. Her boyfriend Tom is a good enough guy, excited about being a father to their baby, sorrowing when Gabe is stillborn. Mom still hasn’t gotten over it, just drinks her dinner, fills Gabriel’s crib with painting after painting.

Who knows why the voices chose to invade his head, why the Messenger is warning Manz that his best friend might turn on him, that the Border Patrol will kill him, that everyone in the little dusty Texas town wants to see the teen dead.

A compelling look at the world through the eyes of schizophrenia – will Manz make the Border Crossing back into sanity after this violent summer?
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Book info: Border Crossing / Jessica Lee Anderson. Milkweed Editions, 2009. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]  Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Recommendation: On the wrong side of the tracks, Manz wonders if things will ever go right for his family – Mexican father dead, white mother drinking herself crazy after his brother was stillborn, competing with illegals for work in the blazing hot Texas summer sun.

At least his pal Jed will be working with him at the dude ranch, pulling up rotted fence posts, putting up new fences, away from Jed’s mean dad who’d sooner hit his son than talk to him. Manz worries about Jed and his sister, having to put up with that abuse.

Thorns and barbed wire, dust and more dust, Manz and Jed are glad to stop for lunch in the cool of the ranch’s chow hall. Of course, Jed flirts relentlessly with the cute Latina girl who serves the guests; Manz is tongue-tied, but Vanessa looks at him, not Jed.

Maybe soon, his mom’s boyfriend Tom will be back from his long-haul trucking run and can get her to calm down and stop drinking again. Manz needs to ask Tom if the Border Patrol is getting more aggressive everywhere – seems like they’re around every corner in Rockhill, watching the migrant workers, watching Manz.

It’s just nervousness about meeting Vanessa’s parents that makes Manz’s brain feel fizzy and loud, just concern about how much longer Jed can fool his dad about working somewhere other than their own orchards that makes the murmurs in his head get louder, panic that he’s being targeted as half-Mexican that causes the voices inside to grow louder and louder.

The Messenger is speaking inside his head, warning Manz that the Border Patrol has begun Operation Wetback again, will deport him, will kill him, will take away his mother. As the loudness of the Messenger out-shouts the summer thunderstorm, Manz slips further away from himself. Can Jed take care of his sister if the authorities take Manz? What about his mom and Tom? Maybe the Border Patrol will use them to get him!

Schizophrenia tackles Manz and throws him down – can he find his way back to reality? (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

R for Radiate, by Marley Gibson (fiction) – cheerleading, cancer, redemption

Apr20

Go for your dream!
Work hard, practice hard, cheer hard!
Cancer? How can she have bone cancer?

Hayley isn’t going to let surgery or radiation or chemo stop her. It’s her senior year and her only chance to shine as a cheerleader. Stubborn runs in the family, it seems, and her parents’ reluctance to tell her about their hardware store’s dire financial situation could be their undoing.

Great that her grade-school buddy Gabe has moved back to town and is the football team trainer; he’ll make sure that she does her physical therapy correctly before cheer practice every day. Not so great that her hair falls out from the chemotherapy or that her boyfriend Daniel is so squeamish about medical stuff.

The author had bone cancer in high school and used her experiences as the basis of Hayley’s story. She is setting up the Radiate Foundation so that local cheerleading groups can bring goodie baskets, cheers, and smiles to pediatric cancer patients during their hospital stays, just like those visiting cheerleaders did for Hayley.
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Book info: Radiate / Marley Gibson. Graphia Books/HMH, 2012. [author’s website] [book website] [publisher site] [book trailer]

My Recommendation: Hayley decided to try out for cheerleader her senior year and made it! That painful lump on her leg must be just from practicing too hard, learning learning all the cheers. But it’s bone cancer…

No time to waste on worrying about it – it’s aggressive cancer and Hayley’s doctor uncle helps her find the best treatment at the University hospital, three hours away from home and her handsome football player boyfriend Daniel and her buddies and her childhood pal Gabe who just moved back to town.

Thank goodness for cellphones and computers so she can stay in touch a bit. Head cheerleader Chloe isn’t very sympathetic, more worried about having an unbalanced cheer squad for cheerleading camp than about Hayley enduring chemotherapy before school starts.

It’s tough for Hayley to miss cheer camp, to miss the first football game, to stay away from her friends for so many weeks. Thankfully, a group of cheerleaders from a high school near the university find out she was there and burst into her hospital room to invite her to come to their practice and teach them some PHS cheers.

Finally, Hayley gets to go home, back to school – on crutches, with a huge scar on her leg, and with exacting physical therapy instructions – determined to cheer again. But even the most positive thoughts won’t stop her from losing her hair after chemo, won’t keep Daniel close to her, won’t make Chloe less snippy about Hayley missing a little practice time to do her physical therapy under Gabe’s supervision.

Can she truly overcome this cancer? Will her medical bills overwhelm her family? Will her long-absent big sister finally come home to see her?

Based on the author’s true experiences with bone cancer as a teen, Hayley’s story goes beyond mere medical facts to explore what it takes to truly Radiate as a positive force to help others overcome the odds in their lives, too. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Q for quiet journey of love – The Big Crunch, by Pete Hautman (book review)

Apr19

Quietly, June moves to yet another town, yet another school.
Quietly, Wes escapes his smothering relationship with his girlfriend.

We’ve all heard about the Big Bang theory of the universe’s creation, but maybe you haven’t heard about “the big crunch” as one way that the universe might end, with everything condensing down to one tiny point of matter.

Pete Hautman reminds us that falling in love, whether gradual or sudden, is a lot like that big crunch – a moment when you realize that the only point in the entire universe is the person you love.

June, Wes, and their friends are very real people; their enthusiasms and worries are real, too. Is the love that Wes and Junie share real enough to survive her family moving away?

Find this clever, funny love story today at your local library or independent bookstore today.
Yes, I keep pointing you to your neighborhood businesses and institutions because they are worth supporting now so that they can keep supporting you and your community in the future.

And if the description of how June makes real hot chocolate for Wes after they walk together in the snow doesn’t make you immediately long for a cup, I’ll drink it for you.
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Book info: The Big Crunch / Pete Hautman. Scholastic Press, 2011. [author’s website] [author interview] [publisher site] [book trailer] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Book Talk: Another new high school – June hates how her dad’s job moves them so often. Does she want to fit in or stand out this time? Semi-cool dude Wes notices her in the halls, someone new to wonder about while he tries to figure out exactly why he broke up with his girlfriend. His pal Jerry seeks her out immediately as part of his campaign for class president, even though the election is months away.

So the three sort-of friends wander in and out of each other’s days as Jerry pushes his campaign forward, Wes needs someone to talk to since he doesn’t talk to Izzy anymore, and Junie is forced to get involved here in Minnesota when her mom erases all her Chicago friends’ numbers from her phone – “There is no reverse gear in this time machine,” says her dad.

As the days grow cooler, June finds herself somehow dating Jerry steadily. Wes keeps mentally replaying his conversations with her, trying to figure out what made her choose the persistent campaigner over him. His little sister teases him about leaving his brain out in his garage workshop, and his buddies Alan and Alan take advantage of his distractedness to make steady in-roads on his savings during 24-hour poker marathons.

When Wes and Junie run into each other with a thump during a snowstorm, it’s rather eye-opening… and heart-stopping. Time to let Jerry down easy as they become a couple and learn to negotiate the differences in their lives – only child June who’s moved so many times, big brother Wes who’s never gone anywhere.

And then Junie’s dad announces another move on New Year’s Day. How far is it to Omaha? Too far to keep up any sort of relationship, according to her parents. Are they right? Will the Wes-shaped hole in June’s heart ever heal? Will she finally decide for herself whether it’s time to move on or stay connected? Can Wes get past his family ties into Junie’s larger world?

Hautman shows readers four seasons in the lives of June, Wes, and their friends – a year that changes everything and doesn’t change the important things, when a little push turns into The Big Crunch of decisions that cannot be undone. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

P for Prized, by Caragh O’Brien (fiction) – not enough daughters, not enough time

Apr18

In the desert-dry future,
when the oil is depleted and hope is imprisoned,
there are rumors of a safe place beyond the wastelands.

Gaia and her tiny infant sister actually make it to Sylum, to a lake with more water than the teen midwife has ever dreamed of, to morning mists instead of parching winds, to the Matrarch‘s iron-fisted rule over everyone – the women citizens and the second-class males who vastly outnumber them.

Her own grandmother fled here years ago, and Gaia had hoped against hope that she’d still be in Sylum. Alas, she died a decade before their arrival, but left coded messages addressed to Gaia’s parents. Perhaps they’re family history, perhaps they’re clues to why fewer and fewer daughters are born to Sylum each year.

To fully appreciate Gaia’s story, read Birthmarked first, but if you just can’t wait to jump into this dystopian world, the author subtly brings in enough snippets of information from the first book to let you read Prized by itself. If you have read Birthmarked (book 1) and want a “bridge” to Prized, or if you just want a bit more backstory on The Enclave, look for O’Brien’s short story “Tortured” (free eBook at this time).

A mystery, a love story, a cautionary ecological parable.
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Book info: Prized (The Birthmarked Trilogy, book 2) / Caragh O’Brien. Roaring Brook Press, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site] [video book review]

My Recommendation: Gaia is afraid that her infant sister might not survive their escape across the wasteland, but the rumors hadn’t prepared her for the women-ruled settlement that rescues them. Staying in the Enclave would have enslaved them both; living in Sylum will give Maya to someone else to raise as the Matarch rules everyone. And once Gaia stays in Sylum for two days, she can never cross its borders or she’ll die.

So few females have been born in Sylum during recent decades that Gaia, with the birthmark streaking down her face, is accepted at once, and Maya is doubly prized. Now men drastically outnumber women, and they are forbidden to touch women or to vote in assemblies – a kiss means time in prison for assault. Men who have been tested as fertile have a chance to marry, if they impress a woman during the thirty-two games and the Matrarch approves.

When Gaia uses her midwifery skills to help a young woman in distress and won’t tell who, the Matrarch puts her under house arrest. Eventually, Gaia relents, stepping into the sunlight and a wealth of confusion as two brothers very delicately express their interest in her as a wife – and an intruder turns out to be Vlatir, who helped her escape from the Enclave!

As time approaches for the thirty-two games, Gaia gets strong hints that she’ll be the winner’s choice for chaperoned time together. Even prisoners can be chosen to play, so seeing Vlatir on the field is only a slight surprise. But the winner’s choice of companion shocks the whole community, and Gaia finds herself in a whirlwind of old secrets, new information, and terrible danger.

Can Gaia discover why so few girls are born here? Will the Matrarch let her act on any knowledge that she gains? Can she or Maya or even Vlatir survive in this strange place of marshes and lakes and women-archers who guard the assembly hall?

Readers who begin the Birthmarked Trilogy with this second volume will easily follow Gaia’s story as the author skillfully weaves in characters and incidents from the first book throughout the tale. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

O for Ollie in With a Name Like Love, by Tess Hilmo (book review) – truth, hate, and justice in 1950s Ozarks

Apr17

book cover of With a Name Like Love by Tess Hilmo published by Margaret Foster BooksSummertime in the 1950s south,
big revival tent pitched in a meadow outside town,
everyone welcome to sing gospel songs and listen to hopeful words,
three days here, then gone again, down the road to the next town.

But this time, Ollie knows that her singing, preaching family needs to stay a while longer, to help someone who can’t get out of a problem that he didn’t create. This hardscrabble Arkansas farming town had condemned Jimmy’s mom without a second thought. Never mind the impossibility of such a tiny woman beating up her big abusive husband and heaving him into the river…

You need to visit Binder for yourself and meet Jimmy, his wonderful collection of frogs, his gospel-singing neighbor Moody, and Mrs. Mahoney, who opened her home to the family With a Name Like Love – you’ll be so glad that you did.
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Book info: With a Name Like Love / Tess Hilmo. Margaret Foster Books/Farrar Straus Giroux, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site]

My Recommendation: Ollie knows in her heart that Binder, Arkansas could use her daddy’s message of love, but some folks don’t see it that way. A revival won’t change people who jailed a woman just because her abusive husband vanished, will it?

As Ollie and her younger sisters are posting flyers about the revival in town, a boy watches them from behind trees and buildings. Jimmy is not welcome in the general store, whose owner is sure that his mother murdered her abusive husband and disposed of the body without a trace. Many in town agree, so Jimmy keeps to himself up in the Ozark woods, tending to his pet frogs and helping his elderly neighbor Moody. Soon the sheriff will come take his mother to the county jail where no one will speak up for the petite woman, where no one will testify that she and Jimmy were regularly beaten by her hulking bear of a husband.

When Jimmy quietly arrives at the revival grounds, Ollie introduces him to her father, hoping that the young man’s plight will convince Rev. Love to stay in Binder longer than 3 days to help him. The reverend knows that God’s love can help Jimmy, but isn’t sure that the Love family can help Jimmy against townspeople whose minds are convinced about his mother’s guilt.

A shadowy figure slinks through their camp, a fire torches the parents’ sleeping tent, sister Gwen leads them in praying for rain, and the raindrops fall, saving their revival tent and the girls’ bunkhouse on wheels. Who is trying to make the Loves leave Binder? Are Ollie’s questions about Jimmy’s mother getting too close to the real truth?

This mystery takes readers to that dusty Arkansas summer in 1957, when Reverend Love’s message could ease listeners’ sorrows and eventually the truth might be coaxed out of hiding. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.