C.A. Gray's Blog

A unique concept! It hooked me early, though it was a bit too grim for bedtime reading, so I switched from kindle to audio (since I generally listen to audio during the day). Allie and Nick are teenagers in two separate cars, and suffer a fatal head-on collision. When they both wake up, it takes them a bit to realize that they’re not quite alive anymore… but they’re not quite dead either. Instead, they’re in a place they learn is called Everlost, where the spirits particularly of children end up trapped in the in-between.

I say the story is grim, because the premise undoubtedly is… but because the protagonists are kids, as are all the characters, it really reads like a dark middle-grade story, so there are lots of lighthearted moments too. The kids meet Leaf (not his real name—because he no longer remembers his real name, as he’s been in Everlost too long), and together they manage to escape a group of bullies by threatening them with the McGill—a monster that may or may not exist, but they make use of the fear of it well. Meanwhile, they find themselves in a domain presided over by the beautiful and benevolent teenage Molly, who wrote volumes upon volumes in her time in Everlost about how things work there, and whom the other kids look to as a kind of mother hen, as she sort of adopts all the strays and brings them into her domain. Nick falls for her, but Allie and she clash, because Allie feels like there’s something off about her. She also realizes that the kids in Molly’s domain do the same thing on a loop, endlessly—very much like the stories of ghosts describe “residual hauntings”—and they forget over time who they were or even what they looked like.

As Allie attempts to understand the true nature of Everlost, she drags Nick on an adventure with her, where they encounter the true McGill and many other monsters besides… and they learn what it takes for the children to “move on” to the other side.

This is a trilogy apparently, though I didn’t realize that until I’d finished it. The book doesn’t end on a cliffhanger though, and while I liked it, I don’t think I’ll continue reading on in the series.

My rating: ***1/2

Language: none

Violence: none

Sexual content: none

Political content: none

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A Regency period romance that requires a bit of suspension of disbelief… shy, retiring heiress Izzy and her much lower-ranking but vivacious cousin Bella swap identities so that the latter gets the former’s coming out season. This is possible, even though Bella is beautiful and Izzy is not, because their aunt who takes them for the reason didn’t recognize them, and assumes the beauty must be the heiress. Bella becomes the toast of the season, but never intends to follow through with marriage to any of them, until she happens to fall for the handsomest and most eligible of the lot. But will he still want her, when he finds out who she really is?

It’s clean, decently written, and just entertaining enough that I kept reading to the end. It’s a cute story.

My rating: ***

Language: none

Violence: none

Sexual content: none

Political content: none

The post The Wrong Lady Meets Lord Right appeared first on C.A. Gray.

This was cute, and entertaining enough to serve as bedtime reading while waiting for my brain to drift off, but it required a decent amount of suspension of disbelief.

The story followed Libby, who, true to typical chick lit stereotypes, is going absolutely nowhere in her life. Her boyfriend Simon has just dumped her, after living with her for so many years without proposing that it should have already been obvious to her that he wasn’t that into her. Her older sister Rebecca is uptight and perfect, and she and her mother conspire to make Libby feel even worse about her life choices, while Rebecca also manipulates Libby into babysitting her son since she has nothing else going on in her life. Libby, meanwhile, rides the same London bus every day, and meets the elderly Frank, who eventually tells her the story of how he’s been riding this same bus for decades, hoping to run into a girl he met many years before, who changed his life. Inspired by the romance of this story, Libby decides to help him find her — even though it seems unlikely that she is even still alive, let alone that she still lives in London.

She also meets Frank’s caregiver, Dillon, who looks like a punk (mohawk and leather jacket and all). She’s frightened by him at first, but he soon becomes the unlikely love interest, until (spoiler alert) Libby finds out that she’s pregnant, and Simon wants her back.

There’s a bit of a downer in the story of Frank (who has advancing dementia) and his lost love, and a bit of a political agenda inserted there too. If it ended “happily ever after” there it would be too cheesy, I grant you… and I’m sure the author thought she was being more realistic. But at least Libby does get her happily ever after which redeemed the book in my eyes.

My rating: ***

Language: decent amount as I recall

Violence: none

Sexual content: I think there was some? But not a lot

Political content: oh yeah. Pretty heavy. But not until the end.

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This was an unusual fantasy in several ways… and I have to admit, I bought it for its cover. I didn’t immediately realize that it was a little gremlin; I just thought it was pretty and whimsical looking.

The story primarily follows Jenny, who is “a jenny greenteeth”—apparently this is a name for a vicious looking, flesh-eating water sprite. (Who knew?) In this case, the jenny is the main character, which was one unique feature. The second is that there’s no romance in the book at all; it’s really a buddy story, between Jenny, Temperance (a “good” witch from 16th century Britain, at a time when suspected witches were routinely rounded up and killed), and a traveling peddler gremlin depicted as mercenary at first, but who later turns out to have a heart of gold. Jenny rescues Temperance when she’s thrown into her lake by the bigoted local preacher, and the she offers to help her get rid of the evil preacher so that Temperance can get her family back. I totally expected at this point that the story would be overtly anti-religion, but it turned out that the preacher was actually possessed by the Earl King (an ancient evil fairy).

In order to defeat him, they appeal to the elves in the forest, who give the trio several impossible tasks first in order to prove themselves worthy of the elves’ help. Once they successfully complete these, the elves tell them how they can expel the Earl King from the body of the preacher. It’s a quest story too, therefore, and there are lots of surprise twists along the way.

My rating: ****

Language: none that I can recall

Violence: fantasy only

Sexual content: none

Political content: none that I recall

The post Greenteeth appeared first on C.A. Gray.

Jane Healey might be becoming one of my go-to authors – I’ve really enjoyed everything I’ve read by her so far, though all of them are from basically the same WWII era, and shortly after (which seems to dominate the historical fiction space). But I love how meticulous her research is, and I especially enjoy the segments at the end where she tells the reader where she got her ideas, what’s true, and what’s made up for the sake of the story.

This story follows actress Drue Leyton, whom I’d never heard of before–apparently she was famous enough in her day, though, that her fame was a major driver of the plot. She married a Frenchman and was living in Paris during WWII, before the German occupation. When her husband was sent off to war, she stayed behind, and did a radio broadcast back to America in the middle of the night, describing what was going on in Paris. At first it was apolitical, but as time went on, she and her boss became increasingly bold–particularly once Paris was overrun. In the process, she painted a target on her back, and was on a list of Americans whom the Germans intended to execute, if they had the chance. But they wouldn’t bother to threaten her if she wasn’t a threat: her show had the ear of the president, and she and her team hoped to influence the Americans to join the war efforts.

The story doesn’t follow the typical story trajectory, because it’s real life. There’s a bit of romance, but not much. Mostly it’s about Drue’s courage, and how standing by her principles no matter the cost helped her to make a difference, in her own small way.

My rating: ****1/2

Language: none

Sexual content: none

Violence: historical only

Political content: historical only (which is nice, a lot of historical novels nevertheless manage to insert anachronistic political ideas in there. Some of Healey’s have before, too.)

The post Goodnight from Paris, Jane Healey appeared first on C.A. Gray.

I like how the silhouette on the cover is of the lung alveoli. That is a perfect representation of the kind of book this is… an episodic exploration of scientific principles through the eyes of a child, or a child at heart (as the author most certainly is), for the purposes of marveling at how big and amazing and creative God is. It’s broken down by spatial categories (the very large, the very small, the very close and intimate) but it’s otherwise all over the place. The author does a good job of catching the reader up in his enthusiasm for cool factoids much better than a dry textbook presentation might have done, though to be honest, he was a bit too over-the-top for my taste. Still, I think it was quite genuine, and he made his points well.

My rating: ****

Language: none

Violence: none

Sexual content: none

Political content: none

The post A Million Little Miracles, Mark Batterson appeared first on C.A. Gray.

Fascinating! This book made me look at especially the layout of the desert southwest, and the midwest too, with new eyes. I always knew the more modern cities had lost the charm of the old world of Europe or even of the east coast of American big cities, but I could never quite put my finger on why. Was it just the fact that those cities had variable and more interesting architecture, whereas everything built out west is basically functional boxes? I thought maybe it was the concrete everywhere, but that’s true of London and Edinburgh and etc too, and those are still charming.

Kunstler makes the argument that it really goes back to the fact that modern life is structured almost entirely around the automobile. Somehow I’d not noticed that before, nor that the places I’d most describe as “charming” are older communities with fewer cars, public transportation, and no nearby highways. (Stars Hollow from Gilmore Girls, and places like it!) He then goes on to describe how zoning laws have made it illegal to build communities like that today: places where storefronts line the sidewalks, with living quarters above. Places where the buildings are right up against the sidewalk, and then the street. Places that aren’t situated in the middle of parking lots. He describes how these laws were designed to create class separation, but as a result, they ended up creating suburbia — “nowhere,” because they lack coherent town centers, and walkable community life.

So many things I’d thought about but never been able to articulate or explain before. Seems like something for local politicians to address, so that we can begin to create the kinds of communities where most of us would like to live again.

My rating: *****

Language: none

Violence: none

Sexual content: none

Political content: none

The post The Geography of Nowhere, James Kunstler appeared first on C.A. Gray.

This is the sort of fluffy, cute story to read while winding down before bed.

Set in a unspecified time in British history (possibly in an alternate Victorian world?), this is very loosely based on Cinderella, with a lot of faerie lore baked in. Hester is a commoner (hence the title), and she goes to the ball thrown by the palace because she otherwise doesn’t have enough food. That sounds grim, but the story is so lighthearted that it isn’t–she really just wants the cheese. Instead she meets the princes, Hugh and the crown Prince Lucas. Playboy Hugh immediately takes to her, and all she wants to do is get rid of him (which seems absurd, but again, the story is told so tongue-in-cheek that you just go with it.) Meanwhile, it’s straight-laced Lucas who really catches her eye, and vice versa: he’s charmed by her open manners, and sends her home with all the cheese she can carry. Soon Hester is plagued by one suitor prince she doesn’t want, while the one she really wants remains aloof.

The main characteristic of Hester that annoyed me throughout the story, which seemed like it was just there to drive the plot along, was her unwillingness to accept favors ever, from anybody. It seemed like a weird pride quirk. Later we find out that this isn’t it at all, and the twist in the story hinges upon this… but I still felt like it was rather contrived.

Still, the story ends happily, and there was nothing objectionable in the content, which is always refreshing for a newer release.

My rating: ***

Language: none

Violence: none

Sexual content: none

Political content: none

The post What Comes of Attending the Commoners Ball appeared first on C.A. Gray.

A cute chick-lit story that follows all the tropes, but was still original enough to keep me listening.

This one follows Nora (or Eleanora, which is important later), a therapist who, when she first started to practice, allowed her British friend to talk her into writing an advice column in a British paper called “Ask Eleanora.” For the previous 8 years, her copy editor, J, corresponded with her weekly with comments and edits. Eventually, Nora realizes (when J tells her his relationship recently ended) that she has feelings for him–which is odd, since she’s never met him. She doesn’t even know what he looks like. (You can feel the setup here, and it is a little contrived, but I can suspend my disbelief to go with it.)

Meanwhile, Nora lives in a community in New York consisting mostly of elderly strong characters. But the woman who used to live just below her passed away, and her grandson moved in. He’s British, he’s cantankerous, and he’s hot. Of course he (Eli) and Nora start off on the wrong foot, even though there’s also instant attraction. Eli, it turns out, is a writer, of some non-specific genre that never comes up in conversation, until he and Nora finally sleep together. (And again: does it bother no one that it’s completely normal and expected in our culture that as soon as you’re ready to kiss someone, you’re automatically expected to also have sex with him?! Even if you don’t believe in waiting for marriage, doesn’t anyone find this a *little* concerning? Don’t we think this cultural expectation *might* pressure people to hop into bed just because it’s the thing to do, and not because they necessarily really even want to?)

But I digress. Obviously in the context of this book, they did want to (though it goes into way too much detail and I had to skip both those chapters.) I will say that the slow burn leading up to sex was well done. I also appreciate the fact that the conflict at the end was neither a big misunderstanding, nor a sudden emotional freak-out from the female lead, suddenly drowning in her insecurities. I’ve seen that done one too many times. And the ending was sweet, and uplifting, as books like this are meant to be.

My rating: ***1/2

Language: present but not overwhelming

Violence: none

Sexual content: yes, and too much of it. 

Political content: present but minor

The post Unlikely Story appeared first on C.A. Gray.

This was a page-turner! I’m usually reading about eight books at a time, but when I find a good one, I set all the others aside to finish it–and that’s what I did with this one. It helped that I had both the audio and the kindle version whisper-synced, so I could go back and forth.

The story follows Cat in the post-WWII late 1940s. Cat was on track to follow the typical life trajectory for a woman in those days, but she walked out on her would-be husband on their wedding day when she found out that she’d been recruited to Arlington Hall, to join the team of code-breakers assigned to the Russian unit. One blot on her “record” nearly kept her from joining the team: the existence of an uncle she’d never met, brother of her late mother, who had joined the Communist Party. But they accept her anyway, and she makes great friends with the other women on the team, as well as several of the quirky male characters too. Soon, her path crosses again with a handsome man she knew from her one Harvard co-ed codebreaking class, though: Jonathan, a former rival for the top spot in class.

The romance between them is very well written, and paced perfectly amid the process of unraveling the secret code names of the Soviet spies who sold atomic secrets from the Americans. Eventually this gets very personal, as Cat gets too close to some of the spies on the inside, and they choose to frame her instead, using her Communist uncle as a pretext. She knows the stakes are high, as she’s told from day one at Arlington that if she betrays what she knows, she’ll be executed for treason.

I was a little annoyed at how quickly Cat and Jonathan hopped into bed once the tension reached that point–really? Isn’t that a bit anachronistic? I know it *happened,* but not nearly so casually as all that back then, I wouldn’t have thought. There were a few other modern values sprinkled here and there too which annoyed me more, given the historical setting. But aside from that, it was a great read!

My rating: ****1/2

Language: none

Violence: none

Sexual content: present, but skip-able (and I did)

Political content: present, but minor (even though it felt out of place in an historical novel)

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