My Enemy's Cradle by Sara Young

Can you save a child by sending it away? This theme is brilliantly woven into the European World War II complex background. 
Cyrla is half jewish and living a delicately balanced life in occupied Holland.  Her assets:  her mother's blond hair and other Dutch features.  Her liabilities:  her ties to the Jewish Community.


Circumstances find her going to a Nazi run maternity home called a Lebensborn.  The Nazis think she is carrying a German Soldier's Baby, but in reality the father is Jewish with very Jewish features.  The suspense progresses as her pregnancy progresses balanced with an excellent narrative of the Lebensborn and the well-rounded characters.

As Cyrla desperately tries to make a decision on what is best for her baby, she is continually brought back to her own family history, new truths emerge about a baby's father, and her own discovery of love.


This beautifully written novels finds me filled with hope for a happy ending during a time when history shows us was extremely dismal (at best) for the European Jews. 

TESS of the D'UBERVILLES by Thomas Hardy

Well, at least Tess didn't kill herself like Ethan Frome did.

The Expected One by Kathleen McGowan

Interesting. Very interesting. This novel/novelization brings balance to the force. I mean brings balance to The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown. Worth reading? Definitely, but only if you are into religious novels and theories. If you are hard core the-bible-is-the-word-and-it-is-whole-and-complete-as-is, then skip this one.

The main character is Maureen Paschal a writer/historian/academic who discovers through visions and subsequent research that she is a literal descendent of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. She is "The Expected One" that Mary Magdalene prophesied about two thousand years ago and her role is to bring forth Mary's lost story and written gospel. Maureen's modern life story is entwined with Mary Magdalene's journal and an ancient third person account of Mary Magdalene's role in Christ's life.

The story has some mystery, intrique and danger, but they are more afterthoughts and not really part of the central story. So I pose this question: does putting the main character in danger make the story more important or true?

The author asserts that the basic story is true and happened to her. She novelized her experiences to 1)make it easier to streamline events and 2)to protect herself against religious fanatics by hiding behind the banner of fiction. However, I think this book is classified as fiction, because it IS fiction. Fiction masquerading as Truth masquerading as Fiction. That is reason enough to crack open this book.

I am no scriptorian, but even I found errors in her "gospel" that illuminate the fact that this author mostly likely did not find a lost gospel. For example, John the Beloved was the son of Zebedee according to St. Mark 1:19-20 (KJV) and not Mary Magdalene, John the Baptist, or Jesus Christ. Taking into consideration that the Bible may contain translation errors from Greek to English, names and geneaologies are very consistent throughout scripture versions and translations. The other explanations are St. Mark was wrong or untruthful. I have to go "by the spirit" here and say The Expected One is in error and not St. Mark. Many many many more similar instances.

The biggest problem I (personally) had with this novel was the renaming of Jesus Christ. The point was that Mary Magdalene and Christ were close during their childhoods that she had a pet name for him. The pet name should have been used only in dialogue or journal entries by Mary Magdalene. Subsitituting the pet name for every reference of Jesus Christ was too familiar and disrespectful.

I am intrigued by the idea that Christ was married to Mary Magdalene and I enjoy reading others' thoughts on the matter. So I very much enjoyed this novel and it gave me much information to research, think and ponder. I plan on re-reading this novel with my scriptures a little closer next time.

Hot Money by Dick Francis

A murder mystery that asks:

• When are offspring responsible for and to themselves?
• Where is the line between a parent's favorite and a special relationship cultivated by both parent and child?
• Is giving in to a child's wishes giving in to demands?
• When is an obsession born or created?

This novel has the best ending! It is upbeat with the perfect blend of symbolism, love and an inside joke.

I really enjoy all of Dick Francis' novels, but his one is my absolute favorite.

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

Good Story! The Lost Symbol would be great if Dan Brown would/could learn character development and a few other things. I hate, I mean I REALLY HATE, to say anything negative about his writing because he can tell a story. This is typical Dan Brown where we expect the unexpected and we know that he's going to outsmart the reader (at least me) so I love his books.

I read this while on my cruise and it was very satisfying. What is better than sitting by the pool (wearing tons of sunscreen) in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico drinking a Virgin Pina Colada reading Dan Brown? It seriously doesn't get any better than that.

I was astounded when he killed off his main character. Did he really do that? So I had to peek at the last chapter. I know I know. I read pretty fast so you would think I could wait a few hours, but no (sigh) I had to peek. Back when I was into Patricia Cornwell, I got to where I would tape the last chapter shut before I started reading, because I knew that I would be tempted to peek. I'm definitely going to have to start doing that with Dan Brown.