The Fate of Mercy Alban by Wendy Webb

The Fate of Mercy Alban by Wendy Webb - 352 pages

From award-winning novelist Wendy Webb comes a spine-tingling mystery about family secrets set in a big, old haunted house on Lake Superior.

Grace Alban has spent twenty years away from her childhood home, the stately Alban House, for reasons she would rather forget. But when her mother's unexpected death brings Grace and her teen-age daughter home, she finds more haunting the halls and passageways of Alban House than her own personal demons.

Long-buried family secrets, a packet of old love letters and a lost manuscript plunge Grace into a decades-old mystery about a scandalous party at Alban House, when a world-famous author took his own life and Grace's aunt disappeared without a trace. The night has been shrouded in secrecy by the powerful Alban family for all of these years, and Grace realizes her family secrets tangle and twist as darkly as the secret passages of Alban House. Her mother was intending to tell the truth about that night to a reporter on the very day she died - could it have been murder? Or was she a victim of the supposed Alban curse? With the help of the disarmingly kind--and attractive—Reverend Matthew Parker, Grace must uncover the truth about her home and its curse before she and her daughter become the next victims.

This was the first book I have ever read from this author and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was basically a Goosebump book for an adult. Throughout the whole book you were guessing until the very end because nothing is as it seems. I will be looking for other books by this author in the future.

The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan

The Dead-Tossed Waves
(Book 2 - in the Forest of Hands and Teeth series)
by Carrie Ryan
407 pages










Gabry lives a quiet life. As safe a life as is possible in a town trapped between a forest and the ocean, in a world teeming with the dead, who constantly hunger for those still living. She's content on her side of the Barrier, happy to let her friends dream of the Dark City up the coast while she watches from the top of her lighthouse. But there are threats the Barrier cannot hold back. Threats like the secrets Gabry's mother thought she left behind when she escaped from the Sisterhood and the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Like the cult of religious zealots who worship the dead. Like the stranger from the forest who seems to know Gabry. And suddenly, everything is changing. One reckless moment, and half of Gabry's generation is dead, the other half imprisoned. Now Gabry only knows one thing: she must face the forest of her mother's past in order to save herself and the one she loves.

Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak

Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak
534 pages

"The breathtaking story of five brothers who bring each other up in a world run by their own rules. As the Dunbar boys love and fight and learn to reckon with the adult world, they discover the moving secret behind their father's disappearance.

"At the center of the Dunbar family is Clay, a boy who will build a bridge--for his family, for his past, for greatness, for his sins, for a miracle.

"The question is, how far is Clay willing to go? And how much can he overcome?"   ---from the publisher

I'm not sure how to review this one succinctly.  Zusak's writing is beautiful and the story is interesting and original.  When he visited the area last fall he talked about this book being somewhat autobiographical.  That said, at times the writing is more lyrical than explanatory.  What do some of those sentences mean anyway?  And it dragged in parts for me.  I don't know, maybe I'm just not cut out for these 500+ page tales.  If you've read it, I welcome your thoughts!

The Raven King-Book IV of the Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater

The Raven King
Book IV of the Raven Cycle
by Maggie Stiefvater
Read by Will Patton
439 pages

All her life, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love's death. She doesn't believe in true love and never thought this would be a problem, but as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she's not so sure anymore.

I really enjoyed listening to all the books in the Raven Cycle. Narrator Will Patton has a distinct voice for every character and is a joy to listen to. He made these stories come alive for me.