Miller's Valley by Anna Quindlen

The Miller family has lived on the farm in Miller's Valley for two centuries.  The land often flooded when the waters of Miller's creek rose but it seems to have gotten worse lately.  Then the government sends a man to visit the families in the valley. He offers them new homes on higher land and the promise of a more modern life with great recreational opportunities connected to a new lake -a lake created by a new dam that will flood the valley and bury the old town. Eleven year old Mimi Miller cannot imagine a life anywhere but on her family farm and agrees with her father's plan to resist selling.  But change will come and not just with a dam and a lake.  Families don't stay the same.  People die.  Discovering the secrets that people keep can even change your view of the past. Home might not have anything to do with land or buildings.  The beginning of  Mimi's story is full of references to life in the 60's that will make the reader of a certain age nod with recognition but like most of Quindlen's books, this is about the many different ways we can be family.

The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova

When young American Alexandra Boyd arrives in Bulgaria to teach, she is hoping the change of scenery will quiet some of her own demons.  Instead a confusion about hotels, an encounter with a very handsome man and his family and a mix-up in luggage lead to a very different adventure.  When she discovers that the bag left behind contains human ashes, she becomes determined to find the owners and return the bag.  Fortunately she finds an English speaking taxi driver she calls Bobby who is willing to take her to the one place she heard mentioned by the family.  But Bobby is not just a taxi driver and the family is not just any family and the people who seem determined to keep Alexandra and Bobby from delivering the mysterious bag and not ordinary bad guys.  And so the search begins across much of the area around the ancient cities of Sofia and Plovdiv.  I am not sure I could have correctly pointed to Bulgaria on a map before reading this book but Kostova's descriptions make me want to explore its ancient cities and beautiful countryside the same way that I wanted to discover all the hidden libraries and secret places in The Historian.  Sign me up for both tours.

Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan

Sloan lives in California but she must have a Eugene connection as evidenced by the number of familiar Eugene teachers she thanks in the acknowledgements.  However in this story, most teachers come up short in understanding brilliant twelve year old Willow.  Clearly she is "somewhere on the spectrum" and when personal tragedy threatens to throw her into the foster system, there is a lot that can go very wrong.  Instead she attaches herself to a host of quirky characters, uses her intelligence to rescue more than herself and, in a slightly unbelievable way, it all works out in the end.  Intended for a YA audience, it might be a peek into a way of living that many will never have to experience.  It might also be a validation of another reader's harsh reality.  Either way it is an ending that is hopeful.

My Last Continent by Midge Raymond

Raymond is the co-editor of a boutique publisher in Ashland, Oregon dedicated to publishing books with a "world view".  This book is a lot of things - some worldly  and some which get in the way of others.  First it is about the ecological problems created by the adventurers of the world wanting to get a visit to the continent of Antartica off their bucket list.  On the other hand, her descriptions of this stunning frozen desert and its charming penguin populations make even someone who thinks of 60º as cold consider a visit.  And then there is the love story.  This is a quick read which makes the jumping back and forth in time easier to manage and the Eugene references are fun to follow but the most thoughtful part is the realization that is it very hard to leave a small footprint in the wild and wonderful parts of the world. Darn it.

Origins by Dan Brown

The formula is the same and I am sure the movie script is already in the works but there is always just enough reality in his books to make them an interesting read.  This time he takes on the origin and the future of life on this planet with small references to the idea of monarchy, the perceived hypocrisy of the church and the role of women.  The best part though is the description of Barcelona.  In the beginning of the book he states that all the places referenced in the story are real.  I have never been to Barcelona. The places referenced were so strange that I had to look them up.  There are real. I sooooo much want to go to Barcelona.  Maybe I should wait for the Dan Brown/Origins tour 😊

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

At eighteen, Victoria finally ages out of the system - eighteen years of failed foster experiences, an almost adoption and a life changing mistake.  Through it all has been a primal connection with plants and flowers.  She has even received instruction in the Victorian understanding that each flower carries with it an emotion as well as the exact moment that a grape is ready to become wine.  Which is stronger - the hurt and anger that has become an essential part of her being or the possibility that she can learn a new more hopeful language?  Nothing heavy duty here.  Some of the characters are unbelievably good and the alternating back story/present structure makes start and stop reading tricky but the idea of the language of flowers is most interesting.

The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien

Cloonoila sits on a river in Ireland with the same name.  Somewhat isolated, idyllic on the surface, all its inhabitants known to one another.  Enter Dr. Vlad.  A charming though enigmatic gentleman from Montenegro, he is a welcome diversion from their hum drum life.  Although he appears to bring nothing with him, he plans to open a clinic - of sorts.  Soon he is drawn into the life of the town and its people.   Fidelma McBride grieves for the business she has lost and the child she fears she will never have with her much older husband.  Quickly she falls under Vlad's spell.  But he is not who he pretends to be.  He is based on a real character - one of the "butchers of Sarajevo".  Such is the essence of the story in part one of the book.  Part two finds Fidelma living among the immigrant community in London.  Part three centers around a trial in Den Haag.  The transition from one part to the next is jarring at first but eventually all hang together.  The title of the book is based on the fact that on an anniversary the siege of Sarajevo,  11,541 red chairs were set out on the streets of Sarajevo to commemorate the people that died including 643 small chairs representing the lives of children killed.  It is a powerfully written story disturbing on multiple levels.  Part of the universal tale of great evil meeting great compassion.  I guarantee you will look up the siege of Sarajevo and struggle to remember how something this big could have just passed in and out of your interest.  Then be grateful that books like this remind us that we need to pay better attention.