WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE BOOK?

On Facebook, several people have been naming ten favorite books that meant something in your life. Narrowing my preference down to only ten would be impossible. And what each meant depended on where I was at that stage of life. Although I’ve been an avid reader as long as I can remember, I’ll skip the school years and move on to after I became an adult. I’ll also skip the classics and go for popular fiction.

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, by Harper Lee. Okay, so it’s a classic now. Who didn’t love that one? I kept waiting for another book from Harper Lee (as did a lot of others). I thought Scout’s story was wonderful. I saw the film starring Gregory Peck and in which Robert Duvall had his first role. This is one of the few times I enjoyed a movie as much as the book.

THE HELP BY Katherine Stockett. Didn’t we love the way the heroine obtained justice for her friends? I didn’t like the movie because so much had to be changed. This is why books are better than movies—you get the main characters’ internal thoughts and motivation in a book. Usually impossible for a movie.

THE GUENSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. How sad that Ms Schaffer died before she learned how successful her wonderful book had become. Thank goodness her niece Ms Barrows finished editing the manuscript. I have to admit my knowledge of the Isle of Guernsey was nil, but this story uplifted my spirit even though it dealt with Nazi occupation. 

MR. CHURCHILL’S SECRETARY by Susan Elia Macneal. This is another World War II setting, but Maggie Hope brings just that. I love this series and will save them to reread.  FALLON by Louis L’Amour. Any of his, really. What a great writer. He captured history and people and painted the West in words. I’ve read each of his books and will never tire of rereading them.

FOR THE ROSES by Julie Garwood. This was a wonderful saga about lost boys and the baby girl they rescued as they moved from New York to the West. Family and redemption are themes I love.

PRINCE CHARMING by Julie Garwood. Probably my all-time favorite book, I love the subtle humor the author introduces into the story and the developing love and adventure. I loved so many things about this book: the scene where we learn who stole Lucas’ knife, where we see Taylor shooting rabbits, where Taylor covers Lucas’ friend with a blanket, and so many more.

THE PROMISE OF JENNY JONES by Maggie Osborne. Jenny had only one thing and that’s her word. She keeps her promise through unbelievably difficult conditions and triumphs. My first time to read a book with a six-foot, redheaded, muleskinner heroine. In a speech once, I heard Ms Osborne say this was the traditional governess story turned on its ear. ☺

SLIGHTLY SHADY by Amanda Quick (Jayne Ann Krentz). This is the first of the Lavinia Lake and Tobias March trilogy and I loved each one. This first was probably my favorite. However, this woman cannot write a bad book under any name. I think I have each of her books by each of her names. The historical romances are my favorites.

MONTANA SKY by Nora Roberts. This is one of my favorites by Ms Roberts (although THE WITNESS may tie). I liked the three half-sisters learning to work together on a ranch and learning to be family. Family is a wonderful theme.  

TO KISS A TEXAN by Jodi Thomas. Wes McClain is my favorite member of his family and his rescue of the captive woman Allie,who salves his wounded heart, is amazing. Theirs is a memorable romance that has stayed with me for years.

 

FALLON by Louis L'Amour, along with each of his other historical works. What a creative genius this man was. He once told a group of writers that he could write while sitting in a folding chair in the center of Hollywood and Vine with a typewriter balanced on his knees. I know he was the master of setting and characterization. I chose FALLON as my favorite of his books because  it's the story of a man who is much better than he believes, a story of redemption. But L'Amour wrote only great books. Hero and I save them and reread them from time to time. I practically know FALLON by heart, yet it still calls to me. 

I have deliberately not mentioned any of the books of personal friends. To do so would be insane. I’d be certain to overlook someone and then be in the dog house forever. And there simply is not enough space or time to list all my favorites. There are huge numbers of wonderful writers whose books I’ve enjoyed and saved. And I continue discovering new writers whose works I love. Someday maybe I’ll quit writing and just read.

Naw, this is too great a job. Why would I ever give up a job where I can work at home in my jammies?

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REVIEW OF SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL'S WORLD WAR II SERIES

Susan Elia Macneal has composed an exciting new series. No wonder that it's a top seller and recipient of numerous awards. Ms Macneal engaged in extensive research for these books, especially the first one. She uses her knowledge as a background to place the reader in the midst of the action. The research allows her to transport the reader with the heroine protagonist, Maggie Hope, through an exciting maze of danger, friendships, romance, and discovery. I recommend this series wholeheartedly to all readers!

Although she was born in England, Maggie Hope has been living as the ward of her college professor aunt in the United States. Her aunt loves Maggie, but is a formal, undemonstrative woman. Still, Maggie had a good life and graduated with honors at the top of her college class as an exceptional mathematician. She is preparing to enter MIT for her doctoral studies when her aunt enlists her to go to London and sell the home of Maggie’s late grandmother. Maggie’s aunt and grandmother were estranged, so Maggie had never met her grandmother. In fact, she was not even aware her grandmother had been alive during her lifetime.

Times are uncertain and economic times are hard in London and Maggie is unable to find a buyer. Surprised by how much she wants to remain in London, she gathers four women her age to rent rooms in the large Victorian home. Through one of the women, Maggie gets an interview and is hired as a typist for Prime Minister Winston Churchill. (I was so impressed that typists took dictation directly as they typed rather than using shorthand as I did when I was a secretary. I would never have been able to keep up, at least not without a gazillion errors.)  

Each of these books unlocks another part of Maggie’s complicated past. She is angry at the deceit of her aunt and others, yet she still loves the woman who raised her. She realizes how difficult it must have been for her unmarried professor aunt to take an infant into her life. That doesn’t stop her mixed emotions with each personal secret she uncovers. At the same time, Maggie is uncovering many more secrets and encountering danger that places her life in peril.   

As I mentioned in the title, this review is not of one book but of a series. Authors always tell readers that their series books stand alone, and usually that’s true. In this instance, readers simply must first read MR. 

CHURCHILL’S SECRETARY or many of the undercurrents in subsequent books will be meaningless.

Here’s the blurb for MR. CHURCHILL’S SECRETARY:

London, 1940. Winston Churchill has just been sworn in, war rages across the Channel, and the threat of a Blitz looms larger by the day. But none of this deters Maggie Hope. She graduated at the top of her college class and possesses all the skills of the finest minds in British intelligence, but her gender qualifies her only to be the newest typist at No. 10 Downing Street. Her indefatigable spirit and remarkable gifts for code breaking, though, rival those of even the highest men in government, and Maggie finds that working for the prime minister affords her a level of clearance she could never have imagined—and opportunities she will not let pass. In troubled, deadly times, with air-raid sirens sending multitudes underground, access to the War Rooms also exposes Maggie to the machinations of a menacing faction determined to do whatever it takes to change the course of history.

PRINCESS ELIZABETH’S SPY is the second book:

As World War II sweeps the continent and England steels itself against German attack, Maggie Hope, former secretary to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, becomes a spy for M1-5. Possessing one of the sharpest minds in government for mathematics and code–breaking, she fully expects to be sent abroad to gather intelligence for the British front. Instead, to her great disappointment, she is dispatched to go undercover at Windsor Castle, where she will tutor the young Princess Elizabeth. Yet castle life quickly proves more dangerous—and deadly—than Maggie ever expected. The upstairs-downstairs world at Windsor is thrown into disarray by a chocking murder, which draws Maggie into a vast conspiracy that places the entire royal family in peril. And as she races to save England from a most disturbing fate, Maggie realizes that a quick wit is her best defense, and that the smallest clues can unravel the biggest secrets, even within her own family.

The third book is HIS MAGESTY’S HOPE:

World War II has finally come home to Britain, but it takes more than nightly air raids to rattle intrepid spy and expert code breaker Maggie Hope. After serving as a secret agent to protect Princess Elizabeth at Windsor Castle, Maggie is now an elite member of the Special Operations Executive—a covert organization designed to aid the British effort abroad—and her first assignment sends her straight into Nazi-controlled Berlin, the very heart of the German war machine. Relying on her quick wit and keen instincts, Maggie infiltrates the highest level of Berlin society, gathering information to pass on to London headquarters. But the secrets she unveils will expose a darker, more dangerous side of the war, and of her own past.

I highly recommend this series. Each member of my family has read and enjoyed it. One simply cannot stop reading these suspenseful books. I eagerly look forward to the June release of THE PRIME MINISTER’S SECRET AGENT. You will too!

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