Book Recommendations

 Two Possibilities For Your To Be Read List.

From two different authors, and two completely different reads

 

https://www.amazon.com/Cruel-Deception-Crawford-Mystery-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B07H4ZGXHN

     The 11th and last book in Todd's Bess Crawford mystery series, I obtained it from the state library system in hard cover form. If you've been a fan of this feisty British nurse who is introduced to us at the very beginning of WWI, you will not be disappointed here. The war is over and Bess' future serving the casualties of the war is uncertain. But before she has to deal with that she is asked by her superior nurse matron to undertake a personal assignment that takes her back to France.

     This series is more in-depth that many a female sleuth whodunit - perhaps more comparable to Winspear's Maisie Dobbs. But it is not as dark and intense as the other well known series this mother/son team of authors write, The Ian Rutledge mysteries.  (You may recall I've mentioned this author before.)

     The reader will benefit from reading these books in order, but it isn't crucial to enjoying the plot. 

 

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=lila+by+marilynne+robinson&i=stripbooks&crid=132D6I9TGCOYI&sprefix=lila+by%2Caps%2C200&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_7

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     Lila, by Marilynne Robinson, is actually the second book where this Lila appears. You meet Lila in Gilead and if you like this book you may want to read that one as well. I've read them both. 

     A reader who visits here suggested this book. I have hesitated before now to feature it because it is a very intense read. But in reality it is not only very well written, but it is a book of endurance and overcoming. There are several characters to be admired, many you will abhor, and circumstances that go beyond difficult to brutal. That Lila survives her early years is only due to the one person she initially receives any love and care from. 

     Robinson puts me in mind of John Steinbeck as she pens the continuous hardship of life in the depression years, and well describes how many individuals resort to their baser instincts and sometime forget human decency.

     But there is also hope, kindness, endurance, and overcoming. Hard spiritual questions come up in both of these stories. How often while reading them I thought about how difficult the author makes finding the answers because in her characters she delves for them from the intellect rather than the understanding provided by looking at life from what God reveals to us about human nature, and the answers He gives.