Book Review: Lone Star by Paullina Simons

Lone Star by Paullina Simons, published 2015 by William Morrow. 
Goodreads describes the book  as "the unforgettable love story between a college-bound young woman and a traveling troubadour on his way to war—a moving, compelling novel of love lost and found set against the stunning backdrop of Eastern Europe."

My comments: A coming-of-age novel and a romance involving four high school graduates visiting cities in Latvia, Poland, and Italy. 

Chloe and her boyfriend Mason and Hannah and her boyfriend Blake make plans to visit Barcelona, and are thrilled when Chloe's Eastern European grandmother Moody offers to pay for  the trip, on one condition. They must visit Moody's and Chloe's relatives outside of Riga, Latvia, and travel to several former war sites in Poland, including Treblinka, before they head to Barcelona.

Plans change and the relationships between the four friends change when a traveling American Johnny join the group, offering to be their guide in Poland. Chloe and Johnny are attracted to each other, much to Blake's disgust. Blake's carefully laid out plans for the trip fall apart because of myriad train delays, incomplete traveling information, lack of proper transportation and communication, and more. 

Meeting Johnny is life-changing for Chloe, as Johnny charms all of them except Blake while guiding them to the places Chloe's grandmother wanted her to visit. When plans go wrong on the trip back from Treblinka, the group later splits up.

Reeommendation: The story line is original and kept me guessing about the outcomes. The characters are convincing and realistic, though Chloe is a bit dense at times about her friends and their motivations. 

The writing is engaging; each  of the four teens tells a part of the story, how he/she reacts to the trip and the unexpected events that happen. There is poetry and philosophy in the writing and plot as well as pathos and teenage angst.

A five-star read with very convincing, believable, and heart-breaking characters.
This is my first book by the author and I hope to read others. 

Thanks to the publisher for a review copy of this book. 

First Chapter: Book- and Food-Themed Cozies

Bibliophile By the Sea hosts First Chapter, First Paragraph every Tuesday. Share the first paragraph(s) of your current read or book interest, with information for readers.

Between a Book and a Hard Place, A Devereaux's Dime Store Mystery #5, by Denise Swanson. Published March 1, 2016 

First paragraph, first chapter:
The Shadow Bend, Missouri, city council meeting didn't typically draw much of a crowd. Generally, fewer than a dozen of the community's four thousand twenty-eight citizens showed up, but tonight the residents had turned out in droves. 

A mystery of lost family, hidden treasure, and long-buried secrets. (publisher)

Out of the Dying Pan, A Deep Fried Mystery #2 by Linda Reilly.Published March 1, 2016

First paragraph, first chapter:
Talia Marby watched with a lump in her throat as the sign that read LAMBERT'S FISH & CHIPS was lowered carefully to the ground. The technician stepped do9wn from his ladder, one large hand steadying the sign. "You want us to take this back to the shop, ma'am, or do you want to keep it?"

When a boutique owner is strangled with Talia’s scarf knotted around her neck, our favorite fish fryer finds herself in hot oil. (publisher)

Based on their first paragraphs, would you keep reading these book- and food-themed cozies? 

Sunday Salon: More Mystery Novels

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer.
Also visit Mailbox Monday, and It's Monday, What Are You Reading? hosted by Book Date. 

We hope to see the last of the snow today as it will be near 70!!! one day in the middle of next week. We are on a see-saw of temperatures, and that one day will stand out like a promise of not even spring, but summer! 

Lots to prepare for this summer, including visitors from afar that I can't wait to see.  Big smiles!

My mailbox was full with two mystery novels and a bunch of welcome cozies.

Blood Orange 
by Susan Wittig Albert, China Bayles Mystery #24 to be released April 2016 by Berkley.

In the newest China Bayles Mystery in the New York Times bestselling series, China comes to the aid of a nurse who ends up in the hospital...

Murder She Wrote: Design for Murder, the 45th in the series written by Jessica Fletcher, Donald Bain, Renée Paley-Bain

Jessica Fletcher visits New York City during fashion week, only to discovers someone has rather fatal designs. Such a popular series, it's the 45th book,  based on the television mystery series.

 Reading Up a Storm 
by Eva Gates, to be released April 5, 2016.

The bestselling author of Booked for Trouble returns with the third Lighthouse Library mystery set in the most literary lighthouse in North Carolina’s Outer Banks

A Clue in the Stew
by Connie Archer, to be released April 5, 2016 

Soup Lover Mystery #5, Soup shop owner Lucky Jamieson stirs up more trouble in the latest mystery from the national bestselling author of Ladle to the Grave...

What's your cozy read this week?

Just finished reading:

Lone Star by Paullina Simons.  I enjoyed this coming of age story and romance set in Eastern Europe and Italy. 

Goodreads describes the book  as "the unforgettable love story between a college-bound young woman and a traveling troubadour on his way to war—a moving, compelling novel of love lost and found set against the stunning backdrop of Eastern Europe."

Book Beginning: Trail of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz

The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice.
Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader.

Trail of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz, published 2012 by Simon and Schuster 
The fifth installment in the bestselling series featuring the private investigator Izzy Spellman and her quirky family of sleuths. (publisher)

Brought up this book from the basement to read after finishing Lutz's other books, The Passenger, and How To Start a Fire. 

Book beginning, first chapter:

I do my job. I watch. I snap pictures and record video. I document subjects' activities through a filter of twenty years of disassociation. I don't judge. I don't manipulate the evidence. I simply report my findings to the client. The client can use the information however they see fit. That's the line I feed them. But the truth is always a murkier business.

The opening paragraph of this book intrigued me. It's a mantra for a PI and for other gatherers of info like journalists, the media. How much objectivity can/do they have, in reality? Eager to get into this crime novel, to see how the PI's objectivity holds out. 

Page 56:
  "How long are you going to play this game?" he asked.

Book Tour: Arsenic and Old Books by Miranda James

Arsenic and Old Books, a Cat in the Stacks mystery #6 by Miranda James, paperback published February 2, 2016 by Berkley

I had read the hardcover last January 2015 and objectively rated the book a 5 on goodreads. The paperback copy is now out. My brief comments;

Excellent and smooth writing. Enjoyed the characters and the cat Diesel and will be reading the other books in this series.

Publisher description: The New York Times bestselling author of The Silence of the Library returns with a tale of books worth killing for...  

DEAR DIARIES Lucinda Beckwith Long, the mayor of Athena, Mississippi, has donated a set of Civil War-era diaries to the archives of Athena College. She would like librarian Charlie Harris to preserve and substantiate them as a part of the Long family legacy—something that could benefit her son, Beck, as he prepares to campaign for the state senate.  

Beck’s biggest rival would like to get a look at the diaries in an attempt to expose the Long family’s past sins. Meanwhile, a history professor is also determined to get her hands on the books in a last-ditch bid for tenure. But their interest suddenly turns deadly, leaving Charlie with a catalog of questions to answer. Together with his Maine Coon cat Diesel, Charlie must discover why the diaries were worth killing for before he too reaches his final chapter.

The secrets in one of the diaries is a threat to someone in town. Just who it is, what it is and why is the mystery. The book is well written, the characters, cat, and setting interesting, the plot intriguing. I don't like all cat-involved mysteries but I recommend this one for cat and mystery lovers.

Thanks to the publisher for a review copy of this book for their book tour. 

Sunday Salon: Surprise Books

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer.
Also visit Mailbox Monday, and It's Monday, What Are You Reading? hosted by Book Date. 

A surprise win to celebrate the blogiversary of Suzanne at Chick With Books, who very generously sent a novel, the first book in a manga series she wanted to share, and a Hummingbird bookmark which I will most definitely use.

I had seen The Japanese Lover by Allende on several blogs, including Suzanne's, and had it high on my wish list. Goodreads describes it as "an exquisitely crafted love story and multigenerational epic that sweeps from San Francisco in the present-day to Poland and the United States during the Second World War."

Ooku: The Inner Chambers (Volume I) is by Fumi Noshinaga, published in 2009, and is one I'm sure that will get me hooked on reading more manga.

The Hummingbird Bookmark will save me from using paper napkins, pencils, combs, and sundry other things to mark my place in books. Thanks and congrats again, Suzanne! 

What new books arrived for you all this week? 

The Madwoman Upstairs, a Novel by Catherine Lowell

The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice.
Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader.

The Mad Woman Upstairs, a literary novel by Catherine Lowell, to be released March 1, 2016 by Touchstone.

"...the only remaining descendant of the Brontë family embarks on a modern-day literary scavenger hunt to find the family's long-rumored secret estate, using clues her eccentric father left behind." (publisher)

Book beginning: 
The night I arrived at Oxford, I learned that my dorm room was built in 1361 and had originally been used to quarantine victims of the plague. The college porter seemed genuinely apologetic a he led me up the five flights of stairs to my tower. He was a nervous man - short and mouthy, with teeth like a nurse shark - who admitted through a brittle accent that Old College was over-enrolled this year, and that the deans has been forced to find space for students wherever they could. This tower was an annex to Old College. Many tragic and important people had lived here before me, apparently: had I heard of Timothy the Terrible? Sir Michael "the Madman" Morehouse? I shook my head and said that i was sorry - I was American. 

Page 56:
I marveled at their ability to create characters that bore no resemblance to their own selves whatsoever. Were they geniuses in a world of losers? Or were there glimmers of themselves in even their most outlandish fictional creations?

I rated this book a 5/5.