Bookies Book Club

What: Bookies Book Club
When: Saturday, August 14th
10:00 a.m.
Where: Lion's Park, Minooka
Small Pavilion
Discussing: Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman
P.S., I Love You by Cecelia Ahern

Please join us!

Still Missing by Chevy Stevens

Looking for a quick and thrilling read this summer? Give Still Missing by Chevy Stevens a try.

Annie O'Sullivan has a fulfilling life - she is a successful real estate agent, has wonderful friends and adores her boyfriend. She owns a beautiful Victorian home on Vancouver Island which she shares with her loyal dog. Life as she knows it is changed forever when she is abducted from a real estate open house that she is hosting. When she comes to, she discovers she is being held in a tiny cabin that is completely closed off from the rest of the world. Her captor, whom she refers to as, "The Freak," is creepily in control, from the clothes she wears to when she uses the bathroom. His expectations of Annie as his submissive "wife" are quietly terrifying and cringe-inducing. Annie is a fighter, however, and soon learns to read The Freak in an effort to not only stay alive, but also try and get an edge on him.

The book opens with Annie's first meeting with her therapist after the abduction, so right away it is clear that she has survived her ordeal. Told through a series of conversations with her therapist, her story draws the reader in, as she shares her shocking and heartbreaking experiences with The Freak. As she struggles to rebuild her life post-trauma, she also deals with some additional loose ends of her case that result in a stunning conclusion, yet hopeful conclusion. I highly recommend this book!

Rereading Old Favorites

Have you ever had the experience of reading a book, absolutely loving it, then returning later to read it again, and wonder what you were thinking the first time around? Happily, I did not have that experience with the book, Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen.

One of the selections for this month's Bookies Book Club, Water for Elephants is a romantic story full of intrigue, danger, and circus characters...and who can resist a circus? Told in the form of flashbacks, 90 year old Jacob Jankowski, now a resident of an assisted living facility, recalls his unlikely stint as a vet for a traveling circus during the summer of 1931.

Reeling following the unexpected deaths of his family, Jacob is unable to complete his final exams to obtain his ivy league veterinarian degree and decides to hop a train to escape the nightmare his life had become. As luck would have it, the train he just happened to catch was the Benzini Bros. circus train, and they were thrilled to have a young almost-vet willing to join their crew. Jacob is quickly indoctrinated into the circus, and is soon liked and trusted by both the performers and the working men - no easy feat. When he meets the beautiful Marlena, who just happens to be married to his sometimes charming, sometimes scary boss, he is lost. Rosie the elephant eventually joins the menagerie and Jacob falls for her as well. When the circus owner's unethical practices come back to haunt him, Jacob's life suddenly turns in a whole new direction.

This book is an engrossing and beautifully told story. Gruen has done her research and captures the feel of the traveling circus marvelously. The characters, including Rosie the elephant are multi-dimensional and real. My absolute favorite thing about this book, however is the ending - without including any spoilers, let's just say that I am a sucker for a happy ending, no matter how twisted that might be. A wonderful read that is also being made into a movie of the same title, starring Robert Pattinson as Jacob and Reese Witherspoon as Marlena. It's hard to imagine the movie living up to the book, but I am willing to give it a shot!

Fancy Pants by Cathy Marie Hake

Set in the 1890's, this story features Lady Sydney Hathwell, who travels from England to America to meet a potential groom. Lady Sydney quickly decides they are not suited to each other. Mr. Hume doesn't care though so Lady Sydney decides to go and meet her American Uncle. The only problem is that when she contacts him, Uncle Fuller mistakenly thinks Sydney is a nephew.

What's a girl with no other options to do? Put on a pair of britches and travel out west to her Uncle's ranch. Some people see right through her masquerade. Some don't which leads to some great adventures, seeing life through the eyes of an almost "man", since Sydney is not quite 18.

This Christian fiction mixes just the right amount of humor, romance and adventure to satisfy a wide variety of readers.