What to read, who should read it and how to find it

Currently, there are 3 categories of books being written up within this blog. Books you can read to your grade school children (great stories that might be just a little over their independent reading level), books for your teenage children to read (or "Young Adult" - which you may find you'd like to read as well!), and books for you yourself to read. I post the write ups of these books as I read them, which is to say the categories of books in the main body of this blog are jumbled together. However, I have created labels so you can easily find and browse through whichever category most interests you. "Charlie" is for the grade schoolers, "Max" is for the tween/teens and "Mom" is for books you yourself might enjoy.

Monday, June 4, 2012

The House of Velvet and Glass by Katherine Howe


Official Summary
Still reeling from the deaths of her mother and sister on the Titanic, Sibyl Allston is living a life of quiet desperation with her taciturn father and scandal-plagued brother in an elegant town house in Boston’s Back Bay. Trapped in a world over which she has no control, Sibyl flees for solace to the parlor of a table-turning medium.
But when her brother is suddenly kicked out of Harvard under mysterious circumstances and falls under the sway of a strange young woman, Sibyl turns for help to psychology professor Benton Derby, despite the unspoken tensions of their shared past. As Benton and Sibyl work together to solve a harrowing mystery, their long-simmering spark flares to life, and they realize that there may be something even more magical between them than a medium’s scrying glass.
From the opium dens of Boston’s Chinatown to the opulent salons of high society, from the back alleys of colonial Shanghai to the decks of the Titanic, The House of Velvet and Glass weaves together meticulous period detail, intoxicating romance, and a final shocking twist that will leave readers breathless.


My Two Cents
Well, I don't know if the end had a shocking twist that left me breathless, but overall the book was really very good.  I was a bit skeptical about this one, not really knowing the author or hearing anything about the book - but I have to say it was a pleasant surprise.  I am forever on the lookout for something new and different and this definitely fit the bill - I've never really read anything like it.  It felt like it took a long time for the storyline to kick start (yet it was NOT boring or slow...weird, right?) and there were aspects of it that annoyed me, but certainly not enough to ruin the read.  

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