Two Girls and a Secret

The House at Riverton by Kate Morton is her debut novel. It is a historical fiction book about a girl named Grace Bradley and two sisters, Hannah and Emmeline Hartford. The three live in the Riverton house and experience good times and tragedy. The worse tragedy happened in the summer of 1924 when a young poet shoots himself. The only witnesses are Grace, Hannah and Emmeline.
In 1999, at the age of 99, Grace is visited by a director who is doing a movie on the history of Riverton. The director takes Grace back to Riverton and awakens a lot of secrets that she kept her whole life. The story is gripping throughout to it's astonishing ending. Kate Morton also wrote the unforgettable book, The Forgotten Garden. The House at Riverton is an intense read.

Child's bones and a Forensic Archaeologist

Again we meet Ruth Galloway in Elly Griffths', The Janus Stone.  An Archaeology dig finds children's bones beneath a door that used to be a children's home.  Two children went missing forty years ago and were never found.  Carbon dating prove the child's bones predate the home and relates to when the house was privately owned.  Detective Harry Nelson, Ruth Galloway and their friends and fellow archaeologists are put to the test to solve this mystery.  Ruth Galloway has a more personal stake and danger in this discovery.  Like Griffiths' first book, The Crossing Places, this second book in the series will be hard to put down till the end.

Sir John Fielding and Jeremy together again

Murder in Grub Street by Bruce Alexander is the second book in the Sir John Fielding mysteries.  The time period is the eighteenth century in London.  This time there is a murder of six people at a printers home and place of work.  The Crabb family and two of Mr. Crabb's apprentices were brutally murdered.  A mad man was also found at the scene with a bloody axe but doesn't  know why or how any of this happened.  Thirteen-year-old Jeremy Proctor and the blind Sir John are on the case to solve this evil massacre.  This series is becoming one of my favorites.  Bruce Alexander transports you to the eighteenth century with his brilliant descriptive detail.

Thor -Superhero or eye candy

Thor was an unexpectedly good movie. I thought...oh not another superhero movie but I was surprised that it really kept my attention. The story is about two sons who are be up for heir to their father's throne and to be king to a city of gods. They are somewhat at peace with a civilization of a frozen-like race on the brink of war. The eldest son is cocky and gets exiled to Earth. While he is gone, things start to fall apart for his planet. The movie goes in the direction of good verses evil and the innocent are caught in the middle. The cgi was great and the cinematograhy was fantastic. I left the movie a little puzzled with the extent of the story line of Earth. It reminded me of the extra unnecessary existence of extra pirates run by Yun Phat's character in the third Pirates movie. It would have been a better movie without the extra part. The move Thor is enjoyable and I saw it twice so that should tell you something.

The Rise of the Nazis

A Trace of Smoke by Rebecca Cantrell is based in Berlin in 1931.  Hannah Vogel, a crime reporter heads to the police station to get a story and sees a picture of her brother in the hall of the unnamed dead.  Hannah is then dragged into her brother Ernst's world where he was a cross dressing lounge siner and was associating with Nazis.  Then, if there wasn't enough to worry about, there is a five-year-old boy named Anton who shows up on Hannah's doorstep claiming that Ernst is his father and Hannah his mother.
Hannah starts to investigate the death of her brother and finds secrets of sex scandals within the high ranks of the Nazi party that puts Anton and herself in grave danger.  Cantrell transports you to 1930's Berlin with her vivid descriptions of a terrifying and profound time when nothing can be spoken and very few people can be trusted.