Author: June Hutton

June Hutton is another member of the SPiN group and an acquaintance of Pat’s. I was so moved by her first novel that I actually wrote her a note telling her so.

I was disappointed though with this, her second novel. I expected to learn more about Two-Gun Cohen and his relationship with Sun Yat-sen but the story takes place at a time in history when they barely know one another. It wasn’t until later that they led a revolution in China.

I understood the story she was telling but I had to fill in a lot of gaps on my own.

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Underground 

Here’s my review of June’s first book.

I loved it. Her choice of words is exquisite. The characters are well developed and I could “see” every scene.

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Author: Rosalie Ham

This time I got the right one! Everyone that I know who saw the movie described it as odd or quirky.

There are a lot of characters and I had trouble keeping them straight. It didn’t help that a couple of them changed their names during the course of the story. Most of the characters were odd in some way and the story, on the whole, was quite quirky.

I can hardly wait to see the movie version; I understand the library has ordered it for their collection.

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Author: Jen Sookfong Lee

Jen is an acquaintance of Pat’s; they met while Pat was volunteering at a writer’s workshop at UBC many years ago. I’ve read other books by the three members of the SPiN writer group. I read Jen’s first novel many years ago and I enjoyed it but this one is much, much better.

The novel is set in Vancouver (all the places are familiar) but it could be set anywhere. The story is about the disappearance of two young girls who are in foster care with what would seem like the ideal foster family. But when the mother dies, a gruesome discovery is made by her husband and daughter. The story goes back and forth between the time of the disappearance and the present day.

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The End of East 

This is my review of Jen’s first book.

We know this author and I was very anxious to read her first published novel. The story is set in Vancouver so the locations were familiar. I could see and hear the characters and, to me, that is the sign of good writing.

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Author: Henning Mankell

This is a Young Adult novel, although I found it on the shelves with the other Mankell books. Henning Mankell is better known for his Wallander series and, until recently, I didn’t know he wrote anything else.

To be honest, I enjoyed this book more than I did the previous non-Wallander book. Although it is clearly aimed at a younger audience, the story was interesting. Joel’s mother left shortly after Joel was born; he and his father lead a rather sparse life in a small Swedish town. Joel’s father gave up life as an able seaman when Joel was born, and they both dream of returning to the sea.

This is the first in a series of three books where Joel is the central character.

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