Oh My Stars! By Lorna Landvik

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Another Landvik gem. I love her quirky characters and her northern settings. The people ring true because they are like the people that we know...

Here is a story of a woman who has had all the hardship life has to offer before she is 16 - her mother ran off, her father abused her and neglected her, she was dreadfully poor and only had a tree to love. Then life started to improve - she got a factory job in a thread factory, made friends and began to see life differently -but on her 16th birthday her life changed...she lost an arm in a accident, her ears filled with the buzzing of bees and there didn't seem to be a reason to continue on...

So, Violet boards a bus to San Francisco to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge.

Then life starts to throw her a rope...there is a bus crash and she is rescued by two unusual musicians - Kjel (prounced Shell) the most amazing looking blond North Dakota has to offer and Austin the blackest of all black men with the largest vocabulary of smooth and high talk. That crash and rescue change the course of Violet's life.

Austin and Kjel are musicians and they invite Violet to join them on a whim. They begin an amazing band called the "Pearltones." They start a tour with Austin's brother Dallas through the small towns changing their lives and the lives of those who hear them play through a very memorable summer.

In typical Landvik fashion nothing seems to go like they planned. But, life continues. Also in Landvik fashion, this book covers Violet's life from childhood through her old age with many stops and starts and curves and twists in between. It is filled with music and beauty and characters that I wish I could meet!

The title is from Kjel - each morning he greets the world with "oh my stars!" a prayer and a song to the beauty of the heavens and world that was created around him!

I loved this!

Home to Holly Springs by Jan Karon

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I have loved the Mitford books and Father Tim for many years. Some of the books have been a little slow in the middle of the story. But, I have always resonated with the real christianity that Tim tries so hard to live. He is more than the sum of his parts - he is human and God-filled. But, there is a dark and depressed side of Father Tim. A side that stays hidden much of the time. This is the book that explains it all. Here are the answers.

Tim travels by himself back to Holly Springs, Mississippi after receiving a letter - no name, nothing more. The letter simply asks him to come. And so he does, not having any idea why. He has a whole group of people to look for in Holly Springs - Willie with only one thumb, Tommy Noles his best friend and blood brother, Peggy, who raised him and Louis and Sally from the farm. His family has long since died - but their ghosts seem to surround Holly Springs.

What Tim finds is much, much more than he imagined. It is the story of a past of questions being answered. Not always the way he would have wanted them to be answered, but answered they are. In the midst of this search he also makes new friend, T and Ray who are restoring his old home, Red at the hardware store. Each of these fills a place for him.

The story also features Cynthia, his amazing wife and Dooley his adopted son.

It's been quite a while since I've read any of these stories -and I have to say - this is one of the best!