Ponder: The Wish

The Wish ©2021 by Nicholas Sparks follows the author's usual formula of bringing me to tears near the end. The main character, adult Maggie, is a successful, widely traveled photographer with a high caliber art gallery in Manhattan which she shares with a sculptor. How did she get there and how were her interests and skills in photography forged? She is struggling with a life-limiting medical diagnosis. It is Christmas time as the novel opens and adult Maggie begins to reflect on a special Christmas long ago, relating her story to an assistant in the art gallery. 

Flash back to teenage Maggie, who at sixteen finds herself pregnant, the outcome of an immature one-time tryst with a boy she had just met and with whom she would never again cross paths. She is from a Catholic family who are disappointed and embarrassed by her pregnancy. Her parents send her away to live with an aunt she barely knows to gestate and deliver the baby in secrecy and then give it up for adoption. The tiny, sparsely populated, beach/fishing town of Ocracoke, North Carolina, accessible only by periodic ferry trips, is a huge adjustment for Maggie, accustomed to the bustling metropolis of Seattle. Stripped of her family, friends, school, technology, even phone, she begins her stay there very despondent. The aunt is a former nun who used to work with unwed mothers and is at least a patient source of comfort for Maggie eventually as she emerges from her depression. Maggie's parents are absent, unsupportive, and keep their distance thinking they are doing "what is best"; they are dominated by their anxiety for the entire awkward situation to be over. They focus on Maggie's sister, on whom they dote.

Maggie develops a deep friendship with Bryce, an extremely bright young man, slightly older, who is hired to tutor her so her studies will not flounder while she is away from school. He is West Point bound and she must return to Seattle after giving birth so they both know their time together is limited. It is Bryce's mother who trains Maggie in photography, a skill for which she develops a passion that later becomes her life's work. 

The novel oscillates between the present timeline of a Christmas season in Manhattan and remembrances of a few months on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Bryce is raising and training a puppy to be a service dog for the disabled and there is a scene with the dog that brought tears to my eyes. Correction – that incident struck me in a way I started sobbing uncontrollably. That slippery path of my tears greased the way for me to sniff my way through the rest of the book, even though its ending was predictable and as anticipated.

I am a fan of Nicholas Sparks and have read all his books. This one I felt was rather plodding for the first two-thirds; the plot is not key enough in this book to make it a page turner. Nevertheless, I continue to read Sparks' books for his characters and the emotions; the interactions between Maggie and Bryce, between Maggie and her parents,  between Maggie and her aunt, and amongst other characters as well are all worth pondering. I rate The Wish three stars.

★★★☆☆ Better than average; not a waste of time

Ponder: Before We Were Strangers

I have read several books by Brenda Novak. Her books tend to be either romance fluff or thrillers. Before We Were Strangers ©2018 is a thriller... and an engaging and page-turning one.

When Sloane was five years old her mother, Clara, left – or so she was told. Sloan had heard her parents arguing and then a loud thump. Her father was very aggressive and domineering so Sloane had always doubted the "She walked out on us" version from her father Ed. Her older brother Randy was with a friend overnight so he could neither assuage nor corroborate the fears and suspicions of Sloan. 

Sloane left her Texas hometown the day after she graduated high school and became a highly successful model. She had broken off all contact with her father, the powerful and influential town mayor, who was not above blackmailing constituents to get his way. Sloane also assiduously avoided communications with her brother who was obsequious to their father to a fault, and even with Micah, her high school love who is now on the police force. Upon the death of her kindly, platonic mentor, Clyde, who had been instrumental in developing and growing her modeling career, she gives in to her obsession with returning to her home town and laying to rest her suspicions about the disappearance of her mother. Sloane is fairly well-off due to a bequest from Clyde in his will and so she can fund investigating. Sloane's father Ed is very wealthy due to an abrupt inheritance from his father, mother, and brother upon their sudden death due to a robbery/break-in gone wrong. Sloane wonders if her father could have been involved in that crime but he seems to have an alibi. What information can she possibly glean twenty years later that can prove or disprove foul play in the disappearance of her mother? Who can she trust?

Sloane's father Ed is despicable, her brother Randy is a wimp, and her mother Clara is multi-faceted. Micah is a strong, principled character who plays a key role in the story. Many scenes added tension to the read – especially a scuba diving episode. All the underwater sequence needed was the theme song from the shark movie Jaws playing the background to make it more spine-tingling. Because of its plot twists and strong characters, I thoroughly enjoyed Before We Were Strangers and rate it five stars. Amazon readers gave it a 4.6/5 overall rating with 73% of those readers opting for five stars.

★★★★★ Great! Read it!

Alex to Pumpkin Patch

Although a bit early for Halloween, on Sunday October 10th, we visited a pumpkin patch on a corner very near Alex's Home. We'd been watching for its seasonal opening after taking Alex to his Sunday bowling outing each week .

Although it had carnival rides as additional attractions, Alex was only interesting in the pumpkins. As soon as we entered he seized a small palm-sized pumpkin from a stack of hay bales in one of the indoor displays. Alex has a fondness for these small pumpkins. Last year he continued to carry one around with him throughout his days into November 2020. Even when he picked up the wooden balls to roll on the portable bowling alley Frank made for him, he did not put down that mini-pumpkin.

It was only fitting that we get him a fresh palm-sized pumpkin for 2021. As we walked among the hay bales we also got a larger pumpkin that Alex picked up by himself and carried around by the stem. Good thing it was not huge. Alex posed with his pumpkins.

It was a beautiful day and we had a low-key, enjoyable stroll.

Ponder: Witch Please

The title Witch Please ©2021 by Ann Aguirre caught my attention as a cute romantic read for the month of October. I had never read anything by this author but learned she is a New York Times best selling author and per Wikipedia:

Ann Aguirre is an American author of speculative fiction. She writes urban fantasy, romantic science fiction, apocalyptic paranormal romance, paranormal romantic suspense, and post-apocalyptic dystopian young adult fiction.

The premise of the plot was amusing so I checked Witch Please out of the library. Danica and her cousin Clementine are two witches who run the Fix-It Witches shop; its logo is two witches on broomsticks, both wearing tool belts. They use their magic for repairs. Down six blocks is the bakery, Sugar Daddy's, run by a very handsome man named Titus.  (Yes, the shop names in the book are clever.) Titus is a mundane, a human without magical talents and thus the equivalent of a mortal in the old TV series Bewitched or a muggle from the Harry Potter series. Danica and Titus develop an attraction for each other. This love interest is thwarted by Danica's Grandmother – who is very prejudiced against mundane's – yet supported by Danica's coven, which is her group of magical female friends. The back cover lured me in, as I anticipated reading a quirky love story, spiked with mischievous witchy overtones.

With a flirty, innocuous front cover image and an innocent-sounding back cover description, I was curious. Expecting a light-hearted romance as in a typical Hallmark movie that rolls the credits once the happy couple kisses, I was a bit taken aback. This book was not as I was led to believe. Sex scenes with Danica and Titus were quite explicit. References to side bar romances of other characters included same-gender trysts; supposedly Titus had a bi-sexual exploratory past. These variations did not add to the plot unless they are possibly presented as anti-prejudicial examples to contrast against Grandma's snooty bias against mundanes. I also felt the core conflicts were never resolved. This is the first book in the Fix-It Witch series. The second is Boss Witch due out in 2022. I will definitely skip it. I also think this best selling author will be selling her books to someone other than me, intriguing as her Wikipedia description sounded.

★★☆☆☆ Ok, not great; some redeeming features; I finished it