The Story Collector by Evie Woods

 

Summary:

An evocative and charming novel full of secrets and mystery, from the million-copy bestselling author of The Lost Bookshop

In a quiet village in Ireland, a mysterious local myth is about to change everything…

One hundred years ago, Anna, a young farm girl, volunteers to help an intriguing American visitor translate fairy stories from Irish to English. But all is not as it seems and Anna soon finds herself at the heart of a mystery that threatens her very way of life.

In New York in the present day, Sarah Harper boards a plane bound for the West Coast of Ireland. But once there, she finds she has unearthed dark secrets – secrets that tread the line between the everyday and the otherworldly, the seen and the unseen.

 

Review: 3-Star

I had high hopes for this story when I read the description, but to me the story feels dry and does flow flawlessly.  It was easy to put down for days at a time and then I would remember that I needed to finish it so I could do my review.  While I did enjoy it, it didn’t catch me up like I thought it would. The Editing is great I didn’t find errors that I find so often nowadays, but to me a book should engage me to where I don’t want to put it down and this didn’t do it at all.

 

Conclusion:

 

Would I recommend this book to others NO

Would I buy this book for another NO

Would I read other books by this Author Maybe

 

 

 

 

 

 

Framed by John Grisham; Jim McCloskey

 

Summary:

In John Grisham’s first work of nonfiction since The Innocent Man, “the master of the legal thriller” (Associated Press) teams up with Jim McCloskey, “the godfather of the innocence movement” (Texas Monthly), to share ten harrowing true stories of wrongful convictions.

John Grisham is known worldwide for his bestselling novels, but it’s his real-life passion for justice that led to his work with Jim McCloskey of Centurion Ministries, the first organization dedicated to exonerating innocent people who have been wrongly convicted. Together they offer an inside look at the many injustices in our criminal justice system.

A fundamental principle of our legal system is a presumption of innocence, but once someone has been found guilty, there is very little room to prove doubt. These ten true stories shed light on Americans who were innocent but found guilty and forced to sacrifice friends, families, and decades of their lives to prison while the guilty parties remained free. In each of the stories, John Grisham and Jim McCloskey recount the dramatic hard-fought battles for exoneration. They take a close look at what leads to wrongful convictions in the first place and the racism, misconduct, flawed testimony, and corruption in the court system that can make them so hard to reverse.

Impeccably researched and told with page-turning suspense as only John Grisham can deliver, Framed is the story of winning freedom when the battle already seems lost and the deck is stacked against you.

 

Review:  5-star

I don’t give out many 5-star review the book has to be a page turner where I don’t like putting it down.  I’ve always been a fan of John Grisham, so it was his name that got me to read the summary of the book to see if it was something I was interested in reading and when I read that I knew Yes, this was then next book I’d read and review.  I’ve heard a few stories of people wrongfully convicted and I never understood how it could happen, but John and Jim to such a wonderful job of telling these stories it opened my eyes to this problem we have. Each story was written with dignity to the person or persons involved. They stories were written in such away they engage the reader and draw them in where they don’t want to stop reading.  You feel all the emotions and it breaks your heart that there have been way too many people wrongfully convicted and the amount of money and time it takes to free them is something nobody will ever fully understand.

 

Conclusion:

Would I recommend this book to others YES

Would I buy this book as a gift for someone YES

Would I read other books written by the Authors YES