Book Review: Cold River

For a chilling Pacific Northwest experience, Cold River (Walnut Springs Press) by Liz Adair will keep you wondering about who’s putting a damper on the efforts of the new school superintendent.

When Mandy Steenburg accepts the job of Superintendent of Schools in Limestone, Washington, she feels confident her doctorate in education will be a valuable asset. She arrives in early spring, which in the foothills, is still very cold and rainy. The weather isn’t the only thing that dampens her spirit. The town’s chilly reception is less than welcoming. Limestone is a community with tarheel independence and these folks like their town just as it is.

Mandy’s younger sister Leesie appears, a senior in high school, hoping to live with Mandy in the A-Frame house she’s rented. Although Mandy’s pleased to have the company, it is one more responsibility to take on.

As superintendent, Mandy struggles to make improvements, but meets resistance. Although the former superintendent has been demoted to assistant superintendent, the town still looks to him for leadership. Organized and efficient, Mandy is determined to make a difference, but it seems the only change she makes is in her own well-being. Incidents begin to happen, dangerous, life-threatening events. After a nasty case of food poisoning, a mysterious house fire, a wheel spinning off her car, she realizes someone is serious about getting rid of her.

Along the way, Mandy does make friends, even experiences the beginning of a romance, but she’s getting a strong message that she’s not accepted professionally and she considers accepting another job. She stumbles upon a secret and in trying to get away finds herself in deep water in a very real sense.

Cold River is a suspenseful novel written with insight of the inner workings of a school district. Of particular interest to me was the correlation between music and mathematics, as the author depicts Limestone’s exceptional and unusual high school music program. Readers who enjoy cozy mysteries will enjoy this book. To read more about the author, visit http://sezlizadair.blogspot.com/p/lizs-books.html

NOTE: For those who live in the Pacific Northwest, Liz Adair invites you to a Cold River launch party, 7:00 p.m., December 8 at the Sedro Woolley Library, 802 Ball Street, Sedro-Woolley, WA 98284-2008. Door prizes will be books and home-made apple pies!

Book Review: Counting the Cost by Liz Adair

Counting the Cost by Liz Adair captures the essence of love: not always practical, often destructive, but present and undeniable nevertheless.

The fast-moving story takes place in 1930s New Mexico. When eastern society lady Ruth Reynolds moves onto a ranch where cowboy Heck Benham works, sparks instantly fly. There is a big problem though--Ruth is married and Heck is as honorable as he is hard-working.

Fate draws them together, but not without pain and heart-wrenching sacrifice and challenges. Yet, their love shines through at every turn, though the cost is perhaps more than anyone would bargain for.

Adair does a magnificent job of describing the New Mexico setting–its rugged people and stark countryside at a time when nothing came easy. A New Mexico native, she paints the story with meticulous detail and historical accuracy to the ranching and social norms of the era.

Counting the Cost is available through Inglestone Publishing Bookstore www.inglestonepublishing.com, the author’s website www.lizadair.net,or Amazon.com.

Review: Lucy Shook's Letters from Afghanistan

Lucy Shook’s Letters from Afghanistan, edited by Shook’s daughter Liz Adair and granddaughters Ruth Lavine and Terry Gifford, is an amazing chronicle of an American woman’s view of Afghanistan from 1965 to 1970. Serving with the United States’ Agency for International Development, Lucy’s husband, Jim, works in agricultural development while Lucy oversees their life in an Islamic country she describes as "2,000 years behind the times."

Shook soon finds that running a home staffed with servants isn’t fully utilizing her capabilities and she takes on the responsibility of a Staff House, a respite for visitors. Along the way, she becomes involved in the lives of those who work for her. She endears herself to these hard-working people of grinding poverty, people who are capable of such love and dedication that she is often moved to tears.

In the course of business or pleasure, the Shooks travel throughout Afghanistan, taking the reader along on camel rides, desert markets, and the oddities of doing business in a third-world country.

Shook successfully manages both her home and the Staff House and becomes known as an expert hostess. Indeed, she frequently manages two or three events in a day, often honoring dignitaries with 150 or 200 guests in attendance.

During their tenure in Afghanistan, Lucy suffered a severely broken leg and several environmental illnesses; Jim recovered from a heart attack and also had sundry illnesses. But they forged on, bolstered by their strong Mormon faith, relying on the love for family, and gathering strength from letters from home.

Shook’s letters to her children reveal great compassion for life and for doing her very best with materials at hand, all with honesty and openness to her own short-comings. Her witty and loving approach to her fellow man endears her not only to those she served, but to her readers as well.

On a personal note, as a former Peace Corps volunteer (1979-1981, The Gambia, West Africa), I appreciated her involvement with the Afghanistan volunteers. Living at the other end of the spectrum, Peace Corps volunteers don’t usually have much in the way of luxuries such as air conditioning, a balanced diet, even opportunities to carry on a conversation in English. Being invited to the Staff House must have seemed like heaven on earth to those volunteers.

Afghanistan has now become a household name, yet I doubt if the people have changed that much since the Shooks lived among them. I highly recommend this book for a look at a country few of us understand; at a people fierce, yet loyal to a degree we seldom see in America. Books can be ordered through www.lettersfromafghanistan.com. Liz Adair’s website is www.lizadair.net.