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Darn that Lori Rader-Day. I am not a night person, but once I started Under a Dark Sky , I had to stay up and finish it. It's the story of a troubled woman, caught up in an Agatha Christie nightmare. And, it's just right. Eden Wallace's husband, Bix, a war hero, has been dead for nine months when she uses his reservation at Straits Point International Dark Sky Park in Michigan. She's hated the dark for years, but, after Bix's death, she's terrified. The stay at the park may send her screaming back to Chicago, or help her find solutions to her fears. But, Eden's reservation at the park isn't what she anticipated, a few nights all to herself in a guest house. Instead, she's just one of seven guests in the house. Yes, she has the suite to herself, but her fellow guests are three couples in their mid-twenties. Five of them went to college together, and it's an anniversary that reunites them. When one of Eden's fellow guests is murdered in the mid...

Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling Publishing information: Paperback; 568pgs Publisher: Sphere Books; 18 July 2013 ISBN: 9780751552867 Standalone Copy: Out of pocket Reviewer: Tyson Amazon Synopsis: "A BIG NOVEL ABOUT A SMALL TOWN ... When Barry Fairbrother dies in his early forties, the town of Pagford is left in shock. Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war. Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils ... Pagford is not what it first seems. And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations?" I love the Harry Potter series not just because it is well-written, but it got a lot of children (and adults) into reading. As a educator...