Brenda Novak's The Secrets She Kept is the sequel to The Secret Sister. The two novels make up the Fairham Island series, which, to date, covers the relationships of the Lazarow family. The Secrets She Kept is a "whodunit"/mystery/romantic suspense novel that mainly focuses on Keith, a prodigal son of sorts. Keith had been quite the wild sibling in the family, rebelling against an overbearing and abusive mother, and succumbing to drug addiction as a means to cope with his family's dysfunction. Five years ago, he walked away from his mother and her controlling ways to build a life for himself on the West Coast. He returns to Fairham Island when he learns of her death, which has been ruled a suicide. However, Keith can't accept that his mother, a woman who had always been proud about appearances, would commit suicide, because it would have been a sign of weakness.
I haven't read the first novel, but apparently, it involved a secret that Keith's mother, Josephine, had kept from him and his sisters. There are more secrets that are gradually revealed throughout The Secrets She Kept, and they are pretty shocking to the remaining Lazarows as they are discovered. They could mirror the front pages of tabloid newspapers. Financial troubles. Inappropriate photographs. Adultery. As the secrets are uncovered, it becomes apparent that Josephine Lazarow held very little sacred, not even her own family ties. It also starts to appear that Josephine did not commit suicide, but may have been murdered by someone whom Keith cares about.
Josephine had been a proud, stubborn woman who was unwilling to unbend, and would brow beat others to get her way, literally and figuratively. She also did things to fill her vanity, not caring about the havoc or maelstroms that would result from her actions. The destruction that she released on Keith led him to leave Fairham so that he could survive. Now clean, he returns to Fairham to determine whether Josephine was truly murdered, and if so, to catch who did it. However, returning to the island also causes him to confront his past with Nancy Dellinger, the woman who had loved him unconditionally when he was at his drugged up worst. Keith feels major regret toward Nancy. He knows that he was absolutely bad news to her in the past. Although he has cleaned up his life, he still feels incapable of offering her any semblance of a normal relationship, even though he is still drawn to her.
Nancy is a woman who has never gotten over the good looking, wealthy, bad boy who took everything from her, emotionally, physically, and financially. Presently, she is trying to find a marriageable man through online dating, but nobody can compare to the way she felt with Keith. When she meets Keith again, she tries to tell herself that she needs to maintain her dignity, and resist him, even though she knows that all he wants is a fling until the mystery of his mother's death is solved. Then he will return to the West Coast and leave her again, just as he had five years ago. For a woman who is thirty five and wanting to have children, Keith is not a good prospect. However, Nancy's lesbian sister, Jade, is Cupid's assistant, pushing Nancy and Keith together. Nancy's own heart betrays her, as she can't bring herself to feel that way with anyone else except for Keith.
The novel seemed to have two major plot threads. One was the mystery of Josephine's murder, and the other was the romance between Keith and Nancy.
As for the mystery, Ms. Novak did a fairly good job in deflecting characters as they came and went. I was kept in the dark until about three quarters of the novel when I started thinking about who had been brought out and discounted as possible suspects.
The novel is written in different third points of view. It definitely allowed the reader to see into the minds of different characters, and gave hints as to their innocence, except for one. This character, who was supposed to represent a person who Keith loved, but whom he feared was guilty, held a secret of her own. The reader was not privy to it until other characters exposed it. I found the revelation a bit jarring and felt a bit betrayed (maybe that's too strong a word...perhaps "bothered," would be a better one), because it showed that the character knew about her husband's betrayal at the time, yet she seemed to show uncertainty in her thoughts about it when the reader was allowed to look into her mind.
As for the romance, and as I mentioned before, Nancy is looking for a permanent love. However, Keith isn't, or at least, he doesn't think that he is. He considers himself too damaged by the dysfunction in his past to consider himself relationship material. After Nancy makes a declaration of love to him, he responds by saying, "I'd love you, too, if I was capable of it."
The Secrets She Kept is not a novel that I would have considered writing a review for, except for the fact that I won it through the Goodreads Giveaway program, and even though the program's policy says that I'm not obligated to leave a review, it is understood that it would be appreciated if one was given. So, here is where I will leave a few extra caveats for those who are uncomfortable with the following:
This is a secular novel.
If you are uncomfortable with reading about families which don't operate in conservative ways, then this is not the book for you. Although there are some characters that try and aspire to family unity and cohesiveness, reading about how Josephine Lazarow's actions impacted at least two family groupings got kind of depressing, especially considering what happened as a result. Everything was messy.
If you get frustrated with a man who holds a cavalier attitude towards casual sex without commitment, especially knowing that the female character is looking for something permanent, and he continues to pressure her to act against her conscience, even though he knows that he really shouldn't, then this is not the book for you. I suppose that it's supposed to be romantic that he couldn't help himself from pressuring her, but I'll call it as it is...that man is selfish.
And...if you are uncomfortable with reading sex scenes, considered yourself warned as there are a couple of them.
Before I close off this review, I'd like to mention something of interest to me. There is a reader's guide at the end of the book, and it contains questions for reflecting over the content of the book. However, I think these are interesting questions to think about even without reading the book; they are interesting enough that I want to repeat some of them here:
"One of the themes of this novel is forgiveness. What would you say each character has to forgive? And do you feel that being able to forgive will improve their lives? In what ways?"
"Some people handle adversity better than others. Why do you think that's the case? What makes the difference? How can one person thrive in spite of their difficulties while others get crushed beneath them?"
"At times, we suffer from the bad decisions of those we love. It often doesn't seem fair and can cause quite a bit of resentment. What are the dangers of harboring resentment? What's one way you believe we can overcome resentment?"
"Most people believe that, to a greater or lesser degree, forgiveness should be part of everyone's life experience. But is there a line beyond which we are justified in holding a grudge? Do you feel that certain characters in this story crossed that line? If so, which one(s)? Would you be able to forgive that person if you were in the same situation?"
"They say "time heals all wounds." Arguably, the same could be said for love. Do you believe that's true? Why?"
Finding these questions at the back of the book was kind of eyebrow raising. They captured my interest enough to look up Ms. Novak's biography online, and I discovered that she attended Brigham Young University for her studies. I wonder what her beliefs are. How much influence have they had in her writing and in the inclusion of these discussion questions in this novel? Given that Brigham Young University is connected to the Mormon Church/The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I would suspect that she may hold Mormon beliefs, which are different than mine.
Forgiveness, holding on through adversity, letting go of resentment, and the idea of love healing all wounds are fascinating things to think about. Unfortunately for me, I was left with a rather flat feeling after reading this book. I felt as if I was taken on a tremendous ride, but wasn't uplifted by the end, probably because I still felt blindsided by the mess that the characters found themselves with which they still would have to work through.
Without Jesus, I think that it would be too difficult to forgive and to let go of resentment. I don't even want to think about going through adversity without Jesus. I'm just going to say that I know with certainty that Jesus can heal all wounds. This review was difficult for me to write, because I was not certain about what I would say in it. I found the story troubling because I think that the characters have messy lives without God.
If mystery/romantic suspense novels strike your interest, and if you are interested in reading something that is clean, I would recommend reading Christy Barritt's Dubiosity.
Disclaimer: I was given an advanced uncorrected proof of Brenda Novak's "The Secrets She Kept" for free through the Goodreads Giveaway program. All opinions stated in this review are mine.
Thursday, 26 May 2016
Monday, 16 May 2016
Review: Differentiating Instruction With Menus - Science - 2nd Edition by Laurie E. Westphal
Once upon a time, I used to be a high school science teacher, however, I no longer work as one. However, I married a high school science teacher who has been using differentiating instruction in his junior and senior science classes. He didn't start out that way. In his initial years of teaching, he would teach all the students in a class with the same approach and expectations. For example, if he posted notes on the overhead projector, it was expected that all students would copy down the material exactly as they appeared on the screen. If he gave out a worksheet, it was expected that every student in that class would complete it. If he gave a project that required a model to be built to explain conceptual knowledge, every student was required to submit his/her own little work of art.
However, there were always some students who weren't motivated to complete the work assigned to them, and they were not always necessarily the same students, depending on the instructional method that had been used. In other words, there were students, who thrived with a lecture/note taking/worksheet approach, who bombed when they were presented with building models of cells. There were also students who mentally checked out when they were supposed to be copying the notes from the overhead screen, but who submitted beautifully detailed models of an atom or a plant cell, created with materials that many wouldn't have considered using.
After getting to a point in his teaching where he felt comfortable enough to do so, he started using differentiating instruction in order to capture the interest of as many students as he could. In a lay person's words, he started offering choices to his students with respect to how they could learn and show what they knew. For example, in the note taking situation, students had a choice of copying directly from the screen, or they had to follow along using worksheets that had most of the notes typed on them, but with key words/ideas missing that needed to be filled in. Sometimes, for assessment, students had a choice to either submit in paperwork, or if they had an aversion to that, they would be required to answer the questions orally in an interview. These choices may seem too simple, or even ridiculous to some people, but there were enough takers for every choice provided to consider them as legitimate options.
So, when the Goodreads Giveaway Program listed Differentiating Instruction With Menus - Science, by Laurie Westphal, I signed up for a chance to win the book, and I did. The book has a focus for teachers of grades 3 - 5 science, but I figure that if I ever return to teaching high school science, the principles behind using the methods described in this book would be useful to know. Apparently, this book is part of a series which also covers differentiating instruction with menus for math, language arts, and social studies for the elementary school level. There also appears to be a couple books in the series that also tackles differentiating instruction with menus for grades 9-12 in the areas of algebra and biology.
The book is divided into two major sections: the first part takes up about a third of the book and covers a general discussion and explanation about what menus are. The author discusses at least five of them. For example, one is a list menu which has predetermined choices, each with its own point value. Students can choose any number of options which have different weights and different expectations for completion time. The point total should equal to 100% and students can choose how they wish to achieve that total. The book also provides suggestions on how to use menus (for example, in mini-lessons). Also provided in this section are guidelines for using the menus and rubrics for assessment.
The second part, which makes up the remaining two-thirds of the book, contains actual menus for specific lessons under the categories of Physical Science, Biological Science, Earth Science, and Scientists and the Tools They Use. For each of these menus, there are introduction pages for the teacher, the content menu, and supporting activities for the section. There 8 sample lessons for the Physical Science section, 6 for the Biological section, 12 for the Earth Science section, and 3 for the Scientists and the Tools They Use section.
Because I have previously taught material that is presented in some of the menus provided for in the Physical Sciences section, I took a closer look at those particular lessons. For a couple of those lessons, I could have directly lifted them straight out of this book and used them in my classroom without making any alterations or modifications, even at a junior science level. However, there were lessons that I would have had to make changes for because they weren't a suitable fit content-wise or activity-wise.
In my opinion, the most valuable part of the book was the first third of the book, which provided the descriptions and explanations on how to use the menus, and especially the list of the products (Table 3.1 which lists activities that could be used in conjunction with the menus, such as an poster, model, making a commercial, etc.), and the guidelines detailing the requirements for the product. For example, product guidelines for a model may include the following requirements:
-the physical dimensions
-all parts labeled
-in a suitable scale
-title, information card
-name (because, yes, students have been known to not write their names down on work that they spent hours on!)
Again, because I taught at the high school level, the list of guidelines would need to be adapted and expanded for my class. However, it is nice to have a jumping point to start off from, and the author has provided project guidelines for at least 56 activities/products that could be selected for differentiating instruction.
I remember receiving a 3-4 page handout at teacher college listing Bloom's taxonomy and a list of about activities that could help promote learning. This book has a list of activities, possible guidelines/requirements for those activities, a couple of rubrics, and an example of a $1 contract form (to equalize that amount spent on these activities). Even if not all 29 sample lessons are directly usable, they could be adapted or used as models to construct lessons for use in the classroom.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of "Differentiating Instruction With Menus - Science" by Laurie Westphal for free from the Goodreads Giveaway program. All opinions stated in this review are mine.
However, there were always some students who weren't motivated to complete the work assigned to them, and they were not always necessarily the same students, depending on the instructional method that had been used. In other words, there were students, who thrived with a lecture/note taking/worksheet approach, who bombed when they were presented with building models of cells. There were also students who mentally checked out when they were supposed to be copying the notes from the overhead screen, but who submitted beautifully detailed models of an atom or a plant cell, created with materials that many wouldn't have considered using.
After getting to a point in his teaching where he felt comfortable enough to do so, he started using differentiating instruction in order to capture the interest of as many students as he could. In a lay person's words, he started offering choices to his students with respect to how they could learn and show what they knew. For example, in the note taking situation, students had a choice of copying directly from the screen, or they had to follow along using worksheets that had most of the notes typed on them, but with key words/ideas missing that needed to be filled in. Sometimes, for assessment, students had a choice to either submit in paperwork, or if they had an aversion to that, they would be required to answer the questions orally in an interview. These choices may seem too simple, or even ridiculous to some people, but there were enough takers for every choice provided to consider them as legitimate options.
So, when the Goodreads Giveaway Program listed Differentiating Instruction With Menus - Science, by Laurie Westphal, I signed up for a chance to win the book, and I did. The book has a focus for teachers of grades 3 - 5 science, but I figure that if I ever return to teaching high school science, the principles behind using the methods described in this book would be useful to know. Apparently, this book is part of a series which also covers differentiating instruction with menus for math, language arts, and social studies for the elementary school level. There also appears to be a couple books in the series that also tackles differentiating instruction with menus for grades 9-12 in the areas of algebra and biology.
The book is divided into two major sections: the first part takes up about a third of the book and covers a general discussion and explanation about what menus are. The author discusses at least five of them. For example, one is a list menu which has predetermined choices, each with its own point value. Students can choose any number of options which have different weights and different expectations for completion time. The point total should equal to 100% and students can choose how they wish to achieve that total. The book also provides suggestions on how to use menus (for example, in mini-lessons). Also provided in this section are guidelines for using the menus and rubrics for assessment.
The second part, which makes up the remaining two-thirds of the book, contains actual menus for specific lessons under the categories of Physical Science, Biological Science, Earth Science, and Scientists and the Tools They Use. For each of these menus, there are introduction pages for the teacher, the content menu, and supporting activities for the section. There 8 sample lessons for the Physical Science section, 6 for the Biological section, 12 for the Earth Science section, and 3 for the Scientists and the Tools They Use section.
Because I have previously taught material that is presented in some of the menus provided for in the Physical Sciences section, I took a closer look at those particular lessons. For a couple of those lessons, I could have directly lifted them straight out of this book and used them in my classroom without making any alterations or modifications, even at a junior science level. However, there were lessons that I would have had to make changes for because they weren't a suitable fit content-wise or activity-wise.
In my opinion, the most valuable part of the book was the first third of the book, which provided the descriptions and explanations on how to use the menus, and especially the list of the products (Table 3.1 which lists activities that could be used in conjunction with the menus, such as an poster, model, making a commercial, etc.), and the guidelines detailing the requirements for the product. For example, product guidelines for a model may include the following requirements:
-the physical dimensions
-all parts labeled
-in a suitable scale
-title, information card
-name (because, yes, students have been known to not write their names down on work that they spent hours on!)
Again, because I taught at the high school level, the list of guidelines would need to be adapted and expanded for my class. However, it is nice to have a jumping point to start off from, and the author has provided project guidelines for at least 56 activities/products that could be selected for differentiating instruction.
I remember receiving a 3-4 page handout at teacher college listing Bloom's taxonomy and a list of about activities that could help promote learning. This book has a list of activities, possible guidelines/requirements for those activities, a couple of rubrics, and an example of a $1 contract form (to equalize that amount spent on these activities). Even if not all 29 sample lessons are directly usable, they could be adapted or used as models to construct lessons for use in the classroom.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of "Differentiating Instruction With Menus - Science" by Laurie Westphal for free from the Goodreads Giveaway program. All opinions stated in this review are mine.
Saturday, 7 May 2016
Review: A Practical Partnership by Lily George
A Practical Partnership by Lily George is a historical romance that was released in February 2016 by Harlequin's Love Inspired line. It is a sequel to The Nanny Arrangement, which is a sequel to A Rumored Engagement. The three novels cover the romances of the Siddons sisters, Nan, Becky, and Susannah. A Practical Partnership is Nan's story about her relationship with John Reed, a man with a roguish past. It is a tale about opposites who are attracted to each other.
Nan is now the sole proprietor of the millinery shop in Tansley that she had previously shared with her sisters before Susannah and Becky made advantageous marriages of their own. Nan has always seen herself as being the plainest and most sensible of the sisters, and has resigned herself to the life of a spinster. However, with the arrival of a new French milliner in town, Nan has been facing competition for business, and is left wondering how she will be able to continue operating her shop. She desperately wants to avoid being a financial burden to her sisters.
John Reed has been reluctantly running his family's estate now that his father has passed on. The whole idea of assuming these responsibilities is simply not fun or enjoyable to him. However, he is forcing himself to do his duty. In his eyes, this also means launching his sister, Jane, into her London season, even though Jane has no wish to have one. When he sees how comfortable Jane is with Nan, he makes an offer to Nan: come with the Reeds to create Jane's wardrobe. Nan doesn't really want to leave her shop, but can't stay in Tansley if she is to work on Jane's wardrobe. However, with dwindling orders for her shop, Nan agrees to take up John's offer, and leaves town so that she can begin working with Jane at the Reeds' estate, Grant Park.
While Nan is at Grant Park, she discovers the reason why Jane doesn't wish to have a London season, in addition to discovering that John has depths beyond that of a debauched, carefree bachelor. John teaches her to have a bit of fun instead of being serious all the time. Being with him encourages her to dream of greater things for her life.
John finds himself growing intrigued with a woman who isn't going out of her way to attract his attention. However, being at Grant Park forces him to look deeply into the reasons why he doesn't want to take on the responsibilities of running the estate and why he is at odds with the Lord. Spending time with Nan helps him to find faith again. However, he finds it difficult to reconcile his romantic attraction to Nan with his perceptions about the class of woman that duty requires for him to marry, and unfortunately, Nan doesn't measure up to those demands. In addition, a situation arises which leads John to feel betrayed by Nan, making it difficult for him to trust her. Will this practical partnership ever grow into a romantic one?
I found A Practical Partnership to be a safe and clean read. For a man who supposedly has spent much of his life before in the pursuit of pleasure, I didn't find John to be much of a rogue. The hints of the romantic attraction between the two leads are dropped fairly early in the book, but John and Nan don't get anywhere near to a kiss until close to the end of the book. As for his prankster reputation...well...it seemed to be on the tame side. He came off as a fairly respectable person who might joke around a bit here and there, using a jovial cover to mask the anger that he had deep inside.
I liked Nan. She is a sensible and practical person, who has a dash of stoicism. She needs to loosen up, and John is able to get her to do that. It would seem that the two of them are able to bring out the best in each other.
Even though A Practical Partnership is the third in a trilogy about the Siddons sisters, I think that it can be considered a stand alone novel, as it can be understood and enjoyed without needing to read the other books for more background information.
Nan is now the sole proprietor of the millinery shop in Tansley that she had previously shared with her sisters before Susannah and Becky made advantageous marriages of their own. Nan has always seen herself as being the plainest and most sensible of the sisters, and has resigned herself to the life of a spinster. However, with the arrival of a new French milliner in town, Nan has been facing competition for business, and is left wondering how she will be able to continue operating her shop. She desperately wants to avoid being a financial burden to her sisters.
John Reed has been reluctantly running his family's estate now that his father has passed on. The whole idea of assuming these responsibilities is simply not fun or enjoyable to him. However, he is forcing himself to do his duty. In his eyes, this also means launching his sister, Jane, into her London season, even though Jane has no wish to have one. When he sees how comfortable Jane is with Nan, he makes an offer to Nan: come with the Reeds to create Jane's wardrobe. Nan doesn't really want to leave her shop, but can't stay in Tansley if she is to work on Jane's wardrobe. However, with dwindling orders for her shop, Nan agrees to take up John's offer, and leaves town so that she can begin working with Jane at the Reeds' estate, Grant Park.
While Nan is at Grant Park, she discovers the reason why Jane doesn't wish to have a London season, in addition to discovering that John has depths beyond that of a debauched, carefree bachelor. John teaches her to have a bit of fun instead of being serious all the time. Being with him encourages her to dream of greater things for her life.
John finds himself growing intrigued with a woman who isn't going out of her way to attract his attention. However, being at Grant Park forces him to look deeply into the reasons why he doesn't want to take on the responsibilities of running the estate and why he is at odds with the Lord. Spending time with Nan helps him to find faith again. However, he finds it difficult to reconcile his romantic attraction to Nan with his perceptions about the class of woman that duty requires for him to marry, and unfortunately, Nan doesn't measure up to those demands. In addition, a situation arises which leads John to feel betrayed by Nan, making it difficult for him to trust her. Will this practical partnership ever grow into a romantic one?
I found A Practical Partnership to be a safe and clean read. For a man who supposedly has spent much of his life before in the pursuit of pleasure, I didn't find John to be much of a rogue. The hints of the romantic attraction between the two leads are dropped fairly early in the book, but John and Nan don't get anywhere near to a kiss until close to the end of the book. As for his prankster reputation...well...it seemed to be on the tame side. He came off as a fairly respectable person who might joke around a bit here and there, using a jovial cover to mask the anger that he had deep inside.
I liked Nan. She is a sensible and practical person, who has a dash of stoicism. She needs to loosen up, and John is able to get her to do that. It would seem that the two of them are able to bring out the best in each other.
Even though A Practical Partnership is the third in a trilogy about the Siddons sisters, I think that it can be considered a stand alone novel, as it can be understood and enjoyed without needing to read the other books for more background information.
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