Page 14 - Gears and Ears October 2013

Book Reviews

Slightly Scary Stories for October

Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and
the Spending of a Great American Fortune [NOOK Book]

by Bill Dedman, and Paul Clark Newell
Overview
When Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Bill Dedman noticed in 2009
a grand home for sale, unoccupied for nearly sixty years, he
stumbled through a surprising portal into American history. Empty
Mansions is a rich mystery of wealth and loss, connecting the
Gilded Age opulence of the nineteenth century with a twenty-first-
century battle over a $300 million inheritance.
At its heart is a reclusive heiress named Huguette Clark, a woman so
secretive that, at the time of her death at age 104, there was no new
photograph of her.

My assessment of "Empty Mansions": a marvelous, entertaining, moving, educational and very
readable account of an era and a woman who did it her way. Reviewed by David M. Kinchen

The Good Sister
by Wendy Corsi Staub

Overview

In New York Times bestselling authorWendy Corsi Staub’s electrifying
new thriller,a mother races to save her daughter before her darkest
nightmare comes true.

Sacred Sisters Catholic girls’ school has hardly changed since Jen
Archer was a student. Jen hoped her older daughter would thrive here.
Instead, shy, studious Carley becomes the target of vicious bullies. But
the real danger at Sacred Sisters goes much deeper.

Review: “A novel that delves into the tragic past and state of mind of a serial killer. This is not a

“whodunit.” Here, suspense is sustained by the questions: why did the killer do it, and who will be
next? The story addresses three issues: child abuse (both pedophilia and the punitive cruelty born of
rigid religious fundamentalism); the effects of high school bullying; and the negative impact of
cybertechnology on interpersonal relationships. Fans of Criminal Minds will especially love this
book.” -- Kirkus