I Wish I Had a Red Dress - Pearl Cleage

Lovely novel. It's basically about social issues with a romance entangled in between.

The book starts out with our heroine Joyce who has started the Sewing Circus for women who need help. She tries to encourage them to be stronger women and not take abuse (sexual or otherwise) from men who are important to them.
Along comes our hero Nate who is the school Principal who falls in love with Joyce and tries to make her understand that you need both women and men involved in such activities if we need to be successful.

I enjoyed reading this novel because of the simplicity and straight forwardness in writing by the author.

Castles in the Mist - Josie Litton

This is the last part of this trilogy series. It is about the story of the Vanax Atreus and Brianna who fall in love. Atreus who has seen Brianna as part of his visions when he was under trials to become the Vanax ( ruler) of Akora. Delightful novel :)

I enjoyed it a lot. Good one for romance readers.

Dream Island - Josie Litton

This is first part of a trilogy series by Josie Litton. Nice narration with a strange country Akora being invented out of the writer's imagination.

It's a love story and deals with many things. It starts with Joanna looking out for her brother Royce who had gone to this forbidden island, Akora and who has not yet returned. She seeks the help of Alex who is the only "foreign" person allowed on this island. He is reluctant to help her but somehow ends up falling in love with her.

Delightful storyline and lots of fun for romance readers :)

The Walking - Bentley Little

Ohhh a really good horror story heeheh sent some shivers up my spine for sure. :) I usually don't read horror novels but somehow in a hurry, picked this up from the library and had nothing else better to do while flying. But was I glad to finish this novel.

The story is narrated in two timelines. One chapter would be Then and the next one would be Now. And in the end, they both merge. Nice narration style. The story is basically about witchcraft and how they were not accepted in early days of America. And how it relates to today's lifetime. About a curse of a witch Isabella and how our hero Miles has to investigate the series of weird things happening today.

Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

Very very touching, heart breaking novel. I just loved the ending scene, it was really a tear jerker :(

Seeing the cover of the book, I got a bit frightened. It looked too serious for my liking :) but I enjoyed the book thoroughly.

The storyline is about a Joad family in Oklahoma and how they migrate to California for work. The story is of their struggle on daily things like food, baths, clothes etc. The central character I feel is the mother of the family who takes on a lot and knows how to push buttons of every person in the family to get things done.

It's a lovely story and definitely a must read.

Two Lives - Vikram Seth

Lovely novel. I really liked his style of writing. Simple, clear and concise. To the point. Vikram writes about his Uncle Shanthi (Indian) and Aunt Henny (German) respectively.

Aunty Henny's entire family is destroyed during Hitler's reign and how they deal with it. The book talks about perspectives from Uncle and Aunty's side, also with insight from the author. I really liked Aunt Henny's letters to her friends. The way she writes is really good.

All in all, it takes patience to complete the book since at the end it becomes a little too long. But it is truly a tale of two lives, intertwined in ways unknown. They say Love crosses all barriers and this is a proof of it. :)