Thursday, July 13, 2017

The Many Lives of John Stone by Linda Buckley-Archer - OPTIONAL

Buckley-Archer, Linda  The Many Lives of John Stone, 529 pgs.  Simon and Schuster, 2015.  $11.99  Content: Language: PG (1 swear); Mature Content: PG; Violence: PG.  

Spark has been hired to catalog old manuscripts at a remote estate in England.  The man who hired her, John Stone, has written his very long life story in notebooks, and has kept his ancestors notebooks as well.  He hopes that Spark is the person he can trust with his family’s secret of a long life, but as John Stone’s own life starts to catch up with him he realizes that Spark means more to him that he thought.  

This book had a slow and disconnected beginning, but once the story started to come together, I couldn’t put it down.  It flashes between John Stone’s life during the 1680’s in Versailles, and Spark’s life in current day England and I found myself so involved in whichever story I was in I didn’t want it to switch.  I was disappointed in the ending because I felt like it had a couple of loose ends.  It’s quite a lengthy book and although I enjoyed it I’m not sure young adults would stick with the slow beginning.  

MS, HS – OPTIONAL.  Reviewer, C, Peterson. 

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