Seeker of Stars by Susan Fish

Picked up the novella Seeker of Stars by Susan Fish for free for my Kindle (from David C Cook publishers) because, um, free books.  And then I decided to read it because I am fascinated by stories surrounding the Magi and is it after all Christmastime.

Seeker of StarsAs a boy, Melchior is fascinated by stars but has rigid obligations to apprentice with his rug-making father. When his life is radically changed, he is propelled onto a new path full of danger and glory in pursuit of a special star. The journey leads Melchior to reflect on life and death, dreams and duty, and to find unusual reconciliation within his family and with the God he never knew he sought. Destined to become a classic, Seeker of Stars offers a fresh retelling of the story of the magi, and will appeal to people of all ages and faiths.

It turned out to be a quick and enjoyable read. It has a simplicity to it but I felt like it captured the characters well and gave the reader some sense of what it might be like to live in that time and place. It also includes some interesting exploration of relationships and family life.

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The Land of Dreams by Vidar Sundstol

I came across The Land of Dreams by Vidar Sundstol (translated by Tiina Nunnally) while trolling Net Gallery seeking some hot new releases. I didn’t find what I was looking for but was intrigued by this work of translation:

Land of DreamsWinner of the Riverton Prize for best Norwegian crime novel and named by Dagbladet as one of the top twenty-five Norwegian crime novels of all time, The Land of Dreams is the chilling first installment in Vidar Sundstøl’s critically acclaimed Minnesota Trilogy, set on the rugged north shore of Lake Superior and in the region’s small towns and deep forests.

The grandson of Norwegian immigrants, Lance Hansen is a U.S. Forest Service officer and has a nearly all-consuming passion for local genealogy and history. But his quiet routines are shattered one morning when he comes upon a Norwegian tourist brutally murdered near a stone cross on the shore of Lake Superior. Another Norwegian man is nearby; covered in blood and staring out across the lake, he can only utter the word kjærlighet. Love.

FBI agent Bob Lecuyer is assigned to the case, as is Norwegian detective Eirik Nyland, who is immediately flown in from Oslo. As the investigation progresses, Lance begins to make shocking discoveries—including one that involves the murder of an Ojibwe man on the very same site more than one hundred years ago. As Lance digs into two murders separated by a century, he finds the clues may in fact lead toward someone much closer to home than he could have imagined.

Since I have family in this area, and have recently spent some time in the region, I was drawn to the story. Throw in the translation aspect and psychological crime genre and it seemed like an interesting read.

And it was both interesting and engaging but not really what I expected it to be.

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The enigma of web traffic

I wish I had a better handle on the where and whys of this site’s traffic.  I’m not sophisticated enough with my metrics/analytics (and admittedly the sample size/data is small) to figure out what is going on. A few posts garner most of the hits and search is 90% of traffic, beyond that everything is noise.  Yet, every so often traffic just seems to drop off and I can’t pinpoint exactly why.  It bugs me somehow despite the fact that there is nothing I can do about it and that it has little meaning in the grand scheme of things.

Do I have a point to this post? Not really …