Hannah G

Karen Barnett has the rare talent of being able to portray many things in a short space, which really shines in this dual timeline story. It’s a lovely story of the hunt for family roots and of love for each other—sisters in one, grandmother/granddaughter in the other. Have your tissues handy when you read through this one!

A nice twisty thriller with strong lead characters. Most of the content is focused on finding the killer and it gives a nice trail of clues so I felt like I was alongside Charlotte and Austin while they worked to find the killer on a very tight deadline. I'll definitely be reading more from this author.

I use this volume all the time, especially with adult students and older children. Irma great for teaching how to handle the bow and the fingers. I generally introduce it in Suzuki book 3, though with one student I started a few measures at a time while in book two.

One tip:
It is not always necessary for most of the pieces to force a student to learn perfectly the entire thing...sometimes I assign a few lines and make sure the basic concept has been learned, then move on to another. My teacher did require each piece to be learned perfectly, but in tandem with Suzuki, I have found that often this book parallels quite nicely, and to be quibbling over tone in a piece meant for bowing technique can defeat the purpose of using this book to aid and assist the regular material.

1. A heroine who suffers from Too Stupid To Live syndrome, from not wanting to let anyone help her to driving her car into a waist deep river crossing (but somehow the guy’s pickup truck makes it across??)

2. A hero who recklessly mixes up known dangerous personal business with a woman already in the run

3. A story line that contradicts itself

Since this is a known reliable author, I’m going with “crammed on a deadline and skipped the editor” on this one.