Susan Lowry

Because I live in the Bay Area, I was familiar with the various cities and towns where these gardens were located, and that made the book all the more enjoyable. Several of the beautiful gardens contained a variety of intriguing plantings, and many more pages could have been devoted to each of them. Lots of inspiration and ideas on the pages of this oversized book bursting with full-color photos and descriptions. I was surprised to see a friend of mine noted as the landscape designer of one of the San Francisco city gardens. I knew Beryt Oliver because our boys were BFFs at Mill Valley's Edna Maguire Elementary School in the 1990s - and although she was always working on landscape design from her home office, with a front yard overflowing with plants, at that time I wasn't interested in landscaping so missed out on all her expertise. In any case, if you like to look at gardens, you will enjoy this book during this time when in-person garden tours are on hold.… (meer)

We start the story with Kate coming home and finding her husband really ill. She tries to call an ambulance but the phones are dead. Trying to get through the huge piles of snow, she tries to get to her neighbors house for help. There she falls ill. After a week, and horrible sores, she manages to come around enough to get back to her house. An unknown virus has raged throughout the world and only a few have survived.

But those that have survived have developed an ability to “hear” others in their mind. Kate talks with a young boy in Texas and works her way from Canada to him. On the way, she meets Jake and although falling in love with him but his past comes back to haunt her. She also meets up with her sister, after a horrible past, and work their way to a safe place to restart.

I admit that I love dystopian novels and this one is one that will be put on my shelf. It is a sad, lonely story as we follow Kate. I liked how the survivors could communicate and work toward getting together. I only have a couple things that didn’t flow for me. The main on was when they got to the lake and then suddenly it was eight months later without any notice except a statement several paragraphs into the chapter. I honestly would have liked to learn more about the astronaut, there was a lot of potential and I was curious about him.

Beyond that, this is a great story. If you like dystopian stories, this is one that you will want to read.… (meer)

Ping by Susan Lowry is a post-apocalyptic story with an interesting twist: the heroine, sole survivor in her city in Canada, begins to believe that she is communicating telepathically with other survivors out there. Based upon this feeling, she travels the US looking for other survivors and eventually finds a few. But the question becomes, can she trust them? The story is well-written & atmospheric, the characters are interesting, and thought-provoking questions are raised. I would have liked to have seen the characters fleshed out a bit more...but maybe that will happen in a sequel. I would certainly buy a second book by this author.… (meer)