how the light gets in

how the light gets in
armand gamache #9
louise penny
mystery
minotaur books
published 2013



As a fierce, unrelenting winter grips Quebec, shadows are closing in on Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. Most of his best agents have left the Homicide Department and hostile forces are lining up against him. 

When Gamache receives a message about a mysterious case in Three Pines, he is compelled to investigate -- a woman who was once one of the most famous people in the world has vanished. 

As he begins to shed light on the investigation, he is drawn into a web of murder, lies and unimaginable corruption at the heart of the city. Facing his most challenging, and personal, case to date, can Gamache save the reputation of the Sûreté, those he holds dear and himself?

The one benefit to being sick is that I have only the energy to read.  And not even from a physical book that requires page turning, but just my Kindle that only needs a tap from a finger.  So in a couple of days I've nearly caught up with Chief Inspector Gamache and it is brilliant.

My heart was broken at the end of The Beautiful Mystery when Beauvoir joins Francoeur on that little plane.  I couldn't believe that it was really happening and like Agent Lacoste I thought maybe it was a ploy, a secret plan between Gamache and Beauvoir to infiltrate Francoeur's inner circle, but alas.

I think I've said this about the last two books as well, but truly this book was not about the murder mystery but of the events that began with Arnot well before the first book.  This is the end game.  And it was a nail biter.  

Penny is a fantastic writer.  All along she has built characters that are so deep and rich you can't help but feel you must know them as real people.  She's strung us along, always with this story in the background, nipping at the heels of the Chief.  Finally, it is over. 

I love Three Pines.  I love every person in that town and the growth of these characters was no more apparent than in this book.  The villagers who rallied around good and fought against evil because they loved a man who had admitted to them he was flawed.  A man who desperately wanted to fix what was broken, even if that meant breaking himself.

It is a damn good series.  Probably one of the best I've read.  Thankfully, there is still more story to tell.

the beautiful mystery

the beautiful mystery
armand gamache #8
louise penny
mystery
minotaur books
published 2012

No outsiders are ever admitted to the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups, hidden deep in the wilderness of Québec, where two dozen cloistered monks live in peace and prayer. They grow vegetables, they tend chickens, they make chocolate. And they sing. Ironically, for a community that has taken a vow of silence, the monks have become world-famous for their glorious voices, raised in ancient chants whose effect on both singer and listener is so profound it is known as “the beautiful mystery.”

But when the renowned choir director is murdered, the lock on the monastery’s massive wooden door is drawn back to admit Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir of the Sûreté du Québec. There they discover disquiet beneath the silence, discord in the apparent harmony. One of the brothers, in this life of prayer and contemplation, has been contemplating murder. As the peace of the monastery crumbles, Gamache is forced to confront some of his own demons, as well as those roaming the remote corridors. Before finding the killer, before restoring peace, the Chief must first consider the divine, the human, and the cracks in between. 

I sometimes feel that the books that do not take place in Three Pines are not as good.  I like the familiar characters and setting, one of the benefits of reading a series and for the most part, those that have taken place outside of Three Pines have not been my favorites.  The Beautiful Mystery has broken that streak.

More tense than its predecessors, The Beautiful Mystery sometimes felt like a horror/thriller.  Trapped inside a centuries old monastery in the middle of the wilderness with a murderer sounds bad enough, but then you introduce an old villain and everything gets even more electrifying.  There are moments that you can see coming a mile ahead and you wish you could reach into the book and stop the wreck from happening.

But you can't.  And the wreck happens as intended, with pieces strewn everywhere.  Leaving the reader to wonder where to go from here.  

Again, the murder mystery is almost secondary to the storyline that has plagued the Chief since events even before Still Life.  Here is the culmination of everything that has been working against him since the beginning.  There is no happy ending here.

a trick of the light

a trick of the light
armand gamache #7
louise penny
mystery
minotaur books
published 2011

"Hearts are broken," Lillian Dyson carefully underlined in a book. "Sweet relationships are dead."

But now Lillian herself is dead. Found among the bleeding hearts and lilacs of Clara Morrow's garden in Three Pines, shattering the celebrations of Clara's solo show at the famed Musée in Montreal. Chief Inspector Gamache, the head of homicide at the Sûreté du Québec, is called to the tiny Quebec village and there he finds the art world gathered, and with it a world of shading and nuance, a world of shadow and light. Where nothing is as it seems. Behind every smile there lurks a sneer. Inside every sweet relationship there hides a broken heart. And even when facts are slowly exposed, it is no longer clear to Gamache and his team if what they've found is the truth, or simply a trick of the light.

It would seem that this book has been a long time coming.  So many things that have been bubbling along for a few books finally come to surface in a book that is less about the murder and more about the people and relationships in Three Pines.

Clara finally gets what she has dreamed of for her entire life, but getting what you wish for is sometimes the worst thing that can happen to you.  At the same time the villagers are still healing from the events of The Brutal Telling.  Olivier is learning to live with what he did and what he didn't do and everyone except for Gabri seem wary.  Jean Guy is struggling with his medication addiction and Armand is trying to figure out how to help him, how much to tell him and how to protect him.

The mystery is more what will happen to the people we have grown to love (or hate) and less about who killed the woman from the past of someone unexpected.  Though she is not forgotten and her murder investigation brings out another series of unforgettable characters.

I think that's what I love about these books so much.  It's not just about one case.  There are all of these little stories that Penny has cultivated since the first book.  It turns a simple mystery into a complex story about humankind and the depth of emotion in everyone involved in murder.

deadline

deadline
virgil flowers #8
john sandford
fiction/mystery/suspense
putnam adult
published 2014

In Southeast Minnesota, down on the Mississippi, a school board meeting is coming to an end.  The board chairman announces that the rest of the meeting will be closed, due to personnel issues.  "Issues" is correct.  The proposal up for a vote before them is whether to authorize the killing of a local reporter.  The vote is four to one in favor.  Meanwhile, not far away, Virgil Flowers is helping out a friend by looking into a dognapping, which seems to be turning into something much bigger and uglier - a team of dognappers supplying medical labs - when he gets a call from Lucas Davenport.  A murdered body has been found - and the victim is a local reporter.

Now I'm not saying that Deadline is going to keep you at the edge of your seat.  Or that you'll be stunned by the ingenious ways of the bad guys.  There is just something about Virgil that keeps me highly entertained.  He's funny for one, but most of all, the stories seem so real.  The characters are not caricatures of people, they are almost real life people.  Flawed, sometimes ditzy, sometimes cunning, simple, complex, nice, greedy, and real.  The conversations Virgil has with people is almost mundane, but somehow it's fascinating.

And really, let's be honest, Jenkins and Shrake should really have their own series by now.

the good girl

the good girl
mary kubica
mystery/fiction
harlequin mira
published 2014

Born to a prominent Chicago judge and his stifled socialite wife, Mia Dennett moves against the grain as a young inner-city art teacher.  One night, Mia enters a bar to meet her on-again, off-again boyfriend.  But when he doesn't show, she unwisely leaves with an enigmatic stranger.  With his smooth moves and modest wit, at first Colin Thatcher seems like a safe one-night stand.  But following Colin home will turn out to be the worst mistake of Mia's life.

A story told by several different point of views, The Good Girl is an intriguing mystery.  We get bits and pieces of the story told in the Before (the kidnapping) and the After (the kidnapping) from Mia's mother Eve, the investigator Gabe and the kidnapper Colin.  We don't hear anything from Mia's point of view until the end and I have some issues with that.

There are key points in the book that give away too much, which I don't think Kubica was trying to do, or at least I don't.  It felt like the ending was supposed to be a surprise, a twist, but I wasn't surprised.  In fact, I was slightly disappointed although it made for some good discussion fodder if you were to read this book with your book group.

Concerning the twist I have several issues, what doesn't make sense to me.  Looking back on those bits of the story being told there are things that don't make sense now having all the answers.  But it doesn't take away from the enjoyment of the book.  Not that there is a happily ever after ending.  In fact, the ending left me feeling sad and a little lost.

I'd definitely recommend this to someone.  So that I can discuss it with them afterward!

whiskey beach

whiskey beach
nora roberts
suspense/romance
putnam adult
published 2013

For more than three hundred years, Bluff House has sat above Whiskey Beach, guarding its shore - and its secrets.  But to Eli Landon, it's home.  A Boston, lawyer, Eli has weathered an intense year of public scrutiny and police investigations after being accused of - but never arrested for - the murder of his soon-to-be-ex wife.

He finds sanctuary at Bluff House, even though his beloved grandmother is in Boston recuperating from a nasty fall.  Abra Walsh is always there, though.  Whiskey Beach's resident housekeeper, yoga instructor, jewelry maker, and massage therapist, Abra is a woman of many talents - including helping Eli take control of his life and clear his name.  But as they become entangled in each other, they find themselves caught in a net that stretches back for centuries - one that has ensnared a man intent on reaping the rewards of destroying Eli Landon once and for all.

I enjoy Nora Roberts female characters.  They know when to be tough and know when they can't do something on their own.  For Whiskey Beach I liked how this was Eli's story more than Abra's.  He was the main character.

What to say that hasn't been said about Nora Roberts's books?  This had a little less mystery than others, the male was the main character, the setting, while important, wasn't as vast as others.....Usually you get a better sense of the town the story takes place in, but this story mainly takes place inside Bluff House.  I wasn't surprised by the killer and I didn't get too much of a sense of characters other than Abra and Eli.

I was hooked and once I got started a tore through the book, but I wouldn't say this was on par with other Nora Roberts books.

concealed in death

concealed in death
in death #38
j.d. robb
suspense/fiction/mystery
putnam adult
published 2014

Leading the demolition of a long-empty New York building that once housed a makeshift shelter for troubled teenagers, Lieutenant Eve Dallas's husband uncovers two skeletons wrapped in plastic.  And by the time Eve's done with the crime scene, there are twelve murders to be solved.  The victims are all young girls.  A tattooed tough girl who dealt in illegal drugs.  The runaway daughter of a pair of well-to-do doctors.  They all had their stories.  And they all lost their chance for a better life.  Then Eve discovers a connection between the victims and someone she knows.  And she grows even more determined to reveal the secrets of the place that was called The Sanctuary - and the evil concealed in one human heart.

What becomes interesting to me at this point, almost 40 books into the series, is the progression of Eve as a character.  She's mellowed out some and has found herself quite a wide circle of people she can call friends and count on.  There is always a connection and always, there are bits of regular characters that are revealed more and more.

Strangely enough, the one character I don't think we get to know enough about is Peabody.  Except for a couple of books where she was quite the focus (though in reference to the crime, not her personal life) we don't really get to be in her head very much.  And while the books do mainly stay in Eve's head, we have had occasion to be inside Roarke or Peabody's before.  So Peabody remains somewhat of a mystery to me, as well as Summerset.  Boy would I love to get more of his story.

And even more interesting was that other side characters were hardly heard from in this book.  Mira maybe as much as usual, but I'm not sure that McNabb or Feeney even had a line.

The story moved on quickly, especially because you have a sense in the beginning who the murderer is.  Obviously, there must be something else going on, but we're pretty sure we know what happened.  The clues are pretty obvious and the suspect pool rather shallow.  But like all the books before there is very rarely a dull moment and a quick, satisfying read in the end.

the brutal telling

the brutal telling
armand gamache #5
louise penny
mystery
minotaur
published 2009

Chaos is coming, old son.

With those words the peace of Three Pines is shattered.  As families prepare to head back to the city and children say goodbye to summer, a stranger is found murdered in the village bistro and antiques store.  Once again, Chief Inspector Gamache and his team are called in to strip back layers of lies, exposing both treasures and rancid secrets buried in the wilderness.

I was thinking that the more times a murder happens in Three Pines the more unrealistic things will get.  The smaller the victim and suspect pool gets and I began to worry that someone I liked would fall into one of those categories.  It's interesting how things turn out.

How suddenly, a character you liked before becomes someone completely different.  I really, really can't say much about this book because it's so easily given away, but I will say if you are reading this series you're already invested and this will just sink you in deeper.  And while the book ends it doesn't feel concluded.  Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but I don't think this story is finished.  I'm immediately picking up the next book to see if it does continue in any way.

But I will say this book changed the way I saw Three Pines and the people who were once so lovely.

catalyst

catalyst
laurie halse anderson
ya/realistic fiction
speak
published 2002

Meet Kate Malone - straight A science and math geek, minister's daughter, ace long-distance runner, new girlfriend (to Mitchell "Early Decision Harvard" Pangborn III), unwilling family caretaker, and emotional avoidance champion.  Kate manages her life by organizing it as logically as the periodic table.  She can handle it all - or so she thinks.  Then, things change as suddenly as a string of chemical reactions.  Kate feels that her life is spinning out of her control - and then, something happens that truly blows it all apart.

I loved Speak and Wintergirls.  Laurie Halse Anderson's writing is very poetic and descriptive and I feel like her words are floating around in the air like clouds, lightweight yet heavy with meaning.  The one fangirl moment I had while reading Catalyst was when Melinda makes a quick appearance.  Speaking(!), happy and full of life for a brief moment.

I should have known there was something that would break me and unfortunately I got to that part at my break before I was going to sleep so I had to continue reading because I could not go to bed with that being the last thought in my head.

I wonder how impactful this book would be for a young adult and if it would be as meaningful to them as it was to me.  I found Kate to be kind of a pushover and even at the end she wasn't someone who stood up for herself as much as I needed her to.  There was very little resolution, but there was an ending.  Does that make sense?

I didn't find any characters well rounded or sympathetic.  Kate treated her brother like a kid yet I found him to be more mature than that.  Her father just seemed like a mess, her best friend was just there and her boyfriend was flat and uninteresting.

In the end, I thought the whole thing, like Pangborn, kind of fell flat.


Meet Kate Malone-straight-A science and math geek, minister's daughter, ace long-distance runner, new girlfriend (to Mitchell "Early Decision Harvard" Pangborn III), unwilling family caretaker, and emotional avoidance champion. Kate manages her life by organizing it as logically as the periodic table. She can handle it all-or so she thinks. Then, things change as suddenly as a string of chemical reactions; first, the Malones' neighbors get burned out of their own home and move in. Kate has to share her room with her nemesis, Teri Litch, and Teri's little brother. The days are ticking down and she's still waiting to hear from the only college she applied to: MIT. Kate feels that her life is spinning out of her control-and then, something happens that truly blows it all apart. Set in the same community as the remarkable Speak,Catalyst is a novel that will change the way you look at the world.

attachments

attachments
rainbow rowell
fiction/romance
dutton adult
published 2011

It's 1999 and for the staff of one newspaper office, the internet is still a novelty.  By day, two young women, Beth and Jennifer spend their hours emailing each other, discussing in hilarious detail every aspect of their lives, from love troubles to family dramas.  And by night, Lincoln, a shy, lonely IT guy spends his hours reading every exchange.  At first their emails offer a welcome diversion, but as Lincoln unwittingly becomes drawn into their lives, the more he reads, the more he finds himself falling for one of them.  After a series of close encounters, Lincoln decides it's time to muster the courage to follow his heart...and find out whether there really is such a thing as love before first sight.

To be honest if I read this book before I ever set eyes on Eleanor & Park I probably wouldn't have read E&P which would have been a travesty!  Don't get me wrong, Attachments is a great book, but it's on par with every other adult contemporary novel out there.  Despite some references to D&D and Kevin Smith (which bumps my review up a whole star for that alone) this could have been any other Jennifer Weiner or Emily Giffin book.

But she's funny.  And the book is sweet.  She does really well writing in the male characters voice without it sounding stilted or strange.  I loved Lincoln and wanted to punch Sam in the boob!  Beth and Jennifer cracked me up all the time and I didn't see how everything was really going to come together in a not fairy-tale sort of way.

But it did.  And I'm glad I read it.

the enchanted

the enchanted
rene denfeld
fiction
harper
published 2014

"This is an enchanted place.  Others don't see it, but I do."  The enchanted place is an ancient stone prison viewed through the eyes of a death row inmate who finds escape in his books and in re-imagining life around him, weaving a fantastical story of the people he observes and the world he inhabits.  Fearful and reclusive, he senses what others cannot.  Though bars confine him every minute of every day, he marries visions of golden horses running beneath the prison, heat flowing like molten metal from their backs with the devastating violence of prison life.

The sad fact of the matter is, my book club passed up this book.  Thankfully, it was one of my choices and I already had it on my TBR list for this year.  So I started reading it and I found I had a really hard time putting it down.

The interesting thing is there isn't really a story here.  There is a telling.  Observations and bits of tales all put together.  Facts are blurry and we don't really know what these characters have done to find themselves in this enchanted place, but we don't need to know.

Denfeld has been compared to Alice Sebold and I can see that.  She writes magically about a place that by all rights should have no magic.  That one would never describe as "enchanted" as we tend to perceive enchanting.  She writes about darkness by bringing it into a lighter place.

There is much that is left unsaid, but for whatever reason I wasn't bothered by this.  I sighed when I closed the book after the last page.  I didn't need more, I just wanted peace for the silent man and a cabin in the woods for The Lady.

the collector

the collector
nora roberts
suspense/mystery/romance
putnam
published 2014

When professional house-sitter Lila Emerson witnesses a murder-suicide from her current apartment-sitting job, life as she knows it takes a dramatic turn.  Suddenly, the woman with no permanent ties finds herself almost wishing for one...

Artist Ashton Archer knows his brother isn't capable of violence - against himself or others.  He recruits Lila, the only eyewitness, to help him uncover what happened.  Ash longs to paint her as intensely as he hungers to touch her.  But their investigation draws them into a rarified circle where priceless antiques are bought, sold, gambled away, and stolen, where what you possess is who you are, and where what you desire becomes a deadly obsession...

There is something comforting about Nora Roberts books.  I don't know if it's because she's one of the first 'adult' authors I read as a teen or if it's because her writing, at this point, is so familiar to me, but either way, reading her books is like wrapping myself in a favorite blanket.

The story is, or rather form of it, is slightly predictable even when the characters are sometimes not.  We know that Lila will be independent and 'fiery' and Ashton will be powerful and protective.  We know that she'll have a best friend who is equally beautiful and he will also have a mate who is handsome and can be counted on.  All of these elements are there as I know they will be and yet I'm not bored.

Lila's job is interesting and alluring.  I almost wanted to become a professional house-sitter myself!  The subject of intrigue is interesting insofar as I wanted to Google it as I was reading along.  The book is quick.  Once I got started I finished in a couple of hours and as always, Roberts paints a picture you can immerse yourself in.

Always a good read and despite is predictability, never boring.

inferno

inferno
robert langdon #4
dan brown
mystery/suspense
doubleday
published 2013

In the heart of Italy, Harvard professor of symbology, Robert Langdon, is drawn into a harrowing world centered on one of history's most enduring and mysterious literary masterpieces ... Dante's Inferno.

Against this backdrop, Landgon battles a chilling adversary and grapples with an ingenious riddle that pulls him into a landscape of classic art, secret passageways, and futuristic science.  Drawing from Dante's dark epic poem, Langdon races to find answers and decide whom to trust ... before the world is irrevocably altered.

My ranking of Dan Brown's novels seems to go in the order of which they were published.  This would be my least favorite in the Langdon series.

The book could have been like any great spy novel.  You don't know who to trust, who is telling the truth and just when you think you've got everything figured out the author turns everything upside down and you are back at square one.  It sounds great and in theory it is, but Brown has turned Robert Langdon into a smug and arrogant know-it-all who absently stares off into space remembering his past lectures and VIP status.  It was incredibly disheartening and frustrating.

The subject matter (which I won't reveal in order to keep this spoiler free) was not something new to me, but it also wasn't something I was particularly interested in.  What's more the history lessons and background information on Dante Alighieri was so thorough and excessive I was bored.  Descriptions of landmarks were so textbook-like and I found myself skimming or skipping passages altogether.  It was unpleasant.

Had I not had to read this book for my book club I wouldn't have finished it.  Once I got passed the first third of the book it was very slow going.

cross my heart

cross my heart
alex cross #21
james patterson
mystery/suspense
little brown & co
published 2013

Detective Alex Cross is a family man at heart -- nothing matters more to him than his children, his grandmother, and his wife Bree.  His love of his family is his anchor, and gives him the strength to confront evil in his work.  One man knows this deeply, and uses Alex's strength as a weapon against him in the most unsettling and unexpected novel of James Patterson's career.

When the ones Cross loves are in danger, he will do anything to protect them.  If he does anything to protect them, they will die.

This review will contain spoilers.

I find it slightly humorous that the synopsis talks about how much Alex Cross loves his kids and his family, but the truth is, he may love them but he has no time for them.  Damon is calling his father, something obviously wrong, but Alex brushes him off.  Jannie is pissed because he never makes it to any of her school events and they're letting 7-year-old Ali watch The Walking Dead.  Are you kidding me?

Nothing of interest happens for 80% of the book.  I looked on my Kindle when stuff started happening.  There is a case going on but it's resolved and you know there's a bigger thing going on.  And when it got to that point I thought it sucked that it was going to get wrapped up so quickly.

But he didn't.  He left us hanging.  For the first time that I can remember James Patterson wrote an Alex Cross novel with a cliffhanger.  So I can't really judge the book on the first 80% because that was useless.  So I'm reserving my review until I read the next book.

winter's passage

winter's passage
the iron fey #1.5
julie kagawa
ya/fantasy/fae/romance
harlequin teen
published 2010

Meghan Chase used to be an ordinary girl....until she discovered that she is really a faery princess.  After escaping from the clutches of the deadly Iron Fey, Meghan must follow through on her promise to return to the equally dangerous Winter Court with her forbidden love, Prince Ash.  But first, Meghan has one request: that they visit Puck - Meghan's best friend and servant of her father, King Oberon - who was gravely injured defending Meghan from the Iron Fey.  

Yet Meghan and Ash's detour does not go unnoticed.  They have caught the attention of an ancient, powerful hunter - a foe that even Ash may not be able to defeat.

This was one of those short 'novellas' that I usually love because they give me a little more insight into certain characters.  This one was a little drab.  Good for someone who LOVES this series, but other than that it was all mostly rehashed (in some parts a complete copy & paste) in The Iron Daughter.  Not fun to read something and then read the exact same text in the next book.

Booo.

evernight

evernight
evernight #1
claudia gray
ya/vampires/romance
harper teen
published 2008

Bianca wants to escape.

She's been uprooted from her small hometown and enrolled at Evernight Academy, an eerie Gothic boarding school when the students are somehow too perfect: smart, sleek, and almost predatory.  Bianca knows she doesn't fit in.

Then she meets Lucas.  He's not the "Evernight type" either, and he likes it that way.  Lucas ignores the rules, stands up to the snobs, and warns Bianca to be careful - even when it comes to caring about him.

But the connection between Bianca and Lucas can't be denied.  Bianca will risk anything to be with Lucas, but dark secrets are fated to tear them apart . . . and to make Bianca question everything she's ever believed.

Fuck this book.

The ridiculous of the storytelling drove me insane.  I can't really review this without spoilers so just so you know SPOILERS AHEAD....

My first huge beef with this book is the prologue.  Bianca mentions her 'new friends'.  When we get to this scene in the book you realize she's known all but two of these people for maybe 3 minutes.  Wow, you make friends that fast?  The second thing?  In the prologue vampires are mentioned.  So there you go.  We now know this is a book about vampires (if you didn't already know).

What you're led to believe during the first almost half of the book is that something strange is going on and it has something to do with the school.  Lucas, Bianca's love interest (whom she falls in desperate love with IMMEDIATELY and is ridiculous about it ever after that) is suspicious of everyone and everything at the school and wants to protect Bianca, but she isn't sure there's anything to be protected from besides social outcast-ness despite the fact that she tried to run away from school the day of orientation.

Then, all of sudden, 40% into the book, Bianca BITES LUCAS WITH HER FANGS AND DRINKS HIS BLOOD.  WTF.  From then on we read about how she grew up knowing she was a vampire child and drank blood every morning with her breakfast and her father is 1,000 years old, blah, blah, blah.  Are you kidding me?  Again, WTF?!

Now it would be one thing if the story was told from Lucas's point of view and all of a sudden we're like, whoa the chick's a vampire!  Holy crap!  Because Lucas didn't know that.  But the story is Bianca's story.  We're in her head and she knows she's a vampire.  She knows her parents, her roommate, the headmistress, the teachers, she knows they're all vampires!  Therefore, we should know they're vampires.

And then this happens:

"A hundred dollars! That's only half what it cost!" I protested. And it was worth so much more than money. I'd worn it virtually every day for months, the visible symbol of the love I felt for Lucas. How could this man look at it so coldly?

Um, maybe because he's a pawnshop dealer, a stranger to you and you're an idiot?!

See, I already hate Bianca.  She's got no personality, not backbone, no spunk.  She's wishy washy and whiny.  She's completely oblivious to everything around her.  When the first meet, Lucas mentions his great-great grandfather went to Evernight 150 or some odd years ago and broke the stain glass window.  Now, we know (after we find out about vampires) that this is the first time Evernight has allowed humans into the school.  Therefore, something is not right about Lucas's story.  And she never puts it together.  Even though she remembers the story and even tells it to her parents and the only interesting character in the story, Balthazar.

I just can't stand her.  It gets worse and it makes me insane.  The book ends very incomplete.  There is no closure and it's obvious there is another book after (for the record, there's 5) but I don't even care.  I want to know nothing else about Bianca and Lucas.  I wish they would die and the story would move on to another character, but I doubt that will happen so I'll just leave now, thanks.

deep down

deep down
jack reacher #17.5
lee child
fiction/mystery
random house llc
published 2012

Summoned by Military Intelligence to Washington, D.C., Reacher is sent undercover. The assignment that awaits him: The army is meeting with its Capitol Hill paymasters for classified talks on a new, state-of-the-art sniper rifle for U.S. forces. But vital details about the weapon are leaking—straight from the Capitol and probably into the hands of unidentified foreign arms dealers. The prospect of any and every terrorist, mercenary, or dictator’s militia getting their hands on the latest superior firepower is unthinkable. That’s where Reacher comes in. His task: infiltrate the top-secret proceedings and smoke out the mole. His target: a quartet of high-powered Army political liaison officers—all of them fast-track women on their way to the top.

According to his bosses, it’s a zero-danger mission. No need to draw a gun . . . just chat over drinks. But Reacher knows that things are rarely what they seem. And he’s learned the hard way never to underestimate an opponent. Or four. Lessons that will come in handy when he starts digging for the truth—and gets his hands a lot dirtier than he expected.

I don't even know what this was.  I mean, I know it was a short story, but I don't know why it had to be done.  It was too quick to give you time to get involved in any part of the story and by the time you caught onto what was happening it was over.  At least with Child's other short, Second Son we got to see Reacher as a kid and see where his badassery came from.  Here it was just nothing.

a game of thrones

a game of thrones
a song of ice & fire #1
george r. r. martin
fantasy/historical/epic
bantam
published 1996

Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister and supernatural forces are massing beyond the kingdom’s protective Wall. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as the land they were born to. Sweeping from a land of brutal cold to a distant summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, here is a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens.

Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal; a tribe of fierce wildlings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; and a determined woman undertakes the most treacherous of journeys. Amid plots and counterplots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, the fate of the Starks, their allies, and their enemies hangs perilously in the balance, as each endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones.

Long ago, a friend told me I should read these books, but alas they are so dang loooooong I kept putting it off.  And I'm not a huge fan of knights and kings and queens and the happenings at court so there was a little less appeal for me as well.  Then the show was announced and I thought, well shoot I'd better read those books before I watch the show.  Now I think they're on season 2 and I finally picked up the book for fear that some rabid fan of the show spoil something in the books for me.

I glanced at a few reviews that urged me to bear through the beginning as it is long winded and boring.  There's a lot of scene to set and many characters to familiarize yourself with.

But the book had me with "The wildlings are dead."

So mysterious and ominous.  Who, or what are these wildlings?  And how did they die?  Who killed them?  And in that prologue we are teased with something unreal.  Something not right.  Something other. And then nothing.  We jump right into the worst of treason, betrayal, honor, murder, passion and vengeance.  So many plots.  So many....

The Starks are my favorite.  How can they not be?  They are brave and full of honor.  Ned, while smart and full of love for his King, depends too much on the word of those around him, trusting that they want what is just and right.  Catelyn is fierce and the perfect matriarch for the family.  My only beef with her is her treatment of Jon Snow, but I can see her side as well.  The only Stark I care not for is Sansa.  Useless with a head full of air.

Despite what I fear may be coming I find myself silently rooting for Tyrion Lannister and maybe less silently for Daenerys.  When she finally stood up to her bizarre and misguided brother I wanted to stand up and cheer.

Throughout the book here and there were whisperings of the supernatural, but we only get to see them a couple of times.  And even then I would stop to re-read those parts to make sure I read that right.  But I expect the supernatural will take center stage in the next installment.

Epic, it is.  Good, it is.  Long, it is.  At 800+ pages it's not something you can get through quickly.  Yet, it's near impossible to put down.  I started it Saturday night and got just shy of halfway done and then it got some reading in yesterday before bed and then today while Olivia napped.  I could finish out the series by the end of the week, but I want to sit on it for a bit.  Do some 'light' reading before delving back into the Winter.

born in ice

born in ice
concannon sisters trilogy #2
nora roberts
fiction/romance
jove
published 1995

Brianna Concannon is a woman with a rare gift for creating a home, and she makes use of this talent by running a bed-and-breakfast in a picturesque corner of Ireland. Mystery writer Grayson Thane is an American who grew up in an orphanage and has spent his life alone. A restless wanderer with a painful past, Grayson arrives at Blackthorn Cottage intent only on soaking up the Irish atmosphere and writing his next novel, but he finds far more than he bargained for. The beautiful, calm Brianna soothes his disquiet soul, and in her Grayson finds the home he hadn't realized he needed. Brianna knows that by falling for him, she risks her heart, already bruised and scarred by a young love who left her at the altar. But the yearning to let the American melt the ice around her cold exterior is irresistible. Unless Grayson can let go of his past to forge a future with her, Brianna may have gambled her heart in vain. 

It doesn't matter that I read these books years ago.  I still get caught up in them.  I found myself staying up late into the night because I didn't want to put the book down.  Even though I knew what would happen, at least the sum of it, I didn't want to stop in the middle.  I don't remember exactly what my teenaged self thought of the details of the book, I just remember loving it.

This time I'm older, and a mother so maybe my perspective is different.  I find I have a harder time than Brianna forgiving her mother.  I think that maybe I'm more like Maggie. Prone to emotional outbursts and able to hold a grudge, but I have to admit that the few times she's shown she does love her daughters have melted my resolve a bit.

The books also rekindle my desire to visit Ireland.  Especially here, with Grayson describing the landscape for his novel, we're rich with descriptives!  How could you not want to stay at Blackthorn and drink in the history?

Roberts ability to spin a tale and draw you in has never been as apparent as it is here.  I think in her trilogies or quartets she shines best, able to continue to flesh out her characters.  They become even more realistic, you're invested even more into their lives.  I mean come on, she makes housework sound thrilling!

born in fire

born in fire
concannon sisters trilogy #1
nora roberts
fiction/romance
jove
published 1994

The New York Times bestselling trilogy of three modern sisters bound by the timeless beauty of Ireland begins.

Artist Maggie Concannon creates beautiful glass images through a blowpipe and with a fiery furnace, much as she herself was born and survived her mother's angry frustrations and resentment. Then Maggie falls in love with Rogan, her new agent, who brings her passion, fame, and riches.

More than 15 years I ago I read this book for the first time.  It was the first trilogy and only the second book by Nora Roberts that I read and it instilled in me a great love for her writing and an immense desire to visit Ireland.  I can easily say that Nora Roberts is one of my all time favorite authors and I own practically ever single one of her books.  Strangely, I have never re-read any of her books.  Thanks to the Book Bingo challenge I'm tasked with re-reading 15 books so after re-reading Cate Tiernan's Immortal Beloved I decided I wanted to go back and re-read Nora Roberts trilogies starting with the Concannan sisters.

The first time I read this trilogy I actually read the last book first.  This was before the days of Shefari or Goodreads so knowing the order of books wasn't as easy as it is now.  I didn't even know it was part of a trilogy at first!  But I loved it and found the other two and read them as quickly as I could turn the pages.

I still love this book.  The process of glass blowing is still beyond me, but the idea fascinates me.  However, the thing that still delights me is the setting.  Ireland.  How anyone can read this book and not want to immediately hop on a plane to visit is beyond me.  Someday....