festive in death

festive in death
in death #39
jd robb
putnam adult
published 2014

Personal trainer Trey Ziegler was in peak physical condition.  If you didn't count the kitchen knife in his well-toned chest.

Lieutenant Eve Dallas soon discovers a lineup of women who'd been loved and left by the narcissistic gym rat.  While Dallas sorts through the list of Ziegler's enemies, she's also dealing with her Christmas shopping list - plus the guest list for her and her billionaire husband's upcoming holiday bash.

Feeling less than festive, Dallas tries to put aside her distaste for the victim and solve the mystery of his death.  There are just a few investigating days left before Christmas, and as New Year's 2061 approaches this homicide cop is resolved to stop a cold-blooded killer.

It's harder to be invested in finding a killer when you really just can't stand the victim.  Which is quite the point of this case.  Eve will stand for the dead, no matter how much of an asshole he is.  And the suspects are sympathetic, except one who doesn't really seem to get what they deserve.

For me, this time, I was more absorbed in the personal life part of the story than the case.  I found myself wishing she'd just wrap it all up so we could move on to the Christmas party and all the festivities afterward.  I wanted to read about her hanging out with Peabody and McNab just chit chatting and having some dinner.

These characters have become so familiar to me that I don't even really need a story.  I can just read about what they're doing.  But in my opinion the case seemed to unnecessarily drag on and I was ready for it to wrap up.  She consults with far too many friends who are 'experts' in their fields.  Even Mira, this time, felt kind of unnecessary to me because the victim seemed to apparent.  But it is what it is.

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.

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 museum of extraordinary things

the museum of extraordinary things
alice hoffman
historical fiction/romance
scribner
published 2014

Coralie Sardie is the daughter of the sinister impresario behind The Museum of Extraordinary Things, a Coney Island boardwalk freak show that thrills the masses.  An exceptional swimmer, Coralie appears as the Mermaid in her father's "museum," alongside performers like the Wolfman, the Butterfly Girl, and a one-hundred-year-old turtle.  One night Coralie stumbles upon a stiking young man taking pictures of moonlit trees in the woods off the Hudson River.

The dashing photographer is Eddie Cohen, a Russian immigrant who has run away from his father's Lower East Side Orthodox community and his job as a tailor's apprentice.  When Eddie photographs the devastation on the streets of New York following the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, he becomes embroiled in the suspicious mystery behind a young woman's disappearance and ignites the heart of Coralie.

I was incredibly disappointed in this book.  I admit, my opinion is colored in the fact that I don't usually enjoy historical novels, but really it was not a good book.  I think Alice Hoffman wanted to badly to write about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and the fire of Dreamland in 1911 that she completely neglected the plot.  This was touted as a the story of two characters who come together and fall in love while surrounded by the mystery of a missing girl and while, for the brief moment Eddie was searching for the girl it was interesting.  And then, she wrapped that up with hardly a peep in a couple of pages and that was the end of that.  After that it was all about the fire of Dreamland.  Even that was disjointed and hard to follow.  I couldn't figure out how everyone ended up where they were and the culmination of the horrors in the book all come down to one short moment with hardly any fanfare at all.  It was a let down.

And as far as the love story was concerned, it was a joke.  I felt nothing for either character.  I could care less how they got together - which happens so far into the book I was beginning to think they book jacket lied to me.  Flat, unsympathetic, boring characters, and unrealistic relationships (Coralie and her father, Coralie and Maureen, Coralie and Eddie).  The characters I enjoyed (Beck, Ella, the liveryman, and Mr. Morris), the characters she wrote to have fire and substance were background characters we hardly got to see.  It felt like she poured all character into these roles and didn't save anything for Coralie and Eddie.

The writing itself was confusing and repetitious.  With the three different narratives the timeline jumped around oddly and there was so much overlapping that I sometimes thought I had accidentally jumped a previous chapter on the kindle.

A disappointment.

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.

12 reasons why i love her

12 reasons why i love her
jamie s. rich & joelle jones
graphic/romance
oni press
published 2006

A romance novel told in twelve individual vignettes, 12 Reasons explores the relationship of young couple Gwen and Evan, and the ups and downs of their relationship.

This was a sweet book.  The stories are each a different moment in Gwen & Evan's relationship.  It's funny to me how many of them are their arguments, but when I thought about it more they were all pivotal moments in their relationship.  I also liked the things you would sometimes catch in the background.  Like the waiter who may or not be drunk and may or may not be getting fired.

Simple and sweet.  Part of me wishes I got more of just this glimpse into their relationship, but the other part kind of likes that we got the high lights.

god-shaped hole

god-shaped hole
tiffanie debartolo
fiction/romance
sourcebooks landmark
published 2002

Tired of the usual dating politics, Beatrice "Trixie" Jordan follows an impulse and replies to a personal ad: "If your intentions are pure, I'm seeking a friend for the end of the world."  In doing so, she meets Jacob Grace, a charming young writer, a passionate seeker of life.  Despite their jaded views of the world, they fall immediately in love.

Trixie and Jacob begin an emotionally charge and tumultuous affair, one they try desperately to keep sacred.  As they struggle to carve out a future beyond the Los Angeles hills, Trixie and Jacob face family secrets that threaten to keep the two close to home ... or at least apart from one another.

Anything less than mad, passionate, extraordinary love is a waste of your time.  There are too many mediocre things in life to deal with and love shouldn't be one of them.

Over a decade ago a movie changed my life.  It sounds so cliche but it is the truth.  Dream For An Insomniac starring Ione Skye & Jennifer Anniston.  I can close my eyes and watch the movie in my head from beginning to end despite having not watched it in several years.  Ione Skye's Frankie was a romantic who would settle for nothing less than what she deemed to be perfect love and I, well I was stuck in a marriage with a man I didn't even like anymore.  Everything in the movie spoke to me.  I was Frankie.  I was certain I wasn't going to settle for anything less than extraordinary love.

So I booked a flight out of Texas and never went back.

Years later I stumbled upon two books written by Tiffanie DeBartolo who wrote that life-changing movie and finally, I've read one.

Every character came to life for me.  I could feel the desperation at the idea of being stuck in their hell forever.  The helplessness when things began to spiral, the content and giddiness when things were on track....it was all so much life it sparked within the pages.

It's hard to articulate how I feel after reading God-Shaped Hole without spoiling the book for anyone who should want to read it and you should want to read it.  DeBartolo has a way with words.  It made me want to write again, to keep a journal, to write everything down.  To create a story and despite having very little in common with Trixie I related to her in a way that made everything too personal so that when the book was finished I felt broken.

The worst book hangover ever, but truly worth it.

someday, someday, maybe

someday, someday, maybe
lauren graham
fiction/contemporary/romance
ballantine books
published 2013

It's January 1995, and Franny Banks has just six months left of the three-year deadline she set for herself when she came to New York, dreaming of Broadway and doing "important" work.  But all she has to show for her efforts so far is a part in an ad for ugly Christmas sweaters, and a gig waiting tables at a comedy club.  Everything is riding on the upcoming showcase for her acting class, where she'll finally have a chance to perform for people who could actually hire her.  And she can't let herself be distracted by James Franklin, a notorious flirt and the most successful actor in her class, even though he's suddenly started paying attention.  Meanwhile, her bank account is rapidly dwindling, her father wants her to come home, and her agent doesn't return her calls.  But for some reason, she keeps believing that she might get what she came for.

I can't say that I'm a big Lauren Graham fan, but I did like her on Parenthood so when I heard she had written a book I thought I would pick it up.  I imagined her quirkiness would work well for a writer.  Then I remembered she's not really Sarah Braverman in real life.

The story is nothing new and the most interesting thing is that Franny complains about the exact plot of this book after she and her roommate go see a movie together.  There is nothing unpredictable about this book and nothing is really resolved in the end.  It felt like we just ended maybe 2 feet from where we began.

The characters were vague and boring.  All I can picture in my head of Franny is that she is brunette, has slightly uncontrollable hair (of course - don't all wannabe quirky actresses have crazy hair?) and is shorter than her roommate Dan.  I know that Dan is tall.  I cannot even remember if she really describes what James Franklin looks like because all I ever pictured from the beginning was James Franco.

I wasn't terribly disappointed.  I wanted to keep reading and find out what happened to Franny, but I felt myself continually disappointed in her.  She never did anything I was impressed with or felt a kinship with.  She just wasn't my people, I guess.

the spectacular now

the spectacular now
tim tharp
ya/contemporary
knopf
published 2008

Sutter Keely.  He's the guy you want at your party.  He'll get everyone dancing.  He'll get everyone in your parents' pool.  Okay, so he's not exactly a shining academic star.  He has no plans for college and will probably end up folding men's shirts for a living.  But there are plenty of ladies in town, and with the help of Dean Martin and Seagram's V.O., life's pretty fabuloso, actually.  Until the morning he wakes up on a random front lawn, and he meets Aimee.  Aimee's clueless.  Aimee is a social disaster.  Aimee needs help, and it's up to the Sutterman to show Aimee a splendiferous time and then let her go forth and prosper.  But Aimee's not like other girls, and before long he's in way over his head.  For the first time in his life, he has the power to make a difference in someone else's life - or ruin it forever.

Well.  That was depressing.

Sutter Keely is an alcoholic at 18.  There's no getting around that.  There is rarely a time during his narration that he is not inebriated.  There was rarely a time during his narration that I didn't want to punch him in the face.

I made the mistake of reading this as an adult.  One who still drinks, yes, but not one who drinks to excess pretty much ever anymore.  I forgot how I was in my 20s.  I forgot how I spent nearly every night for several years drunk.  How a good night was binge drinking with my friends and feeling like the only way we could have fun was if alcohol was somehow involved.  Work provided unlimited access to booze and we took full advantage of that.  I forgot what an asshole I was when I drank.  Not a mean drunk sort of asshole, but one who did stupid stuff and thought it was hilarious.

I know that had I stayed where I was during that time of my life I might not be alive today.

And I realize that the brilliance of Tim Tharp's novel is that the entire story is told from Sutter's point of view and you, the reader are (most likely) sober while reading it and so you can read between the lines.  We know Sutter isn't the life of the party.  We know he is being mocked.  We know he has no real friends because no one wants a friend like that.  We know that he's using Aimee just as he perceives everyone else in her life does.  So Sutter becomes this horribly pathetic character to us.

And there is a moment that we're all waiting for.  The afterschool special moment where something horrible happens that changes Sutter.  Makes him realize that he can't continue living his life this way.  And it happens, but not how we expected.  And it makes the story even more brilliant than originally thought.  Because not everyone has that afterschool special moment.  Not everyone realizes the error of their ways.  Some are lost and will always remain lost.  Some don't need that moment, they just sort of come to that realization themselves.

What Tim Tharp does is give us a big dose of reality.  This isn't a glossy YA novel that splits people into Team Sutter and Team Someone Else.  This is a PSA wrapped up in damn good writing.

farm fatale

farm fatale
wendy holden
fiction/brit chick lit
headline books publishing
published 2001

Cash-strapped Rosie and her boyfriend Mark are city folk longing for a country cottage.  Rampantly nouveaux-riches Samantha and Guy are also searching for rustic bliss - a mansion complete with all the fancy trappings.  The village of Eight Mile Bottom seems quiet enough, despite a nosy postman, a reclusive rock star, a glamorous Bond Girl, and a ghost with a knife in its back.  But there are unexpected thrills in the hills, and the two couples are soon swept up in various romantic entanglements, mix-ups, slip-ups, and unlikely seductions in their search for ever-greener pastures.

What to say....what to say.....

I didn't love this book, but then I didn't hate it either.  It was just....there.  Rosie wasn't that bad of a character, but I never really got a sense of who she really was.  I definitely got a sense of other characters.  Like Samantha and Mark.  Awful, awful people.  I don't understand at all why we were stuck in Samantha's head at all.  I kept waiting for the moment when something changes for Samantha, when she realizes she's a horrible person, but that never comes.  From the synopsis I was expecting a much different couple.  The story would have been just fine if she was never in it, albeit much shorter.

Everything kind of dragged on and then suddenly took this sharp turn and as the pages flipped away with very little pages left to read I wondered how things were going to get wrapped up.  Holden wrapped everything up in about 7 pages.  It was kind of disappointing.  And predictable.

I still have two other books by Wendy Holden to read for the off the shelf challenges.  Hopefully they'll be a little better than this one.  I'm generally a sucker for brit chick lit, but this one didn't thrill me.

twilight

twilight
twilight saga #1
stephenie meyer
little, brown & co.
published 2006

Isabella Swan's move to Forks, a perpetually rainy town in Washington, could have been the most boring move she ever made.  When she meets the mysterious, alluring Edward Cullen - a vampire - her life takes a thrilling and terrifying romantic turn.

This is comfort reading for me.  This is my 5th reading in as many years.  It's the most I've read a single book, especially in such a short amount of time.  Usually I can't reread a book until a decade or two has gone by.

And please spare me the vitriol.  I know it's not a Pulitzer Prize winning book.  I know the writing is amateurish and the plot goes against my more feminist views, but it is truly escapism when I read this book.  It reminds me of falling in love for the first time.  Those few weeks or months learning everything you can about that person.  The butterflies and the thrill of seeing them again when you haven't seen them in oh say, a couple of hours.

Then there's the setting.  The green, rainy gloom.  The cold, grey beach covered in colored glass pebbles.  You can say what you like about Meyer's writing, but she definitely can bring Forks to life.  And this setting is my kind of place!

I just love this book.  And I probably always will.

fangirl

fangirl
rainbow rowell
ya/romance
st. martin's
published 2013

Cath is a Simon Snow fan.

Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan....But for Cath, being a fan is her life - and she's really good at it.  She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it's what got them through their mother leaving.

Reading.  Rereading.  Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fanfiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.

Cath's sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can't let go.  She doesn't want to.

Now that they're going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn't want to be roommates.  Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone.  She's got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend; a fiction-writing professor who thinks fanfiction is the end of the civilized world; a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words....and she can't stop worrying about her dad, who's loving and fragile and has never really been alone.

For Cath, the question is: Can she do this?  Can she make it without Wren holding her hand?  Is she ready to start living her own life?  And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?

Rainbow Rowell just has a way with words.  She's funny and sarcastic, but sweet and serious too.  She deals with mental illness and binge drinking, but they're not the focus of the story.  Fangirl was lighter even as it dealt with a few heavy issues.

I spent practically the entirety of the book smiling.  I would catch myself grinning just because I was reading the book.  Little lines like this one would get a giggle out of me:

Reagan rolled her eyes again.  Cath made a mental note to stop rolling her eyes at people.

And Reagan, I just loved her.  She was the best roommate Cath could have gotten.

But you're so helpless sometimes.  It's like watching a kitten with its head trapped in a Kleenex box.

Throughout the book, at the beginning of each chapter there would be a passage from either canon or the fanfiction that Cath was writing in the Simon Snow world.  I found myself entranced even by these.  When she would read her fanfiction out loud to Levi, or she and Wren discussed Carry On I ate it up just like I was the main story.  It reminded me (as it was supposed to I assume) of Harry Potter.  Loving a fictional world so much and being so incredibly sad when it's over.

Rainbow Rowell does not disappoint.

one moment

one moment
kristina mcbride
ya/romance
egmont usa
published 2012

This was supposed to be the best summer of Maggie's life.  Now it's the one she'd do anything to forget.

Maggie remembers hanging out at the gorge with her closest friends after a blowout party.  She remembers climbing the trail with her perfect boyfriend, Joey.  She remembers that last kiss, soft, lingering, and meant to reassure her.  So why can't she remember what happened in the moment before they were suppose to dive?  Why was she left cowering at the top of the cliff, while Joey floated in the water below - dead?

As Maggie's memories return in snatches, nothing seems to make sense.  Why was Joey acting so strangely at the party?  Where did he go after taking her home?  And if Joey was keeping these secrets, what else was he hiding?

The beginning of this book was so promising. Although I don't know what I expected realistically.  There are places in the book where the writing kind of comes off as forced.  As if the writer wasn't exactly sure how teenagers act so she just blurted something out.  But that's not my biggest issue with the book.

*****SPOILER ALERT*****

I cannot believe that Adam finds Maggie crouched down at the top of the cliff, memory repressed because she found out HER BOYFRIEND WAS CHEATING ON HER.

Ugh.  That's beyond pathetic.  It all boils down to this:  She discovers her boyfriend is cheating on her at the most inopportune time, basically kills him (albeit accidentally), represses the memory of what she discovered, mourns his loss as if they were married for 50 years, finds out he's an asshole but ignores it, finally stops ignoring it, remembers what she forgot and falls in love with another guy.

Maybe I could believe the whole amnesia thing.  I mean, she's a teenager and they're prone to hysterics, right?  When you're a teenager you feel everything so much.  Every teenager is basically emo.  But then after all that nonsense she falls right in love with her best guy friend, her boyfriend's best friend and happy ever after.  I wanted to slap Maggie silly.

It was a disappointment all around.  Maggie was pathetic and self-centered.  Her friends were clueless and/or backstabbers and her boyfriend was a class-a asshole.  I liked no one.

allegiant

allegiant
divergent #3
veronica roth
ya/dystopian/suspense
harpercollins
published 2013

What if your whole world was a lie?
What if a single - revelation - like a single choice - changed everything?
What if love and loyalty made you do things you never expected?

Oh, it's so hard for me to write a review for this book.  There are going to be spoilers in this review.  Major spoilers.  There is no other way for me to do this!

*****GET READY, SPOILERS AHEAD*****

I did not enjoy the back and forth part of the book.  Jumping from Tris's head to Tobias's head chapter by chapter was not well thought out.  If we were reading in third person and it would have been easier.  As it was, sometimes I would forget who I was walking in and it broke the flow for me.  A lot.  This is truly the act of a writer who lets the story develop as it should.  She didn't plot everything out, she let the story come to her.  I can respect that.  If I'm wrong, well then that just sucks.

I can even respect the way it ended.  To tell the truth, I thought the death toll would be higher.  I couldn't fathom an ending that in any way, shape or form left everyone whole and happy.

Some things I felt that Roth just kind of gave up on.  Tobais's solution to ending the war between the Allegiant and Factionless was maybe the best, but it kind of felt like a cop out, anticlimactic.  Although maybe it is the theme of the whole book.  Motherhood.  Family.  The family we are brought in by blood and the family that takes us in.

I don't know yet how I feel about the end, this last book.  I think I need more time to think about it.  :(

thankless in death

thankless in death
in death #37
nora roberts
fiction/mystery/thriller/romance
putnam adult
published 2013

Lieutenant Eve Dallas has plenty to be grateful for this season. Hosting Roarke’s big Irish family for the holiday may be challenging, but it’s a joyful improvement on her own dark childhood.
 
Other couples aren’t as lucky as Eve and Roarke. The Reinholds, for example, are lying in their home stabbed and bludgeoned almost beyond recognition. Those who knew them are stunned—and heartbroken by the evidence that they were murdered by their own son. Twenty-six-year-old Jerry hadn’t made a great impression on the bosses who fired him or the girlfriend who dumped him—but they didn’t think he was capable of this.
 
Turns out Jerry is not only capable of brutality but taking a liking to it. With the money he’s stolen from his parents and a long list of grievances, he intends to finally make his mark on the world. Eve and her team already know the who, how, and why of this murder. What they need to pinpoint is where Jerry’s going to strike next.

I can't remember if there's ever been an 'In Death' case like this one.  Dallas & Peabody know who their killer is almost right away and it's not a matter of collecting evidence, but finding where he's holed up.

Reinhold was a pretty good villain.  Super gross and annoying, I couldn't wait for him to get his and it was a pretty satisfying conclusion.  

At one point in the beginning Eve mentions that the year is 2060 and going back, the first book Naked in Death took place in 2058 so less than 2 years have passed!  It feels like much longer than that.  While sometimes you get the feeling that these cases are back to back it seems like there's longer breaks between some, but I guess not.  Then again, Mavis & Leonardo's kid is a good measure of how much time has passed.  She's just barely walking and talking!

There were some sentimental moments here.  The acknowledgement of Eve & Roarke's hard work and their support of her team, not to mention Roarke's family and the appearance of a character from tons of books ago!

Now seriously, when is Eve going to have a kid?  Or Peabody, when are Peabody and McNab going to get married?  Something's got to happen there, right?!

lies beneath

lies beneath

lies beneath #1

anne greenwood brown

fantasy/ya/romance/thriller

delacorte press

published 2012

Calder White lives in the cold, clear waters of Lake Superior, the only brother in a family of murderous mermaids. To survive, Calder and his sisters prey on humans and absorb their positive energy. Usually, they select their victims at random, but this time around, the underwater clan chooses its target for a reason: revenge. They want to kill Jason Hancock, the man they blame for their mother's death.

It's going to take a concerted effort to lure the aquaphobic Hancock onto the water. Calder's job is to gain Hancock's trust by getting close to his family. Relying on his irresistible good looks and charm, Calder sets out to seduce Hancock's daughter Lily. Easy enough, but Calder screws everything up by falling in love--just as Lily starts to suspect there's more to the monster-in-the-lake legends than she ever imagined, and just as the mermaids threaten to take matters into their own hands, forcing Calder to choose between them and the girl he loves.

One thing's for sure: whatever Calder decides, the outcome won't be pretty.

This was much better than I expected!

Kind of Twilighty with the whole dangerous guy, girl falls for him anyway, but other than that it was unique and fun.

Mermaids and mermen, or rather, merman.  Lots of betrayal and mystery surrounding Calder and his sisters.  At first I was a little bummed to find out this was the first in a series, but after reading it I felt like we just scratched the surface and I'm interested to see where Brown goes with this.

But if you didn't want to start another series you could just read this one and be pretty satisfied.  I think it ends well, leaving it up in the air a little, but at the same time there's closure there too.  Like I said, I'm interested to see where she goes with this so I'm in for the next one whenever I can get my hands on it!

rising tides

rising tides
chesapeake bay #2
nora roberts
fiction/romance
jove
published 1998

Coming home has taught the brothers more than they ever dreamed about the meaning of family and responsibility. Now it is time to learn the meaning of acceptance and love...

Of the three brothers, it was Ethan who shared his father's passion for the Maryland shore. And now with his father gone, Ethan is determined to make the family boatbuilding business a success. But amidst his acheivements lie the most important challenges of his life...

There is young Seth, who needs him more than ever. And a woman he has always loved but never believed he could have. But beneath Ethan's seemingly still waters is a dark and painful past. He must learn to see around the shadows to accept who he is. Because through Ethan's past lies the future—and his one chance at happiness...

I like Grace and Ethan.  Slow and steady wins the race, right?  

I like that Grace isn't afraid to back down, that she loves Seth like he deserves to be loved and that doesn't ask for help from anyone.  I like that Ethan is steady and thoughtful, but sometimes not thoughtful enough.

The fight for Seth was kind of at bay in this book.  In the beginning everything was new and everyone's trying to find their place and how to fit Seth into this place.  Now they've earned his trust and while they know everything isn't set in stone they're pretty complacent about where they are.  So there's just a little blip and nothing much else so we know that the next book will be the final showdown.

Even though I've read this before and know the bare bones of the story, I'm still a little nervous, worrying over what Seth's mother brings to the table.  This is the last book I needed to read to finish the last square in the Bingo Challenge, but I think I'm going to have to re-read the last two.  Even in re-reading I can't leave myself hanging on a story!

sea swept

sea swept

chesapeake bay trilogy #1

nora roberts

fiction/romance

jove

published 1998

Three men bound by the love of the extraordinary couple who took them in and raised them as brothers. Now grown and living on their own, the Quinn brothers must return to the family home on the Maryland shore, to honor their father's last request. A champion boat racer, Cameron Quinn traveled the world spending his winnings on champagne and women. But when his dying father called him home to care for Seth, a troubled young boy not unlike Cameron once was, his life changed overnight...

After years of independence, Cameron had to learn to live with his brothers again, while he struggled with cooking, cleaning, and caring for a difficult boy. Old rivalries and new resentments flared between Cameron and his brothers, but they tried to put aside their differences for Seth's sake. In the end, a social worker would decide Seth's fate, and as tough as she was beautiful, she had the power to bring the Quinns together—or tear them apart...

What can I say?  It's an easy Nora Roberts book.  There's some mystery and some romance and a little heart tugging.  I remember that the story ramps up pretty good in the next book in the trilogy (which I think ends up to be a quartet because if I remember correctly she revisits Seth when he's older).

The story is a lot like the Dreams trilogy.  Three sisters who aren't sisters start a business together.  These brothers who aren't brothers do the same, but she's also thrown in the mystery of Seth's parentage and the possible scandal surrounding that.

Cam and Anna are fun and it's more interesting to see Cam and Seth circle around each other.  Again, super fast read and pretty sweet.

live to tell

live to tell

d. d. warren #4

lisa gardner

fiction/mystery/crime/romance/thriller

bantam

published 2010

He knows everything about you—including the first place you’ll hide.
 
On a warm summer night in one of Boston’s working-class neighborhoods, an unthinkable crime has been committed: Four members of a family have been brutally murdered. The father—and possible suspect—now lies clinging to life in the ICU. Murder-suicide? Or something worse? Veteran police detective D. D. Warren is certain of only one thing: There’s more to this case than meets the eye.

Danielle Burton is a survivor, a dedicated nurse whose passion is to help children at a locked-down pediatric psych ward. But she remains haunted by a family tragedy that shattered her life nearly twenty-five years ago. The dark anniversary is approaching, and when D. D. Warren and her partner show up at the facility, Danielle immediately realizes: It has started again.

A devoted mother, Victoria Oliver has a hard time remembering what normalcy is like. But she will do anything to ensure that her troubled son has some semblance of a childhood. She will love him no matter what. Nurture him. Keep him safe. Protect him. Even when the threat comes from within her own house. 

The lives of these three women unfold and connect in unexpected ways, as sins from the past emerge—and stunning secrets reveal just how tightly blood ties can bind. Sometimes the most devastating crimes are the ones closest to home.

Whoa.  This book was intense.  Dealing with very psychologically disturbed children, Live to Tell doesn't pull any punches.  We switch narrators between Detective D. D. Warren, Victoria, the mother of a violent son and Danielle, the only survivor of a family annihilation.  That in itself sounds pretty heavy, but then you add in time spent in a children's psychiatric ward you're pretty much wrung dry.

I have very little to complain about Lisa Gardner's writing.  I was at the edge of my seat, the pages flew by.  I was both enthralled and horrified.  But Warren was sooooo dang grumpy in this book!  I truly don't remember her being this obnoxious.  While the crimes were awful and she had to face them I didn't feel like she was emotionally disturbed by the crimes themselves, but more that she was pissed off that they weren't as clear cut as she thought and she was really horny and not getting any sex.

I counted the number of times she 'scowled' at someone.  It was 13.  One thing that drives me nuts in books is repetitive stuff and the scowling was too much repetition for me.

But really, that was it.  I loved Danielle, went back and forth with Victoria.  Sometimes I felt she was an idiot, that her ex-husband was right and other times I thought she was the hero and in the end I found she was the strongest one of all.

Definitely not a story for everyone.  Definitely full of stuff people don't want to think about actually existing in their world, but it was a good read if you're up for it.

the night circus

the night circus

erin morgenstern

fiction/fantasy/scifi

anchor

published 2011

The circus arrives without warning.  No announcements precede it.  It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.  Within the black-and-white striped canvas tnts is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements.  It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway - a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors.  Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will.  Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love - a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus performers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

The book jumps back in forth in time to tell the story of before and during and then and while it should be confusing with a jumble of different characters it's not.  You yearn to know how everyone is intertwined - because you know they must be - and you revel in each little step taken through their journey.

Sometimes when I'm reading a book where there is an ensemble of characters I get frustrated when the focus shifts from one character to the next.  Inevitably there is always at least one character I don't care where their story take them.  That is not so with The Night Circus.

I'm enthralled by Bailey, Poppet & Widget and their mysterious adventures.  What Bailey's future holds for him and Poppet & Widget's easy acceptance and friendship.  Isobel is at times seemingly bitter and cunning, but then maybe that's just what I expect her to be and not what she really is.  Of course, Celia and Marco.  Tsukiko, Chandresh, Tante, Lainie & Tara, Mr. Barris, Herr Thiessen....they're all incredibly fascinating and add bits and bits of revelation to the mystery at hand.  

I found Hector/Prospero to be completely horrid.  Alexander showed more love for Marco than Hector ever did for Celia.  Everything Hector ever did was done to Celia, not for her.  The affection he showed her was merely a fake face.  Alexander was the genuine one.  Though that doesn't make him exempt from his choices it does make him more human.

I did get a little confused during October 21-November 1, 1901 & 1902.  Because it was switching back and forth so quickly I would have to double back and see what year I was in.  There were questions and mysteries I felt were never answered, but for some reason I wasn't disappointed.  Some mysterious are better left as mysteries.