Summer King, Winter Fool

By Lisa Goldstein

Valemar is a young courtier in the court of King Gobro of Etrara. Valemar doesn't have much on his mind besides poetry, courtliness and his standing in the court. His king, Gobro, is not well liked or respected, dismissed as a fat fool.
The people of Valemar's world worship a trinity of gods, Sbona, the mother and her two sons, Callabrion and Scathiel. When Callabrion descends to the world, winter begins and Scathiel ascends to heaven. Then when Callabrion ascends to heaven, Scathiel descends and summer begins. This is how they mark the changing of the seasons. Only this winter, something has gone wrong. The festival of Callabrion's ascension has been celebrated at the proper time but the days are not growing longer, they are growing shorter and coldness rules the land. The people grow uneasy and worried, fearful of famine.
Narrion, like Valemar, is a young courtier in Gobro's court. But unlike Valemar, Narrion's mind is full of plots and intrigues. Acting on Gobro's orders, Narrion tricks Valemar into leaving Etrara and going to Tobol An. Valemar believes his life is in danger and he agrees to hide in Tobol An. There he meets the woman in charge of the huge library of Tobol An, Taja. Taja thinks she is just a peasant woman who runs the library, but she is actually a powerful poet mage, she just doesn't know it yet.
Valemar, like Taja, thinks he is just a courtier. But he is really the true heir to the throne of Etrara, which is why Gobro wanted him out of Etrara. Whether this was to protect him or because he was a threat to Gobro's throne, whatever Gobro's intentions were doesn't matter because Gobro is soon dead, killed by his sister Callia, who takes the throne. Gobro was a spendthrift and Callia's rule is bankrupt. So she declares war on neighboring Shai, hoping to gain its riches for her own.
Valemar, back from Tobol An, takes up arms in the war against the Shai and ends up captured. The war goes badly for Etrara and it is overrun by the Shai, who rule with an iron fist. Rumors begin to circulate throughout Etrara of a rightful heir to the throne who will lead them to freedom. The Shai, eager to susspress these hopes, begin to search for Valemar. And Valemar, escaping from captivity, thinks that maybe it is time for him to assume his proper role as king.
Meanwhile, Callabrion has still not ascended and the days continue to shorten and darkness and cold rule the land. Soon it won't matter who is king, if summer never comes.

This was an OK story. It never really captured my interest and I found the idea of the three gods who are real beings who walk among the people not very appealing or believable. Actually, the whole story was kind of like that, with details that just didn't feel true or real. It was more like a story of a dream than a story of a real place, with real people, events and history.

For another review, see https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/lisa-goldstein/summer-king-winter-fool/.

Drawn to Trouble: Confessions of a Master Forger

By Eric Hebborn

Whatever a person may say about Eric Hebborn, it must be admitted that the man was talented. In other respects, though, Hebborn was lacking. Lacking in morals, lacking in the ability to admit his wrong-doings and lacking in repentance. Never does he admit in this book that he was wrong to do what he did. He even refuses to admit what he did was criminal, saying in response to that accusation, "Not a bit of it. There is nothing criminal in making a drawing in any style one wishes, nor is there anything criminal about asking an expert what he thinks of it."
Hebborn was born of humble origins and spent much of his youth in foster care. But his basic artist ability gained him access to respected institutes of art. He attended the Royal Academy of Arts in Great Britain and won the Rome Prize, studying for two years in Italy. But he learned his less legitimate skills while working for an art restorer in Britain. Art works that have been damaged can be skillfully restored by an expert to such a degree that the restoration is nearly undetectable. (Take note, you dolts who did such a poor job of reattaching King Tut's beard.) It was while working there that Hebborn was introduced to the idea of, to quote Wikipedia, '"restoring" paintings on entirely blank canvases.'
 While he criticizes his earliest efforts at producing fakes, he is still quite gleeful that his even his early fakes fooled the experts. After he moved permanently to Italy, he continued to produce works of art done solely to fool the experts into labeling these works as genuine old masters. Eventually, though, one expert noticed that two drawings done by two "different" artists were on similar paper and Hebborn was exposed and all the works that had been handled by him and his Italian gallery came to be suspect.
But that didn't stop his production of "old masters." Although he no longer had front door access to art dealers, he had plenty of back door access, as dealers continued to contact him, looking for "old masters" they could pass off as the real deal. And this where Hebborn places the onus, on the dealers who label iffy works as genuine.

You don't have to be an art maven to enjoy this memoir. I know practically nothing about art and yet I found this story to be quite well worth the read. Most of the artists that Hebborn faked I have never heard of, people like Gianbattista Tiepolo, Giandomenico Tiepolo, Palma il Giovane, Guercino, Vanvitelli, and Castiglione. But reading about the hidden world of art forgery, art dealers and art experts was interesting and informative. I guess it really is all a matter of
perception.

Hebborn is deceased now. At the end of the book he admits he is in poor health due to over-indulgence. But he didn't die because of his health, he was murdered, bashed in the head in the street in 1996. He was 61 years old. As far as I was able to find out, his murder is unsolved.

Sneaks

By Edith Pinero Green

Dearborn V. Pinch likes solving mysteries, even though he is rather elderly. His son and the police would rather he didn't involve himself but when he comes across a body in the bushes of course he has to look into it.
Pinch has had previous dealings with mysteries, so when a friend of the dead person asks him to look into the death, Pinch is not surprised. And when the man offers to pay him, Pinch is quite pleased. He could really use the money to help out a lady friend. (Pinch also really likes the ladies and is a sucker for a sad story.)
So off he goes from NYC to a resort in Florida, trailed by his basketball-star son, Ben, and a NYC policeman. Ben is worried about his father getting into trouble and the policeman is conducting the investigation into the murder.
The dead man, identified by the man who hired Pinch as Louis Martin, used to live near the resort and was involved with the wife of the man who owns and runs the resort, Leo Beggs. Leo is married to Maggie, a marriage of convenience. Leo wanted a beautiful young wife and Maggie wanted to be married to a rich man. They do not love one another and their marriage has suffered for it. Neither of them are happy with it any more.
Louis Martin was not Maggie's first lover or even her last lover, though she claims he was her true love. Leo Beggs has tolerated Maggie's string of boy friends but now Maggie claims to want her freedom so she can be with Martin. But Martin is dead and it appears that Beggs was the one who killed him. Beggs was in NYC at the time and owns the same type of gun as the one used to shoot the dead man. Informed that he will soon be arrested for Martin's murder, Beggs commits suicide.
Pinch was sure Beggs was the killer, but circumstances surrounding Beggs' own death seem to point to a plot to cast blame on Beggs and make his subsequent death appear a suicide when it was actually murder. But who is the killer? Maggie is, of course, prime suspect as she will inherit the majority of Beggs' fortune. But she has a solid alibi. So she must have had an accomplice. But who? The list of possible candidates grows and grows and Pinch gets deeper into his investigation, getting a few bumps and bruises in the process and ending up kidnapped by a loco Cuban who wants to free Cuba from the communists.

I enjoyed reading about Pinch and his unlikely investigations. He uses a fake name while in Florida but constantly forgets that and makes many obvious gaffes, which was amusing. And the mystery was intriguing with the killer being someone who was central to the story but whose identity is not revealed until the end (unless the reader remembers the clue given at the beginning of the story). This was an enjoyable read, though pretty typical of the mystery genre.

The Duke of Deception

By Geoffrey Wolff

Wolff's memoir of his experiences with his father, an unrepentant conman. And not only a conman, but a leech and an alcoholic and drug abuser. Altogether, Duke (his nickname) was a bad man, a man who even stole from his own son by charging items purchased at stores to his son's account without the son's permission or knowledge.
It's not like Duke didn't know better. His father was a respectable and well-off doctor and Duke was educated in private schools. But perhaps that is where the fault lies, as it appears that Duke was given pretty much anything he asked for as a child. As a result, he grew up thinking he was entitled, whether he deserved it or not. Indeed, Duke deserved the things he wanted because he wanted them. At least that's how it seemed to me. Probably it is not that simple. But I also think he got a kind of childish delight out of cheating, of getting something for nothing.
Yet Wolff has fond memories of his father, despite the occasional outburst of abuse during one of Duke's alcoholic binges. Indeed, it seemed to me, that Wolff had more resentment towards his mother, who cheated on his father, something a little boy found hard to understand. The Wolffs had a troubled marriage, what with Duke's unfaithfulness and unreliability and the mother's admitted lack of love for her husband. Raised in such a climate, it is not surprising that Wolff started down the same road as his father, lying, cheating, drinking, spending money he didn't have and skipping classes. But somehow, Wolff saw the road he was headed down and took another path.

Duke's father is a really creepy guy, repulsive and reprehensible. Wolff has some kind words to say about the man, but from reading this story, it is hard to understand why. But, even though I came away from it despising everything about the man, I still liked reading about him. Gives one a new appreciation for your own parents.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

By Alan Bradley

Flavia de Luce is only eleven, but she has a passion for chemistry and, especially, an interest in poisons.
Flavia has two older sisters with whom she is at war. To get revenge for being locked in a closet, she collects some poison ivy and contaminates her oldest sister's lipstick with it. Which tells you a lot about Flavia, she is a force to be reckoned with. Cross her at your peril.
Flavia's mother died when she was just a baby and her father is cold and distant, a qualities that Flavia believes are inherent in her family. Although he seems disconnected from his family, the father is very attached to his stamp collection, an interest that dates back to his school days.
Flavia arises early one morning and finds a man dying in the cucumber patch. As he dies, he says just one word to Flavia, "vale," which is Latin for "farewell." Flavia realizes the dead man is the same man who visited her father that evening and made threats that Flavia overheard. Soon the police arrive and, before much longer, Flavia's father is arrested and charged with murder. Now it is up to Flavia to discover the truth behind the man's death, and, hopefully, clear her father of murder.

I sort of thought this would be a humorous story, but it was not, unless you find the antics of precocious and bratty children amusing. I do not. Flavia is out of control and her two older sisters and father are so self-involved that Flavia is virtually raising herself.
I also didn't find the mystery that interesting and the murderer was not a surprise. I didn't dislike the book, but I will not be reading the others in the series. It was just a fair read.

Zoo Story

By Thomas French

The true story of Lowry Park Zoo of Tampa, Florida.
After some serious problems, with shabby exhibits and poor maintenance, Lowry Park Zoo reinvented itself, with new and better exhibits, key of which was the new elephant area, featuring five elephants, four of which are young elephants, straight from a reserve in Africa. These four elephants were removed from the local herd, which had grown to numerous for the limited resources of the reserve. The reserve managers didn't want to kill them and figured they would be better off in a zoo. And so they were shipped by plane from Africa to Florida to their new home at Lowry Park Zoo.
At the time of the elephants' arrival, Lowery Park Zoo was run by Lex Salisbury, a dynamic and tyrannical leader with a grand vision for the future of the zoo. His story ends rather sadly, when his ambitions extend too far and end up biting him in the ass, accused of dubious dealings and fired from his job and threatened with criminal charges.
But for the caretakers, it is all about the animals. Underpaid and overworked, these people love animals and put up with the minuses just because they want to be with the animals. It is really hard, demanding and draining work, especially when things don't go the way one would want. Things go bad, animals get sick and die and in one sad case, a tiger escaped and had to be killed.

This was quite an interesting and enlightening book, an intriguing look at what goes on behind the scenes at a zoo.
For another review, see http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2010/0721/Zoo-Story-Life-in-the-Garden-of-Captives.

Unseen Academicals

By Terry Pratchett

The Unseen University, a school for and of wizards located in Ankh-Morpork of Discworld, has an unassuming gray fellow working as a candle dribbler. His job is to make all the candles look well and properly dribbled, as befits an antique institution like the Unseen University.
Mr. Nutt doesn't like draw attention to himself, preferring to go about his job efficiently dribbling candles. But Mr. Nutt has begun to make friends with some of the other employees of the University, mainly Trevor Likely, his boss, and Glenda Sugarbean, who runs the Night Kitchen with the help of her best friend, the beautiful Juliet Stollop, and makes the University's pies and other after-hours treats. There is some question about exactly what Mr. Nutt is, and it is commonly accepted that he is a goblin. Or maybe not.
Ankh-Morpork is football-mad and competition between rival teams has become quite fierce and uncontrolled. So the ruler of Ankh-Morpork, Lord Vetinari, has decided to step in. He orders the wizards of the Unseen University to set up a team of their own and formalize the rules and move the games from the city streets to a proper arena. And, amazingly, Trevor Likely, Glenda Sugarbean, Juliet Stollop and shy Mr. Nutt are going to be the key figures who will make this plan a reality.

This was an amusing and well-laid out story, even if the subject, football, is one that doesn't interest me. Mr. Nutt is another of Pratchett's memorable and unusual characters, another strange being in Ankh-Morpork's melting pot of strange beings. And like the others, Mr. Nutt manages to find a place for himself and the respect of a reluctant community.

The Pritcher Mass

By Gordon R. Dickson

Chaz Sant wants just one thing: he wants to work on the Pritcher Mass. But only people who can pass the entrance exam are allowed  to work there and Chaz keeps failing the test.
Chaz lives on an Earth that has become poisonous to its human dwellers. A fatal fungus has infested the world and people are reduced to living in sealed environments to protect them from it. The Pritcher Mass is an attempt to locate, psychically, a new planet for humans to occupy. Anyone who can pass the test is sent to space to live in the environment constructed for this purpose, despite their past failures or even criminal background. Chaz is not a criminal at the beginning of the story, but his desire to be one of the Pritcher Mass workers drives him to commit crimes that would result in exile to the fungus-infected outside and certain death if he is caught.
Then  he meets Eileen. Unknown to Chaz, Eileen's meeting up with him is not an accident. She was hired by the Citadel, a powerful criminal organization, to get information about Chaz which she does by drugging him. The Citadel doesn't want Chaz working on the Pritcher Mass because their projections indicate that his doing so is a threat to their very existence. Eileen is just one of many roadblocks they place in his way to keep him from it. But Eileen, who is a powerful witch, has fallen in love with Chaz and has decided to help him, even though it may result in her exile and death.

This was an interesting story with an unexpected (for me) conclusion. There is plenty of action and adventure, as one man takes on the big boys in an attempt to save himself and the whole world. I enjoyed it a lot.

The Witch Doctor

By Christopher Stasheff

Saul Bremener's good friend has gone missing so Saul goes to the missing man's apartment only to find it infested with spiders. One of the spiders bites Saul and Saul awakens to find himself translated to a different world, a world where each must choose to be either good or evil and where magic is real.
Saul refuses to commit himself despite pressures to do so. He also finds out he is a natural wizard, with the power to alter reality with the mere saying of a few words of verse.
Although Saul maintains his neutrality, still he is mainly a good-hearted person and can't seem to stop working to make things better for those he comes across who are suffering or in trouble. This includes those who have given themselves to evil and the devil but who Saul heals of their illnesses if they only repent of their sins and turn to God and righteousness, making amends for the bad deeds with good deeds. A lot of those he helps are witches, working in alliance with the evil queen who rules the land.
As Saul progresses through this land, he gains followers, a godly squire, a troll, a beautiful ghost girl, a poet, and a priest. Together, they will stand against the evil queen and free this land of her cruel tyranny.

Throughout the story, Saul refuses to believe that he has magical powers and continues to insist that he is undergoing some kind of drug-induced hallucination. He also insists he will not align himself with either side, but he continuously puts himself in peril by assisting those in trouble and turning many evil witches from the road to hell and into God's grace. I had a hard time figuring out just what it was that Saul felt he was doing that was sinful and finally decided it was that he was attracted to the ghost girl. For some weird reason, the author considers sexual attraction to be a sin, I don't know why. Might be a Catholic thing.

The two-thirds of the story were pretty entertaining, but the last third was rather boring and too concerned with religious and philosophic matters. Also, final battle with the witch didn't make a lot of sense to me, given what we are told earlier in the story about how the witch protected herself from harm.

This story is a vehicle for the author to put forth his views on religion. People who enjoy religious fiction would probably quite like this story. I don't like religious fiction and if I had known that is what this book is, I never would have read it. Now that I do know the author writes religious fiction, I will be sure to avoid his books in the future.
For another review see: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-345-37584-1

My Life in France

By Julia Child

Julia McWilliams met future husband Paul Child during World War II. It was Paul's career with the government that brought the two of them to Paris, France. Once she was exposed to the delights of French cuisine, Julia became determined to learn to prepare food like the French do. To that end, she entered the cooking school, Cordon Bleu. Learning the French way inspired her. She wanted to know all she could about it. In the process, she decided she would like to teach and share what she had learned with her fellow Americans. This eventually resulted in her first cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, intended for American cooks, using American ingredients and American equipment. This took years of painstaking research, trying recipes and adjusting ingredients, discovering appropriate substitutes for French ingredients not available commonly in America. But it was work she hugely enjoyed, helped by Paul's love of photography and wine and by two French women who also wanted to share their knowledge with the world.
This book was created from the letters she and Paul wrote throughout the years. In it, her great love of fine food, fine drink and good company come through very clearly. She had a tremendous appetite for food and life and all good things and a great desire to share it all with the rest of us.

I did enjoy the book, although I can't relate to her obsession with French cuisine. France has given the world wonderful, delicious foods but they do eat some odd things.
I do wish, though, that the many French words and phrases in the book came with a translation. An oversight on the part of the publisher, I suppose. But most annoying to assume that the reader understands or is willing to translate on their own.
For another review, see http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2009/0809/classic-book-review-my-life-in-france.

Orange Is the New Black

By Piper Kerman

When Piper was a young woman, she fell in with a bad group of people. It lead to her becoming a smuggler and money launderer for a drug lord. This episode in her life was fairly brief and she left that all behind and settled down into a regular job and life. But all that was put into jeopardy when she was served with a warrant and subsequently convicted for her past bad deeds.
She avoided prison for many years but eventually was incarcerated at the federal prison for women in Danbury, Connecticut.
Piper was one of the lucky ones at Danbury. She had a strong support system consisting of a loving and faithful fiance, her parents, friends, family and coworkers, and plenty of money, unlike many of her fellow inmates. In Danbury, Piper is exposed to a strata of society unlike any she has previously experienced. The women of the prison range from smart, savvy women like herself to the poorest, loneliest and most deprived people Piper has ever seen. Since Danbury is a low security prison, the residents are not violent nor particularly dangerous. In fact, most of Piper's problems with people at the prison are the guards and other officers and officials, not the inmates. Some of the guards have let their power over these women go their heads and turned them into petty and overbearing bullies. The higher up the prison ladder you go, the less the people who are in charge seem to care about their jobs or about their charges, the prisoners.
But as bad as life at Danbury seems to Piper, she finds out it is greatly superior to many other prison facilities when she is taken out of there and shipped off the Chicago to testify in the trial of one of her fellow gang members. That period of her incarceration is the most difficult of all her time in prison.

I, for the most part, liked this book. It got kind of slow and draggy towards the middle but picked up quite a bit later on. It is an informative look at life in a low security prison and at how the prison system works in the USA. Reading all that she went through would make anyone think twice before running afoul of the criminal justice system. She also points out the many ways the prison system is failing society in its treatment of those in its care. And not only the prison system, but society itself, in its dealing with poverty, education and use of illegal drugs. But in the end, Piper only has herself to blame for her stint behind bars. She spends much of the story angry at the woman who turned her in. I think she comes to understand that the only person who is responsible for her predicament is Piper.

Fourth Horseman

By Margot Dalton

Police dectective Jackie Kaminsky is expecting her first child and has decided she wants to live in her own house.  She finds a nice house in a well-established neighborhood and moves in. The father of her soon-to-be-born baby, rancher Paul Arnussen, is quite willing and happy to marry Jackie, but she is leery of commitment due to her own unhappy and troubled childhood.
Jackie and Paul are digging in the yard one day, preparing the ground for a flowerbed, when Paul unearths human remains, which later turn out to be that of a young woman and a baby. Jackie also finds a diary hidden in her house that belonged to the murdered woman. So even though Jackie now has a newborn baby to take care of and is on maternity leave from her police job, she starts an informal investigation to attempt to understand how a young woman and a baby ended buried in her own backyard.
You would think taking care of herself, her new baby, and her new house would be enough for a young, inexperienced mother, but not Jackie. And despite death threats that include the severed finger of the long dead baby, Jackie refuses to stop her investigation or relocate to the safer environs of Paul's ranch.  Her investigation turns up a lot of strange behavior among her many elderly neighbors and the conclusion of the mystery was very unexpected, involving the least likely of suspects and the most sordid and sorry of circumstances.
I enjoyed this story very much. I was surprised by the conclusion and didn't have a clue beforehand as to who the murder was. However, I did find the main character's willful stubbornness and lack of common sense as regards her own and her baby's safety unlikely and unreasonable. So, of course, she ends up in a confrontation with the killer that nearly costs the both of them their lives. Also, I thought finding the dead woman's diary was a bit too pat. Made the investigation too easy. But, overall, it was a good read, engrossing and surprising.

The Magician's Land

By Lev Grossman

The third book in the trilogy finds Quentin once more on the outs. He had settled into his new position as a teacher at Brakebills and discovered his particular talent is the repair of small objects. Of course, this state of grace does not last for long. Quentin and a senior student, Plum, run afoul of Brakebill's new ghost (which turns out to be Alice, ex-human and now angry spirit being called a niffin) which results in Plum being expelled and Quentin being fired.
Plum and Quentin, at a loss for what to do with themselves after Brakebills, both end up as part of a crew hired to steal an old suitcase, a suitcase that turns out to have belonged to one of the Chatwins. It also turns out the Plum's grandfather was a Chatwin and Plum is the only one who can open the suitcase.
The suitcase caper goes awry, with Quentin's gang having to fight off not only the owners of the suitcase but a rival gang who also want it and the people who hired Quentin'g group turning out to be backstabbing liars. But Quentin's group ends up with the spoils and Quentin and Plum gain possession of her grandfather's tell-all memoir and of a powerful, world-building spell hidden in the memoir.
The memoir tells the story of Martin and of his turn to the dark side, with the help of one of the two gods of Fillory, the ram Umber. Umber is a bit of a joker and will do anything for a laugh, including taking Martin's humanity and letting him stay in Fillory.
Meanwhile, back in Fillory, the four human rulers are dismayed to discover that, once again, Fillory is in deadly peril. In fact, it is the End Times for Fillory and Eliot returns to Earth to get Quentin's help in keeping that from happening. He arrives just in time to witness the return of Alice from niffinhood, for which she is entirely ungrateful. She liked being a niffin and is very angry at everyone because she is now human again. She only begins to come around when Quentin seduces her with some of her favorite foods. Quentin, Alice, Plum and Eliot then return to Fillory to try and stop the Apocalypse.

Once again, Quentin is giving his all to save Fillory. It's a good story, very engaging and interesting, ties up all the lose ends nicely. But I still don't care about Fillory. I never became invested in what happens on or to Fillory. I never connected with any of the minor characters of Fillory, Ember, Umber, Benedict, the bodyguard,  and so on, they are just background to the story of Quentin. Actually, the only Fillory character  that I cared about was Benedict and he is quickly killed off in the second book. Fillory was Quentin's fantasy, not mine.

New York Times review of the book:  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/03/books/review/the-magicians-land-by-lev-grossman.html?_r=0

Palm Beach

By Pat Booth

Reviewing this story is like repeating gossip. It is too unsatisfying to leave the juicy bits out. So be forewarned, I will be including spoilers!
Lisa Starr was born on the wrong side of town. She was born where the servants of the right side live. Her mother was a maid and her "father" was a carnival worker. I use quotes because there is some doubt as to who Lisa father really was, the carny or Sen. Stansfield, whose house the mother cleaned.
So although Lisa's beginnings were humble, she was no ordinary girl. Blessed with extreme good lucks and a strong work ethic, she raised herself up from tragedy and loss, to running her own gym, catering to the high class, wealthy ladies of the right side of town: Palm Beach. And that was her entree to the place she wanted to be, to the people she wanted to associate with. Her mother had raised her on dreams of Palm Beach and Lisa's ambition was to be part of that high society.
Lisa became friends with one of the chief lights of Palm Beach society, Jo-Anne Duke. Jo-Anne had achieved her place in that society by marrying one of the wealthiest bachelors in the area. What her husband didn't know about his wife, or rather, found out too late, is that Jo-Anne, before her days as a model, was a prostitute. And also a lesbian. And that is what brought her to Lisa's gym, lust for Lisa's body. Jo-Anne introduced Lisa to her circle and that is how Lisa met Bobby Stansfield, son of Sen. Stansfield and (possibly) Lisa's half-brother. Lisa and Bobby were immediately attracted to each other and fell very much in love.
When Jo-Anne's husband tried to force her to divorce him, she killed him.  With the inconvenient husband out of the way, Jo-Anne sets her sights on Bobby. In order to break up Bobby and Lisa, she lies and tells Bobby Lisa is a lesbian. She also informs him that Lisa's mother used to work for Bobby's parents as a maid. Well, Bobby, who is a US Senator like his dad was, has ambitions of gaining the White House and everything Jo-Anne says resonates deeply with him, and he dumps Lisa, even though she is pregnant with his child, and ends up marrying the evil Jo-Anne.
But Lisa now has connections and a marriage is arranged with a wealthy and horny old man, Vernon Blass. Lisa's baby will be acknowledged as Vernon's and Vernon will make Lisa his sole heir. But on the wedding night, Lisa finds out Vernon wants her to join him in a threesome with a teenage whore and Lisa immediately leaves him and moves to Europe. She also leaves her baby with him since she feels no motherly love for the infant son of the man who dumped her so unkindly. She has decided she is going to learn the publishing business so when Vernon dies she will be ready to take over his specialty publishing house, which is exactly what happens. Only she makes the business successful and becomes a powerhouse in the industry.
Meanwhile, her son is growing up. Scotty is a confused and unhappy young man who can't grasp what he did to earn his mother's indifference. One day, he discovers the enmity Lisa has for the evil Jo-Anne. Desperate to please his mother and win her love, he hatches a plan. He will seduce the evil Jo-Anne and her innocent and lovely young daughter, Christie. Then he will expose his affair with Jo-Anne to poor Christie and ruin both their lives at once, which he proceeds to do. What he doesn't know, in the process of seducing Christie, is that she is his half-sister. The two kids find that out afterward. Christie forgives Scotty for his cruelty and then Scotty tells her what he has found out about his mother and grandmother and that he is a Stansfield not a Blass. Amazingly, Christie is not at all fazed by the fact that she had sex with her brother, explaining to him, "I don't even regret it. I remember it, and it was the best moment of my life so far. I loved making love to you because I loved you, Scott. And I still love you now."
Meanwhile, Jo-Anne is giving into her lesbian yearnings and picked up a young black prostitute but runs afoul of the prostitute's pimp and is murdered, thus clearing the way for Lisa and Bobby to reconcile and marry. And it is never revealed if  Bobby and Lisa are actually half-siblings. The end.

I enjoyed this story despite its rather contrived plot. It's like reading a soap opera, silly and unlikely but still entertaining. It does have several rather graphic sex scenes, if you like that sort of thing. I don't, I generally skip over those parts.
Of course, nowadays, the question of paternity is easily solved through a DNA test but that wasn't widely used or accepted at the time this novel was written in the early 1980s.
According to an article I read,  http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20092352,00.html this book is based on some real life persons. I recommend reading the article if you are curious about its author and the novel's background.
Interestingly, the author made a prediction about politics that turned out to be true. Bobby's mother is advising her son about politics, saying, " I think you should stick with the zealots, Bobby. They may sound a bit fanatical today, but the way things are going, yesterday's conservatives seem like closet socialists now."  The author was spot on about that.

The Magician King

By Lev Grossman

Quentin is reigning, along with three others, as a co-regent of Fillory. Life is easy. It is pretty much everything Quentin had hoped for upon discovering that Fillory was a real place. But still, even having everything can become boring. So when an opportunity to go on a trip to investigate why a certain island is no longer paying their taxes, Quentin is pleased to go. A ship is prepared and the trip is undertaken with the addition of co-regent Julia and off they sail.
Upon arrival at the island, things are soon sorted out, the back taxes paid and all is good. On the verge of heading back to the mainland, Quentin is handed a quest. He is supposed to find seven keys. So he and Julia go forth to find the keys and ending up, to their dismay, back on dull old planet Earth. Julia, especially, needs to be back in Fillory. But Quentin is discovering that Earth is not the boring place he used to think it. Still, despite his homeland's many charms and mysteries, Quentin also wants to return to Fillory and take up his throne again. With the help on an enigmatic dragon in Venice, they succeed. They return to find Fillory in turmoil, all because of those seven keys.

This book was not quite as interesting as the first, but I did like it. I liked that the action switched from Fillory to Earth and back, with Quentin finally beginning to appreciate his home planet a little better. It fills in a lot of the back story of Julia and then takes her to a situation that completely surprised me. It also killed off one of the characters that I had begun to like quite a bit, which was just annoying. Wish the author hadn't done that.
Anyway, it was a pretty good read and I am looking forward the last book in the triology, The Magician's Land.

The Magacians

By Lev Grossman

Quentin Coldwater is very bright but unhappy teen. He has his whole life ahead of him but makes him happy. He has a crush on a girl, Julia, who has placed him solidly in the "friend zone."  He is on the verge on entering college when he gets the opportunity to apply to a secret school, Brakebills, that teaches magic. He passes the entrance exam, with some difficulty, and thinks he sees Julia there too. But if he did, she apparently didn't pass the exam.
Anyways, life at Brakebills seems to be everything his heart desired. As he becomes more and more accomplished at magic and makes some solid connections with his fellow students, he feels sure he is on the right track. But then he graduates.
Along with some of his fellow graduates, Quentin ends up in New York City, living off a Brakebills trust fund set up for all their graduates. This trust fund is quite large, enabling the graduates to live the high life. So what do they do with all their new found skills? Spend their days in drunken debauchery. Instead of doing something worthwhile, they just fritter their time away, drinking, partying and wasting their lives.
Then one day a fellow graduate shows up at their apartment. This man, Penny, has found a magic button that can take them to Fillory.
Fillory is the subject of a series of kids books, a magical land with talking animals and other fantasy stuff. Kind of a cross between Harry Potter and Narnia. Quentin has always been fascinated by the Fillory books and often turned to them when he was feeling miserable. His secret dream is to be in the imaginery land of Fillory. And now Penny has appeared with what must be the solution to Quentin's misery -- a way to actually enter Fillory! Now finally, Quentin can find the happiness and contentedness that has always eluded him. Or not.

This series is not for children even though it is based on fantasy series for children. Quentin and his fellow students are a boozing, fornicating, cursing bunch of young adults who are what Harry Potter and the rest might be after Hogwarts. I enjoyed the magical shenanigans of Brakebills and I did enjoy the story a lot up to the point where Fillory enters the picture. Before the Fillory part of the story, I thought it was an interesting look at the life of those with magical abilities in the real world. But with Fillory, it becomes just another fantasy story about a magical land with talking animals, and magic spells, and monsters and all the typical fantasy junk. It became a lot less interesting to me then. Why are these people so concerned about what is happening in Fillory? Just because they read a bunch of stories about it when they were kids? Why are Fillory's problems more important than what is happening at home? Why are they not back on Earth trying to help here and all worked up about Fillory? Earth certainly needs as much and probably more help than stupid Fillory. Here they have all these awesome magical powers and what do they do with them? Get wasted then run off to fantasy-land Fillory.
It's a good story, well-told, very interesting. But the Fillory part of the story didn't speak to me. Maybe that's because I didn't grow up reading Harry Potter books or Narnia books. So I will still say it is a good read.

Dead Soul

By James D. Doss

Charlie Moon, ex-tribal cop turned rancher, has to deal with his aunt's psychic visions. Aunt Daisy is a shaman and she has interesting dreams.
Charlie has also been approached by the tribal chairman who wants him to investigate the death of a member of the tribe, Billy Smoke. Smoke was the limo driver for US Senator Patch Davidson, who owns the big ranch next to Moon's. Billy Smoke was in the limo one night in the parking lot of a bar, waiting for the Senator to come out of the bar. He was attacked and killed and the Senator was also attacked and beaten but not killed as the attack was interrupted by a passerby, the tribal chairman. The police investigation and the FBI both decided it was a robbery gone bad.
Investigating a US Senator is a touchy business. Many important people, including the President have visited Davidson. But Charlie turns up evidence that the attack was not a robbery and that it may not be over, either.

This was a good read which I enjoyed a lot. I did find the plot a little convoluted and a tad unbelievable, but it was still a good story, quite engaging.

The Big One

By Harrison Arnston

Ted Kowalczyk gets a cryptic note from an old friend. Included with the note is a scientific report. Ted, an ex-FBI agent who now works as an insurance investigator, reads the report and its shocking conclusion predicting a huge earthquake soon to hit Los Angeles. So he calls up his old friend at work only to be informed that the friend, Tommy Wilson, has been killed in a car crash three days previously. Ted is upset and puzzled and he decides investigate Tommy's death.
Ted takes the report  to an expert, who confirms that the two dead scientists developed a way to accurately predict earthquakes.
As Ted delves deeper, it become clear that the federal government is behind both scientists' deaths. The government is taking the position that the Los Angeles will be impossible to evacuate and so they are just leaving it to its doom. The only steps being taken are the removal of critical government suppliers and troops. These evacuations are being passed off as a routine emergency preparedness drills.
The federal government also has a secret plan to bury small nuclear bombs along a fault zone in the hopes of releasing the geological stresses and prevent the huge earthquake. This plan could work, but it could also precipitate the major earthquake or set off smaller quakes. What will happen is not known.
But the all the secrets will soon be out. Not only is Ted hot on the trail, but an LA newspaper is also on the verge of discovering the truth. Pretty soon government officials will be in the hot seat, trying to explain why they decided not to at least attempt to evacuate the LA area.

This was a pretty good story. I didn't really buy into the idea that the United States government would be so indifferent to fate of millions of its citizens, though. The excuse is that the logistics would be a nightmare and that forewarning the public would cause panic that would lead to riots and the breakdown of law and order. But other than that, I liked it.

Atlantis Gate

By Greg Donegan

This is the fourth book in a five book series. Ex-Green Beret Eric Dane has dream about the 1960s, featuring the poet Robert Frost and President Kennedy. The dream ends with Washington DC destroyed in nuclear war.
Meanwhile, flash back to Leonidas the Spartan battling the Persians at Thermopylae in 480 BC. Leonidas confronts an other-worldly creature and visits an oracle who sends him off with her daughter to act as an advisor while Xerxes is trying to cross the Hellespont. Xerxes also has a questionable woman advisor who has given him a modern day map of the prospective battleground, a tremendous advantage in a time when maps were very inaccurate. Leonidas' advisor is working to protect the world from the Shadow, a malign force that wants to steal all Earth's resources and leave it barren and forsaken. Xerxes' advisor is working for the Shadow, but only because she was forced to do so.
Back in present day times, events transpire that reveal the Shadow is making its big move and Eric Dane may be one of the few people who can get in its way.

This book has a lot of boring details about technical stuff and history and it really delves into that battle of Thermopylae pretty deeply, much more than I wanted to know. So I found myself skipping a lot of it because I just didn't care. It's an interesting premise and some of it was quite intriguing but too much was a lot of technical or scientific info and ancient history. I won't say it was a bad book, just not my cup of tea, so to speak. I also won't say that reading the previous three books might have helped because if book one had the same kind of detailed descriptions, I would have never continued on to book two.

Sticks and Scones

By Diane Mott Davidson

Goldy is a caterer and she has landed a three part job with the man who owns Hyde Castle. This fellow, who inherited the castle, wants all three meals to feature Elizabethan-era types of food. The castle was brought over from England and reassembled in Colorado. The owner, Eliot Hyde, has been renovating the castle with a view to converting it to a conference center. The three catered events are designed to highlight the castle and its amenities, so it is very important that all goes smoothly.
But a few hours before the first event, Goldy wakes up to a suspicious noise. Just as she is going to get out of bed to investigate, the front window of her house is shot out. The police are called and an investigation begins.
Goldy's husband, who is a cop, is out of town. He returns the next day and joins Goldy at the castle chapel just in time to get shot by an unknown assailant minutes after Goldy finds the body of a young man in the creek near the chapel. Tom, the husband, is helicoptered to the hospital with a serious but not fatal wound. Eliot lets Goldy, Tom and Goldy's son move into the castle until their window can be fixed. Goldy finds that she left her disk with her recipes at the house and goes back, alone, to retrieve them, where she is, not surprisingly, bonked on the head by a thief stealing their computers.
Tom is investigating a the theft of a valuable shipment of stamps in which the delivery driver was murdered. The young man whose body was in the creek was part of that robbery. Since Tom in incapacitated, Goldy sort of takes over the investigation which seems to be linked not only to the castle and its chapel, but also to Goldy's ex-husband, recently released from prison and now hooked up with a woman who was dating one of the men involved in the stamp robbery.

This was an okay read. It seemed very contrived to me. Too many people tied to too many other people in such a small location. And that whole secret love child part of the plot was just silly and unbelievable.
For another review see: http://www.bookloons.com/cgi-bin/Review.ASP?bookid=886.