Sabella or The Blood Stone

By Tanith Lee

Sabella lives alone in her dead mother's house on Novo Mars. Novo Mars bares a striking resemblance to Mars, being dry and bleak and barren and reddish in hue, but not as red as Mars.
Sabella chooses to be alone because it is safer for everyone if she does so. Sabella is a vampire of sorts. She drinks the blood of men she seduces, she is inhumanly strong and fast, she cannot bear the sunlight. But she is not undead, she does not sleep in a coffin, she has a reflection and garlic, holy water and crosses are no big deal.
Sabella was just a normal kid until the day she crawled into a cave. In the cave is where she found the blood stone that she wears constantly on a chain. When she is hungry, the stone is clear. When she has fed, it is ruby red.
She had no one to teach her how to be a vampire. She killed people at first but gradually learned how take just so much but not too much. Then she back slid and killed a young man who had a big brother. Big brother is at Sabella's door and he is big and he is strong and he is determined to find out what happened to his brother. Sabella may have finally met the only man she cannot seduce and bend to her will. And he may be her only salvation from the life of degradation she has fallen into.

This is about the third time I have read this story and it is still a gripping and thrilling read even after all this time. I first read it back when it originally came out in the 1980s. I don't consider the story to be fantasy, because Sabella's condition has a scientific explanation, not a supernatural one. I think that is one of the reasons I like the story so much, because it is logical.

This Pen for Hire

By Laura Levine

Jaine lives in Los Angeles and makes her living as a writer. She specializes in resumes and copywriting. Her latest customer, Howard, doesn't want a resume or an ad written. No, he wants a love letter, a letter persuasive enough to convince its recipient to go on a date with him.
Howard is no prize. He works in insurance and still lives with his mother. The woman he is crushing on is a beautiful aerobics instructor, Stacy. Jaine is no stranger to the LA scene and she is more than certain that Stacy is not going to date a man like poor Howard. So Jaine's letter to Stacy implies that Howard is related to Rupert Murdoch. And Howard gets his date!
But (of course there is a "but") when Howard arrives at the apartment to pick up his date, he finds Stacy dead, her head bashed in with a Thighmaster. And of course the police are sure he is the killer.
Jaine feels guilty that her letter may have gotten Howard into trouble. So she proceeds to do a little investigating on her own. She easily finds out that Stacy had several lovers, one of whom was married. Also, one of the women Stacy worked with was dumped for Stacy. And there's the woman who wanted the apartment that she was promised before Stacy stole it from her.
So there are plenty of suspects. But which one is the killer? Turns out the killer was right under Jaine's nose all along. And that Stacy was murdered for the most prosaic reason of all.

This was an OK read. Although I did guess the identity of the killer pretty quickly but not, I will admit, the reason why Stacy was killed.
The story is mildly amusing although I did find the main character's constant put downs of herself a bit tiring.

Review from Kirkus.

Midnight Crossroad

By Charlaine Harris

Welcome to Midnight, Texas. A small town with a small population of folks, all of them a tad different from most people.
New to this small community is Manfred Bernardo. Manfred is a sometime psychic. He does most of his work online or via telephone. Most of the time he just makes it up. Occasionally he actually has a true psychic flash. Occasionally.
So this hole in the road town has a resident witch, a vampire, an assassin, a were-person, an angel, an ex-white supremacist and a serial killer. Of course, Manfred doesn't find this all out right away. But he soon figures that the leading lights of Midnight are more than they appear. It all begins with the body of a young woman, a young woman who has been missing for several weeks and of whom her friends and family are willing to commit murder to track down her killer.

This was a pretty good story, a bit spoiled by the fact that I saw the TV show version first, so no surprises in the plot. The only surprise, really, is that the book characters seem quite a bit less sure of themselves and less powerful than their TV counterparts.

Review from Kirkus Reviews.

The Road to Ruin

By Donald E. Westlake

The Dortmunder gang is once again trying to pull off a successful heist, although, given their past record, it seems a vain hope.
So one of the gang members has come up with a very tempting opportunity. A very wealthy man has become a social pariah (because of his financial shenanigans that cost a lot people a lot of money) and can't find enough people to take care of him and his household.
The gang has inside information, including that the man, Monroe Hall, has a fabulous collection of very valuable cars. The plan is the gang members will get hired on as Hall's servants and, when the time is ripe, they will steal the cars.
It's a beautiful plan that can't go wrong. Except it does. Unbeknownst to the Dortmunder crew, a group of disgruntled investors and workers have a plan to grab Monroe Hall and extort all their lost monies out of him. Working at cross-purposes, the second group manages to screw everything up for everyone, including Monroe and his faithful wife, Alicia.

This was an typical & entertaining Dortmunder story. I was really hoping old John would finally come out on top, but, as per usual, John Dortmunder gets nothing for all his hard work. It was interesting seeing the gang of crooks trying to act like ordinary workings stiffs. Some of them even seemed to actually enjoy their new roles, a first step on the road to redemption? Nope.
I usually do enjoy Westlake's stories and this one was quite enjoyable too.

Review from Publishers Weekly.

Wild : From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

By Cheryl Strayed

After her mother died and her marriage ended, Cheryl Strayed knew she needed to do something. What she decided to do was hike the Pacific Crest Trail from California to Washington, alone.
Never having done an overnight hike before, Strayed was not quite prepared for the experience. First of all, her backpack was way overloaded. Second, she found out later after many, many painful miles that her boots were too small. Third, she learned that wild animals are not the biggest threat, rather it was men. Attractive and young, she fortunately only encountered one man with questionable intentions. (She got lucky in that regard.) She saw lots of wild creatures, but they were as timid of her as she was of them. (Once again, she got lucky.) Fourth, she learned that she didn't budget quite enough money for the trip. When one of her resupply drops didn't contain the cash she was expecting, she didn't have a backup plan or even a credit card.
So basically she went off half-cocked but by the end of the hike she was a lot stronger, a lot slimmer, a lot more experienced and a lot more at peace with her life.

This was a pretty good read. I liked reading about the hiking. But not so much the story of her emotional troubles. It just seemed to me that she brought a lot of that on herself.
I'm sorry her mother died so young. But the way Strayed trashed her life because of that did not sit well with me. Especially the way she sabotaged her marriage to a man she describes as loving, caring and understanding.
Just weird.

Critters : Adventures in Wildest Suburbia

By A.B.C. Whipple

From the inside flap of the book jacket: "Squirrels in the bird feeder, raccoons in the garbage, Canada geese on the lawn, rabbits in the garden, deer in the orchard—during forty years in the suburbs A.B.C. Whipple has coped with them all, even including a skunk that decided to winter in his cellar."

That makes it sound like it is going to be a really fun and amusing book, but no. It is more like a zoology text book, with the amazingly (and boringly) in depth descriptions of the habits and life cycles of these common creatures.
In the chapter about the cellar skunk, we get a lecture on "aposematic coloration", info on skunk diet, skunk mating habits & the chemical composition of skunk spray (key word: butylmercapton).
In the chapter on raccoons, we explore the origins of the washing behavior, their mating habits, their diet, a bit of their history in North America & rabies.
Similar topics are touched on in all the other chapters about all the other animals.
The author can't just tell an amusing tale. No, he has to educate the reader. Which is fine if you are in the mood to be educated. Not so much if you just want a light, amusing read.