Confessions of a Little Black Gown

By Elizabeth Boyle

The setting is England, 1814. England and the United States are enemies. Thalia Langley's twin sister, Felicity, Duchess of Hollindrake, is throwing a big house party meant to establish her reputation as a society matchmaker. She is bringing together eligible society bachelors and belles in the hopes of making several matches. One of the girls she has her sights set on is her sister, Thalia.
Thalia and her cousin Philippa are not the typical young English ladies of the gentry. They are two young women of action and intrigue and at the moment they are concealing a wanted criminal, an American privateer condemned to die. They are helping him escape the hangman's noose, because Philippa is madly in love with him.
The British government suspects the two girls might be hiding the man and so they send an agent in disguise as a vicar to the house party, his orders are to murder the American if he finds him. But the agent, Lord Larken, finds himself smitten by young Thalia and becomes involved with her, compromising his mission. Things become even more complicated the night of the big dance when a deadly French agent shows up at the house determined to get to the American first, a French agent who holds the key to Lord Larken's father's untimely and disgraceful death, information that Larken has been tying to obtain for years.

This was an OK story. However, I found the girls too forward and unladylike, more like modern women than young ladies of the 1800s. Thalia willingly lets Larken seduce her and then it turns out cousin Philippa is pregnant so she has been rolling in the hay with her lover too. I know loose women are not a modern invention still I find it disconcerting to read about girls of that time with no more scruples than any slutty girl of today. Then at the end Thalia and her lover run off to get married at Gretna Green and the scene in the wedding chapel read like something from a Las Vegas wedding chapel not 19th century Britain. I also didn't find the spy story all that interesting or compelling or even believable. And finally, I don't care for the cover of the book with the woman's head missing as if the most important thing about her is her tits that look as if they are about to fall out of her dress, talk about objectifying a person.

The Sword and the Satchel

By Elizabeth Boyer

Kilgore is the teenage son of a local lord in place that sounds a lot like Scandinavia in the days of the Vikings. At the start of the story a mysterious sword has suddenly appeared in the lord's hall, jammed into a wooden beam, with a note attached: "Whoso pulls Kildurin from the tree shall rule over all the minions of Surt, to the confusion of the wicked and the confounding of their Power."
Naturally, everyone wants to have a go at pulling on the sword, but it doesn't budge until one night young Kilgore, unobserved, gives it a tug and it comes right out. Hearing someone coming, he stabs the sword back into the beam but sticks back in a slightly different place so now everyone knows it has been moved but who did it is not known. For some reason Kilgore keeps his secret until the wizard Skanderbeg and his magic satchel show up at the hall. For Skanderbeg is there to guide the sword bearer to battle against the evil ice wizard Surt who is trying to bring everlasting winter to Kilgore's world.
So off they go, Kilgore and the elf sword, Kildurin, and Skanderbeg the fire wizard and his satchel which has an infinite capacity to hold whatever is put into it. On their travels they have lots of adventures and close encounters and get to know lots of characters and eventually Kilgore goes up against the evil Surt and frees his world from Surt's domination.

This was an okay story. I don't know Norse mythology, but a lot of it read like a retelling of that sort of thing, which doesn't appeal to me very much. I don't really care for reworkings of old myths. Also, the characters never really came alive for me and the novel seemed to drag on way too long. I kept wanting them to get where they were going and get it over with.

Fat Girl

By Judith Moore

Judith Moore was an unhappy child who compensated for her misery with the comfort of food. She didn't just eat too much, she loved food deeply as you can tell from her detailed descriptions of the foods she has eaten and the foods she would like to eat. She was a foodist.
Her father vanished from her life when she was little and she ended up living with her maternal grandmother while her mother took off too. Her grandmother was a busy, no-nonsense farmer who had no time or love for her grandchild. The grandmother cooked three big meals a day for her farmhands and Judith began her fat life at her grandmother's table enjoying a delicious array of homemade goodies as, from the descriptions, the grandmother was a really good cook. Judith was starving for affection and she filled that emptiness with food.
Her mother came back into her life and took her off to New York to live while the mother tried to pursue a career as a singer. One of the few nice things Judith has to say about the mother is that she had a lovely, sweet singing voice. But the mother blamed Judith for blighting her life and she never let her forget it. She was an abusive mother, withholding affection from a little girl starved for it. Plus she rode Judith about her fatness, putting her on numerous diets that sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. But she made such a big deal about Judith's weight and her eating that it became the little girl's obsession too. She had no armour against the cruelness of classmates and no refuge in parental love and saw herself through fat-colored glasses that convinced her she was repulsive and unlovable.
The bright spot in this story is Judith's intelligence. For she grew up to have children of her own, and according to her obituary, she was the loving and involved mother to her own children that her mother never was. Plus she had a successful career with accomplishments and awards and although she struggled with her weight and sadness all her life, all in all, it sounds like she did pretty good.

This was a hard book to read. Not because of the abuse she received at the hands of her nasty mother or the cruel remarks from friend or classmates. No, it is the self-disgust of the author that I found shocking and repulsive. It is not the descriptions of her fat little thighs rubbing and getting sores that upsets. No, it is the repeated denigrations of herself and of that little, sad fat kid she used to be. Still, it is a gripping, if uncomfortable read, and, if not an undistorted picture of growing up fat, it is certainly how she saw herself.

Homer's Odyssey

By Gwen Cooper

Homer is a blind cat. He was adopted as a little kitten by Gwen Cooper. He was still recovering from the surgery where his eyes were removed due to a terrible infection. Like all baby cats, he was born blind and he lost his eyes before ever being able to see.
Gwen was not at a good point in her life when she adopted Homer. She had recently broken up with the man with whom she thought to spend the rest of her life. When he told her he no longer loved her, she had to move out of his place and into the home of a friend. This was just a temporary arrangement as she was expected to find her own place soon. But the weeks stretched into months and still Gwen lived with her friend along with Gwen's other two cats and eventually with the blind kitten, Homer.
The friend was very tolerant of Gwen and her kitties but eventually asked her to move out and Gwen had to take the humbling step of moving back in with her parents. Her meager salary was just not enough to afford a decent dwelling of her own. At this point she had to take a look at her chosen career path and make some changes. Although living with her parents was not as bad as she feared it would be, still she needed to make her way in the world, on her own and with her kitties.
As luck would have it she landed a good job in New York City, just in time to witness the horrid and tragic events of 911. Away from her apartment at the time, her kitties were left alone for several days until she could manage to get back to them. Fortunately all three kitties were OK, although very frantic and ecstatic to see Gwen again.
The place where she worked depended on the many businesses located in the Twin Towers and surrounding area, so Gwen was once again looking for work. Despite the urgings of friends and family, she decided to stay in New York, mainly because she met a man she really, really liked, the man she eventually married.
Throughout this story of a young woman finding out how to stand on her own two feet is the story of Homer and the other two cats. Often, facing difficult times and hard decisions, the author drew hope and inspiration from Homer's undaunted and lively life. Blind though he might be, Homer still enjoys life with all the zest and vigor of any sighted kitty. Brave and fearless despite his blindness and miniature size, at one point Homer even stands off a burger long enough for Gwen to dial 9-1-1. Homer is a heroic figure to Gwen and earns admirers among those lucky enough to meet him with his pluck and courage. Whenever life seems overwhelming, Homer is Gwen's shining example of how to face life without flinching.

This was a pretty good story. I enjoyed reading about Homer's gungho attitude and his amazing exploits, really surprising the things he can do without eyes. The part about 911 was heartbreaking and I really felt her anguish, especially about the kitties left alone for days in the apartment. I didn't care too much for the gushing descriptions of the new boyfriend. But over all I enjoyed reading about Homer the wonder kitty.

Enchanting Pleasures

By Eloisa James

The setting is Regency England. Gabrielle Jerningham is traveling to there from India to marry a man she has never met. She only has a miniature portrait of him but that has been enough for her to construct a romantic fantasy about her future husband, Peter Dewland, and convince herself that he loves her and she loves him. Problem is he doesn't love her...or any woman. He would really rather not be married at all.
Strangely, Gabrielle was supposed to marry Peter's elder brother, Quill, who will inherit the title when their father dies. But Quill had a terrible accident and now may be incapable of fathering a child so the family decided Peter would marry her, but very much against Peter's will. Still he bows to the family pressure and will try to be a good husband to Gabby, he thinks. That is until he meets her.
Because Gabby is not Peter's fantasy of his ideal mate. He wants a tall, slender and sophisticated woman of fashion. Gabby is short, rambunctious, plump, bosomy and messy and lives up to her nickname of Gabby. Peter is horrified and repulsed. Then at Gabby's first society ball her bosoms pop out of the scanty top of her dress and that is the final straw for Peter. He refuses to go through with the wedding and he appeals to Quill to step into his place.
Now to Quill, Gabby is anything but repulsive. He finds her charming, funny, exciting and beautiful. He is glad to marry her. But will Gabby be willing to go along with the bridegroom switch or is she really in love with the standoffish Peter? And even if she is willing to give up Peter will she find a maimed husband an acceptable alternative?

Well, this is a typical modern day Regency romance and unlike the founder of Regency romance's novels, Georgette Heyer, this book contains quite a bit of sex. Still the sex is pretty understated and mild compared to many in the romance genre and none of it is illicit, as all the sex scenes occur after Gabby is wed. Gabby, a total innocent, displays a charming and very believable reticence when she finds out what sex is all about. Gabby's and Quill's sexual relationship is key to the whole story as they struggle to cope with Quill's infirmities and still have a healthy and fulfilling marriage. It all comes together very nicely in the end and I found Gabby to be delight and Quill a gallant if sometimes stubborn leading man.

The Member of the Wedding

By Carson McCullers

It the 1940s during WW II and Frankie is an unhappy kid. When she finds out her brother is getting married she concocts a ridiculous fantasy in which she joins her brother and his new wife on their honeymoon and together they will travel the world and have great adventures:

"Boyoman! Manoboy!" she said. "When we leave Winter Hill we're going to more places than you ever thought about or even knew existed. Just where we will go first I don't know, and it don't matter. Because after we go to that place we're going on to another. We mean to keep moving, the three of us. Here today and gone tomorrow, Alaska, China, Ireland, South America. Traveling on trains. Letting her rip on motorcycles. Flying around all over the world in aeroplanes. Here today and gone tomorrow. All over the world. It's the damn truth. Boyoman!"
"And talking of things happening," she said. "Things will happen so fast we won't hardly have time to realize them. Captain Jarvis Addams [Frankie's brother] sinks twelve Jap battleships and decorated by the President. Miss F. Jasmine Addams [Frankie] breaks all records. Mrs. Janice Addams [the bride] elected Miss United Nations in beauty contest. One thing after another happening so fast we don't hardly notice them."
"And we will meet them. Everybody. We will just walk up to people and know them right away. We will be walking down a dark road and see a lighted house and knock on the door and strangers will rush to meet us and say: Come in! Come in! We will know decorated aviators and New York people and movie stars. We will have thousands of friends, thousands and thousands and thousands of friends. We will belong to so many clubs that we can't even keep track of them all. We will be members of the whole world. Boyoman! Manoboy!"

This kid has gone off the deep end and totally lost touch with reality. And it's not like she is a baby, she is twelve and old enough to know better. And she sure is going to have a rude awakening when she finds out that the last thing her brother and his wife will want is his kid sister tagging along on their honeymoon.

This book just made me tired. Frankie is a loon and I just didn't have the patience to put up with her nonsense. Boring!

Bullwhip Griffin (By the Great Horn Spoon)

By Sid Fleischman

Praiseworthy Griffin is an excellent butler. But when the woman he works for is on the verge of bankruptcy, he and his young master, Jack Flagg, the woman's nephew, hit upon the idea of heading off to California to find a fortune in gold. It's 1849 and folks are flooding into the gold fields hoping to strike it rich. If Jack and Praiseworthy get lucky, they maybe able to get back home to Boston in time to save Arabella, the aunt, and her house from foreclosure.
Right off the bat they run into trouble when their money is stolen. Praiseworthy is a butler very similar to P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves, and nothing keeps him down for long, he is up to the challenge. He and Jack smuggle themselves on board the boat in barrels that are supposed to be filled with potatoes.
But you can't stay for the many months it will take for the boat to travel from Boston all the way down the coast to South America and through the stormy waters off of Tierra del Fuego and back up the west side to California inside a potato barrel. So Praiseworthy presents himself and Jack to the Captain as stowaways and they are put to work shoveling coal until Praiseworthy hits upon a scheme to unmask the theif who stole their money and who is also on board the ship.
Money and good name restored, they continue their voyage, landing in San Francisco ready to light out to the gold fields. But it's an unpleasant surprise discovering how very expensive the supplies they will need are do to the high demand. But never mind, because Praiseworthy always manages to find a way and with minimal supplies they set out to pan for gold among the rough and tumble gold camps of California. They will find gold and lose gold, hit upon money-making schemes and have encounters with bears and thieves and even with true love.

Basically this is a children's book but I still found it quite enjoyable to read. I don't know how historically accurate it is but it is filled with what sounds like authentic details and information about the life of the typical 49er. Praiseworthy is an ingenious fellow and his schemes are nifty and he manages to pull their fat out of the fire every time with a little help from Master Jack. It maybe meant for younger readers, but I enjoyed it a lot too.

The Cotton Queen

By Pamela Morsi

Babs and Laney are mother and daughter. Both lost their fathers when they were little. Both took part in their hometown's Cotton Queen contest with Babs winning runner-up and Laney winning Cotton Queen. Both rode in the cotton festival parade. Both had troubled marriages that ended in divorce. Both gave birth to a daughter who went on to be Cotton Queen in her turn. Both left their hometown only to end up moving back to start over. So in many ways they are a lot alike. Which aggravates Laney to no end, since she sees herself as totally different from her mother, Babs.
Babs wanted nothing more than to be a good wife and mother. Soon after Laney was born, Babs lost her husband to a tragic accident. Trying to raise her daughter on her own, she moved to Dallas and found a job. But while there she was attacked by a man and so traumatized by this that she lost her job and found herself pregnant by her attacker. Desperate, she turned for help to a friend from high school who was now a successful attorney in their home town. He had always liked her and when he asked her to marry him she agreed even though she didn't love him. Theirs was not a good marriage, she was so affected by the rape that she could no longer enjoy sex and so their sex life was terrible. Still, she tried to make up for it by being what she thought was the perfect wife, cooking, cleaning, decorating, dressing well, hosting parties designed to promote her husband's career. Too bad that wasn't what he wanted in a wife.
Meanwhile, her daughter Laney is seeing all this and deciding that the last thing she wants to be is like her mother. Not for her the life domestic, she wants a career. She doesn't care about the Cotton Queen contest but enters it to keep Babs happy. Once she graduates, she can't leave home fast enough. She moves in with a guy and they eventually marry, but the guy is a creep and Laney ends up pregnant and living at home with her mother, who, to Laney's chagrin, has landed on her feet and has developed a career of her own as an events planner. Now Laney is the one stuck at home doing the mommmy thing while Babs is out conquering the world. This is just not the way it was supposed to be!

I really enjoyed this book, it grabbed me and held me right away. Babs' trials and her efforts to keep her daughter were really touching. And Laney's rebellion was so familiar to me as it probably is to most daughters who seem to see only their mothers' flaws and not their strengths. However, as Babs settles into her new marriage, I thought the portrayal of her was a bit over the top, as she manages to alienate not only her husband but also her daughter without ever having a clue as to how controlling and rigid she is. But she warms up later in the story and becomes more human after she becomes involved with the Rape Crisis group and starts to get a handle on her stifled feelings about her own rape. Altogether, it was a terrific story.

Black Like Me

By John Howard Griffin

As a citizen of Texas, Griffin, a white man, saw people of different races everyday but his attention was especially drawn to black people, or as they were called then, Negroes. (Of course, negro is just another way of saying black since that is the original meaning of the word in Spanish.) Griffin, at a time when the civil rights of blacks was just starting to become a national concern, decided to investigate the status of blacks in the South. His plan was to go undercover as a black man using skin dyes and a medication that causes the skin to darken when exposed to ultraviolet light.
He revealed his new self to the world in New Orleans and tried living as a black man. His first problem was simply finding places where a black man could eat, get a drink of water, use the toilet or wash his hands and finally, find a place to sleep. It's hard to believe, but in those days blacks were not even allowed to use the same dishes as white people so you couldn't even go the back door of a cafe or restaurant and buy a glass of water to drink. Ridiculous.
His next step in the plan was to try and find work. Even though he was an educated and experienced man of letters he was completely unable to find any work at all while in New Orleans. He ended up assisting a black man who had a shoe shine stand -- it was the only work he could get. Of course, he didn't need the money since the whole trip was being sponsored by a black-oriented magazine. But he was really surprised that when he tried to cash his travelers checks no one would do it. The only place that was willing to take a black man's travelers check was a Catholic thrift store.
After a few weeks in New Orleans, he decided to get more deeply into the role of a black in the South by going to Mississippi. At the time, whites in the deep South maintained that the blacks in their communities were completely happy and contented with the status quo and had no wish to be full citizens with all the rights that includes. Griffin wanted to see the truth of Mississippi for himself.
Again he planned to look for work and once again could not find anyone who would hire him. He hitchhiked and rode buses and traveled around Mississippi and into Georgia and Alabama. Two things that struck him during his travels, besides the difficulties of finding just the basics of life, were the hate stares of casual passersby and the filthy and salacious talk of the white men who gave him rides when hitchhiking.
These white men would offer him rides, especially in the evening, and many of them would want to talk to him about his sexual experiences with white women and black women, or want to brag to him about their own sexual exploits. Griffin found this kind of interrogation disgusting and disheartening and began to dread conversation with these men.
As for the hate stares, for no reason, just because he was there, white people, particularly white women, would glare at him with anger and hate in their eyes. He found these hate stares shocking and depressing. In fact, these hate stares were one of the most depressing experiences during his whole undercover investigation and lead him into a much deeper appreciation for the downtrodden oppression of the life of the typical black person in the South. Of course, Griffin really knew he was a white man and could go back to being white anytime he wanted. So, although he got a taste of what blacks knew as their everyday experience, he never really knew what it truly meant to be black at that time and place with no escape from the reality of segregation and discrimination.
Montgomery, Alabama, was the nail in his black coffin. The hatefulness of the whites there so oppressed and distressed Griffin that he felt he could no longer continue the masquerade. But after making the switch and now able to enjoy all the privileges of the white race, he felt no joy in it, just how shabby and sour it all was, how unbearable. Walking into a black neighborhood as a white man, he experienced the same hate stares he'd received from whites, but now the stares were directed at him, the white man, from the local blacks.

This was a pretty good book. The things he finds out about being black are not too surprising, although they may have been at the time the story was published in about 1961. He and his family faced a lot of negative feedback after the story came out, negative feedback that he did anticipate but he still went ahead with the project, which was rather brave of him. If his imposture had been discovered by less tolerant types than it was, he could have been beaten or killed. Even almost fifty years later it is a fascinating and compelling story.

A Big Little Life

By Dean Koontz

Dean Koontz really loved his dog, Trixie. She was a trained assistance dog who had to retire due to health issues. She was smart, friendly, obedient and well-trained and she became like a daughter to Koontz and his wife. In fact, Koontz feels that Trixie became a major influence on his writing and helped to open his eyes to the importance of joy in everyday matters, to the importance of innocence and of love. Koontz feels that his dog was sent to him as an emissary from God and that she was a holy spirit in a dog's body, sent to enlighten him as to the mystery of life, death and creation.

This was an OK book. At times the it grows a little tedious reading about how wonderful and special Trixie was, who, according to the author, was even able to speak an actual human word, ball. I don't have a problem with the author's beliefs about his dog, most people who love their pets feel pretty much the same way. But it did get a little boring reading about Trixie's perfection. Also, the book is a lot about Koontz's own beliefs about God and death and the purpose of life, which is OK, but not really what I care to read about.

A Date You Can't Refuse

By Harley Jane Kozak

Wollie Shelley is talked into going undercover by the FBI at a media training center. The FBI suspects the place is more than a media training center and they want Wollie, even though she is not a trained investigator, to scope out the place and its people, especially the head man, Yuri Milos, an European with a shady background. But when her on-again, off-again boy friend, who is an FBI agent finds out, he hits the roof. He can't understand why his boss would expose Wollie to a potentially dangerous situation and he can't understand why Wollie would agree to do it. Of course, the $50,000 that Milos is willing to pay her for a mere three months work might have something to do with it. And the fact that her mentally-ill brother may not be kicked out of the group home he is living in if the FBI uses its influence if she cooperates might also be a contributing factor. But when the bullets start flying the first day on the job, and a dead body is found a few days later, not to mention the suspicious demise of the young woman who had the job before her, Wollie should probably be in the group home with her brother, having her head examined for staying on the job. But she sticks it out, even though she may lose her boyfriend and ultimately even her life.

This was an OK book. Given the reasons for staying on the job were not as compelling as the reason for leaving, i.e., death, I found it hard to swallow the premise that Wollie would stay, especially after she see the huge cache of weapons and the firing range and finding the dead man. I mean, I know she loves her brother, but I'm also sure her brother would not be happy if she died trying to earn the money to keep him in the group home. Other than that, the plot was OK, despite the weak foundation, but I didn't enjoy the rather violent ending. Too bloody for my taste.

Stray

By Rachel Vincent

Faythe is a werecat, a human who can assume the form of a large cat, in her case a black panther-looking cat. In her world, female werecat's are a rarity and so her family, or pride, expects her to settle down, marry and have lots of babies. It's her duty.
Faythe doesn't see it that way. Feed up with her father's overbearing and dictatorial ways, she has left the family home and gone off to college. She wants to be independent but even at college she is aware she is being watched by her father's loyal minions. She is precious to them and they are not willing to risk her in any way, despite her desire for independence.
All is not well in her world, though. For although the werecats of the United States are very civilized and quiet, the same can't be said for those south of the border. The jungle cats, as they are called, are wild and cruel and ruthless and they have sent a couple of their toms to grab any female werecats they can find. So for her own safety, Faythe is forced to come home where she can be protected. Two young female werecats have been snatched and Faythe is next on their list. Fortunately she has a house full of strong male toms, her brothers and her father's minions, to keep her safe. If only she weren't so determined to have her own way...
Yes, she ends up getting snatched through her own bullheadedness and stupidity and thrown into a cage to face a cruel and heartless werecat interested only in making a profit off her and maybe getting a little action if he can force her.

This was an OK book. I didn't think the werecats acted very cat-like at times and they seem to spend very little time in their cat bodies. Most of the time they are human form, even the bad cats preferring to rape and abuse their victims as men, not cats. Also, although this book is probably classed with the paranormal romance genre, this book is short on romance and very long on gruesome, graphic violence. Reads more like something written by a man than by a woman. Barely 16 pages into the book finds Faythe is beating off an attacker. The book was just too violent for my taste. Plus the cats were more like wolves than cats, what with the pair-bonding and the going on long runs in the woods. I can't think of any cat species that pair-bonds and the only cat I know of that runs much is the cheetah. Cats, including big cats like lions and tigers, jaguars and leopards and even panthers, for the most part, prefer to stalk and pounce and, when running, stick to short, fast bursts of speed to snare their prey. Also, like I mentioned before, these werecats spend most of their time being and acting human, humans with short fuses, but still human.

NIght at the Vulcan

By Ngaio Marsh

Martyn Tarne is a young actress recently arrived in England from New Zealand. On her arrival her travelers checks were stolen and, since it will be a few weeks before she can get her money refunded, she needs to find work quickly. After making the rounds looking for acting jobs, she arrives at the Vulcan theater only to find she is too late. Despairing and loitering in the theater to rest her weary feet, she overhears that the leading lady's dresser has taken suddenly ill and a replacement dresser is needed immediately. Martyn steps forward to apply for the job since being a dresser is better than sleeping on a bench in the park.
All is not well with the play that is to open in a couple days. The main problem is the young actress hired to play a small but significant part in the play. But the part is beyond her limited acting skills. Her uncle got her the part and is insisting on her staying in the play against everyone else's objections and this is causing a lot of tension.
When the other actors meet Martyn they are all astonished at how much she looks like the leading man, Adam Poole. And since the part taken by the other young actress calls for her to resemble Adam Poole's character and when they all find out that Martyn is also an experienced actress, the push is on to replace the other actress. But the uncle won't back down and Martyn is signed on as understudy to the other actress, who has hysterics on opening night, giving Martyn her chance at the role.
However the uncle has been making threats and he ends up dead before the night is through. Although his death was an apparent suicide, when the police arrive, a little investigation reveals he was murdered. Since he was a rather unpleasant person, there are lots of suspects to choose from.

This book grabbed me from the first page. Martyn's predicament and the timely arrival of a job and the details of life in a theater all hit the perfect note. Reading this book I could practically smell the greasepaint, it was a real trip into a strange world, full of interesting characters, with just enough detail to interest and yet not overwhelm or bore. I really enjoyed the book.

Hard News

By JefferyDeaver 

 Rune is a young camera person with the local news. She becomes interested in the case of a drifter convicted of murder and she believes the man is innocent. She talks her bosses into letting her do a piece on the man, a piece that may air on a national news show. But when word leaks of Rune's investigation into the case, a hired killer comes looking for Rune, determined to put a stop to any more questions that may prove an innocent man is in prison for a crime he didn't commit, opening a closed case to a new investigation that may enable authorities to track down the real killer.

 This was an OK story. It has some interesting and unexpected twists and turns and the main character has an appealing personality and youthful innocence that draws the reader in more than the actual mystery plot does.

Check out a review by Publishers Weekly.

The Rogue Hunter

By Lynsay Sands

Book 10 in the Argeneau vampire series.
In the world of Lynsay Sands' vampires, which are not like the old-fashioned kind of vampires, each vampire gets one life mate. How does he or she know their life mate? Because they can't read their life mate's mind. Normally they can read minds, so when they come across someone they can't read it can only mean they have finally found their life mate, a person to love for forever.
Garrett Mortimer is a vampire and a rogue vampire hunter. He tracks down vampires who are feeding off of humans which is forbidden by the vampire council, as it attracts unwanted attention from humans. Such a vampire is suspected to be located near a lake in the woods so Garrett moves into a cabin on the lake. In the cabin next door are three young women spending a few weeks on summer vacation. One of the women is tall, lanky, flat-chested Samantha Willan. Garrett isn't attracted to Samantha at all and is very dismayed to discover he can't hear Samantha's thoughts. In all his 800 or so years he has never had this happen to him. Looks like Samantha is his life mate. Too bad for a guy vampire whose ideal mate resembles someone like, in his words, Jessica Rabbit not Olive Oyl.




Maybe he will learn to love Samantha. But how will Samantha take the news that her hot new boyfriend is a bloodsucking fiend?

This was an pretty good story. But these new modern goody-goody vampires are a little white bread for me. Also, while the title of the book implies it will be about tracking down the rogue vampire, that actually plays very little part in the story. Mainly it is about Samantha and Garrett getting together. It's not a great story but I did find some parts of it surprisingly amusing.

One For the Money

By Janet Evanovich

The first novel in the popular Stephanie Plum saga, finds Stephanie desperate for money after losing her job. She has hocked most of her furniture and appliances and her car was repossessed and she is in danger of losing her apartment. So she turns to her cousin Vincent for temporary work. Vincent runs a bail bonding business and part of the business is tracking down people who failed to appear for the court hearing, putting the bond in danger of forfeit. So Vinnie needs people to track these folks down and haul them in to the police, for which the recovery agent receives a percentage of the amount of the bail as their fee for the recovery. Vinnie doesn't really want to hire Stephanie, but she has some juicy info on Vinnie that he also doesn't want his wife to hear about so he reluctantly gives Stephanie some bond skips to trace.
The most important of these is Joe Morelli, a policeman accused of murder. Joe and Stephanie have a history going clear back to childhood and Stephanie has never forgiven Joe for taking advantage of her when she was a teen. Tracking him down and turning him in will give her a real feeling of satisfaction. On the other hand, Joe is an experienced police officer and a pretty intimidating man so getting the drop on him will be practically impossible. But Stephanie, though plagued by bad luck and some dumb errors in judgment, besides being a rank amateur, may surprise everyone and accidentally launch herself in a new and dangerous career.

This was a pretty good story. Though not as funny as the later books in the series, still it was entertaining. Somehow I never read the first book in the series and it was interesting to see how different the characters in the first book are from the later books. Joe comes across as kind of creepy and scary while Ranger, who in later novels becomes the creepy, scary one, seems a lot more talkative than he is in later books. But Grandma Mazur is the same wacky old broad she is in the later books. However, I think if I had read this book first I might not have continued to read the others in the series. What appeals to me in this series is the humor, and while this book has its moments, they are not as strong as in most of the later books.

Case Histories

By Kate Atkinson

This is a book about unhappy marriages, unhappy families and terrible tragedies. In Case #1, set in 1970, an indifferent father and a stressed mother let two of their young daughters sleep out in a tent one hot summer night. The youngest daughter disappears without a trace. Much later, after both the parents are dead and the children are middle aged, while cleaning out their parents' house prior to selling it, they discover the missing child's favorite toy that supposedly had vanished along with the child locked in their father's desk.
Case #2, set in 1994, a lawyer's teen daughter has her throat cut by a stranger in a yellow sweater. The killer was never caught.
Case #3, 1979, a young mother axes her husband in the skull when he wakes up the baby. She goes to prison and her baby goes to be raised by her incompetent in-laws.
These three old cases come to the attention of a private investigator, Jackson, who also had an unhappy marriage and has a young daughter. He also has a history of tragedy in his family: his sister was murdered when he was a boy.
Case #1 is brought to him by the missing girl's sisters who want to know why her little toy was in their father's desk. They fear that maybe their father is implicated in her disappearance. They also hope she may still be alive and want her found.
Case #2 is brought to him by the dead teen's father who has never given up trying to understand why someone would kill his lovely, bright daughter.
Case #3 is brought to Jackson by the killer's sister. She wants Jackson to find her missing niece whom she lost track of years ago.
Although this is a book of murder mysteries, mainly it is about these sad families, including that of the investigator, Jackson. It is a really interesting book, full of strange characters and compelling histories. It was a real pleasure to read, even though it is about very sad events and unhappy families. I enjoyed it a lot.

The Classic of Tea

By Lu Yü

Lu Yü was a man who not only appreciated tea, but who appreciated the ritual of tea making. He wrote this book about 760 AD and in it he describes the steps and the importance of proper preparation for making tea.
In this edition, the translator, Francis Ross Carpenter, had added quite a bit of historical information about China, tea, and Lu Yü. This section of the book really adds a lot to the author's original work.
Lu Yü's part of the book has three sections, the first about tea production, the second about the correct utensils used to make tea and the last about tea quality and famous tea drinkers and more.
An excerpt from Lu Yü's book:

The first cup should have a haunting flavor, strange and lasting. There are those who allow it to continue simmering to nourish the elegance and retain the froth even through a first, second and third cup. After the third cup, one should not drink more than a fourth or fifth cup unless he is very thirsty.

Sometimes such items as onion, ginger, jujube fruit, orange peel, dogwood berries or peppermint are boiled along with the tea. Such ingredients may be merely scattered across the top for a glossy effect, or they can be boiled together and the froth drawn off. Drinks like that are no more than the swill of gutters and ditches; still, alas, it is a common practice to make tea that way.

While its recommendations about tea preparation are of little use now, still it serves as a fascinating glimpse into a bygone era and ancient tea culture. Makes for a pretty interesting and charming read.

Finger Lickin' Fifteen

By Janet Evanovich

Another in the Stephanie Plum series, this one finds her friend Lula on a killer's hit list when she witnesses a hit. A famous chef comes to Trenton to participate in a barbecue cook-off but he is beheaded by a giggling maniac and cohort right in front of Lula's eyes and naturally the killers want to kill the witness. Usually Stephanie is the one being chased but this time Lula is getting all the unwanted attention, including getting shot at, having her apartment broken into, and having her Firebird bombed. Of course, Stephanie being Stephanie, some of Lula's bad luck rubs off on her, including having one of Ranger's loaner cars burned up, having her apartment set on fire, and other fun things. Meanwhile, the barbecue contest sponsor is offering a million dollar reward for info leading to the arrest of the killers of their star chef and Lula has decided she wants that reward. Together she and Stephanie's Grandma Mazur enter the barbecue contest thinking it will lead them to the killers. They have to try to create a barbecue sauce for the contest that doesn't give its victim the runs, which they haven't managed to do so far. In the process they set the backyard on fire, give food poisoning to several people and explode a pressure cooker full of barbecue sauce in Stephanie's kitchen. No wonder Stephanie is spending a lot of time at Ranger's place.
Ranger is having problems too. Some of his security business clients have been robbed and it looks like it might have been by someone working for Ranger. So he asks Stephanie to help him figure out who the culprit may be. She gets to spend a lot of time at Ranger's, which is OK with her because, once again, she is on the outs with on again, off again boyfriend Joe Morelli.
Throw in the usual wacky bond skips that Stephanie and Lula go after and it makes for another grand and very enjoyable entry in the Stephanie Plum series.

Joy in the Morning

By Betty Smith

Annie and Carl are young and in love and they want to get married. Never mind that neither of their families are in favor of it. Never mind that Carl is still in school and that Annie never even graduated from high school. When Annie turns eighteen, she leaves her home in Brooklyn and joins Carl at the university in the Midwest were he is studying and they are shortly married by a justice of the peace. And so the fun begins.
This is a year in the life of a struggling yet eager young couple, determined to be adults and live their lives on their own terms. Carl struggles to support his young and soon pregnant wife and still stay in school. Annie struggles to maintain a nice home for her husband and to prepare for the birth of their first child while trying to develop her budding talent as a writer. They have a lot of hard times, a few quarrels and misunderstandings, but through it all they manage to stay in love and adapt to changing circumstances and with a little luck and the help of their friends it will all work out.

This was a pretty good story. Most romances end with the couple coming together but that is where this one begins. Reading about how she and Carl managed to cope with and overcome adversity was interesting and brought back memories of what it was like to be a young married couple. At times, Annie's ignorance and naivety grew tiresome to read about. Towards the end of the story it felt like she was never going to manage to have that baby, that part dragged on way too long. Then after the baby comes, I guess the author got tired of the story because she sums up the last year before Carl graduates in just two brief chapters and then they get to go on to have their happily-ever-after. But even with these quibbles, I enjoyed the story of Annie and Carl.

The Great Gatsby

By F. Scott Fitzgerald

Jay Gatsby seemed to be a very wealthy man, living a riotous lifestyle in a mansion on New York's Long Island. His parties lasted until the morning and pretty much anyone who dropped by was welcome. With catered food, lots of booze and a live band, things were pretty lively. But when asked just who Gatsby was his guests could only supply conjecture and rumor. Where did Gatsby come from? Where did he get his money? Some said he had killed a man...
When young Nick Carraway moved into the humble house next door to Gatsby's, he didn't know that he had a connection with Gatsby. A connection that Gatsby, when he learned of it, was eager to exploit. Nick had a cousin, named Daisy that Gatsby knew before she was married. Daisy and her very wealthy husband Tom live just across the bay from the Gatsby mansion, in the old money community of East Egg. In fact, Gatsby bought his mansion because he knew it was just across the bay from Daisy.
As Nick settles in to his new home and renews his acquaintance with his cousin he finds out that Tom is cheating on Daisy with the wife of a man who owns a small, failing car repair business. Nick is invited to the love nest Tom has set up for this woman in the city and witnesses the lovers' quarrel and Tom breaks the woman's nose. But that doesn't end the affair because the woman is too fond of Tom's money and is willing to endure the abuse. Daisy is aware of the affair but seems content to live with it too.
Nick gets invited to one of Gatsby's parties and upon knowing him better agrees to set up a meeting between Gatsby and Daisy, inviting Daisy over for tea, her not knowing that Gatsby will be there too. So the two ex-lovers finally meet and their love affair is rekindled with Gatsby's ultimate goal of getting Daisy to leave Tom and come away with him. His beautiful mansion with its sparkling swimming pool, manicured lawns and lush gardens, fine furnishings and his high-flying parties were all just a lure to get his Daisy away from her wealthy husband and back into Gatsby's life.

This was a pretty good story. It doesn't have a happy ending. Gatsby's dream turns into a nightmare and his lovely Daisy turns out every bit as selfish and callous as her husband, Tom. One of the key scenes to Daisy's character is where the nanny brings Daisy's young daughter in to visit for a few brief minutes. Daisy gushes over how pretty her daughter is but shortly tires of her and she is sent off with the nanny. Gatsby must have a pretty good idea of her real character since she sent him packing because he didn't have enough money to suit her. Still he longs for her and everything he has done since she dumped him has been part of a plan to get her back. He is a man obsessed but the object of his obsession is not worthy of it.

Out of the Deeps

By John Wyndham

Earth is invaded by alien spaceships that land in the deepest parts of the oceans. At first nothing happens but then gradually ships start disappearing until all shipping is shut down except for non-motorized sailing ships. The next thing is strange vessels rising out of the deep waters off the shores. These vessels launch forth huge sticky tentacles that grab onto people and haul them, willy nilly, into the vessels, often tearing them into pieces as they go. At first these attacks are widespread and sporadic but then nearly every sea shore is besieged. Of course, counter measures are taken and are largely successful. The vessels withdraw and people begin to think the crisis is over.
But the next attack is not against humanity but against the polar ice caps. Somehow the aliens have managed to get the ice caps melting. As the sea levels rise, the main problem is no longer dealing with the aliens, it is mere survival. As populations are crowded into smaller and smaller areas, strife and disease break out and millions perish. And again the aliens send their tentacles to take their cruel harvest but still people manage to fight back, crowded and diminished and starved though they may be.
This story centers on two British documentary broadcasters who are in on it from the beginning, being among the first to get footage of the aliens tentacles in action. It follows them as the crisis worsens and as London becomes flooded and dangerous. Still they and their fellow broadcasters manage to stay on the air until civil disorder sends the British government into retreat.

This was a pretty boring story. At first the aliens were kind of scary and intriguing but then the story turns away from them to center on the effect of the flooding on society, especially on the British Isles and to chronicle its disintegration. At times, the story read more like a newspaper report and became very tedious. The two main characters are safe in their broadcasting tower and never experience for themselves much of the trauma that has affected their fellow countrymen. The story takes a very detached tone, especially towards the end when we find out that 41 million British citizens have died from exposure, civil strife, hunger and disease. But that's OK, we are told, because 5 million have survived, a cold-blooded way of looking at it, it seems to me. But never mind the cold and indifferent tone of the story, what really sucks about it is that the reader never finds out exactly what or who the aliens were and exactly what they wanted as communications are never received or established nor are any alien bodies ever recovered. Turns out they are merely a plot device used to put mainly the British Isles through the wringer.

Open Season

By Archer Mayor

An old lady finds her pet cat gutted and laid out for her to see. Then she receives a message that she will be next. So when a man walks into her house uninvited at night, she does the logical thing and shoots him dead. Too bad when it turns out the man was the innocent victim of a set-up.
So begins this murder mystery. As the detective in this story, Joe Gunther, follows the clues, a convoluted puzzle is revealed involving a young murdered woman, the jury that convicted a possibly innocent man of her murder, and a masked stranger who doesn't hesitate to kill to further his cause: justice. But just who he wants justice for remains to be seen.

This was a pretty good mystery story. The killer's motives remain pretty murky till nearly the end of the book, as does the truth behind the dead girl's murder. The detective, Joe Gunther, is an appealing character, an every day kind of guy who makes mistakes and doesn't always figure things out real fast. He is no brainiac type of detective but he has a real strong sense of justice, and will dig to solve the puzzle no matter the opposition his superiors may have about stirring up trouble. And trouble there is as the police force is made to look like dummies or patsies when it become more clear that the original investigation was seriously flawed. Made for a good and engaging read.

The Labyrinth of Dreams

By Jack L. Chalker

Brandy and Sam Horowitz are private investigators but they aren't doing very well. In fact, they have pretty much admitted that it's over. Sam has even looked into getting a job. So when a small time hood hires them to track down a man who stole several million dollars of mob money, they think twice about it, but end up taking the job, since it comes with a hefty advance and two credit cards to use for their expenses.
It isn't too far into the investigation before it becomes clear that something hinky is going on. Because it seems that there are way too many Martin Whitlocks, the man they have been hired to trace. And that maybe Martin Whitlock isn't even a man or he is possibly a cross-dresser. Just when it looks like they are on to something, their client calls and cancels the deal. Tells them to back completely off the case. But Brandy and Sam have had their curiosity peaked and they follow the investigation on their own time out to Oregon where G.O.D., Inc has their distribution center.
G.O.D., Inc. stands for General Ordering and Distribution and they specialize in selling gimmicky stuff on TV like table top ovens, over-priced juicers, and blankets with sleeves. Whitlock's trail leads to the small Oregon where the company's plant is located. The Horowitz's follow along and Brandy shoots and kills one Whitlock when that Whitlock tries to kill the two Whitlocks that the Horowitzes trailed to Oregon. The Horowitzes find themselves legally trapped in the small Oregon town, but despite that they inflitrate the G.O.D. plant and that's where it really gets weird.

This is another entry in the alternate universe stories that have become so common in science fiction now. Turns out that all but one of the various Whitlocks are from different versions of our Earth, with similar but slightly different histories and that the G.O.D. plant is a station with connections to these alternates. This book is basically a murder mystery with an organized crime slant with a little science fiction thrown in just to complicate things. What with various doubles popping in and out of the story and with double agents and turncoats behind every door, things get a little convoluted.
So basically, this is a mystery story with a sci-fi twist and I didn't really care that much for it, finding it pretty slow-going. Too many doubles, too many traitors, too hard too follow, I can only rate it fair.

Confederates in the Attic

By Tony Horwitz

About 150 years ago, the United States fought a war over whether states had the right to continue practices that had been outlawed by the Federal government and the right they wanted to continue to practice was the enslavement of their fellow human beings. (Never mind the irony of a society that claimed to be Christian and yet ignored the Golden Rule.)They lost that war and the right they fought and died for to keep people in bondage. Surprisingly, they are still bitter about that. You'd think any decent person would be glad that slavery was ended because it was a foul blot on American history. But NO! The South is still pissed!
This is what Tony Horwitz discovered on his odyssey through the south tracing the progress of that old war by visiting battlefields, partaking in battle reenactments, and just plain talking to folks about the subject. It's a fascinating journey, full of local color and surprising and often disturbing details. One such detail: the Civil War isn't taught much in many parts of the South, the history classes pretty much concentrate on US history dating from 1877 and on. Which explains a lot if you have ever watched Jay Leno's Jaywalking where young people can't even tell him who George Washington was.
Bottom line, many in the South are still wallowing in the past, and like those nutty people in Europe who are still upset about things that happened 500 years ago, they are bound and determined to hang on to their grievances.

Over all, this was a very interesting book and I enjoyed it a lot. There were a few parts that kind of dragged, but mostly it was a pleasure to read and certainly very informative, especially the parts about those people who like to dress up like soldiers and pretend to refight the old battles. I never realized the degree to which they go to get the details just so. I was also surprised to find out how angry Southerners still are about the Civil War and how they still feel put down by the North and how they still tend to blame the North for their problems. That was rather shocking and disturbing. Also disturbing to read about was the race hatred that still exists in many places in the South. This book is a revelation.

Triple Play

By Elizabeth Gunn

Police detective Jake Hines has a bizarre murder on his hands and, in the small city where he lives, people are naturally frightened, even more so when the gruesome details of the murder are leaked to the press. When a second gruesome murder occurs, the pressure is on law enforcement to stop what looks like a kinky serial killer running amok. For these two murdered men were each posed on a softball diamond, dressed in softball regalia, with portions of their anatomy hacked off and a photo attached to each body capturing the cruel tableau.
But Jake isn't convinced the murders are the work of a serial killer. It seems to him that the details of the murders indicate a killer who is sending a brutal message to someone. However, what that message is only the killer and his victims understand.

This was an OK story, a pretty typical entry in the mystery genre. Jake is an OK guy with a shady background, having been found as a baby in a dumpster and then growing up in a series of less-than-nurturing foster homes. He is recently divorced and just starting to recover from the fact of his wife leaving him for another man. As far as fiction detectives go, he is pretty white bread, despite being of mixed race. He's a pretty average guy living a pretty average life in a pretty average town which also describes this story: pretty average.

Lamb

By Christopher Moore

The story of Jesus, starting from his boyhood days and covering all the territory not mentioned in the Bible, all of it total fiction, of course. Another title for the book could have been The Lighter Side of Jesus.
So in this book Jesus is a strange little kid with strange abilities and powers and his best friend is Biff, who sticks by him through thick and thin, traveling with Jesus, or as he is called in the story, Joshua, to Kabul, China, and India, eventually ending up back in the Holy Land to study under John the Baptist and then start his own ministry. In the book, the author has Jesus studying Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism. He also has him studying kung fu and judo, which the author puns is Jew-do, or the way of the Jew. It was invented just for Jesus because he didn't want to study self defense using weapons. There is lots of silly stuff like that as when Jesus, after studying with a yogi in India, climbs inside a large clay wine jar but then can't get back out and Biff has to break the jar to set him free. One of the silliest is Biff and Jesus using the mild profanity jeez, which of course is really just a way of saying Jesus. Oh, and we are told that wuss is the same word back then as it is now. There's lots of goofy stuff like that.
On the other hand, even though this Jesus is able to take and make a joke and is not above a mild obscenity like "fuckstick" (whatever that is), this novel has a more serious side. Jesus searches for the truth, persevering even though God doesn't answer his prayers, except on one occasion and the only response Jesus gets from God is a terse, "fuck em." This Jesus is a little more vulgar than perhaps Christians would like to think, but the author doesn't trample on or deny his divine nature and doesn't portray him as a nutcase of a faker. Throughout the novel, it is clear that he really is the Son of God and he really is the Messiah.
So, even though the story is a bit irreverent, I must say I like this version of Jesus better than the deadly serious Jesus who goes about blighting fig trees just because they don't have any figs on them, which they wouldn't since it wasn't fig season (Mark 11: 12-14). That Jesus is just plain scary. But Moore's Jesus likes to have fun and laugh and joke around and simply is more lovable. I enjoyed the story a lot but have to say it is probably not for everyone.

The Free Lunch

By Spider Robinson

Dreamworld, a high-tech amusement park beloved by all, has a couple of stowaways living in its underground structures. Annie has lived in the park since it was first built and has assumed a mythic identity to park employees as Mother Elf. Mike, a boy fleeing from an unhappy home life, finds a new home under Annie's wing behind the scenes at Dreamworld.
Annie doesn't just sponge off Dreamworld, though. She also works behind the scenes to keep the park functioning like it should and to protect it from its enemies. For even though everyone loves Dreamworld, there is someone who hates it, or more truly, hates its founders. This person would love to besmirch Dreamworld and his spies are constantly on the the lookout for opportunities to do so.
The park is staffed mostly by little people, dwarfs and midgets. So when Annie discovers that more dwarfs are leaving the park than are entering it, she and Mike have to figure out how and why. But the park's enemy has discovered the discrepancy and he is sure it is the key to bringing down the park's founders. And he thinks Mother Elf is just the person to answer his questions so he sends his thugs to grab her and Mike, who they mistake for her son. But with the help of the extra dwarfs, Mike and Annie just may be able to save the one place on Earth that they care about the more than anything.

This was an OK story. It was often a little dull and the whole antagonism between the park's founders and their enemy wasn't that believable. Nor was the reason for the extra dwarfs presence at the park. Also, Mike's super-intelligence was just too much. It's a pretty thin structure to hang a plot on.

Trophy Hunt

By C.J. Box

Game Warden Joe Pickett is out fishing one day with his daughter when they discover the carcass of a dead moose that looks like it has been mutilated in a way that is very similar to mutilations to livestock reported by ranchers and farmers throughout the years. Shortly after this, a rogue grizzly bear is reported to be in the area and ranchers are also reporting they have mutilated cattle. Pickett is drawn into the investigation on the chance that the mutilations are being done by wild animals, or even by the rogue grizzly.
During the course of the investigation, two men die and their bodies are mutilated just like the cows and the moose. Something wacky is going on and Pickett seems to be in the thick of it.

This book starts out really great. The whole moose incident with its mysterious occurrences and the assault on a friend's horses while two kids are standing right next to the corral and the night Pickett's black dog runs off after something and the dog comes home with its hair changed to white and the grizzly bear who is there and yet isn't at the same time are all really intriguing. All kinds of possibilities are floated, including aliens, cults, mining interests, terrorists and occult beings. The thing that bothered me about the book was that a lot of the mysterious occurrences at the beginning of the story, like the feeling of pressure and the dizziness that Joe and his daughter experienced are never explained nor is what frightened Joe's dog so badly as to turn its hair from black to white. At the end they are just passed off as unexplainable. I mean, I didn't really care about the two dead people as much as what was the answer to those mysteries and the author cops out by saying it is something we can't understand. Pshaw!

Sweet and Deadly

By Charlaine Harris

Catherine Linton has returned to her hometown, moving into her childhood home after her parents' recent death six months ago. They died in a car crash caused by someone tampering with their vehicle. Who did it and why is unknown. Catherine's dad was a beloved local physician in the small town where they lived and why anyone would want to kill him & his wife is a mystery.
One morning Catherine stumbles across the body of her father's former nurse whose head has been bashed in and her body dumped in an abandoned house on farmland that Catherine inherited from her parents. As the police investigate the murdered woman they discover that she was blackmailing people and also doing illegal abortions. Perhaps this woman found out something while working for Catherine's dad and then tried to use that info to blackmail the wrong person, a person who may have already been willing to kill to protect that secret.
It's a small town and, realizing the killer could be any one of her neighbors or friends leaves Catherine chilled and fighting a descent into the depression that almost consumed her when her parents died. Yet she manages to hang on and eventually unearth the information that points directly at the evil person behind four murders.

This was a typical murder mystery, nothing special or particularly captivating about this story. Catherine is an OK heroine if somewhat of a cold fish. Indeed she is described as a person who doesn't say much, given the nickname of the Sphinx when in high school. She's a person that is hard to warm up to, in the story and as a character the reader is supposed to care about. When the reason behind the murders is revealed, it is a bit of a stretch to think that anyone would kill to keep a secret like that hidden and why the killer felt compelled to do so is never really explained in any real depth. It's an OK story.
Charlaine Harris is better known for her Sookie Stackhouse stories. This story is not of that genre. It contains no vampires, werewolves or witches. It's just a regular type murder mystery, nothing supernatural. Just a heads up for those who might pick up the book expecting something like the Stackhouse stories.

Black Range Tales

By James A. McKenna

The mostly true tales of McKenna's years prospecting and mining in the Black Range in southwestern New Mexico in the 1880s. Lots of adventure and encounters with critters and Apaches and it paints a pretty clear picture of the life of the average prospector.
Some snippets from the book:

Then Tom pulled off the blankets and showed his find. The dealer tested the gold, finding it almost pure, and when he hung the nugget on his scale it tipped them at well-nigh a hundred pounds. Tom walked out of that dealer's shop worth thousands of dollars. A cast of the nugget was made and sent to a Frisco bank. So far as I know it was the largest nugget ever found in the United States...

Many prospectors stopped here and were never seen again though their horses and mules could be traced to the spot. At times the owner would go to Independence to fill up with booze, trading watches and ornaments for whiskey and other things that he wanted. After the Governor's brother disappeared, the Governor sent detectives to find a trace of him if possible... Not not long after this a doctor rode the stage to the new mining camp, stopping for lunch at Hayway Meadows. The pickled meat was put on the table, and the doctor thought the bones were not from an animal but from a human. Hiding some away, when he got to Independence, he made some tests and found they were human bones, sure enough. The sheriff and a posse going to The Meadows arrested the keeper. Searching the station they found many articles belonging to the Governor's brother and many belonging to lost prospectors. They got a confession, he showing them the graves of eight missing men, also testifying there was a gang from Arizona to California murdering nearly all single travelers who stopped at their stations...

My the cutthroats and thieves! They seemed to come here from all parts of the world. One of them named Kennedy is said to have murdered twenty-five men. At the new town called Elizabeth Town crime became so bad that Vigilantes were formed, and Kennedy was one of the first to be hung. The six-shooter was the only law. The stages were held up almost every day by such outlaws at Henderson, Coal-Oil Johnny, Joe McCurdy and Stewart. The county officials offered three thousand dollars reward for anyone caught robbing the stage.

A fascinating book of tales recounting McKenna & friends experiences, a look back at life in the Wild West, very interesting reading.

Dave Barry Turns 40

By Dave Barry

Barry looks at what it means to be middle aged, in his own hilarious way, poking fun at himself and at all of us as we attempt to cope with growing older.
Once again, Dave Barry comes through, with his usual funny take on getting up there. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, even though it is a little dated since it was first published in 1990. It's always a pleasure just to sit down and read a book just for the sheer fun of it, for the chance to forget life's cares for a little while and have a chuckle. Thanks, Dave.

A Boy's Own Story

By Edmund White

The young narrator of this story (who never reveals his name) is not very comfortable with himself. In his early teens, he finds that his sexual fantasies all center on men, even on his own father. Growing up in the 1950s, being homosexual is not what he wants to be. His dad earns a good living but he is a cold and distant father and eventually leaves his family to take up with a young woman.
Trying to cope with his homosexuality, the boy turns to religion, he turns to psychiatry, he even falls for a girl but he still finds himself yearning for a male lover. He has several trysts with other males but doesn't find that lover, that one special guy. By the end of the story he turns out to be a manipulative little bitch.

Supposedly this is based on the author's own life. Many readers have really loved this book, finding the author's writing wonderful. I saw it was on one of those "1000 books you must read before you die" lists. I don't know why, though, unless the list compilers feel that you shouldn't die without reading about how homosexual men have sex. I actually found it pretty gross. But I must admit I am not one who enjoys reading explicit descriptions of sexual acts, gay or straight. But never mind that. Forget the sex. I just found the whole story to be a big yawn. It never really touched me. The boy was creepy, his dad was creepy, his mom was creepy, his shrink was creepy and he closes the story with a creepy sex act with a creepy teacher at his creepy school. It was all pretty repulsive.

The Penny Pinchers Club

By Sarah Strohmeyer

Kat doesn't think about her life or her marriage much. She knows money is tight but that doesn't stop her from spending too much or lying to her husband Griff about it. Then one day she finds two condom wrappers in her husband pants' pocket after he comes home from a trip. She also finds a receipt that seems to indicate that Griff lied about his whereabouts one night. She begins to have doubts about the state of her marriage. When she finds out that he has a secret bank account and a secret credit card and she finds some emails of Griff's where he claims he will end "it" after their daughter graduates high school it seems pretty clear to Kat that her marriage is on the rocks.
She is advised to start saving money to pay for her divorce since the attorney she is thinking of hiring wants several thousand dollars to handle her case. So Kat joins the Penny Pinchers, a club that helps members cut expenses and shop more economically.
About this time Kat finds out that an old lover she almost married is newly divorced and back in town. This guy is Mr. Moneybags and not only is he ready to hire Kat to decorate his mansion, he also makes it perfectly clear that he never got over her and still considers her the love of his life. (No wonder his marriage failed.)
So Kat is on the horns of a dilemma. Does she reconnect with Mr. Moneybags and partake of the sweet life where she will never have to pinch pennies again? Or does she refuse to give up on her marriage and her husband, who even though he doesn't earn a lot of money, still can rock her world? She may figure it out eventually but will it be before her hubby finds out she spent the night with Mr. Moneybags? 'Fraid not. Looks like it's a good thing she joined Penny Pinchers and saved up all that money for her divorce lawyer.

This was an OK story. Spoiler here: Kat's problem is she jumps to conclusions and is less than open and honest with her husband. Any fool, reading those emails, could see that he wasn't necessarily referring to divorce. So not only is Kat deceptive and a spendthrift, she is also abysmally stupid. I mean, what person who really wants to save their marriage spends the night with a person of the opposite sex? Only a complete moron. I never really cared about Kat, she is just too stupid to live. It's hard to see what those two great guys ever saw in her. She must be great in the sack, that's the only explanation.

Primal Needs

By Susan Sizemore

Joe and Sid were partners in business until one weekend when business turned into pleasure. Even though Sid (who's a female) knew it was a really bad idea she let herself fall in love with Joe and spend that forbidden weekend in his arms. The problem is that Sid is a vampire and Joe is a werewolf and the two are not supposed to mix and if the other vampires find out, Joe is a dead dog. So to protect Joe, Sid pulled a vampire mind trick on him and erased his memory of their passion. But Joe knew what she had done, and with a little help from a witch, he was able to recover the memories. But he is extremely angry at Sid for what she did.
In the meantime, over the course of a couple years, Sid has had a baby vampire boy and been forced to give him to a special nursery for baby boy vampires equipped to deal with their wild ways and the vampires pulled the same kind of mind trick on Sid that she had done to Joe, to ease her grief at giving up her baby. (Getting rid of the kid is really necessary to the plot otherwise he might get in the way of Joe & Sid getting back together and having lots of passionate supernatural sex.)
Joe has joined a mercenary group composed of various supernatural beings working together to thwart a gang of outlaw supernaturals who desire nothing more than world domination. A series of fires and bombings have been traced to these outlaws and Joe's group is in thick of the investigation and Sid finds herself drawn into it also and once again working with Joe.
Joe can't forgive her but their passion is very much alive and between bouts of investigation they manage to find time for lots of sex. Joe may hate Sid but he still wants her. Gradually they work out their differences but once again Joe's life is in danger from the righteous anger of Sid's fellow vampires. Also, Sid's dad is in love with an old lady in a nursing home that he loved back when he was a soldier in WW II. And the old lady gets kidnapped by the outlaw gang and turned into a young lady so Sid's dad and the former old lady can have lots of passionate sex. Duh! It's not like he would want to pork a wrinkled old crone no matter how much he might have loved when she was young and juicy. So of course she has to become young again.

Another entree in the vampire chronicles that seem to be the new hot romance literature any more. At least in this one the vampires have some of the old vampire problems: garlic, sunshine, stake through the heart, blood thirst. But in this series they deal with them by taking medications. It enables them to blend into normal society better. So that part was acceptable. What wasn't acceptable was how disjointed this story seemed. The many references to occurrences in previous novels in the series were jarring and confusing. They serve as reminders to readers familiar with the previous novels but to someone who is not, it is too much info. Plus the story is in the midst of the Joe & Sid plot when suddenly a new plot is plopped down out of nowhere involving Sid's dad and stuff that happened back in the 1940s. It was kind of contrived tying the two plots together and I never did understand the explanation of how the old lady got young again. Was it the potion she was subjected to or was it the bite of her vampire lover? It wasn't made clear or maybe I just wasn't following that part too well. Bottom line, this is just another typical entry in the new vampire lit where vampires are just regular folks and not at all the evil blood suckers of the night that they used to be. Ho-hum...