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.

Deep South

By Nevada Barr

Leaving Colorado, Anna Pigeon has taken a position as the new district ranger on the Natchez Trace national park. She has two male rangers under her supervision one of which apparently resents his new boss. Not much time goes by before Anna discovers, with the help of her dog, the body of a teen girl. The girl, Danni, had a lot of baggage. An aspiring beauty queen, Danni's mom had insured her face for $40,000. Danni's brother is violent and angry, her mother is disturbed, her father indifferent, her boyfriend is upset, any one of them may have had reason to kill Danni. Or maybe she just was in the wrong place at the wrong time. As Annie discovers one dark night when she too is in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This was an OK story. At one point, a prankster puts a six foot alligator under Anna's car and it attacks her dog and cripples it. I guessed then that eventually Anna would end up having the crap beat out of her. And so it was. It made me think of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, who managed to solve crimes without getting themselves almost killed in the process.
One thing, though, was the information about the Natchez Trace, about which I knew nothing. So that part was interesting. Actually, this was a pretty good read, if not quite my cup of tea.

For another review, see: http://dancingbadger.com/deepsouth.html.

Trespasses

By Caroline Bridgwood

Set in the 1930s and 40s, this is the story of a British family, the Winstanleys.
Kitty Conway goes to live with the Winstanleys after her father dies, leaving her an orphan. Nim Winstanley was her mother's brother. He is the lord of Russington Hall and he has fascistic leanings, applauding what Hitler has done for Germany and claiming that Britain could learn a lot from him. Beattie is his wife and together they have several rambunctious children. The oldest is Irving and there are also Jack, for whom Kitty has a crush; Lexi, the blonde beauty; Frannie, who tries hard and is the same age as Kitty, and a couple younger ones. These kids are kind of wild and the girls are kept at home and educated by a governess who doesn't take her job very seriously. Kitty does her best to fit in and they are pretty nice to her, with some exceptions. But Kitty never does quite fit in, always a bit of the outsider, but not in a particularly painful way.
Everyone grows up and beautiful Lexi is engaged to marry a very wealthy young man. Shortly before the wedding is to take place, a young German man from her past appears and she runs off with him to Germany. When war starts, she is stuck there, with her two little children.
Frannie takes up with a Jewish man who is a communist. She follows him to Paris but he runs afoul of the Germans and is killed. She is also arrested and Kitty comes to France to try to help her. Jack is also in France, trying to make money on the black market. Kitty becomes part of Jack's black market activities. She also goes to Germany in an attempt to locate Frannie. She doesn't find Frannie, but she does find Jack after he is arrested for his black marketeering.
The war does finally end and the bedraggled remains of the Winstanleys come back home to Russington Hall, quite a bit changed by the events of the war, including Kitty, who, while not a Winstanley, still is pleased to be a part of their family.

Hello Darling, Are You Working?

By Rupert Everett

Rhys Waveral has had some success in his life. He had a role on a TV show that earned him a lot of money. After the show ended, Rhys moved to Paris, France to a room in a nice hotel. He lives a life of leisure, drinking too much, taking too many drugs, staying up too late, and pretty much just wasting his life. But then the money is gone, lost in an economic downturn. Rhys now owes the hotel a lot of money and he needs work as fast as he can get it. So when he is offered a lot of money to spend a few days with a middle-aged woman at a party in Morocco, he has his misgivings but accepts. After all, he is no stranger to hustling, having spent his teen years as a prostitute in London.
His parents are concerned as is his fragile wife and they follow him to Morocco. Their intention is to intervene but they all get caught up in the debauchery as Rhys becomes more and more disenchanted with the way his life has been going. Those who should be there to help are drowning in the drugs, booze and promiscuity that Rhys longs to escape. And escape he does, flying away on a plane to his final destination.

Rhys is not a happy person. He is just drifting through life, with no particular goals except easing his pain with liquor and drugs. The loss of his money forces him to confront himself and his lifestyle and he really doesn't like what he sees but fears he cannot change. He is not a pleasant character nor are any of the people in the story, they are all selfish, shallow and stupid. This book is supposed to be amusing, but I was not amused. And the ending is not happy. It is entertaining in its way, like watching a freak show, if you like that sort of thing.
For another review, see https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/rupert-everett/hello-darling-are-you-working/.

The Love Knot

By Rebecca Brandewyne

Orphaned as a little girl, Verity Collier has been working as a teacher at the orphanage where she was raised. But she hates it. The pay is poor, the accommodations uncomfortable, the food meager. So she accepts a governess position in the wilds of Cornwall, far from the hustle and bustle of the city.
Stopping at an inn for supper, she falls into conversation with a mysterious stranger whose face is hidden in shadow. Then, riding in her new employer's coach on the way to his manor, she robbed by a highway man who is very similar to the man at the inn. The robber tries to steal her locket left to her by her mother, and she refuses to give it up. He then slices a lock of her hair and takes that instead and she continues her journey to her new job as governess to Lord Ransleigh's two young children.
Ransleigh's kids recently lost their mother. She fell to her death from a cliff at the nearby sea shore and somehow the two kids were involved.
When Verity arrives, Ransleigh is absent, away on business. The staff is welcoming and her new home is everything her previous place wasn't. Plus the kids seem really sweet, if a rather subdued. But all is not perfect. Verity is hearing a strange and threatening voice, warning her that her life is in danger. And there is talk of French spies in the area. And Ransleigh resembles the highwayman who stole a lock of her hair. And the servants are whispering that Ransleigh actually threw his wife off the cliff, that her death was not an accident. Yes, there are a lot of secrets and strange occurrences at the manor house.

This was an okay story. Verity and Ransleigh, of course, fall in love and he, of course, is the highwayman and the dead wife, of course, got what she deserved. And Verity, of course, saves the day and they all live happily ever after. Nothing new here, just your typical Gothic romance story. A fairly good story, but nothing special or particularly memorable.

For another review see http://www.rtbookreviews.com/book-review/love-knot-1.

The Green Trap

By Ben Bova

Paul Cochrane is not at a good place in his life. He used to live in Massachusetts but moved to Arizona recemtly after his wife died in an automobile accident. But the change of scenery didn't really help that much. He does his job (he's a professor of astronomy) but other than that, he is just drifting.
Then his brother, who is a microbiologist in California, calls up and insists Paul come out there for a visit. The brother has something momentous to share with Paul but he won't tell him exactly what it is. So Paul flies out to California but arrives just in time to find out his brother has been murdered.
The brother has developed a process to extract hydrogen cheaply from water, a discovery that will revolutionize the energy industry. Needless to say, everyone wants to get their hands on his research. Some because they want to shut down big oil, some because they want to protect big oil and all because they want to make the big, big money.
Paul returns to Arizona and there he is visited by two people, both of whom want his brother's research and they are certain Paul has it or can get it. One of the people is soon dead and the other is a sexy and seductive woman who will do whatever it takes to get what she wants, which is money. She has a buyer for the research who will pay her $10,000,00 for it. She soon has Paul wrapped around her finger and convinced that she loves him.
Things go from bad to worse as various factions try to force Paul into giving up his brother's data. Paul finds himself threatened, beaten, terrorized and deceived. His world spirals out of control and he is driven to desperate measures, measures that gain him a brief triumph but ultimate defeat.

I hated this book. The characters, especially the woman, are not appealing. And the ending was just vile. A hateful and mean-spirited book, it has given me such a distaste for the author that I will never read any of his works again.

For another review see http://www.meridiansshadow.com/2011/08/review-the-green-trap-by-ben-bova/.

The Children of Anthi

By Jay D. Blakeney

Blaise Omari (BLZ-80-4163) is a member of the crew of the scoutship Forerunner. Omari is not his real name and he realizes he is facing imminent arrest by the authorities. So he hijacks the scoutship and takes it into the Uncharted Zone where it cannot be tracked.
The ship crash lands on the planet Ruantl and all aboard die except Blaise and fellow crew Saunders, a woman.
Blaise and Saunders are soon captives of a rough group of natives, the Bhan'jen. This group of Bhan'jen are controlled by Picyt, a Tlar. Tlar look very different from the Bhan'jen. Tlar are tall and attractive, Bhar'jen are smaller and hideous. Picyt is a kind of high priest and servant of Anthi, a sort of deity who turns out to be just a very powerful computer. Picyt is currently in a power struggle with the ruler of Ruantl, Hihuan. Picty sees in the arrival of Saunders and Blaise two technically proficient workers who can help the Tlar with their failing machinery.
Blaise is soon kidnapped by Hihuan's people and shot and dumped in the desert to die. Ruantl is a very hostile place, arid and subject to extreme storms and bathed in X-rays from its black sun. The locals all wear heavy cloaks and masks to protect themselves. Blaise has no chance to survive such conditions plus having been shot in the leg. Fortunately he is rescued by a tribe of Bhan and they return him to Picyt.
Blaise is pretty much done for when Picyt offers him a chance to survive. Asan, an ancient Tlar and the first ruler of Ruantl, sleeps in a high tech coffin. Picyt needs to raise Asan but to do so he needs a volunteer to provide the catalyst, infusing their vitality into the sleeper. Picty promises Blaise that Blaise will have a strong new body but what he really expects is that Blaise will die. However, Blaise survives the transfer and defeats the personality of Asan and takes control of Asan's body.
Hihuan is aware of what Picty has done. He sends his warriors to fight Picty's and Blaise and Saunders are caught in the middle. Blaise doesn't support Picty and he certainly doesn't support Hihuan who had him shot and dumped in the desert. Stranded on a poison planet, with no hope of rescue, caught in a terrible power struggle between three factions, Blaise and Saunders have to make the best of their bad situation. All Blaise wants is to survive. All Saunders wants is Blaise's head on a silver platter.

This was an OK story. I had a hard time keeping track of who had Blaise and what they wanted from him. I also had trouble keeping track of the various factions in the story. To me, the story was rather chaotic and Blaise is pretty much just a pawn for a lot of the story, stumbling from one disaster to another. Poor Saunders is more sinned against than sinning and doesn't deserve her ultimate fate. However, I did like reading about the Bhan and the Tlar, even though they seemed a little too human.
For another review see: http://sfmistressworks.wordpress.com/2014/03/11/the-children-of-anthi-jay-d-blakeney/.

A year in Provence

By Peter Mayle

Peter Mayle worked in advertising for a long time but quit to become a full time writer. He and his wife left England and moved to Provence, France. They bought an old farm house and proceeded to renovate it. This book is a fictionalized version of their first year in Provence.
In it they cope with the locals: the hunters, the repairmen, the wine makers, the farmers, the trufflers, and, best of all, the cooks. It's an orgy of classic French cooking, fresh meats, fresh vegs, fresh fruits, fresh breads and pastries, and bottle after bottle of local wines. Not a prepackaged food within sight.
All in all, Mayle makes Provence sound like heaven on earth. Except for the fact that it is full of tourists. And sometimes the weather is a little iffy.

I liked this book. I did think it was a tad condescending in its descriptions of the local people, but clearly affectionate in tone. Makes Provence sound very appealing, indeed. Probably somewhat glosses over the real Provence, as it mentions, just briefly, traffic jams and crime. However, I can see that it was likely a tremendous boost to tourism for the area, whether it needed it or wanted it. I think Mayle still lives there, though not in the same house as when the book was written. Apparently, his privacy was ruined after the book became such a huge success and the house became a tourist attraction.

May Contain Nuts

By John O'Farrell

Alice and David, like most parents, want the best for their three kids. So their youngsters lives are filled with activities designed to give them a leg up in life. Music lessons, language lessons, dance lessons, fencing lessons and on and on. Their oldest child, Molly, will soon be done with grade school and ready to move on to middle school (or whatever the equivalent is in England). But Molly, an otherwise bright eleven-year-old, is poor at math.
Her parents have their hearts set on a select local private school. This school has a rigorous entrance exam and Molly did not get a passing score in the math section of the practice test. Despite Alice and David's efforts to tutor her, Molly is not improving and is becoming sullen, nervous and anxious from all the pressure.
Alice, who is a small, thin woman, gets an idea. What if she dresses up as a child and takes Molly's entrance exam in her place? David thinks it is a super idea and helps his wife bone up for the exam. Only one problem, though. Molly inherited her poor math ability from her mother. And now Alice is enduring the same struggle Molly was, trying to prepare for the math section of the test.
Will Alice manage to get enough math under her belt to ace the math section of the test? Will she be able to fool the test proctors  and pass herself off as her own daughter? Or will she and David come to their senses and realize the terrible example they are setting for their children, that it is OK to cheat to get what you want? One can only hope.

This was a funny and enjoyable book, often laugh-out-loud funny. At one point, Alice loses a little weight and gets her gray hair dyed and buys some cute, preteen outfits and models them for her husband who reacts thus:

"You look fantastic. Except . . ."

"Except what?"
"Except I fancy you."
"What?"
"I'm really sorry but I fancy you. And seeing as there is no way I could fancy you if you looked eleven, it simply can't be working."

The only real drawback to the story was that the latter part gets a little preachy. I did find that a little annoying as I don't much care for preaching. Or preachers.

The Goblin Emperor

By Katherine Addison

Maia is the son of the emperor. But he is the youngest son, unwanted and exiled, with three older half-brothers. He never expected he would ever become emperor and neither did anyone else. He certainly was not raised to be emperor or prepared to be emperor. But the unthinkable happened. His father and his three brothers were all killed when their airship crashed. Suddenly young Maia is now the emperor and he doesn't have a clue as to how to behave or what to do. Friendless and alone, he has to cope with his weighty responsibilities and with all the double-dealing and intrigue that goes along with the imperial court. And the fact that Maia is half goblin doesn't endear him to his nobles who are all elves. Things go from bad to worse when it is revealed that the crash that killed the imperials was caused by an explosive device. And the killer or killers are aiming to take down the new emperor too.
Maia is a sweet kid forced to deal with a strange and often hostile new environment. His lack of self-confidence and his doubt of his own abilities are further strikes against him. Surrounded by plots and hateful relatives, Maia is mostly on his own. Drowning in luxury, waited on hand and foot, servants everywhere, Maia is the loneliest guy in the world. Alone, he has to figure out how to rule, who murdered his family and why. Plus try to stay alive.

This was a good story. Maia is unspoiled and untainted by the harsh treatment he received after his mother died and he was sent into exile with a man who hated and abused him. Foundering in a demanding and often cruel new environment, Maia still manages not to lose himself or give into his baser instincts.

I really enjoyed this book, but I did find it hard to keep track of all the characters and their strange and difficult names and titles, despite the guide in the back of the book.

For another review, see: http://www.tor.com/blogs/2014/02/book-review-the-goblin-emperor-katherine-addison-sarah-monette.

The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains

By Neil Gaiman

The small man has some guilt he needs to deal with. His beautiful daughter disappeared and he leaped to the conclusion that she had run away. He didn't find out for a year that she was dead. He spent that year hating her. He is haunted by his failure and his misjudgment of his daughter, Flora.
Ten years have passed and now he is on a quest. He needs to find a certain cave on the Isle of Skye, a cave said to be filled with gold, there for the taking. He sets off on the journey and hires one Calum MacInnes as guide. Calum has been to the cave once.
As the journey progresses, the details of Flora's demise are gradually revealed. And the man's journey isn't just about the search for gold, it is also about the search for justice.

This isn't a long story, about 75 pages. But it is a very interesting and captivating tale. The truth is slowly revealed little by little and the tale changes from a search for gold to a search for revenge. An unforgettable folk tale.

More Than a Skeleton

By Paul L. Maier

Jesus has returned! Or has he? Is Joshua Ben Yosef really Jesus reborn or is he just a very smart con man? Joshua seems to have all the right stuff: born of a virgin who was married to Yosef, turning water into wine, healing the sick and blind, casting out demons, preaching sermons that are a new take on the gospel sermons. Charismatic, handsome, extremely intelligent, saintly, heralded by mysterious events, surely he is the Christ.
But Dr. Jonathan Weber just isn't buying it. And he digs deeper into the mystery of Joshua Ben Yosef, even at the risk of alienating his new bride, who is one of the many thousands of people who are convinced that Joshua is the real deal. But everything he discovers only reinforces Joshua's claim to be Jesus Christ incarnated.

At first I was put off by the Joshua character's aping of the acts of Christ.  Logically, why would it be necessary for Jesus to return only to repeat everything he did the first time? He already did all that. That just seemed really fake to me. Eventually, though, the story got a lot more interesting as Weber digs deep into Joshua's background. So, overall, it was a pretty good read, once I got over my annoyance with the Joshua character.

For another review see: http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/more-than-a-skeleton.

Hank & Chloe

By Jo-Ann Mapson

Life had never been easy for Chloe Morgan. Raised in foster homes and subjected to abuse, her background included rape and an abortion. But she didn't let the tough times defeat her, helped through it all by her love of horses.
Chloe has a deep understanding of horses and the main focus of her life is working with horses. When she was younger, she feel deeply in love with a fellow horse trainer but he was a lot older than her and an alcoholic. They had many years together but he couldn't control his drinking and it eventually killed him. Chloe was devastated by his death and since then has avoided serious entanglements with men.
The story opens with Chloe attending a horse who having a hard time giving birth. Chloe's shirt gets dirty and she borrows a shirt from a man she has just met. Hank is a college professor and long time bachelor. But he is attracted to Chloe and manages to talk her into a first date.
Chloe's house gets raided by the police looking for drugs and Chloe is arrested. Hank comes to her rescue, bailing her out, getting her to the hospital to have her injuries attended to, taking her into his home, and finding a lawyer to fight the charges. Their relationship deepens but then differences in their backgrounds drive a wedge between them.

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. Chloe is stubborn and has a lot of "baggage" and Hank gets jealous and acts like a jerk. They are not the most likable of characters but they are very human and their story is wonderful.
For another review see: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jo-ann-mapson/hank-chloe/.

Hotel Pastis

By Peter Mayle

Simon Shaw has a pretty good life. A busy advertising executive, he has a nice home, fancy cars, a manservant and plenty of money in the bank. What he doesn't have is happiness. His marriage has just ended and he is frankly bored with his job. He needs a change of scenery. So he goes to France, driving his Porche to Provence. But he has an accident in his car and it gets a little damage, requiring repairs. The local mechanic says it may be several days before the needed parts arrive. Which is OK, because Simon has just met an attractive woman whose car is also being repaired and it isn't long before they get together.
The woman, Nicole, eventually talks Simon into investing in a local building project and turning it into a hotel. Simon, who enjoyed his time in Provence and, especially, his time with Nicole, agrees and retires from the ad agency and spends lots of money fixing up the building to be a hotel. His manservant, Ernest, is a natural born hotel manager and takes over much of the work of the daily running of a hotel.
So the hotel opens and is a huge success, with some minor complications, including payoffs to the local mobster and the accidental kidnapping of a rich man's college-age son by a group of bike-riding bank robbers.

This was an enjoyable read. The author makes the area sound like heaven on Earth,  which I doubt that it is. I'm sure it has its charms but it must have it faults too, like anywhere. The story is light and no one gets hurt and all turns out well in the end for everyone, even the disenchanted Simon.
For another review, see:  http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20106712,00.html.