Tricky Business

By Dave Barry

Extravaganza of the Seas is a cruise ship whose main purpose is to deliver drugs to organized crime boss, Lou Tarrant. Its cover is that of a floating casino, taking its passengers out beyond the three mile limit and out of the jurisdiction of the government.
Wally and his band members have a steady job performing on the ship. These guys, all competent musicians, have never hit the big time, to their disappointment. Wally has recently left his wife and moved in with his mom. He feels like his life is going nowhere good.
Fay also works on the ship as a cocktail waitress. Like Wally, she is also struggling and coping with life after marriage. She too has moved in with her mother.
Bobby Kemp is a sleazy businessman who owns the ship, but in name only. He purchased the ship, thinking it was a good investment. But then mobster Lou Tarrant muscled in on Bobby, revealing the true purpose of the trips out to the three mile limit, the transfer of money and drugs. In fact Tarrant muscled in on all Bobby's questionable businesses and this has made Bobby very unhappy. So unhappy that he has come up with a plan, a plan that he will put in force on a night when the Extravaganza of the Seas sails off into a dangerous tropical storm, loaded with its usual complement of devoted gamblers, Wally and the band, Fay the cocktail waitress and two old guys who have escaped from their retirement home. A good time will not be had by all.

This was a very entertaining story, although at one point I put it down when it got a little too gruesome for me. Lots of action, lots of humor, complicated plot and a satisfying ending add up to a very enjoyable read, except for that one really nasty part.
For another review see http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-399-14924-5.

The Riddle of the Third Mile

By Colin Dexter

A body is found in the water. It is only a torso. The head, hands and legs are missing, obviously a ploy to keep the dead man's identity disguised.
Together Inspector Morse and Lewis will unravel the clues that will lead them to their killer. The complicated path they will travel will take them into the past and through the halls of academe and even into the effects of terminal illness on the human psyche. For Morse, much of this path will be familiar, given his relationship with Oxford University, and the reader will learn a bit more about why Morse became a policeman.

As a non-British person, much of this plot was obscure to me, as it rests upon how students and professors are promoted in their university systems. There is talk of greats and vivas and masters other such stuff. I think if I had at least the tiniest bit of a grasp on that subject that the plot would have made more sense to me. Instead it was like trying to understand the arcane practices of some ancient and obscure culture and it just went over my head.
Also, the victim (SPOILER) turns out to be a man who is, if I remember correctly, only briefly mentioned in the first part of the book. If you were reading too fast, you might have missed it.
And further, Morse comes off as a bit of a fat head with his snotty condescension to his assistant, Lewis, and to other "lower class" people he encounters.
So, all in all, the book was a tiny bit of a disappointment but I did quite enjoy the complicated plot despite the obscurity of the victim. A fascinating  construction, and an enjoyable read even though some parts of it were outside my frame of reference.

For another review, see: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/colin-dexter-4/the-riddle-of-the-third-mile/.

Swan Peak

By James Lee Burke

Dave and his wife and Dave's best friend Clete are staying with a friend of Dave's who owns a ranch in Montana. Dave and Clete have no intentions beyond enjoying some fishing and relaxing in the great outdoors. But of course, that is not what happens.
The neighbors are not friendly and Clete has a run in with them when he accidentally trespasses on their land. These people, the Wellstones, come from Texas oil money and are used to having their own way. So just avoid them, right?
Then two college kids turn up dead near the ranch and before they know it Dave and Clete are up to their necks in trouble. Throw in a long-dead gangster, a beautiful country singer, an escaped convict, a prison guard looking for revenge, a serial killer, PTSD and you have a complicated mess that will challenge even the finely honed skills of Dectective Dave Robicheaux and PI and ex-cop Clete Purcell.

This was an enjoyable story and a nice departure from Robicheaux's usual stomping grounds of Louisiana. The plot was rather complex and I still don't understand [Spoiler] what happened to the real Leslie Wellstone.
For another review, see https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/james-lee-burke/swan-peak/.

We in the United States are facing a troubling election this year 2016. We have two candidates, a woman who has been unfairly maligned for decades and a man who practices deception, bigotry, racism, and sexism. Burke says something in closing his story that I think applies very well to this election: "A confidence man chooses only one kind of person as his victim -- someone who, of his own volition, invites deception into his life."  Thus the candidacy of Donald Trump and the willingly-deceived who follow him.

The Sheik

By Maggie Davis

Sheik Abdullah al Asmari is the grandson and heir of the ruler of Rahsmani, the Emir. Abdullah is young and unproven and some doubt his ability to step into the role of Emir. His father was insane and died young and it is speculated that Abdullah is also unstable.
Rahsmani is a small wealthy oil country and is about to become even more wealthy upon discovery of new oil reserves. It is also no stranger to civil unrest, as Abdullah well knows after someone shot at him one day when he was out on his motorcycle.
Abdullah is sent on a mission to the U.S. to negotiate with the main oil company that has been responsible for setting Rahsmani up in the oil business. He has many meetings to attend and business on the East and West Coasts. He doesn't travel alone though, he is attended by lots of people. These people are there to see that things go smoothly for him, yet he still manages to get himself in trouble, chasing after women, speaking to the press. And unbeknownst to him, there are people in his group that see his antics as proof of his unfitness to lead his nation. They have a plan to do something about it.

This was an OK read, except  Abdullah is a despicable person who beats his wife and rapes unprotected women. In his defense you could say he is merely a product of a barbaric culture, but that didn't excuse it for me. Frankly, he deserves all the bad stuff that happens to him and worse. So, the story was interesting but the hero is a pig. That spoiled it for me.

The Ex

By Alafair Burke

Olivia is a defense attorney. Back when she was in college, she became engaged to Jack. Jack was everything Olivia wasn't. He was kind, considerate, and emotionally fragile. He came from a close, loving family. All things that didn't apply to Olivia. She often referred to him as St. Jack.
After awhile, Olivia became less enthusiastic about marrying Jack. Instead of telling him, she began to sleep around. Their engagement ended when Jack finally realized what she was doing. He was shattered and turned to his brother for comfort. They got drunk together, that night, and the brother died in a car crash driving home. Jack ended up in a mental hospital after suffering a serious breakdown.
But that was twenty years in the past. Olivia went on to have her career and Jack went on to become a writer. He fell in love, married and they had a child.  Poor Jack, though, tragedy continued to dog him. His wife was killed by a shooter on the train along with several other people.
The shooter, a young, angry, disturbed teen was the son of a wealthy man who had refused to get his child the psychological care he needed. The father was the one who introduced his son to guns and bought guns for him. The son was killed himself at the scene and the families of the victims, including Jack, brought suit against the father but lost.
So now Jack has met a mystery woman and has arranged to meet her at a ball field for a picnic. He shows up with the picnic basket but she doesn't show. Meanwhile the dad of the shooter kid is at the same ball field and he gets shot along with two other people at about the same time as Jack was at the field looking for his date. The cops find video that shows Jack was in the area and they naturally assume he is the killer. So who does Jack turn to for help? His ex-fiancee, Olivia.

This was an okay read. I didn't care for the ending and I often felt while reading that I just wanted it to be finished. Jack turns out not to be a saint and Olivia turns out not to be the bitch she is painted to be, which was no surprise. Unfortunately, if you like justice to be served, then don't read this book. No justice for the murder victims in this story, which is what I mainly disliked about it.
For another review, see http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-06-239048-6.

Doing It Right

By MaryJanice Davidson

Contains the short novel, Thief of Hearts, and the short story, Wild Hearts. 

Doctor Jared had a close encounter with Kara, the cat burgler and one-woman wrecking crew, who puts a big thug down right before Jared eyes. The thug, a minor crime boss, was trying to kill Kara, who is a potential witness against him if the police ever manage to nab her.
Kara is now worried that the thug will be coming after Doctor Jared and she appoints herself his body guard. Probably not motivated by the young doctor's devastating good looks. And Jared happily accepts her presence in his life since she is as beautiful as her nickname, AA, or Avenging Angel.
Kara has a lot of baggage in her background and she is unwilling or unable to accept that Jared has fallen hard for her. Even though they are soon having sex, she secretly believes he will turn his back on her, if he ever learns the truth. Namely that she is a thief (of the Robin Hood variety, if you substitute the rich for rich criminals) and a foster child who bounced from home to home, never finding a safe place to land. She has never had the love and the advantages that Jared himself enjoyed and she fears he will hold that against her.
Eventually she decides to go after the thug and a sacrifice herself to save Jared and to save herself from his inevitable rejection, as she believes.

This was an OK read. The thing is, it is described on the cover as "wickedly funny." But I would say, mildly amusing at best. I was conned by the "wickedly funny" and ended up reading a book that was just your basic explicit romance novel. Some of the sex scenes in the book are four to five pages long. I mostly skipped those, being a bit of a skeptic. I was wanting to read a funny romance story. Instead I got mildly amusing porn. Eh, OK if you like that sort of thing. I mostly don't care for graphic and improbable descriptions of sex acts. The book was not what I was looking for, so I was disappointed. Not really the book's fault, though. And not the first time I have been fooled and disappointed by blurbs on a book cover.

The Mermaid Chair

By Sue Monk Kidd

Jessie has a good life. She has a loving, successful husband, a part-time job as an artist, a daughter who has recently gone off to college for the first time. But Jessie is discontented. She doesn't really know why. She sort of blames her husband, Hugh, who sometimes can be a bit dismissive.
Jessie grew up on an island off the coast of South Carolina. He dad was a boatman who died when Jessie was just a kid. Jessie grew up thinking she was partially responsible for this death. His boat exploded from a spark from the pipe Jessie had given him. So she has carried that guilt for thirty years.
After her father died, the joy went out of her mother, Nelle. Nelle was always religious, but after the death of her husband, she become even more religious.
Jessie gets a phone call that Nelle has deliberately cut off one of her fingers. Jessie returns to the island and finds her mother burying the finger next to a statue of St. Senara.
Nelle's house is next door to the abbey of St. Senara and she works in the kitchen as their cook. St. Senara is a mermaid who used to seduce Christians but was later converted. The abbey has a chair called the Mermaid Chair which is carved with a mermaid or mermaids and carried in a yearly procession.
The abbey is home to several elderly monks and one young monk who has yet to take his final vows. Thomas became a monk after his pregnant wife died in a car crash. He has been at the abbey for about five years and is expected to soon take his final vows. But when he and Jessie meet for the first time, it is instant chemistry. In Jessie, Thomas rediscovers the sexual passion that has been absent from his life since becoming a monk. And Jessie rediscovers the thrill of falling love and the romance that she has been missing from her own marriage.
But then Hugh unexpectly shows up, and being an intelligent man, soon understands that his wife is involved with another man.  Now Jessie and Thomas need to make some serious choices and Nelle has cut off another of her fingers.

There is so much I didn't like about this story. Jessie's infatuation with Thomas. Nelle's dealing with the past by mutilating herself. Jessie's casual dismissal of her wedding vows. Jessie committing adultery and declaring the holiness of it. Jessie only coming into her artistic self by running away from her marriage and getting involved with a monk.
We are led to believe there is some mystery in Nelle's past that is driving her to cut off her fingers, but it takes forever for the story to reveal what Nelle's problem is. I was less interested in Jessie and her poor decision-making and more about concerned with what was bothering Nelle, but the author takes forever to return to the story of Nelle's mystery. I just got bored.
To me, Jessie is a fool and I just didn't like her. Kind of ruined the story for me.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

By Ransom Riggs

Teenage Jacob finds his grandfather dying on the ground, suffering terrible wounds. Before the man dies, he tells Jacob something strange and confusing.
As a youngster, Jacob had listened to his grandfather's tall tales without really believing any of them. But the grandfather's dying words seem to indicate there was some truth behind the stories.
Finding his grandfather dying and getting a glimpse of some sort of horrible creature sends Jacob into a tail spin and he ends up in counseling.
Some of the stories centered on the grandfather's time spent in an orphanage on an island off the coast of Wales. Jacob's counselor advises his parents to take Jacob to the island to help him deal with his trauma and reconcile reality with the fantastic tales told him by his grandfather.
But after arriving on the island, it soon becomes clear to Jacob that the stories were not fantasy. Jacob finds the orphanage, which is an abandoned wreck, having been bombed in World War II.
Further poking around and some encounters with rather peculiar kids reveals a secret world, accessed by a tunnel into the past. Here is where the peculiar kids live, stuck in the day before the orphanage was bombed, and lead by their headmistress, Miss Peregine. All of them have extraordinary talents, including Miss Peregrine, who is a shapeshifter, able to take on the form of her name, a peregrine falcon.
Jacob learns that other such outposts exist, hiding in different locations and times, designed to protect their dwellers from the hollowgasts, vicious humanoids who prey upon the special children and their guardians. Jacob also learns that regular people can't see the hollowgasts. And because Jacob can see them, he, like his grandfather, is also a "peculiar." And also, like his grandfather, he is in danger from the hollowgasts and also a danger to the hollowgasts. Turns out the other peculiars can't see hollowgasts either, only Jacob can.
The hollowgast that attacked his grandfather followed Jacob to the island and it is are intent on destroying the children and capturing Miss Peregrine for reasons of its own. Jacob has brought this doom upon the orphanage and now he has to make a terrible choice: stay in the past and leave his home and family to protect the peculiars or return to the present and leave the peculiars to the doom he inadvertently brought upon them.

This was an OK read. The action doesn't really pick up until toward the end of the book. Seem like a lot to slog through to get to the good stuff. Probably more appealing to younger readers than to an oldster like me.
Also, I had a quibble with the story. The kids have been stuck in the past, reliving one day over and over. They are aware that it is the same day, though. So, from Jacob's time, they have been doing this since 1940, almost eighty years. But Miss Peregine still treats them like kids even though they have eighty plus years of living behind them. Also, they still attend classes every day. Eighty years of middle school, imagine that. The mind boggles. I think I'd rather be killed by the hollowgasts than spend eighty years in middle school. Wouldn't you think, after eighty years, they would pretty much know all they needed to know and tell their Miss Peregrine to get stuffed?

This book is the first in the peculiar children series by Riggs.

Don't Bend Over in the Garden, Granny, You Know Them Taters Got Eyes

By Lewis Grizzard

Lewis starts off this book with a dedication that reads, "Even I'm smart enough to know you don't go dedicating a book about sex to anybody." So right away you know you are reading a humorous book about sex.
The author starts out listing the reasons why he decided to write a book about sex:

1. Dr. Ruth talks funny and he can't make out what she is saying half the time. His book will be "clear, concise and in plain English, in order to take up any slack left by Dr. Ruth."
2. Sex, he claims, will kill you. Also he warns the reader that he will be making the occasional joke or telling a story with sexual overtones.
3. He was considering ideas for a book and someone suggested he do one on sex.
4. The year 1987, when he was writing the book, was, "a banner year for sex." And he lists Jim & Tammy Faye Bakker and Jessica Hahn; Gary Hart and Donna Rice and the Monkey Business; "Oral Roberts and His Twin Brother, Anal"; Oliver North and Fawn Hall; Vanna White posing in Playboy;  and Pat Robertson had premarital sex with his future wife.
5. Sex books sell well.

He concludes the first chapter thus:

This book will  not attempt to condone nor vilify any sexual activity. If it's no bother to you and gives joy to others, then do as you wish...What about oral and anal? Well, Oral's still out there in Tulsa begging for money, and his twin brother Anal is a well-respected faith-healing proctologist in Skokie, Illinois

 And it just gets better and funnier from there. A really amusing read, I enjoyed it a lot and read some of the silly jokes to my husband.

Blue Limbo

By Terence M. Green

Mitch Helwig is a cop in the not-too-distant future. Together with another police, Sam Karoulis, they put a big dent in a very powerful criminal organization. But that organization has friends within the police department and a bomb is planted with the intention of killing both Mitch and Sam. But they escape unharmed.
Mitch is in the middle of a painful divorce and it has knocked him a little off balance. He is prone to overreact and to rage and when it becomes apparent that he and Sam were the actual targets of the bombing, he becomes a one-man wrecking crew, arming himself with a variety of dangerous weapons and defensive equipment. It only gets worse when Sam is murdered.
In this future time, a technique has been developed to enable deceased brains to enjoy a short time of reanimation. It's called Blue Limbo because those who have been subjected to the procedure seem to perceive nothing except blueness surrounding them. Mitch rushes Sam's body to the hospital which does the Blue Limbo procedure and Sam is able to identify his killer.
Mitch is itching to take down the responsible parties but his elderly father has been kidnapped by the killers. That isn't going to protect them from their doom. Mitch Helwig is coming for them.

This was an exciting and touching story of a man dealing with his demons, coming to realize the importance of friends and family and of doing his best to right some serious wrongs. I enjoyed it a lot.

AsapSCIENCE: Answers to the World's Weirdest Questions, Most Persistent Rumors & Unexplained Phenomena

By Mitchell Moffit and Greg Brown

Just like the title says, Moffit and Brown look at things that people sometimes wonder about their bodies.

The book has seven chapters:

1. Resolving Persistent Questions, Rumors, and Weird Phenomena: Does being cold make you sick? Are silent farts more deadly? Does shaving make your hair grow thicker? Etc.

2.Body Talk: Brain Farts. The science of bad breath. Why are men so hairy? Etc.

3. Hypotheticals: Just two sections, Could a zombie apocalypse happen? What if you stopped going outside?

4. Sensory Perception: Why do we get pins and needles? Why do we itch? Why does time feel faster as we age? Etc.

5. Hot Sex and Other Amorous Pursuits: The science of sexy. The science of heartbreak. The science of orgasms. Etc.

6. Getting to the Bottom of Bad Behavior: The science of swearing. The science of lying. The science of procrastination. The scientific hangover cure.

7. Dreaming, Waking, Napping, Sleeping: The scientific power of naps. The science of morning wood. What are eye boogers? And more.

Things are explained in clear, easy-to-understand language, using an engaging and often humorous style and accompanied by profuse, charming illustrations.  An enjoyable and fairly short read for those who have inquiring minds.

Under the Banner of Heaven

By Jon Krakauer

In 1984, two brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty murdered their other brother Allen's wife, Brenda, and their baby daughter, Erica. According to the Laffertys, Brenda was a bad person and her baby was a bad person too because she would grow up to be just like her mother.
Ron Lafferty hated Brenda because his wife turned to Brenda for advice and eventually left her husband. He blamed Brenda for this and claimed he had a revelation from God that Brenda, Erica and some other people needed to be killed. The other people were also people that Ron was angry with.
Ron and Dan belonged to the Mormon religion and were fundamentalists. One of the tenets of their religion, as I understand it, is that individual men can have valid revelations directly from God. In fact, I think the head of the Mormon church is regarded as a prophet. So when Ron became angry, he claimed he had a revelation from God saying his particular enemies must be killed. So he and his brother, who, from what I have read about him, is a bit of a lunatic, along with two other men, drove over to Allen & Brenda's place, and burst in on Brenda at a time when Allen was not home. Ron beat Brenda to a bloody pulp and Dan cut Brenda and Erica's throats, nearly decapitating the two victims. All this because one hate-filled, resentful man mistook his anger for divine revelation and talked his gullible brother into joining him in a terrible crime.
Ron and Dan were raised Mormon and the author makes the case for the Mormon religion as a co-conspirator in the murders. Apparently, Mormonism has a bloody and violent history and a persecution complex that, along with any man can have a divine revelation teaching, encourages the kind of extremism practiced by the Lafferty brothers and others of their ilk like Brian David Mitchell, the man who kidnapped Elizabeth Smart and forced her to become his second wife.

This was a very interesting story. Although the actions of the Lafferty brothers is the framework of the story, it is really about Mormonism and delves into the beginnings of it and of the schisms within it. After reading this book, I can't help but feel that Mormonism has many things in common with Islam and the potential to become as dangerous as Islam, given the right circumstances.

A review by The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/03/books/thou-shalt-kill.html?pagewanted=all.

Shoot Low, Boys--They're Ridin' Shetland Ponies

By Lewis Grizzard

Grizzard writes about his encounters with people who showed, in his opinion, true grit. He was inspired by the movie of the same name, starring John Wayne. Grizzard was a fan of Wayne's.

It was an OK read, not as funny as I was hoping for and his examples of true grit were not all that inspiring. It seemed to me that just being a working adult was enough for him to perceive you as a person with true grit, whatever that is.

Sleeping Giants

By Sylvain Neuvel

Little Rose was out playing when she fell into a deep hole. She was discovered laying in a giant metal hand. The hand is quickly commandeered by the US military. Rose grows up to become a physicist.
The hand is impervious to investigation and it is put away and forgotten. That is until the forearm is discovered in the Middle East many years later. So the race is on to find more pieces and to try and figure out the origin and purpose of the giant statue. Coincidentally, Rose is the team leader.
Pieces are found scattered all over the world and once assembled, it forms a statue of a giant alien woman. She bears a shield and sword and her torso contains a cockpit with mechanisms to control the statue and its weaponry. Rose's team has the job of trying to figure out how to pilot the giant vehicle and decode the alien language. They do so in a huge compound underneath the Denver, Colorado airport.
The statue has strange controls that require two people to operate, one to pilot the upper body and one to pilot the lower body. One day, the two pilots are fooling around with the statue and accidentally activate some of its defensive systems, resulting in the destruction of part of the airport and the loss of several lives and also exposing the statue to the eyes of the world.
This causes an international crisis, especially as various nations realize that parts of the statue were stolen from their lands. To placate an irate world, the statue is dumped into a deep canyon in the depths of the ocean.
But of course, it is not destined to remain buried in the ocean.

This was a pretty good story. But there were lots of coincidences, like Rose being the team leader and the accident that permits one of the pilots perform his job better, which I found that a bit off-putting. The story is told in a series of reports, interviews, diaries and letters, which was a pretty interesting way to tell the story.
This is the first book in a new series, The Themis Files. Apparently, it is also being made into a movie.
For more see, NPR http://www.npr.org/2016/04/26/475021271/sleeping-giants-kicks-off-a-new-series-in-style.

The Road to Little Dribbling

By Bill Bryson

Some twenty years ago, Bill Bryson traveled throughout Britain and recorded his experiences in a book, Notes from a Small Island. He decided to repeat the experience, and the resulting book is The Road to Little Dribbling.
Bryson compares his memory of his trip from twenty years ago to the current situation and often finds things have changed for the worse. Places he wanted to revisit are gone or so changed as to bear little resemblance from what they were the first time. However some are much improved, among them being Stonehenge. He also finds little museums chock full of interesting trivia and engaging displays. But he also finds that Britain is awash in trash and litter and wonders how a country with such beautiful, gracious landscapes can be so indifferent to littering.  On the other hand, he enjoys how much British cuisine has improved since his first trip, as he eats and drinks his way across the land.
Bryson obviously loves his adopted land, warts and all, and finds Britain and it people endlessly fascinating, even when he feeling rather snarky and disagreeable, which is a lot of the time.
Twenty years later, Bryson seems a bit crankier than before but his sense of humor remains firmly intact as he laughs at himself and at the quirky British people.

I enjoyed the book, for the most part, although I did lose interest in it towards the end and let it sit unread for several weeks.  Since I never get to travel and probably never will, this is the closest I can come to going to Britain myself. It was a fun and entertaining read for this "armchair traveler".
For more see The New York Times review at  http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/books/review/bill-bryson-the-road-to-little-dribbling-review.html?_r=0.

My Horizonal Life

By Chelsea Handler

Chelsea Handler has always been honest about the fact that she is a boozy, horny slut. In this book, she tells stories about some of her youthful sexual adventures, mostly one night stands. I don't know if these stories are true, I sort of doubt it. But they might be.
I enjoyed the stories, some were amusing, some not so much. But it was an interesting if not-exactly-believable look at a lifestyle completely different than my own.
I found two opposing opinions online of the book. One reader loved the stories, the other hated them. See http://blogcritics.org/book-review-my-horizontal-life-a/ and https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/chelsea-handler/my-horizontal-life/.

Jemima J

By Jane Green

Jemima is a young, beautiful woman. But she is fat. So, of course, she has no friends or lovers. Fat, fat, fat and hopeless. She is so fat, even her tears are fat.
Then one day, she discovers the internet and begins a relationship with a fitness instructor, Brad, in California. Jemima, living in London, sends him a photoshopped  picture of herself. Brad is charmed and talks Jemima into coming to California for a visit.
Weighing over 200 pounds, Jemima knows she can't show up in California like that. So she undertakes a drastic program of diet and exercise and manages to drop all her excess weight. In the novel, her skin tightens up and her breasts don't get saggy, although in actuality, that much weight loss so quickly would leave her with loose skin and saggy breasts, as the contestants on NBC's Biggest Loser know. But never mind reality, this is a romance novel, after all.
So she goes to California and dazzles Brad with her magnificent toned body and movie star good looks. He actually asks her to marry him. But Jemima is carrying a torch for her former coworker, the gorgeous Ben, who likes Jemima but can't see Jemima the woman through all her fat. (Ben hasn't seen Jemima since she lost weight.) Obviously Jemima and Ben belong together but Ben isn't there and Brad is. What will Jemima decide? And what is the problem with Brad's angry and hostile assistant, fat Jenny?

This is just another of those fat girl loses weight and wins the man of her dreams stories. It was an OK read. The story of fat Jenny might have been more interesting, though.

The Danish Girl

By David Ebershoff

Greta and Einar Wegener are married and both are artists. Greta paints portraits that are less than successful. Einar paints landscapes, mainly of his gloomy and marshy birthplace and he is moderately successful.
One day, Greta needs to finish a portrait of a woman but the woman can't come to pose. So she talks Einar, who is a small, delicate man, into putting on the woman's clothing and sitting as a substitute so Greta can finish up the portrait. But once Einar dons women's clothing, something in him responds to it. Thus Lily is born.
Einar begins spending more and more time as Lily. He is happier that way. Gerta finds her transformed husband fascinating and begins a series of portraits of Lily. The Lily portraits are very popular and Gerta has become successful as an artist. Not that she needs the money. She is from a wealthy family in California and has plenty of money.
Einar spends more and more time as Lili and even begins to date men. Gerta's husband is slowly drifting away, being replaced by Lili, who is attracted to men and not to his own wife. The final nail in the coffin of their marriage is Lili's series of surgeries to complete the transition from male to female.

This novel was inspired by the life of Einar Wegener, but only inspired by it. It is a work of fiction. It was quite a good read but I think I would have enjoyed the true story of Einar more than this fiction. It is fun to imagine how people might feel and behave but even more interesting, in my opinion, is how they actually felt and behaved. I guess I was expecting more of a story based on fact, not on the author's imagination, so I was a bit disappointed.

Tramp

By Marne Davis Kellogg

Cyrus Vaile is having a party and Lilly Bennett, rich, privileged, snobbish private detective is invited. She goes, dreading it, because Cyrus is the epitome of the dirty old man who will make a pass at anything in a skirt. At the party, Cyrus tell Lilly he needs her help investigating the disappearance of a twenty million dollar fund set up to benefit the local thespian society, the Roundup Repertory Theater. But Cyrus dies at the party and Lilly, trained in criminology and toxicology, recognizes the signs of digitalis poisoning.
Pretty soon Lilly is knee deep in all the drama and drama queens of the Roundup Repertory Theater and, inevitably, becomes the target of the killer too.

This was an OK read. I personally did not care for the main character, Lilly Bennett, born in the lap of luxury and who has never had to worry about paying her bills, and who has a history of sleeping with other women's husbands. Another problem I had with the novel is the deathbed confession of the murderer. So corny when the killer spills the beans because they think they have the upper hand but don't really.
This book is a typical entry in the murder mystery genre, nothing special about it or particularly interesting either.

Secrets of the Model Dorm

By Amanda Kerlin and Phil Oh

After doing some modeling in her home state of Virginia and in Florida, young Heather is ready to take on New York City. She signs with a small New York agency and moves into company housing, an apartment she shares with three other young model hopefuls.
Heather has it all, youth, beauty, height. But her boss, former model and owner of the agency, Rachel, wants her to lose fifteen pounds. Even at the tender age of eighteen, Heather is finding it near impossible to lose the required weight. Of course, her partying lifestyle may have something to do with it. Instead of sticking to a strict diet and hitting the gym every day, Heather and her three roommates are out on the town, getting loaded and picking up men. One of the roommates, Kylie, spends her evenings, when she is at home and not out on the town, getting wasted on Metamucil cocktails: vodka and Metamucil.
The girls are given a list of casting calls to attend every day. They are dressed, interviewed and photographed, and, hopefully, get that call back to an important, major fashion job. The days are spent running from appointment to appointment, the nights are spent running from club to club.
But gradually the pressure gets to be a bit much, and following a romantic disappointment, Heather begins to think that maybe being a model is not the lifestyle for her. But what else can she do? She dropped out of high school to start her modeling career and she really knows nothing else but modeling. She can't face the idea of returning home a failure, though. And now that Rachel, the boss, has learned Heather has a part time receptionist job and has still failed to lose the fifteen pounds, her time with agency may soon be coming to an end.

This was an OK read. Heather and the other models lead decadent, self-destructive lifestyles, crammed together in their crowded, grungy apartment. Sex, booze, parties, drugs, it's the old story of young people on their own for the first time, giving into every excess. An old story and not particularly interesting anymore. Heather does avoid most of the excesses except for the alcohol abuse. All the models drink far too much, it's like that is the only way they know of to have fun and relax.  The author used to be a model and I suppose she knows what it is like to be a young model in NYC.