Knit Two - Kate Jacobs

KNIT TWO returns to the Manhattan knitting store, 'Walker & Daughter', five years after the death of the store's owner, Georgia Walker. Georgia's daughter Dakota is now an eighteen-year-old freshman at NYU, running the knitting store part-time with the help of the members of the Friday Night Knitting Club. Drawn together by their love for Dakota and the sense of family the club provides, each knitter is struggling with new challenges: for Catherine, finding love after divorce, for Darwin, newborn twins, for Lucie, being both a single mom and caregiver for her elderly mother, and for seventysomething Anita, marriage to her sweetheart Marty over the objections of her grown children. As Kate Jacobs returns to the world of 'Walker & Daughter', she's once again keyed into many of the stresses and joys of being a mother, wife, daughter and friend. Every woman who picks up this book will see themselves in its characters - the very thing that made The Friday Night Knitting Club such a huge word-of-mouth success. A true love letter to the power of women's friendships, and, of course, knitting, KNIT TWO is entertainment with a heart.

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Book #9 - This was fun. A little too perfect though.

Run For Your Life - James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge

The second book in the Michael Bennett series

A calculating killer who calls himself The Teacher is taking on New York City, killing the powerful and the arrogant. His message is clear: remember your manners or suffer the consequences! For some, it seems that the rich are finally getting what they deserve. For New York's elite, it is a call to terror.

Only one man can tackle such a high-profile case: Detective Mike Bennett. The pressure is enough for anyone, but Mike also has to care for his 10 children-all of whom have come down with virulent flu at once!

Discovering a secret pattern in The Teacher's lessons, Detective Bennett realizes he has just hours to save New York from the greatest disaster in its history. From the #1 bestselling author comes BE AFRAID, the continuation of his newest, electrifying series.

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Book #8 - Not only was it quick but fun too.

Next book - Knit Two - Kate Jacobs

The Associate - John Grisham

If you thought Mitch McDeere was in trouble in The Firm, wait until you meet Kyle McAvoy, THE ASSOCIATE

Kyle McAvoy grew up in his father's small-town law office in York, Pennsylvania. He excelled in college, was elected editor-in-chief of The Yale Law Journal, and his future has limitless potential.

But Kyle has a secret, a dark one, an episode from college that he has tried to forget. The secret, though, falls into the hands of the wrong people, and Kyle is forced to take a job he doesn't want - even though it's a job most law students can only dream about.Three months after leaving Yale, Kyle becomes an associate at the largest law firm in the world, where, in addition to practicing law, he is expected to lie, steal, and take part in a scheme that could send him to prison, if not get him killed.

With an unforgettable cast of characters and villains - from Baxter Tate, a drug-addled trust fund kid and possible rapist, to Dale, a pretty but seemingly quiet former math teacher who shares Kyle's 'cubicle' at the law firm, to two of the most powerful and fiercely competitive defense contractors in the country - and featuring all the twists and turns that have made John Grisham the most popular storyteller in the world, THE ASSOCIATE is vintage Grisham.

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Book #7 - I really enjoyed this book, and yes, it was very much like The Firm, which I loved. I had a hard time putting the book down once I could finally find the time to read it.

I have to say, as much as I loved it, I found the ending to be anti-climatic which was disappointing, but overall I loved it. If you're a suspense novel reader, I highly recommend it.

Payback - Fern Michaels

The second book in the Sisterhood series

From the outside, it looks like Julia Webster lives a normal, happy existence. A highly successful plastic surgeon, she is married to a senator very much on his way up Capitol Hill, and lives in a lovely house in Georgetown. But appearances can be deceptive, as Julia knows only too well.

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Book #6 - Just the right amount of fluff to read when home sick from work. Somewhat a predictable format, but fun nonetheless.

No Time For Goodbye - Linwood Barclay

On the morning she will never forget, suburban teenager Cynthia Archer awakes with a nasty hangover and a feeling she is going to have an even nastier confrontation with her mom and dad. She isn't. Instead, the house is empty, with no sign of her parents or younger brother Todd. At first she just thinks it's weird, then more and more scary, until finally the terrifying reality hits her: in the blink of an eye, without any explanation, her family has simply disappeared. Twenty-five years later the mystery is no nearer to being solved and Cynthia is still haunted by unanswered questions. Were her family murdered? If so, why was she spared? And if they're alive, why did they abandon her in such a cruel way? Now married with a daughter of her own, Cynthia knows that without answers - however shocking they might prove to be - she will never be emotionally or psychologically whole, living in daily fear that her new family will be taken from her just as her first one was. And so she agrees to take part in a TV documentary revisiting the case, in the hope that somebody somewhere will remember something - or even that her father, mother or brother might finally reach out to her... First nothing. Then just a few crackpots and scam artists coming out of the woodwork. And then the letter, a letter which makes no sense and yet chills Cynthia to the core. And soon she begins to realize that stirring up the past could be the worst mistake she has ever made.

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Book # 5 - I really enjoyed this book. It was just the right balance of suspense, question and creppy to keep me turning the pages long after I should have been asleep.

Body of Evidence - Patricia Cornwell

The second book in the Kay Scarpetta series

A reclusive writer is dead. And her final manuscript has disappeared ... Someone is stalking Beryl Madison. Someone who spies on her and makes threatening, obscene phone-calls. Terrified, Beryl flees to Key West - but eventually she must return to her Richmond home. The very night she arrives, Beryl inexplicably invites her killer in ... Thus begins for Dr Kay Scarpetta the investigation of a crime that is as convoluted as it is bizarre. Why would Beryl open the door to someone who brutally slashed and then nearly decapitated her? Did she know her killer? Adding to the intrigue is Beryl's enigmatic relationship with a prize-winning author and the disappearance of her own manuscript. As Scarpetta retraces Beryl's footsteps, an investigation that begins in the laboratory with microscopes and lasers leads her deep into a nightmare that soon becomes her own.

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Book # 2 - It took me quite a while to get into this one. Part of the problem can probably be attributed to the fact that I only read this when waiting a book from the library. That being said, still looking forward the 3rd book. Who knows when I'll get to it though.

Always A Thief - Kay Hooper

In a deadly game of skill and deception...A master thief is just the first wild card…The priceless, rarely displayed Bannister collection is about to be exhibited and the show's director, Morgan West, can't ignore her growing uneasiness. She's certain she hasn't seen the last of the infamous cat burglar Quinn. But she never expected him to turn up at her apartment one dark night in desperate need of her help help she can't refuse. The mysterious master thief is playing a dangerous game, and it's a game that just might get him killed.

With Morgan's help, Quinn sets a trap intended to catch someone far more elusive…and more deadly…than a thief. But an unseen threat shadows him in the fog-shrouded San Francisco night, an unknown adversary more cunning than any he has yet encountered. Now, just when the stakes are higher than even Quinn can imagine, no one can be trusted and everything is at risk.

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Book #17 - This was a lighthearted thriller. Not much on suspense, more on filler. I'm not really able to sustain any level of concentration at the moment, so this book was the right book at the right time.

Save Karyn - Karyn Bosnak

After moving to New York from Chicago for a lucrative position at a new television court show, Bosnak digs herself into a more than $20,000 hole in less than a year. With stars in her eyes, she blindly plunks down $778 on lingerie here and $387 on a cut and color there. She justifies her frivolity as "emergencies" and "investments" in herself. "I was twenty-seven years old and I wasn't going to be a spring chicken much longer. So I needed these nighties to look as sexy as I could because I needed to land a man. So they were kind of like an investment. An investment in my sex life and an investment in my future." Unable to pay her bills while employed, Bosnak's luck takes a turn for the worse when the court show is canceled. She is able to land a job at yet another TV show, but that, too, doesn't last long. When her financial situation is truly desperate, she posts a "help-needed" message on craigslist.org (an interactive classifieds page). When the site administrators remove her posting, Bosnak decides to set up her own Web site: www. savekaryn.com. With financial contributions from strangers, sales from eBay and donations of all kinds, she's able to pay all her bills in five short months. Each chapter opens with a spread of her credit card statements, outlining her month's purchases. This detail would be sufficient, but this self-absorbed book is filled with the overwhelming minutiae of Bosnak's shallow extravagance, making it hard to empathize with her during tough times or celebrate her escape from debt. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Book #13 - I've been reading Karyn's blog for quite some time now. I don't know how I stumbled upon it, but I can tell you without hesitation, I'm extremely happy it did. This blog has to be one of the best out there. It is hilarious, a touch quirky, and a lot random. I love it. You have to search for the entry 'cliquey dogs'. I laughed so hard I was almost crying. On second thought, I may have cried.

Oh ya, this is really where I'm supposed to talk about the book. I loved it. It was sad in parts. I know at one point I cried. I can't remember why exactly or what happened to her, but I just remember this incredible sense of sadness for her. All in all it was a very entertaining, fun read. I feel bad saying it was fun, because this was her real life, she lived these nightmares. She reminds a little bit of my daughter at times with her positive outlook on the world, believing that good really does outweigh the bad. It is refreshing and I recommend it to anyone to read.

Karyn's spin on things is downright hilarious. She isn't afraid to poke fun at herself. She is so freaking funny, I can't even tell you. I laughed out loud more times than not. I was always reading parts to people... pubicle cubicle is a gut busting hilarious section.

I'm looking forward to picking up her next book 20 Times A Lady. I'm sure it will be just as much fun.

The Last Family - John Ramsey Miller

The best thing about John Ramsey Miller's compulsively readable debut thriller is his villain, a former Drug Enforcement Agency hotshot named Martin Fletcher. Thinking he was betrayed by his colleagues in a raid that went disastrously wrong, the brilliant Fletcher takes his revenge against them by attacking their families. Now it's the turn of Paul Masterson, half-blinded in the same ambush, hiding out in Montana until Fletcher's mad rage forces him to gather up his old skills and go on the attack.
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Book #3 This is a great book. It was suspenseful that kept me reading long past my bed time. Great finish and not what I would have deemed as predictable.

Derailed - James Siegel

Advertising director Charles Schine is just another New York commuter, regularly catching the 8.43 to work. But the day he misses his train is the day that changes his life. Catching the 9.05 instead, he can't help but be drawn by the sight of the person opposite. Charles has never cheated on his wife in eighteen years of marriage. But then Charles has never met anyone like Lucinda Harris before. Charming, beautiful and a seductively good listener, Charles finds himself instantly attracted. And though Lucinda is married too, it is immediately apparent that the feeling is mutual. Their journeys into work become lunch dates, which become cocktails and eventually lead to a rented room in a seedy hotel. They both know the risks they are taking, but not in their worst nightmares could they foresee what is to follow. Suddenly their temptation turns horrifically sour, and their illicit liaison becomes caught up in something bigger, more dangerous, more brutally violent. Unable to talk to his partner or the police, Charles finds himself trapped in a world of dark conspiracy and psychological games. Somehow he's got to find a way to fight back, or his entire life will be spectacularly derailed for good.

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Book #2 - WOW! What an incredible book. I've wanted to read this book for so long and finally got around to it. What a dork I am for waiting so long. I was hooked and didn't want to put it down. When I should have been sound asleep I was still turning the pages. Can't wait to watch the movie, something I'd been delaying until I'd read the book.

Double Cross - James Patterson

Just when Alex thought his life was calming down into a routine of patients and therapy sessions, he finds himself back in the game--this time to catch a criminal mastermind like no other. A spate of elaborate murders in Washington D.C. have the whole East Coast on edge. They are like nothing Alex Cross and his new girlfriend, Detective Brianna Stone, have ever seen. With each murder, the case becomes increasingly complex. There's only one thing Alex knows: the killer adores an audience. As victims are made into gruesome spectacles citywide, inducing a media hysteria, it becomes clear to Alex that the man he's after is a genius of terror--and he's after fame. The killer has the whole city by its strings--and he'll stop at nothing to become the most terrifying star that Washington D.C. has ever seen.

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I had some difficulty getting in to this book, but once I did I couldn't put it down. There were things that happened that annoyed me. I wont get into those annoyances, I'll leave them for you to discover on your own.

You've Been Warned - James Patterson

For Karen Burns, a talented young photographer, it was only natural to go to New York to chase her dreams. And it was only normal--just to pay the rent while she waited for her big chance--to work as a nanny for a young power couple, an attorney and his socialite wife, watching their two children. But for all the promise, the thrills, and the glitter, there are temptations and there are deadly dangers that come with life among the rich and powerful. Get ready for the Nanny Diaries from Hell.

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I don't even know where to begin with this one. I'm not sure if I liked it or didn't. It was a very strange book. I've passed this on to Pam with the "You've Been Warned" warning, and the promise to let me know what she thinks of it when she's finished. Hmmmm.......

A Lifetime of Secrets

For the past three years Frank Warren has invited people of all backgrounds and nationalities to send him creatively decorated postcards bearing secrets they have never before revealed. He has shared these PostSecrets on his award-winning blog, http://postsecret.blogspot.com/, in an internationally traveling art exhibit, and in three electrifying books: the bestselling PostSecret, My Secret, and The Secret Lives of Men and Women.

Now, in his most extraordinary book yet, Warren again delves into our collective confessions, presenting a never-before-seen selection of provocative and moving PostSecrets. A Lifetime of Secrets lays bare our private fears, hopes, regrets, and desires, from people as young as eight and as old as eighty. From painful admissions of infidelity to breathtaking revelations and endearing sentiments, Warren’s latest collection will shock and move readers of every age, revealing secrets that have haunted their creators for a lifetime.
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I read through this book once already. It took me about 45 minutes and some of what I read will probably remain with me forever. I may not remember the exact words, but the thoughts and feelings brought to the surface through the words will be their legacy.

I will list a few that struck me. The impact will not be as astounding without the art accompanying the text, but I shall give it my best effort.

My momma bear Thank you for never, ever leaving me alone with him. I wish grandma had protected you. (The post card is the face of a grizzly bear with block lettering)

I saved stamps the whole year long so I could make my grandmother a real crafty christmas present. She didn't make it that long. I can't stop saving them. (The postcard is a mish mash of stamps)

You are what I never knew I have been looking for all along. (Smiling mouth of a woman)

I handed the most important person in my life the drugs that killed him. (Printed on a piece of paper with type written words scratched out and a large sunflower coming up from the left corner of the paper)

Metro Girl - Janet Evanovich

Wild Bill is up to his gonads in trouble. Never the brightest spark, he's hired himself out as a boat captain to some shady American investors who have him ferrying unknown objects -- and the occasional Florida politician -- in and out of Cuba. Everything's going well, until an honest politician realizes the boat-trip will land him deep in Castro's pocket, with Bill's bosses netting a lucrative Cuban real estate package as their reward for securing his vote. When the politician threatens to go public, all hell breaks loose -- and Bill disappears. Dispatched to Florida to find her worthless baby brother, Alexandra 'Barney' Barnaby, the brains of the family, isn't too happy about trading her well-paid-if-boring job in Baltimore for the bugs and heat and bad-hair-day humidity of South Beach. Doing the rounds of Wild Bill's broken-hearted bimbos, she's thinking things can't get much worse than being unemployed and sunburned in Florida. Too bad for Barney -- she's wrong about the getting worse part.

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Entertaining and funny at parts.

Hot Six - Janet Evanovich Book #36

Low-rent bounty hunter Stephanie Plum reaches depths of personal experience that other women detectives never quite do. In Hot Six, for example, a sequence of new and hideous cars bite the dust; she finds herself lumbered with a policeman's multiply incontinent dog; and she has several bad skin days. All this when she is trying to prove her distinctly more competent colleague and occasional boyfriend Ranger innocent of a mob hit; avoid the heavies trailing her in the hope of finding him; and cope with a wife-abusing bail-defaulter with nasty habits such as setting Stephanie on fire. The peculiar joy of this series is the comic sense of place; Plum's New Jersey is one where everyone you meet, even the most dangerous of criminals, was at school with you, or stole your mother's first boyfriend, or gave your great-aunt a middling good recipe for meatloaf. Evanovich has built up an attractive cast of comic characters with Stephanie's extended family and those of her two boyfriends, the dashing and sinister Ranger and Joe Morelli (the cop whose family are only too keen on his marrying Stephanie). Hot Six will not disappoint either her fans or newcomers.
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There are times when I'm exasperated by the naivete of this character and then in the next paragraph I'm laughing my head off. Go figure. I'll continue reading this series, but more for the relationship between Stephanie and Joe than for anything to do with her other story lines or her bounty hunter prowess.

High Five - Janet Evanovich

"Uncle Fred was someone I saw at weddings and funerals and once in a while at Giovichinni's Meat Market, ordering a quarter pound of olive loaf. Eddie Such, the butcher, would have the olive loaf on the scale and Uncle Fred would say: 'You've got the olive loaf on a piece of waxed paper. How much does that piece of waxed paper weigh? You're not gonna charge me for that waxed paper, are you? I want some money off for the waxed paper.' "
The speaker is Stephanie Plum, the glamorous if slightly ditsy bounty hunter from Trenton, New Jersey, and one of the most original creations in recent mystery fiction.

In this fifth entry in Janet Evanovich's increasingly popular series, Stephanie's problems are many and varied. She's not making enough moneypicking up FTAs (Failures to Appear) for her cousin Vinnie, of Vincent PlumBail Bonds; her red-hot love affair with Detective Joe Morelli has cooled off; and her giant extended family is no help at all. For instance, Uncle Fred the cheapskate has disappeared, leaving behind some suspicious photographs of body parts in garbage bags and links to some really dangerous people.

When Stephanie turns to her friend and mentor, Ranger, for financial advice, he gets her involved in a gang of toughs doing instant evictions for landlords. (She complains to Ranger about the job and its dangers, prompting one of the hired thug to say, "Man, you don't like to get shot. You don't like to get arrested. You don't know how to have fun at all.")

Most of Stephanie's charm, of course, comes from her attitude--a combination of the brazen bravado that turns a failed lingerie model into bounty hunter in the first place and the normal fears of a person in over her head.
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Well, what can I say? Another in the hilarious life and times of Stephanie Plum. A fun and entertaining read. Damn it to hell!!! I need to know who was at the door at the end. As if I (we) wouldn't read book #6! Who the heck did she call???? GRRRRR :)

Vanish - Tess Gerritsen

A blessed event becomes a nightmare for pregnant homicide detective Jane Rizzoli when she finds herself on the wrong side of a hostage crisis in this timely and relentless new thriller from the New Your Times bestselling author of Body Double.

A nameless, beautiful woman appears to be just another corpse in the morgue. An apparent suicide, she lies on a gurney awaiting the dissecting scalpel of medical examiner Maura Isles. But when Maura unzips the body bag and looks down as the body, she gets the fright of her life. The corpse opens it eyes.

Very much alive, the woman is rushed to the hospital, where, with shockingly cool precision, she murders a security guard and seizes hostages…one of them a pregnant patient, Jane Rizzoli.

Who is this violent, desperate soul, and what does she want? As the tense hours tick by, Maura joins forces with Jane’s husband, FBI agent Gabriel Dean, to track down the mysterious killer’s identity. When federal agents suddenly appear on the scene, Maura and Gabriel realize that they are dealing with a case that goes far deeper than just an ordinary hostage crisis.

Only Jane, trapped with the armed madwoman, holds the key to the mystery. And only she can solve it-if she survives the night.
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This was a great book; number 5 of the Jane Rizzoli series. As much as I enjoyed the book, the subject matter was extremely disturbing. I find Tess Gerritsen really has a way of verbally painting such a vivid picture it can feel as though you are living right along side the drama of the moment.

If I've enticed one on my blog readers to pick up this book, beware!

Sheer Abandon - Penny Vincenzi

One night in 1986 an abandoned baby girl is found in a cupboard at Heathrow airport. A year earlier Martha, Clio and Jocasta had met by chance, at the start of a backpacking adventure: they travelled together briefly and then went their own ways, swearing to meet again when they return home. But it would be a long time until they met again: not until Kate, the foundling, is a teenager, and all three are leading successful lives. Martha is a single, highly paid lawyer, Clio a doctor, locked in an unhappy marriage, and Jocasta a reporter, in love with a charming commitment-phobe. Which of them is Kate's mother? Why was she desperate enough to do such a thing, and how did she survive it?
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It took me a very long time to read this book, but it had nothing to do with my enjoyment level. This book was very good, but reserved books kept coming in from the library that kept getting in the way.

The Burnt House - Faye Kellerman

At 8:15 in the morning, a small commuter plane carrying forty-seven passengers crashes into an apartment building in Granada Hills, California. Shock waves ripple through Los Angeles, as L.A.P.D. Lieutenant Peter Decker works overtime to calm rampant fears of a 9/11-type terror attack. But a grisly mystery lives inside the plane's charred and twisted wreckage: the unidentified bodies of four extra travelers. And there is no sign of an airline employee who was supposedly on the catastrophic flight.

Decker and his wife, Rina, have personal reasons for being profoundly shaken by the tragedy, since the "accident" occurred frighteningly close to their daughter Hannah's school. Luckily, their child and her schoolmates escaped unscathed. But the fate of the unaccounted-for flight attendant—twenty-eight-year-old Roseanne Dresden—remains a question mark more than a month after the horrific event, when the young woman's irate stepfather calls, insisting that she was never onboard the doomed plane. Instead, he claims, she was most likely murdered by her abusive, unfaithful husband. But why, then, was Roseanne's name included on the passenger list?

Under intense pressure from the department to come up with answers, Decker launches an investigation that carries him down a path of tragic history, dangerous secrets, and deadly lies—and leads him to the corpse of a three-decades-missing murder victim. And as the jagged pieces slowly fall into place, a frightening picture begins to form: a mind-searing portrait of unimaginable evil that will challenge Decker's and Rina's own beliefs about guilt and innocence and justice.

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When I discover a new author, I will read the cover of the first book and if I like I won't read the cover of future books. I find the jacket gives away too much story line and in the end takes away from the experience. I will sometimes read the book then read the cover. I did that with this novel and I'm glad I read the book without the direction given from the cover information. The cover touted this novel as intense and indicates that Decker will be pressured from many angles to crack this case. I didn't find this to be the way of the novel at all. Decker was under pressure from one source it seemed, the father of one of the murder victims. Rina was pretty much a non-factor which was neither here nor there.

All in all the book was good, but if I were using the jacket description as my guide I would have been disappointed.

The Quickie - James Patterson

Lauren Stillwell is not your average damsel in distress. When the NYPD cop discovers her husband leaving a hotel with another woman, she decides to beat him at his own game. But her revenge goes dangerously awry, and she finds her world spiraling into a hell that becomes more terrifying by the hour.

In a further twist of fate, Lauren must take on a job that threatens everything she stands for. Now, she's paralyzed by a deadly secret that could tear her life apart. With her job and marriage on the line, Lauren's desire for retribution becomes a lethal inferno as she fights to save her livelihood--and her life.

Patterson takes us on a twisting roller-coaster ride of thrills in his most gripping novel yet. This story of love, lust and dangerous secrets will have reader's hearts pounding to the very last page.

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OMG! OMG! OMG! I gasped out loud at about page 15 and do so numerous times thereafter. What an amazing book. It kept me guessing right up the very end. Highly recommend this one!