What to Read? … What to Read?

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“Forest Park was pretty in the summer. Portland’s ash sky was barely visible behind a canopy of aspens, hemlock, cedars, and maples that filtered the light to a shimmering pale green. A light breeze tickled the leaves. Morning glories and ivy crept up the mossy tree trunks and strangled the blackberry bushes and ferns, a mass of crawling vines that piled up waist-high on either side of the packed dirt path. The creek hummed and churned, birds chirped. It was all very lovely, very Walden, except for the corpse.”

It’s cold, it’s rainy and it’s the perfect day to curl up under a blanket and grab a good thriller off of the shelf; and I did just that. What did I indulge in today why that would be Sweetheart written by Chelsea Cain.

When the body of a young woman is discovered in Portland’s Forest Park, Archie is reminded of the last time they found a body there, more than a decade ago: it turned out to be the Beauty Killer’s first victim, and Archie’s first case. This body can’t be one of Gretchen’s–she’s in prison–but after help from reporter Susan Ward uncovers the dead woman’s identity, it turns into another big case. Trouble is, Archie can’t focus on the new investigation because the Beauty Killer case has exploded: Gretchen Lowell has escaped from prison.

Archie hadn’t seen her in two months; he’d moved back in with his family and sworn off visiting her. Though it should feel like progress, he actually feels worse. The news of her escape spreads like wildfire, but secretly, he’s relieved. He knows he’s the only one who can catch her, and in fact, he has a plan to get out from under her thumb once and for all.

This is the second book in her series that features Gretchen and Archie. Sweetheart is fast paced; edge of your seat won’t let you go until you finished; thriller. If you are a Cain fan you should love it, if you are not you should still love it. If you do love it, try her other books.

Happy Reading

Sarah

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“It happened every year, was almost a ritual. And this was his eighty-second birthday. When, as usual, the flower was delivered, he took off the wrapping paper and then picked up the telephone to call Detective Superintendent Morell who, when he retired, had moved to Lake Siljan in Dalarna. They were not only the same age, they had been born on the same day–which was something of an irony under the circumstances. The old policeman was sitting with his coffee, waiting, expecting the call.”

O.k. September is a hot month for book releases, on September 16, 2008 Stieg Larssons’s book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is being released in the North America. This is the first in his trilogy that unfortunately was cut short due to his tragic death in 2004.

Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared off the secluded island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger family. There was no corpse, no witnesses, no evidence. But her uncle, Henrik, is convinced that she was murdered by someone from her own deeply dysfunctional family. Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist is hired to investigate, but he quickly finds himself in over his head. He hires a competent assistant: the gifted and conscience-free computer specialist Lisbeth Salander, and the two unravel a dark and appalling family history. But the Vangers are a secretive clan, and Blomkvist and Salander are about to find out just how far they are prepared to go to protect themselves.

For those of you who have been in a country that has already had the book released, I have heard nothing but high praise, but PLEASE don’t tell me how it ends; if you do I will be very, very sad.

Happy Reading

Sarah

Thank you Amazon for the picture

“I’ve never heard of Conrad White. Never attended a writers’ workshop, circle, night class or retreat. It’s been years since I’ve tried to write anything other than what I am contractually obliged to. But something about this day—about the taste of the air in this very room—has signalled that something is coming my way. Has already come.

I call the number at the bottom of the ad. When a voice at the other end asks me what he can do for me, I answer without hesitation.

“I want to write a book,” I say.”

Stories are like gossip; once you start you have the feeling of needing to know the end of the story, no matter what. That however could cost you your life; well ok; it would if you were a character in a book. Oh look I started rambling you probably are thinking Get on with it Sarah what book did you read and will I like it? So here it is The Killing Circle written by Andrew Pyper.  Check your local bookstore this one has several release dates.

Patrick Rush, a former bright light at the National Star now demoted to the reality TV beat, is still recovering from his wife’s death when he joins a writers’ group in Toronto. His goal: to write the book he’s always felt lived within him. Trouble is, Patrick has no story to tell. And while the circle’s members show similarly little literary promise, there is one exception: Angela. Her unsettling readings tell of a shadowy childhood tragedy and an unremitting fear of the Sandman, a “terrible man who does terrible things.” It’s the stuff of nightmares or horror films. Or is it?

Over the weeks that follow, a string of unsolved murders seem increasingly connected to Patrick. And then the circle’s members start to go missing, one by one. Still haunted by loss–and by a crime only those in the circle could know of–Patrick finds himself in a fictional world made horrifically real. But nothing will put him in greater danger than that ancient curse of natural born readers: the need to know how the story ends.

Pyper belongs to the rarified sphere of thriller authors who bring far more to the table than a performer’s understanding of how to draw an audience in. The Killing Circle, Pyper’s fourth novel, continues this mix of breathless suspense and literary underpinnings and on some level Pyper is the Paul Auster of the mystery world. You start off one place with the storyline and you end up at a completely different place and you never know how you got there - except that the ride was exceptional.

Do you want to know how it ends? Well if you do get a copy and read it. Honestly did you think I was really going to tell you how it ended?

Happy Reading

Sarah

Thank you Amazon for the picture

“Lauren Dayson was sleeping soundly when some small noise in the front room of the apartment disturbed her. What actually awakened her was the sound of Mojo barking. Mojo, an unlikely cross between a Chihuahua and a chow, was a pint- sized, laughable dog, but this time she was barking in her ferocious big-dog voice, and Lauren knew what it meant. Rick Mosier was here. Somewhere in her apartment. Somewhere in her home. He had broken in and he was coming for her.”

I’m back! What? You didn’t even notice I was gone? O.k. so I took a mini vacation from all of the drama that makes up my life. I slept in, ate cookies for breakfast and sat in a lawn chair all day reading. My choice for the mini vacation was Damage Control written by J.A. Jance.

On a beautiful sunny day in the Coronado National Monument, an elderly couple’s car goes off the side of a mountain and into oblivion. The terrain is so rocky that a helicopter must be flown in to retrieve the bodies, and to make matters worse, a thunder-storm is looming on the horizon. Hours later and miles away, the subsiding rain reveals gruesome evidence: two trash bags containing human remains.

It’s just another day in the life of Cochise County sheriff Joanna Brady.

Back at home, Joanna has a newborn baby, a teenage daughter, a writer husband, and a difficult mother to deal with. But in the field, it turns out that she has much more on her hands. The remains are those of a handicapped woman who had wandered away from a care facility with a suspicious track record. Another resident, with whom the woman may have been involved, has also been reported missing.

Meanwhile, a note is found in the glove compartment of the car lying twisted down the mountainside, stating that its occupants intended to take their own lives. Yet a contradictory autopsy report surfaces, and when the deceased’s two daughters show up to feud over their inheritance, Joanna knows there is more to this case than just a suicide pact.

And she will go all out to find the truth—no matter where it leads.

Jance has done it again in her 13^th installment of her Joanna Brady series. She has kept with her theme fast pace, stay right where you are, can’t sleep until it’s done. Another hit for this amazing author.

Happy Reading

Sarah

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“She dropped onto her belly and hacked away. Her trowel collided with something solid. Oh, God, not another rock. Shoving back her hair, she stared down at what her tool had just hit. Its metal tip had fractured a surface, and cracks radiated from the impact point. She brushed away dirt and pebbles, exposing an unnaturally smooth dome. Lying belly-down on the ground, she felt her heart thudding against the earth and suddenly found it hard to take a breath. But she kept digging, with both hands now, gloved fingers scraping through stubborn clay. More of the dome emerged, curves knitted together by a jagged seam. Deeper and deeper she clawed, her pulse accelerating as she uncovered a small dirt-filled hollow. She pulled off her glove and prodded the caked earth with a bare finger. Suddenly the dirt fractured and crumbled away.

She saw a graveyard.”

It was rainy and dull out today so there were no outdoor adventures for me. But that’s O.K. I simply finished reading The Bone Garden written by Tess Gerritsen.

Unknown bones, untold secrets, and unsolved crimes from the distant past cast ominous shadows on the present in the dazzling new thriller from New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen.

Present day: Julia Hamill has made a horrifying discovery on the grounds of her new home in rural Massachusetts: a skull buried in the rocky soil–human, female, and, according to the trained eye of Boston medical examiner Maura Isles, scarred with the unmistakable marks of murder. But whoever this nameless woman was, and whatever befell her, is knowledge lost to another time. . . .

Boston, 1830: In order to pay for his education, Norris Marshall, a talented but penniless student at Boston Medical College, has joined the ranks of local “resurrectionists”–those who plunder graveyards and harvest the dead for sale on the black market. Yet even this ghoulish commerce pales beside the shocking murder of a nurse found mutilated on the university hospital grounds. And when a distinguished doctor meets the same grisly fate, Norris finds that trafficking in the illicit cadaver trade has made him a prime suspect.

To prove his innocence, Norris must track down the only witness to have glimpsed the killer: Rose Connolly, a beautiful seamstress from the Boston slums who fears she may be the next victim. Joined by a sardonic, keenly intelligent young man named Oliver Wendell Holmes, Norris and Rose comb the city–from its grim cemeteries and autopsy suites to its glittering mansions and centers of Brahmin power–on the trail of a maniacal fiend who lurks where least expected . . . and who waits for his next lethal opportunity.

With unflagging suspense and pitch-perfect period detail, The Bone Garden deftly interweaves the thrilling narratives of its nineteenth- and twenty-first century protagonists, tracing the dark mystery at its heart across time and place to a finale as ingeniously conceived as it is shocking. Bold, bloody, and brilliant, this is Tess Gerritsen’s finest achievement to date.

“An old mystery is crossed with a modern story in the latest from Gerritsen (The Mephisto Club, 2006, etc.).Julia Hamill, newly divorced and still smarting, purchases an old house outside Boston. Determined to dig a garden, she instead finds the bones of a long-dead woman–the apparent victim of murder–which starts her on a journey to ferret out the story behind her death. Julia connects with Henry, a no-nonsense 89-year-old with boxes of documents that once belonged to the now-deceased previous owner of Julia’s home. The two discover a mystery dating back to the 1830s. At the heart of it is a baby named Meggie, born to the beautiful but doomed Irish chambermaid, Aurnia. Married to a man who cares nothing for her, Aurnia lays dying in a maternity ward with her sister, Rose, at her side. Rose, a spirited 17-year-old, takes Meggie to protect her from Aurnia’s husband, but soon finds herself the target of a bizarre manhunt. Someone is after the child–and Rose, as well, because she witnessed a horrifying murder. The body count piles up as Rose struggles to remain free of those who would take Meggie from her. Meanwhile, a young medical student becomes the chief suspect of the West End Reaper killings when he stumbles onto another terrible homicide. Although he fights the prospect, eventually he and Rose join forces to solve the murders and protect the baby at the heart of the mysterious deaths. Readers with delicate stomachs may find Gerritsen’s graphic descriptions of corpse dissection hard to take, but the story, which digs up a dark Boston of times long past, entices readers to keep turning pages long after their bedtimes.”

I found Gerritsen’s depiction to be well-researched and accurate (at least, to my knowledge). This is Tess Gerritsen’s first stand-alone since she started her popular Dr. Maura Isles series. Though Dr. Isles does make a cameo appearance near the beginning of the story. There is always some trepidation when reading a stand-alone by a favorite series author but there is no reason for concern here. The characters are well developed; the plot is exciting and it has a shocking conclusion. Don’t let this one pass you by, give it whirl you won’t be disappointed.

Happy Reading

Sarah

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“Tommy was staring at her. Ginny looked down belatedly at his offered hand, and

realized with genuine shock that he was holding out his class ring.

“What the hell is that?” she blurted out.

Tommy recoiled, but quickly caught himself. “I know you’re surprised…”

“Darlene will carve out your heart with a spoon if she sees me wearing that.”

“Darlene doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Since when?”

“Since Saturday night, when I broke up with her.”

Ginny stared at him. “Why the hell would you do such a stupidass move like that?”

Tommy’s face darkened. He clearly hadn’t anticipated this reaction, but once again, he

forged ahead. “Ginny, darlin’, I don’t think you understand…”

“Oh, I understand just fine. Darlene is beautiful. Darlene has pretty clothes and her

daddy’s money and perfect lipstick, which naturally, she doesn’t want to smudge going down on

her hunky boyfriend.”

“You don’t need to put it that way,” Tommy said tightly.

“Put it what way? That precious little Darlene won’t swallow? So now you’ve

convinced yourself you’re in love with Little Miss White Trash?”

“Don’t say that—”

“Say what? The truth? I know who I am. Only one with shit for brains in this truck is

you. Now, I wanted a gold necklace and you promised me!”

“So that’s it? It’s all about the necklace?”

“’Course it is.””

Hello people! Guess what? There is a new release on July 15, 2008, it’s called Say Goodbye and it’s written by Lisa Gardner.

Come into my parlor . . .

For Kimberly Quincy, FBI Special Agent, it all starts with a pregnant hooker. The story Delilah Rose tells Kimberly about her johns is too horrifying to be true—but prostitutes are disappearing, one by one, with no explanation, and no one but Kimberly seems to care.

Said the spider to the fly . . .

As a member of the Evidence Response Team, dead hookers aren’t exactly Kimberly’s specialty. The young agent is five months pregnant—she has other things to worry about than an alleged lunatic who uses spiders to do his dirty work. But Kimberly’s own mother and sister were victims of a serial killer. And now, without any bodies and with precious few clues, it’s all too clear that a serial killer has found the key to the perfect murder . . . or Kimberly is chasing a crime that never happened.

Kimberly’s caught in a web more lethal than any spider’s, and the more she fights for answers, the more tightly she’s trapped. What she doesn’t know is that she’s close—too close—to a psychopath who makes women’s nightmares come alive, and if he has his twisted way, it won’t be long before it’s time for Kimberly to . . .

From what everyone is saying this looks to be another chilling hit for Gardner; I hope they are right I am intrigued and I’m going to pick up my copy. How about you?

Happy Reading

Sarah

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“Babies die. People vanish. People die. Babies vanish.

I was hammered early by those truths. Sure, I had a kid’s understanding that mortal life ends. At school, the nuns talked of heaven, purgatory, limbo, and hell. I knew my elders would “pass.” That’s how my family skirted the subject. People passed. Went to be with God. Rested in peace. So I accepted, in some ill-formed way, that earthly life was temporary. Nevertheless, the deaths of my father and baby brother slammed me hard.

And Évangéline Landry’s disappearance simply had no explanation.

But I jump ahead.

It happened like this.

As a little girl, I lived on Chicago’s South Side, in the less fashionable outer spiral of a neighborhood called Beverly. Developed as a country retreat for the city’s elite following the Great Fire of 1871, the hood featured wide lawns and large elms, and Irish Catholic clans whose family trees had more branches than the elms. A bit down-at-the-heels then, Beverly would later be gentrified by boomers seeking greenery within proximity of the Loop.

A farmhouse by birth, our home predated all its neighbors. Green-shuttered white frame, it had a wraparound porch, an old pump in back, and a garage that once housed horses and cows.

My memories of that time and place are happy. In cold weather, neighborhood kids skated on a rink created with garden hoses on an empty lot. Daddy would steady me on my double blades, clean slush from my snowsuit when I took a header. In summer, we played kick ball, tag, or Red Rover in the street. My sister, Harry, and I trapped fireflies in jars with hole-punched lids.”

A little bit of murder mixed with a touch of mystery and add a whole lot of forensic science and you have Bones to Ashes written by Kathy Reichs. This is her 10^th Temperance Brennan forensic thriller. Her books have also inspired the hit T.V. show Bones.

As a child, she was told to forget about the missing girl. But some memories don’t die….

The discovery of a skeleton in Acadia, Canada, reawakens a traumatic episode for forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan: Could the young girl’s remains be those of Évangéline Landry, Tempe’s friend who disappeared when Tempe was twelve? Exotic, free-spirited, and slightly older, Évangéline enlivened Tempe’s summer beach visits…then vanished amid whispers that she was “dangerous.” Now, faced with bones scarred with inexplicable lesions, Tempe is consumed with solving a decades-old mystery — while her lover, detective Andrew Ryan, urgently needs her attention on a wave of teenage abductions and murders. With both Ryan and her ex-husband making surprising future plans, Tempe may soon find that her world has painfully and irrevocably changed once again.

This book is not for the faint of heart; it deals with dark subject matters and may offend some people, but if you can get past that you end up with a fast passed plot and wonderfully balanced and witty dialogue. This is another hit for Reichs and here is hoping that she continues to produce well thought out books.

Happy Reading

Sarah

Thank you Amazon for the picture

“A.D. 398

Mount Parnassus

Greece

They had come to slay her.

The woman stood at the temple’s portico. She shivered in her thin garment, a simple shift of white linen belted at the waist, but it was not the cold of predawn that iced her bones.

Below, a torchlight procession flowed up the slopes of Mount Parnassus like a river of fire. It followed the stone-paved road of the Sacred Way, climbing in switchbacks up toward the temple of Apollo. The beat of sword on shield accompanied their progress, a full cohort of the Roman legion, five hundred strong. The road wound through broken monuments and long ransacked treasuries. Whatever could burn had been set to torch.”

Another weekend has come and gone; my pile of books is getting low. My Hunny came home over the weekend bringing me a prezzie and I love prezzies what did he bring me why a book of course. I wasn’t too sure about this one though; The Last Oracle is another installment of the Sigma series which is written by James Rollins and just hit book stores on June 24, 2008.

James Rollins is not only New York Times, USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestselling author of The Judas Strain, Black Order, Map of Bones and other adventure thrillers; he also is a veterinarian with his own practice and if that is not enough he is also an amateur spelunker and scuba diver. Talk about a busy man.

What if you could bio-engineer the next great world prophet: scientifically produce the next Buddha, the next Muhammad, or even the next Jesus? Would it mark the Second Coming or initiate a chain reaction with disastrous consequences?

A master at combining historical and religious intrigue with edge-of-your-seat adventure, New York Times bestselling author James Rollins brings back SIGMA Force to battle a group of rogue scientists who’ve unleashed a bioengineering project that could bring about the extinction of humankind.

From ancient Greek temples to glittering mausoleums, from the slums of India to the toxic ruins of Russia, two men must race against time to solve a mystery that dates back to the first famous oracle of history — the Greek Oracle of Delphi.

If you are a fan of fast-paced and thrilling action then this book is for you, if you are a Rollins fan you won’t want to miss this new installment and if you have never read anything written by Rollins then get out from under your rock and get a copy.

Happy Reading

Sarah

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“She thought she swallowed because her throat burned hot, as if splashed with sharp acid, but she wasn’t sure because she couldn’t think clearly. Her mind felt dark, as heavy and thick as chains, and she knew the darkness was deep as well, and knew to her soul there was violence just beyond it. She smelled something rancid, oil with a layer of rot and decay. What was that smell? What did it mean? Her brain wasn’t clear enough yet to figure it out. But she knew she had to, had to fight it or—what? I’ll die, that’s what. I’ve got to get myself together, I’ve got to wake up, or I’ll die.”

How many of us like a good secret a little mayhem and a good murder to solve? That would be me and a few of you I bet. So what case are we going to try and solve this time? Why Tailspin written by Catherine Coulter.

FBI Special Agent Jackson Crowne is flying his Cessna over the Appalachians, with a very important passenger: renowned psychiatrist Dr. Timothy MacLean; their destination is Washington, D.C. Upon their arrival, the FBI will protect the doctor—and ascertain just who wants him dead.

But they don’t make it.

In San Francisco, married FBI Special Agents Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock take an early morning phone call from their supervisor, Jimmy Maitland. Maitland received a Mayday from Jackson in the mountains near Parlow, Kentucky, and sends Savich and Sherlock to see what’s happened.

Agent Crowne is able to bring his plane down in a narrow valley and haul the unconscious Dr. MacLean from the burning wreckage before it explodes. Their crash is witnessed by Rachael Abbott, a young woman on the run after the mysterious death of her father. When Savich and Sherlock arrive on the scene, they find Jackson and Rachael in the Parlow clinic and Dr. MacLean comatose in the local hospital, prognosis unknown. What they do know frightens them: Dr. MacLean was recently diagnosed with frontal lobe dementia, and in the months prior to the crash his behavior had become erratic and alarmingly uninhibited, his ability to maintain doctor-patient confidentiality badly compromised. With a patient list made up of Washington movers and shakers, MacLean’s role as a keeper of secrets is jeopardized as well. Is there someone out there so desperate that they’d kill the doctor for what he knows? It is up to Jackson, Savich, and Sherlock to find out—no matter the cost.

If you are a fan of Coulter then you won’t be disappointed and even if you are not a fan you will still enjoy Tailspin. This is a great book to read on your day off or when you go on vacation. It’s also perfect for rainy days…O.K. who am I kidding it’s a great read any time of the day under any type of weather.

Happy Reading

Sarah