This is a light, fun read.
Chloe Carter has a great new boyfriend, Josh. Josh is a chef who recently took a job with a new restaurant. “new” as in, hasn’t opened yet. He’s busily preparing menus, hiring and training staff while preparing for the Grand Opening. The owner of the restaurant arranged for Josh to be the caterer at a gallery opening - where a competitor was murdered using one of Josh’s pieces of equipment. Luckily, Josh isn’t a suspect but then … who did it? While dodging her sister’s attempts to reunite her with an old boyfriend and working at her social work field placement, Chloe manages to find time to investigate the murder.
Simmer Down isn’t destined to be A Classic, but it is an entertaining book and the authors avoided most of the cliches that go along with the genre. If you’re a fan of “chick lit” and/or mysteries, you’ll probably enjoy this.
I loved Little Women when I was a child. I think I read it about 10 times. This book is another side to that story. Why were the Marches so poor? Was Marmee really that saintly? What was their father doing during the story? We know he was gone to war and that’s all. “March” fills in the gaps.
The only thing that I didn’t like was that the story changes from Mr. March to Mrs. March but the narrator doesn’t change and doesn’t indicate the change, nor when he returns to the voice of Mr. MArch. It’s only confusing for a minute but I think a segue would have helped.
I’d like to add that I read the Kalamazoo Gazette nearly every day, too. It’s a wonder I have time to do anything besides read when you look at this list plus the books I read.
March 31 Time
March 31 Newsweek
Spring 2008 Real Simple Travel
April 3 Between the Lines
October 2007 Guideposts
December 2007 Guideposts
January 2008 Guideposts
March 2008 Guideposts
April 2008 Guideposts
March 2008 Elle
Spring 2008 O, At Home
Jan/Feb 2008 Cookbook Digest
April 1, 2008 The NonProfit Times
April 7, 2008 Between the Lines
April 10, 2008 Between the Lines
April 17, 2008 Between the Lines
April 2008 Domino
“Good in Bed” is one of my Top Ten Favorite Books of All Time. It’s funny, it’s all about various relationships and there are even lesbians in it. Over the years, I’ve wondered whatever happened to Cannie Shapiro and Joy?
Well, Cannie turned into a scaredy cat housewife/closet writer and Joy turned into a typical teenager.
“Certain Girls” takes place 13 years after the end of “Good in Bed.” Cannie is married to Dr. K and Joy is in middle school, preparing for her bat mitzvah. We find out in flashbacks how they came to be here: how Cannie wrote her book, how she married, etc.
Cannie wrote a book right when Joy was about a year old and it became a best seller. Instantly, almost, she was famous. She had various problems related to that and never wrote another book under her own name. She did, however, write a series of sci-fi books for teens under a pen name. Now, it’s the 10th anniversary of her book and the publishers want to do some promotion. Add to that stress, Cannie’s relationship with Joy isn’t that great and then Joy reads Cannie’s book. Of course, Joy doesn’t tell Cannie or ask her about it – she tries to gather facts from Cannie’s friends and family and long-ago acquaintances.
The book’s ending ticked me off but over all it was good. Not as good as “Good in Bed” but still good. It was funny and once or twice made me cry.
This is the first of a series but not Briggs’ first book. Mercy Thompson is a walker - not a wereanimal but a shapeshifter - a coyote. She’s all too involved with the werewolves, not to mention the local vampires.
It’s a good story, full of action but occasionally it’s hard to track who is who. Perhaps it’s because I forgot my Adderall today. In any event, there are 2 more, thus far, in the series and I’ll likely read both “Blood Bound” (about a sorcerer turned vampire) and ”Iron Kissed” (about Mercy’s friend Zee.)
This was another first book and overall not a bad beginning. I think there were some bad copyedits, but other than that, it’s fine. I doubt I’ll read the rest of them but this book was okay.
This is the first of the Southern Vampire series that I listened to on audio. It was weird, frankly. The narrator’s voice was nothing like I imagined Sookie.
The general story: Sookie is off to Chicago with Queen Sophie and the rest of the Louisiana vamps for a vampire summit. QS is going to be on trial for killing her husband, which she did not do. Sookie is going to read the minds of the humans to help QS decide who’s up to what.
Sookie tries to balance being with Quinn, avoiding Eric and Bill and doing here work for Queen Sophie. While they are there, other vampires wind up dead, humans have all kinds of problems and there is a group of anti-vampire protesters causing problems. Actually, fairly big problems. Sookie winds up letting humans see that she is a telepath, which winds up causing her big problems.
This was probably my favorite of the Southern Vampire series. The storyline was attention getting and there were more developed relationships with Sookie and Quinn and Eric.
Jaime Vegas, who we originally met in Industrial Magic, is the narrator for this book in the Women of the Otherworld series. Jaime is a necromancer which means that she can communicate with the dead. In some books, like Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series, a necromancer doesn’t talk to ghosts, she raises and controls the dead. Hamilton’s Anita Blake is that sort of necromancer. Jaime CAN raise the dead but it’s not something she does routinely. In fact, though she knows it’s possible, it’s in NHI that she raises her first dead person.
The story begins with Jaime being invited to participate in a television special about “spiritualists” who claim they can talk to the dead. The show’s producers want Jaime, and 2 others, to have a séance and find out who or what killed Marilyn Monroe. Jaime is the only one among the three who is actually “gifted.” Things begin to go awry, however, when Jaime is pestered by a type of ghost she has never encounted. With the help of Eve, Kristof, Jeremy and a new character, Hope, Jaime helps these ghosts.
No Humans Involved was more of a page turner than other books. Armstrong more fully developed characters from previous books. Jeremy, for instance. The reader learns a lot about Jeremy and why he is the way he is.
At the risk of sounding too much like a fan, this series just keeps getting better and better.
I had sort of decided that l wouldn’t write anything too bad about anyone but then I remembered … I write *this* blog for me, and me alone, so no worries.
This book was a first book but so badly done I can’t bring myself to read the rest of them. The plot was okay and I actually wasn’t sure of “whodunit” until close to the end but getting there was torturous. I kept reading thinking that perhaps it would get better. It didn’t.
I couldn’t do any better, but really, I can’t read any more of Jackson’s books. Sadly. I was hoping I’d found a new writer.
Elena is the only female werewolf. Werewolves are either born with the gene – and it’s only passed to boys – or bitten and women usually die. Except Elena. Elena was Bitten but she lived.
The pregnancy is troubling – there hasn’t been a werewolf pregnancy so no one knows what to expect. It would be an understatement to say she was bored witless, so when something comes up that requires her expertise – and seems harmless – she jumps at it.
Of course, it isn’t harmless. Elena inadvertently opens a time portal and a serial killer and 2 zombies are loose in Toronto. Elena, Clay and Jeremy stay in Toronto to try to send the serial killer and his zombies back. Along the way, they ask Zoe, a vampire, and Jaime, the necromancer, for help. For some reason, the serial killer and his zombies are targeting Elena specifically. The Pack and its friends have to find out why and what to do to close the time portal.
The ending is nearly saccharine but the reader – at least this reader – can’t help but cheer for Elena and Clay.
