From Publishers Weekly
Martinez's effervescent debut thriller comes on like a series pilot, with a winning heroine and a large cast of colorful supporting characters drawn in broad strokes and primed for future episodes. Young, ambitious Melanie Vargas, a federal prosecutor in Manhattan gets the big break of her career almost by mistake: she's pushing her baby daughter through the nighttime streets when she walks into a crime scene. A fire has nearly destroyed the house of hotshot attorney Jed Benson, and cops are everywhere. Melanie fast-talks her way into the apartment where Benson has been brutally murdered. Melanie desperately wants the case - and she has to fight to get it - but she's hard-pressed to put in the hours it requires. She's booted out philandering husband Steve, a development she has yet to disclose to her nosy sister or her meddling mom, and she has a prima donna nanny. Martinez gives equal time to Melanie's balancing act and the complicated case, which begins as a probe of the C-Trout Gangsta Blades gang, but widens to include Benson's white-shoe law firm. Though still contemplating reconciliation with Steve, Melanie finds herself drawn to FBI agent Dan O'Reilly. The plot doesn't quite gel, but Martinez has crafted an enormously appealing heroine and a breezy, entertaining tale. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
My Thoughts:
This was recommended by separateptz on the GoodHousekeeping's Book Club Board. It was great. They plot itself kept twisting and turning so fast you really couldn't figure out who did what. The ending was perfect, but leads you to believe there should be a book after this. I am going to look into that.
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
"The Magic of Recluce" by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.
From Publishers Weekly
The battle between good, denoted by order, and evil, represented by chaos, underlies this promising coming-of-age fantasy. The youth Lerris, a skeptical misfit, is sent on a journey designed to determine whether he will ever be capable of serving his native land, Recluce, a haven of perfection surrounded by chaos. During training, Lerris is told he is a potential order-master, a possible high-level wizard, who must probe his inner self and discover his powers before he can return home. In war-torn Candar, he finds himself hunted as a rogue wizard and narrowly escapes destruction at the hands of the evil wizard Antonin. Apprenticed to a woodworking genius, Lerris comes to the aid of his ailing master, rebuilding his business and arranging the future of the family. Lerris's acceptance of responsibility and respect for order enable the development of his powers, and his use of order-magic against Antonin leads to a confrontation between the two. Modesitt ( The Ecolitan Matter ) creates a complex world based on a plausible system of magic and peopled with engaging and realistic characters. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
My Thoughts:
I loved this book! I seem to be in a mode of reading more fantasy books, and this one was great. I cannot wait to read more in the series!
The battle between good, denoted by order, and evil, represented by chaos, underlies this promising coming-of-age fantasy. The youth Lerris, a skeptical misfit, is sent on a journey designed to determine whether he will ever be capable of serving his native land, Recluce, a haven of perfection surrounded by chaos. During training, Lerris is told he is a potential order-master, a possible high-level wizard, who must probe his inner self and discover his powers before he can return home. In war-torn Candar, he finds himself hunted as a rogue wizard and narrowly escapes destruction at the hands of the evil wizard Antonin. Apprenticed to a woodworking genius, Lerris comes to the aid of his ailing master, rebuilding his business and arranging the future of the family. Lerris's acceptance of responsibility and respect for order enable the development of his powers, and his use of order-magic against Antonin leads to a confrontation between the two. Modesitt ( The Ecolitan Matter ) creates a complex world based on a plausible system of magic and peopled with engaging and realistic characters. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
My Thoughts:
I loved this book! I seem to be in a mode of reading more fantasy books, and this one was great. I cannot wait to read more in the series!
Monday, February 13, 2006
"Immortal in Death" by J.D. Robb
From Publishers Weekly
The third, and arguably best, book in Robb's futuristic In Death series here receives its first unabridged audio treatment (the abridged version was offered in 2001 by Brilliance), and the result is a brisk listen that captures all the suspense of this murder mystery. Ericksen gives tough cop Eve Dallas a hard, no-nonsense tone and nails her fiancé Roarke's Irish lilt beautifully. She also deftly portrays Eve's softer side, which comes out when she's forced to arrest her friend Mavis for the murder of a supermodel named Pandora. Eve knows Mavis couldn't have killed Pandora, even though she stood in the way of Mavis and her boyfriend, fashion designer Leonardo. But the evidence—Mavis is found at the scene of the crime, sporting scratch marks from Pandora—seems unequivocal. In the course of Eve's investigation, listeners meet a number of intriguing characters, including a designer with a map tattooed onto his skull, a grumpy horticulturist and a slinky, lifelike drone (i.e., android). Although Ericksen's portrayal of some of these personas can be exaggerated, on the whole, she does an excellent job conveying the primary characters and matching the pace of this taut yarn. Based on the Berkley paperback. (Nov.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
My Thoughts:
I loved this one, but I loved all the others I have read. I was VERY shocked to find out who it was thought. Can you guess??
The third, and arguably best, book in Robb's futuristic In Death series here receives its first unabridged audio treatment (the abridged version was offered in 2001 by Brilliance), and the result is a brisk listen that captures all the suspense of this murder mystery. Ericksen gives tough cop Eve Dallas a hard, no-nonsense tone and nails her fiancé Roarke's Irish lilt beautifully. She also deftly portrays Eve's softer side, which comes out when she's forced to arrest her friend Mavis for the murder of a supermodel named Pandora. Eve knows Mavis couldn't have killed Pandora, even though she stood in the way of Mavis and her boyfriend, fashion designer Leonardo. But the evidence—Mavis is found at the scene of the crime, sporting scratch marks from Pandora—seems unequivocal. In the course of Eve's investigation, listeners meet a number of intriguing characters, including a designer with a map tattooed onto his skull, a grumpy horticulturist and a slinky, lifelike drone (i.e., android). Although Ericksen's portrayal of some of these personas can be exaggerated, on the whole, she does an excellent job conveying the primary characters and matching the pace of this taut yarn. Based on the Berkley paperback. (Nov.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.
My Thoughts:
I loved this one, but I loved all the others I have read. I was VERY shocked to find out who it was thought. Can you guess??
Sunday, February 05, 2006
"Diving Through Clouds" by Nicola Lindsay
From Booklist
Like Alice Sebold's best-seller, The Lovely Bones (2002), Lindsay's novel is set in heaven, and like Sebold, Lindsay makes the afterlife believable and robust, though her book lacks the dark contours and subject matter of Sebold's. Instead, it is touching, humorous, and ultimately sweet. Fiftysomething cancer patient Kate Fitzgerald lies in a hospital bed in contemporary Ireland, hovering in a limbo in which she can flit through the lives of those she has touched, listening and watching as the messiness of daily living unravels, and trying to look back objectively at the triumphs and the mistakes of her own life. She learns that her emotionally distant husband has been having a decade-long affair with her best friend, and she recalls with guiltless joy her own short-lived affair with a gardener while her husband was on an American lecture tour. She also intervenes in the life of her estranged daughter and plays a crucial role at a particular moment in her French grandson's life. A lovely, enjoyable read. June SawyersCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
My Thoughts
I would not have compared this to "The Lovely Bones" at all. The ONLY similarity is that they take place from Heaven, but the similarities end there. "The Lovely Bones" was much darker and this was light and humourous. I loved this book, and would recommend it to anyone who has recently suffered a loss. Kate's antics at the beginning of the novel have you laughing aloud!
Like Alice Sebold's best-seller, The Lovely Bones (2002), Lindsay's novel is set in heaven, and like Sebold, Lindsay makes the afterlife believable and robust, though her book lacks the dark contours and subject matter of Sebold's. Instead, it is touching, humorous, and ultimately sweet. Fiftysomething cancer patient Kate Fitzgerald lies in a hospital bed in contemporary Ireland, hovering in a limbo in which she can flit through the lives of those she has touched, listening and watching as the messiness of daily living unravels, and trying to look back objectively at the triumphs and the mistakes of her own life. She learns that her emotionally distant husband has been having a decade-long affair with her best friend, and she recalls with guiltless joy her own short-lived affair with a gardener while her husband was on an American lecture tour. She also intervenes in the life of her estranged daughter and plays a crucial role at a particular moment in her French grandson's life. A lovely, enjoyable read. June SawyersCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
My Thoughts
I would not have compared this to "The Lovely Bones" at all. The ONLY similarity is that they take place from Heaven, but the similarities end there. "The Lovely Bones" was much darker and this was light and humourous. I loved this book, and would recommend it to anyone who has recently suffered a loss. Kate's antics at the beginning of the novel have you laughing aloud!
Friday, February 03, 2006
"Light on Snow" by Anita Shreve
From Publishers Weekly
An after-school stroll leads to a life-altering event for widower Robert Dillon and his 12-year-old daughter, Nicky, in this delicate new novel by acclaimed author Shreve (All He Ever Wanted,etc.). In the woods surrounding their secluded home in Shepherd, N.H., Robert and Nicky make a startling discovery—a baby abandoned and left to die in the snow. The infant survives, but the incident leaves its mark. Still recovering from the painful loss of her mother and infant sister two years earlier, and readjusting to the shock of a sudden move from suburban Westchester to rural Shepherd, Nicky struggles to reconcile her innocent notions of adult integrity with the bleak reality of their discovery. The tenuous sense of normalcy Robert manages to sustain is broken with the appearance of Charlotte, the baby's young mother, on his doorstep. Retold 18 years later by an adult Nicky but written in the present tense, the story shifts brilliantly between childlike visions of a simple world and the growing realization of its cruel ambiguities. Aside from a few saccharine moments and a rather pat ending, Shreve does a skilled job of portraying grief, conflict and anger while leaving room for hope, redemption and renewal. Her characters are sympathetic without being pitiable, and her prose remains deceptively simple and eloquent throughout. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
My Thoughts
I absolutely loved this book. It was moving and heartwarming. We follow Nicky as she comes of age, and learns things she didn't want to know about the adult world. The situation was possible in real life, and I think that made this book all the more poignant because of it. Shreve is an excellent author.
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