Category: B

AUTHOR, B, Book Review, Fiction, Read in 2009, READING CHALLENGES 2008

REVIEW: Dancing with Ana by Nicole Barker

Tara

Dancing with Ana
by Nicole Barker

Copyright: 2009
Pages: 170
Rating: 4.5/5
Read: Aug. 3, 2009
Challenge:  2009 100+ Reading Challenge; A Well-Rounded Challenge; Countdown Challenge
Yearly Count: 39

First Line: “Christine McCady’s hair is especially shiny today,” Jenny told the three girls sitting with her at the lunch table.

Four sixteen-year-old friends, Beth, Jenny, Rachel and Melanie are struggling to find out who they are as young women. And they’re also struggling with the fact that there’s always going to be someone skinnier, someone prettier, someone with better hair, the list can go on and on. But for Beth, life is going especially tough for her and she hasn’t even really realized it yet. Her father has left their family for a younger woman, she’s falling in love with her best friend, and she is determined to get down to her “target” weight of 110 pounds. She’s so determined that she has enlisted the help of her closest friends to diet together. But their diets are dangerous – they’re hardly eating. The horrible headaches and dizziness finally makes Beth’s friends realize that they have no business dieting like they’re doing. But Beth is determined. However, when she hits 110 pounds, she realizes that she’s not as happy as she had expected to be. In fact, she’s actually even more depressed. But as she keeps going, her friends and new boyfriend are finally able to step in and help her realize that she doesn’t need to do all this dieting in order to be pretty and happy.

I’m going to include a small selection from page 164 that really highlights what has been going on with Beth. The first girl talking in this blurb is Christine, McCady, the most popular girl in school.

She paused at the door. “By the way, love what you’ve done with yourself. Ten more pounds and you’ll be super hot!”

And she was gone.

Beth looked at herself in the mirror, and for the first time, saw the dark smudges under her eyes. Her hair hung loose, laying flat against her head. Her skin was very pale. Hesitantly, she lifted her oversized t-shirt, exposing her stomach. All of her ribs showed, and her stomach was sunken in. For the first time, she saw how frail her arms looked.

She also finally saw how she’d chosen to deal with her father’s abandonment … by destroying herself.

I was contacted directly by the author, Nicole Barker, to read and review this book. I received it in the mail yesterday and sat down with it last night and read it in one sitting. It was that good. I could really relate with Beth’s character; I was a milder version of her my junior year in high school. Barker’s descriptions of the new love that all four of the girls finally began to experience reminded me of those first few months of young love with my husband when we were in high school. I find it kind of ironic that at the age of 24 I find myself enjoying YA reads, whereas when I was 15 or 16 and should have read a book like this I wanted no part of them. I honestly believe that women of all ages could really relate to the girls in this story, I highly recommend this book to everyone.

AUTHOR, B, Book Review, Cotton Malone, Fiction, Read in 2009, READING CHALLENGES 2008, SERIES

The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry

Tara

The Templar Legacy
by Steve Berry

Copyright: 2006
Pages: 475
Rating: 5/5
Read: June 3-7, 2009
Challenge:  2009 100+ Reading Challenge; Countdown Challenge; 1st in a Series Challenge; Suspense & Thriller Challenge – Religious thriller subcategory
Yearly Count: 27

First Line: Jacques De Molay sought death, but knew salvation would never be offered.

Cotton Malone, once an agent for the US Justice Department, is enjoying a peaceful life in Copenhagen as a antiquarian book dealer. But all of that changes when his former boss tries to meet up with him while she is on vacation. However, he finds out rather quickly that she is not on vacation; she is not an any type of operation, but she is up to something. As he sets out to figure out what it is that his former boss does not want to let him in on, he quickly finds himself involved in an ancient puzzle that has mystified scholars for ages. The more involved he finds himself, the more dangers the stakes become, and the more intrigued Cotton Malone becomes. For there is one very powerful man who will stop at nothing to get what he wants, even with Cotton in his way.

I’ve been keeping my eye on this book for a while, but I had been slightly unsure about reading it. However, after seeing Angels & Demons in the theater, my interest in this type of book has been renewed (I also have Angels & Demons waiting anxiously on my TBR pile for me). So I checked this book out of the library the last time I was there. And let me tell you – I was absolutely hooked on this book from about page one!! I loved it. I loved the historical/religious aspect of it intertwined with the fast paced race-around-the-clock action!! I highly recommend this book if you haven’t read it yet!

B, Book Review, Fiction, Read in 2009

The Broken Parachute Man by Robert B. Bolin

Tara

The Broken Parachute Man
by Robert B. Bolin

Copyright: 2008
Pages: 292
Rating: 4/5
Read: April 3-10, 2009
Challenge:  2009 100+ Reading Challenge
Yearly Count: 18

First Line: I’ve always wanted to be what I am not.

Pharmaceutical companye executive Clyde Young boards an airplane to go to a meeting. The flight should have been routine. It ended up being anything but routine. His plane has been hijacked by terrorists. And what’s worse is that Clyde is thrown from the plane with a barely operable parachute because he wouldn’t listen to the terrorists. Surviving the wilderness that he is stuck in when he finally gets back to civilization no one seems to believe his story. People assume that he was one of the terrorists. On the run to Las Vegas he is on the hunt for who really was behind the hijacking and why it seems that he was targeted. He lives on the street and the only people that will believe his story are a sociopath, a prostitute, an alcoholic doctor, and a pickpocket. But these four people travel with him in order to fight for him. As Clyde continues to investigate what was really going on he realizes that the pharmaceutical company that he worked for is doing unimaginable things that are endangering the lives of numerous innocent people. So Clyde must act quickly to get to the bottom of things and stop what is really going on before someone stops him first.

As a general rule, medical-ish books are not my cup of tea. However, I liked this one. This is definitely a book that I would recommend to others to give it a try. I would like to thank Elizabeth McCurry with Phenix & Phenix Publicists as well as Mr. Bolin for allowing me to receive a copy of this book for review.

AUTHOR, B, Book Review, Fiction, Read in 2008

White Hot by Sandra Brown

Tara
White Hot
by Sandra Brown

Copyright: 2004
Pages: 579
Rating: 4/5
Read: Oct. 11-16, 2008
Challenge: No challenge; personal read

First Line: Some said that if he was going to kill himself, he couldn’t have picked a better day for it.

When Sayre Lynch’s little brother, Danny, commits suicide, Sayre breaks her vow that she would never return to her hometown. She comes back for the funeral. But what she finds when she gets back is that nothing has really changed. Her father is still a tyrant who owns the iron foundry, her other brother is still running the place, but they have hired a lawyer by the name of Beck Merchant. It is Beck that sort of reaches out to Sayre when she first gets there – but is he doing that because her father ordered him to or is it for other reasons…. either way, what she will find in her little hometown will end up surprising her.

I really enjoyed this book. I read a lot of it on a plane ride, and it was perfect for that! The pages just fly by once you get into it. And the ending is really great, I highly recommend this book!!

AUTHOR, B, Book Review, Fiction, Read in 2008

The Witness by Sandra Brown

Tara
The Witness
by Sandra Brown

Copyright: 2006
Pages: 428
Rating: 4/5
Read: Sept. 21-25, 2008
Challenge: Triple Eight – From my TBR category

First Line: The infant’s mouth sucked as his mother’s breast.

When Kendall Deaton pulls herself and her baby out of a wrecked car, she does what any caring person would do: she saves the man she was riding in the car with. But when she gets to the hospital she realizes that she cannot under any circumstances reveal her true identity and that the accident just might have been a blessing in disguise. Having been the public defender in Prosper, South Carolina the past couple of years she never would have imagined what she would stumble upon while out in the woods trying to locate her husband so that they could make up after a horrendous fight. As a mother who only wants to protect her baby’s life, she is forced to become a reluctant witness against some of Prosper’s most powerful men. The only question is whether Kendall will make it out alive or if someone will track her down and silence her forever.

Okay, this book got my attention pretty quickly. It really picked up pace about halfway through. But I’m going to be honest here, the ending was really strange. And I’m talking about coming out of left field strange. But overall I really enjoyed this book a lot and I really recommend it to others as well!!

3/5, AUTHOR, B, Book Review, Nonfiction, Read in 2008

Blood Brother by Anne Bird

Tara
Blood Brothers: 33 Reasons My Broher Scott Peterson is Guilty
by Anne Bird
Copyright: 2005
Pages: 211
Rating: 3/5
Read: July 22-24, 2008
Challenge: Triple Eight – True Crime Category

First Line: On a quiet midweek afternoon in early June 1997, I received a phone call that almost destroyed my life.

Anne Bird is one of the two children that Jackie Peterson gave up as a young woman. When Anne first met Jackie and her family she was glad that it turned out the way that it did. When she meets the “Golden Boy” of the family, Scott, she takes to him immediately. If she had known when she first met her “new” family what was to come she probably would have been a little more cautious. But whatever the reason, she became caught up in the Scott Peterson investigation in a way that no person should ever have to. Her family ties make her want to prove everybody wrong about Scott but her instincts tell her that things just aren’t adding up.
This was probably not the best book on this subject. But I am glad that I read this one. It was interesting to see it from this point of view. She was a part of the family and then yet again she really wasn’t because her adoptive family was the family that she really knew and trusted. And yet I understood why she was hesitant to believe that Scott could have done such a thing as kill his wife and unborn child. I am very interested in everything about this trial, having watched it all unfold daily. But like I said, not the best book to read regarding this case, but definitely worth your time.
3/5, AUTHOR, B, Book Review, Fiction, Read in 2008

The Deadly Dance by M.C. Beaton

Tara
The Deadly Dance
by M.C. Beaton
Copyright: 2004
Pages: 233
Rating: 3/5
Read: June 7-8
Challenge: Title Master Challenge; Celebrate the Author Challenge; Initials Challenge

First Line: The thing that finally nudged Agatha Raisin into opening her own detective agency was what she always thought of as the Paris Incident.

After getting mugged in Paris, Agatha Raisin decides that she’s going to open up her own detective agency. Shortly thereafter she realizes that it’s not as the movies portray. She has to deal with missing pets and even finding a man’s son who has run off with his car (with the car being the most important thing to the man). But when Catherine Laggat-Brown walks in and states that there has been a death threat made on her daughter, things finally begin to heat up for the agency and Raisin. It will take all Agatha has and will even put herself into danger in order to get to the bottom of this case.
This was just an okay book for me. It was a little what I consider fluffier than what I normally read. It was a nice break from my “harder” reading, but I’m definitely not rushing out to look for the other books in this series, but I’m glad I gave her a try.
4/5, AUTHOR, B, Book Review, Fiction, Read in 2008

The Assassin by Andrew Britton

Tara
The Assassin
by Andrew Britton
Copyright: 2007
Pages: 586
Rating: 4/5
Read: Feb. 23-28, 2008
Challenge: Suspense & Thriller Challenge – political thriller; Triple Eight – 500+ pages category

First Line: Anita Zaid folded her arms as she glared across the cavernous lobby of the Babylon Hotel.

There is an explosion at the Babylon Hotel. A high ranking Iraqi official is critically wounded. Another attack is made on another high ranking Iraqi official. For CIA Agent Ryan Kealey, it can only mean one thing: someone is trying to take over by disposing of these people. But for Kealey, it becomes a little more personal. In his quest to find the truth, he runs across the madman who killed his fiancee the year before. The same madman, coincidentally, that everyone thought was already dead. But in order to convince his superiors, Kealey has to risk his entire career in order to catch this man once and for all and to put a stop to what could possibly be the worst attack on American soil – one that would ultimately be worse than 9/11.
WOW! This book for me was really, really good! It started out for me kind of slowly. I was a little bogged down by all of the Iraqi names and places as well as the military terminology. But once I got used to it, the book went really quickly. It was high paced and enjoyable in the last 250 pages – which is where all the action is. I would recommend this book to those who do enjoy books of this nature. This was my first time reading a spyish-type political thriller, and I highly enjoyed it.
4/5, AUTHOR, B, Book Review, Fiction, Read in 2008

Darkness Peering by Alice Blanchard

Tara
Darkness Peering
by Alice Blanchard
Copyright: 1999
Pages: 316
Rating: 4/5
Read: Jan. 14-16, 2008
Challenge: No challenge; personal read
First Line: Police Chief Nalen Storrow found the dead girl lying faceup in a rust-colored runoff pond on the westernmost corner of Old Mo Heppenheimer’s cow pasture.
A young girl is found strangled in Flowering Dogwood, Maine. The investigation leads to the Police Chief’s son, Billy, as the only suspect. Almost twenty years later, the ex-Police Chief’s daughter, Rachel, now a police officer in Flowering Dogwood, wants to reopen the case. Soon after another young woman goes missing and turns up dead. And once again, Billy is the prime suspect. Will Rachel find that the truth would only hurt her in the end?
I enjoyed this book. I’ve never read anything by Blanchard, but I was thoroughly impressed by her writing. I found myself turning the pages quickly only to realize that at the end the killer came out of left field (with a few subtly laid clues which I of course missed!). I recommend this book to anyone! I really enjoyed it!!