73. Breaking Dawn

By: Stephanie Meyer
Rated: 4 1/2 Stars
From: Library

This book made me feel very squeamish in parts. Think Rosemary's Baby. In spite of that I really enjoyed it.

FROM LIBRARY DESCRIPTION: When you loved the one who was killing you, it left you no options. How could you run, how could you fight, when doing so would hurt that beloved one? If your life was all you had to give, how could you not give it? If it was someone you truly loved? To be irrevocably in love with a vampire is both fantasy and nightmare woven into a dangerously heightened reality for Bella Swan. Pulled in one direction by her intense passion for Edward Cullen, and in another by her profound connection to werewolf Jacob Black, a tumultuous year of temptation, loss, and strife have led her to the ultimate turning point. Her imminent choice to either join the dark but seductive world of immortals or to pursue a fully human life has become the thread from which the fates of two tribes hangs. Now that Bella has made her decision, a startling chain of unprecedented events is about to unfold with potentially devastating, and unfathomable, consequences. Just when the frayed strands of Bella's life-first discovered inTwilight, then scattered and torn inNew MoonandEclipse-seem ready to heal and knit together, could they be destroyed... forever?

72. Where The River Ends

By Charles Martin
Rated 4 1/2 Stars
From: Library

This book ended up being so much better than I thought it was going to be. When I put it on my reserve list I had something like one of Nicholas Sparks books in mind but had high hopes it would be a little better. Not all that much, but some better.

I was wrong. This was a very good book. Doss not only has his wife's cancer to worry about but also has to battle her family every inch of the way in order to give her the kind of ending of her life that she wants.

He was a fishing guide and struggling artist from a south George trailer park. She was the beautiful only child of South Carolina's most powerful senator. Yet once Doss Michaels and Abigail Grace Coleman met by accident, they each felt they'd found their true soul mate. Ten years into their marriage, when Abbie faces a life-threatening illness, Doss battles it with her every step of the way. And when she makes a list of ten things she hopes to accomplish before she loses the fight for good, Doss is there, too, supporting her and making everything possible. Together they steal away in the middle of the night to embark upon a 130-mile trip down the St. Mary's River--a voyage Doss promised Abbie in the early days of their courtship.

71. A Rather Curious Engagement

By C. A. Belmond
Rated 4 Stars
From Library

American freelancer-turned-heiress Penny Nichols is back for more fun and another engaging international romp with her English hero, Jeremy. Pursued by gigolos, gold-diggers, an ex-wife, and highly aggressive salesmen chasing after their millions, Penny and Jeremy decide to take the summer off and sock away most of their inheritance for one year. But they allow themselves one big "splurge" from their wish list-- and that's where all the trouble begins. At an auction on the French Riviera, Penny and Jeremy win much more than they bargain for, uncovering a centuries-old rivalry involving the theft of a priceless treasure linked to Beethoven's Germany, the mysterious island of Corsica, a luxurious 1920s yacht, and a medieval castle on Lake Como, Italy.--From publisher description.

70. Letters From Nuremburg

By Christopher J. Dodd
Rated 4 1/2 Stars

The Nuremberg trials demonstrated the resolve of the Allied victors of the Second World War to uphold the principles of dispassionate justice and the rule of law even when cries of vengeance threatened to carry the day. Thomas J. Dodd served as a staff lawyer in this unprecedented trial for crimes against humanity. Thanks to his agile legal mind and especially to his skills at interrogating the defendants, he quickly rose to become the number two prosecutor in the U.S. contingent. Over the course of 15 months, Dodd described his efforts and his vivid impressions of the proceedings in nightly letters to his wife, Grace. Unexamined for decades, these letters now remind us of the inspiration that good people across the world have long taken from that courtroom--and that fear and retribution are not the only bases for confrontation.--From publisher description.

69. Skeletons at the feast

By: Chris Bohjalian
Rated 5 Stars
From: Library

I am definitely in WWII mode this month. After I got my delicious stack of books from the library this morning I sort of closed my eyes and grabbed one because it was so hard to decided which one I wanted to read first. The one I picked was "Skeletons at the feast" that was recommended to me by Tammy, a friend on one of my internet groups. Here is her review for it http://www.historicalnovelsociety.org/editors-choice.htm She has done an excellent job of reviewing this book.

68. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

By: Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
Rated 5 Stars
From: Library


"January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she'd never met, a native of Guernsey, the British island once occupied by the Nazis. He'd come across her name on the flyleaf of a secondhand volume by Charles Lamb. Perhaps she could tell him where he might find more books by this author." "As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, she is drawn into the world of this man and his friends, all members of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a unique book club formed in a unique, spur-of-the-moment way: as an alibi to protect its members from arrest by the Germans." "Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the Society's charming, deeply human members, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all. Through their letters she learns about their island, their taste in books, and the powerful, transformative impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds there will change her forever." "Written with warmth and humor as a series of letters, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Vie Society is a celebration of the written word in all its guises, and of finding connection in the most surprising ways."--BOOK JACKET.

67. A Rather Lovely Inheritance

By C. A. Belmont
Rated 4 Stars
From: Library

I was in need of a light and easy read and this book was just the thing. Light, fun, and fluffy. The plot doesn't take too much scrutiny but if you can suspend your disbelief and just go along for the ride it is a pleasant way to spend a day.

FROM AMAZON: Penny Nichols, finds herself an heiress after her great aunt Penelope dies. Penny flies to London for the reading of Penelope's will and is met by her dashing cousin Jeremy, a barrister. Jeremy receives Penelope's luxurious French villa, while Penny is given her London flat and the contents of the villa's garage. Although their feckless cousin Rollo is well provided for, too, he is envious of his cousins' inheritances and drops a bombshell: Jeremy might not be a blood relation. The revelation sends Jeremy into a depressive funk, causing him to withdraw from Penny, who becomes determined to discover the truth. As she starts to dig into the family's history, the mystery takes her back several generations, and she realizes the connections among them all are more complex than she ever could have imagined. An entertaining yarn with family drama and intrigue aplenty

66. Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

By Paul Theroux
Rated 4 stars
From Library


This book get a 5 star review at amazon and is breathlessly reviewed on the site:


Amazon Best of the Month, August 2008: Way back in the dark pre-Internet, limited-air-travel world of 1975, the way to get from Europe to Asia was by train. A young and ambitious writer named Paul Theroux made his literary mark by taking the 28,000-mile intercontinental journey via rail from London to Tokyo and back home again. His book, The Great Railway Bazaar, became a travel-lit classic. Thirty years later, an older, wiser, and even less sanguine Theroux decided to retrace his steps. The result is Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, a fascinating account of the places you vaguely knew existed (Tbilisi), probably won't ever go to (Bangalore), but definitely should know something about (Mandalay). Get on board Theroux's fast-moving travelogue, which features some of the most astute commentary on our distorted notions of time, space, and each other in the age of jet speed, broadband connections, and cultural extinction. --Lauren Nemroff --

I am finding parts of this book beautifully written and then again parts of it are a little hard going for me. I just finished reading a 107 word sentence that shifted focus several times and IMO should have been several paragraphs if not chapters. Doesn't this man have an editor? But it is good book. Right now the author is wandering around the Republic of Georgia and you can't get much more topical than that.

65. Keep Your Mouth Shut and Wear Beige

By Kathleen Gilles Seidel
Rated 3 1/2 Stars
From Library

I have been a KGS fan for a long, long time. She wrote great, insightful, character driven romance novels. I own her entire romance back list and they have a permanent place on my keeper shelves.

However, she has moved on from the romance genre and started writing more main stream novels. I think they call it women's literature or some such thing. Her first one, An Uncommon Degree of Popularity was not much to get excited over. Readable, but only just. This one is a little better. Maybe by the next one she will have a handle on this new direction she wants to go in. Me, I just wish she would go back to romance where she really stood out.

Being the mother of the groom isn't quite a snap for divorced nurse Darcy Van Aiken in this gently humorous look at how an upcoming wedding upsets the delicate balance of family relationships. Darcy, a busy mother of three, gets along with ex-husband Mike, likes her oldest son Jeremy's bride-to-be and discovers an unexpected affinity for the bride's wealthy but down-to-earth mother. There's just one flaw in the ointment: Mike's new girlfriend, clothing designer Claudia Postlewaite, is determined use the wedding as a means to boost her professional and social standing. From the moment Claudia begins her campaign and cold-shoulders Darcy, there's trouble afoot, but instead of letting the book turn into a comic tug-of-war, Seidel (A Most Uncommon Degree of Popularity) reveals the traps people-and especially parents-set for themselves in their marriages and lives. The good (Darcy) vs. evil (Claudia) battle here is light, digestible and full of chuckle-inducing moments.

64. Lost on Planet China

By J. Maarten Troost
Rated 5 Stars
From: Library


FROM BOOK LIST:

Troost, who entertained readers in The Sex Lives of Cannibals (2004) with tales of life on a South Pacific island, now turns his attention to China. Settled in Sacramento, California, with his wife and two sons, Troost gets restless and floats the idea of moving his family to China. His wife is amenable, so he sets off to scout ahead. What he finds in Beijing is a crowded, smoggy city where something as simple as taking a walk can be a dangerous proposition, given the hazardous traffic. Troost visits one burgeoning industrial city after another, finding immense crowds, odd cuisine, piteous beggars, and masseuses offering sexual favors. He also discovers a country that firmly believes that it's on the edge of something big; in spite of a great divide between poor and rich, China is undergoing a tremendous push toward modernity. Troost's crisp, engaging prose invites the reader to experience his adventures right alongside him. At turns meditative, whimsical, humorous, and shocked, Troost is an excellent guide to the vast, multifaceted country that is modern-day China.

63. The Night Villa

By Carol Goodman
Rated: 5 Stars
From: Jani

FROM: AMAZON

In this complex and lyrical literary thriller from Goodman (The Sonnet Lover), University of Texas classics professor Sophie Chase, after barely surviving a gunman with ties to a sinister cult, joins an expedition to Capri. A donor has funded both the exact reconstruction of a Roman villa destroyed when Mount Vesuvius buried nearby Herculaneum in A.D. 79, and a computer system that can decipher the charred scrolls being excavated from the villa's ruins. Sophie's hopes for a recuperative idyll fade after her old boyfriend, who disappeared years before into the same cult as the campus gunman, appears in the area, implicating the cult in a criminal conspiracy. Meanwhile, extracts from the scrolls—the journals of a Roman visiting the villa just before the volcano erupted—shade toward bloodshed and betrayal. The scrolls' oddly modern tone aside, Goodman deftly mixes cultural and religious history, geography, myth, personal memory, dream and even portent without sacrificing narrative drive, against the beautiful backdrop of the locale with its echoes of unimaginable loss.

62. Oxygen

By: Carol Cassella
Rated 4 Stars
From Library

"Dr. Marie Heaton is an anesthesiologist at the height of her profession. She has worked, lived and breathed her career since medical school, and she now practices at a top Seattle hospital. Marie has carefully constructed and constricted her life according to empirical truths, to the science and art of medicine. But when her tried-and-true formula suddenly deserts her during a routine surgery, she must explain the nightmarish operating room disaster and face the resulting malpractice suit. Marie's best friend, colleague and former lover, Dr. Joe Hillary, becomes her closest confidante as she twists through depositions, accusations and a remorseful preoccupation with the mother of the patient in question. As she struggles to salvage her career and reputation, Marie must face hard truths about the path she's chosen, the bridges she's burned and the colleagues and superiors she's mistaken for friends." "A quieter crisis is simultaneously unfolding within Marie's family. Her aging father is losing his sight and approaching an awkward dependency on Marie and her sister, Lori. But Lori has taken a more traditional path than Marie and is busy raising a family. Although Marie has been estranged from her Texas roots for decades, the ultimate responsibility for their father's care is falling on her." "As her carefully structured life begins to collapse, Marie confronts questions of love and betrayal, family bonds and the price of her own choices. Set against the natural splendor of Seattle, and inside the closed vaults of hospital operating rooms, Oxygen climaxes in a final twist that is as heartrending as it is redeeming."--BOOK JACKET.