February Reads Part 3

Next up, #6, was a new to me author but I have two more books by her to read. FIVE DAYS IN SUMMER by Kate Pepper (New American Library, c2004, ISBN 0-451-41140-4) was this one and I really liked it.
On Cape Cod, Massachusetts (Mashpee), Emily Parker goes missing from a local grocery store and her husband turns to retired FBI agent John Geary for help. What Geary finds is scary: a repeat pattern of women who go missing along with their 7-9 year old sons. This book was a race against the clock to stop the madman and find Emily before something happened to one of her two sons.
I would recommend her to anyone who likes Mary Higgins Clark, Carlene Thompson, Donna Anders, Lisa Gardner, Anne Frasier, etc.

It begins:

Prologue

Five syringes lined the bleach-clean counter.

Lucky #7 for February was WHAT LIES IN SHADOW by Tina Wainscott (St. Martin's Paperbacks, c2008, ISBN 978-0-312-94164-2). Jonna Karakosta is an events coordinator in Boston, Mass. and she is bored with her home-life. She begins writing a blog called Montene's Diary where she meets enigmatic Dominic and sensing something is going on with her husband and her marriage, she decides to meet up with "Dominic" and is contemplating an affair -- when things go all wrong! Although written in first person, which I typically avoid but not always, this was a good book. A little slow in parts and sometimes repetitive but fun in a sick and twisted way from a blogger's viewpoint.

It starts:

Montene's Diary

Blog entry: November 1, 11:30 P.M.

Dear blog friends,

Tomorrow I'm having a romantic lunch with a man who is not my husband.

Finally, my last book of the month was DOUBLE CROSS by James Patterson (Little, Brown & Company, c2007, ISBN 0-316-01505-9), the 13th book in the Alex Cross series.

The story begins:

At the time of his formal sentencing in Alexandria, Virginia for eleven known murders, the former FBI agent and pattern killer Kyle Craig, known as the Mastermind, was lectured and condescended to by U.S. District Judge Nina Wolff.

Eh! I think I'm getting tired of this series or something...I'm not sure. I love Washington D.C. where it is set, I love books about cops and detectives so that's not it. Could it be that Cross is taunted by TWO different serial killers in this book or that something happens that is so unrealistic I found myself screaming, "Oh Puh-leaze! Give me a break!" just short of tossing the book? I've continued to read his books because they are fast reads for me with the little micro chapters, but this book had me thinking I don't know if I even want to waste the day or two it took me to read it ever again! Anybody ever had that reaction to a book?

Play and feed a hungry person!

In today's world where there is so much going on and it seems harder and harder to find the time to do the right thing, I love coming across a website that does something good and with very little effort. It's just a matter of finding a little time regularly.

Play here today!

February Reads Part 2

THE PACT by Jodi Picoult (Avon, c1998, ISBN 978-0-06-115014-2) was up next, #3. Set in Bainbridge, New Hampshire, the Harte and Gold families have been intertwined ever since their oldest were born. Melanie and Gus were best friends, Emily and Chris grew up together and loved one another. Until they are 17 years old and make a suicide pact. When Chris is arrested and imprisoned for the murder of his best friend and girlfriend, the book takes off like a shot. Jumping back and forth between past and present, we learn what led up to that fateful night and are witness to a great depiction of two families torn apart by tragedy.
Jodi's books are absolutely spectacular and I kick myself every time I read one of her older books for having missed it in the first place. This book was no exception.
It begins:

NOW

November 1997

There was nothing left to say.

Can you believe that it's another Janet Evanovich book?
#4 for me in February was WIFE FOR HIRE by Janet Evanovich (Harper, c1990, 2007, ISBN 978-0-06-059888-4), one of her reprints.
Maggie Toone moves to Skogen, Vermont to fulfill her contract with Hank Malone: she has been hired to play his wife! Hank needs a wife to secure a loan, Maggie needs to get out of Riverside, NJ to write her book. The two pair match up and it's a match made in...heaven? Quick read, quirky characters, 'nuff said.

The first sentence is:

At the turn of the century the Bigmount Brick Company hired new arrivals from Eastern Europe to work in the New Jersey clay pits.

Fifth for me, was NO PLACE LIKE HOME by Mary Higgins Clark (Simon & Schuster, c2005, ISBN 0-7432-6489-4).
I seemed to use February as a month to catch up on some old reading as well as read some new to me authors which was really nice for a change.
In this book, set in Mendham, New Jersey, Celia Nolan's husband, Alex, bought her a house as a surprise for her birthday. What he didn't know was that the house he purchased was the house she grew up in, the house where, 24 years prior she murdered her mother trying to protect her. Now, living back in Mendham, strange things are happening and it's as if someone knows Celia's identity.

I thought this book had a great premise and was upset that I had missed it when it came out. However, I thought that the plot was paper thin and unrealistic. I knew within the first 100 pages who the bad guy was and this book had few likable characters.
It starts:

Prologue

Ten-year-old Liza was dreaming her favorite dream, the one about the day when she was six years old, and she and Daddy were at the beach, in New Jersey, at Spring Lake.