Alexandra (Barney) Barnaby roars onto the Miami Beach scene in hot pursuit of her missing baby brother, "Wild" Bill. Leave it to the maverick of the family to get Barney involved with high-speed car chases, a search for sunken treasure, and Sam Hooker, a NASCAR driver who’s good at revving a woman’s engine.

Engaged in a deadly race, Bill has "borrowed" Hooker’s sixty-five-foot Hatteras and sailed off into the sunset…just when Hooker has plans for the boat. Hooker figures he’ll attach himself to Barney and maybe run into scumbag Bill. And better yet, maybe he’ll get lucky in love with Bill’s sweetie pie sister.

The pedal will have to go to metal if Barney and Hooker want to be the first to cross the finish line, save Bill, Hooker’s boat…and maybe the world.

This was sort of "Stephanie Plum-lite", right down to the tomboyish main character (Barney), obviously forward love interest ("Nascar Guy" Sam), and crazy sidekicks (gay best friend and Cuban cigar rollers). And I think that’s why I didn’t love it. While you expect a certain voice and style in a Janet Evanovich book, this was a little too copycat for my tastes. Though I confess that I did like Sam, who was what you would get if Ranger and Morelli had a baby. I’ll probably read the second one if I feel like something light I can read in a day, but it won’t be something I’ll rush to get to.

Page count: 384 | Approximate word count: 96,000

2009: Naamah’s Kiss (Jacqueline Carey)
2008: Undead and Unwed (MaryJanice Davidson)
2007: Something From the Nightside (Simon R. Green)
2006: The Penultimate Peril (Lemony Snicket)
2005: Cause of Death (Patricia Cornwell)

Used in these Challenges: 2010 100+ Reading Challenge; 2010 Reading From My Shelves Project; 1st in a Series Challenge; Pages Read Challenge Season 2;

I originally determined that Mockingjay was going to have to wait until I finished my book club read for next Tuesday, Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe. That didn’t last long, because I quickly discovered that August is absolutely not the right time for me to try reading a classic written in 1722.  I just don’t have the concentration required to parse the language. So, I have failed in my book club duties and have started Mockingjay.

But I’m savoring it!  I’m limiting my reading to bedtime only, so I’m only on chapter 6 despite starting it on Friday.  I have been skillfully avoiding all spoilers, and that’s harder than you think!  Thank you to all you other book bloggers who have so kindly labeled your reviews according to whether there are spoilers or not.  Though, to be safe, I’m mostly avoiding all reviews of the book for the time being.

Was Mockingjay in your mailbox too?  Did it have company?

Mailbox Monday is hosted during the month of August by Chick Loves Lit.

If you think small-town life can be boring–think again. There are complex social rules: there are certain people with whom you fraternize and those you don’t, and, of course, there is the all-powerful gossip. Everyone knows everything about everyone else. Don’t they? That’s what Maddie Farraday thinks until she finds a pair of black crotchless panties in her husband’s car that don’t belong to her. That’s it; Maddie’s had it. She’s ready for change, and the first thing she’s going to do is divorce her no-good, philandering husband Brent. But then everything goes haywire: Brent turns up dead, Maddie’s daughter wants a dog, her best friend is suddenly acting very strange, and Maddie’s secret boyhood crush, bad boy C. L. Sturgis, arrives in town after a 20-year hiatus–and he’s as sexy as ever. You may laugh out loud at the wild and crazy antics in Jennifer Crusie’s exceptional novel, but you’ll exclaim with delight over the sizzling, dynamic, passionate affair between Maddie and her first love, C. L.

This was my first Jennifer Crusie read, and I was pleased with it for the most part.  Maddie is a pretty average mom and wife, living in a small town where not only does everyone know your business, but they’ll tell your mother too.  Having grown up in a town of 1200 people (in a good year), I can relate.  Maddie was a little flightly and irrational (throwing away the evidence of your husband’s infidelity? leaving suspiciously found cash where it can be found?), but likable enough. I also liked C.L. as the reformed, torch-carrying bad boy.  I was a little iffy on her daughter, Emily, and questioned whether the scenes from her point of view were really necessary or just there to force us into some emotional connection with her.

Some readers have mentioned that the police investigation(s) in this book don’t make a whole lot of sense, but I am 100% capable of suspending disbelief in a story like this — it’s not meant to be a police procedural. The one part of the book that really bothered me was her husband’s death. His murder is announced on the back of the book, but you are 60% of the way through the book (literally!) before he actually kicks it.  This meant I spent several chapters asking, "Is he dead yet?" "Maybe he’s dead now?" only to have him show up in the next scene.  I would have preferred to have that little tidbit held back, thank you very much.

Despite that, I enjoyed the story enough to read more of Crusie’s work.

Other reviews:

Tell Me Lies by Jennifer Crusie – Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

Page count: 384 | Approximate word count: 96,000

2009: Finger Lickin’ Fifteen (Janet Evanovich)
2008: The Finishing School (Michele Martinez)
2007: Lean Mean Thirteen (Janet Evanovich)
2006: The Sky is Falling (Sidney Sheldon)
2005: Jacob’s Ladder (Donald McCaig)

Used in these Challenges: Four Month Challenge – Part 4; 2010 100+ Reading Challenge; New Author Challenge 2010; Pages Read Challenge Season 2;

Narcotics officer Cal Moore’s orders were to look into the city’s latest drug killing. Instead, he ends up in a motel room with a fatal bullet wound to the head and a suicide note stuffed in his back pocket. Working the case, LAPD detective Harry Bosch is reminded of the primal police rule he learned long ago: Don’t look for the facts, but the glue that holds them together. Soon Harry’s making some very dangerous connections, starting with a dead cop and leading to a bloody string of murders that wind from Hollywood Boulevard to the back alleys south of the border. Now this battle-scarred veteran will find himself in the center of a complex and deadly game-one in which he may be the next and likeliest victim.

If you like straight-forward police procedurals with no quirks, Michael Connelly is the man for you.  Bosch may have a bit of an independent streak and a penchant for lonely, sad women, but he’s surprisingly normal. When a fellow officer is found dead in a motel room, and Bosch doesn’t get the call, he knows something is hinky.  He eventually finds himself embroiled in drugs, murder, and family matters — on both sides of the border. This series reflects the best of Michael Connelly.

Other reviews:

Ace and Hoser Blook: The Black Ice by Michael Connelly

Page count: 448 | Word count: 111,581

2009: Do Not Deny Me (Jean Thompson)
2008: Hold Tight (Harlan Coben)
2007: Mr. Perfect (Linda Howard)
2006: Just One Look (Harlan Coben)
2005: Secret Prey (John Sandford)

Used in these Challenges: Four Month Challenge – Part 4; 2010 100+ Reading Challenge; 2nd Reading Challenge; E-book Reading Challenge; Pages Read Challenge Season 2; Thriller & Suspense Reading Challenge 2010;

Verily speaks Christopher Moore, much-beloved scrivener and peerless literary jester, who hath writteneth much that is of grand wit and belly-busting mirth, including such laureled bestsellers of the Times of Olde Newe Yorke as Lamb, A Dirty Job, and You Suck: A Love Story. Now he takes on no less than the legendary Bard himself (with the utmost humility and respect) in a twisted and insanely funny tale of a moronic monarch and his deceitful daughters—a rousing story of plots, subplots, counterplots, betrayals, war, revenge, bared bosoms, unbridled lust . . . and a ghost (there’s always a bloody ghost), as seen through the eyes of a man wearing a codpiece and bells on his head.

Fool is Christopher Moore’s reworking of Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear, through the eyes of the King’s fool, Pocket. Pocket is your usual Moore narrator — more than slightly absurd and utterly charming.  The story itself is chocked full of his trademark vulgarity and bawdy humor, with a bit of an antiquated twist. I thought it was a pretty decent listen, one of Moore’s better stories, and some of his phrases have made it into our real-life conversations. If there’s one thing you can always count on Moore for, it’s a hearty laugh.

Other reviews:

Bookopolis: Book Review: Fool by Christopher Moore
Fool « reading comes from writing

Audiobook length: 8hrs 41min | Approximate word count: 96,800

2009: Night Play (Sherrilyn Kenyon)
2008: Wed to a Stranger? (Jule McBride)
2007: A Complicated Kindness (Miriam Toews)
2006: Killing Floor (Lee Child)
2005: Sudden Prey (John Sandford)

Used in these Challenges: 2010 100+ Reading Challenge; Audiobook Challenge;

How far would you go to protect your family?

Ann Brooks never thought she’d have to answer that question. Then she found her limits tested by a crisis no one could prevent. Now, as her neighborhood descends into panic, she must make tough choices to protect everyone she loves from a threat she cannot even see. In this chillingly urgent novel, Carla Buckley confronts us with the terrifying decisions we are forced to make when ordinary life changes overnight.

A year ago, Ann and Peter Brooks were just another unhappily married couple trying–and failing–to keep their relationship together while they raised two young daughters. Now the world around them is about to be shaken as Peter, a university researcher, comes to a startling realization: A virulent pandemic has made the terrible leap across the ocean to America’s heartland.

And it is killing fifty out of every hundred people it touches.

As their town goes into lockdown, Peter is forced to return home–with his beautiful graduate assistant. But the Brookses’ safe suburban world is no longer the refuge it once was. Food grows scarce, and neighbor turns against neighbor in grocery stores and at gas pumps. And then a winter storm strikes, and the community is left huddling in the dark.

Trapped inside the house she once called home, Ann Brooks must make life-or-death decisions in an environment where opening a door to a neighbor could threaten all the things she holds dear.

Carla Buckley’s poignant debut raises important questions to which there are no easy answers, in an emotionally riveting tale of one family facing unimaginable stress.

Doesn’t that sound great?  It’s also well-reviewed. Have any of you read it?

Friday Finds is hosted by MizB at Should be Reading.

Karin Slaughter’s internationally bestselling novels are as notable for their vivid portraits of lives shadowed by loss and heartbreak as they are for their dramatic criminal investigations. Her latest offering features the return of her most compelling characters and introduces memorable new ones in a tale of corruption, murder, and confrontation that will leave more than one life . . .

When Special Agent Will Trent arrives in Grant County, he finds a police department determined to protect its own and far too many unanswered questions about a prisoner’s death. He doesn’t understand why Officer Lena Adams is hiding secrets from him. He doesn’t understand her role in the death of Grant County’s popular police chief. He doesn’t understand why that man’s widow, Dr. Sara Linton, needs him now more than ever to help her crack this case.

While the police force investigates the murder of a young woman pulled from a frigid lake, Trent investigates the police force, putting pressure on Adams just when she’s already about to crack. Caught between two complicated and determined women, trying to understand Linton’s passionate distrust of Adams, the facts surrounding Chief Tolliver’s death, and the complexities of this insular town, Trent will unleash a case filled with explosive secrets—and encounter a thin blue line that could be murderous if crossed.

Spellbinding and keenly paced, Broken is Karin Slaughter at her best. Here is an unforgettable story of raw emotions, dangerous assumptions, the deadly and layered game of betrayal, and a man’s determination to expose the most painful of human truths—no matter how deeply they’re hidden . . . or how devastating.

This is considered to be the 7th book in the Grant County series, which I have not read.  I prefer to think of it as the 3rd book in the Will Trent series, which I *have* read. Will Trent is one of my favorite lead detectives (dyslexia, trust issues, and all), and I enjoyed being introduced to Grant County through his eyes.

A lot happens in this book to change the course of future events in the county.  The dead are primarily outsiders, but the motive is 100% rooted in the local community. I found Sara Linton a little hard to like, but we meet her at a difficult time in her life.  Lena is also difficult, if not impossible, to like, though I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to like her.  She does have a few redeeming qualities, but it’s very few. It’s funny, but I’ve noticed that difficult women are a trend in Karin Slaughter’s books, at least in her Will Trent books. Even Faith, Will’s partner and the most likable woman in Will’s life, has her share of rough edges. I’m curious to see if I pick up on the same theme when I get around to the rest of the Grant County series.

I probably would have understood the relationships more completely if I’d read the previous Sara Linton books, but if all you’ve read is Will Trent, you’ll do just fine.

Other reviews:

a lovely shore breeze….: a review of "Broken" [35]
Cheryl’s Book Nook: Broken by Karin Slaughter
Broken (Nicola)

Page count: 416 | Approximate word count: 104,000

2009: The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl (Belle de Jour)
2008: The Good, the Bad, and the Undead (Kim Harrison)
2007: Death on the Nile (Agatha Christie)
2006: The Deep (Peter Benchley)
2005: Charleston (John Jakes)

Used in these Challenges: ARC Reading Challenge 2010; 2010 100+ Reading Challenge; Pages Read Challenge Season 2; Thriller & Suspense Reading Challenge 2010;

A gripping novel set on the boundary between fact and fiction.

A woman wakes one night to find that a strange man has walked into her bedroom. She lies there in terrified silence unable to move. The woman is an author and the man one of her prospective characters. So desperate is he to have his story told that he has resorted to breaking into her house to make her tell it.

She creates Alvar Eide, forty-two years old, single, who works in an art gallery. He lives a quiet, dutiful life, carefully designed to avoid surprises. One winter’s day, all this begins to change when an emaciated young heroin addict walks into the gallery. A kind man, Alvar gives her a cup of coffee to warm her up. She returns some weeks later to his place of work, and then one day appears on his doorstep demanding to be let in.

Interspersed with the chapters of Alvar’s story are his encounters with its author — the frantic attempts of a fictional man trying to control his own destiny. Broken is a gripping novel about the boundary between fact and fiction and the perils of good intentions.

I’ve barely started it, but so far I like it.  Along with Broken, I’m reading The Banker by Dick Francis and I’m listening to Stalking Susan by Julie Kramer, which I wrote about yesterday in my Sunday Salon post.

I’m not sure what I’ll read when I’m finished these.  I think next in my book book queue is Sweetwater Creek by Anne Rivers Siddons.  Maybe Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman on audio.

It’s Monday! What are you Reading? is hosted by One Person’s Journey Through a World of Books.  Mailbox Monday is hosted during the month of August by Chick Loves Lit.

For the Fourth, we went to Nashville to visit my parents and some other visiting family members.  Then, I spent 3 days in a training class.  Later in the month, I had a really fun lunch with Kathy, Jennifer, and Aths. Then, last weekend I went back to Nashville for a mini-vacation with my mom. In between all of that, I had to fight off another cold.  I’m starting to think I’m going to be sick every month this year! Also, I’ve been focusing a lot of time on my writing, and on critiquing for other people. I entered a short story in a contest last week, and I plan to submit it to some magazines as well.  We’ll see what happens.

I only reviewed 5 books this month, but I have several waiting in the queue to be reviewed. 

Reviewed:

• Flirt (Laurell K. Hamilton)
• The Anniversary Man (R.J. Ellory) 
• Standoff (Sandra Brown) 
• See Jane Write (Sarah Mlynowski & Farrin Jacobs) 
• Dead in the Family (Charlaine Harris) 

In the queue:

• Fool by Christopher Moore (audio)
• The Black Ice by Michael Connelly
• Metro Girl by Janet Evanovich
• Smoke Screen by Sandra Brown
• Broken by Karin Slaughter
• Tell Me Lies by Jennifer Cruisie
• Heat Lightning by John Sandford (audio)
• Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
• Catering to Nobody by Diane Mott Davidson

On the go right now, I have Broken by Karin Fossum, The Banker by Dick Francis, and I’m listening to Stalking Susan by Julie Kramer. Stalking Susan is the first book in a fairly new series (started in 2008) about a reporter in Minnesota named Riley Sparks, and I’m really enjoying it. I think it’s the best new series I’ve started in quite a while.

I’m not foreseeing August being any less busy than July.  On the 14th, we’re headed to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon for vacation, and I’m really looking forward to it. My Kindle is coming with me, so I definitely plan to get some reading done. Hopefully I can get some of those back reviews written too!

When Anita Blake meets with prospective client Tony Bennington, who is desperate to have her reanimate his recently deceased wife, she is full of sympathy for his loss. Anita knows something about love, and she knows everything there is to know about loss. But what she also knows, though Tony Bennington seems unwilling to be convinced, is that the thing she can do as a necromancer isn’t the miracle he thinks he needs. The creature that Anita could coerce to step out of the late Mrs. Bennington’s grave would not be the lovely Mrs. Bennington. Not really. And not for long.

This novella was just okay for what it was meant to be — a short exploration of flirtation, a return to Anita’s day job, and a way to give Anita one more animal to call.  Unfortunately, the flirtation stuff was a little overdone.  In a scant 156 pages of story, the word flirt is used 31 times, and the word flirting 21 times. Too. Much. I wanted to mail her a thesaurus. There’s also a lot of the usual Anita self-reflection, analysis, and denial, all of it telling us nothing new about her character or her situation. If you’re stubborn like me (yes, I finally admit it) and intend to follow this series to the end no matter what, then give this a read.  Or email me and I’ll share the salient points. If you’re ready to put the Anita Blake series to bed, this book isn’t going to change your mind.

Other reviews:

Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review: ‘Flirt‘ – Laurell K. Hamilton (Headline)
Flirt by Laurell K. Hamilton | Reading with Tequila
[REVIEW] Flirt – Laurell K. Hamilton « Tez Says
The Good, The Bad and The Unread » REVIEW: Flirt by Laurell K Hamilton

Page count: 192 | Approximate word count: 28,800

2009: Skin Trade (Laurell K. Hamilton)
2008: Dead Witness (Joylene Nowell Butler)
2007: Plum Island (Nelson DeMille)
2006: Letters From An Age of Reason (Nora Hague)
2005: Therapy (Jonathan Kellerman)

Used in these Challenges: 2010 100+ Reading Challenge; Pages Read Challenge Season 2;