December ~ 2013

157. Thirteen Days to Midnight...Patrick Carman

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You are indestructible. Three whispered words transfer an astonishing power to Jacob Fielding that changes everything. At first, Jacob is hesitant to use the power, unsure of its implications. But there's something addictive about testing the limits of fear.

Then Ophelia James, the beautiful and daring new girl in town, suggests that they use the power to do good, to save others. But with every heroic act, the power grows into the specter of a curse. How to decide who lives and who dies?

In this nail-biting novel of mystery and dark intrigue, Jacob must walk the razor thin line between right and wrong, good and evil, and life and death. And time is running out. Because the Grim Reaper doesn't disappear. . . . He catches up.

158. The Fury...Alexander Graham Smith

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Imagine if one day, without warning, the entire human race turns against you, if every person you know, every person you meet becomes a bloodthirsty, mindless savage . . . That’s the horrifying reality for Cal, Brick, and Daisy. Friends, family, even moms and dads, are out to get them. Their world has the Fury. It will not rest until they are dead.

In Alexander Gordon Smith’s adrenaline-fueled saga, Cal and the others must uncover the truth about what is happening before it destroys them all. But survival comes at a cost. In their search for answers, what they discover will launch them into battle with an enemy of unimaginable power.

159. White Fire...Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

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Special Agent Pendergast arrives at an exclusive Colorado ski resort to rescue his protégée, Corrie Swanson, from serious trouble with the law. His sudden appearance coincides with the first attack of a murderous arsonist who--with brutal precision--begins burning down multimillion-dollar mansions with the families locked inside. After springing Corrie from jail, Pendergast learns she made a discovery while examining the bones of several miners who were killed 150 years earlier by a rogue grizzly bear. Her finding is so astonishing that it, even more than the arsonist, threatens the resort's very existence.

Drawn deeper into the investigation, Pendergast uncovers a mysterious connection between the dead miners and a fabled, long-lost Sherlock Holmes story--one that might just offer the key to the modern day killings as well.

Now, with the ski resort snowed in and under savage attack--and Corrie's life suddenly in grave danger--Pendergast must solve the enigma of the past before the town of the present goes up in flames.

160. Nom Nom Paleo: Food for Humans...Michelle Tam & Henry Fong

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Crackling with humor and bursting with flavor, Nom Nom Paleo offers a fun, fresh approach to cooking with whole, unprocessed ingredients free of grains, legumes, and added sugar. Authors Michelle Tam and Henry Fong, creators of the acclaimed Nom Nom Paleo website, have cooked up a visual feast, with more than 100 fool-proof Paleo and gluten-free recipes, and over 900 step-by-step photographs and cartoons. There's something for everyone here, whether you're a busy mom, a triathlete in training, or a lifelong foodie who's curious about the "caveman" approach to eating.

161. Lexicon...Max Berry

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At an exclusive school somewhere outside of Arlington, Virginia, students aren’t taught history, geography, or mathematics—they are taught to persuade. Students learn to use language to manipulate minds, wielding words as weapons. The very best graduate as “poets,” and enter a nameless organization of unknown purpose.

Whip-smart runaway Emily Ruff is making a living from three-card Monte on the streets of San Francisco when she attracts the attention of the organization’s recruiters. Drawn in to their strage world, which is populated by people named Brontë and Eliot, she learns their key rule: That every person can be classified by personality type, his mind segmented and ultimately unlocked by the skilful application of words. For this reason, she must never allow another person to truly know her, lest she herself be coerced. Adapting quickly, Emily becomes the school’s most talented prodigy, until she makes a catastrophic mistake: She falls in love.

Meanwhile, a seemingly innocent man named Wil Parke is brutally ambushed by two men in an airport bathroom. They claim he is the key to a secret war he knows nothing about, that he is an “outlier,” immune to segmentation. Attempting to stay one step ahead of the organization and its mind-bending poets, Wil and his captors seek salvation in the toxically decimated town of Broken Hill, Australia, which, if ancient stories are true, sits above an ancient glyph of frightening power.

A brilliant thriller that traverses very modern questions of privacy, identity, and the rising obsession of data-collection, connecting them to centuries-old ideas about the power of language and coercion, Lexicon is Max Barry’s most ambitious and spellbinding novel yet.

 


162. The Execution of Noa P. Singleton...Elizabeth Silver

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 Noa P. Singleton never spoke a word in her own defense throughout a brief trial that ended with a jury finding her guilty of first-degree murder. Ten years later, having accepted her fate, she sits on death row in a maximum-security penitentiary, just six months away from her execution date.
Seemingly out of the blue, she is visited by Marlene Dixon, a high-powered Philadelphia attorney who is also the mother of the woman Noa was imprisoned for killing. Marlene tells Noa that she has changed her mind about the death penalty and Noa’s sentence, and will do everything in her considerable power to convince the governor to commute the sentence to life in prison, in return for the one thing Noa is unwilling to trade: her story.
      Marlene desperately wants Noa to reveal the events that led to her daughter’s death – events that Noa has never shared with a soul. With death looming, Marlene believes that Noa may finally give her the answers she needs, though Noa is far from convinced that Marlene deserves the salvation she alone can deliver. Inextricably linked by murder but with very different goals, Noa and Marlene wrestle with the sentences life itself can impose while they confront the best and worst of what makes us human in this haunting tale of love, anguish, and deception.

163. Behind the Yellow Tape: On the Road with Some of America's Hardest Working Crime Scene Investigators...Jarrett Hallcox & Amy Welch

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For years, Jarrett Hallcox and Amy Welch trained CSIs at the National Forensic Academy in Knoxville, Tennessee. Now they provide a glimpse into the real world of crime scene investigation, and the investigators themselves. Experience, through gripping text and photographs, eight gripping accounts of true crime from across the country: from the murky waters of the Puget Sound to the crumbling ruins of the Alamo and the grimy streets of the Big Apple, these are the real stories of the people who work behind the yellow tape.

 



164. The Inquisitor's Key...Jefferson Bass

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The most riveting and ambitious novel to date in Jefferson Bass’ New York Times bestselling Body Farm mystery series, The Inquisitor’s Key takes forensic investigator Dr. Bill Brockton to Avignon, France, and embroils him in a deadly religious mystery that could shake the Vatican itself to its very foundations.  Another sterling crime novel in the vein of Patricia Cornwell, Kathy Reichs, and Karin Slaughter, as well as TV’s C.S.I., The Inquisitor’s Key adds a touch of James Rollins and The Da Vinci Code to the typically acclaimed Jefferson Bass mix of suspense, surprise, and finely detailed forensic investigation.

165. Cut to the Bone...Jefferson Bass 

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Jefferson Bass’s Cut to the Bone, the long-awaited prequel to his New York Times bestselling mystery series, turns the clock back to reveal the Body Farm's creation—and Dr. Bill Brockton's deadly duel with a serial killer. In the summer of 1992, Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton and Tennessee Senator Albert Gore begin their long-shot campaign to win the White House. In the sweltering hills of Knoxville at the University of Tennessee, Dr. Bill Brockton, the bright, ambitious young head of the Anthropology Department, launches an unusual—some would call it macabre—research facility, unlike any other in existence.
Brockton is determined to revolutionize the study of forensics to help law enforcement better solve crime. But his plans are derailed by a chilling murder that leaves the scientist reeling from a sense of déjà vu. Followed by another. And then another: bodies that bear eerie resemblances to cases from Brockton’s past.
But as the body count rises, the victims’ fatal injuries grow more and more distinctive—a spiral of death that holds dark implications for Brockton...and everyone he holds dear.

November ~ 2013

143. Ghost Girl...Torey Hayden

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Jadie never spoke. She never laughed, or cried, or uttered any sound. Despite efforts to reach her, Jadie remained locked in her own troubled world—until one remarkable teacher persuaded her to break her self-imposed silence. Nothing in all of Torey Hayden's experience could have prepared her for the shock of what Jadie told her—a story too horrendous for Torey's professional colleagues to acknowledge. Yet a little girl was living in a nightmare, and Torey Hayden responded in the only way she knew how—with courage, compassion, and dedication—demonstrating once again the tremendous power of love and the relilience of the human spirit.

144. Just Another Kid...Torey Hayden

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Torey Hayden faced six emotionally troubled kids no other teacher could handle-three recent arrivals from battletorn Northern Ireland, badly traumatized by the horrors of war; eleven-year-old Dirkie, who only knew of life inside an institution; excitable Mariana, aggressive and sexually precocious at the age of eight; and seven-year-old Leslie, perhaps the most hopeless of all, unresponsive and unable to speak.  
With compassion, rare insight, and masterful storytelling, teacher Torey L. Hayden once again touches our hearts with her account of the miracles that can happen in her class of "special" children.

145. Beautiful Child...Torey Hayden

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Hayden has chronicled experiences from her long career as a special education teacher in several books, including One Child and The Tiger's Child. Successes in this difficult and often frustrating field can be few and hard won, a fact which Hayden deftly illustrates while simultaneously offering hope and joy in small victories. This time she brings to life the story of a scruffy seven–year–old, Venus, who is so unresponsive that Hayden searches for signs of deafness, brain damage or mental retardation. The author is relentless in her attempt to diagnose the cause of Venus's 'almost catatonic' state, which is punctuated by occasional violent outbursts. In this first–person narrative, Hayden also shares her own thoughts, worries and reflections on the strained relationship with a mismatched classroom aide, creating a rich tapestry of the dynamics of a group of special needs youngsters and the adults who try to help them.

146. Twilight Children...Torey Hayden

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A light in the darkness for severely troubled children, former special education teacher Torey Hayden faced three of her most extraordinary challenges after she left the classroom. Nine-year-old Cassandra, kidnapped by her father and found starving, dirty, and picking through garbage cans—a child prone to long silences and erratic, violent behavior, whose hard-won recollections of the nightmare she endured could not be fully trusted.
Charming, charismatic four-year-old Drake, who would speak only in private to his mother—his tough, unbending grandfather's demands for an immediate cure threatened to cause the delightful boy and his family irreparable harm.
And though she had never worked with adults, Hayden agreed to help fearful and silent eighty-two-year-old massive stroke victim Gerda—discovering in the process that a treatment's successes could prove nearly as heartbreaking as its limitations.

 

 

 

147. Murphy's Boy...Torey Hayden

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His name was Kevin but his keepers called him Zoo Boy. He didn't talk. He hid under tables and surrounded himself with a cage of chairs. He hadn't been out of the building in the four years since he'd come in. He was afraid of water and wouldn't take a shower. He was afraid to be naked, to change his clothes. He was nearly 16. Desperate to see change in the boy, the staff of Kevin's adolescent treatment center hired Hayden. As Hayden read to him and encouraged him to read, crawling down into his cage of chairs with him, Kevin talked. Then he started to draw and paint and showed himself to have a quick wit and a rolling, seething, murderous hatred for his stepfather.

147. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft...Stephen King

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Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer’s craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have. King’s advice is grounded in his vivid memories from childhood through his emergence as a writer, from his struggling early career to his widely reported, near-fatal accident in 1999—and how the inextricable link between writing and living spurred his recovery. Brilliantly structured, friendly and inspiring, On Writing will empower and entertain everyone who reads it—fans, writers, and anyone who loves a great story well told.

148. Zom-B...Darren Shan

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When news reports start appearing of a zombie outbreak in Ireland, B's racist father thinks it's a joke-- but even if it isn't, he figures, it's ok to lose a few Irish.

 

B doesn't fully buy into Dad's racism, but figures it's easier to go along with it than to risk the fights and abuse that will surely follow sticking up for Muslims, blacks, or immigrants. And when dodging his fists doesn't work, B doesn't hesitate to take the piss out of kids at school with a few slaps or cruel remarks.

 

That is, until zombies attack the school. B is forced on a mad dash through the serpentine corridors of high school, making allegiances with anyone with enough gall to fight off their pursuers.

 

          
149. One Child...Torey Hayden

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This beautiful and deeply moving tale recounts educational psychologist Torey Hayden's battle to unlock the emotions of a troubled and sexually abused child who, with the help of Hayden, was finally able to overcome her dark past and realise her full potential. Six-year-old Sheila was abandoned by her mother on a highway when she was four. A survivor of horrific abuse, she never spoke, never cried, and was placed in a class for severely retarded children after committing an atrocious act of violence against another child. Everyone thought Sheila was beyond salvation - except her teacher, Torey Hayden. With patience, skill, and abiding love, she fought long and hard to release a haunted little girl from her secret nightmare - and nurture the spark of genius she recognised trapped within Sheila's silence.

150. The Tiger's Child...Torey Hayden

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What ever became of Sheila? When special-education teacher Torey Hayden wrote her first book One Child almost two decades ago, she created an international bestseller. Her intensely moving true story of Sheila, a silent, profoundly disturbed little six-year-old girl touched millions. From every corner of the world came letters from readers wanting to know more about the troubled child who had come into Torey Hayden's class as a"hopeless case," and emerged as the very symbol of eternal hope within the human spirit.
Now, for all those who have never forgotten this endearing child and her remarkable relationship with her teacher, here is the surprising story of Sheila, the young woman.

151. Gone...Michael Grant

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In the blink of an eye. Everyone disappears.
Gone.
Everyone except for the young. Teens. Middle schoolers. Toddlers. But not a single adult. No teachers, no cops, no doctors, no parents. Gone, too, are the phones, internet, and television. There is no way to get help.
Hunger threatens. Bullies rule. A sinister creature lurks. Animals are mutating. And the teens themselves are changing, developing new talents—unimaginable, dangerous, deadly powers—that grow stronger by the day.
It's a terrifying new world. Sides are being chosen and war is imminent.
The first in a breathtaking saga about teens battling each other and their darkest selves, gone is a page-turning thriller that will make you look at the world in a whole new way.

152. Hunger...Michael Grant

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It's been three months since all the adults disappeared. Gone. food ran out weeks ago and starvation is imminent. Meanwhile, the normal teens have grown resentful of the kids with powers. And when an unthinkable tragedy occurs, chaos descends upon the town. There is no longer right and wrong. Each kid is out for himself and even the good ones turn murderous.
But a larger problem looms. The Darkness, a sinister creature that has lived buried deep in the hills, begins calling to some of the teens in the FAYZ. Calling to them, guiding them, manipulating them.
The Darkness has awakened. And it is hungry.

153. Lies...Michael Grant

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It's been seven months since all the adults disappeared. Gone. It happens in one night: a girl who died now walks among the living; Zil and the Human Crew set fire to Perdido Beach, and amid the flames and smoke, Sam sees the figure of the boy he fears the most: Drake. But Drake is dead—or so they thought.
Perdido Beach burns and battles rage: Astrid against the Town Council; the Human Crew versus the mutants; and Sam against Drake, who is back from the dead and ready to finish where he and Sam left off. They say that death is a way to escape the FAYZ. But are the kids of Perdido Beach desperate enough to believe that death will set them free?

154. Plague...Michael Grant

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It's been eight months since all the adults disappeared. Gone. They've survived hunger. They've survived lies. But the stakes keep rising, and the dystopian horror keeps building in Plague, Michael Grant's fourth book in the New York Times bestselling Gone series.
A highly contagious, fatal illness is spreading at an alarming rate, while sinister, predatory insects terrorize Perdido Beach. Sam, Astrid, Diana, and Caine are plagued by a growing doubt that they'll escape—or even survive—life in the FAYZ. With so much turmoil surrounding them, what desperate choices will they make when it comes to saving themselves and those they love?

155. Fear...Michael Grant

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It's been one year since all the adults disappeared. Gone. Despite the hunger, despite the lies, even despite the plague, the kids of Perdido Beach are determined to survive. Creeping into the tenuous new world they've built, though, is perhaps the worst incarnation yet of the enemy known as the Darkness: fear.
Within the FAYZ, life breaks down while the Darkness takes over, literally—turning the dome-world of the FAYZ entirely black. A will to survive and a desire to take care of those they love endures in this ravaged band, even in the bleakest moments. But in darkness, the worst fears of all emerge, and the cruelest of intentions are carried out. After so many months, is all about to be lost in the FAYZ?

156. Light...Michael Grant

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It's been over a year since all the adults disappeared. Gone. In the time since every person over the age of fourteen disappeared from the town of Perdido Beach, California, countless battles have been fought: battles against hunger and lies and plague, and epic battles of good against evil. Light, Michael Grant's sixth and final book in the New York Times bestselling Gone series creates a masterful, arresting conclusion to life in the FAYZ.
And now, the gaiaphage has been reborn as Diana's malicious mutant daughter, Gaia. Gaia is endlessly hungry for destruction. She yearns to conquer her nemesis, Little Pete, and then bend the entire world to her warped will. As long-standing enemies become allies, secrets are revealed and unexpected sacrifices are made. Will their attempts to save themselves and one another matter in the end, or will the kids of Perdido Beach perish in this final power struggle?

October ~ 2013

Reading nothing but fantasy and horror this October!

131. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone...J.K. Rowling
132. HP and the Chamber of Secrets...J.K. Rowling
133. HP and the Prisoner of Azkaban...J.K. Rowling
134. HP and the Goblet of Fire...J.K. Rowling
135. HP and the Order of the Phoenix...J.K. Rowling
136. HP and the Half-Blood Prince...J.K. Rowling
137. HP and the Deathly Hollows...J.K. Rowling

It's been a few years, so I thought I would re-read the series. Just as great as I remembered!


138. Shutdown...Laurell K. Hamilton
A short story with Anita, Richard, and his new girlfriend.


139. Practical Magic...Alice Hoffman
For more than two hundred years, the Owens women had been blamed for everything that went wrong in their Massachusetts town. And Gillian and Sally endured that fate as well; as children, the sisters were outsiders. Their elderly aunts almost seemed to encourage the whispers of witchery, but all Gillian and Sally wanted was to escape. One would do so by marrying, the other by running away. But the bonds they shared brought them back-almost as if by magic...

I liked the book, but I do have to admit...this is one of the few books where I actually liked the movie better.




140. Cell...Stephen King
On October 1, God is in His heaven, the stock market stands at 10,140, most of the planes are on time, and Clayton Riddell, an artist from Maine, is almost bouncing up Boylston Street in Boston. He's just landed a comic book deal that might finally enable him to support his family by making art instead of teaching it. He's already picked up a small (but expensive!) gift for his long-suffering wife, and he knows just what he'll get for his boy Johnny. Why not a little treat for himself? Clay's feeling good about the future.

That changes in a hurry. The cause of the devastation is a phenomenon that will come to be known as The Pulse, and the delivery method is a cell phone. Everyone's cell phone. Clay and the few desperate survivors who join him suddenly find themselves in the pitch-black night of civilization's darkest age, surrounded by chaos, carnage, and a human horde that has been reduced to its basest nature...and then begins to evolve.

There's really no escaping this nightmare. But for Clay, an arrow points home to Maine, and as he and his fellow refugees make their harrowing journey north they begin to see crude signs confirming their direction: KASHWAK=NO-FO. A promise, perhaps. Or a threat...

There are one hundred and ninety-three million cell phones in the United States alone. Who doesn't have one? Stephen King's utterly gripping, gory, and fascinating novel doesn't just ask the question "Can you hear me now?" It answers it with a vengeance.

Loved it! DS1 is reading it now...maybe it will scare him into not using his cell phone so much!


141. Pet Sematary...Stephen King
142. The Shining...Stephen King

September ~ 2013

117. The Crossing Places...Elly Griffiths

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When she’s not digging up bones or other ancient objects, quirky, tart-tongued archaeologist Ruth Galloway lives happily alone in a remote area called Saltmarsh near Norfolk, land that was sacred to its Iron Age inhabitants - not quite earth, not quite sea.  

When a child’s bones are found on a desolate beach nearby, Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson calls Galloway for help. Nelson thinks he has found the remains of Lucy Downey, a little girl who went missing ten years ago. Since her disappearance he has been receiving bizarre letters about her, letters with references to ritual and sacrifice.

 

The bones actually turn out to be two thousand years old, but Ruth is soon drawn into the Lucy Downey case and into the mind of the letter writer, who seems to have both archaeological knowledge and eerie psychic powers. Then another child goes missing and the hunt is on to find her. As the letter writer moves closer and the windswept Norfolk landscape exerts its power, Ruth finds herself in completely new territory – and in serious danger.

 

THE CROSSING PLACES marks the beginning of a captivating new crime series featuring an irresistible heroine.

118. The Janus Stone...Elly Griffiths

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It’s only been a few months since forensic archeologist Ruth Galloway found herself entangled in a missing-child case, barely escaping with her life. But when constructions workers demolishing a large old mansion to make way for a new development uncover the bones of a child beneath a doorway—minus its skull—Ruth is once again called upon to investigate. Is it a Roman-era ritual sacrifice, or is the killer closer at hand?

When carbon dating proves that the child’s bones predate the home and relate to a time when the house was privately owned, Ruth is drawn more deeply into the case. But as spring turns into summer, it becomes clear that someone is trying very hard to put her off the trail by frightening her, and her unborn child, half to death.

119. How I Got My Wiggle Back...Anthony Field
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The dramatic personal story of Anthony Field, founder and costar of the world's most popular children's musical group, The Wiggles. With their distinctive look, catchy music, and upbeat message, the Wiggles have performed their way into the hearts and homes of millions of kids and their parents around the world. Their extraordinary success over the last twenty years includes TV shows, the sale of tens of millions of CDs and DVDs, and sell-out live performances for a million people annually as well as honors including being named UNICEF goodwill ambassadors. Now, for the first time, Anthony Field, the "blue" Wiggle, tells his inspiring, behind-the-scenes story of how he overcame depression, life-threatening illness, and chronic pain to get his life back.

• Takes you inside the life of the Wiggles' co-founder Anthony Field and the story of his successful struggle to overcome debilitating emotional and physical health challenges
• Shares practical action steps to help relieve pain, prevent and heal disease, and achieve peak fitness regardless of age
• Reveals groundbreaking approaches to wellness developed by two acclaimed chiropractors
• Includes more than seventy photographs from Anthony Field's personal collection

This was really interesting to read. I'm the dork adult who likes the Wiggles, so it was fun reading some of the backstory on them. Plus, I knew about Greg's health problems, but I never knew Anthony had so many (it's hard to tell the way he dances and runs around!)



120. To the End of June: The Intimate Life of American Foster Care...Cris Beam
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Who are the children of foster care? What, as a country, do we owe them? Cris Beam, a foster mother herself, spent five years immersed in the world of foster care, looking into these questions and tracing firsthand stories. The result is To the End of June, an unforgettable portrait that takes us deep inside the lives of foster children at the critical points in their search for a stable, loving family.

The book mirrors the life cycle of a foster child and so begins with the removal of babies and kids from birth families. There’s a teenage birth mother in Texas who signs away her parental rights on a napkin only to later reconsider, crushing the hopes of her baby’s adoptive parents. Beam then paints an unprecedented portrait of the intricacies of growing up in the system—the back-and-forth with agencies, the shuffling between pre-adoptive homes and group homes, the emotionally charged tug of prospective adoptive parents and the fundamental pull of birth parents. And then what happens as these system-reared kids become adults? Beam closely follows a group of teenagers in New York who are grappling with what aging out will mean for them and meets a woman who has parented eleven kids from the system, almost all over the age of eighteen, and all still in desperate need of a sense of home and belonging.

Focusing intensely on a few foster families who are deeply invested in the system’s success, To the End of June is essential for humanizing and challenging a broken system, while at the same time it is a tribute to resiliency and offers hope for real change.

121. The House at Sea's End...Elly Griffiths

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Just back from maternity leave, forensic archeologist Ruth is finding it hard to juggle motherhood and work when she is called in to investigate human bones that have surfaced on a remote Norfolk beach. The presence of DCI Harry Nelson, the married father of her daughter, does not help. The bones, six men with their arms bound, turn out date back to World War II, a desperate time on this stretch of coastland.

Home Guard veteran Archie Whitcliffe reveals the existence of a secret the old soldiers have vowed to protect with their lives. But then Archie is killed and a German journalist arrives, asking questions about Operation Lucifer, a plan to stop a German invasion, and a possible British war crime. What was Operation Lucifer? And who is prepared to kill to keep its secret?

122. A Room Full of Bones...Elly Griffiths

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When Ruth Galloway arrives to supervise the opening of a coffin containing the bones of a medieval bishop, she finds the museum’s curator lying dead on the floor. Soon after, the museum’s wealthy owner is also found dead, in his stables.

These two deaths could be from natural causes, but once again Ruth and DCI Harry Nelson cross paths during the investigation. When threatening letters come to light, events take an even more sinister turn. But as Ruth’s friends become involved, where will her loyalties lie? As her convictions are tested, Ruth and Nelson must discover how Aboriginal skulls, drug smuggling, and the mystery of “The Dreaming” hold the answers to these deaths, as well as the keys to their own survival.

123. A Dying Fall...Elly Griffiths

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Ruth Galloway is shocked when she learns that her old university friend Dan Golding has died tragically in a house fire. But the death takes on a sinister cast when Ruth receives a letter from Dan written just before he died.

The letter tells of a great archaeological discovery, but Dan also says that he is scared for his life. Was Dan’s death linked to his find? The only clue is his mention of the Raven King, an ancient name for King Arthur.

Then Ruth is invited to examine the bones Dan found. Ruth travels to Lancashire–the hometown of DCI Nelson–with both her eighteen-month-old daughter, Kate, and her druid friend, Cathbad, in tow. She discovers a campus living in fear of a sinister right-wing group called the White Hand. She also finds that the bones revealed a shocking fact about King Arthur–and they’ve mysteriously vanished. When Nelson, visiting his mother in Blackpool, learns about the case, he is drawn into the investigation, especially when Ruth and his beloved Kate seem to be in danger. Who is willing to kill to keep the bones a secret?

Cute little mystery series. I wish she spent more time on the archaeology aspects, but I like the characters and I'll read the next one when it comes out.




124. Weekends at Bellevue...Julie Holland
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Julie Holland thought she knew what crazy was. Then she came to Bellevue. For nine eventful years, Dr. Holland was the weekend physician in charge of the psychiatric emergency room at New York City’s Bellevue Hospital. In this absorbing memoir, Holland recounts stories from her vast case files that are alternately terrifying, tragically comic, and profoundly moving: the serial killer, the naked man barking like a dog in Times Square, the schizophrenic begging for an injection of club soda to quiet the voices in his head, the subway conductor who watched a young woman pushed into the path of his train.

I didn't like this one much at all. There was very little about the patients; most of the book was the author/doctor talking down about them and how she bullied them and how mean the administration was to her. She came off very uppity and entitled and I barely finished the book. Not recommended.




125. Nobody's Children: Abuse and Neglect, Foster Drift, and the Adoption Alternative...Elizabeth Bartholet

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A disturbing look at how the lives of Americas modern-day orphans are sacrificed for the often unrealistic goal of keeping troubled families together. Bartholet (Family Bonds: Adoption and the Politics of Parenting, 1993), an expert on family law and an adoptive mother herself, traces the historical, political, and cultural reasons why battered and neglected children are far more likely to spend years in foster limbo, or be sent back to abusive homes, than to be adopted by loving families. The author charges that despite recent legislation that bars race as a factor, everyone from private foundation administrators to judges, lawyers, and bureaucrats continues to be guided by the notion that children should be cared for by relatives, or adopted by families who look like them. Back in 1972, the National Association of Black Social Workers denounced transracial adoption as a form of racial genocide. Though race-matching policies have gone underground since then, Bartholet believes they resurface in criteria like kinship and cultural competence. Because other relatives may not be up to the task of parenting, and because there are not enough minority families to adopt all the children who need them, the author asserts that race-matching essentially condemns many youngsters to lasting physical, cognitive, and emotional damage. Whereas wife beaters are treated like criminals, child abusers, often plagued by poverty and substance abuse, tend to be seen as victims themselves. Bartholet expresses sympathy for their plight but demands that social workers stop using precious child-welfare resources to prop up deeply disturbed families. What matters, she insists, is that the children get into homes where they can thrive. She also suggests, somewhat unrealistically, that the state could take a proactive role in reducing child abuse by instituting universal visitation of all families before and after birth. The author makes her case intelligently, fearlessly, and exhaustively. Curiously, since her subject matter is so wrenching, Bartholets writing lacks emotional power. Nobodys Children ultimately appeals not to the heart, but to the head.

Very long, dry read, but still informative. I agree with a lot of her ideas and opinions, but this is an older book, so some of it was outdated.



126. Wild Fermentation...Sandor Katz

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Bread. Cheese. Wine. Beer. Coffee. Chocolate. Most people consume fermented foods and drinks every day. For thousands of years, humans have enjoyed the distinctive flavors and nutrition resulting from the transformative power of microscopic bacteria and fungi. Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods is the first cookbook to widely explore the culinary magic of fermentation.

I've waited a long time to get my hands on this book and it was so disappointing! I guess it had a lot of information for someone new and unfamiliar with fermented foods, but you can just as easily find that (plus all of the recipes) with an easy online search. Glad it was a library book and that I didn't pay money for it.



127. Jane: The Woman Who Loved Tarzan...Robin Maxwell

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Cambridge, England, 1905. Jane Porter is hardly a typical woman of her time. The only female student in Cambridge University’s medical program, she is far more comfortable in a lab coat dissecting corpses than she is in a corset and gown sipping afternoon tea. A budding paleoanthropologist, Jane dreams of traveling the globe in search of fossils that will prove the evolutionary theories of her scientific hero, Charles Darwin.

When dashing American explorer Ral Conrath invites Jane and her father to join an expedition deep into West Africa, she can hardly believe her luck. Africa is every bit as exotic and fascinating as she has always imagined, but Jane quickly learns that the lush jungle is full of secrets—and so is Ral Conrath. When danger strikes, Jane finds her hero, the key to humanity’s past, and an all-consuming love in one extraordinary man: Tarzan of the Apes.

Jane is the first version of the Tarzan story written by a woman and authorized by the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate. Its publication marks the centennial of the original Tarzan of the Apes.

Loved this one!! There were some things that were changed from the original Tarzan story, but it didn't detract from this one.



128. Turning Stones: My Days and Nights with Children at Risk...Marc Parent

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Why does an infant die of malnutrition? Why does an eight-year-old hold a knife to his brother's throat? Or a mother push her cherished daughter twenty-three floors to her death? Marc Parent, a city caseworker, searched the streets--and his heart--for the answers, and shares them in this powerful, vivid, beautifully written book.

Well-written and helpful. It was hard to read some parts, but it gives a realistic picture of front-line caseworkers.
 

129. Dancing...Laurell K. Hamilton
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For most people, summer barbecues are nothing to be afraid of. But Anita isn’t exactly plain vanilla—and neither is her love life. So it takes a special kind of courage to attend a barbecue thrown by her friend Sergeant Zerbrowski. Walking into a backyard full of cops and their families with wereleopards Micah and Nathaniel both looking gorgeous on her arm won’t be easy, even with almost-four-year-old Matthew Vespucci to break the ice…

Anita is determined to have a good time with her family, just like everyone else. But it doesn’t take long for tensions to rise among the adults and kids. And Anita will learn that gossip and innuendo can be just as dangerous as anything the undead can throw at her…

 





130. The Lost Children of Wilder: The Epic Struggle to Change Foster Care...Nina Bernstein

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In 1973 Marcia Lowry, a young civil liberties attorney, filed a controversial class-action suit that would come to be known as Wilder, which challenged New York City’s operation of its foster-care system. Lowry’s contention was that the system failed the children it was meant to help because it placed them according to creed and convenience, not according to need. The plaintiff was thirteen-year-old Shirley Wilder, an abused runaway whose childhood had been shaped by the system’s inequities. Within a year Shirley would give birth to a son and relinquish him to the same failing system.

Seventeen years later, with Wilder still controversial and still in court, Nina Bernstein tried to find out what had happened to Shirley and her baby. She was told by child-welfare officials that Shirley had disappeared and that her son was one of thousands of anonymous children whose circumstances are concealed by the veil of confidentiality that hides foster care from public scrutiny. But Bernstein persevered.

The Lost Children of Wilder gives us, in galvanizing and compulsively readable detail, the full history of a case that reveals the racial, religious, and political fault lines in our child-welfare system, and lays bare the fundamental contradiction at the heart of our well-intended efforts to sever the destiny of needy children from the fate of their parents. Bernstein takes us behind the scenes of far-reaching legal and legislative battles, at the same time as she traces, in heartbreaking counterpoint, the consequences as they are played out in the life of Shirley’s son, Lamont. His terrifying journey through the system has produced a man with deep emotional wounds, a stifled yearning for family, and a son growing up in the system’s shadow.

In recounting the failure of the promise of benevolence, The Lost Children of Wilder makes clear how welfare reform can also damage its
intended beneficiaries. A landmark achievement of investigative reporting and a tour de force of social observation, this book will haunt every reader who cares about the needs of children.

August ~ 2013

86. Domino Falls...Steven Barnes & Tananarive Due ~ Dystopian/zombie story. I didn't realize that this was the second book in a series until after I had read it, but it didn't make much difference to the story. It did leave a cliffhanger, though, so I will have to get the next one.

87. The Zombie Survival Guide...Max Brooks ~ For some reason, I thought this was a funny book, so I didn't read it when I read World War Z years ago. I recently picked it up because DS1 wanted to read it after we went and saw the WWZ movie. It was great...definitely a parody, but not a comedy.

88. Bootlegger's Daughter...Margaret Maron
89. Southern Discomfort...Margaret Maron
90. Shooting at Loons...Margaret Maron
91. Up Jumps the Devil...Margaret Maron
92. Killer Market...Margaret Maron ~ Great series! Mysteries involving a female district court judge. I love that it is set in various places in North Carolina because I can relate to a lot of what she sees and goes through. Picking up more of them from the library this week!


93. Home Fires
94. Storm Track
95. Uncommon Clay
96. Slow Dollar
97. High Country Fall
98. Rituals of the Season
99. Winter's Child
100. Hard Row
101. Death's Half-Acre...Margaret Maron

More mysteries with Deborah Knott, the North Carolina district judge. I'm still loving them...I swear I can see different family members and friends in each of her characters. Their dialects, how they think and act. It's making me so homesick! I'm going to get the last four books in the series today and I'm going to be sad when they end!

102. Sand Sharks
103. Christmas Mourning
104. Three-Day Town
105. The Buzzard Table...Margaret Maron

So sad I finished this series! I think I'm going to have to find another series set in eastern North Carolina.



106. I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have To Kill You...Ally Carter

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Cammie Morgan, 15, is a student at Gallagher Academy, a top-secret boarding school for girls who are spies-in-training. She studies covert operations, culture and assimilation, and advanced encryption, and has learned to speak 14 languages. Her troubles begin when she falls for Josh, a local boy who has no clue about her real identity. Keeping her training secret forces her to lie to her new love, which leads to comic complications. Subplots include Cammie's relationship with her mother–the headmistress at Gallagher–and her grief over the loss of her father, who died while on a spying assignment. The teen's double life leads to some amusing one-liners, and the invented history of the Gallagher Girls is also entertaining, but the story is short on suspense.

My niece wanted me to read this...it was cute, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone over the age of 12-13. It is a series, but I won't be reading the rest of them.


107. Spellcaster...Claudia Gray

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In the small New England town of Captive's Sound, magic has deep, evil roots. Nadia, whose family has recently moved there after her mother left them, discovers this very quickly for she is a witch. Her mother departed before her training could be completed, and now it is up to her and her new friends, Mateo, a tortured boy whose family is cursed with telling the future, and Verlaine, a girl with a mysterious past, to figure out how to stop the magic from destroying their home. But doing so means battling a witch whose own roots in the town go further and deeper than they could have ever imagined. While Gray relies heavily on common tropes in paranormal romance, her story manages to rise above others in the genre with an intriguing history of witches and witchcraft. Though the plot stops and starts, the characters are sympathetic. The ending promises more battles to come, and fans will clamor to know what happens.

Another YA book, but I really liked this one.


108. The Madman's Daughter...Megan Shepherd

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Sixteen-year-old Juliet Moreau has built a life for herself in London—working as a maid, attending church on Sundays, and trying not to think about the scandal that ruined her life. After all, no one ever proved the rumors about her father's gruesome experiments. But when she learns he is alive and continuing his work on a remote tropical island, she is determined to find out if the accusations are true. Accompanied by her father's handsome young assistant, Montgomery, and an enigmatic castaway, Edward—both of whom she is deeply drawn to—Juliet travels to the island, only to discover the depths of her father's madness: He has experimented on animals so that they resemble, speak, and behave as humans. And worse, one of the creatures has turned violent and is killing the island's inhabitants. Torn between horror and scientific curiosity, Juliet knows she must end her father's dangerous experiments and escape her jungle prison before it's too late. Yet as the island falls into chaos, she discovers the extent of her father's genius—and madness—in her own blood.
Inspired by H. G. Wells's classic The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Madman's Daughter is a dark and breathless Gothic thriller about the secrets we'll do anything to know and the truths we'll go to any lengths to protect.

109. The Name of the Star...Maureen Johnson

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The day that Louisiana teenager Rory Deveaux arrives in London to start a new life at boarding school is also the day a series of brutal murders breaks out over the city, killings mimicking the horrific Jack the Ripper spree of more than a century ago. Soon "Rippermania" takes hold of modern-day London, and the police are left with few leads and no witnesses. Except one. Rory spotted the man police believe to be the prime suspect. But she is the only one who saw him--the only one who can see him. And now Rory has become his next target. In this edge-of-your-seat thriller, full of suspense, humor, and romance, Rory will learn the truth about the secret ghost police of London and discover her own shocking abilities.

110. The Madness Underneath...Maureen Johnson

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After her near-fatal run-in with the Jack the Ripper copycat, Rory Devereaux has been living in Bristol under the close watch of her parents. So when her therapist suddenly suggests she return to Wexford, Rory jumps at the chance to get back to her friends. But Rory’s brush with the Ripper touched her more than she thought possible: she’s become a human terminus, with the power to eliminate ghosts on contact. She soon finds out that the Shades—the city’s secret ghost-fighting police—are responsible for her return. The Ripper may be gone, but now there is a string of new inexplicable deaths threatening London. Rory has evidence that the deaths are no coincidence. Something much more sinister is going on, and now she must convince the squad to listen to her before it’s too late.

  
111. By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead...Julie Anne Peters

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After a lifetime of being bullied, Daelyn is broken beyond repair. She has tried to kill herself before, and is determined to get it right this time. Though her parents think they can protect her, she finds a Web site for “completers” that seems made just for her. She blogs on its forums, purging her harrowing history. At her private Catholic school, the only person who interacts with her is a boy named Santana. No matter how poorly she treats him, he just won’t leave her alone. And it’s too late for Daelyn to be letting people into her life . . . isn’t it?

In this harrowing, compelling novel, Julie Anne Peters shines a light on what might make a teenager want to kill herself, as well as how she might start to bring herself back from the edge. A discussion guide and resource list prepared by “bullycide” expert C. J. Bott are included in the back matter.

I'm definitely making my two nieces read this...and I'd recommend it to any tween/early teenage girl. Not the best written, but has a good message about the consequences of bullying.


112. Into the Woods: Tales from the Hollows and Beyond...Kim Harrison

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A true queen of urban fantasy—the New York Times bestselling author of the wildly popular series featuring bounty hunter witch-turned-daywalking demon Rachel Morgan—the phenomenal Kim Harrison explores the Hollows more deeply than ever before in Into the Woods, her first collection of short stories. Rachel is here, as are Jenks the pixie, elven tycoon Trent Kalamack, and an unholy host of vampires, demons, shapeshifters, ghosts, and other assorted supernatural beings, friends and foes.
Into the Woods combines original work, including a new Hollows novella, as well as all of Kim Harrison’s previously published short fiction gathered together in one volume for the very first time.

I love the Hollows series, but I'd already read most of the short stories here. The new ones were good.



113. Affliction...Laurell K. Hamilton

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Some zombies are raised. Others must be put down. Just ask Anita Blake.

Before now, she would have considered them merely off-putting, never dangerous. Before now, she had never heard of any of them causing human beings to perish in agony. But that’s all changed.

Micah’s estranged father lies dying, rotting away inside from some strange ailment that has his doctors whispering about “zombie disease.”

Anita makes her living off of zombies—but these aren’t the kind she knows so well. These creatures hunt in daylight, and are as fast and strong as vampires. If they bite you, you become just like them. And round and round it goes…

Thank gods! It's been a long time since I've read an Anita Blake book and didn't feel like I was in the middle of a soft-porn movie the whole time. There were still a couple of sex scenes, but they didn't take up the majority of the book...and this one had a plot! Yay! Hope LKH continues down this road with the rest of the series.



114. Blue Asylum...Kathy Hepinstall

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Amid the mayhem of the Civil War, Iris Dunleavy is put on trial by her husband, convicted of madness, and sent to Sanibel Asylum to be restored to a compliant Virginia plantation wife. But her husband is the true criminal; she is no lunatic, only guilty of disagreeing on notions of cruelty and property.  
On this remote Florida island, Iris meets a wonderful collection of inmates in various states of sanity, including Ambrose Weller, a Confederate soldier haunted by war, whose dark eyes beckon to her. Can love in such a place be real? Can they escape, and will the war have left any way—any place—for them to make a life together?

This book was okay. I enjoyed it until the ending...it was pretty sad and I think she should have gotten a better deal considering the hell she had gone through.



115. The Archived...Victoria Schwab

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Sixteen-year-old Mackenzie Bishop is a Keeper; she works with the Archive, where Histories (the bodies of the dead) are filed away in a huge library. Periodically, a History will wake and try to get back to the Outer (our world) through the Narrows, a maze of hallways with doors that lead into both the Outer and the Archives’ Returns. Keepers are charged with preventing them from reaching our world and sending them back to their sleep. The Archives are ruled by Librarians, who maintain order by sending Keepers to dispatch escaped Histories. Mac is torn between Wesley, a fellow Keeper, and Owen, a mysterious History who seems to understand her better than anyone. The nonlinear exposition includes the unexpected death of Mac’s little brother, Ben, and her beloved grandfather championing her training as a Keeper. Schwab gently but determinedly examines the impact of grief on a family, as Mac and her parents struggle to accept the death of a child. It’s an intriguing view of the afterlife, and the thoughtful exploration of death and our reactions to it will draw readers and promote discussion.

Loved, loved, loved! Can't wait until the sequel!


116. The Darkest Minds...Alexandra Bracken

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When Ruby woke up on her tenth birthday, something about her had changed. Something alarming enough to make her parents lock her in the garage and call the police. Something that gets her sent to Thurmond, a brutal government “rehabilitation camp.” She might have survived the mysterious disease that’s killed most of America’s children, but she and the others have emerged with something far worse: frightening abilities they cannot control.

Now sixteen, Ruby is one of the dangerous ones.

When the truth comes out, Ruby barely escapes Thurmond with her life. Now she’s on the run, desperate to find the one safe haven left for kids like her—East River. She joins a group of kids who escaped their own camp.  Liam, their brave leader, is falling hard for Ruby. But no matter how much she aches for him, Ruby can’t risk getting close. Not after what happened to her parents.

When they arrive at East River, nothing is as it seems, least of all its mysterious leader. But there are other forces at work, people who will stop at nothing to use Ruby in their fight against the government. Ruby will be faced with a terrible choice, one that may mean giving up her only chance at a life worth living.

Another good YA dystopian book!

June ~ 2013

I'm out of town on vacation, so I'm kind of behind (again) with posting my books. To be honest, a few of these were probably from May.

67. The Secret Scroll...Ronald Cutler ~ It was okay; a fast read.

68. Spellbound...Rachel Hawkins
69. Demonglass...Rachel Hawkins
70. School Spirits...Rachel Hawkins ~ These were the rest in the Hex Hall series; really fun YA reads.


71. Wheat Belly...William Davis
72. Healthy Appetite...Gordon Ramsay
73. Fast Food...Gordon Ramsay


74. Dead Ever After...Charlaine Harris ~ Honestly, I was really disappointed in this one. It is the last in the series and it seemed like she was rushing through it just trying to finish. Very unrealistic compared to the earlier books.


75. Property...Valerie Martin ~ Meh. About a female slave-owner.
76. Daughters of the Stone...Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa ~ Awesome story! Followed the lives of five women (great-grandmother down to grand daughter) starting with an African slave brought to a plantation in Puerto Rico and ending with a modern first generation PR American.

77. Charity Girl...Michael Loventhal ~ Slow to get started and a little frustrating at times, but overall a good story. It was about how young, unmarried women with STDs were rounded up and put in detention camps during WWI here in the US.

78. Gone Girl...Gillian Flynn ~ Good, but not as good as her others.

79. The Line Between Here and Gone...Andrea Kane
80. Drawn in Blood...Andrea Kane ~ Both of these were great!

81. Awakening...S.J. Bolton
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Clara Benning, a veterinary surgeon, is young and intelligent, but reclusive. Disfigured by a childhood accident, she prefers animals to people. When a man dies following a supposed snakebite, Clara’s expertise is needed. She’s chilled to learn that the victim’s postmortem shows a higher concentration of venom than could ever be found in one snake: The killer was human. Assisted by a neighbor and an eccentric reptile expert, Clara uncovers links to an ancient ritual, an abandoned house, and a fifty-year-old tragedy. But for someone the truth must remain buried in the past—even if they have to kill to keep it there.
 

82. The Panic Zone...Rick Mofina ~ It was good all the way up to the end; crappy ending.

83. Feed...Mira Grant
84. Deadline...Mira Grant
85. Blackout...Mira Grant ~ Really great zombie series! I'm going to have to find time to go back and read all the novellas she has written.

May ~ 2013

65. Banished: Surviving My Years in the Westboro Baptist Church...Lauren Drain

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You've likely heard of the Westboro Baptist Church. Perhaps you've seen their pickets on the news, the members holding signs with messages that are too offensive to copy here, protesting at events such as the funerals of soldiers, the 9-year old victim of the recent Tucson shooting, and Elizabeth Edwards, all in front of their grieving families. The WBC is fervently anti-gay, anti-Semitic, and anti- practically everything and everyone. And they aren't going anywhere: in March, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the WBC's right to picket funerals.

Since no organized religion will claim affiliation with the WBC, it's perhaps more accurate to think of them as a cult. Lauren Drain was thrust into that cult at the age of 15, and then spat back out again seven years later. BANISHED is the first look inside the organization, as well as a fascinating story of adaptation and perseverance.

Lauren spent her early years enjoying a normal life with her family in Florida. But when her formerly liberal and secular father set out to produce a documentary about the WBC, his detached interest gradually evolved into fascination, and he moved the entire family to Kansas to join the church and live on their compound. Over the next seven years, Lauren fully assimilated their extreme beliefs, and became a member of the church and an active and vocal picketer. But as she matured and began to challenge some of the church's tenets, she was unceremoniously cast out from the church and permanently cut off from her family and from everyone else she knew and loved. BANISHED is the story of Lauren's fight to find herself amidst dramatic changes in a world of extremists and a life in exile.

It's hard to review this book. As much as I hate the WBC and what they stand for, I do have to say it was interesting to see it from the inside.



66. The Girl Who Disappeared Twice...Andrea Kane

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Despite all her years determining the fates of families, judge Hope Willis couldn't save her own. Her daughter taken, she's frantically grasping at any hope for Krissy's return. Her husband dead-set against it, Hope calls a team not bound by the legal system.   
Forensic Instincts: a behaviorist. A techno-wizard. An intuitive. An ex-Navy SEAL. Unconventional operatives. All with unique talents and personal reasons for joining Casey Woods's group, they'll do whatever it takes. 
 
Able to accurately read people after the briefest of encounters, Casey picks up in the Willis household signs of a nervous spouse, a guilty conscience, a nanny that hides on her phone. Secrets beg to creep into the open. 
 
Forensic Instincts will dig through each tiny clue and eliminate the clutter, working around the clock. But time is running out, and Casey's team knows that the difference between getting Krissy back and her disappearing forever could be as small as a suspect's rapid breathing, or as deep as Hope's dark 
family history.

 
I liked this one and am currently reading the second in the series. I think I will have to look for some of her other books, too.