Fiction by John Marrs
Maggie and Nina share a house... and a lot of secrets. What lies between them unfolds slowly over the course of the novel and the ending is a surprise.
This book was okay but I didn't like it nearly as much as the others I've read by this author. I think it was that I found the characters kind of unpleasant. Still, that ending twist was good!
Fiction by Elizabeth Little
Nonfiction by Cathy Glass
Fiction by Chris Fabry
This was a good-enough romantic suspense story, but not as good as most I've read by Chris Fabry. I felt like it was a little too formulaic.
Nonfiction by Cathy Glass
Fiction by Catherine Ryan Hyde
Elle's mother is helping her move into her own apartment in New York City. Her mother tells Frank, Elle's friendly next-door-neighbor, that she's a little nervous at leaving her just-turned-eighteen-year-old only child there alone with just a cat from the animal shelter as a companion. Elle doesn't say it, but this is a lie.
There IS a cat, Mother IS nervous, and Elle IS alone. But she hasn't just turned eighteen. Elle's birthday is coming up in a few days, but it's her sixteenth birthday. Mother has a new boyfriend who "doesn't do teenagers," and Elle is being moved out of the way. Plus Elle is starting a new high school where she knows no one and doesn't know how to fit in.
Frank the neighbor and his wife Molly take Elle under their wing and try to look after her, but it turns out that they have a few problems of their own. This was a lovely little story with great characters.
I also read recently by this author: The Day I Killed James
Fiction by Dean Koontz
Fiction by Catherine Ryan Hyde
Eighteen-year-old Theresa has been forbidden by her counselor to say the phrase, The day I killed James, even though it's all she can think about. The counselor's point is, she didn't kill James. James killed himself. Still, Theresa feels responsible and she's having a super hard time getting over it.
This was a really touching story with believable characters.
I also read recently by this author: Chasing Windmills
Fiction by Elle Cosimano
This story begins with Finlay Donovan. a recently-divorced romantic-suspense writer, having a lunch meeting with her agent. Their conversation, a fractured discussion of a murder plotline, is overheard by a woman at a nearby table and misunderstood. She thinks Finlay is an actual killer! Also... this woman has an abusive husband, and she wants him to disappear...
This a fun little set-up, and I'd call it more of a caper story, although the author did perform a bit of a stretch to make it into a mystery.
Fiction by Stephen King.
Devin Jones spent the summer of 1973 working at an amusement park called Joyland on the Carolina coast. That year he was fated to have his heart broken and his life threatened, to save a kid's life and fail to see a ghost.
This was a good story, and it's a short one by Stephen King standards.
I also read recently by this author: Later
Fiction by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Fiction by Jesse Andrews
This is the funniest book you’ll ever read about death.That's a pretty good description, I think.
Greg Gaines is beginning his senior year of high school, and he's trying to maintain a position as everyone's non-adversarial acquaintance but no one's actual friend. Earl could be called his best friend, but really Earl is more like a co-worker. In this no-friend zone is where Greg has been semi-comfortably placed for the past few years, safe but a bit lonely.
Then Greg learns that Rachel Kushner is dying of leukemia, and his mother insists that he should befriend her.
This was a good book, funny and very different than I expected. It is NOT like The Fault in Our Stars, although both are good books.
Fiction by Joshilyn Jackson.
Ginny Slocumb says that her family has a fifteen-year curse, because she gave birth to her daughter Liza at age 15 and Liza's own daughter Mosey came fifteen years later. Needless to say, Ginny is watching fifteen-year old Mosey like a hawk the year that Ginny turns 45. But the trouble in that year comes from a different quarter.
This was a really good book! I recently rediscovered Joshilyn Jackson (I first read gods in Alabama years ago; it's a very good book with an unfortunately troublesome title published in 2006). Now I am planning to read all of her books that I can find!
I also read recently by this author: Never Have I Ever
Nonfiction by Cathy Glass
This was another interesting story by British foster carer Cathy Glass. I'm working on reading all her books.
In this story, an eight-year-old girl called Melody is removed from her mother's care because of severe neglect, and to Cathy Glass it seems a typical story of a drug-addicted parent who can't care for her child. But after getting to know Melody and her mother Amanda, it becomes obvious that there is more to their story.
This was a good book!
I also read recently by this author: An Innocent Baby
Fiction by Ben Winters
I categorized this novel as a sci-fi legal thriller, which sounds like a weird combination. And indeed it was…
There’s the family of a boy who has had a freak accident —or maybe he’s possessed, or something— and an ambulance-chasing lawyer who brings his fourteen-year-old son to work. And there’s the same people around ten years later, as a fresh tragedy brings them together again.
I really liked the characters and the the story was good in general, but I had some trouble with the ending. It didn’t seem to resolve the main plot points completely.
I also read by this author: Inside Jobs.
Nonfiction by Cathy Glass
The newest book by Cathy Glass, An Innocent Baby just came out in September. I literally preordered it, which I don't usually do, preferring to wait for the library to get a copy.
The story was as good as I expected.
