Fiction by Catherine Ryan Hyde
Fiction by Elizabeth Percer
I can explain why I couldn't get into this book, but... I just couldn't.
Recently I was asked how much of a chance I give a book before giving up, and I said, "I'll usually read at least a third unless I'm really suffering." And I wasn't suffering with this one, exactly, but after a third of the book I still wasn't interested either.
Fiction by Diane Chamberlain
Laura Brandon is a woman with a nice safe marriage and a five-year-old daughter. But when her father's dying wish meets with her husband's obstinate and inexplicable disapproval, Laura has to make a choice with consequences she can't foresee.
This was a good story with great characters and only a little over-the-top contrivance in the plot.
Fiction by Agatha Christie
Fiction by Katherine Center
This is a fun little story about a girl who gets hit on the head and does NOT get amnesia. Instead there's a more unusual reaction that complicates the love story.... no spoilers though.
Fiction by Karin Slaughter
This is the fourth book in the Grant County series, the sequel to A Faint Cold Fear. (see below)
In this story, pediatrician and coroner Sara Linton gets embroiled in a hostage situation at the police station with her ex-husband (and maybe-current-boyfriend) Police Chief Jeffery Tolliver. As Sara tries to survive this current trouble, a series of flashbacks lets the reader learn some of her and Jeffery's history. Soon it becomes clear that the past may be as important as the present in this situation.
This was an exciting story with some surprises. I don't think it was a good as others in this series though.
Fiction by Edan Lipinksi
This was a strange book. I suppose it should have been obvious from the weird title that it would be.
The book begins with an odd monolguey introduction by Time personified, but the story is about a woman called Ursa, beginning a little after 1950. Ursa has a gift for time travel, but only in a very limited way. This gift (or curse) is a major plot point but doesn't actually influence the narrative line. Therefore it doesn't really pull the novel all the way into fantasy, in my opinion. I decided to classify it as weird historical fiction instead.
Really it's more of a character story, about Ursa and the lives she influences, for better or worse. (Mostly worse.) It was a good story with an ending I didn't expect.
Audible Original Fiction by Dennis Taylor.
Okay, so just hold onto your metaphorical hat for this premise: Bob Johansson strikes it rich, signs up for a cryogenic preservation subscription, and then gets killed. He is reanimated a hundred and fifty or so years later as... wait for it... a space probe.
This was actually a fun little story, if you're willing to embrace the oddity and suspend your disbelief. It's the beginning of a trilogy, and I think I'll look for the next one.
Fiction by Katherine Faulkner
Ex-journalist Tash Carpenter has been taking her young son Finn to playgroup in her London neighborhood for a little while, but she can't really seem to make friends with the other mums, especially the posh ones. There are a three "ladies who brunch" who seem to be a tight clique, and Tash wants to break into that circle. Then one day they actually invite her to join them!
At the same time Tash is trying to do an investigative piece on Sophie Blake, a nanny who was found dead a year or so before. But is there a connection between her new friends and her big story?
This was an okay mystery story but it had some draggy bits and an implausible conclusion. I didn't love it.
Fiction by Kate Christianson
At the beginning of this story a woman called Rachel is required to leave her job in Washington DC and go home to Maine because her mother has died. Waiting there for her will be her sister Celeste and a truckload of guilt, so Rachel delays as much as she can before making the trip. Rachel was estranged from her mother and had not been home to Maine for many years, so it comes as quite a surprise when Rachel finds her mother has bequeathed her house to her.
This was a good character story that started a little slowly. I did like it by the end.
Fiction by Richard Roper
Andrew works at British government office that arranges burials for people who die alone. (Is this a real profession in England? I don't know.) But the job is really starting to get to him, since he is himself a single man who wishes he had a wife and children of his own.
This was a quirky little story with good characters and a pretty good plot.
P.S. I thought this was a fun and unusual title, and it is. I figured it would be a cute fiction story about someone who doesn't die alone at the end, and it is. Much like a similarly-titled book I read recently How to Walk Away, I did not expect this book to actually tell me how to DO anything, and it didn't.
But it turns out there is another book by the same title that's an ACTUAL self-help book. How Not to Die Alone by Logan Ury is a nonfiction book that is supposed to help you find lasting love.
So... if reading Andrew's story makes YOU worried about dying alone, there's another book for that problem!
Fiction by Katherine Center
This was a fun story with great characters! It follows a girl called Emma who gets a chance to live her dream of writing a screenplay while collaborating with her favorite screenwriter. It's a straight romance, but it has enough real plot to be enjoyable. I really love this author.
