Cast Into Doubt

Fiction by Patricia MacDonald.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This story starts out with a convenience-store robbery and then shifts to a woman babysitting her preschool-aged grandson while the child's parents go on a cruise for a much-needed break. Almost immediately the second storyline becomes absorbing enough for the reader to forget the first, until they intersect once again... But the connection is not quite what you think.

This was an exciting thriller!

I also read recently by this author: Stolen in the Night

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

Fiction by Rick Riordan.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

We listened to this story over Thanksgiving weekend on a car trip. (Yep. All eleven-plus hours of it. IN THE CAR. And when the story was over we still had an hour of driving to do. Family fun at its finest.)

The story was good, but nowhere near as good as the first Harry Potter book, to which I've heard it compared. It was very imaginative, and a fun rendition of what Mount Olympus and the Greek gods might be like if they were real, but the characters felt less believable to me than I'd like. Also I had some trouble with the stark paganism of the whole thing, as a modern Christian, which sounds weird, I know.

So, the book was good enough, but I don't want to pursue the series.

A Spark of Light

Fiction by Jodi Picoult.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/

This book was quite a page-turner, as well as being the good character story I'd expect from Jodi Picoult.  It's about a shooting at an abortion clinic, which is rather a terrible subject, but this author specializes in making such things readable and accessible.

This was a really good book; my only little problem with it was that I felt a few (less important) things were left unresolved at the end.

I also read recently by this author: Small Great Things

Sweet Little Lies

Fiction by Caz Frear.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Cat Kinsella is a police detective in London with a conflicted past. When she was eight, her family had been on holiday in Ireland when a teenage girl disappeared, and Cat is sure her dad knew something about it. So she passive-aggressively ruins her relationship with dad over this incident but never confronts him about it (weirdly, I thought). Then it all comes up again when she is working on a murder case, although you get the impression that it's all come up for Cat many times before...

This story was interesting and I was surprised by the ending, but I wouldn't say I couldn't put it down.

The Man From St. Petersburg

Fiction by Ken Follett.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This story, set just before World War I, was an interesting character novel, in addition to being an exciting spy thriller.

I also read recently by this author: The Key to Rebecca

The Key to Rebecca

Fiction by Ken Follett.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This is a spy story set during World War II. It was pretty good, but not as good as others I've read by this author. I think this is one of his earlier novels.

I also read recently by this author: Night Over Water

The Last Mrs. Parrish

Fiction by Liv Constantine.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/
This thriller started out interesting; it was about a terrible girl called Amber who was plotting to steal another woman's husband while pretending to be her friend. I was enjoying the story, hoping Terrible Amber would get what was coming to her, and then came an exciting twist in the middle!

It's a very good novel by a pair of sisters who are co-writers. Read it!!