Queen of Broken Hearts

I really enjoyed The Sunday Wife and The Same Sweet Girls by Cassandra King and was really looking forward to reading her newest Queen of Broken Hearts. I started this last night and just could never really get into or care about any of the characters in the book. I really enjoy reading books that take place in the south cause it is one of the few places I have never really been and they always sound like such wonderful places. The setting of this book is in Alabama and it's really the only interesting thing in the whole book. Clare the main character is a marriage therapist and to me she really had so many problems of her own I don't see how she could really be a help to anyone else. What I really enjoyed about the book was Clare's ex-mother inlaw who lives in her home made bird sanctuary where she cares for wounded birds. It is on a delta I think and it sounded like a truly awesome place to live. Thats all I liked about the book and I really hope her next one is better.

Once again I stayed up till 1:30 am to finish a book. I started this yesterday and just couldn't put it down. This is the 9th in the Scumble River series by Denise Swanson and I thought this one was really good. Skye's best friend Trixie Frayne convinces her to take a complimentary weekend at the new Scumble River Spa. Trouble begins immediately for the friends when they arrive at the spa and are met by protesters who think women should not indulge in frivolous beauty treatments and the owner of the spa wants Skye to find out who is digging up the grounds looking for a cache of jewels supposedly hidden on the spa grounds years ago. Then of course one of the spa's guests winds up dead in a mud bath. No one will be leaving the spa until Skye can figure out who done it. I really like the heroine Skye Denison. She is a little over weight and loves to eat. She is a school psychologist who also works part-time with the local police department. She dumped her old boyfriend Simon who is the local undertaker. I never really liked him and has now taken up with Wally Boyd the local police chief who seems like a good match for Skye. This is a cute cozy mystery series that has it's laugh out loud moments and unlike some series that seem to get worse with age this one continues to grow on me. A great cozy mystery read.

Into Temptation is by Penny Vincenzi and the the 3rd book in a series about the Lytton Family. Celia Lytton is still in control of the publishing business which has branched out to the U.S. This book transports one back to bygone eras that in Vincenzi's writing sound oh so rich and glamerous. There is still dissent amongst the family members and it is their stories that keep this book going. One can't help but wait with some trepidation to see what will happen next. At 672 pages it is a big book but once I came to the last page I couldn't help but wish that it had gone on for another 200 pages. It still left many unanswered questions but I don't regret one minute that I spent with this series. Ms Vincenzi seems to have a talent for writing big books. All the ones that I have read have never let me done and felt like they dragged at all. They are big books that read quickly and always leave you wanting more. This in my HO is the sign of a great writer.

19 Minutes is about a boy who has been bullied his whole life. By his own brother and by the kids in school. It only takes him 19 minutes to change his life, his parents life and all the kids who go to his school. The book involves many characters and at first you wonder how they all will come together. It works because what any of us may do today might involve people we have no idea it would effect and it could also stem from something that happened long ago. Picoult takes a very controversial subject and makes it into a chilling tale of how we become who and what we are.

Whale Talk

The main character in this book is T.J. Jones. He is black, white and Japanese. His given name is The Tao and he was abandoned by his mother when she got heavily into crack and crank. He is adopted by a loving ex-hippie couple and with the help of a great therapist he is able to overcome his rage over being abandoned by his mother.
He is a senior in highschool and still can get upset by injustice so when a big deal high school football star picks on a brain damaged student, Chris, for wearing his dead brother's letter jacket T.J. hatches a scheme for revenge. He assembles a swim team in a school with no pool made up of the most outrageous outsiders and misfits that he can find in his school. He makes the coach promise them letter jackets if they can all qualify. They all ban together and actually get good enough not to embarrass themselves at meets. The best part of all is the time they all spend together on the bus to get to the meets and to actually share the hurts that have made them who they are. Meanwhile T.J.'s father is fighting some demons of his own from his past and decides to take in another foster child and finds himself at odds with the child's abusive step-father.
This book drew a heated discussion in Iowa lately due to the subject..language.. just what I am not sure , but heard recently that the Pastor who had started the ruckus was backing down. This was a very good book about bullying and what all goes on in schools nowadays. The language is a little rough but sadly this is the way most kids talk now a days. T.J. is a boy fast becoming a man who does all that he can to keep the peace and be himself. Lessons could be learned from reading this book and I hope tons of YA's give it a try.

Philadelphia heiress Nora Blackbird has agreed to wed Mick Abruzzo, son of New Jersey's most notorious mobster. Then Nora and her sister's ominous news-Sweet Penny Devine has disappeared and her family wants her declared dead immediately. Could someone have plotted her final Act? It's up to Nora to figure it out and once again she does in this the 6th in the Blackbird sister's mysteries. This was a cute cozy with Nora once again figuring out the who dun it.

A Crazy Little Thing Called Death

Started and finished this one on sunday. I actually liked it better than some of his stand alones that I have read in the past. The former first lady has died and the most powerful people in the world gather in New York for her funeral. They are all taken prisoner in the church where they are gathered for the funeral. Detective Michael Bennett is called in to work with the kidnappers to get them released safe and sound. Michael's wife is dying of cancer and he is trying to get ready for the holidays and help his 10 adopted children get ready to lose their mother. A little implausible that he has 10 adopted children but I just went with the story and thought it was pretty good. Am not a big fan of Patterson. He publishes much too often and it seems at times they are just thrown together in a night. This one I would give a Ct rating.