Books are expensive here so I always appreciate suggestions of good novels. I love detective novels, but willingly read almost anything if it's well written. If you have any suggestions for my reading list, please let me know. Also, see Bookcrossing.com for ways to spread books around.
Created February 19, 2008, Updated November 18, 2008
Alexander Kinloch is a bit of an odd sort. He lives in a bothy with no running water and no electricity so he can live a solitary life in the Scottish Highlands. That all changes when his stepfather has a heart attack and he goes to help his mother. Alexander is stretched to the very breaking point in his quest to find some embezzled money.
This is a good example of Dick Francis writing at the peak of his powers. A great story and enjoyable to read.
This novel explores what happens in a family, a group of friends and a small town when a popular girl disappears one summer's day. The police are called, the media are alerted, but after the first week or so, life continues.
An sad and touching novel about strong people in an unimaginable situation. Well worth reading, although honestly, not my usual type of novel.
The fictional account of a real woman's life in the later part of the 1700's. She lived a strange life, loved a smuggler, worked as a servant, was arrested and then...but I can't tell you everything can I? A fascinating tale of a woman bound by poverty, illiteracy and the times. Very enjoyable.
Gregory continues the saga of the Boleyn family in the court of Henry VIII. This time she focuses on three women, Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard and Jane Boleyn. It's a fascinating tale of 3 very different women struggling to survive in dangerous times. I found this novel extremely difficult to put down! A good read.
Dr. Brennan returns in Fatal Voyage. This time she has been asked to help identify the remains of people who were in an airplane crash. It's a tragic occurrence, especially since two university soccer teams were on board. Tempe must help collect DNA to identify the bodies. Along the way, she makes a gruesome find in a clearing and from then on becomes a woman under suspicion.
The suspense grows steadily in this novel, the science isn't mind-numbing and the characters are well written. This is an author that knows her stuff and writes enjoyable novels. There is one "against" for this novel. If you will take a plane trip soon after reading this novel, pass on it and buy something else. It is too realistic about airplane crashes! Very satisfying.
There's a war going on in Quebec. A war between motorcycle gangs. That the gangs fight and kill each other might not be so bad, the problem is when innocent bystanders are killed. Temperance Brennan, a forensic anthropologist, is brought into an unusual case to help decide the origins of some human remains.
A very well written story, in the tradition of Patricia Cornwell, without all of the jargon and coldness that has recently taken over Cornwell's work. A good and interesting read. If you enjoy CSI and other related programmes, this is for you!
Marian Keyes story tells the tale of three friends from a small town in Ireland who come to live in London. There's Katherine, beautiful and aloof; Tara, overweight and in a relationship with the wrong man; and Fintan, a gay man with a wicked sense of humor. One of them undergoes a health crisis and the friends rally around. The ill friend gives the others a task that they must complete to compensate the ill friend for his/her illness.
Keyes is a good writer, one of the best of the "chick" writers and she tells an amusing and yet serious tale of friendship. A good read.
Carrie's year of service has come to an end and she meets with Jonathan once more to decide her future. Well written novel. Only for adults, strong sexual content.
Max Moreton is a famous chef. A large banquet that he cooked for ended up making 200 people sick with food poisoning, the next day, a bomb goes off at an event he catered. What is the connection between the two events? Max tries to find out, in a story that takes him all over England and over to the US. He finds love and danger along the way to a surprise ending.
Dick Francis just keeps writing great stories. This is another cracking read from the ex-jockey. Well worth picking up.
A gripping novel about a former police forensic investigator, paralyzed from the neck down, being brought into an investigation to find a serial killer. It sounds implausible, but somehow isn't. I read this on a weekend trip, and almost didn't want to go out of the hotel room. I wanted to stay in and read. First of a series. I'll try to find more now!
Precious Ramotswe, Mma Makutsi, and the gang are back for more fun and investigation in Botswana. These books are like a cool drink on a hot day, refreshingly simple and yet over the course of the series, show that everyday life is rife with possibilities and dangers.
In this novel, Mr. J.L.B. Maketoni investigates a case, Precious looks at mysterious deaths in a hospital and Mma. Makutsi begins to plan her future. Wonderful.
The riveting tale of two sisters, vying for one of the highest prizes in the land, the favour of King Henry the Eighth. Mary Boleyn is our narrator, she is first to catch the King's eye, then while she is bearing his second child, her sister Anne steps in to captivate the King.
The story of the three Boleyns (including their brother George) is very interesting. I usually don't read historical fiction, but I found that once I was halfway through the novel, I didn't want to put it down. I literally felt that I was in Tudor England.
If the story of the court of Henry the Eighth sounds interesting, then I'd advise reading this novel. It's engrossing and very well written.
A fun story that tells of Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy's second visit to Narnia. They are summoned to help the title character defeat his uncle who has usurped the throne of Narnia.
Lots of fun, but not a really deep story. Worth re-reading. It's been at least 12 years since I last read this. Enjoyable.
A collection of short and unfinished Jane Austen stories. The first, Lady Susan, is an epistolary novel about a woman chasing men for their money. The two unfinished works show Austen's wicked sense of humour and great knack for describing people succinctly and a little cruelly. After university I was foolish enough to read a novel called Sanditon, another novelist had taken up the challenge of finishing Austen's novel. I could tell exactly where Jane left off and the other writer began. It's better unfinished!
For completists and fans of Jane Austen mostly. Enjoyable.
When I read novels like this I usually don't tell anyone! It's very adult and describes a young woman's foray into the world of S/M. It's very well written and the character is an intelligent woman who wants to find her limits. Obviously, because of the subject matter, I cannot recommend it for everyone.
Dean Koontz is back with another novel where he puts a man and a woman together in a strange situation and sets them on the run. This is better than some of his recent attempts. Thankfully there's only one dog, owned by a peripheral character, and no character with Down's Syndrome, so he's not using all of his usual bags of tricks here. However, the villain once again has almost a supernatural knowledge of what the heroic characters are going to do.
While I was reading this novel I really enjoyed it, but once it was over I couldn't help wondering why! The characters are interesting, but they needed more development. And, as usual, the ending was a letdown, although it probably couldn't have ended another way.
Mr Koontz, the question still is, where is Part 3 of your Frankenstein series? We're still waiting. Stop writing this kind of stuff until you finish what you started!
A continuation of the story about a flock of flying children and their attempts to stay out of the clutches of the scientists that created them and save the world at the same time. It sounds ludicrous, but it works. Patterson has created a narrator, the 14 year old Max, who is not just a flying girl, she's a flying girl with brains and a huge streak of sarcasm. This is the third in the series...and it's a humdinger. Very hard to put down. Great fun.
I've been having problems with Patricia Cornwell lately. I just haven't found her books to be as well written or engrossing as they were in the past. However, this new Scarpetta novel almost redeems Cornwell as a writer in my eyes. Scarpetta is facing personal problems with Marino and must try to find a serial killer. Dr. Scarpetta and her team are also under attack by a famous psychiatrist whom Scarpetta testified against in a previous case.
Patricia Cornwell has written a book that is very nearly up to her previous standards, so if you are a fan of her older work, I'd recommend it. As usual with her novels, it has violence and gruesome scenes (Scarpetta is a forensic pathologist after all), so it's not for the faint of heart.
Mma. Ramotswe has many problems in this novel. Her ex-husband Note is back, she hits a man with her little white van, one of the apprentice mechanics runs away and finally her little white van breaks down. Another of the charming novels from McCall Smith set in Botswana. Great fun.
Mma. Ramotswe is back in another fun story from Botswana. She is still engaged to Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni but is beginning to wonder if she will ever be married. However, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni has problems of his own. The Orphan Farm's matron is roping him into raising money for the Orphanage by....well, read the novel and find out for yourself! Gentle and enjoyable novel.
Barney, the woman who knows cars, and Hooker, the NASCAR driver are back with another adventure set in Florida. It involves dead bodies, computer chips, a huge St. Bernard named Beans and prunes. Lots of prunes. This is almost more fun than Evanovich's Stephanie Plum stories. It's laugh out loud funny in places. I hope that there will be more novels with Barney and Hooker.
Lyra and Will's story comes to an end in this novel. We learn the fate of the other characters and the truth about Dust and what is happening to it. It's a wonderful story, with greater maturity than the other two novels in the series. The story ends as it should, although not quite as I would have liked. Well worth reading.
The continuing story of Lyra, but this time she is joined by Will Parry, a boy from our world, trying to find his father. New characters are introduced, but they all manage to stay distinct from each other. This book, like the first one, moves at a cracking pace and never slows down or becomes boring. That's unusual for middle novels, they often bog down under the weight of their characters....this one doesn't. Towards the end of the novel there's a death of a character that actually made me exclaim out loud when I read it. Very unusual for me. Definitely worth reading if you enjoyed the first in the series. On to the third book!
A cracking great read. Talking bears, witches...this is Narnia, right? No. This is much deeper and apologies to C.S. Lewis, much better written. I'd pick this book up to read while I was waiting for internet pages to finish loading and 10 minutes later I'd still be reading it.
Lyra Belacqua, the heroine of the novel, is not a girl for sitting by the fireside with embroidery. She is a half-wild young thing on the edge of womanhood, living with scholars in a University. Through her pluck and then her skill using a mysterious truth-telling device, she travels from London to the North Polar region. The recent movie was good, but they didn't get all of the details right. This book rocks!
This massive book follows the story of the end of the world as we know it. There's a type of superflu with a 99.4 percent mortality rate, and most of the people in America die. The survivors group themselves into two camps: the ones that follow Mother Abagail, and the ones that follow Randall Flagg. We see the struggle for life that everyone goes through, from loneliness to health problems and hunger.
King writes such a masterful story that even though I read it twenty years ago, I stayed up late for a week trying to find out what happens. There are flaws of course, and some characters are given short shrift in their development and leavetaking, but it is fun to read. I'll probably re-read it in a year or two. It's that kind of book.
Where do I begin? This is a haunting, beautifully written novel about a girl's tragic mistake and how she spends the rest of her life trying to make amends. The novel focuses on three people: Robbie, son of the housekeeper, Cecilia the elder sister, and Briony the youngest child of a wealthy family, and budding writer. The events that tear apart a family take place in one evening of misunderstanding.
Parts of this book were difficult to read, mostly because of the subject matter, but the quality of the writing was well worth it. I highly recommend it.
A film of this movie has now been made with Keira Knightley and James McAvoy. I'm looking forward to seeing the movie.
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