I read Cutting for Stone and really enjoyed it. Verghese is such a great storyteller. So when I saw The Covenant of Water, there was no hesitation on my part. And I was totally correct. I think this is one of my new favorite books of all time. I'm inserting part of the amazon.com description, because I can't do better: Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water ..read more

I was reading a new thriller, and taking forever. After about 55%, I asked myself, "Do I really care about these characters? Can I live without knowing what the 'big twists' are?" The answers were "no" and "yes." So I gave up.  Sometimes I easily blame myself for not enjoying a book--not in the right mood, not enough time to read...you get the idea. But sometimes I just don't like the book! And I need to admit that. After reading over half the book I still couldn't keep the two main characters apart. All of that is to say, I decided to try A Traitor in Whitehall, and I really enjoyed it ..read more

The Bone Hacker is the latest Tempe Brennan book, and as expected, it was very enjoyable. This episode brings Tempe to Turks and Caicos where several young men, tourists, have been disappearing. Some bodies have been found and they need help from our favorite forensic anthropologist. Seemingly unrelated accidental deaths have also occurred. It's all very confusing and the pieces don't come together until the end. Another creative plot that kept me turning pages and kept me guessing (incorrectly) at the resolution. As usual, it gets tense as Tempe herself faces danger. If you are a fa ..read more

At first, I thought Killers of a Certain Age was going to be a kind of tongue-in-cheek cutesy assassin story. After the introduction, when the women were fighting for their lives, the tone changed, and I found it to be pretty exciting. Billie is the narrator of the present time. She is one of four, recently retired women, who have worked for the past 40 years as assassins. The organization they work for, the Museum, started out as a Nazi-hunting squad, but since the Nazis' numbers have dwindled, their mission is to investigate, target, and assassinate unscrupulous people all over the wo ..read more

I always enjoy Grisham stories, but I really loved The Guardians. I think it's because of the premise. The main character, a lawyer named Cullen Post, created and runs Guardian Ministries, a nonprofit that works to get innocent people, most of them on death row, out of prison. I totally believe there are many people, right now, who are in prison but innocent. I just can't imagine being in that situation. Post is trying to prove the innocence of Quincy Miller. Twenty-two years ago, Quincy was convicted of murdering a lawyer at his desk. Post knows this isn't true, but proving it and getting ..read more

I saw this on a "deal of the day" right before I went on vacation. I was in the mood for something "beachy" and The Hotel Nantucket did not disappoint. Lizbet has just had a devastating breakup with her longtime boyfriend and business partner after discovering he was having an affair. Some faraway billionaire, Xavier, purchases The Hotel Nantucket and needs a general manager. The hotel has been closed for many years and is supposedly haunted. Lizbet throws everything she has into redesigning the hotel. The only way to make Xavier happy is if she gets a 5-star rating from Shelly Carpente ..read more

Like The Handmaid's Tale, The Heart Goes Last is another creative and thought-provoking dystopian by Atwood. Because of some non-descript economic collapse, Charmaine and Stan have lost everything and are now living in their car. When they get the opportunity to join The Positron Project. a town where everyone has a home, a job, and security. The tradeoff is that every other month they must serve as inmates in the Positron Prison. So while they are in prison, another couple is living in their home and working their civilian jobs. And you can never leave the town. It all seems great ..read more

I'm a big Coben fan and hadn't read one for a while so I was very entertained by Stay Close. Megan, a suburban housewife with two kids, a handsome husband, and a beautiful house, has a secret past. When she decides to return to one of her old haunts -- where they know her as Cassie -- she ends up digging up more than she bargained for. Ray, a two-bit photographer who is constantly down on his luck, is someone from Cassie's past. Ray inadvertently takes a picture of a man right before he disappears. He sends the picture anonymously to the police, and Detective Broome is on the case.  T ..read more

While Zero Days may not be my favorite Ware book, it can certainly be described as a page-turner! Jack and her husband Gabe are experts at testing companies' security systems. Jack attempts to break into their facilities and get to the good stuff. Gabe tries to hack their computers. They are very good at what they do. Jack arrives home very late from an assignment and finds Gabe murdered while sitting at his computer. The spouse is always the first suspect, and since Jack's alibi isn't airtight, she soon becomes the primary target of the investigation. In order to make sure that whoeve ..read more

Small Mercies is a book that takes place in 1974 when Boston was trying to desegregate schools by bussing kids out of their neighborhoods. It's not really much about that, though. Yes, there are protests, but mostly the book is about racism during this time and how being in the wrong place at the wrong time (and if you are the wrong color) can be deadly. The book is well-written and kept my interest. The main characters are well developed, especially Mary Pat, who is looking for her daughter who has disappeared. I did get some of the supporting characters confused, as Mary Pat visits a ..read more