Seventeen years ago, someone whose opinions on books NEVER matched mine recommended Lion’s Game by Nelson DeMille, and I LOVED it. Since then, I’ve grabbed every new DeMille book and been puzzled by the inconsistency: for example, Night Fall was terrific. The Panther? Not so much. And don’t even get me started on Radiant Angel. …
Hannah Sanders is turning sixteen. She’s a good student, she gets good grades and has nice friends, and so her parents trust her. Rather than a big flashy party, they decide to have a sweet sixteen party at their multimillion-dollar home in a wealthy Bay Area suburb (I’m picturing Lafayette or Orinda). She invites four …
Neil, you don’t know me at ALL, do you? I love you – except for that thing where you did a TV remake of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, which ended up being disappointingly cartoonish…but after reading this new book, maybe that really IS my level! I had such high hopes going in.… The marketing is superb: …
I had read so much hype about The Marsh King’s Daughter, I was eager to read the advance copy I received from Penguin Group/Putnam & NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. I was expecting a riveting psychological thriller, filled with suspense. What I got was a bit different… I suppose I have to give …
I live on the Central Coast of California, where it’s borderline heresy to be anything less than a huge fan of beloved local author Laurie King. True confession time: I admit it, I tried a couple of her books and they just didn’t grab me. But seeing that her latest book, Lockdown, was subtitled “A …
Just over a century ago, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian Nation in Oklahoma. In this amazing book, David Grann presents the results of his exhaustive research into one of the most horrific and shameful eras in U.S. history: the “Reign of Terror” as the Osage began …
Talk about a grabber: the description for Alan Drew’s book Shadow Man starts out “What Dennis Lehane does for Boston, Alan Drew does for Southern California in this gritty thriller…” I thought “what a trifecta!” I’ve been a Dennis Lehane fan for many years, I grew up in Orange County, CA (I am a huge …
How much do I love Scott Turow? I read tons of mysteries/thrillers, and am particularly fond of legal intrigue in that category. But I will drop EVERYTHING on my TBR list when a new book by Scott Turow is released! So when I had the opportunity to read an advance copy of Testimony (release date …
I’m a sucker for pretty much any Sandford books, whether it features Lucas Davenport or Virgil Flowers or (occasionally) both. The plotting is sharp, the characters are well developed (and more so with each title, as we come to know more about their lives with each new case). So, I was happy to receive an …
It isn’t a topic that is often discussed with strangers (if at all), but anyone who suffers with IBS knows there is SOMETHING going on in their digestive system that isn’t quite right. And that person has probably spent years searching for the answer. Thanks to Crown Publishing / Harmony and NetGalley, I had the …
Hmmm. Where to start with this one? I’ve often thought that, contrary to traditional theories, you frequently CAN tell a book by its cover – not so for Rough Trade by Steve Jackson. A close-up of the face of the creepy perv – I mean bad guy – shown above dominates the cover along with …
Admittedly, the true crime genre is a guilty pleasure of mine. I also follow politics, so the whole sad, sordid Chandra Levy saga looked to be right up my alley, and eagerly anticipated reading Actual Malice by Breton Peace, published in fall, 2016. I appreciate receiving a copy of this book in exchange for my honest …
As a teacher, I was always kind of a softie – an easy grader. And I suspect that is true of my reviews as well. And I REALLY liked the sound of this one: “emotional roller coaster filled with heart-stopping secrets and hairpin turns.” Sounds like my kind of escapist fiction! So, when I received …
For some reason, I think of Anita Shreve’s books as “beach reads,” and her newest “The Stars Are Fire” will most likely be a summer favorite in 2017. Thanks to Knopf Doubleday and NetGalley, I received an advance copy in exchange for this honest review. The story is set in Maine in 1947, and begins …
I first became aware of Megan Miranda’s storytelling skill when I read her previous novel All the Missing Girls, which was told BACKWARDS. Not an easy thing to pull off, but she did it in a 5-star fashion, so I was ready with high expectations when I received an advance copy of her latest book …
As a big podcast fan (admittedly sparked by Serial), I found the premise of this thriller intriguing: a hugely popular podcast has begun exploring the murder of a young woman’s father. The young woman is Josie Buhrman – who has changed her name and removed herself from the midwestern town where it happened, cutting herself …
This sounded like just the thing for an escape from reality: a story about a couple who “met cute,” got married and had a child, went on their first vacation as a family, and then…the husband and pre-school-age boy disappear completely! I thought it had “beach read” written all over it – not a bad …
I grew up on the beach in Southern California in the 60s (San Clemente High, Class of ’65!!) so I LEAPT at the chance to have an advance copy of Everybody Had an Ocean: Music and Mayhem in 1960s Los Angeles by William McKeen (thanks to Chicago Review Press and NetGalley) in exchange for my …
For some unknown reason, my guilty pleasure reading is True Crime. I’ve read a fair amount of crappy books in this genre, and also the “higher quality” titles from authors such as M. William Phelps, which are generally fairly well written. So I was happy to read an advance copy a Don’t Tell a Soul …
I had read one of Ian Rankin’s books a couple of years ago, but somehow I had overlooked the fact that there were TWENTY of his books featuring John Rebus, a detective in Scotland (Rather Be the Devil is #21). Thanks to Little, Brown and Co. and NetGalley, I had the opportunity to review the …