A wonderful book

This is a good old fashioned detective story where women were “dames” and were “notin but trouble”. The language is fun and the central character is the grounding influence here as everyone else in the story is either crazy or a killer…..and one is both.

This story about a woman dealing with the intense love of her children who have now left home, along with going through menopause will bring out all of your emotions. It is a funny yet serious look at love of family and the need to be oneself. Will especially be enjoyed by those also dealing with aging parents.

This book is the true embodiment of the romantic comedy, but when you first begin it, that is not what you will see. It is well done and is set in Maui, so there is nothing not to love. A nice summer fun read.

While the writing was not terrible, the trouble is that while the author had a lot to say, there really is no story here. A 40-year-old woman loses her mother and is so distraught that she cannot get beyond it. The setting is Spain and all the character talks about is seducing men. The only interesting part was the epilog which was very articulate and summed up thing well.

This might very well be the best book I read all summer. It combines two of the genres that I love, fantasy and horror. I am a Stephen King fan, and as I read this, I could hear him commenting “Well done”. A 9-year-old boy who is socially isolated becomes a central part of a series of horrific events, during which he is befriended by an 11-year-old girl who lives near him. But she and her family seem to understand what is happening and provide him with protection. And on top of all this wonderful action, the writer provides the perfect narrative with just the right amount of emotion and description. If you like these two genres, you’ve got to try this!

In this story about women who go missing and then have their dead images appear in paintings, Isles does an excellent job in developing the characters and their connections to one another. And this is important because the subject matter here is often harsh and without this development of characters, it would simply be a brutal story. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time and liked the ending.

This was an OK romance book; not too sappy and portrayed the female central character as strong and independent. But there were just too many characters and unnecessary short sub-plots. For example, one of the side characters is losing and then does loose his mother to brain cancer. How can you make this a sub plot? And because the side characters were not well developed it took me a while to remember who everyone was.

This translated book from Japanese was very interesting. A boy of high school age who works in his family’s bookstore has just lost his grandfather who he lived with. He shuts himself away in the bookstore until a strange visitor comes into the shop. I liked the different writing this book presented as well as the way it presents a different way of looking a books.

While I am not always a fan of his stories set in Scotland, I did enjoy this one. Isabel sets out to get a present for her husband for Valentine’s Day but in the process becomes entangled in a situation which looks like she will either need to renege on a promise or fail to help someone who is truly in need. But leave it to the philosopher in her to work out the right answer.