This is a wonderful tale that everyone can relate to; the anxiety and anticipation surrounding a high school reunion, and Smith tells a wonderful tale here. And as the old classmates gather, grudges come to the surface, and secrets behind them are revealed.

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.

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.

This is the story of a woman and her ex-lover who wind up running for governor at the same time. It’s wonderfully done, mixing the story with present day natation and that of the past. It also tells the story from both protagonists’ point of view. And there is so much more to this story than first appears, and even when you think you have the whole story a whole other layer appears. I thoroughly enjoyed this book!

While not my typical read, this book was OK and takes place in a dystopian world. Despite being quite dark, two characters do manage to find love and draw strength from that. What is really nice are the illustrations which are wonderfully done.

I don’t think I have ever said this before, but this book has WAY too much going on! Lots of people getting murdered. Some are connected and some are not. Then there is the theft that is a separate issue altogether. I was able to keep up for a while, but feeling like aa person running behind a car, I soon fell behind. I have read and enjoyed Baldacci before but was overwhelmed by this one.

I would say that the central part of this book is solid and enjoyable, but some of the peripheral stuff I could do without, including names of many people who have little or nothing to do with the story. And maybe it is just me, but I found the ridiculousness of the names, virtually all of them, to detract from the serious central plot. There is a god story in here, but you just have to wait for it to rise to the top.

This was a different and very good book, and I’m not going to do it justice in the description, but here goes. A woman has lost her husband to an accident and now has to sell the house they had bought together but had not yet moved into. Each chapter then becomes a look into her perspective of “If only such and such had not happened”. And even though you know right from the beginning what the ending is, it is still an amazing descriptive journey which was originally written in French.

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 a simple and straight forward read, it almost seemed like this should have been a book for children. It is the story of a young Nigerian boy who learns the important lessons of life as he ignores the advice of adults and falls in with other students who lead him astray.