Bombshell Catherine Coulter

If you liked Tailspin and The Maze, then you are going to enjoy this new thriller by Catherine Coulter.  Sherlock and Savitch are back and this time they are joined with a newer character Griffin Hammersmith. 

Delsy a music student at Stanislav a small music school in the fictional town of Maestro, Virginia, is in the center of this mystery. (And yes, I did a quick google search to see if this place actually exists) Still, it's a great setting for a music college don't you think? 

 Anyway, Delsy is invited to a party at a professor's house though "invited" might be stretching the truth, since the professor would not take no for an answer. This detail alone should raise a red flag. After having too much to drink she leaves he party in a heavy snowstorm and barely makes it home.  Once inside her apartment, she heads to the bathroom. The last thing she remembers before waking up in a hospital is seeing a dead person in her bathtub.  

Turns out Griffin Hammersmith happens to be on his way to Washington DC to join Dillion Savitch's FBI unit when he gets word that Delsy his sister was found unconscious on her bathroom floor covered in blood and not all of it hers. The FBI is called in because it quickly becomes clear that something is not right in the little town of Maestro. The DEA is already involved.

Meanwhile a student from Magdelyn College is found dead and frozen in the snow right in front of the Lincoln Memorial.  He has an interesting family history, and the FBI is called in on this one as well.  Are these two murders at all related or just two crimes in two places not too far apart that have nothing to do with one another?

Once again Catherine Coulter creates a primary and secondary plot that become perfectly intertwined.

Sunday Notes on Monday. What''s Good to Read?

Sunday Notes on Monday


So if you have been reading my blog by now you know that  every Sunday I play this little game with myself. On Sunday the first section that I read of the Washington Post is the Outlook section, it contains the book section. I go to the last page and read the Washington Bestseller list. This week the bestseller list focused on Paperbacks but it alternates between paperbacks and hardcover. You can check my scoring system on the May 6th post.

This week I have read two on the list, Beautiful Ruins and Ender's Game.  I have once again fallen short of my goal of three on the list.  But on my list for this week's blog posts are another Catherine Coulter book Bombshell  and a book called Sight Reading. What surprised me about these two books is that music is an integral part of the story line. 

I have a whole stack of books next to my bed to get through and at this point I am not sure what I will pick up after I finish Sight Reading and Bombshell.  My book club book is definitely on the top of the list since the meeting is in two weeks.  The book of the month is the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. This book happens to be on the paperback non-fiction list coming in at number 7.  I like to read my book club selection the week before book club so everything is fresh in my memory.  It would be interesting to know how many of you are in book clubs and if you wait till right before your meeting to read the book.  I have to admit that sometimes I have cut it a little to close and the day of the meeting I am scrambling to get the book read. My book pick for the club is next and I am trying to decide which one to choose.

So have a wonderful week and make sure you pick up a book to read.

Click on the titles below for more info


        

Ladies Night by Mary Kay Andrews

Grace is a very successful blogger.   In fact her blog has over 239,000 followers ( Deep sigh and lots of envy).  She is getting to be so successful that she has hired an assistant to help her out.  Turns out that her assistant is "assisting" her husband a lot more than her and in a lot of different ways.  She finds them both in his car and the assistant is helping him with his pants zipper.  I think you see where this is going.  

 

Grace gets so furious that she drives his very expensive sports car into their pool and goes to stay overnight with her Mom.  When she tries to get back into her gated community and her house she is prohibited from entering and the slim bag of  a husband has frozen her credit cards and her accounts.  Oh and here is the icing on the cake, turns out he has administrative privileges to her blog account and has changed her password.  He can do that he manages her business. Right?  Grace has no choice but to start all over again.  Can she do it.  Personally I think she should have taken the advice given by Ivana Trump in First Wives Club and I quote " Don't get mad, get everything."  But if Grace had done that there would be no story.

As part of the divorce proceedings she is forced to attend therapy to try to work out some of the hostile feelings she has for her cheating husband which happens to be all ladies and one man.  They end up forming a bond and so their therapy session becomes Ladies night.

This is either the third or fourth Mary Kay Andrew book that I read and I really find them good light reading. Check out my post on Deep Dish posted June 25, 2012 about two regional cooks competing for a chance to do a show for the cooking channel.

Hot Fun in the Summertime

This past week our air conditioner broke.  Of course it was the hottest days of the summer and it reminded me of my childhood.  We lived in an older house that did not have air conditioning.  I heard a gasp.  I know it is hard to believe.  I do remember it was really really hot and that is when I decided I was a cold weather person.  You can layer up when you are cold but there is just so many layers to be removed when you are hot before you are in your birthday suit.

Even though I had to deal with the heat, there were still some great memories. One of the things I remember about summer was going to Nunley's Amusement park in Baldwin, NY. Usually one of the Dad's would round us up and take us there.  It was Mom's time off. When we got older we went by ourselves.

Nunley's was on Sunrise Highway and it was owned and operated by William Nunley.  It was opened from 1939 to 1995.  That is a long time.  It had a fortune teller similar to the one that was seen in the movie Big with Tom Hanks.  I am sure you all agree that was a really great movie.  Aside from the rides there was an arcade with one of my favorite games Skee Ball.

When I was little the ferris wheel that you see in the picture above was so large or so I thought so at the time.  Looking at it now I realize it was tiny.  That still didn't take away from the fact that if it stopped and you were at the very top it was thrilling.   But my very favorite thing in the whole park was the carousel.  It was beautiful.  All the horses looked majestic and beautifully painted.  I tried never to ride the same horse twice but I did have a weakness for the ones that had roses along their mane.  And I remember there was one lion.  I could never figure out why the designer of the carousel put a lion on the merry go round at all but  I guess it gave it character.

As with so many things Nunley's is gone but the memories will always live on. Check out this you tube video.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5WagXjQLVY




So beautiful

The Apple Orchard by Susan Wiggs

I like Susan Wiggs as a writer.  She is a smart romance novelist that combines just the right elements of story line and romance.  After reading this, I have decided it is one of my favorites of hers. 

The thing about romance novels is that you can't really say to much with out giving the story away so I will keep this brief and hope you pick it up and read it.  Tess finds long lost treasures for people.  What Tess never expected to find was a family, her family.  Her Mom had always told her that her Dad was just a one night thing who she knew nothing about.  Just so happens she new a lot about him and Tess finds out she has a half sister Isabel and a Grandfather.  Seething at her Mother who travels for her job and is conveniently unavailable to answer Tess' questions she makes the trip to this Apple Orchard owned by her newly discovered family. There she devlops a relationship with her sister, finds the man of her dreams who happens to be a neighbor of Isabel and oh yes a few antiquities thrown in for good measure.  This book would make a great Lifetime movie and you all know how much I like my Lifetime movies.

Sunday Notes on Monday. What's Good to Read?

Sunday Notes on Monday


So if you have been reading my blog by now you know that  every Sunday I play this little game with myself. On Sunday the first section that I read of the Washington Post is the Outlook section, it contains the book section. I go to the last page and read the Washington Bestseller list. This week the bestseller list focused on Hardcovers but it alternates between paperbacks and hardcover. You can check my scoring system on the May 6th post.

After weeks of not doing well playing my little game I am finally back on the boards.  This week I have read these books as follows 1. Inferno (Blog Post June 25, 2013), 8. Gone Girl (Blog Post Dec 11, 2012) and 10. The Heist. In case you missed the post on The Heist It was release yesterday July 20, 2013 and it has a fun story line and all the humor found in Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels.

In addition I am giving myself a half of a point because I am currently reading the number 3 book Bombshell by Catherine Coulter and I will let you know how I like it in the next week or so. In addition I am working on the novel Ladies night by Mary Kay Andrews.  I always enjoy her books when I feel like just kicking back. 

And before I close I just want to mention that I read a really good romance novel The Apple Orchard which I will blog about this week.  So have a great week and happy reading!

Click on any book below to get to Amazon

       

Have you ever Heard of Ted Talks

 







I met a friend at Nordstrom's Café the other day.  We hadn't seen each other in awhile and so we had a lot of things to catch up on. It was great to just be able to sit and chat. Towards the end of the conversation we chatted briefly about books and she happened to mention something called TED talks. At first I thought she was going to start talking about the movie Ted which people find incredible funny or incredibly stupid.  Sorry you Ted/Seth McFarland fans I am not one of the people thinking it is really funny.  It has fleetingly funny moments but they are tiny moments. 

She specifically recommended one on work life balance which I am sure many of you are struggling to find and so I watched it when I got home.  I have included the link below. And because I was curious I went to the TED Website to find out what TED was all about and this is what their website said:

TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

TED's mission statement begins: 

We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we're building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other  the non-profit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading 


Work Life Balance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdpIKXLLYYM

Work Life Balance is very important to me and it is one of the harder things for me to achieve.  Recent events in my life have caused me to mull this over even more.  We are on this earth for such a short period of time and there is so much to do.  My bucket list never gets any shorter.  If I do manage to accomplish something on it, something always takes its place. One of the things he talks about is spending an afternoon with his young son.  The simplicity of this day, spending quality time with a loved one is what made it so special. 

The Heist by Janet Evanovich

I like Janet Evanovich novels.  They make me laugh and I don’t really have to think too much.  I can just enjoy the read. With this book, Evanovich teams up with Lee Goldberg a screen writer and you can definitely identify the special effects incorporated in the Heists written about in the book. So I am assuming this is what Goldberg brings to the writing table.

Gone is Stephanie Plum the bounty hunter.  I kind of miss her and Lulu and Connie.  After you read several Stephanie Plum novels they feel like your friends. But not to worry the author does a great job creating a new set of characters.

The main character is competent FBI Agent Kate O'Hare who is on a mission to catch a high class thief similar to the one found in the movie The Thomas Crown Affair which in case you have never seen this movie stars the gorgeous Pierce Brosnan. Add it to your must see movie list.  It is a good movie.

Nick Fox (the thief) is an elegant thief who loves the stimulation and the thrill of planning and executing the theft of very expensive items. Kate wants to apprehend him and see that justice is served in the worst way.  And of course she finds him sexy as heck.  And in the first few chapters of the book she gets her man.  Don't worry I didn't give away the plot.  While being escorted to the courthouse he pulls a now you see me now you don't and once again Kate has a mission to always get her man. But there is a twist.  Some how they end up sorking on the same side.  Go figure!  It's a fun summer read. Try it you'll like it.  And from the way the novel is written it opens the door for more books written with these characters.  Can't wait.

Gone Girl The Movie

Awhile back I blogged about the book Gone Girl.  I just read that there is a good chance that the book will be made into a movie and that Ben Affleck will star as the male lead.  One word about that PERFECT! 

For the female lead they are looking at Emily Stone, Charlize Theron and Natilie Portman.  I was thinking more like Jennifer Lawrence but I guess one of the others will do.   

The good news is I have read the book first.  I just hate to go to a movie before I have read the book,  especially if the book was popular and I had it on my must read list. 

 

Foodie Wars

 

The Wagons are circling  or rather the food trucks.  There is going to be a throwdown and it has nothing to do with Bobbie Flay. On August 3rd D.C. food trucks will go head to head or bumper to bumper with food trucks from NY. I don't know but I think D.C has a shot at winning this one.  I am just saying it could be close.

This is Unlike the Pizza war everyone has been waging with the NY Pizzeriasfor years. In this case NYC clearly win.   Now I can say from years of experience that no one makes better Pizza then the New York Pizzerias. The pizza is so good that it is mouth watering hot or cold as a breakfast, lunch, or yes late night snack. 

NJ runs a close second but that is because so many great pizza makers from NY decided to leave the rat race and move to a kinder gentler place. Recently I was up that way and ordered a Pie at Antonios.  I watched as the Pizza maker molded the crust into just the right thinness.  His technique was beautiful to watch.  He pressed it out and then he threw it from hand to hand never once dropping it or creating a hole. I told him my story about trying to make my own pizza and he said to me "people think it is easy to make the perfect pizza, it's not so easy, it takes practice and patience. I make lots of pizzas all day long."  I wish I could convey his accent as he spoke. 

 His finished product was a mouth watering gastronomic feast.  The dough was exactly the right thickness, there was the perfect amount of sauce and cheese.  The sauce was delicious reaching just the right balance of tomato goodness and the cheese dripped off the pie like it should.  This is how you know you have achieved crust greatness.  The crust is not under cooked, the slice bends in your hand just right and the bottom of the slice opposite the crust has so much cheese that in order for you to eat that first bite without loosing all its goodness, you must fold it up onto the slice itself and then take the bite. 

I myself have just started to make homemade Pizza inspired by my guru of health and the wine women of west Virginia.  Crust Thickness is definitely a challenge.  I still find that in my quest to make the crust thin but not too thin I fall just a smidge short.  This past week I rolled out the dough and one part was so thin that it disintegrated  under the weight of the sauce and cheese leaving a hole. Next week I must try again and I shall! 

Anyway, This throwdown on the streets of DC will represent many ethnic foods and will be judged.  Click on the link below to go to the Washington Post and read about it.  May the best truck win

 

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/going-out-guide/wp/2013/07/12/who-has-better-food-trucks-d-c-or-new-york-august-throwdown-will-find-out/

The Maze By Catherine Coulter

This is where it all began. Like When Harry Met Sally, this is where Sherlock met Savich. If you read Tailspin and enjoyed it, go back and read The Maze if you haven't already. Lacey Sherlock hadn’t really considered becoming an FBI agent—until life threw her a curveball that changed her path entirely.

She ends up assigned to a unit led by Dillon Savich. If you're a fan of NCIS, think of Savich as the FBI’s version of McGee, our favorite computer wizard. Not sure how many of you watch the show, but I never miss an episode. For those unfamiliar, McGee can do it all: track down bad guys, triangulate locations, and hack into any system. Honestly, I wish I had half his skills.

In The Maze, Sherlock and Savich take down the villain and fall in love—all in one thrilling novel. So if you're looking for a story that blends suspense and romance, this one’s a gem. And while you're on a Catherine Coulter kick, give The Cove a read—another romantic thriller that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Sunday Notes on Monday What's good to Read

Sunday Notes on Monday


So if you have been reading my blog by now you know that  every Sunday I play this little game with myself. On Sunday the first section that I read of the Washington Post is the Outlook section, it contains the book section. I go to the last page and read the Washington Bestseller list. This week the bestseller list focused on Paperbacks but it alternates between paperbacks and hardcover. You can check my scoring system on the May 6th post.

So I am sad to report this week that I have not read one single book on the fiction paperback bestseller list from the Post this week.  And what is sadder is there really isn't much to add.  Well maybe I will add the Catherine Coulter novel Backfire. 
It is another Savich and Sherlock FBI thriller and I really like that series.  In fact check out my post on the book The Maze this week.  Same dynamic duo is featured in that book.

What surprised me this week was that I had read one of the books on the non fiction list and I am reading another. I generally am a fiction reader but lately I find myself reading a lot more non fiction. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail came in as number 7.  I really enjoyed reading this book and you can check out my post on April 3, 2013 for more details.  I am now reading the number 8 book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.  So I guess I can give myself 1 and one half points for that.  I guess it wasn't a total wash out after all. Have a great week.

 Click on any of the books below to enter the Amazon website.



       














 

The Hit by David Baldacci

Who is the good guy who is the bad guy?  It is certainly hard to know in David Baldacci’s book The Hit. There are two “Hit Men” working for of all things the US government.  Well let me say it is a US government Agency with no jurisdiction but what seems to be a lot of power to me.   The mission of these assassinators are to remove those people who do not share the same political interests as the government.  On one level this book is just your ordinary murder for hire kind of book.  On the other hand the thought of having paid assassins take out people for political reasons is down right scary and it makes you wonder how close to the truth the plot of this book is.

While I liked this book, it was not my favorite.  I much preferred Baldacci's John Puller books which include Zero Day and The Forgotten.  


 

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

I have a fifty page rule.  Some of you may know about my fifty page rule but for those of you who don’t, I will explain.  No matter how I feel about a book I try reading fifty pages,  If by fifty pages the book does not grab my attention I put it down.  I guess it is because I feel I have so little time to read and so much I want to read that if a book takes that long to engage my attention it just isn't worth it. 

I broke my rule with this one.  I almost put the book down but I decided to give it a little more time and I am glad I did because it was a most interesting read.  There are many books on the market now that deal with near death experiences or maybe someone who has "died" and come back.  Ursula the main character appears to die only to come back to life.  And the book is almost but not quite like the movie Ground Hog Day.  That is the movie starring Bill Murray who ends up living the same day over and over until he does everything right.  Ursula lives many lives not just the same day over but I think you get my comparison.  It is like she is stuck and keeps going back and doing things over again.

On the day of Ursula's birth she dies and it will not be the last time.  What I found the most fascinating thing about the book is that with each life she leads there are subtle changes to her and the people around her.  Which makes me wonder, if I could go back and redo an event or a period in my life how would the changes I make effect me and those around me.  It sure would be interesting to find out.  Would I have a different family and friends, would I pick the same college major, would I be living in the same place, the same state? 

Then you look at the bigger world issues.  Could catastrophic events be avoided if someone came back to a place in time and made one small change on how they responded to something. Would it change the course of history? Could Ursula change the course of history in this book?

The book brings up many thought provoking issues. I finished the book a week ago and I am still thinking about it. 

OMG Leftover Doughnuts???

Just a follow up to my previous post about donuts.  The Post published an article that contains donut recipes if there are leftover donuts.  Not that any get leftover but I guess it does happen now and then.  I say  just buy a few extra just to try these recipes.  They sound delish.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/ways-to-use-leftover-doughnuts/2013/06/24/ea05abe8-d93b-11e2-a016-92547bf094cc_story.html

Sunday Notes on Monday: What's Good to read?

So if you have been reading my blog by now you know that I every Sunday I play this little game with myself. On Sunday the first section that I read of the Washington Post is the Outlook section, it contains the book section. I go to the last page and read the Washington Bestseller list. This week the bestseller list focused on Hardcover books but it alternates between paperbacks and hardcover. You can check my scoring system on the May 6th post.

Alas for the past few weeks I have not reached my goal of three out of ten books read on the Washington bestseller list.  I am sad but will not give up. It is not unusual for me to miss the mark when The Post focuses on hardcover since as a rule I wait for books to come out in paperback before I buy them. I also think  I need to change my strategy a little bit, for the rest of the summer I will read books that kind of jump out at me when I am browsing online or at the library and I will let you know what made me choose them.  Don't get me wrong I will still check the Post's list but just as a reference to add books to my list of What to Read.

This week the only book I have read on the list is Inferno which I recommend.  It is a good read. 

I was in the New Jersey area this week and I happened to pick up a copy of the Sunday New York Times.  There book section is awesome, it is an entire section dedicated to new books.  They don't just have one bestseller list they have several. It makes me wonder why the Post no longer offers this in the Sunday edition.  Do they think that people aren't reading anymore?  How sad for them.

So I picked a list, Paperback Fiction from The Times and I have read 6 out of the 25 on the list.  Not bad but not all that good either.  I hoped it would be at least 10 out of 25.  My three favorites were The Light Between Oceans, The Art Forger and the Language of Flowers.

I have finished two books this past week Life After Life and The Hit.  Look for my posts on these two books coming up soon. I will give you a quick heads up, Life After Life was one of the most fascinating reads for many reasons.  That is all I will say so come back and check.

On my reading list for this week is a romance novel The Apple Orchard. I will let you know about that one once I finish it. Not sure what other books I will read this week.  Have a great week and check back frequently for my new posts.


         

So Much to Read So Little Time

I was watching Good Morning America on July 4^th and they did a segment on what people are reading this summer.  I didn’t particularly like the segment but I did agree with something Elizabeth Vargas said and I will paraphrase it so you get the gist; she said that her favorite thing is to pick the summer read to take with her on vacation. 

I totally agree.  For me picking the book is almost as good as reading it.  I love to search out the book and when the book turns out to be just as good as the write up on it, ding ding ding I win.  Two books that are shaping up to be winners as far as summer reads go are Life After Life and The Hit. I will be blogging about these two books in the next week or so but I highly recommend that you put them on your list.  If you missed Gone Girl last summer, put it on your list as well.  As always you can click on the books below to get to Amazon.com once there you can order anything you wish.