Drop Dead Easy Knits

My Mom was an incredible knitter.  Growing up she always had a project going.  Instead of watching TV at night she would knit.  She made beautiful dresses and sweaters with very intricate patterns.

She taught me how to knit but alas I did not have her talent.  I knit one sweater when I lived in Germany. The pattern was in German but I managed to muddle though with the help of a co-worker.
I made some scarves and even gave one to my Mom. But then I got busy and pretty much gave up knitting.

Then I received  this book from Blogging for Books for this review.  I was so pleasantly surprised.  It has a project for just about everyone including me.  The project that caught my eye was the leg warmers.  I love how they look inside the top of your boot and the pattern in the book is very manageable.

Not into leg warmers or boot toppers, there are 29 other projects for you to do.  So pick up some knitting needles and join me.

The Invisible Thread

I read this book in one evening. One evening!

She was a sales executive and he was a pan handler. They both lived in Manhattan just two blocks away from each which is still hard to believe.  One day she passed him on the street and he asked her for money.  Initially she passed him by after all so many people asked for money in New York City,

She started crossing the street when for some inexplicable reason she turned around and went back to talk with him.  Turns out he was hungry and she took him to McDonald's where they ate lunch together.  From that day on they had this Invisible Thread that tied them together.

There were similarities in the way the grew up.  Although she lived on Long Island's North Shore, she came from a very abusive environment. Outwardly she appeared to be from a lower middle class family that looked normal from the outside but it was anything but that.

Maurice for the most part lived on the streets.  Every one of his family member were on drugs except him. His father and Uncles were abusive.  His Mother was an addict in and out of jail. Life was incredibly hard and the fact that he survived was amazing.

They started having Dinner every Monday.  They became family and while Laura may have helped save Maurice's life, he did the same for her.  It was truly an unusual friendship between two very different people and it was a great book.

Listen to what Maurice said.

The Clancys of Queens

Every family has its own rhythm.  What seems odd to you feels like home to them.  Tara Clancy wrote The Clancys of Queens to talk about her family.

Obviously part of her life was lived in queens but because of the man that her mother met after she divorced Tara's father she also had a glimpse of what life was like in the Hamptons.  It certainly proved to be two very different worlds

Her grandparents were very influential in her life since her Mom was a single Mother and she spent a good deal of time with them.  I can so identify with spending time with a grandmother since mine moved in with us when I was in Muddle School.  She was there when we came home for school and was like a second Mother.

Before she moved in with us, she would rent a place in Far Rockaway during the summer.  If I was very lucky I got to visit her at the beach for a few weeks.  When my Grandfather was alive he would take us to play Skee Ball on the boardwalk.  Sadly he died when I was in elementary school but I still spent time with my Grandmother.

This was a quick read and I found it to be an interesting read...

"I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review."

No Man's Land

All I can say is thank God for David Baldacci and a long holiday weekend. I just never tire of his books and this one has one of my favorite characters, John Puller.

John Puller's Dad is a three star General loved by the men who served with him but not particularly close to John. His Mother disappeared when he was young.  This fact was buried in the memories of the Puller men and really never spoken about until a former neighbor accuses Fuller Sr. of killing his wife.

 It is plausible because evidently his Mom and Dad were not getting along well.  Also his Dad was suppose to be out of town but as it turns out he returned a day early even though he did not come to the house right away.

John sets out to clear his Father's name and steps knee deep into a Government cover up.  His books are always fast paced with a good story.  Once again he stares death in the face and is lucky to be alive. I can't wait for him to write his next book!

Twelve Days of Christmas

This year, I haven't really stayed true to my tradition of reading holiday novels. I don't know why.  Maybe I don't feel the HO Ho Ho of the season this year. However, I was in my local library and saw Twelve Days of Christmas and decided to give it a shot.

I have read a lot of Debbie Macomber.  She writes romances and I like reading them in between the other things I read.  Her holiday novels usually end up on the Hallmark Channel and I love watching the Hallmark channel during the holiday season. One of my favorites of her that is playing this season is Trading Christmas.  Faith Ford, Tom Cavanagh and Gil Bellows are in the movie and it works.
Twelve Days of Christmas is her 2016 holiday novel and it goes something like this:

Julia and Cain live in the same apartment building.  Actually they live on the same floor, like right across from each other.  She is a perky, upbeat kind of woman and he is an unfriendly, bah humbug kind of guy.  He has no holiday spirit and no people skills.  Julia decides to kill him with kindness to see if she can win him over.  She even blogs about it so the world knows how things are going with her kill him with kindness quest.

Sparks start to fly and I can't tell you more because you need to read it for yourself.

Happy Holidays! and enjoy.

Before the Fall

Eleven passengers or should I say souls in airplane speak, board a private jet one summer evening.  About fifteen minutes into the flight something goes horribly wrong and there is a crash.  Two on-board survive.  The two survivors find themselves in the middle of the ocean and only because of pure determination do they make it to shore.

Several of the people on the plane were high profile kind of guys. Immediately, as is always the case, there is speculation about what caused the crash.  Sadly one of the first questions in any crash now a days is Was it an act of terror?  After that the usual scenarios are reviewed.

What was most interesting about this book was how the author created the story by telling all the back stories about the passengers and the crew.  His take on media coverage was interesting and frightening.  As we have seen many times once the media gets involved the story takes on a life of its own.  I am all for getting information out to the public and transparency etc, but sometimes a journalist will go a little too far and create a story.  The story may ultimately prove to be wrong and innocent people become collateral damage.

Put Before the Fall on your reading list.

The Pursuit

This is the new novel (June 2016) written by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg.  For those of you who don't know Janet Evanovich, she is the author of many novels but most notably the Stephanie Plum novels.  If you choose to read one of the Plum novels I highly recommend  listening to them.  The actress who reads them is very good and really developed great voices the longer she performed for the audio series.  The books have a number in each title and I admit I started the series in the teens rather than from the beginning.  I don't think I will go back to read the others.

Anyway as many published authors seem to be doing, Evanovich has teamed up with Lee Goldberg to write the Fox and O'Hare series.  It's a good writing team.  There is still the humor and character development that you see in her books but the thrill of the chase seems to be added by Goldberg.  By the way, Lee Goldberg is an author and screenwriter who has worked on different crime series.

In this book you have Kate O'Hare the FBI agent and Nick Fox the elegant thief.  They have been partnered by the FBI. If Nick refuses, he will find himself behind bars for a long time.  This time Nick gets kidnapped by the road runners a group of jewelry thieves that do a grab and go type robbery on a large scale.  They have kidnapped Nick for his expertise needed to rob a particularly impenetrable safe.  Nick gets caught and sent to jail.  Kate busts him out of jail and the fun begins because the leader of this group wants more than jewelry this time.  It is a fun read so give it a try.