Moon Called by Patricia Briggs

Mercedes (Mercy) Thompson is a mechanic who owns her own garage and a shape shifter that changes into a coyote. Her neighbor, Adam, Is the Alpha of the local werewolf pack. She was raised by werewolves so she knows more about them than she does her own nature.

She takes on a young werewolf as a helper in the garage and the mystery starts. Soon Adam is attacked in his own home and his daughter kidnapped. Mercy gets there just in time to save his life and takes him to the pack that raised her for help. With the help and hindrance of many types of supernatural beings, a little romance, and a lot of action the story comes to a satisfactory ending.

I enjoyed book even though I thought I was off this genre for awhile. I am looking forward to getting the next book in this series.

3.5

Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank by Celia Rivenbark

This book of essays written with humor and sarcasm is a hoot! I laughed all the way through. Not only does she discuss kids and wonder why parents insist like dressing 6 year olds like skanks, she writes about celebrities, Huzzzbands and Southern-Style Silliness.

"Celia Rivenbark is an award-winning newspaper columnist and freelance journalist whose work has been compared to a cross between Erma Bombeck and Hunter S. Thompson." This quote was taken from Celia's home page. You should go there, scroll to the botton and click on Celia on Skank. Watch the video then go get this book!

5

Annie Freeman's Fabulous Traveling Funeral by Kris Radish

This story follows five women who are instructed by their common friend, Annie Freeman, to take her ashes to places she has detailed in the plans to scatter. They all know of each other but don't really know one another. As they travel they grieve for Annie, learn her deepest secrets and celebrate her life. They also learn about themselves and become fast friends.

I liked the idea of this book, the non-traditional traveling funeral, and found the authors use of words to paint pictures wonderful. However, the book was flat for me after about half way. I found myself skimming and skipping pages.
2

The Kill Clause by Gregg Hurwitz

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library bookThis book starts out with a tense, emotional scene and doesn't let up. Some of the scenes tend to be graphic, detailed bloody descriptions.

U.S. Marshal Tim Rackley and his wife Dray, a Deputy Sheriff, learn that the body of their seven year old daughter has been found. Soon the killer is found and on a technicality he is released. Whole questioning him Tim came to believe the killed didn't act on his own. He is approached by a group that calls themselves The Commission. They are a group that wants him to join them in delivering justice to killers who have been loosed on technicalities. The current members of the group have all had loved ones murdered, and the killers in each case have been set free. They reevaluate capital punishment cases from the past and decide for themselves if the suspects are in fact guilty. If so the commission would sentence them to death. They want Tim to be the executioner. In return, they will revisit case of his daughter's killer, last.

It was very fast paced and I couldn't put it down. As a teacher of young children abuse in any form of children burns me up. I hated that this story was based on the murder of a child.

3 (582 pages)

Moon Pies and Movie Stars by Amy Wallen

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What a cute chick lit book from a new to me arthor this is! In 1976 Texas the widow Ruby Kincaid,is running the bowling alley left to her by her husband. Her daughter, Violet, ran away four years ago and left behind her husband and two children, Bunny and Bubbie. When Ruby sees a television commercial featuring long-lost Violet she and her sassy sister, Loralva decide to go to California to find violet. Friends warn her that, in California, she'll end up "with transvestites licking her ear and stealing her dresses." Violet's awful mother-in-law, finances the trip but only because she feels that her daughter-in-law is now famous and can up her status. Loralva is focused on getting on The Price Is Right.

I enjoyed taking the trip with these three women and the two kids in a Winnabago. The game show was halarious.The search bittersweet.

4

Blood Trail by C.J. Box

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Here is the newest, the 8th, Joe Pickett novel! It is the third one I've read. I like the character Joe Pickett. He is and honest, moral, family man. He makes mistakes but sticks to what he thinks is right regardless. It usually gets him in trouble, and that's where he is at the end of this book, in a heap of big trouble.

Joe Pickett is now working directly for the Governor . He is called to go to a murder scene where an elk hunter has been murdered and strung up like an elk after the hunt. While working with his ex boss, Randy Pope Joe discovers that there have been more murders related to this one, all murdered hunters. Enter anti-hunting radical Klamath Moore. While following up on K. Moore Joe persuades the Governor to release his friend, and expert tracker, Nate Romanowski to help track down the killer. It was a good mystery, however I kind of had an idea of who did it early on.

This book is fairly violent in nature, involves hunting and murder. Not pretty.

It is a good mystery/thriller.

4

Winter Study by Nevada Barr

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This is book 14 in the Anna Pigeon series. It may replace Flashback as my favorite!

The title, Winter Study, refers to an actual ongoing study of wolves and moose, a a 50 year predator/prey study. Go here to Isle Royale, the National Park where this story takes place and read about it.

Park Ranger Anna Pigeon is sent to Isle Royale in Lake Superior to learn about managing and understanding wolves, as her home base of Rocky Mountain National Park might soon have their own pack. The team is housed in the island’s bunkhouse along with two scientists from Homeland Security, who are assessing the study, thinking to end the 50 year study in order to open the park in winter so that the border with Canada can be watched. The whole anti-terrorist thing. Soon after Anna’s arrival, the 3 wolf packs begin to act strangely. Giant wolf prints are found, and Anna sees what she believes is an extra big wolf from the team's plane. The team comes to believe that perhaps a wolf/dog hybrid has been introduced to the island. Then one of the team members is savaged.

With all the mystery and action you could want, this is a great read right up to the end. I hated one part, which describes how one of the people was hurt and leaves you with NO sympathy for the bad guy. If you read this you'll see what I mean.

4

Swine Not? by Jimmy Buffett

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This is the cutest little book I've read in a long time. It is about a Tennessee country pig who moves to the big city of New York. Rumpy is forced to hide out in an apartment atop the fanciest hotel in the city. His humans are a pair of twins and their mom, a pastry chef who works in the resturant there. To top this off, Rumpy wants to find her long lost brother who also lives in New York City. It is told partly from Rumpy's point of view and partly from one on the twins, Barley's, point of view.

It was a cute, quick read that made me smile.

4

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)

This is a Victorian comic novel that I found to be quite funny in places. The author started out to write a travelogue with some funny asides. His editor through out most of the travel tips and kept the funny stories. The main story of the three men traveling the Thames in a camping skiff is often interrupted with more funny stories that were brought to mind on the trip.

For example in one part of the book he really downed steam launches and went out of his way cause them trouble. Later in the book when a friend of his with a steam launch is towing them he riles against the people in regular boats getting in the steam launch's way. Much of the humor uses exaggeration, such as the fight against the unopenable tin of pineapple chunks.

This is a classic that I have intended to read for a couple of years and have finally gotten around to because of the 888 challenge!

3

Fearless Fourteen By Janet Evanovich

What can I say, I love these Stephanie Plum novels! They always make me laugh out loud. I pick them up and toss them in the buggy (shopping cart) without reading the synopsis. I thoroughly enjoyed this one.

See here for an excerpt from Fearless fourteen.

5

Rhett Butler's People by Donald McCaig

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I enjoyed this companion piece to Gone With the Wind.

I have loved Rhett for years and enjoyed McCaig's fleshing out of the young Rhett. I liked the ending of this novel, but thought that the Scarlett character was a bit out of character. If you are a GWTW fan you will like this story and the new characters created, especially Rosemary, Rhett's sister.

4

Spider Mountain by P.T. Deutermann

This story takes place soon after the events in The Cat Dancers. Cam Richter is no longer with the Sheriff's Office and had opened his own private investigation business.

Cam agrees to do a favor for Mary Ellen Goode, a park ranger he worked with in the previous book. She wanted him to investigate the assault of one of her probationers. The locals have pushed the investigation onto the back burner. As he works the case he finds it is tied to the dangerous Creigh family who run a drug and smuggling ring as well as keeping the law at bay. Soon he is intangled in something much worse than the manufacture and selling of meth.

This was another page turner by Deuterman that was hard to put down.

4

The Cat Dancers by P.T. Deutermann

I've read two other P.T. Deutermann novels and liked them and was glad to find that I was not disappointed in the two I read this week. This is part of a series that features Lt. Cam Richter, a Lt. in the Manceford County Sheriff's Office in North Carolina.

The book open with a man dangling down a cliff fact trying to get a close up picture of a mountain lion in her den, at great personal risk. It then goes to a robbery of a mini mart in which two bad guys kill the owner as well as a soccer mom and her child. At the trial these two are let go on a technicality. Soon a video is sent showing the execution of one of the killers. It is followed by a video of the second one being executed. Cam is soon headed into the back country of the Great Smoky Mountains on the trail of both a group of vigilante killers and the elusive Eastern mountain lion.

This was a terrific thriller, very had to put down.

4

Child of a Dead God by Barb & JC Hendee

The adventures of Magiere, Leesil, Chap, and Wynn are continued in this the 6th book of the Noble Dead. They have freed Leesil's mother from imprisonment in the Elven Territories and continue to finish Magiere's quest for the mysterious Orb. Her half brother, Welstile, who has groomed her all her life for this quest is desperate to get his hands on the Orb for it is supposed to cut the blood lust of his vampire nature. The leader of the Elves, Most Aged Father, wants it and sends assassins to follow Magiere and get it from her. Following her dreams of a frozen castle, Magiere and her companions at last reach their goal, followed by the two other groups. You wonder why they don't stumble over each other on the trail.

This book is full of action with an ending that begs for another book. I have enjoyed this series but tire of the unending bickering among the characters.

3