The Procedure: Margaret Belle

I've shared before that I tend to download a lot of free Kindle books and that a lot of them are pretty terrible or trashy.  Recently, however, I discovered an awesome website called Book Bub which sends a daily email - customized based on your stated interests - sharing a few free or "on sale" e-book recommendations.  I get 4-5 books every day that I might like to download to my Kindle.  Let's just say I've been adding a lot of books to the queue that I haven't had time to read yet!  Best part?  I'm not spending a dime to do so.  I highly recommend you check it out.
No disclaimer needed - Book Bub has no flipping idea who I am so I can guarantee I won't get any special perks by recommending them.

One of the first books I downloaded based on a Book Bub recommendation was The Procedure by Margaret Belle.  The story focuses on a woman named Melanie who is volunteering some time working at a fertility clinic.  She has a long-standing relationship with the clinic - she and her sister were "products" of the doctor's fertility treatments and she is a single mom raising a son who was also born due to the work of the clinic.

The story quickly takes a weird turn.  In some ways, I believed it was a little too quick - there are definitely parts of this book that need to be better developed and plot lines that need more explanation.  That being said, it is rare that I read a medical suspense story that I don't get completely confused by.  This was an exception.

Like many of the other books I've read in recent years, The Procedure made me question the world we live in.  Have we taken such a moral downturn that it is just accepted that our bodies do not truly belong to us?  Are these medical advances really making the world a better place?  Is this a problem with specific individuals or is it more a commentary on our society as a whole?

If you're at all into medical mysteries, I suggest you check this one out.

If It Isn't Broken, Don't Fix It

Remember back in July (was it really that long ago?!) when I won a complete set of Tana French's books and I said I would write my review of the new one ASAP?

Apparently "ASAP" is actually an abbreviation for 2.5 months later.  Sheesh.

I decided to re-read her first three books (reviews here and here) which is part of what took me so long.  That and the whole "taking a break from blogging" thing, and the fact that I'm traveling a lot, and am in the midst of some pretty big life things.  It's not even like I read it a long time ago and haven't written about it yet.  I just finished it last weekend.  Finally.  But let me tell you, the first three were just as good the second (third or fourth) time around.

Just like her other books, she follows the familiar formula of focusing on a character that was first introduced in the book before.  In this case, the detective solving the murder in Faithful Place is the lead in Broken Harbor.  I've noticed a trend after reading all four back-to-back that she has been tying the books back into the previous stories less and less, which I miss.  Nonetheless, this novel does not disappoint.

"Scorcher" - the aforementioned detective - stumbles upon a case that at first glance is open-and-shut.  An entire family is murdered, the mother barely hanging on, and a suspect is in custody (well not at first, but whatever... not really a spoiler in a detective novel that there is a suspect in custody at some point.)  But everything about this case is not what it seems.

I can honestly say that I had no freaking clue what had actually happened until just as the catharsis was unfolding.

A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with a friend who had also read In the Woods who was really upset with the ending because we were never really given all the answers.  But I will say that (again, after reading the books back-to-back) I have to disagree with my friend.  I think the beauty of French's books is that she doesn't give it all away.  You're still left with questions.  It's what makes these mysteries so haunting.  Can anyone disagree that the creepiest horror movies are those where the creature / spirit / evil being aren't actually shown clearly?!  Has anyone seen Signs?!  That movie is ruined when the creature is shown.  These books wouldn't give me chills if French revealed exactly what happened.

In the case of Broken Harbor, I'm left with a few very important questions that will eventually be answered...

1 - When is her next book coming out?

2 - Who will she feature as her next lead character?

3 - Will she begin tying the characters back together?  Because that would make me very happy.

...and a few that probably won't ever be answered...

1 - How much of a psychological mess is Scorcher really?

2 - Should he really have seen was was going on?

3 - (Ok, I can't reveal number three because it would give away the ending)

There you have it.  Another excellent read by Tana French.  Like I said in my post heading - if it isn't broken, don't fix it.  Keep bringing up these mysteries full of intrigue but lacking answers and I can guarantee I'll keep reading.

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

I won something! I actually won something!

I just did a happy dance in my living room (well, the happy dance started in the lobby of my apartment building, continued up the elevator, and culminated in my apartment but that's besides the point.)... I just got the most amazing package in the mail.

Backing up.

Have you ever entered one of those "I'll never win it but I should try anyway" Facebook contests? I rarely enter them but am so glad I did for once.

I was super excited to see that one of my favorite authors, Tana French, had a new book coming out. (You can read my review of her first two books here and her third book here...)

And then I was not-as-super-excited to see this on her Facebook page:

because I never win anything ever but I entered anyway because I figured, what the heck?

Last week when I got this email:

I honestly thought it was fake but replied anyway and just hoped that it wouldn't actually be an ax murderer coming to get me.  I received another email saying my books had been shipped and I waited not so patiently to see if it was all a scam.

Considering that I just received this in the mail:

I'm glad that I said, what the heck back when I saw the Facebook posting!

Squee!  So excited to read the new one and have copies of all the others!  She's amazing - without even reading the fourth book, I highly recommend you run out and grab a copy RIGHT NOW.

This Has Been a Wonderful Couple of Book Weeks

So I obviously posted this morning but it wasn't about anything I've read lately.  Honestly, I haven't had time to update in a while because I've been hurrying home to read more.  Fall is officially here (well, back at home winter is officially here but down here in Kentucky, I'm content with fall for now) and I've spent lots of nights laying on the couch with a fire going, a glass of wine in my hand, Lady Bug curled up on my feet and wonderful read spread out in front of me.  I know I mentioned that in one of my last real post but seriously.  I am so incredibly content with my life lately that it was worth mentioning again.

So in my post about The Thirteenth Tale, I went on and on about what a good book it was because I loved reading other people's stories.  That book, combined with some recommendations from friends and family, has gotten me a new genre trend - books about libraries or books.  I read three in a row that fit that bill and I loved each and every one of them. 

The first book after The Thirteenth Tale that I devoured (well, it was really brownies or cookies that I was devouring probably but the book was just as delicious in it's own way) was The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton.  Add it to the book club recommendations.  It's about a woman, Nell, and her granddaughter, Cassandra, and their separate journeys to discover who Nell really was.  As a child, Nell was discovered on a boat dock in Australia and brought up by a family that was not her own.  Life, and later death, intervened before she could solve her own mystery so her granddaughter picks up when she left off and ultimately discovers her family heritage after her grandmother's death.  The book does a wonderful job of telling the story from all of the perspectives and time periods involved and conjures up incredible images of stories that are waiting to be deciphered.  One of the only things that Nell has to help solve her mystery is a book of fairy tales that she arrived with in Australia.  The fairy tales themselves are a clue and tell the stories of lost princesses, scary old witches, homely but kind hearted crones... It gives me chills just thinking of how artfully these stories are crafted into this book.

After finishing that book cuddled in my bed on Saturday morning, I opened up The Shadow of the Wind, yet another book that tells the story of a mysterious book.  This story talks about a magical, if not sad, place that I wish really existed - the Cemetery of Forgotten Books.  I want a job someday guarding those books so they are not forgotten.  Seriously.  Anywho, the eerie tale that follows about a boy who "adopts" one of these forgotten books and subsequently goes on a quest to discover why it has all but disappeared is one that will suck you in on a rainy Saturday night and not let you out of its grasp until you reach the end and learn all of the gritty details sometime in the wee hours of the morning on Sunday.  I loved this book.  Very rarely do I read a book and think that I need to own it so that I can pass it along to everyone who is willing to read it, but this is one of those books.


Alright, that was sort of brief but it's 5:30 and I don't want to sit at my desk any longer.  Just wanted to mention a couple of wonderful reads for those of you who are going to be settling for the holidays and want something to read.

Oh yeah!  And I couple of movie recommendations too...

• 27 Dresses - So cute that I went out and bought a copy... 
• Avatar - I've been putting off seeing this because my tv isn't worthy.  Well I watched it last weekend anyway and hello, AMAZING.  I don't care who you are, watch it.  My mom even loved it and my mom is not a movie person.  That was the fastest 2.5 hours I've spent watching a movie in a long time.  Beautiful, political, and heartwarming all rolled into one.
• My Sisters Keeper - Yeah, no.  Not a bad movie if you haven't read the book but I am not surprised that Jodi Picoult hated it so much.  Terrible adaptation of a great story.  Skip the movie and read the book.
• The Queen - How did it take so long for me to see this movie?!  It was so royal, and British, and somehow comforting and uncomfortable all at once.  And I love Helen Mirren.  Wonderful.

Clearly I've been a busy lady lately.  Or a homebody... ha ha

Happy Thanksgiving friends!

I'm am a Terrible Blogger - or - Don't Pass Judgement Too Quickly

The lack of internet at home and the crazy work days have certainly combined to equal no blogging lately.  I also haven't done a lot of reading, but I have two books I've been meaning to write about and I get frustrated every day that I don't have time to write.  Both should inspire their own thought provoking posts but instead, one quick jot on the page (er... blog) is all they're going to get.  Better late and short than never and long but only in my brain.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent
I finished John Grisham's The Innocent Man a few weeks ago and I had plans to write a big long post about how strangely awful the writing was.  For someone who excels at crime dramas, Grisham sure missed the mark in his writing style on this one.  The writing was boring and almost too fact driven... but the story was so horrifying that I plowed through and would recommend it any day.  I get that it was a non-fiction work but all of his books read like non-fiction - why he was suddenly drab, I don't understand.  The book is about a murder in a small town and the men who are accused of her murder.  Plain and simple, the cops screwed up in this case.  There was no concrete evidence tying them to the case and there was a (correct) suspect right in front of their noses the entire time.  What was more disturbing was the fact that the jury convicted him!  Grant it, this took place 20 years ago but still.  How backwards of a society are we that we can't really presume anyone innocent until proven guilty anymore?!  Are we really that cynical? 

The answer, of course, is yes we are.  The book left me disappointed in our judicial system but more so disappointed in myself.  I couldn't help but wonder if I would have judged him the same way if I were in their shoes.  We are desperate for answers when bad things happen.  I understand that.  But we judge that way regardless of the evidence in front of our face!  And we judge that way whether it is something requiring answers or not!  I know I'm not the only person who judges people on the sidewalk, at work, at the grocery store, for things that don't require judgement.  How often do we misjudge?  How often do we pass judgement without all of the evidence?  How often do we decide people are guilty - whether for something petty or for something much larger - before they have any chance to prove otherwise?!

The book made me think, obviously.  I finished it weeks ago and it's been on my mind ever since.  He may have been a bit dull in this writing, but Grisham found a perfect first true story to rehash.  It disturbed me to no end.  And yet I still find myself jumping to conclusions and passing judgement almost daily. 



I think I'll skip writing about the second book for now.  I've got myself all worked up again.  Damn books - always getting into my brain.  I need to go to the library this weekend.  I don't even have anything new to read.  And Food and Wine Magazine doesn't count.

That Irish Lady Again...

Tana French's new book came out last week.  I finished it Saturday and if it weren't for the surprisingly wonderful read from Saturday night*, you would have heard about it already.  I finished both of her first books in (close to) one day, but I made this one drag out a bit.  Her first book was such a surprisingly good read that I couldn't help myself.  When I read the second book, I already knew the third one was coming out in a few weeks.  But this one just came out.  Which means it had to be savored.

The new book, Faithful Place, once again centers on a character we were introduced to in the last book.  I'm a bit nervous because I have no idea what character might be featured in the next one.  Plus this one didn't have anything to do with the last story other than that it had a shared character, but nevertheless, the story was fantastic.  I love that her stories usually bring up crimes that happened in the past - very Cold Case, which not surprisingly is one of my favorite shows - but make the fact that they've surfaced right now seem so plausible.  This one involves young love, family issues, and police drama, all of the best ingredients for a truly wonderful book.  Oh, and the ending isn't totally satisfying again, in the best possible way.  We don't ever really know what happens.  She knows when to stop giving us details, which in my opinion is one of the best things about her books.  They leave us haunted.

The only bad thing about Faithful Place, like I already mentioned, is the fact that I don't know when her next book is coming out.  The story went quickly, the characters felt real, and the love and hate expressed in her words were both so real.  If you weren't convinced by my earlier post about her other stories, I hope you'll take the time to read them now.

*It's worth mentioning it again.  Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah.  Read it.  I finished it yesterday afternoon and pretty much had only put it down to get some sleep.  It's not the quickest read, which for someone like me is a good thing, but I enjoyed every single minute of it.  Perfect for Saturday afternoons by the pool, a long road trip, or just kicking your feet up after a long day at work.  A lot of the story focuses on the music from whatever decade they are living in - all of the songs we grew up loving are featured.  Ok I'll stop... but seriously, I'll probably buy it just to keep it on my bookshelf.

John Grisham for Women

Ok, I promised a post about the great book I was reading last week.  House Rules, the newest book by Jodi Picoult - an author I discovered years before her My Sister's Keeper fame - was one of those books that I literally couldn't put down.  It was fantastic.  Truly remarkable.  Like all of her books, I felt myself truly feeling for the characters.  I cannot tell you how many times I've read one of her books on an airplane and had the lady next to me hand me a tissue or ask if I'm going to be ok.  She writes these stories that everyone can relate to but we all hope never to deal with... terminally ill family, school shootings, rapes and murders, general family issues.  All of her books have the added bonus of being very character-in-a-courtroom driven.  I've always called her John Grisham for woman and I'll stand by that.

I mean I love a good John Grisham, or John Grisham-like, novel but sometimes I can't bring myself to care for another boardroom executive who steals the companies money or murders someone in cold blood.  But a mother who is trying to protect her family?  That I can drawn into time and time again.

The thing with her novels is that she writes from so many different perspectives.  The very first book of hers I remember reading, Perfect Match, is about a woman who prosecutes sex offenders - until her young son gets molested himself.  The terrifying ordeal that follows tears apart her family, challenges her faith, and gives everyone new perspective on the court system in our country.  Never mind that Picoult writes multiple chapters from the perspective of the young boy as he sits on some man's lap.  We all know what is going on but she writes from the point of view of the child, who is much more oblivious than the enlightened adults who follow his story.  Her description of the boy sitting on a man's lap, petting the man's cat as the molester gives reason for the boy to trust him still haunts me today.  *shutters*

I could point out moments in almost every story of hers that stick with me.  Moments that made me look at my life a little differently and know that I would react exactly the same way, no matter how irrational the character seems.  Regardless of if a woman gets in trouble for shooting the man who hurt her family... wouldn't you do the same thing if you had the opportunity?  Wouldn't you want to protect the people you love no matter what?  I know that I would.

I remember when I was a young girl and someone beat me up in the 5th grade.  My little sister, a tough 2nd grade tomboy, stormed into the office out for blood.  She was prepared to beat the hell out of whoever had hurt me, no matter how much bigger or stronger he was.  I look at her now as she's preparing to move across the country with her boyfriend and someday soon build a family of her own and know that she would still do the same thing today.  We all would.  Because that's what families do.

Bottom line, read anything you can get your hands on by this wonderful woman.  Plus, look at her.  I want to be her friend... I want to sit down for coffee and pick her brain.  Her stories are those that I could only dream to write someday.  They are so involved and the authors intelligence is evident as each and every story unfolds.  But so is her compassion, her ability to empathize with a family's suffering.  I would love to see her interact with her own children on Christmas morning.  Because someone who writes this well must live a life we can only dream to build for ourselves some day.

Tana French: The Intriguing Irish-woman

Ok, it's been far too long since I blogged and I haven't even actually launched the damn blog yet.  Already failing.

I knew when I started writing this that I wanted to talk about Tana French's books so I figure why not today.  A few years ago I was strolling through the airport, flying from Nashville to Minneapolis, when I realized I had nothing to read.  I ended up buying her first book, In the Woods, and it's memorable both because it's a good book and also because some annoying guy chatted me up at the airport that day for hours before asking me out (who does that at an airport?!) and I didn't even get around to reading it for quite some time.  Once I did, I knew I had found a new favorite author. The book is a murder-type mystery but packs a punch.  An unsolved crime from the main character's childhood serves as a psycological backbone for the story.  An it's a doosy.  When he was playing in the woods as a young child, something happened.  No one really knows what and he can't remember.  But he came home alone with blood in his shoes and his friends have never been seen again.  I won't give away the ending, but I was disappointed.  Until I read it again and realized it's better this way.  Anywho...

Since then, she's released a second book, The Likeness, which I would probably put on my top five or six favorite books list.  Both books delve into characters who you fall in love with, in part because of their utter imperfection.  Her books are linked together through the characters but each book features someone new - someone you were introduced to in the last book but who you didn't really get to know yet.  It's a wonderful idea and leaves you wanting more.  This book is also murder mystery-esque but features a woman who's previous undercover character is found murdered.  Or something like that.  Suffice it to say that it's a great read.  And way at the end of the book there's a little gem of wisdom that goes something along the lines of, "you can't love someone who's not ready to be loved."  Nothing to do with the book (really) but come on.  Brilliantly simple.

Her third book comes out soon and is already on request from the library.  Can't wait.

The thing about Tana French is that she's goofy looking.  She's Irish - which is very evident if you've ever been to Ireland and seen the Irish people - and she looks like she writes the weird books that she does.  I want to be her friend.  I want to sit down at the pub, pull up a stool, and chat about her books over a pint of Guinness.  Maybe someday I will.  Doubt it but whatever.  Don't judge.

I guess this is where I'm supposed to give my review and say how this relates to whatever else is going on in my life.  Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.  Ok, here goes.  I love them both and I couldn't put them down.  The end.  Don't get caught up in the overtly Irishness of the writing - both books are police procedure driven with a little intrique, romance, and real life drama thrown into the mix but carry what I call a cloudy day effect.  They remind me of the windy, rainy, sleety, cold days I spent in Ireland last year.  There's something about them that makes me want to stand on a street corner under and awning, smoking a cigarette while I wait for the rain to let up.  They aren't easy reads exactly, but I don't always want things to come easily.  Some days the greyness is exactly what I need.  And Ms. French delivers.  Neither story ends up the way I really want them to.  Neither story gives me everything I'm looking for and in some areas gives me way too much.  But that's fricking life.

God, I'm a rambler.  This blogging idea isn't going to go anywhere, is it?  Maybe... doubt it... but maybe.