Born to Die - Lisa Jackson **

The resemblance between Dr. Kacey Lambert and B-movie actress Shelly Bonaventure is a standing joke in the town of Grizzly Falls, Montana. So much so, that Kacey is momentarily shocked to read about the fading starlet’s death. Still, it’s not as if there was any real connection between them. And when a fatally injured jogger who also bears a striking similarity to Kacey is rushed into the ER days later, Kacey is ready to rule it another sad, strange accident. Detective Selena Alvarez suspects otherwise. An autopsy confirms that the jogger had traces of poison in her blood at the time of her death. Selena and her partner, Regan Pescoli, can find no motive for the murder. But Kacey has started to notice ties between the dead women’s lives and her own—all close in age, born within miles of each other—and all with ties to the man Kacey has just begun seeing, single father Trace O’Halleran. Now, with more look-alikes dying, Kacey must question her judgment, her safety—and everything she’s ever believed about her past. The deeper Kacey digs, the more reason she has to fear. The body count is rising, the killer is getting bolder and more brutal. And Kacey knows it’s only a matter of time before hers is the next name on a list of those who were born to die…

I think the only way this book could be described would be far fetched.  Lisa Jackson writes good mysteries, but she seemed to have been digging through the dregs to come up with this plot.  A bunch of women, the biological results of artificial insemination, start dying.  The clinic where they came from is long gone, but somehow somebody has tracked down babies who resulted in sperm donations from the same man 30 years ago and is killing them.  Most of them don't even know that they came from artificial insemination, and yet he somehow tracks them down... and they're all pretty much in the same city.

Jackson writes engaging stories.  Her main characters still drew me in, but the plot and the supporting characters were too unbelievable for me to really get into the story.  Finally, the ending was laughable, it was so unlikely.  I'm normally a Lisa Jackson fan, but this one was a bomb.

Love Me to Death, by Allison Brennan **

Six years ago, Lucy Kincaid was attacked and nearly killed by an online predator. She survived. Her attacker did not. Now Lucy’s goal is to join the FBI and fight cyber-crime, but in the meantime, she’s volunteering with a victim’s rights group, surfing the Web undercover to lure sex offenders into the hands of the law. But when the predators she hunts start turning up as murder victims, the FBI takes a whole new interest in Lucy.

With her future and possibly even her freedom suddenly in jeopardy, Lucy discovers she’s a pawn in someone’s twisted plot to mete out vigilante justice. She joins forces with security expert and daredevil Sean Rogan, and together they track their elusive quarry from anonymous online chat rooms onto the mean streets of Washington, D.C. But someone else is shadowing them: A merciless stalker has his savage eye on Lucy. The only way for her to escape his brutality may be another fight to the death.

You know a <500 page book isn't good when it takes me more than two weeks to read it.

I tried to give it the benefit of the doubt, despite the name.  At first, it seemed as though it would rise above and make its way to  become an acceptable mystery, but it started to lose my interest by page 100.  The first half introduced a plot that could have had potential - a former victim of assault working with a volunteer group to keep parolees in  jail suddenly discovers that the criminals that she comes into contact with are being murdered.  Unfortunately, it wasn't presented in a manner that kept my attention.  I found my mind wandering, and more often than not, I had to reread pages because I'd been going over my grocery list or thinking about work.  

As if that's not bad enough, eventually the main character meets up with the man of her dreams and then everything goes down hill from there.  I'm not against a good romance, in fact I quite enjoy them; but this was not good.  In fact, there were times that the book made me uncomfortable.  It made me think of the middle age, over the top couples who are all about Public Displays of Affection and really need to get a room.  There's only so much hugging, kissing and cuddling that a murder mystery can take, and this one went too far. It made the female lead - who is supposedly an FBI applicant - seem weak and helpless when a kiss from her  beloved hero could make everything seem all better.

This is my first foray in to Allison Brennan.  From the recommendations that I'd gotten, I had hoped to have found a new source of easy to read but entertaining mysteries.  Unfortunately, I did not.

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, by Rhoda Janzen **

Not long after Rhoda Janzen turned forty, her world turned upside down. It was bad enough that her husband of fifteen years left her for Bob, a guy he met on Gay.com, but that same week a car accident left her injured. Needing a place to rest and pick up the pieces of her life, Rhoda packed her bags, crossed the country, and returned to her quirky Mennonite family’s home, where she was welcomed back with open arms and offbeat advice. (Rhoda’s good-natured mother suggested she get over her heartbreak by dating her first cousin—he owned a tractor, see.)

Written with wry humor and huge personality—and tackling faith, love, family, and aging—Mennonite in a Little Black Dress is an immensely moving memoir of healing, certain to touch anyone who has ever had to look homeward in order to move ahead.

One word sums up my opinion on this book - "Meh".

It also holds the distinction of being the first book I haven't come close to finishing since I started this blog. It wasn't awful, it just wasn't funny or even all that amusing. I got as far as about 100 pages before I got distracted, and set it aside.  Since then, I've thought periodically that I should finish it, but something's holding me back. Finally, I decided that I don't have to finish books just because I "should". If I had enjoyed more, I probably would have finished it long ago. So, there you have it. The first book in my "unread" pile.

Girls in Trucks, by Katie Crouch **

Sarah Walters, the narrator of GIRLS IN TRUCKS, is a reluctant Camellia Society debutante. She has always felt ill-fitted to the rococo ways of Southern womanhood and family, and is anxious to shake the bonds of her youth. Still, she follows the traditional path laid out for her. This is Charleston, and in this beautiful, dark, segregated town, established rules and manners mean everything.

But as Sarah grows older, she finds that her Camellia lessons fail her, particularly as she goes to college, moves North, and navigates love and life in New York. There, Sarah and her group of displaced deb sisters try to define themselves within the realities of modern life. Heartbreak, addiction, disappointing jobs and death fail to live up to the hazy, happy future promised to them by their Camellia mothers and sisters.

When some unexpected bumps in the road--an unplanned birth, a family death--lead Sarah back home, she's forced to take another long look at the fading empire of her youth. It takes a strange turn of events to finally ground Sarah enough to make some serious choices. And only then does she realize that as much as she tried to deny it, where she comes from will always affect where she ends up. The motto of her girlhood cotillion society, "Once a Camellia, always a Camellia," may turn out to have more wisdom and pull to it than she ever could have guessed.

I can't say I loved this one. Each chapter tells a story about a debutant as she progresses from high school to her 30's, during which she drinks too much, does drugs and sleeps with a lot of men. The first chapter (story) seemed kind of funny, but they went down hill from there. The stories told in the chapters seemed kind of random and without reason - one is a letter that an otherwise minor character leaves behind for her cheating husband after she dies. I kept waiting for something to happen that would explain what had come before, or tie things together. It never happened.

I didn't like the main character, and didn't really like the supporting characters. There was no underlying plot that caught and held my attention... it seemed a lot more like a collection of tales from a frat house than a story of a debutant.

Falling Home, by Karen White **

Cassie Madison has it all: a high-powered advertising career, a stylish Manhattan apartment, and a sophisticated, rich, and gorgeous fiance. It's a far cry from her childhood in Walton, Georgia, home of the annual Kudzu Festival and hot, sticky summers. And then there are all the bad memories, the heartache. When Cassie's estranged sister calls to say that her father is dying, Cassie knows it's time to set aside her feelings and go home and face the sister she hasn't seen in 15 years. When her father dies, he leaves the family home to Cassie, who can't wait to get rid of it and get back to New York, her job, and her fiance, even if it means having a developer tear down the house. But something keeps her in Walton, and she doesn't know if it's her mending relationship with her sister; the irresistible, aggravating Sam Parker, who wants her to preserve her house; or the feeling of finally being home. This sweet book is highly recommended.

I don't recommend this book. It had a few good parts, but you've got to slog through a bunch of junk to get to it. I really didn't like the main character. She came across as a prissy snob with a chip on her shoulder and magically transformed to a considerate and loving family woman through the book. I'm beyond believing that people change that much over a period of a few weeks. Actually, I found too many of the characters to be over the top and predictable. In fact, I had to check the cover a few times to make sure I wasn't reading a Harlequin romance.

Awkward Family Photos **

Awkward Family Photos

Product Description:

Based on the hit website, AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com (“painful, regrettable, horrifyingly awesome snaps of family bonding, you will laugh so hard that people in adjoining offices will ask what’s wrong with you”—Esquire), this full color book features never-before-seen photos and hilarious personal stories covering everything from uncomfortable moments with relatives, teen angst, sibling rivalry, and family vacations from hell. Cringe at the forced poses, bad hair, and matching outfits--all prompting us to look at our own families and celebrate the fact that we're not alone. Nothing says awkward better than an uncomfortable family photograph!

Do picture books count as books? I'm not sure, but I'll include this one. I read it in under an hour while waiting for a Dr's appointment. (He was running very late.) It was entertaining, I suppose, but I think the only reason why I kept at it was because I was stuck waiting with nothing else to do. To me, it was like looking at too many of a friend's vacation pictures. A handful of pictures are fun to see, but after a while your eyes glaze over. This was a bunch of only somewhat humorous photos and commentary, and it seemed to go on for too long. I think that, like the Post Secret books, this is a concept that works much better in blog format.

A Reliable Wife, by Robert Goolrick **

A Reliable Wife

This one was not so good. It’s about a mail-order bride who marries a rich man with the intension of murdering him for his money. I think it had potential, but I felt like I was reading a summary or Cole's Notes of the story. It moved so fast, the narration seemed detatched. I couldn't connect with any of the characters.