Gabriel McQueen arrives home to Maine to visit his young son and parents just in time for a major ice storm to blow into town. His dad, who's the town sheriff, asks him to go up the Helton place to check on Lolly Helton who is in town to ready the family's house for sale.

Gabriel and Lolly had a love hate relationship when they were in high school based on the fact that each had the hots for each other but didn't know how to express it. You know, typical high school stuff.


When Lolly is threatened by meth addicts that invade her home Gabriel helps her escape and gives her more than just an extra hand against the hoped up addicts. He gives her a piece of his heart. Check out this holiday romantic suspense novel for a good happily ever after.

Harper Connelly has a special gift. Ever since she was struck by lightning as a teenager she's been able to find dead people. On this trip back to Texas to see their sisters, Harper and Tolliver are pushed back into the past when they learn that Tolliver's father has been released from prison and he's seeking forgiveness now that he's clean and sober.

Harper and Tolliver, who are not related by blood but grew up together, are finding it a challenge to be seen as a couple now and the only people happy for them are their little sisters who just want to be be able to wear long dresses to a wedding.
But in the process of getting reaquainted with their family some disturbing realizations come to light about the long ago abduction, and probable murder, of Harper's older sister Cameron. During Tolliver's recuperation from a gun shot wound they drive back to the scene of Cameron's abduction, see the scene with eyes of adults and learn that their current case and the lives of their family are most assuredly interwined.

Kelly Rochard goes on vacation to Paris to learn more about the father she never knew but the first day she's there she's mugged and looses everything - including the letters her father wrote her mother before she was born. Will Maguire witnesses the mugging and recognizes the flustered high school French and unwittingly gets himself wrapped up in the questioning, but when he takes a good look at Kelly the chemistry between them is unmistakable.

Will has father issues, too, and he started hiding out in Paris several years ago to stay out of the family business and now he's practically running a small cheese company so stepping in to help a young women in distress is nothing new. He takes care of getting her immediate needs met by letting her use his phone and by the end of the day these two have become much closer. Much.

Kelly and Will both work on their father issues and a few other things along the way. Be sure to catch "Blame it on Paris" so that you can find out how Kelly and Will finally get together. It's worth it. Also the rich language and descriptions of Paris are wonderful. You'll swear you were actually there

In the past year of Dash Bateman's life her mother died suddenly and her daughter left for college. Now she and her husband are on their own to recraft new lives for themselves and while Dash might take this to an extreme there's nothing out of the ordinary that she goes through in this story. With some women's fiction the ending comes likes a thud, and as Susan Elizabeth Phillips mentioned on the back cover blurb of my copy, and 'you race to take an antidepressant'. There are no worries about that with this book. While there might have been moments when the characters had hard choices to make, in the end those choices pay off for Dash, her husband, and the readers

Come read by full review.

Izzy Spellman grew up and joined the family business and her little sister is following in her footsteps. This has her family concerned since Izzy was quite the hellion as a child and because the Spellmans are Private Investigators. Anecdotes will keep you laughing as Izzy explains how she met each of her ex-boyfriends, how she and her best friend terrorized the neighborhood growing up and how she plans to find her little sister when it becomes clear that Rae has been kidnapped.

Bauby was the editor of French Elle Magazine until he suffered a stroke and was hospitalized with Locked-In Syndrome. This memoir was written one letter at a time blinking his left eye to spell out each and every word. The book is short but full of candor and a very different perspective from a man who knows that he isn't alive yet he isn't dead yet either.

Grace Emerson is tired of being pitied since her ex-fiance dumped her 20 days before the wedding because he'd fallen in love with her younger sister, so she made up the boyfriend so that her sister wouldn't feel guilty and Grace wouldn't feel pitied about being at her cousin's wedding without a date. Then Callahan O'Shea moves in next door and Grace can't stop spying on him even though her dog attacks him at every opportunity. Turns out he's just gotten out of jail for something he didn't do but took the rap for and Grace is falling in love. Her family is much more leery and even the ex-fiance is warning her off even this causes problems. In the end Callahan and Grace give each other everything they are looking for and on the way this is a pretty fun read

Joey Perone is pushed off a cruise ship by her husband on her first anniversary. Only her skill and training as a collegiate diver allow her to survive the fall and the hundreds of miles of ocean before she is rescued off a small island near Florida by retired police investigator Mick Stranahan. Chaz Perone plays the grieving widower well until he gets too wrapped up with his mistress, the goon sent by his 'boss' to make sure his investment stays safe, and his real job as a biologist testing nitrate runoff in the Everglades. Joey gets Mick to help her mess with Chaz and let him think he's being blackmailed and with pressure coming from the mistress, the 'by the book' cop, the 'blackmailer', the goon, and the 'boss', Chaz self-destructs and Joey sits back to watch. The grand finale, though, has one wondering if the ends justified the means

Jakes tells the story of Gen. Sherman's march on and occupation of the city of Savannah through the eyes of Hattie, Sarah, Miss V and their acquaintances. Hattie and her mother are driven from their rice plantation by hostilities and go to the city to live with their friend Miss V. Hattie's childhood friend LeGrand goes to war and is wounded and sent back to the city. We also see the story from the eyes of Union foraging soldiers and a newspaperman who falls in love with the widow Sarah and Miss V's piano.

Zoey Adler hijacks a federal agent to help save her infant niece from kidnappers. The fact that she has nicknamed this guy 'Lips of Sin' should also tell you something about her previous run-ins with Dante Torelli. Agent Torelli is not only tasked with the protection of young Pete and her family who are in hiding from the Mob but also with an investigation of an agent gone bad. A snow storm hits Chicago, bullets fly, Pete gets swiped by Aunties from India and once again opposites attract

Simon Bonner is desperately trying to retire from his previous profession as a tomb raider but his ex-wife's new husband shows up at his house in the mddle of the night trailing blood, news of his ex's abduction, and the key to the find that will get her back. All he needs to do is find a woman. Jillian Talbot isn't just any woman though. She can see the past in objects and the rock crystal lens that Simon is given was made for her because she is The Seer who must find The Archives of Man buried in some ancient ruins in Mexico. The trip through Mexico not only brings them closer to the Archives but closer to each other and to what is true and real in life which is something that they have both struggled with in previous relationships. [This book was a RITA finalist this year!]

Vida Winter has sold more books than any other writer except the Bible but now she's elderly and sick and wants to tell the real story that she's never let interviewers know - who she really is and where she came from. She hires Margaret Lea by mail and tells her the story of her life from beginning to end, without interruption and without questions, so that it can be published. But once Margaret knows the story of the fire and what happened to the twins and gets to know Vida will she want to make the biography public?

Julie Powell's life is full of disappointments. She's nearing 30, she learns that she will have difficulty conceiving, she's working as a temp for a nameless government agency and she realizes that there's no meaning in her life. Then she takes on The Project. She decides to cook her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and chronicling her journey in a blog. Julie and Julia is funny and full of lots of cussing for what is basically mid-life crisis/ food porn. But readable, funny, believable, and if they made the movie like the book even guys will enjoy this chick flick because it marries food/ love/ sex all together in one story. It's also a great read for anyone who has had a sucky job at some point in their life - and isn't that most everyone!

Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter is an inside look at the work and life of the first female captain of a New York 4-star restaurant but it's about more than just food. It's about life and love and commitment. Like the chicken and the pig that give us breakfast each morning. Rich, readable voice and wonderful anecdotes and warm happy ending.

June is the time for me to revisit this favorite on my keeper shelf. Bet Me is a modern day fairy tale about love and gambling and food and body image and the things families do to each other even when they don't mean to. Cal makes a bet that he can get Min to leave the bar with him even though she just got dumped by her boyfriend. Min overhears the bet and decides to take Cal for the perverbial ride so that she can have a gorgeous date to her sister's wedding. Min's rage over being dumped scares Cal away and Cal's Charm Boy persona is everything Min knows will break her heart. The two can't seem to stay away from each other though and as they learn more about who the other really is deep down inside they each try to figure out how to get to the Happily Ever After.

The subtitle wraps this up nicely "Life, Love and Faith in Stages" from Chenoweth's upbringing in Oklahoma, her love of singing, her love of family and her faith. All stories come back to these themes. The rest is gravy but it's incredibly fun and tasty gravy. Stories about her constant runner-up status in the pageants that paid for her to study opera, her move to Broadway, then TV and her on-again, off-again relationship with Mr. Writer. You will laugh and you will cry and you will be entertained the entire time. I kid you not!

Sookie Stackhouse has a front row seat to the Great Reveal - the night the Weres come out to the world - as her boss turns into a collie right there in the bar! But this is a small town and not everyone likes the idea of their neighbors having fur. Sookies comes under suspicion from the FBI, Jason's wife is murdered horribly, she's symbolically married to one of her former vampire boyfriends [I won't say which one!] and this is before the half-way point of the book. Harris keeps us hopping as the Fairies attack and it's not pretty. Lots of plots get dealt with so don't miss this installment of the Southern Vampire series.

Roberts' first book in the Bride Quartet begins a new series about four childhood friends who grow up to start a wedding business together. Mackenzie Elliot throws herself into her photography to distance her heart from her mother issues and the abandonment of her trust-fund father. She is pursued by Carter Maguire - a stable PhD in English who had a high school crush on Mac. Carter tries to help Mac see that life can be just as wonderful untouched in the darkroom and even if it is unfocused and messy - it's always better with someone who truly loves you.

Writing of life growing up in Freeville, New York and being raised in an extended family of women raising their families alone, Dickinson later finds herself raising her own daughter alone. This memoir follows her as she finds herself living in her hometown part-time and making a new life that takes her from fill-in jobs in DC to the replacement for the deceased Ann Landers in Chicago and a new life for her family in Freeville.

Quick [Jayne Ann Krentz's pseudonym for historical romance] picks up the story of the founding of Jones and Jones - the Arcane Society's investigative arm and the relationship between Lucinda Bromley, whose talent is with plants and poisons, and Caleb Jones, a direct descendant of the founder, Sylvester Jones. Caleb has been told his whole adult life that he will go slowly mad like all the males of his family. Lucinda is notorious in her own right after several suspicious sucides in her immediate family and the death of her fiance by poison. When a rare plant from her conservatory goes missing and the poison made from it begins killing people, Lucinda helps Caleb track down the culprit. Caleb finds comfort in the daily routine of Lucinda's household and their personal relationship develops as the investigation leads them in some very dangerous directions.

A chronological conversation of her faith journey with side trips to discuss how she dealt an eating disorder, drugs, alcoholism, death of her father, relationships, death of her best friend, being a single mother and other real life issues. Humor and frank language make this book stand out from most conversations about faith and it is a refreshing change of pace.

Hollywood child star, Georgie York, and her co-star, Bram Shepard, wake up married to each other in Vegas. Neither remembers how they got there but Georgie knows that she can't handle another scandal, not after her husband left her for a Hollywood Bombshell.  Georgie convinces Bram to stay married to her and while they play doting newlyweds Georgie deals with her father issues, Bram's 20-something, punker housekeeper who hates her, and tries to find real meaning in her life.

Based on true events around the Sarajevo Haggadah, Brooks has woven a tale traced across Europe through six centuries that is fresh, rich, smart, and exciting to read. One story line of the story is told from the first person perspective of the book conservator - Hanna. A woman with mother-issues who is given the opportunity of a lifetime to work on the Sarajevo Haggadah. She is curious about it's history and the people that it has touched in all it's past wanderings. The other story line works backward chronologically through the places where the Haggadah met a crucial turning point and the people and story that followed. You will be stunned, amazed and charmed. I promise. I stayed up all night and couldn't put it down.

Shar, Abby, and Daisy [written respectively by Crusie, Stuart and Rich in a collaborative novel] find out that they are the descendants of the Mesopotamian Goddess Kammani. They work together, along with other goddess descendants, and the new men in their lives, to figure out their new-found powers, come to terms with their own family histories, and thwart Kammani's plans to take over present day Ohio and then the world. Oh, and did I mention the dogs talk. 

For more information on how the collaboration worked and to see it in action visit their website. I highly recommend the blog. I guarantee you will laugh.

Fleur spends her young life longing for the love and attention of her father only to abhor it when she actually get its it for the wrong reasons. A pawn between her parents, she has been a model and an actress and it's not until she ventures out on her own after learning of her mother's duplicity does she really begin to learn who she really is. An Epic story beginning in the days of Old Hollywood with Fleur's talentless mother trying to break into the business and being dazzled and by the stars instead. Phillips weaves a poignant tale of discovery and the tragedy that families can bring to themselves until Fleur finds out who she truly is and learns to love herself and her dream.

The third detective novel featuring Harriet Vane and Sayers' recurring character Lord Peter Wimsey. Harriet returns to her Oxford college to help with a particularly nasty problem and encounters issues of eugenics, the life of the mind vs. the life of the heart, and she realizes that she must deal with her feelings for Peter because, as she comes to learn, he will never do it for her.

Diesel is back and things get weird for Stephanie as she tracks down the bad guys because Diesel is an Unmentionable and he complicates her already difficult personal life. The bad guys want to control the weather to control the world and this is saying something considering it's Jersey!

Memoir and written form of her one-woman show, Fisher tells stories based on what she remembers of her life after having ECT to treat severe depression. Since much of her life is common knowledge her side of the story is full of laughs and wit and vintage cynicism, just as you'd expect.

A ripped from the headlines look at school shooting, bullying, teenage cliques, how parenting and community does or doesn't affect a group of kids. Both a poignant and difficult read.

Nash is dead until they can make it safe for him to be alive. Sophia and Dave have fallen in love and Dave has been abducted to try flush Nash out of hiding. Is Decker over his guilt/ love/ relationship with Sophia? Who at the Agency is trying to kill Nash and will they succeed before Dave is found?

Book Three in the Irish Trilogy.  Carrick the Fairy Prince hopes that Darcy and Trevor will be the third to fall in love and break the spell so that he will finally be joined with his true love Lady Gwen, who haunts Faerie Hill Cottage. 

The story of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, from her beginnings to her end. Learn about her early family life, her siblings, her love of Animals, her desperate attempt to bring about justice and her desire for forgiveness. A treatise on politics, evil and Fate.

Bella meets Edward when she's the new kid in school. She doesn't fit in and neither does Edward but they are drawn to one another another. Once she falls in love with him and she learns his secret Bella is in a kind of danger that she could never have imagined.

Pi is stuck on a lifeboat with a hyena, an orangutan, and a tiger in this novel that 'will make you believe in God'.  Martel uses the convention of the memoir to bring the readers along on the tale of Pi's life including the harrowing shipwreck journey with a tiger.