Body Work by Sara Paretsky

Book Description
The enigmatic performer known as the Body Artist takes the stage at Chicago's Club Gouge and allows her audience to use her naked body as a canvas for their impromptu illustrations. V. I. Warshawski watches as people step forward, some meek, some bold, to make their mark.

The evening takes a strange turn when one woman's sketch triggers a violent outburst from a man at a nearby table. Quickly subdued, the man-an Iraqi war vet-leaves the club. Days later, the woman is shot outside the club. She dies in V.I.'s arms, and the police move quickly to arrest the angry vet.

A shooting in Chicago is nothing new, certainly not to V.I., who is hired by the vet's family to clear his name. As V.I. seeks answers, her investigation will take her from the North Side of Chicago to the far reaches of the Gulf War.

My thoughts
V.I. Warshawski with her niece Petra. Petra is working in a club that features an artist known as the “the Body Artist” where patrons painting what they want on her nude body. Warshawski is asked to check out the club by her niece who thinks some strange things are going on. Soon, she is trying to save a woman who was just stabbed and eventually is hired to protect the name of an American soldier accused of the crime. This story has Vic getting beat up, not getting enough sleep and getting into too much trouble. Let’s see what she does in her next book.

Disclosure: I received this book for review from the publisher. I received no compensation for my thoughts.

Tick Tock by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge

This book will be released on January 24, 2011

Book Description
NYC's #1 detective, Michael Bennett, has a huge problem--the Son of Sam, the Werewolf of Wisteria and the Mad Bomber are all back. The city has never been more terrified!

Tick--a killer's countdown begins

A rash of horrifying crimes tears through the city, throwing it into complete chaos and terrorizing everyone living there. Immediately, it becomes clear that they are not the work of an amateur, but of a calculating, efficient, and deadly mastermind.

Tick--Michael Bennett is on the chase

The city calls on Detective Michael Bennett, pulling him away from a seaside retreat with his ten adopted children, his grandfather, and their beloved nanny, Mary Catherine. Not only does it tear apart their vacation, it leaves the entire family open to attack.

Tock--your time is up

Bennett enlists the help of a former colleague, FBI Agent Emily Parker. As his affection for Emily grows into something stronger, his relationship with Mary Catherine takes an unexpected turn. All too soon, another appalling crime leads Bennett to a shocking discovery that exposes the killer's pattern and the earth-shattering enormity of his plan. From the creator of the #1 New York detective series comes the most volatile and most explosive Michael Bennett novel ever.

My thoughts
Michael Bennett now has to deal with a serial killer that is recreated serial killers from New York’s past. All in the name of Lawrence. Now who the hell is Lawrence? While this is going on, Bennett is also trying to enjoy a peaceful vacation with his children. And to add to that he may or may not be romancing two women. So much going on in this fourth Michael Bennett story that it kept me turning page after page. It was a fast paced novel and a quick read but it didn’t grab me and hold on and was quickly forgotten when I opened my next book to read.

Disclosure: I received this book for review from the publisher. I received no compensation for my thoughts.

Thunder and Ashes by Z.A. Recht BLOG TOUR

I am back with another zombie book blog tour. I think I will hold off on the zombie books for awhile. I need my sleep at night!

Book Description
A LOT CAN CHANGE IN THREE MONTHS: Wars can be decided, nations can be forged . . . or entire species can be brought to the brink of annihilation. The Morningstar virus has swept the face of the planet, infecting billions. Its hosts rampage; its victims don’t die, but are reborn as cannibalistic shamblers.
SCATTERED ACROSS THE WORLD, EMBATTLED GROUPS HAVE PERSEVERED. For some, survival is the pinnacle of achievement. Others hoard goods and weapons. And still others leverage power over the remnants of humanity with a mysterious cure. Francis Sherman and Anna Demilio want only a vaccine, but to find it they must cross a ravaged landscape of the infected and the lawless living.

THE BULK OF THE STORM HAS PASSED, leaving echoing thunder and softly drifting ashes. But for the survivors, the peril remains, and the search for a cure is just beginning. . . .

My thoughts
Thunder and Ashes find the survivors of the Morningstar virus trying to make it to Omaha where there is a government lab that may have the cure. But across the vast wasteland are zombies and other survivors who don’t want to play nice. This novel is filled with zombies, apocalyptic scenarios and a great cast of good and bad characters. Easy to read, but just a cut above your average zombie story.

The Naked Lady Who Stood on Her Head by Gary Small M.D. and Gigi Vorgan

Book Description
True stories are more bizarre than any fiction, and Dr. Gary Small knows this best. After thirty distinguished years of psychiatry and groundbreaking research on the human brain, Dr. Small has seen it all—now he is ready to open his office doors for the first time and tell all about the most mysterious, intriguing, and bizarre patients of his career.

The Naked Lady Who Stood on Her Head is a spellbinding record of the doctor's most bewildering cases, from naked headstands and hysterical blindness to fainting schoolgirls and self-amputations. It is an illuminating journey into the mind of a practicing psychiatrist and his life in medicine as it evolves over time—a behind-the-scenes look at the field and a variety of mental diseases as they've never been seen or diagnosed before. You'll find yourself exploring the puzzling eccentricities that make us human.

Often funny, sometimes tragic, and always compelling, Dr. Small takes you on a tour of his career that moves from the halls of a crowded inner-city Boston emergency room to the multimillion-dollar ski lodges of the nation's elite. In between, Dr. Small introduces a strange cast of true-life characters and conditions, while dealing with mysterious hysterical blindness, a man convinced that his penis is shrinking, secret double lives, and frighteningly psychotic romantic desires. His career and personal life come full circle when his own mentor becomes his patient, making Small realize that no one is beyond mental exploration—not even himself.

My thoughts
Dr. Small’s collection of stories from his many years of being a psychiatrist is both touching and humorous. It’s not only the incidents he writes about, but also how he deals with these situations; some successfully and others maybe not. Finding cases from throughout his career must have been tough, but he has come up with a book of unusual stories ending with treating his own mentor. I found this to be an easy read and often amusing.

Disclosure: The book was received for review from the publisher. I received no compensation for my thoughts.

You Don't Love This Man by Dan DeWeese

This book will be released on March 1, 2011

Book Description
On the morning of his daughter Miranda's wedding, Paul learns that the bank he manages has been robbed-by the same man who robbed him twenty-five years before. As if that weren't enough, Miranda, who is set to marry Paul's best friend, seems to be missing.

As Paul struggles to reconcile his little girl with the grown woman he's about to walk down the aisle (if he can find her), and to accept the man he once considered his peer as his future son-in-law, he takes stock of everything leading up to this moment: his wife's unplanned pregnancy, their eventual divorce, his daughter's clandestine romance, and the strange coincidence of being robbed by the same man two decades apart. Paul somehow manages to navigate each of the day's surprises with his signature dry sense of humor and loyalty to those he loves, even while he questions the choices and motives of those around him. Set against the backdrop of the urban Pacific Northwest, Dan DeWeese has crafted a moving and gracefully written story of a father and daughter, and the indelible ties that bind.

My Thoughts
You Don’t Love This Man is a superb novel on the human experience. It’s a slice of life story involving Paul and the day of his daughter Miranda’s wedding. On this morning, his bank is robbed by the same thief who robbed him some twenty years ago. He now has to deal with the bank’s security team, making sure his daughter’s reception is ready, and dealing with his ex-wife. The novel flashes back to certain times of Paul’s life, like when he was happily married, when Miranda was born and is relationship with his best friend Grant. Through al, we get to learn about who Paul is and how important the people in his life are. I found this story to be so moving that I shed a few tears.

Disclosure: This book was received for review from the publisher. I received no compensation for my thoughts.

The Aqua Net Diaries by Jennifer Niven

Book Description
If you had found Jennifer Niven in the looming halls of Richmond, Indiana's lone high school in 1985, she would have had enormous hair and been wearing her favorite yellow Esprit shirt. She would have been flirting with Tommy Wissel, and passing notes to her best friend Joey about whether Dean Waldemar was going to ask her to the dance. And her last name would have been McJunkin, because Niven is the pen name she planned to use whenever she finally graduated and became a famous writer/actress in some big city far, far away from farms, tractors, mullets, and food festivals.

In her entertaining and heartfelt memoir, Jennifer takes readers back to that thrilling, excruciating, amazing, unnerving, awkward, and unforgettable time -- high school -- when life's greatest problems revolved around saying and doing the right thing, wrestling with geometric theorems, fretting over a bad hair day, waiting for the weekend's parties, trying not to die of boredom, and dying to be noticed by the most popular boy in school. It was a time of feeling fearless and invincible, with miles of firsts still to come.

From meeting her best friend for life in Mr. Foos's first-period geometry class to partying one last time before college -- when not just the cool kids but the hoods, the geeks, and the normal kids gathered together to say good-bye -- Jennifer shares the funny, poignant, and silly stories of a simpler time and place. Irresistibly charming and utterly true, The Aqua Net Diaries is one girl's unique yet undeniably universal survival story of the best years of her life.

My thoughts
Jennifer Nevins’ memoir takes us back to high school in the 80s. Although, I am older am high school, years were in the 70s, it is interesting to see that the high school experience is not all the same for us. Jennifer believes that she Is not part of the popular crowd but an outsider. I don’t sense that. It is also remarkable how she kept letters and notes from that period to help create the stories of her youth. Contacting old school chums, to interview for the book also makes me believe that high school was a big and important part of her life. But it was still high school, however ordinary it may have been. She is a very good writer but reading this memoir didn’t leave any long lasting impression.

Disclosure: This book was borrowed from my local library.

I Found Black Licorice Ice Cream!

First, I would like to mention that this is not a solicitation or a paid promotional piece. I happened to come across this site and wanted to share it with everyone.

I have been a fan of black licorice ice cream when Baskin and Robbins introduced it one October some 30 years ago. It soon faded it to oblivion and I was disappointed. Then about 6 years ago Stone Cold Creamery introduced black licorice ice cream when they opened stores in New Jersey. It didn’t last long, but I did buy a gallon of the ice cream!

While surfing the internet, I found that there are not one but three ice cream companies in Wisconsin that make black licorice ice cream. I guess Wisconsinites love their black licorice!

And there is an internet company that ships nationwide ICECREAMSOURCE.COM. Hooray for me!

Of course, the shipping costs make the ice cream purchase an expensive one so it is not something I can indulge in frequently. But for the time being, I am enjoying black licorice ice cream once again!

Intermission

For those who may be wondering why I haven’t posted in over a week, well, life caught up with me. First, there was my birthday, and a weekend upstate New York for a winery tour and a trip to Corning to make our own glass pumpkins. Then I actually got to work for four days (which I am very happy about), and the yearly raking and bagging of leaves. So I haven’t had much time to read.

But don’t fret I will be back with more reviews and yes, more giveaways. I have a whole stack of ARCs that I would love to share with my readers.

Commando: The Musical

A Funny Musical Spoof of Arnold Schwatzenegger in Commando.  Enjoy!

At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson

Book Description
From one of the most beloved authors of our time—more than six million copies of his books have been sold in this country alone—a fascinating excursion into the history behind the place we call home.

“Houses aren’t refuges from history. They are where history ends up.”

Bill Bryson and his family live in a Victorian parsonage in a part of England where nothing of any great significance has happened since the Romans decamped. Yet one day, he began to consider how very little he knew about the ordinary things of life as he found it in that comfortable home. To remedy this, he formed the idea of journeying about his house from room to room to “write a history of the world without leaving home.” The bathroom provides the occasion for a history of hygiene; the bedroom, sex, death, and sleep; the kitchen, nutrition and the spice trade; and so on, as Bryson shows how each has fig¬ured in the evolution of private life. Whatever happens in the world, he demonstrates, ends up in our house, in the paint and the pipes and the pillows and every item of furniture.

Bill Bryson has one of the liveliest, most inquisitive minds on the planet, and he is a master at turning the seemingly isolated or mundane fact into an occasion for the most diverting exposi¬tion imaginable. His wit and sheer prose fluency make At Home one of the most entertaining books ever written about private life.

My thoughts
I enjoy reading Bill Bryson and At Home is quite informative and I learned much from reading this book. But it was lacking his humorous touch, and almost felt like a text book. He gives detailed stories of the rooms we live in and the articles inside them. This book was not the history of one house, but the history of how we live and the importance each of the rooms from the medieval times to now.

Disclosure: The book was received for review from the publisher. I received no comepnsation for my thoughts.

November’s Making Room for More Books Giveaway

This month I am giving away three books to one lucky winner:

Purgatory Inn by Ernesto Jose Herrera
Duckegg & Persons of Interest by NovaMelia
Sugar Tower by Jessica Dee Rohm

This is open to U.S residents only.

Since it is November, leave a comment of what you are thankful for this year and your email address. That’s it.

Contest ends Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Drinking Closer to Home by Jessica Anya Blau

Drinking Closer to Home will be released on January 18, 2011.

Book Description
When Anna, Portia and Emery’s mother, Louise, suffers a massive heart attack, the three grown children return to California to be with their parents. Anna, once certain that her free-loving parents were going to die of syphilis, continually thinks about sex with strangers; Portia, managing an unfaithful husband, mourns her carefree, teenage beach-bunny days; and Emery, who once lived in fear that the police would arrest his parents for any one of their transgressions (growing marijuana; peeing in public; the time Louise quit being a housewife and gave Emery’s care over to eight-year-old Portia), now worries that he won’t be able to create his own family, a new, improved version that will trump the impetuousness and chaos that ruled his childhood home.
But this time together will not only pull the siblings back together – it will also bring to the surface sometimes painful, often heartbreaking secrets that will shake the foundations of everything they know about themselves and assume about their family—secrets that may, perhaps, change the way they view their past as well as their future. There is nothing like ten days with one's family to bring forth old obsessions and childhood memories.

My thoughts
Drinking Closer to Home is about one dysfunctional family, but not much different than the thousands of dysfunctional families in this nation. When their mother, Louise suffers a heart attack, her three children come back for ten days and suffer the anxiety that homecomings entice, bringing up childhood fears and secrets, and having to deal with one’s siblings. Jessica Anya Blau’s novel is amusing look at family and individual relationships. One must read this novel slowly, like sipping a fine wine, although it is not for everyone.
Disclosure: I received this book for review from the publisher. I received no compensation for my thoughts.