Linger by Maggie Stiefvater

This is the second in the Mercy Falls trilogy. I enjoyed this one and was glad I had the third one at home, to start right away!!!  It took me a bit to get into the character of Cole but once I did I liked him.

Descrption from the author's site:
Once Grace and Sam have found each other, they know they must fight to stay together. For Sam, this means a reckoning with his werewolf past. For Grace, it means facing a future that is less and less certain.
Into their world comes a new wolf named Cole, whose past is full of hurt and danger. He is wrestling with his own demons, embracing the life of a wolf while denying the ties of a human. For Grace, Sam, and Cole, life is a constant struggle between two forces--wolf and human--with love baring its two sides as well. It is harrowing and euphoric, freeing and entrapping, enticing and alarming. As their world falls apart, love is what lingers. But will it be enough?

Excerpt Chapter Three

• isabel •
The day the cop came into the bookstore was the first day I had ever heard Grace complain of a headache.
It probably doesn’t sound that remarkable, but since I met Grace, she had never mentioned so much as a runny nose. Also, I was something of an expert on headaches.They were a hobby of mine.
After watching Sam dance clumsily with the cop, I headed back to school, which by this stage in my life had become sort of redundant. The teachers didn’t really know what to do with me, caught as they were between my good grades and my terrible attendance record, so I got away with a lot. Our uneasy
agreement basically came down to this: I’d come to class and they’d let me do what I wanted to do, as long as I didn’t corrupt the other students.
So the first thing I did when I got to Computer Arts was dutifully log in to my computer station and undutifully pull out the books I’d bought that morning. One of them was an illustrated encyclopedia of diseases — fat, dusty-smelling, and bearing a copyright of 1986. The thing was probably one of the
first books The Crooked Shelf had stocked. Read more here.

Run by Ann Patchett

This is the story of the Doyle family. Bernard and Bernadette get married and want a family.  They have a son Sullivan but no others.  When Sullivan is 12, they adopt a baby boy they name Teddy.  Then a few days later they get a call from the adoption agency.  Bernadette thinks the mother has changed her mind.  The mother wants them to take her older son too.  She does not want the boys separated. The family welcomes Tip. Twenty years later, Bernadette passed away years ago and Bernard has raised the boys himself. Tip, Teddy and Bernard go to hear Jesse Jackson.  Bernard loves politics and hew ants the boys to follow him and also learn about their hertitage because they are black.  The Doyle are white.  After the speech, it's starts snowing like crazy. Tip crosses the street and does not see the car coming.  A woman pushes him out of the way and she gets hit by the car.  He just hurts his ankle.  Who is this woman!  Her young daughter is standing there.  They find out that the woman is the mother of Tip and Teddy and the girl is their sister, Kenya.  The men open their heart and Kenya fits right in!

I enjoyed this story and felt for all of the characters.  It is well written.

Description from the author's site:
Since their mother's death, Tip and Teddy Doyle have been raised by their loving, possessive and ambitious father. As the former Mayor of Boston, Bernard Doyle wants to see his sons in politics, a dream the boys have never shared. But when an argument in a blinding New England snowstorm inadvertently causes an accident that involves a stranger and her child, all Bernard Doyle cares about is his ability to keep his children, all his children, safe.
Set over a period of 24 hours, Run takes us from the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard to a home for retired Catholic priests in downtown Boston. It shows us how worlds of privilege and poverty can coexist only blocks apart from one another, and how family can include people you've never even met. As in her best selling novel Bel Canto, Ann Patchett illustrates the humanity that connects disparate lives, weaving several stories into one surprising and endlessly moving narrative. Suspenseful and stunningly executed, Run is ultimately a novel about secrets, duty, responsibility, and the lengths we will go to protect our children.

For an excerpt, click here.

Pages: 295

Code Name: Bikini

I got this book for the 2013 Monthly Key Word Challenge.  Key Word: Name
It's a romance book but it's got an interesting story.  Trace is a NAVY Seal.  He got hurt on a mission.  Since he is not quite up to par, he is going to be sent on a mission on a cruise ship. He is surprised to see Gina on the ship.  He met her a few days before and had "that" feeling about her.  He has never felt this way before.  Are they going to be able to be together?

Description from goodreads:
Ex-cop Gina Ryan traded in her Smith & Wesson to follow a dream. Now she's creating decadent desserts aboard a luxury cruise ship in the Caribbean. But a gorgeous passenger is about to send her perfect world up in smoke.—

Trace O'Halloran is a hard-edged navy SEAL, under strict orders to take some high seas R & R. There's a shipload of women in bikinis eager to help him unwind, so why can't he take his mind off the stubborn pastry chef with an attitude the size of Montana?

When a dangerous assassin from Trace's past appears, Gina and Trace must join forces to save the ship's guests. The clock's ticking, and they'l

Excerpt:
“I’m doing everything I can.”   The head of ship’s security prowled the small cooking area angrily.  “I don’t need an amateur telling me how to do my job.”

Gina Ryan cleared her throat.  “Um—he’s not exactly an amateur, Tobias.  Trace is in the Navy.”

“So what?  If he was any good, he’d be in the Marines.”

Since Trace O’Halloran happened to be a Navy SEAL, he simply smiled.  “Ex-jarhead, eh?  I should have figured you for that.” 

“Yeah, I’m an ex-Marine.  And I’ve got my men working on that video feed,” the security officer said stiffly.  “I’ve also got a computer expert coming aboard to beef up the galley network when we reach Mazatlan.”

“Not good enough.”

Gina shook her head.  The men were striking sparks off each other, playing like it was a boy’s club with a boy’s rules.  Those rules were partly what had driven her out of her last job.

But this wasn’t Seattle, and she wasn’t running ever again.

 “We’ve got to do something to stop this sabotage.”

“Let her think she’s winning, then ambush her from a rearguard action.  Remember, all warfare is based on
deception.”

“What is that, some kind of Navy motto?”

“No, it’s Chinese.  Very old military advice from a genius named Sun Zi.”

Gina scowled at the stairs leading up to the passenger decks.  “So I can’t just go kick her butt?”

“Nice for instant gratification, but not a long-term solution.”

“Okay, how about I grip her throat and strangle the last ounce of life out of her?”

“Nix on the strangulation, too.  It’s illegal.”

“What kind of date are you?  Can’t a girl have any fun?”

Trace O’Halloran’s lip curved.  “Is this a date we’re having?  I thought it was more like a security consultation.”

“It’s turning into a little of both.  Sort of.  Did I say thank you?”  Read more here.

Pages: 377

Lost by Joy Fielding

Cindy is divorced.  She has two daughters; Julia and Heather.  Julia decided to live with her father after the divorce but has come to live with Cindy and Heather recently. She is quite a handful.  Julia is a 21 year old aspiring actress.  She has an audition on a Thursday but never comes home.  Cindy is frantic.  Her ex husband does not seem to care.  Tuesday morning they file a missing person's report.  The police interview everyone in their lives. A week later another girl is reported missing. Where is Julia?

I figured out the ending halfway through the book but I still enjoyed this story. I cannot understand why anyone liked Julia. She was not a nice person. Cindy's ex was a giant jerk! Cindy and her mother and sister became closer through this ordeal.  Cindy met a great guy during this time too.

Description from the author's site:
Losing Julia has become a constant in Cindy Carver's life. The first time Julia disappeared, she was five years old and vanished at the playground. That inspired motherly paranoia. The second was when, at age fourteen, Julia decided to move in with her father. That broke Cindy's heart. But when twenty-one-year-old Julia disappears without a trace after a promising audition with one of Hollywood's most powerful and influential directors, Cindy begins a frantic search. Secrets are revealed, lives are forever altered, and Cindy is forced to acknowledge the disturbing truth about the young woman she realizes she never really knew.

Every stranger was a possible friend; every friend a possible foe. How well do we know anybody? How well do we know ourselves?

"Disturbingly credible... You will not be able to put it down" - Tampa Tribune

Sample Chapter

"Has she ever done anything like this before?"

"You mean, stayed out all night?"

Neil nodded. He was sitting beside Cindy on one of two tan leather sofas in her living room. Behind them a wall of windows overlooked the spacious backyard. Facing them were three paintings of pears in varying degrees of ripeness. Cindy couldn't remember the name of the artist who'd painted these pictures. Tom had bought them without asking either her opinion or approval. I make the money; I make the decisions, being pretty much the theme of their marriage. Along with the never-ending parade of other women, Cindy thought, smiling sadly at the good-looking man perched on the opposite end of the couch and wondering if he'd ever cheated on his wife. She ran her hand across the sofa's buttery surface. Find Italian leather. Guaranteed to last a lifetime. Unlike her marriage, she thought. The sofas had also been Tom's decision, as was the checkered print of the two wing chairs sitting in front of the black marble fireplace. Why had she never bothered to change anything after he left? Had she been subconsciously waiting for him to return? She shook her head, trying to excise her former husband from her brain.

"Cindy?" Neil was asking, leaning forward, extending his hands toward hers. "Are you all right? You have this very strange look on your face."

"Yes, she's stayed out all night before," Cindy said, answering his question, wondering how long ago he'd asked it. "But she always calls. She's never not called."

Except once just after she moved back home, Cindy recalled, when she was making a point about being an adult and no longer answerable to her mother. Her father, she'd argued pointedly, had never placed any such restrictions on her. Her mother, Cindy had countered, needed to be assured of her safety. It was a matter of consideration, not constraint. In reply, Julia had rolled her eyes and flounced out of the room, but she'd never stayed out all night again without first phoning home. Read more here.

Pages: 372

The Whole World Over by Julia Glass

This is the story of Greenie and Walter and their friends. They live in NYC.  Greenie is a baker. Walter runs a restaurant.  Greenie is married to Alan.  He is depressed and angry. Why? She is tired of trying with him.  Sometimes he is not interested in their 4 year old son, George. Walter wants love but doesn't seem to go about it the right way.
One night the governor of New Mexico comes into the restaurant and has a piece of cake made by Greenie. Walter boasts about her to Ray.  Ray arranges for her to make him dinner.  He offers her a job as his chef but it's in New Mexico.  She decides to take it.  She believes her family needs a change.  Alan does not want to change. George and Greenie go live in NM.  The next thing you know it's Sept.11, 2001 and everyone's lives change.
I like these character driven stories.  I could understand Greenie's need to change things but I had a hard time understanding why Alan did what he did.  He constantly shut her out and then blamed her for it. I felt bad for Walter but happy for him in the end.

Summary from Book Browse:
From the author of the beloved novel Three Junes comes a rich and commanding story about the accidents, both grand and small, that determine our choices in love and marriage. Greenie Duquette, openhearted yet stubborn, devotes most of her passionate attention to her Greenwich Village bakery and her four–year–old son, George. Her husband, Alan, seems to have fallen into a midlife depression, while Walter, a traditional gay man who has become her closest professional ally, is nursing a broken heart.

It is at Walter’s restaurant that the visiting governor of New Mexico tastes Greenie’s coconut cake and decides to woo her away from the city to be his chef. For reasons both ambitious and desperate, she accepts—and finds herself heading west without her husband. This impulsive decision will change the course of several lives within and beyond Greenie’s orbit. Alan, alone in New York, must face down his demons; Walter, eager for platonic distraction, takes in his teenage nephew. Yet Walter cannot steer clear of love trouble, and despite his enforced solitude, Alan is still surrounded by women: his powerful sister, an old flame, and an animal lover named Saga, who grapples with demons all her own. As for Greenie, living in the shadow of a charismatic politician leads to a series of unforeseen consequences that separate her from her only child. We watch as folly, chance, and determination pull all these lives together and apart over a year that culminates in the fall of the twin towers at the World Trade Center, an event that will affirm or confound the choices each character has made—or has refused to face.

Julia Glass is at her best here, weaving a glorious tapestry of lives and lifetimes, of places and people, revealing the subtle mechanisms behind our most important, and often most fragile, connections to others. In The Whole World Over she has given us another tale that pays tribute to the extraordinary complexities of love.

For an excerpt, click here.
Pages: 512

Red Delicious Death by Sheila Connolly

This is the third in the Orchard series. Meg has been in Granford for about six months now.  It is late spring and she is looking forward to apple season.  Her friend, Lauren, calls her and mentions that some friends of a friend are looking for a place to open a restaurant.  Meg says she will call her local realtor and see if there are any properties available in Granford.  Frances finds a few places but Nicky and Brian like the old Stebbins house. Meg introduces the couple to Seth, who acts as their contractor and helps with permits since he is a town selectman.  Their friend, Sam, is also going to work in the restaurant.  He is the sous chef and forager.  The chefs want to use only local foods in their restaurant.
Everything is going along well until Sam's body is found face down in a pig wallow.  Meg feels responsible for the restauranteurs being in Granford so she must figure out who the killer is.

For an excerpt, click here.

Pages: 296

Always and Forever by Cathy Kelly

Description from the author's site:
Fairy godmothers do exist, even in the tranquil hills of Ireland…
Once upon a time, in the beautiful town of Carrickwell, lived three women whose lives were mapped out: Ambitious Mel would have her career and her family; caring Daisy a child with the boyfriend who is everything to her; and hot-headed Cleo would finish her degree and step into the family hotel business.
Until the landscape shifted and it all came tumbling down.
But Carrickwell, nestled in the shadows of Mount Carraig, is an ancient, magical place. And when Leah, a woman with her own secret turmoil, opens the Clouds Hill spa, Mel, Daisy and Cleo are thrown together – and find the courage to discover what really matters to them, always and forever…

For an excerpt, click here.

My thoughts:
I liked this book but I felt the author took too long to get the women together. Once they found each other, the book was finished.  I wanted more in the story after they became friends. But it won't stop me from reading another book by Kelly.

Pages: 454