Bad Business by Robert B. Parker – A Spencer Novel Copyright 2004

Bad Business (Spenser)

From the inside cover: A cheating husband and a wayward wife provide Spencer with an unconventional and dangerous surveillance job.

When Marlene Crowly hires Spenser to see if her husband, Trent, is cheating on her, he encounters more than he bargained for: he finds not only a two-timing husband, but a second investigator as well, hired by the husband to look after the wife. As a result of their joint efforts, Spencer soon finds himself investigating both individuals depravity and corporate corruption.

It seems the folks in the Cowleys’ circle have become enamored of radio talk show host Darrin O’Mara whose’s views on courtly love are clouding some already fuzzy minds with the notion of cross-connubial relationships. O’Marra’s brand of sex therapy is unconventional at best, unlawful – and deadly at worst. Then a murder at Kinergy, where Trent Cowley is CFO, sends Spenser in yet another direction. Apparently the unfettered pursuit of profit has a price.

With razor-sharp characterizations and finely honed prose, this Parker writing at the height of his powers.

The Help by Katheryn Stockett

The Help

Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women—mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends—view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don’t.

The Guy Not Taken (stories) by Jennifer Weiner
From the back cover: Jennifer Weiner’s talent shines like never before in this collection of short stories, following the tender, often hilarious, progress of love and relationships over the course of a lifetime.

We meet Marlie Davidow, home alone with her new baby late one night, when she wanders onto her ex’s online wedding registry and wonders what if she had wound up with the guy not taken. we find Jessica Norton listing her beloved river-view apartment in the hope of winning her broker’s heart. And we follow an unlikely friendship between two very different new mothers, and the choices that bring them toghether – and pull aprt.

The Guy Not Taken demonstrated Weiner’s amazing ability to create characters who “feel like they could be your best friend” (Janet Masling) and to find hope and humor, longing and love in teh hidden  corners of our common experiences.

ISBN: 978-7432-9805-6 Copyright 2006

Bungalow 2 by Danielle Steel

From the back cover: The phone call was anything but ordinary, offering Marin County mom and freelance writer Tanya Harris the chance to write a major Hollywood screenplay, a dream she had put aside to devote her energies to her family. This time, Tanya knows she cannot refuse, even thought she’s torn about leaving her husband and their daughters.

From the moment she steps into her bungalow at the fabled Beverly Hills Hotel, Tanya is thrust into an intoxicating new world where she feels reborn…energized by the creativity swirling around her. Suddenly she’s working alongside A-list actors and a Hollywood legend: Oscar-award winning producer Douglas Wayne, a man who always gets what he wants – and who seems to have his sights set on her. Flying home between shoots, struggling to reconnect with a family that seems to need her less and less, Tanya watches helplessly as her old life is pulled out from under her.

As her two lives collide, as one award-winning film leads to another, Tanya begins to wonder if she can be a wife, a mother, and a writer at the same time. And just as she confronts the toughest choice she has faced, she’s offered another dazzling opportunity – one that could recast her story in an amazing new direction complete with an ending she never could have written herself.

In Bungalow 2, Danielle Steel takes us into a world few ever see – a world of fame and fortune, celebrity and genius – daring to show us the real lives, real dreams and real struggles hidden beneath the flash and the glitter of Hollywood.

ISBN: 978-0-440-24206-2 Copyright 2007

I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman
I Feel Bad About My Neck and others thoughts on being a woman by Nora Ephron

Amazing Grace by Danielle Steel

From the back cover:

On a warm May night in San Francisco, the Ritz-Carlton ballroom, as a glittering celebrity-studded crowd gathers for a charity dinner dance. The evening is perfect- until, just minutes before midnight, the room begins to sway….

In the earthquake’s aftermath, the lives of four strangers will converge… Sarah Sloane, the wife of financial whiz, watchers her perfect world fall to pieces…. Grammy -winning singer Melanie Free comes to a turning point in her life and career… Photographer Everett Carson finds new purpose amid the carnage… and Sister Maggie Kent, a nun who works with the homeless, searches through the rubble – and knows that there is much to be done….

As the  city staggers back to life, a chain reaction of extraordinary events will touch each of the survivors… Sarah discovers a crime and a betrayal, then a strength she never knew she had. Volunteering at a refugee camp opens new worlds of possibilities for Melanie. Everett will forge an unlikely relationship with Maggie, who helps him rebuild his shattered life – and upends her own in the process. And as a year passes, each discovers the unexpected gifts in a tragedy’s wake… and the amazing grace of new beginnings.

Throughout these enthralling pages. Danielle Steel creates a stunning array of contrasts – from the dazzle of a society benefit to the chaos of a makeshift hospital, from the pampered lives of rock stars to the quiet heroism of emergency volunteers. It is her most powerful and life-affirming novel to date.

ISBN: 978-0-440-24327-4

Match Game by Beverly Brandt

From the back cover: On the most special day of your life, your wedding day, the cops bust in and wrongfully arrest you at the altar for money laundering and tax evasion. The only rings you leave the church with that day are the ones made by the handcuffs on your wrists. You are soon released because you prove to the Feds that is was someone else who stole your identity… but your fiance isn’t as easily convinced and hits the road. Continue reading →