The Opposite Shore by Maryanne Stahl

Which would be worse: losing your husband or your only sister? Rose, a forty-something wife and mother, has never asked herself this question. But one Saturday afternoon, she comes upon her husband, William, and her sister, Anna, locked in a fiery kiss. And the answer to this question rings in her ears: worse still would be to lose one to the other. 

Devastated by the betrayal, Rose moves with her teenage daughter to Shelter Island for the summer. As she struggles to build a new life as an artist, Rose grows ever more isolated from her sister and her husband. Until an unexpected storm brings her face to face with the two people she loves and hates the most...

The book kept me reading and interested, but didn't totally grab me.

Wild About You by Kerrelyn Sparks

It's not every day that Elsa Bjornberg feels delicate, not when she hosts a home renovation show where she can effortlessly demolish a kitchen. But from the moment she meets Howard Barr, this bear of a man makes her feel like a woman. And the way he looks at her, as if she were a pot of honey he'd like to lick . . .

Howard is not like most men. For one thing, he's a shapeshifter. And he always thought his celebrity crush would never amount to anything more than drooling at Elsa on TV. When his meddling vampire employer gets involved, the star is suddenly within his grasp—and within a hair of her life. For an ancient curse forbids their newfound love, and Howard is suddenly torn between his desire for her and his desire to keep her alive. 

 I was glad that Howard finally got his story. It was another great addition to the series.

Potter's Field by Ann C Fallon

Patrick Duggan's promising career as a potter came to an abrupt end with a blow to the back of his head. The murder weapon: a planter of his own design. Dublin police brand the case a robbery gone awry, but Duggan's friend Father Tom suspects otherwise. The priest enlists the help of solicitor James Fleming who has inadvertently acquired a reputation as an expert sleuth.

James's investigation takes him to the artists' colony at nearby Carrigbawn, a bucolic setting that Duggan had recently fled for the grimier confines of Dublin. Although accepted into Carrigbawn's mannerly circle of artists and intellectuals, James is nonetheless ill at ease. Armed with only a mysterious photograph found among Duggan's effects, he discovers that beneath the community's picture-perfect facade lies an ugly family secret...a cunning deception that has already claimed another life!

The 'hero' was rather wimpy and not very hero-like. I had worked out who but not not why. 

Bio Rescue by S.L. Viehl

Commander Dair mu T'resa heads up a squadron of SEAL (surgically enhanced/altered life-form) pilots. They provide planetary patrol for the Pmoc Quadrant, including Dair's home planet, Kevarzangia two—a world populated by the underwater-dwelling 'Zangians. Saved at birth by a radical surgical procedure that introduced human dnA into her body, Dair has been able to survive for brief periods of time outside her aquatic habitat—opening her mind to the wonders of the universe's other races and cultures, yet closing her off from her own people.

She finds a true home when her SEAL squadron teams with medical personnel as a Bio Rescue unit formed to respond to off-planet emergencies. But the altruism Dair embraces finds opposition among her fellow 'Zangians—and the Skartesh, a lupine alien species who fled their own dying world to settle in the dry land colony fo Kevarzangia Two....

 Really enjoyed this and will be looking for more in the series. Great world building, interesting, well-developed characters, lots of action and a touch of romance. 

Hot Rocks by Nora Roberts

 When her notorious past catches up with Laine Tavish, proprietor of the antique shop Remember When, it's up to her and an enigmatic stranger named Max Gannon to find out who's chasing her-and why. The answer lies in a hidden fortune that will change Laine's life...

 An enjoyable, light read but not as good as Nora Roberts usually is.

Passions of the Ghost by Sara MacKenzie

He is Lord Reynald de Mortimer, a powerful warrior of the thirteenth century who defended his castle against his fiercest enemies. Now Reynald has awakened from a seven-hundred-year sleep to find that his beloved home has been turned into a modern hotel. Worse, it is host to a medieval festival Before Reynald can begin to contemplate his fate, a stunning beauty comes to his rescue . . .

Amy Fairweather is not your typical damsel. Nor is she in distress. As a former con artist, it'll take more than a breathtaking giant in armor to convince her that he's "the" Lord Reynald . . . even if he does set Amy's nights ablaze with passion and magic. But then strange, inexplicable things start to happen at the hotel, and she has no choice but to believe that the Ghost "has" emerged from the shadows of time. And now he must seek redemption by facing his greatest threat . . . with the unquestioning love of one extraordinary woman by his side.

Time- travel, romance, mystery and a dragon all make for an entertaining read.

On Digestion by Gay Bilson

From the bestselling author of Plenty comes a thoughtful meditation on food and writing.

A small but very interesting book from an Australian 'foodie'.  I liked the way it started with a description of her Pomegranate tree.

Storm Born by Richelle Mead

 Just typical. No love life to speak of for months, then all at once, every horny creature in the Otherworld wants to get in your pants...


Eugenie Markham is a powerful shaman who does a brisk trade banishing spirits and fey who cross into the mortal world. Mercenary, yes, but a girl's got to eat. Her most recent case, however, is enough to ruin her appetite. Hired to find a teenager who has been taken to the Otherworld, Eugenie comes face to face with a startling prophecy - one that uncovers dark secrets about her past and claims that Eugenie's first-born will threaten the future of the world as she knows it.


Now Eugenie is a hot target for every ambitious demon and Otherworldy ne'er-do-well, and the ones who don't want to knock her up want her dead. Eugenie handles a Glock as smoothly as she wields a wand, but she needs some formidable allies for a job like this. She finds them in Dorian, a seductive fairy king with a taste for bondage, and Kiyo, a gorgeous shape-shifter who redefines animal attraction. But with enemies growing bolder and time running out, Eugenie realizes that the greatest danger is yet to come, and it lies in the dark powers that are stirring to life within her....
 
 Great characters, lots of action and some romance. Very entertaining read. I will be looking for more in this series. 

Grimspace by Ann Aguirre

As the carrier of a rare gene, Sirantha Jax has the ability to jump ships through grimspace—a talent which makes her a highly prized navigator for the Corp. Then a crash landing kills everyone on board, leaving Jax in a jail cell with no memory of the crash. But her fun's not over. A group of rogue fighters frees her…for a price: her help in overthrowing the established order. 

A great mixture of action, emotion, romance with some very memorable characters.

I'm glad I've already got Book 2 on my shelf. 

Frost Burned by Patricia Briggs

Mercy Thompson’s life has undergone a seismic change. Becoming the mate of Adam Hauptman—the charismatic Alpha of the local werewolf pack—has made her a stepmother to his daughter Jesse, a relationship that brings moments of blissful normalcy to Mercy’s life. But on the edges of humanity, what passes for a minor mishap on an ordinary day can turn into so much more…

After an accident in bumper-to-bumper traffic, Mercy and Jesse can’t reach Adam—or anyone else in the pack for that matter. They’ve all been abducted.

Through their mating bond, all Mercy knows is that Adam is angry and in pain. With the werewolves fighting a political battle to gain acceptance from the public, Mercy fears Adam’s disappearance may be related—and that he and the pack are in serious danger. Outclassed and on her own, Mercy may be forced to seek assistance from any ally she can get, no matter how unlikely.

I love this series and this instalment.  The baddies aren't who you expect and there are some surprise goodies.  Really, really great read.

The Color of Water by James McBride

The son of a black minister and a woman who would not admit she was white, James McBride grew up in "orchestrated chaos" with his eleven siblings in the poor, all-black projects of Red Hook, Brooklyn. "Mommy," a fiercely protective woman with "dark eyes full of pep and fire," herded her brood to Manhattan's free cultural events, sent them off on buses to the best (and mainly Jewish) schools, demanded good grades, and commanded respect. As a young man, McBride saw his mother as a source of embarrassment, worry, and confusion—and reached thirty before he began to discover the truth about her early life and long-buried pain.

The question "Why have so many children?" kept popping into my head while reading this fascinating memoir. James answers the question towards the end 'Mommy has created her own nation, a rainbow coalition", makes sense when you take into account her lonely, traumatic young life and the reality of not belonging. 

Born In Death by J.D. Robb

Eve Dallas has a grisly double homicide to solve when two young lovers—both employees of the same prestigious accounting firm—are brutally killed on the same night. It doesn't leave Eve a lot of leftover time to put together a baby shower for her buddy Mavis, but that's supposedly what friends are for.

Now Mavis needs another favor. Tandy Willowby, one of the moms-to-be in Mavis's birthing class, didn't show up for the shower. A recent emigrant from London, Tandy has few friends in New York, and no family—and she was really looking forward to the party. And when Eve enters Tandy's apartment and finds a gift for Mavis's shower wrapped and ready on the table—and a packed bag for the hospital still on the floor next to it—tingling runs up and down her spine.

Normally, such a case would be turned over to Missing Persons. But Mavis wants no one else on the job but Eve—and Eve can't say no. She'll have to track Tandy down while simultaneously unearthing the deals and double-crosses hidden in the files of some of the city's richest and most secretive citizens, in a race against this particularly vicious killer. Luckily, her multimillionaire husband Roarke's expertise comes in handy with the number crunching. But as he mines the crucial data that will break the case wide open, Eve faces an all too real danger in the world of flesh and blood.

Another great installment in this series. Loved the scenes of Eve and Roarke in Birthing classes and then when Mavis finally had her baby.

Lost on Earth; Nomads of the New World by Mark Fritz

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, 50 to 100 million people have been displaced from their homes, the largest such migration in history, according to Fritz, a correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. Uprooted by civil war, ethnic strife, or economic conditions, some are displaced within their own borders, and many others have left their home countries entirely. Fritz presents stories of individuals he has interviewed over the past decade. They include East Germans fleeing west, gypsies, Kurds, and refugees from the Yugoslav War, the Iraq-Kuwait War, and the conflicts in Liberia and Rwanda.

You remember the headlines and news footage, but these stories of a few peoples experiences and lives make the headlines vivid and real.  Interesting read and surprising some of the reasons and ways people become refugees.

The Enchanted Land by Jude Deveraux

For beautiful Morgan Wakefield, that land lay west of the bluegrass splendors of her Kentucky home . . . and within the powerful embrace of Seth Colter — the handsome rancher with whom she had struck a bargain that would change her life.

Beneath the star-studded New Mexico skies Colter awakened in Morgan a woman's passion, stoking the sensuous fires of a bold, tempestuous romance. Though fate would make them enemies, theirs was a love that would endure, never to be forsaken.

Typical historic romance, lots of misunderstandings and a happy ending. Nice light read for a plane trip. 

Send No Flowers by Sandra Brown

When an unexpected storm disrupts young widow Alicia Russell's camping trip with her two sons, she and the boys are rescued by a mysterious man who offers them shelter for the night. Alicia is reluctant to accept Pierce Reynolds's offer, but the ferocity of the storm and the resulting damage to her own cabin leave her little choice.

Pierce's attention to the boys wins their outright worship--and reminds Alicia how much her sons have missed having a man in their lives--while his sensuality rekindles emotions Alicia had thought were long buried. But as she gradually allows herself to explore her desires, Pierce seems determined to keep his distance emotionally for reasons he can't, or won't, explain.

Quick, light and fluffy romance that seemed forced.  The big mystery was no biggie, I'd worked it out as soon as the 'hero' started acting all "I'm doing this for your own good".

It was a quick, light read which was what I was after at the time.