The French Executioner by C.C. Humphreys

The year is 1536 and Henry the VIII has decided that his wife Anne Boleyn the mother of his daughter Elizabeth, must face the executioners block. 

An expert swordsman, Frenchman Jean Rombaud is brought over from France to carry out the wishes of the King. 

On the eve of the execution Rombaud makes a solemn promise to the queen that he will bury her deformed six finger hand, the symbol of her so-called witchery. In a Europe ravaged by religious wars the hand of this infamous Queen is seen as a powerful talisman that many will kill for. 

From a battle with slave galleys through many other adventures. Jean seeks to keep faith with his vow. 


Interesting characters, adventure, romance, suspense, treason, and non-stop action with some well researched background. I even found the Author's Note at the beginning interesting and worth a chuckle, especially where he describes his wife coming home to find him leaping about trying to behead imaginary chickens with an umbrella....all in the name of research.

Embraced by Darkness by Keri Arthur

Part vamp, part werewolf, Riley Jenson plays by her own rules, whether it’s her stormy love life or her job as a guardian. But when her family’s alpha male demands that she solve the mystery of a vanished girl, Riley can feel a trap closing in around her. Because the job comes with a catch: if Riley fails, her own mother will die.

Now the stakes are raised, the hunt is on...and when more women vanish, Riley is caught between a lover who demands that she give up her work, a serial killer who knows no boundaries, and a club where humans and supernaturals mix—at their own peril. Thrust into a realm of seduction and violence unlike any she could have imagined, Riley has to battle to save everything she holds dear.

The plotting in this book was excellent with good pacing and with the variety of two simultaneous investigations. The caustic relationship between Riley and Salliane, 'The Cow', is very amusing, and adds some light relief in a story with a fair amount of darkness. Riley's skills are growing and strengthening and she discovers a new aspect of her nature in this book following the drug treatment that she received in the first instalment. Her brother Rhoan features in this story as he helps Riley at the denouement at the end of the story when they uncover the evil behind a string of grisly deaths from the UK to Germany to Australia. 

Unspeakable by Sandra Brown

When Delray Corbett discovers that his stepson Carol Herbold has escaped from prison, he's concerned that he might venture back to Texas. He reluctantly hires drifter Jack Sawyer, who has his own agenda, as further protection for his deaf daughter-in-law Anna and grandson David. Newly retired sheriff Ezzy is trying to solve the decades old murder of town harlot Patsy. Everyone in town assumes it was the Herbold brothers - he was just never able to prove it. His obsession with the case wreaks havoc on his marriage. As Jack spends more time with the Corbett family, he feels a sense of family that he has never had as well as a deep attraction to Anna. When tragedy strikes the family, Jack is there to help Anna cope, learning her language and providing a strong shoulder. As the Herbold brothers venture south to Mexico, a side trip to the East Texas town for retribution with Delray on the agenda. Will Jack be able to protect his new "family?" 



Many strands are skilfully woven together to create a tapestry of romance and suspense.
It also gives an insight into the adversities the deaf must endure and the strength of character needed to overcome them. 

Nightshade by Andrea Cremer

Calla is the very dutifully-minded, strong Alpha of the Nightshade pack, and takes her position quite seriously. She's always known she would be paired by the Keepers with Renier, the gorgeous, popular Alpha of the Bane pack. The wolves do as the Keepers say, and in return the Keepers see to it the wolves have everything they could ever possibly want. When Calla comes across a lone hiker in the woods being attacked by a bear, she is torn between letting nature take it's course (and the hiker surely dying), or saving him, which means revealing she is a wolf. She simply cannot walk away from him. Saving Shay was the first in a long line of fate-altering events for Calla, as she discovers when he shows up at her school soon after. When she is charged with befriending him by her Keeper she starts to realize their meeting in the woods was much far than coincidence. This boy poses the questions Calla has never sought to answer, and her destiny is forever altered. Nightshade was a very enjoyable, fast-paced adventure.

Bump In The Night by J.D. Robb and others

In story number one, we have Haunted in Death. Eve is investigating the murder of Radcliff C. Hopkins III at a building that that been haunted since the disappearance of Bobbie Bray 85 years ago. Bobbie's skeleton is found near Radcliff's body and the murder weapon is the same for both murders. I thought the idea of this story was excellent and very unusual, however it was missing something to me. Still good but not perfect.

Poppy's Coin, a story of a magic coin and true love occurring in 1817. David Lindsay comes home from war with two children to raise, only one might be his. His daughter gives him a magic coin. This story is nice and entertaining.

In the third story,The Passenger, Grace is a photojournalist documenting strange happenings on Spirit Lake. Where boats and planes are known to disappear and strange lights appear. Josh is an adventurer, his next stop, Spirit Lake. While flying he notices a stowaway passenger just before his plane crashes. Grace sees the crash and rescues him. Another entertaining read, and my favourite.

In the last story,Mellow Lemon Yellow, Charlotte comes face to face with her childhood imaginary friend at her fathers funeral. A nice ending to a good collection.  

Where The Heart Is by Billie Letts

A funny thing happens to Novalee Nation on her way to Bakersfield, California. Her ne'er-do-well boyfriend, Willie Jack Pickens, abandons her in an Oklahoma Wal-Mart and takes off on his own, leaving her with just 10 dollars and the clothes on her back. Not that hard luck is anything new to Novalee, who is "seventeen, seven months pregnant, thirty-seven pounds overweight--and superstitious about sevens.... For most people, sevens were lucky. But not for her," Billie Letts writes. "She'd had a bad history with them, starting with her seventh birthday, the day Momma Nell ran away with a baseball umpire named Fred..."

Still, finding herself alone and penniless in Sequoyah, Oklahoma is enough to make even someone as inured to ill fortune as Novalee want to give up and die. Fortunately, the Wal-Mart parking lot is the Sequoyah equivalent of a town square, and within hours Novalee has met three people who will change her life: Sister Thelma Husband, a kindly eccentric; Benny Goodluck, a young Native American boy; and Moses Whitecotton, an elderly African American photographer. For the next two months, Novalee surreptitiously makes her home in the Wal-Mart, sleeping there at night, exploring the town by day. When she goes into labor and delivers her baby there, however, Novalee learns that sometimes it's not so bad to depend on the kindness of strangers--especially if one of them happens to be Sam Walton, the superchain's founder. 


A wonderful book that tugs your heartstrings and tells a wonderful story. A very enjoyable and easy read. Interesting characters and a story that grabbed me and wouldn't let go.

I loved it! 

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat by Oliver Sacks

An interesting collection of stories of individuals with neurological deficits that highlight and clarify how the normal brain works. The author approaches his study with a compassion for his patient's troubled existence, and where the patients are content with their lot, he prudently leaves well enough alone, something not all MD's are willing to do. He also appreciates what his patients have to teach him about life and even about the practice of medicine itself. His ability to learn from others considered "unfortunate" or mentally "defective" makes the book a very insightful work.

My favorite tale is "Rebecca," in which Dr. Sacks shows that a person of defective intelligence--a "moron"--is still a person with a sense of beauty and with something to give to the world. Sacks generously (and brilliantly) shows how Rebecca taught him the limitations of a purely clinical approach to diagnosis and treatment. Although the child-like 19-year-old didn't have the intelligence to "find her way around the block" or "open a door with a key," Rebecca had an emotional understanding of life superior to many adults. She loved her grandmother deeply and when she died, Rebecca expressed her feelings to Sacks, "I'm crying for me, not for her...She's gone to her Long Home." She added, poetically, "I'm so cold. It's not outside, it's winter inside. Cold as death...She was a part of me. Part of me died with her". Rebecca goes on to show Dr. Sacks that they pay "far too much attention to the defects of...patients...and far too little to what is intact or preserved". Rebecca was tired of the meaningless classes and workshops and odd jobs. "What I really love...is the theatre," she said. Sacks writes that the theatre "composed her...she became a complete person, poised, fluent, with style, in each role.


 

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