The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases--a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with, and way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old.

It doesn't help that Stella has Asperger's and French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. Her conclusion: she needs lots of practice--with a professional. Which is why she hires escort Michael Phan. The Vietnamese and Swedish stunner can't afford to turn down Stella's offer, and agrees to help her check off all the boxes on her lesson plan--from foreplay to more-than-missionary position...

Before long, Stella not only learns to appreciate his kisses, but crave all of the other things he's making her feel. Their no-nonsense partnership starts making a strange kind of sense. And the pattern that emerges will convince Stella that love is the best kind of logic... 

Stella and Michael are both interesting, believable characters. Their chemistry works.

A beautiful, wonderful story that had me laughing and crying. 

The Inquisitor by Peter Clement

It’s spring in Buffalo, New York. At sprawling St. Paul’s Hospital, new interns rush through the halls, staff doctors scramble to catch their protégés’ mistakes, and everyone is aware of one unrelenting threat: A new and vicious strain of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) has hit America hard and is menacing the hospital like a wolf at the door. Wrapped in spacesuit-like garb to search for every possible source of infection, the hospital staff desperately tries to protect the lives of patients–and of each other. Yet despite St. Paul’s best efforts, people are dying. 

Enough twists and turns to keep it interesting. 

Church of Marvels by Leslie Parry

New York, 1895. Sylvan Threadgill, a night soiler cleaning out the privies behind the tenement houses, finds an abandoned newborn baby in the muck. An orphan himself, Sylvan rescues the child, determined to find where she belongs.

Odile Church and her beautiful sister, Belle, were raised amid the applause and magical pageantry of The Church of Marvels, their mother’s spectacular Coney Island sideshow. But the Church has burnt to the ground, their mother dead in its ashes. Now Belle, the family’s star, has vanished into the bowels of Manhattan, leaving Odile alone and desperate to find her.

A young woman named Alphie awakens to find herself trapped across the river in Blackwell’s Lunatic Asylum—sure that her imprisonment is a ruse by her husband’s vile, overbearing mother. On the ward she meets another young woman of ethereal beauty who does not speak, a girl with an extraordinary talent that might save them both.

Surprises and secrets kept me intrigued until the last page. A beautifully convoluted story with a bittersweet ending. 

Tripwire by Lee Child

Digging a swimming pool by hand in Key West, former military policeman Jack Reacher is not pleased when Costello, a private detective, comes nosing around asking questions about him. Determined to keep out of trouble, Reacher conceals his identity. But when he finds Costello dead with his fingertips sliced off, he realizes it is time to move on - and move on fast. Yet two questions worry him: who was Costello's employer, the mysterious Mrs Jacobs? And why is she determined to find Reacher? Moreover, who is Hook Hobie, the vicious and amoral manipulator in a Wall Street office who preys on other people's assets?

As Reacher follows the trail, it becomes clear that the stakes are high: the livelihood of a whole community; the fate of the soldiers missing in action in Vietnam; and, not least, the reappearance of a woman from Reacher's own troubled past with a key to his destiny. 

I like the Jack Reacher series. He's a badass, always one step ahead of the bad guys, always the smartest guy in the room, figures things out before everyone else, etc. Another action packed adventure.

Sisters of Mercy by Caroline Overington

Snow Delaney was born a generation and a world away from her sister, Agnes. Until recently, neither even knew of the other's existence. They came together only for the reading of their father's will - when Snow discovered, to her horror, that she was not the sole beneficiary of his large estate. Now Snow is in prison and Agnes is missing, disappeared in the eerie red dust that blanketed Sydney from dawn on September 23, 2009. With no other family left, Snow turns to crime journalist Jack Fawcett, protesting her innocence in a series of defiant letters from prison. Has she been unfairly judged? Or will Jack's own research reveal a story even more shocking than the one Snow wants to tell? This is the first book by this author that I have read and it was a compelling read. I enjoyed the little details in the book that accurately described locations and events in Sydney and Melbourne really brought the story to life and made it seem like a real unsolved Australian mystery rather than a work of fiction.

The Girl Who Saved The King of Sweden by Jonas Jonasson

Nombeko Mayeki is on the run from the world’s most ruthless secret service – with three Chinese sisters, twins who are officially one person and an elderly potato farmer. Oh, and the fate of the King of Sweden – and the world – rests on her shoulders.

Born in a Soweto shack in 1961, Nombeko was destined for a short, hard life. When she was run over by a drunken engineer her luck changed. Alive, but blamed for the accident, she was made to work for the engineer – who happened to be in charge of a project vital to South Africa’s security. Nombeko was good at cleaning, but brilliant at understanding numbers. The drunk engineer wasn’t – and made a big mistake. And now only Nombeko knows about it …

A quirky, twisted, fun read.

Lioness by Shirley Palmer

When Joel Stanton left for Kenya to find the perfect site for a new hotel, it was just another routine business trip for the young architect. But when his battered body came home in a body bag, his twin sister and partner, Cat, knew something had gone terribly wrong. Something someone was determined to cover up.

Heading to Nairobi, Cat hires the same safari outfit her brother used. And soon realizes that Dan Campbell, the man charged with Joel's safety -- and a man with his own demons to fight -- knows more than he's saying about her brother's death.

Retracing her brother's footsteps across the rugged and heartbreakingly beautiful terrain of Africa, Cat embarks on a journey that will change her life...and put her in the same kind of danger that got Joel killed.  

A fast, action packed story that vividly brings Africa to life.

I found Cat annoying at times with some of her questionable decisions and stubbornness.