Reading in 2017

This was a pretty decent year of reading.. not my best

I read and finished 10 books.. only -_-

1. The Stranger You Know by Jane Casey - He meets women. He gains their trust. He kills them. That's all London police detective Maeve Kerrigan knows about the man she is hunting. Three women have been strangled in their homes, and it appears to be the work of the same sadistic killer. Then the evidence starts to point to a shocking suspect: DCI Josh Derwent, Maeve's partner on the police force.  A good thriller.. not a must read but kept me interested till the the end

2. Fallen by Karin Slaughter - There's no police training stronger than a cop's instinct. Faith Mitchell's mother isn't answering her phone. Her front door is open. There's a bloodstain above the knob. Her infant daughter is hidden in a shed behind the house. All that the Georgia Bureau of Investigations taught Faith Mitchell goes out the window when she charges into her mother's house, gun drawn. She sees a man dead in the laundry room. She sees a hostage situation in the bedroom. What she doesn't see is her mother. I am really liking Karin Slaughters work.. especially her Will Trent series. I have not been reading them in order but I read a few last year and two this year and her books are edge of your seat thrillers. I have another book or so of hers on my bookshelf waiting to be read this year.. I'm trying not to binge and brace myself.. 

3. Fractured by Karin Slaughter - With its gracious homes and tree-lined streets, Ansley Park is one of Atlanta's most desirable neighborhoods. But in one gleaming mansion, in a teenager's lavish bedroom, a girl has been savagely murdered. And in the hallway, her horrified mother stands amid shattered glass, having killed her daughter's attacker with her bare hands. Detective Will Trent of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is here only to do a political favor; the murder site belongs to the Atlanta police. But Trent soon sees something that the cops are missing, something in the trail of blood, in a matrix of forensic evidence, and in the eyes of the shell-shocked mother. Within minutes, Trent is taking over the case -- and adding another one to it. He is sure that another teenage girl is missing, and that a killer is on the loose. I'll say it again.. I really really like Karin Slaughter!!

4. The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden - At the edge of the Russian wilderness, winter lasts most of the year but Vasilisa doesn't mind--she spends the winter nights huddled around the embers of a fire with her beloved siblings, listening to her nurse's fairy tales. Her nurse says, and honor the spirits of house and yard and forest that protect their homes from evil. After Vasilisa's mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa's new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows. And indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. All the while, Vasilisa's stepmother grows ever harsher in her determination to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for either marriage or confinement in a convent. As danger circles, Vasilisa must defy even the people she loves and call on dangerous gifts she has long concealed--this, in order to protect her family from a threat that seems to have stepped from her nurse's most frightening tales. This is a magnificent tale.. it took me a while to get into it.. there are a lot of Russian terms and initially I found my self rereading paragraphs.. so I will say do not read this when you are in the mood for something light and quick.. this is a deep and all consuming sort of tale and so worth it.. this may just be my favorite of the year. 

5. Ordinary Grace by William Kent Kruger - Set in New Bremen, Minnesota, 1961,  it was a time of innocence and hope for a country with a new, young president. But for thirteen-year-old Frank Drum it was a summer in which death assumed many forms. When tragedy unexpectedly comes to call on his family, which includes his Methodist minister father, his passionate, artistic mother, Juilliard-bound older sister, and wise-beyond-his years kid brother, Frank finds himself thrust into an adult world full of secrets, lies, adultery, and betrayal. This was a slow beautifully written tale of small town America in the 1960's. Beautifully tragic.. something to read on a long cold night. Though I often feel not quite ready for these slower books.. life is so busy that when I don't find a book immediately pulling me in I find myself very quickly getting distracted away from reading it and doing other things instead. 

6. The Beauty of the Fall by Rich Marcello - Dan Underlight, a divorced, workaholic technology executive, suffers lingering grief over the death of his ten-year-old son, Zack. When Dan’s longtime friend and boss, Olivia Whitmore, fires Dan from RadioRadio, the company that he helped create, he crashes and isolates himself. Willow, a poet and domestic violence survivor, helps Dan regain his footing. With her support, Dan ventures on a pilgrimage of sorts, visiting Fortune 500 companies to flesh out a software start-up idea. When Dan returns home with a fully formed vision, he recruits the help of three former RadioRadio colleagues and starts Conversationworks, a company he believes will be at the vanguard of social change. This was a different sort of book for me.. it was about corporate America, the creation of a company from ground up. But also about a man who lost his son in an accident he blames himself for.. it was an interesting read about overcoming the loss of a child and self growth and reflection. My issue with the book was that there was no goal.. I don't know how to explain.. usually you solve a murder.. find love, uncover a mystery.. here there was no such purpose.. it could have ended at any point and it would have been fine.. that for me makes the process of finishing a story less satisfying. 

7. Letter to the Lost by Iona Grey - 1943, in the ruins of Blitzed London… Stella Thorne and Dan Rosinski meet by chance and fall in love by accident. But the odds are stacked against them: she is newly married, and he is an American bomber pilot whose chance of survival is just one in five. Seventy years later Dan makes one final attempt to find the girl he has never forgotten, and sends a letter to the house where they shared a brief yet perfect happiness. But Stella has gone, and the letter is opened by Jess, a young girl hiding from problems of her own. And as Jess reads Dan's words, she is captivated by the story of a love affair that burned so bright and dimmed too soon. Can she help Dan find Stella before it is too late? This was a sweet love story.. not a must read.. but a sweet tale nonetheless.

8. Grit by Gillian French - It’s summer in rural Maine; when seventeen-year-old Darcy Prentiss isn’t raking berries with her sister, Mags, and cousin, Nell, during the day, she’s drinking and swimming with the boys in the quarry by night. She knows how to have a good time, just like anyone else, but when you’ve been designated the town slut, every move you make seems to further solidify your “trashy girl” reputation. But the fun is what’s been keeping Darcy’s mind off the things she can’t forget: a disturbing secret she shares with Nell, the mysterious disappearance of her ex-best friend, and that hazy Fourth of July party that ended with Darcy drunk, on her back, wondering how she let it get this far. This was a very forgettable book.. I can only remember bits and pieces of it.. can't even remember how it ended.. I know I finished it so it probably wasn't that bad but certainly left no impressions on me. 

9. Saints of the Shadow Bible by Ian Rankin - Malcolm Fox, in what will be his last case as an internal affairs cop, is tasked with finding out the truth. Past and present are about to collide in shocking and murderous fashion. What does Rebus have to hide? And whose side is he really on? His colleagues back then called themselves "The Saints," and swore a bond on something called the Shadow Bible. But times have changed and the crimes of the past may not stay hidden much longer. This was the second police book I read based in a city across the pond.. so it takes a while to get accustomed to the terminology. It also took we a while to get hooked but by the end it was definitely enjoyable. Still not a must read but a good read nonetheless. 

10. The Girl with a Clock for a Heart by - George Foss never thought he'd see her again, but on a late-August night in Boston, there she is, in his local bar, Jack's Tavern. When George first met her, she was an eighteen-year-old college freshman from Sweetgum, Florida. She and George became inseparable in their first fall semester, so George was devastated when he got the news that she had committed suicide over Christmas break. But, as he stood in the living room of the girl's grieving parents, he realized the girl in the photo on their mantelpiece - the one who had committed suicide - was not his girlfriend. Later, he discovered the true identity of the girl he had loved - and of the things she may have done to escape her past. Now, twenty years later, she's back, and she's telling George that he's the only one who can help her. Another book I can barely remember.. I guess I didn't have the best year in reading.. But I did finish it so it couldn't have been that bad.. I think.

These two are the ones I could even finish.. I couldn't even make it to the first 100 pages. The Boy who Lived with Ghosts was too messed up to even continue and Under the Knife which had a very interesting premise was just so ridiculous and absurd it felt like a daytime soap.. so it too was left unfinished. :(

I am currently reading America's First Daughter by Stephanie Dray - The fascinating, untold story of Thomas Jefferson’s eldest daughter, Martha “Patsy” Jefferson Randolph—a woman who kept the secrets of our most enigmatic founding father and shaped an American legacy. I am a quarter in and so far I am enjoying it.. I have never really read anything about the presidents.. it is almost autobiographical.. though it is listed as historical fiction.. it's a new genre for me and I am finding it interesting.. learning more about one of our founding fathers.

      

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