Enemy Women

Enemy Women: A Novel by Paulette Jiles


My review
rating: 2 of 5 stars
I kept reading this book because I was torn between hating the overly stylized yet simple writing but wanting to know how it ended. It was recommended to me because I enjoyed Cold Mountain so much, but I found this falling short of my expectations. It read like a cheap imitation of a story that I had loved. Perhaps if I had gone into it expecting less, I may have enjoyed more.

Pub. Date: January 2003

Synopsis: From critically acclaimed, award-winning poet and memoirist Paulette Jiles comes a debut novel of startling power and savage beauty -- an extraordinary story of survival and love in the midst of a torn nation's bitter agony.

For the Colleys of southeastern Missouri, the War Between the States is a plague that threatens devastation despite the family's avowed neutrality. For eighteen-year-old Adair Colley, it is a nightmare seen at its most terrible on the day the Union Militia arrives to set her house on fire, driving her brother into hiding and dragging her widowed father away, beaten and bloodied. Left to care for two young sisters, Adair sees no road but the one that leads away, as they start out on foot into the winter mountains in search of a safe haven. Even the least of hopes is doomed, however, in a world forever changed, as the treachery of a fellow traveler brings about Adair's arrest on charges of enemy collaboration. Torn from her terrified sisters, the girl suddenly finds herself consigned to a living hell, caged with the criminal and the deranged in a filthy women's prison in St. Louis.But young Adair is sustained by a strong heart, and love can live even in a place of horror and despair. Her interrogator, a Union major, falls in love with her and she finds herself returning her feelings despite herself. The major vows to return for her when the fighting is over, and before he returns to war, he leaves her with a last precious gift: freedom.Weakened in body but not in spirit, Adair must now travel alone through dangerous, unknown territory -- an escaped enemy woman surrounded by perils and misery on all sides. She makes her harrowing way south buoyed by a promise, seeking a home and a family that may be nothing more than a memory.Based on a little known chapter in America's bloodiest epoch, Paulette Jiles's poignant, powerful, and exquisitely rendered novel about war's collateral victims is masterful work, captivating and authentic -- a lyrical, memorable tale of endurance and sacrifice that will stand alongside Cold Mountain and other classic Civil War era-set literature for decades to come.

Recommended Reading:
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson, Reg Keeland
The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky (translated by Sandra Smith

No Rest for the Wicked

No Rest for the Wicked by Kresley Cole

My review
rating: 3 of 5 stars
I was expecting something that read more like "The Amazing Race" or a great treasure hunt. A great story but I wasn't as into it as the first [full length] book of the series.

Pub. Date: October 2006

Series: Immortals After Dark Book 2

Synopsis: Centuries ago, Sebastian Wroth was turned into a vampire — a nightmare in his mind — against his will. Burdened with hatred and alone for ages, he sees little reason to live. Until an exquisite, fey creature comes to kill him, inadvertently saving him instead.
A Valkyrie assassin dispatched to destroy him . . .

When Kaderin the Cold Hearted lost her two beloved sisters to a vampire attack long ago, a benevolent force deadened her sorrow — accidentally extinguishing all of her emotions. Yet whenever she encounters Sebastian, her feelings — particularly lust — emerge multiplied. For the first time, she's unable to complete a kill.

The prize of the month-long contest is powerful enough to change history, and Kaderin will do anything to win it for her sisters. Wanting only to win her, forever, Sebastian competes as well, taking every opportunity — as they travel to ancient tombs and through catacombs, seeking relics around the world — to use her new feelings to seduce her. But when forced to choose between the vampire she's falling for and reuniting her family, how can Kaderin live without either?

Recommended Reading:
A Hunger like No Other (Immortals after Dark Series #1) by Kresley Cole
Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night (Immortals after Dark Series #3) by Kresley Cole
Dark Needs at Night's Edge (Immortals after Dark Series #4) by Kresley Cole

A Hunger Like No Other

A Hunger Like No Other by Kresley Cole

My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars
When I started reading this book I thought I was going to read another Karen Marie Moning/Laurell K. Hamilton novel. I was so wrong! I couldn't read this book fast enough. The character's were great, the plot wasn't exactly original but had enough turns and twists to make it fresh, and the sex scenes were well-written without being overly graphic.

Pub. Date: March 2006

Series: Immortals After Dark Book 1

Synopsis: After enduring years of torture from the vampire horde, Lachlain MacRieve, leader of the Lykae Clan, is enraged to find the predestined mate he's waited millennia for is a vampire. Or partly one. This Emmaline is a small, ethereal half Valkyrie/half vampire, who somehow begins to soothe the fury burning within him.

Sheltered Emmaline Troy finally sets out to uncover the truth about her deceased parents — until a powerful Lykae claims her as his mate and forces her back to his ancestral Scottish castle. There, her fear of the Lykae — and their notorious dark desires — ebbs as he begins a slow, wicked seduction to sate her own dark cravings.

Yet when an ancient evil from her past resurfaces, will their desire deepen into a love that can bring a proud warrior to his knees and turn a gentle beauty into the fighter she was born to be?

Recommended Reading:
No Rest for the Wicked (Immortals after Dark Series #2) by Kresley Cole
Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night (Immortals after Dark Series #3) by Kresley Cole
Dark Needs at Night's Edge (Immortals after Dark Series #4) by Kresley Cole

The Summerhouse

The Summerhouse by Jude Deveraux

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I originally bought this book as paperback and never got around to reading it. I was very happy to find it on CD. A typical Jude Deveraux - a little zany, a little hot and wraps up in one neat package at the end. The narrator's voice was too squeaky, but otherwise the audio was well-done.

Pub. Date: May 2004

Series: Destiny Book 1

Synopsis: Three best friends, all turning forty, celebrate at a summerhouse in Maine -- and take stock of their lives, loves, and choices. A mysterious "Madame Zoya" now arrives, offering them a chance to relive any three weeks from the past.

Recommended Reading:
Secrets by Jude Deveraux

The Thirteenth Tale (Audiobook)

The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel by Diane Setterfield


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was brilliantly written. I was hooked from the first word. I can't even form words to describe the emotion and depth that this book took me through.

Pub. Date: October 2007

Synopsis: A compelling emotional mystery in the timeless vein of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, about family secrets and the magic of books and storytelling.
Margaret Lea works in her father's antiquarian bookshop where her fascination for the biographies of the long-dead has led her to write them herself. She gets a letter from one of the most famous authors of the day, the mysterious Vida Winter, whose popularity as a writer has been in no way diminished by her reclusiveness. Until now, Vida has toyed with journalists who interview her, creating outlandish life histories for herself - all of them invention. Now she is old and ailing, and at last she wants to tell the truth about her extraordinary life. Her letter to Margaret is a summons.

Somewhat anxiously, the equally reclusive Margaret travels to Yorkshire to meet her subject - and Vida starts to recount her tale. It is one of gothic strangeness featuring the March family; the fascinating, devious and wilful Isabelle and the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline.

Margaret is captivated by the power of Vida's storytelling. But as a biographer she deals in fact not fiction, and she doesn't entirely trust Vida's account. She goes to check up on the family, visiting their old home and piecing together their story in her own way. What she discovers on her journey to the truth is for Margaret a chilling and transforming experience.

Recommended Reading:
Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen
The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian
The House at Riverton by Kate Morton
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

Twelve Sharp (Audiobook)

Twelve Sharp by Janet Evanovich


My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars
Another fun romp for Stephanie Plum. Each story becomes more outrageous, the plots more dangerous and even though the series follows a set pattern, I have yet to become bored with the character antics. This was laugh-out-loud funny and earned me a few strange looks from my cube mates, but well worth it.

Pub. Date: June 2006

Synopsis: FIRST A STRANGER APPEARS While chasing down the usual cast of miscreants and weirdos Stephanie discovers that a crazed woman is stalking her. THEN, THE STRANGER REVEALS HER SECRETS The woman dresses in black, carries a 9mm GLOCK, has a bad attitude and a mysterious connection to dark and dangerous Carlos Manoso... street name, Ranger. NEXT, SOMEBODY DIES The action turns deadly serious, and Stephanie goes from hunting skips to hunting a murderer. SOON, THE CHASE IS ON Ranger needs Stephanie for more reasons than he can say. And now, the two are working together to find a killer, rescue a missing child, and stop a lunatic from raising the body count. When Stephanie Plum and Ranger get too close for comfort, Vice Cop Joe Morelli (her on-again, off-again boyfriend) steps in.Will the ticking clock stop at the stroke of twelve, or will a stranger in the wind find a way to stop Stephanie Plum... forever. Filled with Janet Evanovich's trademark action, non-stop adventure, and sharp humor.

Recommended Reading:
Lean Mean Thirteen (Stephanie Plum Series #13) by Janet Evanovich
Ten Big Ones (Stephanie Plum Series #10) by Janet Evanovich
To the Nines (Stephanie Plum Series #9) by Janet Evanovich

Cold Mountain

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier


My review
rating: 5 of 5 stars
I've had this book on my shelf for 3-1/2 years. I finally got over my fear that this book would not be as good as the movie, or that reading the book would possibly change my love of the movie. It did not on either accounts. I love the movie and I love love love this book. The book was edgier and darker than the movie but the poignancy of the romance still held. I found this book impossible to put down, to point that I read parts aloud to my daughter. (She thought momma's southern accent was funny.) I'm looking forward to reading 'Thirteen Moons' and putting this author on my must read list.

Pub. Date: May 1997

Synopsis: Sorely wounded and fatally disillusioned in the fighting at Petersburg, a Confederate soldier named Inman decides to walk back to his home in the Blue Ridge mountains to Ada, the woman he loves. His trek across the disintegrating South brings him into intimate and sometimes lethal converse with slaves and marauders, bounty hunters and witches, both helpful and malign. At the same time, the intrepid Ada is trying to revive her father’s derelict farm and learning to survive in a world where the old certainties have been swept away. As it interweaves their stories, Cold Mountain asserts itself as an authentic odyssey, hugely powerful, majestically lovely, and keenly moving.

Recommended Reading:
Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier
Snow Falling on Cedars : A Novel by David Guterson
As I Lay Dying : The Corrected Text by William Faulkner