#84

Don't know how I missed this novel by Mary Higgins Clark and her daughter Carol. I've been reading her forever and somehow I missed this little story. "The Christmas Thief" is very typical of the Higgins Clarks. Short, non-gory, non-sexual, and no filthy language. How refreshing! Just a cute little mystery about a missing Rockefeller Center Christmas tree and a con man. That's all you get!!

Got just a few days till Thanksgiving and haven't even shopped yet. Better get my butt in gear and get that turkey and stuffing stuff. That's my contribution to this year's big doings. I'd really just like to stay home in bed with the covers over my head. Same for Christmas. I'm officially cancelling it!

#83

Finished a novel by Ariana Franklin titled "Grave Goods." It was a sequel to another novel that I've read by her and I'd forgotten about it. It took a while for me to get into the story but in the end it was okay. Set in the late 1100's, it sent the heroine on a mission by Henry II to find out if the bodies discovered at a monastary were that of King Arthur. Henry hopes the bones are Arthur's so he can put down the Celtic rebellion for good. The heroine is Adelia Aguilar and she's the Mistress of Death. Trained by her father in medicine; she has to hide her abilities and pretend to be the assistant of an mid eastern companion. She not only proves the skeleton to not be Arthur but finds the answer to numerous mysteries.

#82

I don't think I'm going to make it to 100 books this year but I guess I'm doing okay. John Grisham's "The Litigators" was an excellent read. He never disappoints. David Zinc is a small fish in the pond of 600 lawyers working for a big firm and making $300K a year but has no life. International finance is not doing it for him. One day he snaps, gets drunk and finds himself in a two man boutique law office of ambulance chasers and decides that this is what he wants. The spiral down is when one partner decides to take on a big drug company in a mass tort suite for people who are supposedly dying from a cholestoral medication. No one at the new firm has ever tried a federal case and David has never tried any case. The whole story is great!

#81

After five days without power and a night in a motel, we finally got power back. Since my Grisham novel was locked in my locker at work and I finished the last book, I grabbed another off my pile that I picked up either in NYC or Borders and got hooked on it. Antoinette van Heugten's "Saving Max" is a great read. It was as good as a Grisham novel with great twists and turns. I figured out pretty early in the novel who done it and why but that was okay. It was a great read. Max is a 15 year old autistic child whose mother is a lawyer in NYC. She's trying to do what is best for him and that is to have him checked out at the best pychiatric clinic in the country. That would be Maitland in the mid west. She jeopardizes her job to take him there and suddenly they are both involved in a battle to save Max's life. Now I must read the Grisham novel before I forget what I've already read.

#80

I was into John Grisham's latest novel when I unfortunately left it at work on Saturday. We were having a freak snow storm that left us buried in tree branches and no power. We had 8 inches of wet and heavy snow that clung to the leaf ladened trees and made a royal mess of everything. Beautiful? Yes. A nightmare? YES! We have not had power, water, or heat now for 3 days and there's no end in sight. We've been staying up during the night feeding wood to the fireplace and each of us is sleeping on a sofa as close to the fireplace as we can get. Today we let the fire go out for the first time and headed for a real meal and then to a shower at my daughter's house. It was nice and warm and comfy but we're back home now and the fire is going again and we're trying to get the chill out before night. I missed work yesterday and had the day off today but I must go back tomorrow for the late shift.

Anyway, I picked up one of my books from either NYC or the Border's closing and it was "Remarkable Creatures" by Tracy Chevalier. Very informative and historically correct. There really were such characters as Elizabeth Philpot and Mary Anning and they were important in the discovery of fossils and skeletal remains of creatures that had yet been unknown. Found along the beaches of Lyme, England these women joined forces to become some of the leaders in their field even though as women they could not get the recognition of their discoveries at the time. Great read! Back to Grisham tomorrow when I get back to work and retrieve him from my locker.

#79

James Patterson and his author du jour wrote a little novel in a cross between Nicholas Sparks (not as good by far) and Mary Higgins Clark. "The Christmas Wedding" is about a mid fifties mother who decides out of her three suitors/friends to marry on Christmas Day and have all her family come. The family hasn't all been together since she was widowed 3 years before. She won't tell anyone, including the groom which one she is picking until she is walking down the aisle. We get a little background about each of her grown kids and a little background on the three potential grooms. Cute little read.

#78

Well Nicholas Sparks has done it again! I didn't have to use a tissue since I figured out 30 some pages from the end who was going to die in this one but it was still a great read. "The Best of Me" kept me reading and I couldn't put it down. The typical boy from bad side of town meets girl from the good side of town and the parents interfere and keep them apart. She marries someone else and has a good life. He never got over her. New circumstances cause them to meet up again and the magic is still there. Of course there are other twists and turns that make it a Nicholas Sparks novel versus a Danielle steel novel. Guess we'll be seeing this one on the screen soon.

A day off on Monday, late shift on Tuesday, a day off today, and early shift tomorrow. Makes for a rotten day off. Especially when you have to wait around all day for the Fed Ex driver who never comes at the same time and you have to sign for a package or they won't deliver it. Keeps me from doing any errands or anything fun.