"Plum Lucky" by Janet Evanovich

"Plum Lucky" by Janet Evanovich

2007, St. Martin's Press

ISBN: 978-0-312-37763-2

Sometimes you just want to laugh. I know when I was in the library this afternoon and I moved smartly to the back corner where the Janet Evanovich books are kept in the mystery section that I was going to come upon something good. “Plum Lucky” by Janet Evanovich was terrific. And, I did laugh. A lot. I needed it. See, my week has been really crappy. My computer got a virus. It’s called Antivirus 2008 xp and it cost me over $200 for my computer guy to clean it up. Next step will be to beef up my virus protection software because; evidently Windows Live One Care just wasn’t enough. Thanks a lot Microsoft. Anyway, my computer guy recommended I purchase Micro Trend. Office Depot has it for $39. As if that wasn’t bad enough, when I got my computer back I discovered with a new user account (because the old one was corrupted) I have to reconfigure EVERYTHING. And, to top it all off my butt started bleeding. It does that when I get tense. I really, really needed something to make me laugh.

I started this book about 5 hours ago. It’s a real quick read. It’s called a Stephanie Plum Between-the-Numbers novel. Generally, it’s, “One for the Money” and “Two for the Dough”, “Three to get Deadly” all the way up to “Lean Means Thirteen”. So, this one isn’t numbered in the title, it’s just a real quick story, “Plum Lucky”.

Grandma Mazur starts it all off on Saint Patrick’s Day by sighting a rainbow. She closes her eyes, makes a wish and opens them to find a duffle bag of money at her feet. She starts lugging off the money and the guy who’d originally stolen it comes looking for it. See, when he was making his get-away he put it on the roof of his car and sped off. It rolled off at Grandma Mazur’s feet when he turned a corner.

There’s a lot of rushing around, back and forth as the bad guys want their money back and end up kidnapping Grandma Mazur and holding her for ransom. Lots of car chasing, gun fights and cars blowing up. There’s even a rocket launcher towards the end.

I can’t tell you any more about this story. You’ve got to read it. I was going to type out an excerpt, except it was pretty raunchy and the guides told me I’d better not. So, since I’m paying more attention to them lately, I decided not to. You’ll just have to get a copy of the book. Or, actually, just get anything by Janet Evanovich. You won’t be disappointed.

“Web of Love” by Mary Balogh

“Web of Love” by Mary Balogh
2007, Dell
ISBN: 978-0-440-24305-2

“Web of Love” by Mary Balogh. I liked it. It did take me awhile to get into the story, but once I was there it just clicked right along.

This story takes place in 1815 just prior to and after the Battle of Waterloo. Emma is married to Charlie. Charlie is a British officer. Theirs is a happy and loving marriage. They’ve welcomed into their circle of friendship Lord Eden a fellow soldier.

There are tentative sparks between Emma and Lord Eden, or Dominique as he is called, but neither will act upon them and don’t think much of them anyway. Emma and Charlie are fast in love.

But, the Battle of Waterloo happens and Charlie is killed. Lord Eden is mortally wounded and can only think in his delirium to be taken to Emma. He rasps out the news that Charlie is dead to Emma. Then, he collapses. She nurses him back to health and while she sits beside him day in and day out nursing him back to health something begins to happen. As he is returned to health he reaches out to her and wooowee we got liftoff.

It only lasts a week and then Emma somehow really realizes that her husband has died, that she’s just gotten a lover and that’s when her conscious comes back to full activity.

She makes him go away. And, she goes her separate way. But, there are repercussions and what’s particularly interesting with this story is the idea that a person can love more than one person in their lifetime, can hold onto that love and love another at the same time. It’s a mature sort of understanding of love that you don’t see that often in stories. And, of course, it does have a happy ending.

I really enjoyed this book. I will surely read another of Mary Balogh’s books the next time I get my hands on one.

“Sizzle and Burn” by Jayne Ann Krentz

“Sizzle and Burn” by Jayne Ann Krentz
2008, GP Putnam's Sons
ISBN: 978-0-399-15445-4

“Sizzle and Burn” by Jayne Ann Krentz. Read it. Very good book. I love anything Jayne writes in whatever genre she ends up in, but “Sizzle and Burn” is a fantasy contemporary and picks up threads from the historical romances Jayne writes as Amanda Quick.

Raine Tallentyre is psychic. It’s something she’s lived with all her life and something that as an adult she’s channeled into a public service as she helps put away the bad guys. But, in using her talent to pick up on residual violence done that sticks to objects she is able to harness something that drove her aunt into insanity.

After her aunt dies Raine begins to dispose of her aunt’s estate. This includes putting her house on the market. Only, as she stands there with the real estate agent she senses something very wrong has happened. She calls 911 to tell the police to come find a murdered person. Except, the lady isn’t dead.

In comes Zack, a psychic private detective, who has been called in by a secret group called the Arcane society who is all about providing a place for people with psychic abilities to carve out a life for themselves. They also hunt the bad guys and the bad guys are all around Raine right now.
Love flares between Raine and Zack. The action is fast and furious as the bad guys make their attacks over and over again. It just doesn’t want to let up and you really won’t want to put this book down until you’re finished.

Now, on a personal level I was quite interested in the particular psychic ability that both Raine and her aunt shared. They heard voices. That’s what I do. It’s hard to explain to people that I channel. But, it’s thrilling for me to read a story that involves hearing voices by one of my favorite authors.

“One True Thing” by Anna Quindlen

“One True Thing” by Anna Quindlen
1994, Dell Publishing
ISBN: 0-440-22103-X

“One True Thing” by Anna Quindlen. This is a good book. You should read this book. If that’s all you read of this review I got the important stuff said.

This is the story of a woman, her family and the time she spent taking care of her dying mother. Anna Quindlen reaches into a story to pull the really good stuff out for you to see. What’s even more astonishing to me is that she pulled the stuff out of my own heart for me to see. I had no idea that stuff was in there. I cried for my own mother gone these 14 years now. And, even though I’m a psychic channel, even though I talk to my own mother often even though she is dead, I found unresolved stuff to think about, to hurt about, to cry about, to heal about.

Yikes, but this is a good book. This wasn’t time to spend curled up with a really good page turner. This wasn’t time to pass as you wait for something else to happen. This book reached out and grabbed me, wouldn’t let me go, wouldn’t allow me to do anything else until I had finished it.

I don’t know that I understand everything there was. I understood enough; enough for me. I’m glad I read it. I will read others written by Anna Quindlen. In fact, I don’t even have to know anything about the books she writes for me to pick one up anymore. If it’s got her name on it, it will be a good book to read. Thanks, Anna. I needed that.

“Belladonna at Belstone” by Michael Jecks

"Belladonna at Belston" by Michael Jecks
1999, Headline Book Publishing
ISBN: 0-7472-6361-2

“Belladonna at Belstone” by Michael Jecks is a Medieval mystery. The story centers on an investigation into a murder at a convent. It was interesting to me how the religious people were portrayed. It was as if they were the kinds of people you might meet now, and yet, there was the placing of them back in time to Medieval times.

I suppose everybody has their ideas about how religious people are and the truth is much different than what we might suppose. The same seems to happen to folks in “Belladonna at Belstone”.

What starts as one murder escalates and it begins to look as if nobody is safe anymore. Everybody, it seems, at St. Mary’s had the motive and the opportunity to do these bad deeds. At the heart of the story are the two men doing the investigating, Simon and Sir Baldwin. The other key player in the story is Lady Elizabeth, the prioress of St. Mary’s at Belstone. She is being made to look the scapegoat for both the bad condition the convent is in and for the murder.

The twists and turns in this story were great. I really had no clue who the bad guy was going to end up being until the end. Good book.

“The Rocky Road to Romance” by Janet Evanovich.

“The Rocky Road to Romance” by Janet Evanovich

2004, Harpertorch

ISBN: 0-06-059889-1

“The Rocky Road to Romance” by Janet Evanovich. I’m a dyed in the wool Evanovich fan. And, when I saw this in my library I snatched it up. Janet wrote it back in 1991 before she’d written any of the Stephanie Plum stories. You can tell how her energy was flowing back in those days; on full speed and it hasn’t stopped yet. The quality of this story is right up there with everything else I have read by Janet Evanovich.

This is, of course, a love story. But, it’s also got lots of bumps along the way. This is where Janet is trying out the characteristics that would someday become part of the folks who people the Stephanie Plum books. You’ve got Daisy Adams, a lady intent upon getting her doctorate, who is so focused that she’s been unable to really enjoy life lately. She's juggling several different jobs in her life and from the bit spot on the radio as the Dog Lady she gets the opportunity to fill in for the traffic reporter who's out sick. Enter Steve Crow, mysterious and her boss who falls in love with her. You’ve got her family, his family, Elsie a grandmotherly security guard and the bad guys who keep trying to hurt Daisy.

It was light. It was fun. It was fast. It was just what I needed coming out of having a bad summer cold. I really enjoyed this book and I’m really glad that Janet Evanovich is such a prolific writer. I will read whatever she writes and will certainly, in all probability, enjoy each and every last word.

“Reckless” by Amanda Quick

“Reckless” by Amanda Quick
1992, Bantam Books
ISBN: 0-553-29315-X

“Reckless” by Amanda Quick gets five stars from me. Every time I read this book it is just as fresh and wonderful as the first time I read it years ago. Quick’s trademark with her historical novels are quirky heroines and heroes. They just don’t fit in with the rest of society around them and manage to eventually find each other.

This one is about Phoebe Layton, youngest daughter of a wealthy family who just didn’t fit in. They all worried about her, but she set her sights on being a publisher. She had to do this in secret because her family would never understand or approve. But her first writer is Gabriel Banner, the man of her dreams. However, there she has a problem and she’s decided that he is the only one who can help her with it. It involves an old friend who, coincidently, is an enemy of Gabriel’s. He does not, though, know that she is his publisher and is not particularly inclined to help her. Letter after letter she sends to him and finally, creates enough interest or irritation for him to agree to meet with her.

Plans unfold. She finds herself in danger. They fall in love. It may be the same old love story, but Amanda Quick always finds a fresh new way to tell it.

I read this as I moved through the irritating sickness of a summer cold. It was just what the doctor ordered, even better than chicken soup.