1. The Nanny Returns by Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus
- A light entertaining read. Nothing that is going to take the literary world by storm, but good escapist reading.Now she's back. After living abroad for twelve years, she and her husband, Ryan, aka H.H., have returned to New York to make a life for themselves. In the midst of getting her new business off the ground and fixing up their fixer-upper, Ryan announces his sudden desire to start a family. His timing simply couldn't be worse.To compound the mounting construction and marital chaos, her former charge, Grayer X, now sixteen years old, makes a drunken, late-night visit, wanting to know why she abandoned him all those years ago. But how can she explain to Grayer what she still hasn't come to terms with herself? In an attempt to assuage her guilt, yet against every instinct, Nan tries to help Grayer and his younger brother, Stilton, through their parents' brutal divorce, drawing her back into the ever-bizarre life of Mrs. X and her Upper East Side enclave of power and privilege.
2 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larrson.
A middle-aged journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, publishes the magazine Millennium in Stockholm. In the opening courtroom drama, Blomkvist loses a libel case brought by accused Swedish industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerström, and this has serious repercussions for the future of Millennium. In disgrace, Blomkvist agrees to be hired by Henrik Vanger, the aged former CEO of the Vanger companies, owned by a wealthy but dysfunctional dynasty. The old man offers not only to help his financially strapped magazine, but also to give him information to prove that Wennerström is corrupt. Officially, he is to spend a year writing the Vanger family history.Blomkvist's real mission, however, is to solve a cold case—the disappearance, some forty years previously, of Vanger's great-niece Harriet when she was sixteen.
Blomkvist comes to feel that he can discover nothing new. But the real main character of the story now appears—Lisbeth Salander, an asocial punk who has been victimized by authorities throughout her life. By accident, she meets Blomkvist and the unlikely couple form another classic detective pair where the hunters become the hunted. When Blomkvist teams up with Salander, their delving into family secrets sheds a disturbing and shocking light on the four-decade-long puzzle.
3. The lost Symbol- Dan Brown
Not as good as I expected. Not much else to say about it.
The story focuses on Freemasonry, and takes place over a period of 12 hours in Washington, D.C.[7] Robert Langdon is summoned to give a lecture in National Statuary Hall at the United States Capitol, with the invitation apparently from his mentor, a 33rd degree Mason named Peter Solomon, who is the head of the Smithsonian Institution. However, when Langdon arrives at the Capitol, instead of an audience for his lecture, he finds the severed right hand of Peter Solomon tattooed into a symbolic Hand of the Mysteries, and pointing straight upwards to the fresco The Apotheosis of Washington on the inside of the Capitol dome. Solomon has been kidnapped by the villain Mal'akh, who demands that Langdon unlock the Ancient Mysteries in return for Solomon's life.[8] This leads to a game of cat and mouse throughout the museums and architecture of Washington. Langdon joins forces with Solomon's sister, Katherine, a researcher studying noetic science in a secret laboratory in the Smithsonian Museum Support Center. Langdon and Katherine are pursued by both Mal'akh, and Inoue Sato, the head of the CIA's Office of Security. Sato's demand is that Langdon solve the mystery as a matter of national security, since Mal'akh is planning to release a clandestine video of Washington powerbrokers engaged in secret Masonic rituals. The chase and the clues to the puzzles lead through the sub-basement of the Capitol, the Library of Congress, the George Washington Masonic National Memorial, Freedom Plaza, the United States Botanical Garden, and Washington National Cathedral. The clues center around a small stone unfinished pyramid, and a capstone that was entrusted several years ago by Solomon to Langdon. The pyramid and the box which holds it reveal several puzzles, involving a Masonic cipher, a circumpunct, an alchemical formula, and references to the 1514 engraving Melencolia I.
The House of the Temple is the setting for the prologue and the climax of The Lost Symbol.Mal'akh succeeds in capturing both Katherine and Langdon, tortures Langdon by putting him in a isolation tank and filling it with a breathable liquid, and then takes Peter Solomon to the top floor of the Masonic headquarters House of the Temple. Langdon and Katherine Solomon are rescued by the CIA, while in the meantime Mal'akh reveals to Peter Solomon that he is in fact Peter's own son, Zachary.
As a young man, he had been unhappy with the way he had been treated by his father, so he faked his own death in a Turkish prison. He then experienced a religious epiphany, finding the need to learn the The Lost Word (the verbum significatium or lost symbol of the title) [9].
He plans to complete his transformation into a godlike being by inscribing his scalp with what he mistakenly believes to be the symbol for the Ancient Mysteries, the circumpunct[10].
Trying to recreate the Biblical story of Abraham on the verge of sacrificing his son, Zachary attempts to goad his father into killing him with Abraham's sacrificial Akedah knife on the altar of the Freemasons[11]. But Langdon intrudes, and a CIA helicopter interrupts the data connection with a targeted EMP to prevent the distribution of the video. Zachary is fatally injured when the helicopter accidentally shatters a skylight above him, and the falling shards pierce his body.
Peter Solomon then takes Langdon to the Washington Monument, viewed from above, a dot in a circular plaza, with a Bible in its cornerstone. Peter tells him that The Word that Mal'akh was seeking was in all holy books such as the Bible, Qur'an, and Bhagavad Gita. The Ancient Mystery is the realization that people are not God's subjects, but in fact possess the ability to be gods themselves. Langdon realizes that the lost symbol is God, standing for limitless human potential and was previously only found by studying holy scriptures such as the Bible, Qur'an, Torah, Vedas and such.[12]
4. Not my Daughter- Barbara Delinsky
Another Ho hum read. This reads like the umpteenth book by this author who has written several books over the years and is stuck in the safety of humdrum. This story could have had some real teeth to it but it was lacking in substance. The main character Susan is so wishy washy I wanted to punch her and smack her idiot daughter too.
When Susan Tate's seventeen-year-old daughter, Lily, announces she is pregnant, Susan is stunned. A single mother, she has struggled to do everything right. She sees the pregnancy as an unimaginable tragedy for both Lily and herself.
Then comes word of two more pregnancies among high school juniors who happen to be Lily's best friends-and the town turns to talk of a pact. As fingers start pointing, the most ardent criticism is directed at Susan. As principal of the high school, she has always been held up as a role model of hard work and core values. Now her detractors accuse her of being a lax mother, perhaps not worthy of the job of shepherding impressionable students. As Susan struggles with the implications of her daughter's pregnancy, her job, financial independence, and long-fought-for dreams are all at risk.
The emotional ties between mothers and daughters are stretched to breaking in this emotionally wrenching story of love and forgiveness. Once again, Barbara Delinsky has given us a powerful novel, one that asks a central question: What does it take to be a good mother?
5. Still Alice- Lisa Genova
An amazing read! A little boring when it get's too techy, but the heartbreak in this book is so real. I see this at work all the time and Lisa captures the sorrow of Alzheimers very well. I cried buckets! I would recommend this book if you are interested in dementia at all.
Still Alice is a compelling debut novel about a 50-year-old woman's sudden descent into early onset Alzheimer's disease, written by first-time author Lisa Genova, who holds a Ph. D in neuroscience from Harvard University.
Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children and a house on the Cape, is a celebrated Harvard professor at the height of her career when she notices a forgetfulness creeping into her life. As confusion starts to cloud her thinking and her memory begins to fail her, she receives a devastating diagnosis: early onset Alzheimer's disease. Fiercely independent, Alice struggles to maintain her lifestyle and live in the moment, even as her sense of self is being stripped away. In turns heartbreaking, inspiring and terrifying, Still Alice captures in remarkable detail what's it's like to literally lose your mind...
6. The Help-Kathryn Stockett
I'm done this one now and had a hard time putting it down! I loved these three women and didn't want the story to end. Fabulous read!
Be prepared to meet three unforgettable women:
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.
Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.
Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.
Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.
In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women--mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends--view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.
7. Left to Tell- Imaculee Ilibagiza
Immaculee Ilibagiza grew up in a country she loved, surrounded by a family she cherished. But in 1994 her idyllic world was ripped apart as Rwanda descended into a bloody genocide. Immaculee’s family was brutally murdered during a killing spree that lasted three months and claimed the lives of nearly a million Rwandans.
Incredibly, Immaculee survived the slaughter. For 91 days, she and seven other women huddled silently together in the cramped bathroom of a local pastor while hundreds of machete-wielding killers hunted for them.
It was during those endless hours of unspeakable terror that Immaculee discovered the power of prayer, eventually shedding her fear of death and forging a profound and lasting relationship with God. She emerged from her bathroom hideout having discovered the meaning of truly unconditional love—a love so strong she was able seek out and forgive her family’s killers.
The triumphant story of this remarkable young woman’s journey through the darkness of genocide will inspire anyone whose life has been touched by fear, suffering, and loss.
This is Immaculee’s first book.
8. I am Hutterite-Mary-Ann Kirkby
I Am Hutterite takes readers into the hidden heart of the little-known Hutterite colony in southern Manitoba where author Mary-Ann Kirkby spent her childhood. When she was ten years old her parents packed up their seven children and a handful of possessions and left the security of the colony to start a new life. Overnight they were thrust into a world they didn't understand, a world that did not understand them.
Before she left the colony Mary-Ann had never tasted macaroni and cheese or ridden a bike. She had never heard of Walt Disney or rock-and-roll. She was forced to reinvent herself, denying her heritage to fit in with her peers. With great humor, Kirkby describes how she adapted to popular culture; and with raw honesty her family's deep sense of loss for their community. More than a history lesson, I Am Hutterite is a powerful tale of retracing steps and understanding how our beginnings often define us.
Witch and Wizard by James Patterson-
I'm not even gonna bother with a review of this. It was a read. The ending sucked and it leads me to believe this is going to be a series. Don't waste your money buying this one. Borrow it from a fool who did. LOL
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