Top Ten All Time Favorite Books From the Past Three Years

This weeks Top Ten Tuesday list (weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish) is the My Top Ten ALL TIME FAVORITE BOOKS from the past 3 years.

Unfortunately, I'm cutting this week's Top Ten List down to the Top Five.  I feel like I've already named most of the books on a favorites list previously.  I hate feeling like I'm being repetitive.


1.  Gone, Girl by Gillian Flynn.  No description needed.  The book is so much better than the movie.  As usual.  So read the book.

2.  Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin....Edgar Award-winning

author Tom Franklin returns with his most accomplished and resonant novel so far—an atmospheric drama set in rural Mississippi. In the late 1970s, Larry Ott and Silas "32" Jones were boyhood pals. Their worlds were as different as night and day: Larry, the child of lower-middle-class white parents, and Silas, the son of a poor, single black mother. Yet for a few months the boys stepped outside of their circumstances and shared a special bond. But then tragedy struck: Larry took a girl on a date to a drive-in movie, and she was never heard from again. She was never found and Larry never confessed, but all eyes rested on him as the culprit. The incident shook the county—and perhaps Silas most of all. His friendship with Larry was broken, and then Silas left town.

More than twenty years have passed. Larry, a mechanic, lives a solitary existence, never able to rise above the whispers of suspicion. Silas has returned as a constable. He and Larry have no reason to cross paths until another girl disappears and Larry is blamed again. And now the two men who once called each other friend are forced to confront the past they've buried and ignored for decades.

I could not put this one down.  It was done so well, and so heartbreaking.

3.  This One is Mine by Maria Semple.  Violet Parry is living the quintessential

life of luxury in the Hollywood Hills with David, her rock-and-roll manager husband, and her darling toddler, Dot. She has the perfect life--except that she's deeply unhappy. David expects the world of Violet but gives little of himself in return. When she meets Teddy, a roguish small-time bass player, Violet comes alive, and soon she's risking everything for the chance to find herself again. Also in the picture are David's hilariously high-strung sister, Sally, on the prowl for a successful husband, and Jeremy, the ESPN sportscaster savant who falls into her trap. For all their recklessness, Violet and Sally will discover that David and Jeremy have a few surprises of their own. THIS ONE IS MINE is a compassionate and wickedly funny satire about our need for more--and the often disastrous choices we make in the name of happiness.

This was the kind of book that made you laugh through the horrible pit in your stomach, as you read the truths in the a middle age crisis.

4.  The Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll.  As a teenager at the prestigious

Bradley School, Ani FaNelli endured a shocking, public humiliation that left her desperate to reinvent herself. Now, with a glamorous job, expensive wardrobe, and handsome blue blood fiancé, she’s this close to living the perfect life she’s worked so hard to achieve.
But Ani has a secret.
There’s something else buried in her past that still haunts her, something private and painful that threatens to bubble to the surface and destroy everything.
With a singular voice and twists you won’t see coming, Luckiest Girl Alive explores the unbearable pressure that so many women feel to “have it all” and introduces a heroine whose sharp edges and cutthroat ambition have been protecting a scandalous truth, and a heart that's bigger than it first appears.

Yes, this book will keep making my "best of" lists until it's published and everyone I know reads it.

5.  The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion  The art of love is never a science:

Meet Don Tillman, a brilliant yet socially inept professor of genetics, who’s decided it’s time he found a wife. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which Don approaches all things, he designs the Wife Project to find his perfect partner: a sixteen-page, scientifically valid survey to filter out the drinkers, the smokers, the late arrivers. 

Rosie Jarman possesses all these qualities. Don easily disqualifies her as a candidate for The Wife Project (even if she is “quite intelligent for a barmaid”). But Don is intrigued by Rosie’s own quest to identify her biological father. When an unlikely relationship develops as they collaborate on The Father Project, Don is forced to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie―and the realization that, despite your best scientific efforts, you don’t find love, it finds you.

This was a totally original romance.  Loved it!

The Daughter by Jane Shemilt

• Print Length: 352 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (March 3, 2015)

What They Say....In the tradition of Gillian Flynn, Tana French, and Ruth

Rendell, this compelling and clever psychological thriller spins the harrowing tale of a mother’s obsessive search for her missing daughter.

Jenny is a successful family doctor, the mother of three great teenagers, married to a celebrated neurosurgeon.

But when her youngest child, fifteen-year-old Naomi, doesn’t come home after her school play, Jenny’s seemingly ideal life begins to crumble. The authorities launch a nationwide search with no success. Naomi has vanished, and her family is broken.

As the months pass, the worst-case scenarios—kidnapping, murder—seem less plausible. The trail has gone cold. Yet for a desperate Jenny, the search has barely begun. More than a year after her daughter’s disappearance, she’s still digging for answers—and what she finds disturbs her. Everyone she’s trusted, everyone she thought she knew, has been keeping secrets, especially Naomi. Piecing together the traces her daughter left behind, Jenny discovers a very different Naomi from the girl she thought she’d raised. 


What I Say....This was an interesting book.  The pace was so slow that it made me crazy at times, but I kept going because I wanted to know what happened to Naomi.

The story starts with the perfect family, two doctors and their perfect offspring.  Jenny is becoming worried that her daughter, Naomi, is pulling away from her, but appears to be a little afraid to do anything that might make Naomi mad.  You know like saying "no" or "Is there a reason you are acting like a witch?". 

Ostensibly, this is because Naomi is the perfect daughter, active at school, good grades, with lots of friends, but later it seems like this is actually more of a byproduct of Jenny's actual disconnect with the reality of her whole family.

Anyway, the dissolution of the family happens within a year of Naomi disappearing after play practice one night.  Two of her kids are dabbling in drugs, both of who are stealing drugs from their parents workplaces, the other son is strangely withdrawn, and taking pictures of his sister naked in the woods (it's "art", Jenny defends to her husband!).

(SPOILER ALERT)  

So Naomi was dating one boy, desperately trying everything to force a miscarriage of their baby (of course her physician mother had no idea she was 10 weeks pregnant), when she fell in love with a Gypsy (who seduced her to get revenge on her father for a faulty surgery on a member of their clan), and then she ran away with said Gypsy in order to keep her baby from her ex-boyfriend (who still loved her)?  This didn't make any sense at all.

And the vengeful Gypsy, who got Naomi to run away and let her family wonder if she was dead for the last year to torment them, he also got her brother hooked on drugs.  But he suddenly fell so in love with Naomi that he died for her in a shoot out with the police?  

I'm not buying it. 

Not to say that any of this took away from my enjoyment of the book,  I was drawn into the story.  It was just once I finished the last page, all of the areas where it didn't make sense came at me very quickly.  I was just so invested in finding out what happened to Naomi.  By the end of the book, it was obvious she was a probably a bit of a sociopath, or at least criminally self-absorbed.

Or Jen was even a worse mother than I already thought.  And I was already pretty sure that she was an awful mother.

Current Goodreads rating 3.61

Weekly Book Haul.....March 1, 2015

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by The Caffeinated Book Reviewer, Showcase Sunday is hosted by Books, Biscuits and Tea, Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews, The Sunday Salon is a new facebook group I've joined and Monday Mailbox is hosted by Marcia to be Continued.

This was a great week for book-ly additions.  I was supposed to have a friend here, but the weather between here and Arkansas made her think twice about flying - no one wants to get stuck in a Texas airport for a few days.  So I have had lots of time to relax.

My daughter and I made a trip to Ulta yesterday where I bought the new Benefit  Roller Lash mascara.  That was actually pretty exciting for me!  I have stick straight lashes, and this mascara makes your lashes curl, so you don't have to use the eyelash curler - which I'm always convinced is going to rip out every last lash I have.


I hope everyone has a great week with lots of good reads!


From NetGalley

House of Echoes by Brendan Duffy....Ben and Caroline Tierney and their two young boys are hoping to start over. Ben has hit a dead end with his new novel, Caroline has lost her banking job, and eight-year-old Charlie is being bullied at his Manhattan school.


When Ben inherits land in the village of Swannhaven, in a remote corner of upstate New York, the Tierneys believe it's just the break they need, and they leave behind all they know to restore a sprawling estate. But as Ben uncovers Swannhaven's chilling secrets and Charlie ventures deeper into the surrounding forest, strange things begin to happen. The Tierneys realize that their new home isn't the fresh start they needed . . . and that the village's haunting saga is far from over.

House of Echoes is a novel that shows how sometimes the ties that bind us are the only things that can keep us whole.

Love by the Book by Melissa Pimental....Love by the Book charts a year in the life of Lauren Cunningham, a beautiful, intelligent, and unlucky-in-love twenty-eight-year-old American. 

Feeling old before her time, Lauren moves to London in search of the fab single life replete with sexy Englishmen. But why can’t she convince the men she’s seeing that she really isn’t after anything more serious than seriously good sex? 

Determined to break the curse, Lauren turns her love life into an experiment: each month she will follow a different dating guide until she discovers the science behind being a siren. Lauren will follow The Rules, she’ll play The Game, and along the way she’ll journal her (mis)adventures and maybe even find someone worth holding on to. Witty, gritty, and very true to life, Love by the Book will have you in stitches.

From Edelweiss

The Fall by John Lescroart....Late one night, a teenage African American foster child named Tanya

Morgan plummets to her death from the overpass above San Francisco’s Stockton tunnel. But did she fall…or was she pushed?

Rushing to produce a convictable suspect in the glare of the media spotlight, homicide inspectors focus their attention on a naïve young man named Greg Treadway. Greg is a middle school teacher and he volunteers as a Special Advocate for foster children. At first, the only thing connecting him to Tanya’s death is the fact that they shared a meal earlier that night. But soon enough, elements of that story seem to fall apart…and Hardy’s daughter, Rebecca, finds herself drawn into the young man’s defense.

By the time Greg’s murder trial gets underway, Dismas and Rebecca have unearthed several other theories about the crime: a missing stepfather who’d sexually assaulted her; a roommate who ran a call girl service; a psychologically unstable birth mother; and a mysterious homeless man who may have had dealings with Tanya. Or Greg Treadway himself, who is perhaps not all that he first appeared. But how will they get these theories in front of a jury? And if they can, what price will they have to pay?

Royal Wedding by Meg Cabot....From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Princess

Diaries series, comes the very first adult installment, which follows Princess Mia and her Prince Charming as they plan their fairy tale wedding—but a few poisoned apples could turn this happily-ever-after into a royal nightmare.

For Princess Mia, the past five years since college graduation have been a whirlwind of activity, what with living in New York City, running her new teen community center, being madly in love, and attending royal engagements. And speaking of engagements. Mia’s gorgeous longtime boyfriend Michael managed to clear both their schedules just long enough for an exotic (and very private) Caribbean island interlude where he popped the question! Of course Mia didn’t need to consult her diary to know that her answer was a royal oui.

But now Mia has a scandal of majestic proportions to contend with: Her grandmother’s leaked “fake” wedding plans to the press that could cause even normally calm Michael to become a runaway groom. Worse, a scheming politico is trying to force Mia’s father from the throne, all because of a royal secret that could leave Genovia without a monarch.  Can Mia prove to everyone—especially herself—that she’s not only ready to wed, but ready to rule as well?

In the Mail

This week, I got three great books in the mail!  I love coming home to books in the mail.  It's such a nice change from all the junk mail you have to go through just to toss.

The Cemetery Boys by Heather Brewer....Part Hitchcock, part Hinton, this first-ever stand-alone novel from Heather Brewer, New York Timesbestselling author of the acclaimed Chronicles of Vladimir Tod series, uses classic horror elements to tell a darkly funny coming-of-age story about the dangerous power of belief and the cost of blind loyalty.

When Stephen's dad says they're moving, Stephen knows it's pointless to argue. They're broke from paying Mom's hospital bills, and now the only option left is to live with Stephen's grandmother in Spencer, a backward small town that's like something out of The Twilight Zone. Population: 814.

Stephen's summer starts looking up when he meets punk girl Cara and her charismatic twin brother, Devon. With Cara, he feels safe and understood—and yeah, okay, she's totally hot. In Devon and his group, he sees a chance at making real friends. Only, as the summer presses on, and harmless nights hanging out in the cemetery take a darker turn, Stephen starts to suspect that Devon is less a friend than a leader. And he might be leading them to a very sinister end. . . .

The Silver Witch by Paula Brockton.....A year after her husband's sudden death, ceramic artist Tilda Fordwells finally moves into the secluded Welsh cottage that was to be their new home. She hopes that the tranquil surroundings will help ease her grief, and lessen her disturbing visions of Mat's death. Instead, the lake in the valley below her cottage seems to spark something dormant in her - a sensitivity, and a power of some sort. Animals are drawn to her, electricity shorts out when she's near, and strangest of all, she sees a new vision; a boatful of ancient people approaching her across the water. 


On this same lake in Celtic times lived Seren, a witch and shaman. She was respected but feared, kept separate from the community for her strange looks. When a vision came to her of the Prince amid a nest of vipers she warned of betrayal from one of his own. Prince Brynach both loved and revered her, but could not believe someone close to him wished him harm, even as the danger grew. 

In her own time, Tilda's grief begins to fade beside her newfound powers and a fresh love. When she explores the lake's ancient magic and her own she discovers Seren, the woman in her vision of the boat. Their two lives strangely mirror each other's, suggesting a strong connection between the women. As Tilda comes under threat from a dark power, one reminiscent of Seren's prophecy, she must rely on Seren and ancient magic if death and disaster are not to shatter her life once more.

I Take You by Eliza Kennedy.....I’m getting married.  He’s perfect!  It’s a disaster.

Meet Lily Wilder—New Yorker, lawyer and bride-to-be. She has a dream job, great friends, a family full of charismatic and loving women, and a total catch of a fiancé. 

Also? She has no business getting married.

Lily’s fiancé Will is a brilliant, handsome archaeologist. Lily is sassy, impulsive, fond of a good drink (or five) and completely incapable of being faithful to just one man. Lily likes Will, but does she love him? Will loves Lily, but does he really know her? As the wedding approaches, Lily’s nights—and mornings, and afternoons—of booze, laughter and questionable decisions become a growing reminder that the happiest day of her life might turn out to be her worst mistake yet.
Bridget Jones’s Diary meets Where’d You Go, Bernadette in this joyous and ribald debut, introducing a self-assured protagonist whose choices raise fresh questions about gender politics, monogamy and the true meaning of fidelity.


I Bought

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman....Lyrical, imaginative, and wholly original, 
this New York Times bestseller with 8 starred reviews is not to be missed.  
Rachel Hartman’s award-winning debut will have you looking at dragons as 
you’ve never imagined them before…


In the kingdom of Goredd, dragons and humans live and work side by side – while below the surface, tensions and hostility simmer.

The newest member of the royal court, a uniquely gifted musician named Seraphina, holds a deep secret of her own. One that she guards with all of her being.

When a member of the royal family is brutally murdered, Seraphina is drawn into the investigation alongside the dangerously perceptive—and dashing—Prince Lucien. But as the two uncover a sinister plot to destroy the wavering peace of the kingdom, Seraphina’s struggle to protect her secret becomes increasingly difficult… while its discovery could mean her very life.

It's $1.99 on Amazon right now.

Jemima J by Jane Green....Jemima Jones is overweight. About one hundred pounds overweight. 

Treated like a maid by her thin and social-climbing roommates, and lorded over by the beautiful Geraldine (less talented but better paid) at the Kilburn Herald, Jemima finds that her only consolation is food. Add to this her passion for her charming, sexy, and unobtainable colleague Ben, and Jemima knows her life is in need of a serious change. 

When she meets Brad, an eligible California hunk, over the Internet, she has the perfect opportunity to reinvent herself–as JJ, the slim, beautiful, gym-obsessed glamour girl. But when her long-distance Romeo demands that they meet, she must conquer her food addiction to become the bone-thin model of her e-mails–no small feat.  

With a fast-paced plot that never quits and a surprise ending no reader will see coming, Jemima J is the chronicle of one woman's quest to become the woman she's always wanted to be, learning along the way a host of lessons about attraction, addiction, the meaning of true love, and, ultimately, who she really is.

Also $1.99 on Amazon right now.

I Blogged

An Unusually Cloudy Day

Anticipating the Weekend

Hush, Hush by Laura Lippman

My Top Ten Favorite Heroines

An Unusually Cloudy Day in My Life.......

Happy, happy Saturday!  

It's a cool, cloudy day here in Anthem, Arizona, which makes me happy.  We have an average of 296 days of sunshine per year.  It's awesome for a person like me who used to have awful winter blues when I lived in Illinois, but then you find yourself getting very excited when you finally have a cloudy day.  And none of us can stop talking about it when it actually rains!!

I feel like my life is in such a rut.  Last night, after a long week of work, I actually found myself smiling because I knew that I got to sleep in this morning. 

That's what excites me on a Friday night, the thought that I get to sleep in the next morning.

Pathetic.

I need something to get excited about.  But right now life feels like it's about work, and elderly dog who has less control over her bladder than my mother, and chores.  But I downloaded an app called Happify this morning, and it is pretty cool.  It definitely lifted my spirits a bit.  I played a game where I had to pop balloons that had positive words on them and avoid the negative words.  It sounds cheesy, but it was kind of cool (nerd alert).

I think the book you are reading can have such an impact on your mood, so I should be reading something fun and light today.  In fact, I wanted to start Book of Life today, but I'm caught up in The Daughter by Jane Shemilt.  It's got me hooked!

In the tradition of Gillian Flynn, Tana French, and Ruth Rendell, this

compelling and clever psychological thriller spins the harrowing tale of a mother’s obsessive search for her missing daughter.
Jenny is a successful family doctor, the mother of three great teenagers, married to a celebrated neurosurgeon.
But when her youngest child, fifteen-year-old Naomi, doesn’t come home after her school play, Jenny’s seemingly ideal life begins to crumble. The authorities launch a nationwide search with no success. Naomi has vanished, and her family is broken.
As the months pass, the worst-case scenarios—kidnapping, murder—seem less plausible. The trail has gone cold. Yet for a desperate Jenny, the search has barely begun. More than a year after her daughter’s disappearance, she’s still digging for answers—and what she finds disturbs her. Everyone she’s trusted, everyone she thought she knew, has been keeping secrets, especially Naomi. Piecing together the traces her daughter left behind, Jenny discovers a very different Naomi from the girl she thought she’d raised. 

It's a page turner so far.  I don't know why I read these books.  As a mother of three girls, I worry anyway.  But I can't resist them!

Anticipating the Weekend!

Thursday night is one of my favorite times of the week.  Because you know the next morning is Friday, and the end of the work week.

My least favorite night of the week is Sunday.  Because I know the next morning kicks off the rat race again.  I try to stave off the Sunday blues by getting a manicure (no gel, just straight OPI polish), and spending some time lost in a book, but Monday is always looming over my shoulder, breathing in my ear.

For me life is all about anticipation.  What's next?  What's tomorrow?  What's coming?

Sometimes it's even that way with the books I read.  Do you know that I waited and waited and still haven't read the final book in Deborah Harkness's trilogy, "
The Book of Life"?  I've been hoarding it, waiting for the right time.

The right time may be this weekend.  Our weather is predicted to be a cold, rainy one.  Doesn't happen often in Arizona, so I'm going to grab some blankets, my Kindle and enjoy a weekend on the couch.

I may start Seraphina by Rachel Hartman.  It has gotten great reviews, but i normally don't lean towards fantasy.  I actually don't know why I keep saying that, I've read a lot of fantasy, and I usually almost always enjoy it, but it's been more aimed at witches, vampires, etc.  Not dragons.  Added bonus, it's $1.99 at Kindle!