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Released in December 2006, True Evil  is the tenth novel by Greg Iles who was born in Germany in 1960 and now resides in Natchez, Mississippi; which is where some portions of the story told in this book take place.

After reading the book you may find yourself sleeping with one eye open, “just in case.”

Alex Morse is one of the key characters in the book.  She is a top notch hostage negotiator with the FBI, maybe the best one they have ever had.  But, during a tense situation, she went with her instincts but against direct orders.  As a result, she was shot and another agent was killed.

Alex’s punishment was demotion to regular field work but she asks another agent to cover for her while she works on solving a different case that the agency doesn’t know she is working on and will get her booted out of the agency if they find out what she’s doing.

But Alex doesn’t care.  She is trying to fulfill a promise she made to her sister as she lay on her deathbed.  Her sister Grace’s stunning revelation as she was dying was that her husband had killed her and that Alex needed to prove it and take care of Grace’s son Jamie, whom Alex is very close to.

Alex’s investigation leads her to believe that a local divorce lawyer is someone how caught up in something evil because he has had several rich clients who spouses have all died suspicious deaths.  The strange thing though is that most of the deaths are from cancer and it takes twelve to eighteen months for the spouses to die.  Alex suspects some sort of exposure to a cancer causing agent.

Alex finds herself in Natchez, Mississippi, telling a doctor that she thinks he is going to be the next victim to die because his wife has recently visited the suspicious divorce lawyer.  The doctor is very disbelieving but Alex needs to convince him to take the threat seriously and to work with her to help catch the murderer or murderers and to save his life.

The book has a good plot and has enough plausible information about viruses and ways to cause cancer at will to be scary because it’s not too hard to believe something like this could really happen.  To me that’s the hallmark of a great story.  There’s lots of suspense in the book along with several plot twists that had me practically holding my breath during several of the pages at the end of the book.

If you like fiction thriller books, this is a good one.

My rating (0-10 smilies):  8  ☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☺☺

This was a great easy reading book; at times sad, happy, touching, and heartwarming.

Richard Paul Evans also wrote “The Christmas Box” which was a great book so I had high expectations for this book and I wasn’t disappointed. After Evan’s mother, who was his biggest supporter and fan, passed away in February 2006, Evans decided to write a story for her. This book is that story.

The book was able to evoke strong emotion from me and I quickly felt myself drawn into the story about Macy and Mark; two young people who have had to deal with difficult pasts and who come into each other’s lives in a way that seems completely accidental but maybe really wasn’t.

Macy had been put into foster care when she was a child and was separated from her sister whom Macy embarks on a journey to find now that she’s an adult.

Mark is, in some ways, running from his past. He moved away from home to attend college and missed his mother’s funeral. Because his relationship with his father had never been all that good, Mark doesn’t want to go back home even with the urging of his Aunt. Mark does finally go back, talk to his father, and finds out something surprising.

Joette, another important character in the book, deeply touches both Macy’s and Mark’s lives. Joette helped Macy out when she was at her lowest, and she helps Mark understand that some people are worth fighting for.

I highly recommend this book. I wasn’t able to put it down and finished it in one day.

My rating (0-10 smilies): 10 ☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻

This book is a collection of stories from many different contributors that all have one theme in common – knitting or the fibers used in knitting.  The stories are from people who knit, who spin yarn, who know people who knit, have received knitted gifts, and who are young, middle-aged, old, married, single, in a relationship, male or female.  There’s at least one story in the book that almost anyone can relate to.

It’s a good book to keep in your vehicle or purse for those times you have a few spare minutes and you want something to do; like when you’re waiting for a child to get done with an after school practice, while waiting in the doctor’s or dentist’s office for an appointment, etc.  None of the stories are more than a few pages long so one can be read in just a few moments.

My favorite part of the book is at the back.  There’s a section that lists the authors of the stories and tells a little bit about them.

My favorite funny story in the book is by Anne McKee.  She wrote about her friend who owned an Old English Sheepdog named Ben who shed a lot.  Her friend, who had taught herself to knit in a short time and who became a proliferate knitter of many things including scarves.

One afternoon while cleaning, Anne’s friend came to the realization that Ben’s white and gray fur would make a wonderful sweater so she collected all of Ben’s stray fur and carefully spun it into wool.  Anne admitted the yarn made from Ben’s fur was attractive.

Anne’s friend used that yarn to make a gorgeous sweater for herself.  A few weeks after the sweater was finished Anne and her friend were out and about when a rainstorm hit.  They both were getting soaked so they ran to the nearest shop to wait out the rainpour.  While standing in the shop, Anne started to notice a very unpleasant smell, one that was far worse than Ben had ever smelled when he was wet.  The odor must have permeated the store because Anne and her friend were asked to leave.  It took Anne’s friend 3 showers to get the smell of that wet dog hair sweater off her!

The story in the book I found the saddest and most touching was submitted by Harry Kelley.  He talks about lying about having made a sweater he was wearing because he couldn’t bring himself to say his partner Richard had knit it but he died so now Harry was wearing it.  He also talks about James who died and whose sweaters he cherishes and about Jim, who is alive and whom Harry taught to knit.  Jim decided to knit a sweater for Harry but Harry didn’t to accept it.  A part of him felt that the sweater would survive Jim; that he would lose him too.

Harry also talks about how he helped stitch the AIDS quilt that is still touring the country and about square he made for James.  Harry is a man who has suffered great losses and yet has learned to appreciate life and be grateful for what he does have.  Knitting has in a small way helped him.

There are many other stories in the book.  Some of them are very good; others aren’t as good; and there’s even a few that I felt were pretty bad.

It’s definitely a book for knitters, whether they are new or seasoned pros because I think it would be hard to relate to some of the stories if a person has never tried to take two knitting needles and produce something with it.

It’s not a great book; but it’s a good book.
My rating (0-10 smilies):  6 ☻☻☻☻☻☻☺☺☺☺

This is the sixth book in a series called the “Revenge of the Sisterhood” series. The entire series is all about “girl power.”

With some books that are part of a series it’s not necessary to read the books in the order they were written to be able to enjoy each of the books to the fullest. That’s not the case with this series of books though. If you read them out of order you’ll know too much of the plotline of the other books which will spoil the suspense of them and make them too predictable which when then likely lead you find the books boring.

Because I’ve been reading the series as it’s been released I feel like I’ve gotten to know each of the main characters pretty well and find myself wanting to find about more about them and how things are going in their lives.

If there’s one thing I think Fern Michael’s does extremely well in these books, it is how she has developed each of the characters into very distinct people that readers want to cry for, laugh with, cheer on, and get to know better.

Each of the books in the series focuses on one of the members of the Sisterhood and how the group helps extract revenge for the wrong that woman has suffered.

In Lethal Justice, the Sisterhood focuses on carrying out revenge for Alexis. She used to be a successful financial broker with many elderly clients who adored her. But her two employers, Roland Sullivan and Arden Gillespie, defrauded those elderly clients of Alexis’s and set Alexis up to take the fall for their crime. While Arden and Roland were out spending the money they stole from Alexis’s clients, Alexis spent a year in jail and lost her broker’s license.

Because it is now Alexis’s turn for justice, the members of the Sisterhood meet to discuss how to best bring the Sisterhood’s form of justice to Roland and Arden. An elaborate scheme is set up to draw the two of them into a trap that the Sisterhood hopes they will be too greedy to resist.

There’s several twists and turns that keep the story entertaining because what the women of the Sisterhood are doing is risky. If they get caught, all of them, including Alexis will end up in jail and prison is the one place Alexis does not want to have to experience a second time.

Although the storyline is un-realistic and unbelievable at times, it’s entertaining which is exactly what I look for in a fiction book. If I want a big dose of reality I can read the newspaper.

It’s a good book in a good series that I recommend reading.

My rating (0-10 smilies): 8 ☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☺☺

Ever since my husband read a self improvement book last year that recommended a person go wild and really de-clutter their living quarters (and after being harassed about doing it so long that I finally gave in and did it just so my husband would quit bugging me), I’ve become more aware of how much stuff I have and how much of it I don’t need. By the way, the de-cluttering was painful but my house looks much better and I can easily find something I’m looking for, mostly because I no longer have very much stuff to look through.

Also my daughter is an environmental major at college, so I’ve been taught lots about what people from highly industrialized countries, especially people in America, are doing to our planet. It’s not a pretty story.

That’s a long introduction to why I wanted to read this book. I’ve been trying to simplify my life and be more conscious of what I’m purchasing, so I was intrigued by the thought of someone taking a whole year to not buy anything other than items the author and her partner deemed necessities.

Although there were interesting parts in the book, I didn’t think it spent enough time talking about how the author and her partner managed to not buy things. After all, they did live in New York City part of the year and that’s not exactly a place where you can dig up a patch in your yard and plant a big garden to help sustain you. Yes, the author explained how they repaired their toaster and her watch instead of buying new ones; but those stories were a minor part of the book instead of the main focus. I was disappointed by that.

Instead I learned a lot about the author’s philosophical and political views on various topics including the state of New York City’s library system.

Yes, the author talked about topics that were thought provoking, such as how Americans consume and waste much more than people of other countries and how, if everyone consumed at the rate people in America do, that we would need three planets to sustain the people of the world.

Although I will never diminish how hard it must have been to forgo dining out and purchasing items like clothing for an entire year, I also wonder how much of a stockpile of things they had if it took until August of the year of “not buying it” to finish the last jar of hoisin sauce they owned.

Do I recommend the book? Yes, I do. It will get you thinking about your consumer habits and maybe get you to think twice before you purchase un-necessary items. But be aware that you will be reading about a lot more than someone’s one year journey in life without shopping for un-necessary things.

Did I enjoy the book and learn as much as I thought I would? No. More stories and strategies directly related to getting by without purchasing things would have made the book much more enjoyable to me.

My rating (0-10 smilies): 5 ☻☻☻☻☻☺☺☺☺☺

This is the story of three teenage boys; Eric, Kent and Tad. They, along with the families, spend their summer in Phantom Lake. All three boys and their families are from the Chicago area; and for the past several years Kent and Tad’s families have spent their summers in Phantom Lake (a fictitious town in Wisconsin) enjoying themselves.

Eric has spent time during the summer in Phantom Lake with his friends, but his worry wart mother has never wanted to spend time there. But this year even Eric’s dad is working to convince Eric’s Mom they should spend their summer there even though all the Dads will only be there part of the time because they still need to work.

Eric’s family gets the last rental available, a house that hasn’t been lived inhabited for years and whose owner, Dr. Darby, has been missing for several years.

Eric and his friends find strange things in a room in the carriage house; some of them in a hidden room behind a wall that’s been bricked up and sealed. There is a special table, among other things. None of them look like they are worth much, but according to Dr. Darby’s journal, he paid a lot of money for each of the items he collected.

The boys find that when they are in the hidden room time flies by and they also notice a special energy and voices trying to talk to them when they are in there. They eventually start to take the items they find and reassemble (every one of them in some way has been taken apart.) For instance, there’s a white table with only three of its legs on and a hacksaw with the blade taken out. After the boys put the items back together, terrible things start to happen.

The boys also eventually discover that Dr. Darby worked with serial killers and that those items he paid lots of money for were owned by some of the most notorious.

There are some stereotypical characters in the book. Adam Mosler is one of them. He’s an angry teenage “townie” who resents the “summer boys” coming to the area and getting in his way. There are several conflicts in the book between Adam, Adam’s friends, and Eric, Kent, and Tad.

Another character pivotal to the book is Logan. He was once a patient of Dr. Darby’s. Apparently Dr. Darby told Logan to keep things in the carriage house safe. Logan isn’t sure what to do when the boys find them but he keeps watch and does what he feels he needs to.

It’s a creepy and disturbing book, but the plot didn’t seem that well developed to me. The story crawled along through most of the book, with the only good part being the last several pages; with the notable exception of the ending which was kind of lame.

For me, a large part of the book was boring. But I continued to read because I read one of the author’s other books and really liked it. John Saul has been writing for many years. This is his 33^rd novel and several of his other novels have best-sellers.

If you’re a die-hard John Saul fan, read the book. If not, don’t waste your time on it. It’s just not that good.

My rating (0-10 smilies): 3 ☻☻☻☺☺☺☺☺☺☺

I’m a fan of Mary Higgins Clark and have been reading her books for years.  Although I haven’t read all of them (she’s written over 20), I’ve ready many of them.  The ending was a surprise to me in the first several books of hers I read.  In the last few books, including this one, I had the “who did it” person figured out long before the end of the book.  It might be that I’ve figured out her style of reading enough to be able to guess the “surprise ending.” 

Even though I figured out the ending, there was still enough suspense and intrigue in the book to make it hard for me to put it down even when it was late at night and I knew I had to get to sleep! 

This book explores telepathy between twins, specifically young twin girls who are kidnapped.  As expected the parents are devastated and there are some predictable occurrences such as the girls father being a suspect for a short period of time.  If you’re a parent, your heart will break a little when reading about the hell the girls mother goes through. 

The telepathy described in the book seems eerie and unbelievable. But I have a Dad who is a twin along with a niece and a nephew is a twin.  Their “unspoken” communication and ability to “tune in to the other’s twin’s feelings” is something I have witnessed personally, although not to the extent described in the book. 

If you like suspense novels without extreme gore and profanity, this is a good book for you to read.    

My rating (0-10 smilies):   6 ☻☻☻☻☻☻☺☺☺☺