113. Just One Look

I think this was my least favorite of Harlan Coben's books, which is kinda sad cause it's my last. Like the others something dramatic from the past came back to greatly impact the present. But really, the dramatic thing from the past didn't seem all that dramatic to me. I just wasn't as drawn in my this storyline as I have been by the others. I did however enjoy that many minor characters or places keep showing up in all of the books.

Anyway, here's the description from B&N:

When Grace Lawson picks up a newly developed set of family photographs, there is a picture that doesn't belong-a photo from at least 20 years ago with a man in it who looks strikingly like her husband, Jack. And though Jack denies it, he disappears that night, taking the photo with him. Now, to save her family from a fierce, silent killer who will stop at nothing to get the photo, Grace must confront the dark corners of her own tragic past.

112. Little Bitty Lies

I'm on a bit of a Mary Kay Andrews kick. It's cute, light fluff which is a nice balance to all of the heavy school reading I'm also doing.

Here's the description from B&N:

In a suburban Atlanta neighborhood where divorce is as rampant as kudzu, Mary Bliss McGowan doesn't notice that her own marriage is in trouble until the summer night she finds a note from her husband, telling her he's gone—and taken the family fortune with him.

Stunned and humiliated, a desperate Mary Bliss, left behind with her seventeen-year-old daughter, Erin, and a mountain of debt, decides to salvage what's left of her life by telling one little bitty lie.

At first, Mary Bliss simply tells friends and family that Parker is out of town on a consulting job. Then the lies start to snowball, until Parker turns up dead. Or does he?

Mary Bliss's formerly staid existence careens into overdrive as she copes with an oversexed teenager, a mother-in-law with Ethel Merman delusions, and the sudden but delicious shock of finding herself pursued by two men: the next-door neighbor who's looking for a suitable second wife, and a dangerously attractive ex-cop who's looking for the truth about Parker McGowan.
Little Bitty Lies is a comic Southern novel about all the important things in life: marriage and divorce, mothers and daughters, friendship and betrayal, small-town secrets, and one woman's lifelong quest for home—and the perfect recipe for chicken salad.

111. The Divorce Party

This was pretty interesting. A short book, but not necessarily a quick read. I liked it.

Here's the description from B&N:

On their 35th anniversary, Gwyn Huntington and her husband Thomas have invited friends and family to their Montauk home. Instead of celebrating their decades-long love, they are toasting their divorce. This also marks the weekend that their son brings home his fiancée, Maggie Mackenzie, for the first time. Maggie thought she was joining a perfect family, but she is about to reckon with some uncomfortable truths about the man she wants to marry. A multi-generational story about what it means to share a life with someone, The Divorce Party brings us two immensely appealing women: Gwyn who is stumbling upon the end of her marriage, and Maggie, her future-daughter-in-law, who is trying to navigate the beginning of hers. With emotional candor and surprising humor, these two women find themselves trying to answer the same questions: Can you ever really know someone? When should you fight for the person you love most, and when should you begin to let him go?

110. Secrets of a Shoe Addict

My one complaint about this book was it seemed like a sequel in how they kept referring to things from the past but wasn't. Just figured out that it was. So, I'd say read the first one first like I should have done. Cause it is cute chick lit. Oh, and is set in the DC suburbs so plenty of local references that I always enjoy!

Here's a review from B&N:

Harbison's witty, fast-paced follow-up to last year's Shoe Addicts Anonymous chronicles the foibles of four women brought together by-in this case-not shoes but debt. During a fateful trip to Las Vegas as chaperones of a school band trip, Loreen Murphy accidentally hires a male prostitute on the PTA credit card; pastor's-wife-with-a-past Abbey Walsh gets blackmailed by an ex-con ex-boyfriend; and usually restrained PTA president Tiffany Dreyer purchases thousands of dollars worth of clothes that she can't return. Enter the zaftig Sandra Vanderslice, who, before she started her shoe-importing business, made a living as a phone sex operator. She suggests her sister, Tiffany, hop on that gravy train to pay down her credit card bills. Loreen and Abbey join up, and soon the ladies are raking in dough and trying to hide their new source of income from husbands, kids and their snoopy nemesis, the cartoonishly judgmental Deb Leventer, who wants to take over the PTA. Harbison's writing is zingy and funny, and her light touch allows her to get away with the ridiculous situations in this nutty beach read.

109. No Second Chance

Another really good suspense thriller from Harlan Coben. While the basic themes are the same in each of his books - something from the past comes back in a horrible way to haunt the present - the twists and turns these books take just can't be predicted. As the review says, you don't really fully understand it all until the very end. I definitely recommend reading Coben's books!

Here's a review from B&N:

Harlan Coben returns to the arena of obsession, conspiracy, and violence that make his novels (Tell No One, Gone for Good) such edge-of-your-seat thrillers. Once again, his plot begins with an explosive scene of suburban outrage that leads a sympathetic, everyman hero into ever deeper trials and terrors: Marc Seidman's life becomes a nightmare when he's shot in the chest in the kitchen of his own home. Awakening from a coma almost two weeks later, he discovers that his wife has been murdered and his infant daughter is missing. It takes so long for a ransom note -- which warns that there will be "no second chance" -- to arrive, Marc and the police are uncertain about the kidnappers true intentions. Those intentions do not become clear to anyone -- including the reader -- until the very last pages of the book, after a constantly surprising series of plot twists carries the narrative through another year and a half in Marc's desperate quest to find his daughter. Coben hasn't only given us a masterwork of suspense, he's also written one of the most complex and elaborate novels of his career -- a book so compelling, ingenious, and disturbing you'll want to finish it in one sitting.

108. Tell No One

Back to the Harlan Coben kick. This was his first non-Myron Bolitar book and a good, suspenseful read. Again, a twisting and turning plot that leaves you guessing til the very end!

If you like suspense, Coben is a must read.

Here's the description from B&N:

For Dr. David Beck, the loss was shattering. And every day for the past eight years, he has relived the horror of what happened. The gleaming lake. The pale moonlight. The piercing screams. The night his wife was taken. The last night he saw her alive. Everyone tells him it’s time to move on, to forget the past once and for all. But for David Beck, there can be no closure. A message has appeared on his computer, a phrase only he and his dead wife know. Suddenly Beck is taunted with the impossible–that somewhere, somehow, Elizabeth is alive. Beck has been warned to tell no one. And he doesn’t. Instead, he runs from the people he trusts the most, plunging headlong into a search for the shadowy figure whose messages hold out a desperate hope. But already Beck is being hunted down. He’s headed straight into the heart of a dark and deadly secret–and someone intends to stop him before he gets there.

107. Savannah Blues

Cute chick lit - great for a beach read!

Here's the description from B&N:

Landing a catch like Talmadge Evans III got Eloise "Weezie" Foley a big house in Savannah's historic district. Divorcing him got her booted into the carriage house in the backyard. Tal, meanwhile, lives with his girlfriend, elegant Caroline DeSantos, in the mansion Weezie lovingly restored. For Weezie, letting her dog piddle on Caroline's prize camellias isn't payback enough.

Now Weezie, and antiques "picker," is trying to make a killing at a big estate sale while dealing with loopy relatives, a hunky ex-boyfriend who's the hottest chef in town, and the Tal-Caroline "situation." Dirty deals are simmering all around her, just as Weezie discovers how very delicious love can be—the second time around.

106. It's Not You It's Me

This was a reread... a cute, Red Dress Ink book that caught my eye on my bookshelf the other day.

Here's the description from B&N:

She's heard all the lines. Now it's time for the truth!

Charlie has to keep pinching herself to believe she's leaving Australia for a trip to Europe — a generous gift from her family, who know how tough her life has been lately. But the last person Charlie expects to bump into on the plane is Jasper Ash, international celebrity, rock-star sex-god — and Charlie's former best friend, flatmate and . . .almost-lover!

It's been three years since Charlie impulsively jumped into bed with Jas, then a struggling student. But their nearly-one-night stand had just been warming up when Jas began the male "backing off" ritual, practically sprinting out the door with the classic excuse, "It's not you, it's me." Yeah, right. Everyone knows what that means: It is you! Not pretty enough, not successful enough — just not enough.

Charlie has dealt with it — and a whole lot more — but the unanswered questions still niggle. Acting on impulse once again, she invites Jas to join her own European tour! And as they share hotel rooms, play at being tourists and dodge Jas's determined groupies, it becomes clear they're both at a crossroads in life. Before they can move on, they finally have to deal with the unfinished business between them — starting with a serious conversation about that night.

105. Don't Your Forget About Me

This one was sorta cute... and fairly annoying at the same time. I both liked and really really didn't like the main character by the end of the story. I did like the conclusion and the underlying message about how we don't always see the past accurately. Anyway, I'd say read it and let me know what you think. Oh, and I love the cover art!!

Here's the description from B&N:

At thirty-eight, Lillian Curtis is content with her life. She enjoys her routine as a producer for a talk show in New York City starring showbiz veteran Vi (“short for vibrant”) Barbour, a spirited senior. Lillian’s relationship with her husband is pleasant if no longer exciting. Most nights she is more than happy to come home to her apartment and crawl into her pajamas. Then she’s hit with a piece of shocking news: Her husband wants a divorce.

Blindsided, Lillian takes a leave of absence and moves back to her parents’ home in suburban New Jersey. Nestled in her childhood bedroom, where Duran Duran and Squeeze posters still cover the walls, she finds high school memories a healing salve to her troubles. She hurtles backward into her teen years, driving too fast, digging up mix tapes, and tentatively reconciling with Dawn, a childhood friend she once betrayed. Punctuating her stroll down memory lane is an invitation to the Bethel Memorial High School class of 1988 twenty-year reunion. It just might be Lillian’s chance to reconnect with her long-lost boyfriend, Christian Somers, who is expected to attend. Will it be just like heaven?

Lillian discovers, as we all must, the pitfalls of glorifying the glory days, the mortification of failing as a thirtysomething adult, and the impossibility of fully recapturing the past. Don’t You Forget About Me is for anyone who looks back and wonders:What if?

104. Just Breathe

A really nice break from the suspense and school reading of late, this was good old fashion fiction. A nice family drama with interesting characters and a somewhat unique storyline. I liked it and would recommend it.

Here's the B&N description:

Chicago cartoonist Sarah Moon tackles life's real issues with a healthy dose of sharp wit in her syndicated comic strip Just Breathe. As Sarah's cartoon alter ego, Shirl, undergoes artificial insemination, her situation begins to mirror Sarah's own difficult attempts to conceive. However, Sarah's dreams of the future did not include her husband's infidelity: snag number two in Sarah's so-called perfect life.

With Chicago—and her marriage—in the rearview mirror, she flees to the small Northern California coastal town where she grew up, a place she couldn't wait to leave. Now she finds herself revisiting the past—an emotionally distant father and the unanswered questions left by her mother's death. As she comes to terms with her lost marriage, Sarah encounters a man she never expected to meet again: Will Bonner, the high school heartthrob she'd skewered mercilessly in her old comics. Now a local firefighter, he's been through some changes himself.

But just as her heart is about to reawaken, Sarah discovers she is pregnant. With her ex's twins.It's hardly the most traditional of new beginnings, but who says life and love are predictable… or perfect? The winds of change have led Sarah here. Now all she can do is just close her eyes… and breathe.

103. The Health Care Revolution: From Medical Monopoly to Market Competition

While not exactly a quick and easy read, this was a pretty interesting look at how the health care system has shifted from being controlled by physicians to being controlled by the market. I bought it this summer to read by choice but it ended up being required reading for a class (my professor wrote it). I'm actually glad I didn't just read it on my own because discussing it in class was helpful in understanding it all.

Anyway, here's the B&N description:

America's market-based health care system, unique among the nations of the world, is in large part the product of an obscure, yet profound, revolution that overthrew the medical monopoly in the late 1970s. In this lucid, balanced account, Carl F. Ameringer tells how this revolution came into being when the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress prompted the antitrust agencies of the federal government--the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department--to change the rules of the health care system. Ameringer lays out the key events that led up to this regime change; explores its broader social, political, and economic contexts; examines the views of both its proponents and opponents; and considers its current trajectory.

102. The Innocent

First, I am somewhat shocked to report that in the first 8 months and eh, one week of 2008 I have read as many books as I read in all of 2007. Seriously, I need a life.

Anyway, this was another really good Harlan Coben book. It had twists and turns I never saw coming and kept me guessing til the end. I definitely recommend his books if you are fan of suspense.

Here's the description from B&N:

"The horror of one night is forever etched in Matt Hunter's memory: the night he innocently tried to break up a fight - and ended up a killer. Now, nine years after his release from prison, his innocence long forgotten, he's an ex-con who takes nothing for granted. With his wife, Olivia, pregnant and the two of them closing on a house in his hometown, things are looking up. Until the day Matt gets a shocking, inexplicable video call from Olivia's phone. And in an instant, the unraveling begins." A mysterious man who'd begun tailing Matt turns up dead. A beloved nun is murdered. And local and federal authorities - including homicide investigator Loren Muse, a childhood schoolmate of Matt's with a troubled past of her own - see all signs pointing to a former criminal with one murder already under his belt: Matt Hunter. Unwilling to lose everything for a second time, Matt and Olivia are forced outside the law in a desperate attempt to save their future together.

101. Promise Me

The last of the Myron Bolitar books, this one had me guessing up until the very last page. I definitely recommend this series for fans of mysteries, humor and sports. Though this one was actually light on the sports, but the first few in the series definitely have a lot more of that angle. Anyway, I'm sad the Myron books are over but happy I have several more stand alone Harlan Coben books to read!

Here's the description from B&N:

It has been six years since entertainment agent Myron Bolitar last played superhero. In six years he hasn't thrown a punch. He hasn't held, much less fired, a gun. He hasn't called his friend Win, still the scariest man he knows, to back him up or get him out of trouble. All that is about to change . . . because of a promise.

The school year is almost over. Anxious families await word of college acceptances. In these last pressure-cooker months of high school, some kids will make the all-too-common and all-too-dangerous mistake of drinking and driving. But Myron is determined to help keep his friends' children safe, so he makes two neighborhood girls promise him: If they are ever in a bind but are afraid to call their parents, they must call him.

Several nights later, the call comes at 2:00 am, and true to his word, Myron picks up one of the girls in midtown Manhattan and drives her to a quiet cul-de-sac in New Jersey where she says her friend lives.The next day, the girl's parents discover that their daughter is missing. And that Myron was the last person to see her.

Desperate to fulfill a well-intentioned promise turned nightmarishly wrong, Myron races to find her before she's gone forever. But his past will not be buried so easily - for trouble has always stalked him, and his loved ones often suffer. Now Myron must decide once and for all who he is and what he will stand up for if he is to have any hope of saving a young girl's life.

100. Darkest Fear

My second to last Myron Bolitar book and another really good read.

Here's the description from B&N:

Edgar Award-winner Harlan Coben is at his electrifying best in his latest novel--a dazzling tale of seething mystery and dark family secrets. In Darkest Fear, Myron Bolitar faces the most emotionally shattering case of his career. And it all begins when Myron's ex-girlfriend tells him he is a father--of a dying thirteen-year-old boy....

Myron's sports agency is struggling. Now more than ever Myron needs to keep his eye on the ball, sign up some big-name clients, and turn away from the amateur detective work that is taking precious time away from the agency. But life is not going according to plan. Myron's father, recently recovered from a heart attack, is facing his own mortality--and forcing Myron to face it too. Then comes another surprise.

Emily Downing, Myron's college sweetheart, reappears in his life with devastating news: Her thirteen-year-old son Jeremy is gravely ill and can be saved only by a bone-marrow transplant--from a donor who has vanished without a trace. And before Myron can absorb this revelation, Emily hits him with an even bigger shocker: Jeremy is Myron's son, conceived the night before Emily's wedding to another man.

Staggered by the news, Myron plunges into a search for the missing donor. But for Myron, finding the only person in the world who can save a boy's life means cracking open a mystery as dark as it is heartbreaking--a mystery that involves a broken family, a brutal kidnapping spree, and a cat-and-mouse game between an ambitious reporter and the FBI. Somewhere in the sordid mess is the man who once signed hisname to a bone-marrow donor's registry, then disappeared. And as doubts emerge about Jeremy's true paternity, a child vanishes, igniting a chain reaction of truth and revelation that will change everyone's life forever.

At once a riveting mystery and a spellbinding journey into the secrets that haunt families, lovers, and friends, Darkest Fear proves once again that Harlan Coben is a master storyteller like no other--and one of the most original talents in suspense fiction today.

99. The Social Transformation of American Medicine - Book II: The Struggle for Medical Care

My first course book of the semester... I only had to read the second part, "Book II" if you will but since it is called a book and was over 200 pages I'm counting it.

So, here's the description from Amazon:

Winner of the 1983 Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize in American History, this is a landmark history of how the entire American health care system of doctors, hospitals, health plans, and government programs has evolved over the last two centuries.

98. The Final Detail

Another Myron Bolitar book. Again, I liked it a lot and the twists kept me guessing til the end!

Here's the description from B&N:

Harlan Coben is the master of the sports-related mystery. Great for Father's Day, The Final Detail will keep the baseball fan in your household turning pages into extra innings. When a pitcher is killed, sports agent Myron Bolivar loses not only a client but also his partner, Esperanza Diaz, who's charged with the pitcher's murder. Now it's up to Bolivar to prove her innocence -- that is, if she is innocent.