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Hello world!

pro_reader_120reviews_200_120    auto_approvals_120 Let’s talk aboufavorited_reviews_120t books. What type of book do you like to read? Do you stick to the same authors or are you willing to take a chance on something radically different from your norm? I have a cluster of authors that I gobble up the new books they put out like a binge eater…all in one sitting. And in between waiting for said authors to put out the next book, I have a group of “fill in” authors. And then there are the ones I read because I am so very curious about everything. It has been pointed out to me that my reading list is probably linked to Homeland Security but how can you have an opinion on anything if you haven’t fully researched it?

On my bookshelf you will find every James Patterson novel, every Laurell K. Hamilton, every Stuart Woods, Harlan Coben, Catherine Coulter, Iris Johansen, Anne Rice, Laura Childs, Tom Clancy, George R.R.Martin, Kim Harrison, Kathy Reichs, Patricia Cornwell, Lisa Scottoline, Lisa Unger, Karin Slaughter, Don Winslow, Sara Blaedel along with all the classics. I don’t do romance books, no heaving bosoms or glistening abs for me.

Reading is a magical thing that can take you places you would never have access to in the living world. I love everything about books. The cover, the feel and smell of the paper, it all has to come together for me.  Books are like a good friend who stays around. My grandmother told me once “Never get rid of a book or your land.”  I paid attention to that one. Not so much on the other advice, much to the chagrin of my mother.

So here we are going to be talking about books. What we’ve read, what we are reading and what we hope to read. I find it so interesting that two people can read the same book and have totally different takes on it. But that is the fun of books and imagination. Everyone’s is different and I am intrigued by those different opinions.

Stick around for some really good, new authors I have found and feel free to make suggestions and comments!  Join us on Facebook for free books, authors looking for reviewers and new releases and giveaways! On Twitter @GaPirate  Email me at piratepatty@hotmail.com. Have your Marketing people or Publisher contact me for reviews.

PIECES OF HER by KARIN SLAUGHTER

Pieces of Her
Andrea Cooper knows everything about her mother Laura. She knows she’s spent her whole life in the small town of Gullaway Island; she knows she’s never had any more ambition than to live a quiet life as a pillar of the community; she knows she’s never kept a secret in her life.

Andrea is 31 and her problem isn’t that she has no choice in her future. The problem is there are so many choices she’s stuck. Stuck living over her mother’s garage working as a 911 dispatcher.

But when Andrea and her mother go out for lunch at the mall, things turn ugly fast. A man with a weapon, heads exploding, Andrea cowering and her mother has turned into some kind of suburban ninja! After that nothing makes any sense to her. Mom won’t stay in the hospital and she is adamant that Andrea move out NOW! Not tomorrow, right this minute. Which of course Andrea does not do. Instead she watches as a man breaks in to her mother’s home and Andrea chooses a course of action that sends her on a road where everything she ever knew about her mother is questioned.

Told from her mother’s point of view in the past and Andrea”s in the present, we discover who and what Laura really is. And along the way there are plenty of twists and turns and What the heck?? moments.

Maybe I should be checking out my own mother?!  Well Done!

 

August 21, 2018

THE PHANTOM TREE by NICOLA CORMICK

The Phantom Tree

“My name is Mary Seymour and I am the daughter of one queen and the niece of another.”

Browsing antiques shops in Wiltshire, Alison Bannister stumbles across a delicate old portrait – supposedly of Anne Boleyn. Except Alison knows better… The woman is Mary Seymour, the daughter of Katherine Parr who was taken to Wolf Hall in 1557 as an unwanted orphan and presumed dead after going missing as a child.

The painting is more than just a beautiful object from Alison’s past – it holds the key to her future, unlocking the mystery surrounding Mary’s disappearance, and the enigma of Alison’s son.

But Alison’s quest soon takes a dark and foreboding turn, as a meeting place called the Phantom Tree harbours secrets in its shadows…

Life in the time of Alison and Mary was not good. With the death of their parents each has become an orphan living with unwelcoming and terrorizing relatives who would just as soon see them dead.

This was a time when women were owned by their fathers, husbands, guardians. Double standards abound. While the men bed anything they want, the women are then left damaged and in desperate straits.

When Alison runs away and ends up in modern-day London, she plans to go back and find her infant son, taken from her. Mary is to try her hardest to find the child and leave her clues.  However Alison ends up stuck in modern times, trying to find any clues to where Mary might be as well as the baby.

By chance she walks by a gallery and immediately recognizes a small portrait of Mary Seymour. Although it is labeled as Anne Boleyn,  Alison knows that the A.B. on the box in the portrait belongs to her and that Mary has left her clues in the painting.

But how can she get back? Maybe with the help of the gallery owner and his godson.

We read this book from alternating points of view, Mary and Alison, past and present.

This was one of the best slip time historical books I’ve read. Nicola has such a readable style to her writing, it was easy to keep up with who was who and where everyone was. It is one of those books for us history lovers that you fall in and cry with the characters because you know what is going to happen to at least one of them.

A must read this year! Well Done!

NetGalley/ September 21st 2018 by Graydon House

BOOM TOWN by SAM ANDERSON

Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, Its Chaotic Founding, Its Apocalyptic Weather, Its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-class Metropolis

Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, Its Chaotic Founding, Its Apocalyptic Weather, Its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-class Metropolis

A lively and introspective look into Oklahoma City, where colorful city officials business leaders, artists, and sports fans have turned an unassuming Southwestern city into a thriving metropolis with a dazzling basketball team.

Sam Anderson–award-winning critic and journalist–makes his long-awaited debut with a stunning, insightful, and raucous portrait of Oklahoma City, an iconoclastic outpost in America’s heartland.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book. I’ve lived in Nichols Hills since Hurricane Katrina spit us out of Mississippi’s Gulf Coast. The entire state has been a mystery to me.

I had never heard of Sam Anderson, sorry Sam, but I won’t forget him! This was the best unvarnished look at who makes the rules here and what the powers that be have envisioned for the city.  Oklahoma City is a huge sprawling area of tiny pockets of old-established neighborhoods. While there have been huge improvements to downtown OKC, beyond the city center the homeless linger under bridges and overpasses and oil and gas rules. Unemployment is rampant unless you are an oil field worker and even then you may only have a job until it’s bonus time.

From the Land Run to Aubrey Mclendon’s spectacular exit from his oil and gas woes to the Flaming Lips front man Wayne Coyne, whose house I have been in and it is just as weird and wacko as Sam will tell you about.

I laughed so hard all the way through this book. Sam has captured the city perfectly as well as all of its most colorful residents.

Very Well Done and I look forward to more from this author!

Netgalley/August 21st 2018 by Crown

 

THE OTHER WOMAN by SANDIE JONES

The Other Woman

A deliciously disturbing, compulsively readable debut domestic suspense–prepare to meet The Other Woman: there’s nothing she won’t do to keep you away from her son …

When Emily meets Adam its instant chemistry and she is sure he is the one. Soon they are living together and then become engaged. All before she meets his mother. Pammie.

There are so many things I could say about all of them but honestly I think you should just read it and come to your own conclusions. Don’t assume you know anything! Because I’m quite sure you don’t. Every one in this book is shady. No one is what or who they seem to be and that ending. What the heck??

I absolutely loved this twist. A most unusual one as I was ready to draw and quarter the person I thought was the evil one! Then, Boom. Nope.

Great job and I highly recommend this one!

Netgalley/St. Martin’s Press August 21, 2018

The Class by Heather Won Tesoriero

The Class: A Life-Changing Teacher, His World-Changing Kids, and the Most Inventive Classroom in America

An unforgettable year in the life of a visionary high school science teacher and his award-winning students, as they try to get into college, land a date for the prom . . . and possibly change the world.

An excellent book about Andy Bramante. A teacher who has taken teaching to another level. His passion to see his students succeed is one that we don’t often see in the public school system.

His students are entering science contests I had never even heard of! And winning! Not with your standard rotating planets or baking soda volcanoes. No, they are looking for cures for disease, amazing inventions and prize money that exceeds anything I’ve seen.

We follow a year in his classroom. No text books, no tests, these kids choose a project and work on it in this research style classroom for the entire year. One has been on Stephen Colbert. One left high school and started his own company.

I had no idea all of these competitions were going on. An outstanding look at excellence in teaching and allowing your students to discover their own talents.

Excellent Work!

Netgalley/September 4th 2018 by Ballantine Books

Broken Dolls by Sarah Flint (DC Charlotte Stafford #4)

Broken Dolls (DC Charlotte Stafford #4)

Charlie is back! And this time it is the most vulnerable among us who are being targeted.

A newborn, dead in a dumpster. A young girl dead in an alleyway. Are they connected?

Feeling that time is of the utmost importance she and her boss Hunter, try to track down the baby’s mother and stumble onto a trafficking outfit. Importing young girls and grooming them to be prostitutes. Treated no better than a stray dog.

There are really two tales in play here. One story line is looking at the murders of the prostitutes and the other is the sex crimes. When one of their informants helps them put the pieces together they are sure they have the right people behind bars.

But do they? If something is broken over and over, will it ever be right again? Or will it just continue the pattern of hurt and lies. Can a person be beyond repair?

I always enjoy Charlie and I am hoping for more on Ben in the next one!

Well Done!

Netgalley/Aria  August 07,2018