Fatal Voyage by Kathy Reichs

I went to the library and someone had finally turned in the last two books I was missing. It was kind of funny as I was reading Fatal Voyage jumping back into the story line. Inspector Ryan and Brennan hadn't officially became an item yet even though they were seeing each other. So when Brennan got back with her Husband for a night, I was shocked because I had been rooting for Inspector Ryan. That combined with Ryan's partner getting killed. All these later books I have been reading it always mentions Ryan working alone after his partner died. I forgot that his partner was still alive in the first couple of books in the series.

I really liked this book as it was somewhat different. Yes Brennan still almost gets whacked in the end. But most of the book is Brennan trying to figure out what is going on as she keeps getting stonewalled in her job and her career almost goes up in smoke. I felt very frustrated all through this book for Brennan. It was almost like she was doing detective work instead of bone detective work.

So for my very own made up back blurb again....Temperance goes to help out with a plane crash. While trying to identify the mangled remains of 88 people, she comes upon a foot that doesn't go with the crash. Everyone one is trying to figure out why the plane came down and then all of a sudden Temperance is kicked out of her job. She is barred from other places and people aren't being helpful. A very weird story comes out in the end.

Bones To Ashes by Kathy Reichs

So what's going on with the relationship line. My eyes about bugged out with what happened!!!! Now I can hardly wait until the next book comes out in the series. I want to know what happens. ARGGGGG! (That is me pulling out my hair.)

Bones is trying to find out what happened to a childhood friend. Her friend Detective Ryan is trying to uncover who has been killing teenagers in cold cases. This story does touch on child pornography which left a distaste in my mouth. This is another one of Reichs' books which touches on a darker subject.

Break No Bones by Kathy Reichs

I think that it is a very bad thing to be a friend of Temperance Brennan. You either die or you get injured. Tempe herself is no exception. She is always getting roughed up. I have to say that I really liked this book. While the general formula stays the same there were some different happenings going on. Confusion on who did the murders, personal life drama, and her friend who dies from cancer.

Again I will summarize so I don't have to write the whole inside flap cover. Break No Bones starts out with Temperance finding a new body in old burial grounds. From there bodies keep getting found and connections between them all are not clear. Meanwhile Temperance, her ex-husband, and her new boyfriend are all sharing the same house.

Monday Mourning by Kathy Reichs

I got to the library finally! So now I have three more of these books to read. I found the contents of this book a little more disturbing. Thankfully it didn't get too grizzly into the matter. Though enough to leave a unpleasant taste in your mouth. Sad that things like that really do happen in life. But other than that I did like the book.

I guess I will summarize the book as I don't want to write the whole inside cover flap. Brennan finds three bodies under a pizza parlor. Trying to figure out what happened to the bodies leads to a whole boat load of nasty. Meanwhile her relationship with Detective Andrew Ryan gets rocky when he starts acting mysterious.

The Nomad Harp by Elizabeth Neff Walker

Yes I know, another Regency Romance. Here is the thing though. I went to the library to get some more books in the Temperance Brennan series, but I got there too late. Then I couldn't sleep one night and every other book in the house I had already read. I was so bored. Thankfully I realized that I did have this one book unread that I had forgotten about. In comes The Nomad Harp. Yes!

And guess what? It wasn't bad either. So I spent a happy sleepless night reading away. Except now I have nothing to read and still haven't made it back to the library. Thus I am typing the book review tonight.

Proud, independent, talented, Glenna is about to marry Philip, Viscount Pontley-until a foolish quarrel estranges them.

But Glenna cannot forget him, and when fate throws them together again they struggle to overcome the memory of past bitterness.

Amid the ruins of their former passion, love flames anew. But it may be too late-Philip has become engaged to another. Have they rediscovered love only to lose it again?

Bare Bones by Kathy Reichs

Temperance Brennan gets together with her love interest in this book. Yeah! Bare Bones follows the formula of Kathy Reichs other books. Mystery, sleuthing, and then Brennan almost getting whacked in the end. I'm happy, what can I say. I am off to the library today to get some more in the series. Can you say obsessive compulsive? That would be me.

"Down time" is not a phrase in Tempe Brennan's vocabulary. A string of disturbing cases has put her vacation plans on hold; instead, she heads to the lab to analyze charred remains from a suspicious fire, and a mysterious black residue from a small plane crash. But most troubling of them all are the bones...Tempe's daughter's new boyfriend invites them to a picnic-a pig picken'-in North Carolina's countryside, where a cache of bones turns up. But are they animal or human? X-rays and DNA may link the crimes, but they can't reveal who is closing in on Tempe and her daughter-and how far they will go to keep her from discovering the truth.

Grave Secrets by Kathy Reichs

This is the fifth book in the Temperance Brennan series. When I was at the library they didn't have the forth book in at the time. This book didn't have the long and wooden information spiels that Deadly Decisions had.

Brennan was feeling very grumpy in this book towards the somewhat love interest. It was kind of funny. I was very happy with how the book ended. This book and Deadly Decisions have been very different in what she was investigating. That made it seem not the same old same old murder investigation. I think Deja Dead has been the best book in the series (from getting me crazy tense reading it) so far in what I have read. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to continue on. Now that I have found this author I am planning on reading all the other books by Kathy Reichs that I have missed.

Deadly Decisions by Kathy Reichs

This was the third book in the Temperance Brennan series. Still liked it but I thought passages in the book where Reichs was trying to explain something technical came across wooden and text book like reading. Other than that I am still having fun reading the series. Still no pictures. Nothing exciting to see.

Nine-year-old Emily Anne Toussaint is fatally shot on a Montreal street. A North Carolina teenager disappears from her home, and parts of her skeleton are found hundreds of miles away. The shocking deaths propel forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennan from north to south, and deep into a shattering investigation inside the bizarre culture of outlaw motorcycle gangs-where one misstep could bring disaster for herself or someone she loves.

Death Du Jour by Kathy Reichs

I guess you could say that these last few books are a far cry from all the Regency Romance books I had been reading. I tend to go in groups of genre's and get stuck in one for a while. I'm very tired of the old romances for the moment.

The library provided this book as well. I devoured the first Tempe Brennan book and tore into this one. I didn't have the 'real' bad person in charge of the cult figured out for this book. Though maybe that was just me as sometimes I am slow in getting the 'who done it' person. I was very happy with this book. Happy enough that I went to the library and got two more books in this series to read.

Still no front cover picture as there really isn't anything to show.

In the bitter cold of a Montreal winter, Tempe Brennan is digging for a corpse buried more than a century ago. But it's a chain of contemporary deaths and disappearances that has seized her attention-and she alone is ideally placed to make a chilling connection among the seemingly unrelated events. At the crime scene, at the morgue, and in the lab, Tempe probes a mystery that sweeps from a deadly Quebec fire to startling discoveries in the Carolina's, and culminates in Montreal with a terrifying showdown-a nerve-shattering test of her affinities for both science and survival.

Deja Dead by Kathy Reichs

This book is from the library. I had a lot of fun reading it. Which is why I am having to read a lot more in this series as you will see coming up. I won't post a picture of the book cover as it is nothing special.

I love the television show BONES and have watched the first and second season. I am waiting for the third season to come out on DVD. I didn't realize that the television show was very loosely inspired by the books. I just happened to be browsing the library shelves and came upon this book whose main heroine is Temperance Brennan. My eyes about bugged out. Other than the name being the same in the show and the book the two are very different. Which makes me very happy so I can enjoy both.

When reading this book there were a couple of sections where I about went crazy reading as there was so much tension. I wanted to put the book down or skip ahead. For me that was some major long tension. I don't think most books succeed in making the mood so edge of the seat gripping.

In the year since Tempe left behind a shaky marriage in North Carolina, work had often preempted her weekend plans to explore Quebec. But when an unidentified female corpse is discovered meticulously dismembered and stashed in garbage bags, Tempe detects an alarming pattern within the grisly handiwork-and she plunges into a harrowing search for a killer in the city's winding streets. With little help from the police, Tempe calls on her expertise, honed in the isolated intensity of the autopsy suite. But her investigation is about to place those closest to her-her best friend and her own daughter-in mortal danger...

The Paladin by C.J. Cherryh

My Dad is big into Sci Fi and kept going on about how he loved this book. He was sure I needed to read it and brought it out. While this book is not Sci Fi (which he thought it was at first) it is fantasy. Though very tame in that. Mostly it just reads like a normal fiction book. While I was reading this book I had conflicting notions. It was eye rolling sometimes and a little romancish but other times it was very interesting and fun to read. What it really reminded me of was the book The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley. I would pick that book over this one any day. All in all I did have a fun time reading the book and raced through it. Though I did have to raise my eyebrows in surprise. While my Dad did recommend this book to me, it did have some sex in it. I wasn't expecting that.

I will see about posting a picture later. I gave the book back to my Dad before I remembered to take a picture of the cover art.

Once the bravest master of the sword his kingdom had ever known, the warrior known as Saukendar is now a mountain hermit. Betrayed by the Emperor he once protected, Saukendar has left the way of the sword behind him forever-along with everything else he has ever known.

Or so he thinks. For when a headstrong peasant girl burning to avenge her murdered family demands that he train her, Saukendar is faced with a momentous choice. He can send Taizu away, never to see her again...

...or he can join her and destroy the tyrant who has nearly destroyed them both!

Brethren by Robyn Young

This book was from Borders also. I wasn't sure what to expect but I rather liked it. The book was slow but I found it fascinating reading a story that took place in a different time period. I felt like it's writing was believable in making the time period come alive. I'm trying to think of something more to say about it but nothing comes to mind. (I am writing this a month later even though I post dated the post. I will blame that on not having the freshest memory.) I would read another book by the author.

On the eve of the last crusade, two men's destinies will come together as two great civilizations go to war. Amidst conspiracy and intrigue in Europe, Will Campbell, a young knight, risks his life to recover the stolen Book of the Grail. Hidden within its pages are the heretical plans of a secret society within the Knights Templar. Meanwhile, the former slave Baybars Bundukdari and his army have taken over Egypt and Syria, and are planning a new Holy War to bring the Crusaders to their knees.

The Fiction Class by Susan Breen

This is another book picked up cheap at Borders. I was trying to find something that departs from my usual interest in book reading. So while this book had no adventure and historical qualities that I am drawn to repeatedly, it had something else. A very good story. I felt emotions that make you know you have read a book that involved you. Like frustration, happiness, crying, surprise, and satisfaction.

I loved this book. It kept me drawn to it as I learned more about all the characters, commiseration of dealing with a difficult person, and of course the ever present love interest. Sorry, but you just have to have some sort of love story! While the love interest does not over power the main story thread I was happy to see one in the book. Mostly I think because I wasn't really expecting one from the back cover.

On paper, Arabella Hicks is more than qualified to teach a weekly fiction class on New York's Upper West Side: She's an author herself; she's passionate about books; she's even named after the heroine in a Georgette Heyer novel.

So why do her students seem so difficult? And why can't she find an ending to the novel she has been working on for seven years? Arabella's beginning to suspect that it's all because her mother, Vera Hicks, is driving her insane. After each class, she goes to see Vera in a nursing home outside the city. Every visit turns into an argument. Arabella can't figure out how to make peace, until one day she discovers something surprising: Her mother wants to be a writer.

Slowly, cautiously, Arabella begins to teach her, and as the lessons progress along with her class, Arabella discovers that it is she who has a lot to learn about writing, and about love.

Flashman And The Mountain Of Light by George MacDonald Fraser

First off I should mention that I did not buy this book off eBay. But I am going to include it on my list of books that I have read for the year. That and I got it on a fantastic sale at Borders. So it's almost like buying it used.

Flashy is a bit of a coward mixed in with a cocky James Bond womanizer. The whole book kept an humorous tone which was rather funny. Thankfully when he was 'rogering' some female it was kept rather silly and non to detailed. I liked the history put in the book. There were three appendixes and fifty-six side notes. And even though there was all that added information it did not at all feel like a history book. Not that Flashy was ever a real person. After reading this book I would love to read The Pyrates written by the same author. Or even some more of the Flashman series would be okay.

History's most unheroic hero, Harry Flashman, is back. In this latest adventure, Flashy deals with a ravishing maharani and her equally sex-hungry maid, joins forces with an American adventurer with royal ambitions, and attempts to win the brightest jewel in England's imperial crown at the cost of something he will never miss-namely, his honor.

Lover's Knot by Janet Templeton

Okay this book was way better then the previous two that I had read. But having just read it, I still didn't come away with an excitement about having found a new favorite book. I want another one of those books to read.

When Honoria Wayneflete discovered that her younger sister had been slandered by Lord Denby, she was determined to get even.

What the handsome rake could hope to gain by this scurrilous tale Honoria could not understand. But what Honoria really couldn't understand was the way she was beginning to feel about her enemy. Not like an enemy at all. She struggled with her feelings-and a tempestuous relationship caught them both up in its toils.