Book Review Thursday - 7/25

Be sure to check out the 2,000th post giveaway! Free quilting!! There's still time to enter!

Sorry that I have missed the last couple of weeks of reviews. But they are back!

Blind Descent is part of the Anna Pigeon series by Nevada Barr. The books all take place in different National Parks and the scenery and park settings are just as much characters in the books as the people.

Anna has been called in (or she may have volunteered) to help at New Mexico's Carlsbad Cavern Park where someone has had an accident in one of the underground tunnels. It turns out to be someone that she has worked with in her home park and, when she gets down to the injured party, she learns that it wasn't an accident. And we also learn that Anna is scared of confined spaces so being underground and almost 24 hours away from open air is not so great.

Barr is a wonderful story teller and she takes the time to explain the settings while action is occurring. I have to say that there were many times throughout the book where my heart was pounding because of the descriptions of the action. The series is great for mystery lovers who don't like a lot of gore.

love water memory by Jennie Shortridge was another recommendation from my local library. The story opens on a woman standing in the San Francisco Bay up to her knees and she is confused and doesn't know why or how she got there. After spending a few days in an institution, she is told that her name is Lucie and her fiance Grady is coming to pick her up and take her to their home in Seattle.

It's interesting to see Lucie and Grady both suffer through this experience. Lucie is definitely a different person than she had been, but she doesn't understand why she no longer speaks to her aunt. Grady was just realizing that he didn't know if he wanted to marry Lucie anymore, but he is keeping secrets from her that could aid in her getting her memory back.

I have sometimes wondered about people with memory loss and what their experience is with the loss and this book does a great job of explaining the loss and adjustment from Lucie's point of view. And the whole story of Lucie's past is unraveled bit by bit and it explains a lot of what happened and why it happened. It was a pretty good book.

I have also read Wedding Night by Sophie Kinsella. Kinsella is a master at hysterical situations! Lottie is expecting a proposal from her long time boyfriend during a 'very important' lunch date and he seems mortified when she jumps to the conclusion so she breaks up with him. In a fit of desperation, she accepts a proposal from an old boyfriend from her gap year that she spent on the island of Ikonos and the couple decide to honeymoon back on the island.

Unfortunately for Lottie, her sister Fliss has other plans. While trying to settle her own divorce, Fliss's lawyer gives her the idea that the best way to end a marriage is annulment by way of not consummating said marriage. Fliss then uses every trick up her sleeve to try and prevent Lottie from having sex on her honeymoon. And the hilarity ensues!

Kinsella is a fantastic author and if you have never read any of her books, this would be a fantastic one to start with! She wrote the Shopaholic series that I adore and most, if not all, of her books make me laugh out loud while reading. Great beach read!