aromaannie

James Patterson - Step on a Crack The scene is set for a huge funeral in St Patricks Cathedral inNew York. The rich and the famous from all over America and beyond have arrived to honour a former First Lady after her sudden, unexpected death. Then follows an attack that was three years in the planning. Hostages are taken the ex-President among them ransoms demanded, a couple of hostages shot to show the kidnappers mean business. Its all brilliantly and chillingly co-ordinated, and Michael Bennett, the detective in charge of the case, knows it will be his biggest ever challenge. You know what you're going to get on the whole with a JP novel - short chapters with plenty of pace and generally a plot that maybe you shouldn't look to closely at ........ and that is why I love his books! This is a new co-author and a new character for him, both of them I am looking forward to seeing more of. 8/10 Books read this year = 43 Drop Dead Beautiful - Jackie Collins From Miami to Beverly Hills, from Mexico City, Acapulco and Las Vegas, LUCKY SANTANGELO is back! And so is the illegitimate son ANTHONY BONAR, of her one time Godfather and lethal enemy, ENZIO BONNATI. Lucky is preparing for the opening of her new multi-billion dollar hotel complex in Las Vegas, The Keys. But Anthony Bonar - drug lord and vicious killer - is out to stop her in any way he can. Meanwhile, MAX, Lucky's wild 16-year-old daughter, has run off to hook up with a man she met on the Internet. Instead of the gorgeous guy she thought she'd be meeting, he turns out to be an obsessed rich psycho with a deep-seated grudge against Lucky. And so the lethal games begin... I haven't read a JC's book for around 15 years and with all the reunions currently going on (Take That/Boyzone etc) I thought maybe it was time I reunited with an old favourite author of mine. It features a number of characters that have been introduced in previous novels and with a few reference's made to their past adventures I was soon caught up in thier latest scandals. This is an ideal holiday/beach read and for a while I felt 20 again!! 8/10 Books read this year = 44 Martin Jol:The Inside Story by Harry Harris NON FICTION A friend gave this to me along with 2 other sporting biographies and not being a huge sports fan I wasn't particularly excited. Having said that until 4 years ago I did have a season ticket for Spurs so this book did have some relevance. At times I really had to put my head down & plough my way though it. There were far too many match reports for my liking and not really much of interest from his early career as a player. The parts that were very interesting were with regard to his so called 'run ins' with players & the board and his eventual sacking. As a side issue I don't think I have read a book with so many spelling and gramatical errors (please don't start looking for mine ). With on average at least one a page and very simple things such as and being spelt nad I was shocked that the book actually got published in that state. 6/10 Books read this year = 45 The Crime Trade - Simon Kernick When Operation Surgical Strike, a police sting designed to catch Colombian drug traffickers in the act of selling a large consignment of cocaine to undercover police officers in a Heathrow hotel, goes horribly wrong, suspicion quickly falls on one of the officers involved: 'Stegs' Jenner. But Stegs is no ordinary undercover cop. Something of a maverick, with a chequered disciplinary record, he's always lived life on the edge. With his close friend dead in the shoot-out, he now determines to go it alone. Enter DI John Gallan and his partner DS Tina Boyd, part of the Serious Crime Squad investigating the murder of ex-gangster turned informer Slim Robbie O'Brien. Slim Robbie had helped Gallan and Boyd set up the operation and is now dead too, shot with his mother in his council flat in Islington while events at Heathrow were taking place. Meanwhile Stegs Jenner is working to his own agenda, developing a plan he's been thinking about for a long, long time. Revenge, he decides, is a dish best taken very, very cold. But is he the man the police are after? As Gallan, Boyd and DI Asif Malik inch ever nearer to the man responsible for the Heathrow shooting, they uncover a murderous conspiracy that will take them to the heart of one of London's most notorious criminal gangs. What they cannot know is that they've also embarked on a collision path that will lead one of them straight into the rifle sights of the enemy. This is another of my 'new' favourite authors that I am working my way through their older books. They are quite gritty & dark and at times I was losing track of who was who but still enjoyed the read. 8/10 Books read this year = 46

I started to read Twilight Children by Torey Hayden yesterday and as is my usual habit I turned to the back to see how many pages it had. It included a preview of a book which I found a bit strange as it was for Twilight Children also. Anyway having got to the last page it finished mid sentence and I have no idea how much of it I'm missing -there was no summarising so a fair number of pages I imagine. Next came a very frustrating 30 minute phone conversation to an Amazon call centre in India trying to explain the problem and no I couldn't tell them how many pages were meant to be in the book . Aggggghhhhhhh again

I'm at 20 at the mo which I'm quite pleased with

Gutted

You're right I think you would hate it and I was actually thinking that while I was reading it! I'm not very accurate with my scores as I tend to give a book I don't think is that great a 7 and a book I love a 9.5 (never given a 10 yet)and everything else somewhere in between. I think I must learn to be more brutal with my scoring .

The Glamorous (Double) Life of Isabel Bookbinder by Holly McQueen For Isabel Bookbinder, there's no doubt about where she's headed. Reasons to become a bestselling author: Opportunities to swish new Super-hair and captivate the lovely Joe Madison; Prove to father that Really Am Not a Waster; Leave column inch-measuring days at the Saturday Mercury behind Potential setbacks; Don't yet have 'Yoko' bag, as carried by arch rival with book deal, Gina D ...or honed size eight figure (useful for interviews). Am also at the centre of a major political sex scandal - Paparazzi are doorstepping my parents and boring boyfriend Russell. Of course she hasn't yet quite got round to putting pen to paper yet, but Isabel's not one to let a little thing like that stand in her way. I started off really enjoying this book as I fancied some easy 'fluffy' reading after Nineteen Minutes but the pleasure didn't last. Isabel Bookbinder is similar to Bridget Jones but unfortunately not as enjoyable to read. The humour started to wear thin after a while and she is positively stupid and not half as endearing as Bridget Jones. This could have been a great beach read and it did make me smile at times but ultimately I just got a bit bored by the repetitive style of humour and my frustration at the characters lack of intelligence. 7.5/10 ( I gave it an extra .5 for a promising start!) Books read this year = 42

I've sold 10 books since the rating system came in and only 1 person has bothered to confirm the book has been received & rated me. I could be only nearly 5 stars by now instead of my 3.7:roll:

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult Sterling is a small, ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens -- until a student enters the local high school with an arsenal of guns and starts shooting, changing the lives of everyone inside and out. The daughter of the judge sitting on the case is the state's best witness -- but she can't remember what happened in front of her own eyes. Or can she? Although this is a bit of a brick of a book at nearly 600 pages I finished it within 36 hours of buying it - I just couldn't put it down. In my opinion this is far more 'readable' & enjoyable than 'We Need To Talk About Kevin'. I did however guess the ending fairly early on but that didn't detract from the book in any way. 9/10 Books read this year = 41

I love discovering new authors

Life Support - Tess Gerritsen Control was the word Dr Toby Harper lived by. She strove to keep her life in order, her ER in order. But no one could have been prepared for the man she admits one quiet night to the Springer Hospital. Delirious and in critical condition from a possible viral infection of the brain, he barely responds to treatment. And then he disappears without trace. The subsequent search leads Toby to a second patient with the same infection. And it reveals an unsettling twist - the infection can only be spread through direct tissue exchange. Soon Toby's on a trail that winds from a pregnant sixteen-year-old prostitute to an unexpected tragedy in her own home. Only then does she discover the unthinkable: a terrifying and deadly epidemic is about to be unleashed... TG is fast becoming one of my favourite authors. I have enjoyed every book of hers that I have read and seem to race through them pretty quickly, which is always a good sign for me. 9/10 Books read this year = 40

Diary of an On-call Girl: True Stories from the Front Line by WPC EE Bloggs If crime is the sickness, WPC Ellie Bloggs is the cure... Well, she is when she's not inside the nick, flirting with male officers, buying doughnuts for the sergeant and hacking her way through a jungle of emails, forms and government targets. Of course, in amongst the tea-making, gossip and boyfriend trouble, real work sometimes intrudes. Luckily, as a woman, she can multi-task...switching effortlessly between gobby drunks, angry chavs and the merely bonkers. WPC Bloggs is a real-life policewoman, who occasionally arrests some very naughty people This was an 'okay' read. On the back of the book it says WARNING: Contains satire, irony and traces of sarcasm. In fact it is full of it and I was getting a bit bored of it by the end of the book - maybe it's just not my type of humour. 7/10 Books read this year = 39

Die Trying - Lee Child On a Chicago street in bright sunshine, Jack Reacher, is strolling nowhere and sees an attractive young woman, struggling on crutches. Naturally, he stops to offer her a steadying arm. And then he turns around to see a handgun aimed straight at his stomach. Locked in a dark, stifling van racing across America, chained to the woman, Reacher needs to know why he's there. The kidnappers are saying nothing. The woman claims to be an FBI agent. She's tough enough to be one. But at their remote destination, will raw courage and cunning be enough to overcome the hopeless odds? Full of non-stop action and gritty suspense, "Die Trying" is a tightly plotted thriller starring one of the most exciting action heroes in today's fiction, the redoubtable, romantic, footloose former army cop, Jack Reacher. This is the 2nd book featuring Jack Reacher, I think there are 13 so far? I'm quite enjoying them, my only critisicm is that at 550+ pages they are slightly too long. The book doesn't drag at all but I do prefer my books slightly shorter. 8/10 Books read this year = 38

I'm up to 38 this year so am on target for the 100 I am aiming for.

I think all the girls are really poor this year - the only one I half like is Lucinda and I'm not even convinced by her!

Hush, Little Baby by Shane Dunphy NON FICTION Clive, a thirteen-year-old victim of terrifying demonic visions, tells frightening stories of abuse and imprisonment. Could they be genuine? Patrick, twelve, bravely setting out to find the truth about his birth family - however painful it may be ...Six-year-old Johnny, tiny and undernourished, desperately tries to recover from a brain-injury inflicted by his drunken and violent father ...At fourteen, Katie is so aggressive that the authorities have put her in special care, away from other children. What could be the cause of such fury? I picked up this book as the blurb on the back reminded me of Tory Hayden books. Shane Dunphy is not a special needs teacher like TH but a child protection worker who deals with children in very similar situations to those that TH works with. The book was indeed very similar to TH's and I will be buying his other books seeing as I have practically read everything that TH has written! 8/10 Books read this year = 37

ok then First Harlan Coben (especially his books featuring Myron Bolitar) then I also love books by these authors too Karin Slaughter PJ Tracy Tess Gerritsen Lisa Gardner Ben Elton writes some good books too based on things like X Factor, Big Brother & Friends Reunited That should be enough to get you started

Most of the other books I read are thrillers, have a few of those I could recommend if you're interested in that genre?

Me too! This is only the 3rd I have read. The first I wasn't overly impressed with (The Tenth Circle) but i've really enjoyed the last 2 - My Sisters's Keeper & Perfect Match

This is a non ficton book that might fit into what you want to read A Piece of Cake - Cupcake Brown This is the heart-wrenching true story of a girl named Cupcake and it begins when, aged eleven, she is orphaned and placed in the 'care' of sadistic foster parents. But there comes a point in her preteen years - maybe it's the night she first tries to run away and is exposed to drugs, alcohol, and sex all at once - when Cupcake's story shifts from a tear-jerking tragedy to a dark, deeply disturbing journey through hell. Cupcake learned to survive by turning tricks, downing hard liquor and ingesting every drug she could find while hitchhiking up and down the California coast. At just sixteen, she stumbled into the terrifying world of the gangsta, dealing drugs, hustling and only just surviving a drive-by shooting. But, ironically, it was Cupcake's rapid descent into the nightmare of crack cocaine addiction that finally saved her. After one four-day crack binge she woke up behind a dumpster. Half-dressed and half-dead, she finally realized she had to change her life or die on the streets - another trash-can addict, another sad statistic. Astonishingly, Cupcake turned her life around and this is her brutally frank, startlingly funny story. or what about Train Spotting by Irvine Welsh for a fiction book

Are you after a fiction or non-fiction book?

Perfect Match - Jodi Picoult After years of dealing with abused children and their families and working her damnedest to bring the perpetrators to justice, assistant district attorney Nina Frost takes a while to recognise the signs of abuse in her only child. When five-year-old Nathanial stops speaking and finally, through sign language, identifies his abuser, Nina takes the law into her own hands. And so begins a fast and furious tale of twists and turns--just when you think you

I think the rating may come from the bit that you click on to say you have sent it or the bit that other people click on to say they have received it. I can't think of any other way they could get a rating without buyers input

Has anyone noticed that next to users names there is now a star rating. Any idea how these are calculated? Mine is 3.96 stars from 74 ratings apparently. I have never rated anyone so where do they get this calculation from?