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Rach's 2010 Reads


rach.at.the.disco

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24. Do You Come Here Often

Alexandra Potter

 

Synopsis from Waterstones:

What becomes of the broken-hearted? She was only a teenager when she first had her heart broken. But since then Grace Fairley has moved on. In fact, she's moved in too -- with Spencer, who is handsome, reliable and wants to marry her. Or does he? It's been a while since she's even heard mention of their wedding day...You give love a bad name Jimi Malik has moved on too. Unlike Grace though, his wedding day to Kylie is just around the corner. They've only just met, but he knows he's found the one for him. Or has he? Because when he skips out of his own stag do and bumps into his ex, Grace, something suddenly doesn't feel right. More than a feeling? It looks like there might be something wonderful between them. But is it worth risking their new-found friendship for? One thing is for sure - as the radio plays its late-night love songs, one girl is about to find out that the best lines can actually be the ones you write yourself...A romantic comedy that looks at being single again, finding true love and how it can all get very, very complicated...

 

Started: 20th March - Finished: 22nd March

440 pages

Rating: 7/10

Edited by rach.at.the.disco
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25. Mercy

Jodi Picoult

 

Synopsis from Waterstones:

Cameron MacDonald has spent his life guided by duty. As the police chief of a small Massachusetts town that has been home to generations of his Scottish clan, he is bound to the town's residents by blood and honor. Yet when his cousin Jamie arrives at the police station with the body of his wife and the bald confession that he's killed her, Cam immediately places him under arrest. The situation isn't as clear to Cam's wife, Allie. While she is devoted to her husband, she finds herself siding against Cam, seduced by the picture James paints of a man so in love with a woman that he'd grant all her wishes ...even the one that meant taking her life. Into this charged atmosphere drifts Mia, a new assistant at Allie's floral shop, for whom Cam feels an instant and inexplicable attraction. While he aids the prosecution in preparing the case against Jamie, who killed his terminally ill wife out of mercy, Cam finds himself betraying his own wife.

 

Started: 22nd March - Finished: 29th March

449 pages

Rating: 8/10

Edited by rach.at.the.disco
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26. The Girl Next Door

Elizabeth Noble

 

Synopsis from Waterstones:

What makes a house a home? For Eve Gallagher, home is miles away in England since she and her husband relocated to an apartment building on New York's Upper East Side. And life isn't remotely coming up roses. What makes a neighbour a friend? Violet has lived in the building for decades but she's always kept herself apart, until Eve's loneliness touches her heart and friendship blossoms. What makes a wife a lover? Jason Kramer in Apartment 6A is no longer sure he loves his wife, but he's head-over-heels for Rachael Schulman in 6B. What makes the girl next door the woman of your dreams? Meeting Emily Mikanowski from 3A turns Trip Grayling's world upside down. It's love at first sight, but he needs help from Charlotte, the shy romance addict in 2A, if he's going to win the girl. Dreams come true, hearts are broken and no one is left unchanged when the secrets and desires hidden behind closed doors are finally brought into the light.

 

Started: 30th March - Finished: 2nd April

451 pages

Rating: 7.5/10

Edited by rach.at.the.disco
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27. Going It Alone

Clare Dowling

 

Synopsis from Waterstones:

Millie's biological clock has been ticking for some time, and on the eve of her fortieth birthday the alarm bell starts ringing. She needs to have a baby and fast, but after months of fruitless trying, her husband Andrew is feeling like a walking sperm bank and their marriage is in crisis. Matters come to a head when Andrew's job relocates to London and Millie decides that if he won't stick around to get her pregnant, then she'll do it without him. Setting her sights on Spain, Millie embarks on a voyage of discovery ...

 

Started: 3rd April - Finished: 6th April

438 pages

Rating: 7/10

Edited by rach.at.the.disco
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28. The House At Riverton

Kate Morton

 

Synopsis from Waterstones:

Summer 1924: On the eve of a glittering Society party, by the lake of a grand English country house, a young poet takes his life. The only witnesses, sisters Hannah and Emmeline Hartford, will never speak to each other again.

Winter 1999: Grace Bradley, 98, one-time housemaid of Riverton Manor, is visited by a young director making a film about the poet's suicide. Ghosts awaken and memories, long-consigned to the dark reaches of Grace's mind, begin to sneak back through the cracks. A shocking secret threatens to emerge; something history has forgotten but Grace never could.

 

Started: 6th April - Finished: 14th April

593 pages

Rating: 8.5/10

Edited by rach.at.the.disco
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29. The Best Of Times

Penny Vincenzi

 

Synopsis from play.com:

Jonathan, the successful, charismatic surgeon returning from a liaison with his mistress Abi. His wife thinks he's somewhere else.

Georgia, the young actress desperate to get to London for an audition for the part that could make her career; and Linda, her agent, dynamic, ambitious-but lonely, and with a failed marriage behind her.

Toby, the bridegroom with a dark secret on the way to his wedding, with his loyal best friend Barney.

Mary, travelling to the airport to meet her first love, whom she hasn't seen in over fifty years; William, the farmer who watches the drama unfold across the hill; and Emma, the engaging young surgeon at the nearest hospital.

One heartbeat in time, and all their lives will be totally transformed. But is it for the worst, or can it be for the best? In the tense, dramatic fall-out, mysteries are created, lives are torn apart, love affairs ended - and ignited. In the aftermath of the crash, urgent questions must be answered: Who was to blame? Who was the girl seen running away from the site of the accident? And can there be any escape from the relentless power of fate?

 

Started: 16th April - Finished: 24th April

880 pages

Rating: 7/10

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30. Vanishing Acts

Jodi Picoult

 

Synopsis from Waterstones:

Delia Hopkins has led a charmed life. Raised in rural New Hampshire by her widowed father Andrew, she now has a young daughter, a handsome fianc, and her own Search and Rescue bloodhound - which she uses to find missing persons. But as she plans her wedding, she is plagued by flashbacks of a life she can't recall. Then a policeman shows up at her door, arresting her father for the kidnap of a little girl. And Delia's past and present fracture into little pieces

 

Started: 25th April - Finished: 29th April

417 pages

Rating: 8/10

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31. The Echo

Minette Walters

 

Synopsis from Waterstones:

'It was the smell that Mrs Powell noticed first. Slightly sweet. Slightly unpleasant. It shocked her badly to find a dead man in the corner, his head slumped on his knees.' Who was Billy Blake, other than a homeless alcoholic who wandered the streets? Why was he found dead from starvation in one of the richest areas of one of the richest capitals in the world? And why did he die alone in the garage of wealthy architect Amanda Powell - a woman whose wealth can only be explained if her husband is dead ...?

 

Started: 30th April - Finished: 5th May

428 pages

Rating: 7/10

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I have read quite a lot of Jodi Picoult, but not that one (Vanishing Acts) yet. I like the sound of the storyline, rach, and your 8/10 means I will probably buy it soon! :D

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I have read quite a lot of Jodi Picoult, but not that one (Vanishing Acts) yet. I like the sound of the storyline, rach, and your 8/10 means I will probably buy it soon! :D

 

It's took me a while to pick this up off my bookshelf but I'm glad I did! I love pretty much anything she writes - apart from maybe The Tenth Circle. I've read that this is some people's least favourite book but I really enjoyed it. I hope you get to read it :irked:.

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32. Bloodstream

Tess Gerritsen

 

Synopsis from Waterstones:

In April came the rains. In August came the heat. In November came the horror. It's paying a return visit. Lapped by the gentle waters of Locust Lake, the small resort town of Tranquility, Maine, seems like the perfect spot for Dr Claire Elliot to shelter her adolescent son, Noah, from the temptations of the big city and the lingering memory of his father's death. And she's hopeful that she can earn the trust of the town as she builds a new practice. But all her plans unravel with the onset of winter when a rash of teenage violence, far more deadly than anything she'd encountered in the city, erupts in the local school. As she tries to find a medical explanation for this murderous epidemic, Claire stumbles upon an insidious evil which has blighted the town's past and threatens its future. Fearful that Noah, too, is at risk, she must race to prove her theory before everything she loves is destroyed.

 

Started: 6th May - Finished: 9th May

484 pages

Rating: 7/10

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33. Julie and Julia

Julie Powell

 

Synopsis from Waterstones:

Trapped in a boring job and living in a tiny apartment in New York, Julie Powell regularly finds herself weeping on the way home from work. Then one night, through her mascara-smudged eyes, Julie notices that the few items she's grabbed from the Korean grocery store are the very ingredients for Potage Parmentier, as described in Julia Childs' legendary cookbook, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking". And The Project is born. Julie begins to cook - every one of the 524 recipes in the book, in the space of just one year. This is Julie's story, as gradually, from oeufs en cocotte to bifstek saute au beurre, from 'Bitch Rice' to preparing live lobsters, she realises that this deranged project is changing her life. The richness of the thousands of sauces she slaves over is beginning to spread into her life, and she begins to find the joie de vivre that has been missing for too many years.

 

Started: 10th May

Finished: 13th May

307 pages

Rating: 6.5/10

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34. Precious

Sapphire

 

Synopsis from Waterstones:

This is the story of Precious Jones, a sixteen year old illiterate black girl who has never been out of Harlem. She is pregnant by her own father for the second time, and kicked out of school when that pregnancy becomes obvious. Placed in an alternative teaching programme, she is urged to write down her thoughts in a book. This is Precious' diary, in which she honestly records her relationships and her life.

 

Started: 14th May

Finished: 14th May

178 pages

Rating: 7/10

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35. A Thousand Splendid Suns

Khaled Hosseini

 

Synopsis from Waterstones:

Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry Rasheed. Nearly two decades later, a friendship grows between Mariam and a local teenager, Laila, as strong as the ties between mother and daughter. When the Taliban take over, life becomes a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear. Yet love can move a person to act in unexpected ways, and lead them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with a startling heroism.

 

Started: 17th May

Finished: 20th May

402 pages

Rating: 7/10

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36. The Meloncholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories

Tim Burton

 

Synopsis from Waterstones:

Twenty-three illustrated gothic tales from the dark corridors of the imagination of the creative genius behind Batman, Edward Scissorhands and Big Fish. Burton's lovingly lurid illustrations evoke both the sweetness and tragedy of a cast of gruesomely sympathetic children - hopeful, yet hapless beings.

 

Started: 25th May

Finished: 25th May

113 pages

Rating: 7.5/10

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37. Things I Wish I'd Known

Linda Green

 

Synopsis from Waterstones:

Remember when life revolved around what top to wear? Let Linda Green take you on a hilarious, romantic and touching journey back to your teenage years...When Claire Cooper was 15 she'd swear on her Wham! album that: Big hair and rah-rah skirts were here to stay; Spandau Ballet would never split up; She would marry her idol, heart-throb footballer Andy Pailes. Fast forward 20 years and things haven't gone quite to plan. And when Claire discovers the 'dream list' she wrote as a teenager, she realises how far removed her life is from the one she'd imagined. Divorced, stuck in a dead-end job and dating an ambulance-chasing personal injury lawyer, she decides it's time to put her life back on track. But what really happened between Claire and her teen idol all those years ago? And is meeting him again the way to make her dreams come true? Or a huge mistake?

 

Started: 30th May

Finished: 31st May

470 pages

Rating: 7/10

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38. The Tiger's Child

Torey Hayden

 

Synopsis from Waterstones:

Torey Hayden returns with this deeply-moving sequel to her first book, One Child (the Sunday Times bestseller). After seven years, Torey is reunited with Sheila, the disturbed 6-year-old she tried to rescue. Sheila was a deeply disturbed six-year-old when she came into Torey Hayden's life -- a story poignantly chronicled One Child. The Tiger's Child picks up the story seven years later. Hayden has lost touch with the child she helped to free from a hellish inner prison of rage and silence. But now Sheila is back, now a gangly teenager with bright orange hair -- no longer broken and lost, but still troubled and searching for answers. This story of dedication and caring that began in childhood moves into a new and extraordinary chapter that tests the strength and heart of both Sheila and her one-time teacher. In The Tiger's Child the skilled and loving educator answers the call once again to help a child in need through her difficult yet glorious transition into young womanhood.

 

Started: 31st May

Finished: 2nd June

359 pages

Rating: 7/10

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39. The Good, The Bad and The Dumped

Jenny Colgan

 

Synopsis from Waterstones:

Now, you obviously, would never, ever look up your exes on Facebook. Nooo. And even if you did, you most certainly wouldn't run off trying to track them down, risking your job, family and happiness in the process. Posy Fairweather, on the other hand...Posy is delighted when Matt proposes - on top of a mountain, in a gale, in full-on romantic mode. But a few days later disaster strikes: he backs out of the engagement. Crushed and humiliated, Posy starts thinking. Why has her love life always ended in total disaster? Determined to discover how she got to this point, Posy resolves to get online and track down her exes. Can she learn from past mistakes? And what if she has let Mr Right slip through her fingers on the way?

 

Started: 2nd June

Finished: 5th June

340 pages

Rating: 7/10

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40. Silent Boy

Torey Hayden

 

Synopsis from Waterstones:

When special education teacher Torey Hayden first met fifteen-year-old Kevin, he was barricaded under a table. Desperately afraid of the world around him, he hadn't spoken a word in eight years. He was considered hopeless, incurable. But Hayden refused to believe it, though she realised it might well take a miracle to break through the walls he had built around himself. With unwavering devotion and gentle, patient love, she set out to free him -- and slowly uncovered a shocking violent history and a terrible secret that an unfeeling bureaucracy had simply filed away and forgotten. Torey refused to give up on this tragic "lost case." For a trapped and frightened boy desperately needed her help -- and she knew in her heart she could not rest easy until she had rescued him from the darkness.

 

Started: 5th June

Finished: 8th June

425 pages

Rating: 7/10

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41. Lucy In The Sky

Paige Toon

 

Synopsis from Waterstones:

Settling down for a 24-hour flight to Australia, Lucy finds a text message on her phone - not from her boyfriend James, as she fondly hopes, but from a woman claiming to have slept with him four times in the past month. Trapped on the plane, she questions everything about her relationship with James. She finally calls him and he reassures her: it was only his mates playing a silly joke. James is a lawyer, persuasive and gorgeous and Lucy adores him. So why, at the wedding in Sydney of her best friend Molly, does she have niggling doubts, and find herself attracted to Molly's brother-in-law Nathan? The sooner she gets back to her regular life in London, the flat she shares with James, her job in PR, the better. Nathan is a happy-go-lucky surfer boy, with no prospects, no place to live, an almost-girlfriend in tow. And the other side of the world...Lucy - a girl caught between two distant continents - and two very different men...

 

Started: 9th June

Finished: 12th June

387 pages

Rating: 7/10

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