Book: Chasing the Boogeyman

 Book: Chasing the Boogeyman

Author: Richard Chizmar

Pages: 336

This is my 230th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

In the summer of 1988, the mutilated bodies of several missing girls begin to turn up in a small Maryland town.  The grisly evidence leads police to the terrifying assumption that a serial killer is on the loose in the quiet suburb.  But soon a rumor begins to spread that the evil stalking local teens is not entirely human.  Law enforcement, as well as members of the FBI, are certain that the killer is a living, breathing madman - and he's playing games with them.  For a once peaceful community trapped in the depths of paranoia and uspicion, it feels like a nightmare that will never end.  Recent college graduate Richard Chizmar returns to his hometown just as a curfew is enacted and a neigborhood watch is formed.  Amid preparing for his wedding and embarking on a writing career, he soon finds himself thrust into a real-life horror story.  Inspired by the terrifying events, Richard writes a personal acocunt of the serial killer's reign of terror, unaware that these events will continue to haunt him for years to come.  A clever, terrifying, and heartrending work of metafiction, this book is the ultimate marriage between horror fiction and true crime.

This was a great read.  I had to actual google that this was a work of fiction because of the way it was written like true crime.  There are some true parts - Richard did go back to his hometown after college and before he got married.  And he did live in Edgewood Maryland.  There was no Boogeyman, BUT there was a guy who would break into people's houses and watch people sleep in the 1980s in that town, and that is where he got the start of his story.  There are 2 more books in this series, and I am going to read those to see where it ends up.

Stars: 4.5

Book: The Address

 Book: The Address

Author: Fiona Davis

Pages: 368

This is my 229th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

When a chance encounter with Theodore Camden, one of the architects of the grand NY apartment house the Dakota, leads to a job offer for Sara Smythe, her world is suddently awash in possibility - n0 mean feat for a servant in 1884.  The opportunity to move to America.  The opportunity to be the female manager of the Dakota.  And the opportunity to see more of Theo, who understands Sara like no one else - and is living in the Dakota with his wife and three young children.  100 years later, Bailey Camden is desperate for new opportunities: Fresh out of rehab, the former interior designer is homeless, jobless, and penniless.  Bailey's grandfather was the ward of famed architect Theodore Camden, yet Bailey won't see a dime of the Camden family's substantial estate; instead, her "cousin" Melinda - Camden's biological great-granddaughter - will inherit almost everything.  So when Melinda offers to let Bailey oversee the renovation of her lavish Dakota apartment, Bailey jumps at the chance, despite her dislike of Melinda's vision.  The renovation will take away all the character of the apartment Theodore Camden himself lived in -and died in, after suffering multiple stab wounds by a former Dakota employee who had previously spent 7 months in an insane asylum -a madwoman named Sara Smythe.  A century apart, Sara and Bailey are both tempted by and struggle against the golden excess of their respective ages - for Sara, the opulence of a world ruled by the Astors and Vanderbilts; for Bailey the nightlife's free-flowing drinks and cocaine - and take refuge in the Upper West Side's gilded fortress.  But a building with a history as rich, and often as tragic, as the Dakota's can't hold its secrets forever, and what Bailey discovers inside could turn everything she thought she knew about Theodore Camden - and the woman who killed him - on its head.

I have read several of Fiona Davis' books and usually deliver it, but this one missed the mark for me.  I didn't really care for many of the characters, and it was easy to figure out the big secret.  I liked the story - she always uses true to life circumstances to build her historical fiction, and I do like the dual time line of her books.  This one just wasn't as good as some of her others.

Stars: 3 

Book: Hungry Heart

 Book: Hungry Heart

Author: Jennifer Weiner

Pages: 416

This is my 228th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Jennifer Weiner is many things: a bestselling author, a Twitter phenomenon, and an "unlikely feminist enforcer".  She's also a mom, a daughter, and a sister, a clumsy yogini, and a reality-TV devotee.  In this "unflinching look at her own experiences", Jennifer fashions tales of modern-day womanhood as uproariously funny and moving as the best of Nora Ephron and Tina Fey.  No subject is off-limits in these intimate and hoenst essays: sex, weight, envy, money, her mother's coming out of the closet , her estranged father's death.  From lonely adolescence to hearing her 6 year old daughter say the F word - fat - for the first time, Jen dives into the heart of female experiences, with the wit and candor that have endeared her to readers all over the world. 

This was a pretty good book.  I really enjoyed the beginning - delving into her growing up years, her family dynamics, and into when she became a writer.  I also enjoyed the chapters where she talked about how she became comfortable with who she was.  I wish she would have left off the twitter reads - felt that was a bit too long in this book, but otherwise, a solid read.

Stars: 4 

Book: The Exiles

 Book: The Exiles

Author: Christina Baker Kline

Pages: 400

This is my 227th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Though uncertain of what awaits, Evangeline knows one thing: the child she carries will be born on the months-long voyage to this distant land.  During the journey on a repurposed slave ship, the Medea, Evangeline strikes up a friendship with Hazel, a girl little older than her former pupils who was sentenced to 7 years transport for stealing a silver spoon.  Canny where Evangeline is guileless, HAzel - a skilled midwife and herbalist - is soon offering home remedies to both prisoners and sailors in this powerful story of survival.  Though Australia has been home to Aboriginal people for more than 50,000 years, the British government in the 1840s considers its fledgling colony uninhabited and unsettled, and views the natives as an unpleasant nuisance.  By the time the MEdea arrives, many of them have been focibly reloacted, their land seized by white colonist.  one of these relocated people is Mathinna, the orphaned daughter of the Chief of the Lowreenne tribe, who has been adopted by the new governor of Van Diemen's Land.

Book: The Calamity Club

 Book: The Calamity Club

Author: Kathryn Stockett

Pages: 656

This is my 226th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Oxford, Mississippi, 1933.  Abandoned by her mother one Cristmas Eve, 11 year old Meg Lefleur has learned the hard way to rely on no one.  Now one of the unadoptable "big girls" at the Lafayette County Orphan Asylum, she fights each day to keep her spirit unbowed.  Birdie Calhoun, unmarried and outspoken, has come to Oxford to ask her socialite sister to help the struggling family she's left behing.  But as the Depression tightens its grip, Birdie discovers her sister's seemingly charmed life is a tapestry of lies.  Then, Birdie encounters Charlie, a woman running low on luck with little left to lose.  When their fates - and Meg's converge, Charlie comes up with an audacious plan for them to take control of their lives.  But in a place and time where hypocrisy is rife and women's freedom is fragile, even the smallest act of defiance can have dangerous consequences. 

This was a great book.  I listened to it and the audiobook was wonderful.  The narrator did a terrific job.  I loved Meg's chapters the most.  The story flows well, and even though you can see where it is all leading, it s such a sweeping story that it doesn't really matter.  I knocked it a half of a star only because Birdie's sister was awful.  I wish the author would have backed it off just a bit or have Birdie actually get upset with her sister more.  

Stars: 4.5 

Book: A Forsaken Prophecy

 Book: A Forsaken Prophecy

Author: Stacey McEwan

Pages: 480

This is my 225th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

There is war in Belavere Trench.  Nina Harrow and Patrick Colson, the last to wield their magical mediums, are the key to winning that war.  Now prisoners of the ruling Artisans, they've left Patrick's Craftsman rebellion on its last legs.  Patrick might still love Nina, but her lies have gotten them here.  He will find a way out - even if it costs her dealy.  But when whispers of an ancient prophecy arise, they must form a tenuous alliance and race against their enimiest to uneart a secret linked to the very origin of magic.

Stars: 3

Book: Pumpkin Heads

 Book: Pumpkin Heads

Author: Rainbow Rowell

Pages: 224

This is my 224th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Deja and Josiah are seasonal best friends.  Every autumn, all through high school, they've worked together at the best pumpkin patch in the whole wide world.  They say good-bye every Halloween, and they're reunited every September 1.  But this Halloween is different - Josiah and Deja are finally seniors, and this is their last season at the pumpkin patch.  Their last shift together.  Their last good-bye.  Josiah's ready to spend the whole nigh feeling melancholy about it.  Deja isn't ready to let him.  She's got a plan: What if - instead of moping and the usual slinging lima beans down at the Succotash Hut - they went out with a bang?  They could see all the shights!  Taste all the snacks!  And Josiah could finally talk to that cute girl he's been mooning over for 3 years.  What if their last shift was an adventure?

Stars: 4