Body Work by Fiona Brand

First sentence:

"Throat tight with panic, ten-year-old Etienne Dexter launched himself off the veranda, bare feet thudding on sun-hot dirt, kicking up dust as he ran."

Description:

"Someone wants her dead and she can't remember why...

As a child, Jane Gale witnessed her mother's murder and was nearly killed in trying to escape. Left for dead, she has suffered complete memory loss, unable to recall who she was before the "accident" or the events that caused her mother's death. Twenty-five years later, Jane has a new life and a blossoming career as a novelist -- until the killer picks up her book and discovers that the only eyewitness to his secrets has survived. And told.

Oblivious to the fact that she has attracted the murderer back into her life, Jane has no idea where the inspiration for her bestseller came from. But she has a photograph that leads her back to Louisiana, to a place she knows but can't remember -- and to a stranger she wants to trust. Because somehow he is a link to her past . . . and her only chance of staying alive." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

I enjoyed this thriller. I liked how Jane gradually learned that the book she wrote was based on forgotten memories and how she learned to face her enemy.

Date read: 11/15/2010
Book #: 51
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: Thriller

ISBN-10: 0778322890
ISBN-13: 9780778322894
Publisher: Mira
# of pages: 377
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
LibraryThing page

Hurry Down Sunshine by Michael Greenberg

First sentence:

On July 5, 1996, my daughter was struck mad.

Description:

"Hurry Down Sunshine tells the story of the extraordinary summer when, at the age of fifteen, Michael Greenberg's daughter was struck mad. It began with Sally's sudden visionary crack-up on the streets of Greenwich Village, and continues, among other places , in the out-of-time world of a Manhattan psychiatric ward during the city's most sweltering months. 'I feel like I'm traveling and traveling with nowhere to go back to,' Sally says in a burst of lucidity while hurtling away toward some place her father could not dream of or imagine. Hurry Down Sunshine is the chronicle of that journey, and its effect on Sally and those closest to her--her mother and stepmother, her brother and grandmother, and, not least of all, the author himself." -- from the inside flap

My thoughts:

This was an interesting book about how mental illness affects a family. I liked how Sally's parents struggled to understand what's happening.

Date read: 11/14/2010
Book #: 50
Rating: 3*/5
Genre: Memoir

ISBN-10: 1590511913
ISBN-13: 9781590511916
Publisher: Other Press
Year: 2oo8
# of pages: 233
Binding: Hardcover
LibraryThing page

TBR Challenge 2010!

It's time for me to post my list of books for the TBR Challenge 0f 2010! I selected 12 books for the challenge plus 12 alternates/extra credits.

Here they are (in no particular order):

• Damien Broderick. Matilda at the Speed of Light -- finished 1/6/2010 (substitute for The Knight of the Black Rose)
  
• Thomas Tryon. The Other -- finished 1/23/2010
• Iris Johansen. Final Target -- finished 1/26/2010
• Jincy Willett. Winner of the National Book Award -- finished 3/2/2010
• Ana Castillo. Peel My Love Like an Onion -- finished 4/14/2010
• David Wise. The Children's Game -- finished 4/27/2010
  
• Whitley Streiber. The Forbidden Zone -- finished 5/3/2010
  
• Eoin Colfer. The Wish List -- finished 5/5/2010 (substitute for All Tomorrow's Parties)
  
• Terry Brooks. The Sword of Shannara -- finished 5/22/2010
• Lorenza Caracaterra. Sleepers -- finished 6/5/2010 (substitute for Chosen Prey)
  
• David G. Hartwell. Year's Best Fantasy -- finished 6/30/2010
• Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. Reliquary -- finished 7/21/2010 (substitute for The Dimension Riders)
  

Alternates/Extra Credit:

• Iain Banks. Excession -- read 11/7/2010
• Robert Tine. Desperate Measures
• Frederick Forsyth. Icon
• Douglas Clegg. Dark of the Eye
• Carl Hiassen. Native Tongue
• Michael Bishop. Unicorn Mountain
  
• John Ramsey Miller. Upside Down
• Michael Reaves. The Shattered World

Excession by Iain Banks

First sentence:

"A little more than one hundred days into the fortieth year of her confinement, Dajeil Gelian was visited in her lonely tower overlooking the sea by an avatar of the great ship that was her home."

Description:

"Diplomat Byr Genar-Hofoen has been selected by the Culture to undertake a delicate and dangerous mission. The Department of Special Circumstances--the Culture's espionage and dirty tricks section--has sent him off to investigate a 2,500-year-old mystery: the sudden disappearance of a star fifty times older than the universe itself. But in seeking the secret of the lost son, Byr risks losing himself. There is only one way to break the silence of millennia: steal the soul of the long-dead starship captain who first encountered the star, and convince her to be reborn. And in accepting this mission, Byr will be swept into a vast conspiracy that could lead the universe into an age of peace. . .or to the brink of annihilation." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

I liked this book, but I think I would have liked it more if I had read the earlier books in the series first. I found myself wondering what was going on and who the characters were, and it wasn't until I was halfway through when I realized that it was part of a series. I look forward to reading the earlier books starting with Consider Phlebas.

Date read: 11/7/2010
Book #: 49
Series: The Culture, #5
Challenges: Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge, TBR Challenge 2010
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: SF

ISBN-10: 0553575376
ISBN-13: 9780553575378
Publisher: Bantam Spectra
Year: 1996
# of pages: 499
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
LibraryThing page

What's in a Name ? 3 Challenge

What's in a Name? 3 Challenge
January 1 - December 3, 2010

Between January 1 and December 31, 2010, I will read one book in each of the following categories:

1. A book with a food in the title: Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris -- finished 3/6/2010
   
2. A book with a body of water in the title: Cane River by Lalita Tademy -- finished 10/25/2010
   
3. A book with a title (queen, president) in the title: The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin -- finished 2/26/2010
   
4. A book with a plant in the title: The Wood Wife by Terri Windling -- finished 3/2/2010
   
5. A book with a place name (city, country) in the title: The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad -- finished 2/16/2010
   
6. A book with a music term in the title: The Mapmaker's Opera by Béa Gonzalez -- finished 1/17/2010
   

Cane River by Lalilta Tademy

First sentence:

"On the morning of her ninth birthday, the day after Madame Francoise Derbanne slapped her, Suzette peed on the rosebushes."

Description:

"Ladita Tademy had always been intensely interested in her family's stories, especially ones about her great-grandmother Emily, a formidable figure who died with her life's savings hidden in her mattress. Probing deeper for her family's roots, Tademy soon found herself swept up in an obsessive two-year odyssey--and leaving her corporate career for the little Louisiana farming community of...Cane River. It was here, on a medium-sized Creole plantation owned by a family named Derbanne, that author Lalita Tademy found her family's roots--and the stories of four astonishing women whose lives began in slavery, who weathered the Civil War, and who grappled with the contradictions of emancipation through the turbulent early years of the twentieth century. Through it all, they fought to unite their family and forge success on their own terms.

Here amid small farmhouses and a tightly knit community of French-speaking slaves, free people of color, and whites, Tademy's great-great-great-great-grandmother Elisabeth would bear both a proud heritage and the yoke of slavery. Her youngest daughter, Suzette, would be the first to discover the promise--and heartbreak--of freedom. Suzette's strong-willed daughter Philomene would use determination born of tragedy to reunite her family and gain unheard of economic independence. And Emily, Philomene's spirited daughter, would fight to secure her children's just due and preserve their future against dangerous odds.

In a novel that combines painstaking historical reconstruction with unforgettable storytelling, Lalita Tademy presents an all too rarely seen part of American history, complete with a provocative portrayal of the complex, unspoken bonds between slaves and slave owners.Most of all, she gives us the saga of real, flesh-and-blood women, making hard choices in the face of unimaginable loss, securing their identity and independence in order to face any obstacle, and inspiring all the generations to come.' -- from the inside flap

My thoughts:

I liked this book about Tademy's ancestors and their struggles in the 19th and early 20th century. I especially liked the way she inserted images of newspaper accounts, slave auction lists, and census records. I would read these documents just after reading the fictional account and would connect the names to the characters, making them more "alive." I look forward to reading the sequel, Red River.

Date read: 10/25/2010
Book #: 48
Challenge: What's in a Name? 3 Challenge
Series: Tademy Family Chronicles, #1
Rating: 4*/5 = great
Genre: Historical Fiction

ISBN-10: 0446530522
ISBN-13: 978044653952?
Publisher: Warner Books
Year: 2001
# of pages: 416
Binding: Hardcover
LibraryThing page

Psi Hunt by Michael Kurland

First sentence:

"The Plaza DiLauria Complex, the World's largest hotel and convention center, was stuffed from the eighth subcellar to the rotating observation platform this Power Day weekend."

Description:

"Astral Emprise sold metaphysics, mysticism, paranormal phenomena, astrology lessons--and anything else that Believers were willing to spend a dollar on.

Not the kind of operation the U.S. Navy was used to dealing with.

Until the People's Republic of China decided that it could blow up half the United States with five telepathic kids who spent their days watching grade-B war movies in an L.A. theater.

And Lieutenant Junior Grade Robert Burrows was assigned to call their bluff. . ." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

This was a good mix of science fiction and adventure. I liked how Burrows and Friendly bluffed their way into the enemy's headquarters.

Date read: 9/1/2010
Book #: 47
Challenge: Speculative Fiction Reading Challenge
Rating: 3*/5 = good
Genre: SF

ISBN-10: 0425046648
ISBN-13: 9780425046647
Publisher: Berkley
Year: 1980
# of pages:
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
LibraryThing page