From a Distance, book #8

Enjoyed my foray into nonfiction, but absolutely LOVED getting back to the pioneers and ANOTHER AMAZING BOOK BY TAMARA ALEXANDER!!!  Just like all her other ones, enough detail to make you feel like you were there, but not enough so that you lose the story line!

What happens when the realization of a dream isn't what you imagined. . . and the secret you've spent a lifetime guarding is finally laid bare?

Determined to become one of the country's premier newspaper photographers, Elizabeth Westbrook travels to the Colorado Territory to capture the grandeur of the mountains surrounding the remote town of Timber Ridge. She hopes, too, that the cool, dry air of Colorado, and its renowned hot springs, will cure the mysterious illness that threatens her career, and her life. Daniel Ranslett, a former Confederate sharpshooter, is a man shackled by his past, and he'll do anything to protect his land, and his solitude. When an outspoken Yankee photographer captures an image that appears key to solving a murder, putting herself in danger, Daniel is called upon to repay a debt. He's a man of his word, but repaying that debt could bring secrets from his past to light. Forced on a perilous journey together, Daniel and Elizabeth's lives intertwine in ways neither could have imagined when first they met . . . from a distance.  (picture and description from Amazon)

Only problem is, this is book 1 in a series of 3.  And I got other books to read!  

Happy Reading!

O:)
Melissa

The Pretender: My Life Undercover for the FBI, book #7

Needless to say, it's been a while since I have read some non-fiction.  I can't help it, I'm a fiction junkie!  But Rebecca brought this book home from school and I knew I had to snag it and read it first.  I do love my pioneers and indians in my books, but I love me some good detective/FBI shows on TV.  

This book was amazing!!!  Marc is an excellent storyteller, mixing in super scary stories with hilarious anecdotes.  It took me a while to plug through it, with everything else going on, but I loved every word in it!!  It's 5 star for me!!

Of all the tools available to law enforcement, the living, breathing undercover operative remains the gold standard. This is true in TV shows and in the real world. In the era of electronic surveillance, UC work enforces accountability; it prevents mistakes, and of all the boots on the ground, undercover agents are often the most valuable.  The FBI generally has about 100 UC agents working full-time in the field. In the 1990s and 2000s, Marc Ruskin had the most diverse, and notorious, case list of all, and the broadest experience within the bureaucracy, including overseas. He worked ops targeting public corruption, corporate fraud, Wall Street scams, narcotics trafficking, La Cosa Nostra, counterfeiting―and gritty street-level scams and schemes.  Sometimes working three or four cases simultaneously, Ruskin switched identities by the day: Each morning he had to walk out the door with the correct ID, clothes, accessories and frame of mind for that day’s mission. Meet Alex Perez, Alejandro Marconi, and Sal Morelli, just a few of Ruskin’s undercover personas. And how is the right UC agent chosen, how is a bogus identity manufactured and “backstopped,” how is the Bureau's long-term con painstakingly assembled? No one has ever given us the inside story like Ruskin. The Pretender is the definitive narrative of undercover ops―the procedures, the successes, the failures--and the changes in the culture of the new-era FBI. (picture and description from Amazon)

So now it is less than one week to Book Club and I haven't even cracked my book!  I gotta get on the ball!


Happy Reading!

O:)
Melissa

The Dance, book #6

After reading last month's Book Club Book, I had to read some more of Dan Walsh.  This one was really good and almost hit a little too close to home.

Jim Anderson is a successful businessman, and his wife, Marilyn, is the perfect wife. And why wouldn't she be? He gives her everything she needs. That's why Jim never expected to come home one day and find Marilyn gone.After 27 years of marriage, Marilyn has had enough of feeling unloved and neglected. She wants to experience some measure of happiness before she's too old to enjoy it, even signing up for dance lessons, something Jim would never do. What will it take for Jim to finally become the man Marilyn needs him to be? (picture and description at Amazon)

Keep reading!  

O:)
Melissa

When Night Comes, book #5

I've only read 5 books in 2019 and it is April?!?  Clearly I need to get on the ball here!

That said, its been a while since I've had a stay-up-all-night-to-finish-a-book-because-I-can't-wait-to-see-what-happens night, but this one did it.  Good writing, good story, slowly released details of plot and did not dump them all at once ... I'd highly recommend it!

Jack Turner comes back to Culpepper to give a series of lectures for his old history professor. Within days, he starts having bizarre experiences at night. Like he’s traveling back in time, experiencing the epic events in his lectures firsthand. He has no control over these experiences and can’t make them stop. Joe Boyd thought he’d left big city crime back in Pittsburgh when he took a detective job in Culpepper, Georgia, a sleepy southern college town. His peaceful life ends when two students turn up dead in two weeks. The coroner is saying natural causes, but something doesn’t add up.  Rachel Cook, a teaching assistant at Culpepper, can’t believe Jack is back in her life again. She’s had a crush on him since she was fourteen, but Jack never knew. He instantly seems attracted to her, but she can tell…something is deeply troubling him.  Watching all this from a distance is Nigel Avery. He’s certain this experiment’s about to unravel. It’ll be his job to tie up all the loose ends when it does. (description and picture at Amazon)

I think I need to now go and find the rest of this series!

O:)
Melissa

The Memory Weaver, book #4

I always love to read Jane Kirkpatrick, but this book was not one of my favorites by a long stretch.  We moped with the main character through 90% of the book before anything good happened, and then BOOM! It was over.  

Eliza Spalding Warren was just a child when she was taken hostage by the Cayuse Indians during a massacre in 1847. Now the young mother of two children, Eliza faces a different kind of dislocation; her impulsive husband wants them to make a new start in another territory, which will mean leaving her beloved home and her departed mother's grave--and returning to the land of her captivity. Eliza longs to know how her mother, an early missionary to the Nez Perce Indians, dealt with the challenges of life with a sometimes difficult husband and with her daughter's captivity. When Eliza is finally given her mother's diary, she is stunned to find that her own memories are not necessarily the whole story of what happened. Can she lay the dark past to rest and move on? Or will her childhood memories always hold her hostage? (photo and description from Amazon)

Here's hoping the next book will be better!

O:)

Melissa

Whispers and Dreams, book #3

At first I thought this book would be hard to read, since it seems to be written in "real time" first person [remember, NOT an english major! :)] but there were only a few clunky parts.  Really cute story.  Light and fun!  Reminds you to chase your dreams.  

Melissa had her whole life planned – the perfect job, the perfect guy, the perfect family, in the perfect town, but as she is preparing to walk the aisle on her wedding day, she can’t ignore the Whisper any longer. As she listens to the Whisper she’s led to a place she never knew existed – a tiny mission church that ministers to a Native American community. There she meets a little girl with a secret and a handsome missionary with a heartbreaking past. Will she continue to follow the Whisper to a strange and exciting, but scary and unpredictable life, or will she wise up and settle for the perfectly plotted comfortable life she thought she always wanted? (picture and description from amazon)

Excited to start our next Book Club, it's back to cowboys, pioneers and indians!!

O:)
Melissa

Brunch at the Bittersweet Cafe, book #2

After finally recovering from the first book of the year, and knowing Book Club was coming up, I was ready to jump into this yummy goodie.

While it was not as quite the same level of intensity as the last one, it was exceptional and kept me on the edge of my seat, especially as it got closer to the end.  I mean, usually in books like this you can pretty much guess how it is going to turn out, but I literally was not sure which way it was going to go!  It was a good ride, all the way to the end!

Baker and pastry chef Melody Johansson has always believed in finding the positive in every situation, but seven years after she moved to Denver, she can’t deny that she’s stuck in a rut. One relationship after another has ended in disaster, and her classical French training is being wasted on her night job in a mediocre chain bakery. Then the charming and handsome private pilot Justin Keller lands on the doorstep of her workplace in a snowstorm, and Melody feels like it’s a sign that her luck is finally turning around. Justin is intrigued by the lively bohemian baker, but the last thing he’s looking for is a relationship. His own romantic failures have proven that the demands of his job are incompatible with meaningful connections, and he’s already pledged his life savings to a new business venture across the country—an island air charter in Florida with his sister and brother-in-law.  Against their better judgment, Melody and Justin find themselves drawn together by their unconventional career choices and shared love of adventure. But when an unexpected windfall provides Melody with the chance to open her dream bakery-café in Denver with her best friend, chef Rachel Bishop, she’s faced with an impossible choice: stay and put down roots with the people and place she’s come to call home . . . or give it all up for the man she loves. (picture and description from Amazon)

Happy Reading!

O:)
Melissa