Wednesday, December 1, 2004

The Time Traveler's Wife

The Time Traveler's Wife The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger


My review
rating: 3 of 5 stars
Once I got into the format of the story I loved it. The sense of impending doom, the way the author caught me up in the helplessness... I cried desperately because there was nothing I could do to change the ending. I could have done without the Claire/Gomez dining room table scene, but oh well.

Pub. Date: July 2004

Synopsis: This bestselling and innovative debut novel from Audrey Niffenegger explores the perfect marriage, one that is tested by challenges the couple can neither control nor predict. An imaginative extension of everyday life, the story asks: What if two people who loved each other deeply, married, and faced a life in which one person remained constant while the other slipped fluidly in and out of time?

A modern love story with a twist that invites us to linger over questions of how life and love change over time.

Recommended Reading:
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen [unabridged audiobook] [NOOKbook]
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

Thursday, July 15, 2004

The Dark Highlander

The Dark Highlander (Highlander, #5) The Dark Highlander by Karen Marie Moning

My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars

Pub. Date: October 2002

Series: Highlander Book 5

Synopsis: Journey to a world of ancient magic, breathtaking sensuality, thrilling time-travel.... Journey to the world of The Dark Highlander. Crisscrossing the continents and the centuries, here is a novel as gripping as it is sensual--an electrifying adventure that will leave you breathless....

I am Dageus MacKeltar, a man with one good conscience and thirteen bad ones, driven to sate my darkest desires...

From his penthouse lair high above Manhattan, Dageus looks out over a glittering city that calls to the darkness within him. A sixteenth-century Scot trapped between worlds, he is fighting a losing battle with the thirteen Druids who possess his soul, dooming him to an eternity of sexual pursuit. When Chloe Zanders, student of antiquities, is drawn into his world, she finds the insatiable alpha male an irresistible lure.Before long, she is caught up in an ancient prophecy that will sweep her back into time to medieval Scotland. Plunged into a world of timeless magic and dark seduction, she will soon face the challenge of a lifetime: fighting thirteen evil spirits for the heart of one irresistible man....

Recommended Reading:
Kiss of the Highlander (Highlander Series #4) by Karen Marie Moning
Spell of the Highlander (Highlander Series #7) by Karen Marie Moning
To Tame a Highland Warrior (Highlander Series #2) by Karen Marie Moning
A Hunger like No Other (Immortals after Dark Series #1) by Kresley Cole
No Rest for the Wicked (Immortals after Dark Series #2) by Kresley Cole

Wednesday, July 14, 2004

Kiss of the Highlander

Kiss of the Highlander (Highlander, #4) Kiss of the Highlander by Karen Marie Moning

My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars

Pub. Date: September 2001

Series: Highlander Book 4

Synopsis: Enchanted by a powerful spell, Highland laird Drustan MacKeltar slumbered for nearly five centuries hidden deep in a cave, until an unlikely savior awakened him. The enticing lass who dressed and spoke like no woman he’d ever known was from his distant future, where crumbled ruins were all that remained of his vanished world. Drustan knew he had to return to his own century if he was to save his people from a terrible fate. And he needed the bewitching woman by his side....

Gwen Cassidy had come to Scotland to shake up her humdrum life and, just maybe, meet a man. How could she have known that a tumble down a Highland ravine would send her plunging into an underground cavern — to land atop the most devastatingly seductive man she’d ever seen? Or that once he’d kissed her, he wouldn’t let her go? Bound to Drustan by a passion stronger than time, Gwen is swept back to sixteenth-century Scotland, where a treacherous enemy plots against them ... and where a warrior with the power to change history will defy time itself for the woman he loves....

Recommended Reading:
The Dark Highlander (Highlander Series #5) by Karen Marie Moning
To Tame a Highland Warrior (Highlander Series #2) by Karen Marie Moning
The Highlander's Touch (Highlander Series #3) by Karen Marie Moning
A Hunger like No Other (Immortals after Dark Series #1) by Kresley Cole
No Rest for the Wicked (Immortals after Dark Series #2) by Kresley Cole

Monday, June 14, 2004

The Highlander's Touch

The Highlander's Touch (Highlander, #3) The Highlander's Touch by Karen Marie Moning

My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars

Pub. Date: November 2000

Series: Highlander Book 3

Synopsis: He was a mighty Scottish warrior who lived in a world bound by ancient laws and timeless magic. But no immortal powers could prepare the laird of Castle Brodie for the lovely accursed lass who stood before him. A terrible trick of fate had sent her 700 years back in time and into his private chamber to tempt him with her beauty—and seduce him with a desire he could never fulfill. For this woman he burned to possess was also the woman he had foresworn to destroy.

When Lisa felt the earth move under her feet, the fiercely independent 21st-century woman never dreamed she was falling...into another century. But the powerful, naked warrior who stood glaring down at her was only too real...and too dangerously arousing. Irresistibly handsome he might be, but Lisa had no intention of remaining in this savage land torn by treachery and war. How could she know that her seductive captor had other plans for her...plans that would save her from a tragic fate? Or that this man who had long ago forsaken love would defy time itself to claim her for his own....

Recommended Reading:
To Tame a Highland Warrior (Highlander Series #2) by Karen Marie Moning
Beyond the Highland Mist (Highlander Series #1) by Karen Marie Moning
Kiss of the Highlander (Highlander Series #4) by Karen Marie Moning
A Hunger like No Other (Immortals after Dark Series #1) by Kresley Cole
No Rest for the Wicked (Immortals after Dark Series #2) by Kresley Cole

Friday, May 14, 2004

To Tame A Highland Warrior

To Tame a Highland Warrior (Highlander, #2) To Tame a Highland Warrior by Karen Marie Moning

My review
rating: 5 of 5 stars

Pub. Date: December 1999

Series: Higlander Book 2

Synopsis: He was born to a clan of warriors of supernatural strength, but Gavrael McIllioch abandoned his name and his Highland castle, determined to escape the dark fate of his ancestors. Hiding his identity from the relentless rival clan that hunted him, he called himself Grimm to protect the people he cared for, vowing never to acknowledge his love for ravishing Jillian St. Clair. Yet even from afar he watched over her, and when her father sent an urgent summons, "Come for Jillian," he raced to her side - into a competition to win her hand in marriage.

Why had he run from her so many years before? And why return now to see her offered as a prize in her father's manipulative game? Furious, Jillian vowed never to wed. But Grimm was the man she loved, the one who urged her to marry another. He tried to pretend indifference as she tempted him, but he could not deny the fierce desires that compelled him to abduct her from the altar. She was the only woman who could tame the beast that raged within him - even as deadly enemies plotted to destroy them both....

Recommended Reading:
Beyond the Highland Mist
(Highlander Series #1) by Karen Marie Moning
The Highlander's Touch (Highlander Series #3) by Karen Marie Moning
Kiss of the Highlander (Highlander Series #4) by Karen Marie Moning
A Hunger like No Other (Immortals after Dark Series #1) by Kresley Cole
No Rest for the Wicked (Immortals after Dark Series #2) by Kresley Cole

Saturday, May 1, 2004

A Dance Through Time

Dance Through Time (MacLeod 1) Dance Through Time by Lynn Kurland

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Bird by Bird

Bird by Bird Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A practical guide to writing. Enjoyed this book very much.

Synopsis: Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'

Lamott's ( Operating Instructions ) miscellany of guidance and reflection should appeal to writers struggling with demons large and slight. Among the pearls she offers is to start small, as their father once advised her 10-year-old brother, who was agonizing over a book report on birds: ``Just take it bird by bird.'' Lamott's suggestion on the craft of fiction is down-to-earth: worry about the characters, not the plot. But she's even better on psychological questions. She has learned that writing is more rewarding than publication, but that even writing's rewards may not lead to contentment. As a former ``Leona Helmsley of jealousy,'' she's come to will herself past pettiness and to fight writer's block by living ``as if I am dying.'' She counsels writers to form support groups and wisely observes that, even if your audience is small, ``to have written your version is an honorable thing.''

Recommended Reading:
Writing down the Bones : Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg
On Writing Well : The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser
On Writing : A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
Plan B : Further Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott

Wednesday, April 14, 2004

Beyond the Highland Mist

Beyond the Highland Mist (Highlander, #1) Beyond the Highland Mist by Karen Marie Moning

My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars

Pub. Date: March 1999

Series: Highlander Book 1

Synopsis: He was known throughout the kingdom as Hawk, legendary predator of the battlefield and the boudoir. No woman could refuse his touch, but no woman ever stirred his heart—until a vengeful fairy tumbled Adrienne de Simone out of modern-day Seattle and into medieval Scotland. Captive in a century not her own, entirely too bold, too outspoken, she was an irresistible challenge to the sixteenth-century rogue. Coerced into a marriage with Hawk, Adrienne vowed to keep him at arm's length—but his sweet seduction played havoc with her resolve.

She had a perfect "no" on her perfect lips for the notorious laird, but Hawk swore she would whisper his name with desire, begging for the passion he longed to ignite within her. Not even the barriers of time and space would keep him from winning her love. Despite her uncertainty about following the promptings of her own passionate heart, Adrienne's reservations were no match for Hawk's determination to keep her by his side. . . .

Recommended Reading:
To Tame a Highland Warrior (Highlander Series #2)Karen Marie Moning
The Highlander's Touch (Highlander Series #3)Karen Marie Moning
Kiss of the Highlander (Highlander Series #4)Karen Marie Moning
A Hunger like No Other (Immortals after Dark Series #1)Kresley Cole
No Rest for the Wicked (Immortals after Dark Series #2)Kresley Cole

Book Review: Shadow Baby by Alison McGhee

 Finished August 4, 2020 Book 11 of 20 Shadow Baby by Alison McGhee My rating: 1 of 5 stars I'm leaving this one unfinished, about h...