Alexandra, Gone by Anna McPartlin
Published by Downtown Press (Division of Simon & Schuster)
ISBN 978-1-4391-2333-1
At the request of Gallery & Pocket Books, a PB copy was sent, at no cost to me, for my honest opinion.
  Synopsis (from back of book): Once, Jane Moore and Alexandra Walsh were inseparable, sharing secrets and stolen candy, plotting their futures together. But when Jane became pregnant at seventeen, they drifted slowly apart. Jane has spent the years since raising her son, now seventeen himself, on her own, running a gallery, managing her sister’s art career, and looking after their volatile mother-all the while trying not to resent the limited choices life has given her.
  Then a quirk of fate and a faulty elevator bring Jane into contact with Tom, Alexandra’s husband, who has some shocking news, Alexandra disappeared from a south Dublin suburb months ago and Tom has been searching fruitlessly for her. Jane offers to help, as do the elevator’s other passengers-Janes’s brilliant but self-absorbed sister, Elle and Leslie Sheehan, a reclusive web designer who’s ready to step back into the world again. And as Jane quickly realizes Tom isn’t the only one among them who’s looking for something…or traveling toward unexpected revelations about love, life, and what it means to let go, in every sense.
  My Thoughts and Opinion: Most books I read, I can’t wait to finish it to find out the ending.  I was totally ambivalent with this one. I hated to see it end, but then I also wanted to see how it did end.  I don’t know about you, but, I become part of the story in which I am reading.  That is why I didn’t want to turn the last page because I became friends with the characters of this book.  In Alexandra, Gone, the author writes a story of the lives of many loveable, but at times, troubled characters.  I found myself laughing out loud on one page, eyes filling with tears on another, and frustrated with them on yet another.  Ms. McPartlin tells a tender, funny, poignant and moving story of friendship, loss, disappointment, pain, denial and love on so many levels.  This book is the type of book that you get so engrossed while reading that you are unaware of what is going on around you, at least that is what happened to me.  I highly recommend reading Alexandra, Gone and becoming friends with Jane, Elle, Leslie and all the other characters.

It’s that time again, students graduating high school and college and in this economy, this is a perfect gift.

Partially taken from the book’s jacket:  Today’s college grads face a new set of challenges brought on by a sluggish job market, changing technology, and staggering amounts of debt.  The rules have changed since their parents were in school, leaving young adults at a loss for advice that addresses their immediate concerns as well as the big-picture questions with which each generation must contend.
  Life coach Ken Jedding has spent the past decade talking one-on-one with college students and graduates across the country in his workshops and lectures.  In Higher Education, he provides a fresh, modern guidebook to post collegiate life that addresses the issues and concerns he hears voiced most often like How can I land my dream job?  Jedding’s valuable insight, wisdom and humor provide a much-needed roadmapfor the journey that is only just beginning.
My Thoughts:  As a mother of two recent college graduates, I would have liked both of my sons to have read this book.  I know first hand, not only with my sons but also their friends, how many interviews and how many disappointments there were.  How many times I heard that they sat with many other applicants hoping for the same position.  How many times they waited for “the call”.  Fortunately with my boys, “the call” did come and are currently working in their field.
Higher Education  On Life, Landing A Job and Everything Else They Didn’t Teach You In College by Kenneth Jedding is a perfect gift for today’s students.  Available here:   www.higheredgradbook.com

It’s that time again, students graduating high school and college and in this economy, this is a perfect gift.

Partially taken from the book’s jacket:  Today’s college grads face a new set of challenges brought on by a sluggish job market, changing technology, and staggering amounts of debt.  The rules have changed since their parents were in school, leaving young adults at a loss for advice that addresses their immediate concerns as well as the big-picture questions with which each generation must contend.
  Life coach Ken Jedding has spent the past decade talking one-on-one with college students and graduates across the country in his workshops and lectures.  In Higher Education, he provides a fresh, modern guidebook to post collegiate life that addresses the issues and concerns he hears voiced most often like How can I land my dream job?  Jedding’s valuable insight, wisdom and humor provide a much-needed roadmapfor the journey that is only just beginning.
My Thoughts:  As a mother of two recent college graduates, I would have liked both of my sons to have read this book.  I know first hand, not only with my sons but also their friends, how many interviews and how many disappointments there were.  How many times I heard that they sat with many other applicants hoping for the same position.  How many times they waited for “the call”.  Fortunately with my boys, “the call” did come and are currently working in their field.
Higher Education  On Life, Landing A Job and Everything Else They Didn’t Teach You In College by Kenneth Jedding is a perfect gift for today’s students.  Available here:   www.higheredgradbook.com

Published by Doubleday
ISBN 978-0-385-530-63-7
At the request of Doubleday, a PB copy was sent, at no cost to me. for my honest opinion
  Synopsis: (from back of book) Justin Fisher has a successful career as the manager of a luxury hotel, a lovely wife, and a charming young son. While all signs point to a bright future, Justin can no longer ignore the hole in his life left by his estranged family. When he finally gathers the courage to reconnect with his troubled past, Justin is devastated to learn that his parents have passed away. And a visit to the cemetery brings the greatest shock of all-next to the graves of his father and mother sits a smaller tombstone for a three-year-old boy: a boy named Thomas Justin Fisher.
  What follows in an extraordinary journey as Justin struggles with issues of his own identity and pieces together the complex and heartbreaking truth about this family.

Published by Doubleday
ISBN 978-0-385-530-63-7
At the request of Doubleday, a PB copy was sent, at no cost to me. for my honest opinion
  Synopsis: (from back of book) Justin Fisher has a successful career as the manager of a luxury hotel, a lovely wife, and a charming young son. While all signs point to a bright future, Justin can no longer ignore the hole in his life left by his estranged family. When he finally gathers the courage to reconnect with his troubled past, Justin is devastated to learn that his parents have passed away. And a visit to the cemetery brings the greatest shock of all-next to the graves of his father and mother sits a smaller tombstone for a three-year-old boy: a boy named Thomas Justin Fisher.
  What follows in an extraordinary journey as Justin struggles with issues of his own identity and pieces together the complex and heartbreaking truth about this family.

Moonlight Falls by Vincent Zandri
Published by R.J. Buckley Publishing
ISBN: 978-0-9819654-0-6
At the request of Pump Up Your Book, a PB copy was sent, at no cost to me, for my honest opinion.
  Synopsis: (from back of book) In Moonlight Falls, novelist and photo journalist Vincent Zandri asks the question “If you knew your life could end at any moment, how far would you go to prove you murdered your lover?”
  Albany, New York is the setting of Zandri’s paranoid thriller (in the Hitchcock tradition) about Richard “Dick” Moonlight, former APD detective turned private investigator/massage therapist, who believes he killed Scarlet Montana, his illicit lover and wife of his ex-boss Chief of Detectives Jake Montana. The dilemma…Moonlight doesn’t remember what happened!
  My Thoughts and Opinion: Mr Zandri introduces the reader to Richard Moonlight in a masterful writing style of first person perspective, which is the most difficult to write in. In the first chapter, it describes how Moonlight attempted suicide by a self inflicted gun shot to his head but lives, however, a bullet fragment is lodged in his brain and affects his ability to know right from wrong.  This book, from page one, was a nonstop, heart pounding, roller coaster ride until the very last page.  The list of characters enthralling.  The plot mesmerizing.  The story line has so many twists and turns that had this reader trying to unravel, and with an ending that was never seen coming.  Wild!!  This book is Hitchcock meets James Patterson!!  Alex Cross meet Richard Moonlight!!!  Fantastic!!  This is the type of book that I call a, “just one more chapter” read, whereas the chapters are a couple of pages long but you realize that its four (4) hours since saying “just one more chapter”.  Warning: from starting page one, be prepared of not being able to put this book down until finished.  A definite page turning read!!  This book…Incredible !!!!  On a scale of 1 to 5, Moonlight Falls, is a ten (10)!!  Mr. Zandri….Bravo!!!!!
  Rating: 5+ 

 

Moonlight Falls by Vincent Zandri
Published by R.J. Buckley Publishing
ISBN: 978-0-9819654-0-6
At the request of Pump Up Your Book, a PB copy was sent, at no cost to me, for my honest opinion.
  Synopsis: (from back of book) In Moonlight Falls, novelist and photo journalist Vincent Zandri asks the question “If you knew your life could end at any moment, how far would you go to prove you murdered your lover?”
  Albany, New York is the setting of Zandri’s paranoid thriller (in the Hitchcock tradition) about Richard “Dick” Moonlight, former APD detective turned private investigator/massage therapist, who believes he killed Scarlet Montana, his illicit lover and wife of his ex-boss Chief of Detectives Jake Montana. The dilemma…Moonlight doesn’t remember what happened!
  My Thoughts and Opinion: Mr Zandri introduces the reader to Richard Moonlight in a masterful writing style of first person perspective, which is the most difficult to write in. In the first chapter, it describes how Moonlight attempted suicide by a self inflicted gun shot to his head but lives, however, a bullet fragment is lodged in his brain and affects his ability to know right from wrong.  This book, from page one, was a nonstop, heart pounding, roller coaster ride until the very last page.  The list of characters enthralling.  The plot mesmerizing.  The story line has so many twists and turns that had this reader trying to unravel, and with an ending that was never seen coming.  Wild!!  This book is Hitchcock meets James Patterson!!  Alex Cross meet Richard Moonlight!!!  Fantastic!!  This is the type of book that I call a, “just one more chapter” read, whereas the chapters are a couple of pages long but you realize that its four (4) hours since saying “just one more chapter”.  Warning: from starting page one, be prepared of not being able to put this book down until finished.  A definite page turning read!!  This book…Incredible !!!!  On a scale of 1 to 5, Moonlight Falls, is a ten (10)!!  Mr. Zandri….Bravo!!!!!
  Rating: 5+ 

 

So Cold The River by Michael Koryta
Published by Little Brown and Company
ISBN 978-0-316-05363-1
At the request of The Hachette Book Group, a PB copy was sent, at no cost to me, for my honest opinion
  Synopsis: (from back of book) It starts with a beautiful woman and a challenge. Alyssa Bradford approaches filmmaker Eric Shaw to make a documentary about her father-in-law, Campbell Bradford, a ninety-five-year-old billionaire whose past is cloaked in mystery, the only clues being the name of his hometown and an antique water bottle he’s kept his entire life.
  Only a few hours after his arrival in Campbell Bradford’s rural hometown, Eric experiences a frighteningly vivid vision. As the days pass, the frequency and intensity of his hallucinations increase. He’s drawn deeper into the town’s dark past which is centered on a glorious hotel where presidents and mobsters once mingled, drawn to the area by the curative powers of its mineral springs. Eric discovers that something besides the hotel has been restored-a long-forgotten evil that will stop at nothing to regain a lost glory. Brilliantly imagined and terrifying real, So Cold the River is a tale of irresistible suspense.
  My Thoughts and Opinion: Some of the words that I would describe this book would be gripping, suspenseful, unreal and mostly strange. It is hard to review this read without giving a lot away but will try. The mystery and suspense held my attention to the very end. Parts of the plot were questionable and unbelievable but still held my interest. The characters real, but their situations doubtful. The words written of this rural town are beautiful and it’s history interesting. The ending explosive with questions being both answered and not answered leaving the reader dangling. My rating is based on the nature of suspense that held me captive the entire book even knowing that some of the story line could never be true. Words to describe. Gripping yet Strange.
  My Rating: 4 star