How do you prepare for your own death?

Crossing Oceans by Gina Holmes

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


It's a sad coincidence that I finished reading this book the same day that Elizabeth Edwards died. The heroine of this book had less time than Mrs Edwards to prepare. She had been diagnosed with cancer, and given less than a year to live. Jenny Lucas returned home to the father she had not spoken to in almost six years, and to the ex-boyfriend who didn't know he had fathered a little girl now five years old.

I bought this book because DailyCheapreads.com blogged that the Kindle download was free for a short time. I looked a few days later and the price had returned to $9.59. I tend not to have a great deal of commitment for a book I get for free. If I put out my good money I will almost always hang in there to the bitter end. I almost gave up on Crossing Oceans before the third chapter. Jenny Lucas had already laid out her future, but she remained a bratty child with a chip on her shoulder. I didn't know if I cared enough about Jenny to see how she would end.

But as the other players in her life were introduced I found people that I could care about, especially that little girl Isabella. It became a real tearjerker.

The most intriguing part of the story, the part that offended some readers who wrote reviews on Amazon, was the "Christian" element. I put that in quotes because depending on how you are raised in your faith, we who call ourselves Christians can have very different views of the hereafter. While my view is very different from Jenny's expectation of death, I could see that it gave her a great deal of peace to "know" what to expect. Reading her story gave me a sense of peace, only because Jenny found peace. Jenny prepared Isabella through trial and error until she could die in peace.

I never would have found this book if not for DailyCheapreads. I give it four stars.




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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I pay attention to what other people are reading. When my husband and I travel I take note of people reading in airports, on the pool deck on cruise ships, around the pool in Vegas. The last couple of years, Stieg Larsson's books have been everywhere. But I had the impression that those books were dark, violent, mysteries. I swore off James Patterson for that kind of mystery.

But then I saw a piece on CBS Sunday Morning show, and I got intrigued by the author's life and death. Stieg Larsson churned out several novels as a hobby before he died of a heart attack at age 50. He never saw his works published and become international bestsellers.

When my daughter started reading them, I told her how I expected them to be violent. She had the same feeling about James Patterson, but she said "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" just had the one rape scene that was kind of the motivation for the rest of the story. By then I had my Kindle, and the Kindle version cost only $5.21. (I don't know how some Kindle books get deep discounts and some are stuck at a price higher than the paperback version, but that's another discussion.)

So I bought it, and I was hooked. The characters drew me in, with their separate stories that converged as I expected. I was most intrigued by Lisbeth Salander, the misfit, antisocial savant who hacks her way via the internet to helping solve the mystery. Then I read somewhere that the Swedish tile for this book is "Men who Hate Women," but it was too late to turn back; I was hooked.

Larsson's style is so fast paced, I sometimes wondered if my eyes could fly across the page fast enough to keep up. The ending is dark and disturbing, but I'm so caught up in the characters that I have to go on the next book of what the publisher is calling The Millenium Series. Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander continue solving mysteries in the next one. I give this one four stars.



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The Great Pat Down

Thanksgiving is over, and we didn't travel this weekend. When we did travel on November 13, that was my first experience with the full body scan at RDU airport.

Dear hubby had a hip replacement a couple of years ago, and he has gotten in the habit of requesting a "male assist" as soon as we get to the security checkpoint. He leaves me to keep up with his carry-on backpack and shoes while they pat him down. I have my own backpack with my assorted electronic gadgets, medications and "jewels"....important stuff. So I have my own shoes, backpack, and mini-PC to keep up with as well.

Before I entered the scan machine, they reminded me to take everything out of my pocket. I had a tube of Chapstick that had to go on the conveyor belt. I forgot I was wearing my money belt. It's not like I have big bucks, but I get nervous if I have more than $40 in my purse. When I travel, I stash the rest of my cash under my clothes.

After the scanner detected stuff under my clothes, I volunteered to take the money belt off, as I did on a trip through Heathrow airport a few years ago. But the female attendant, said no she would just pat me down. UGH. She really was very polite, and did it quickly, touching my underwire bra with the back of her hand, while I was trying to keep an eye on our stuff going down the conveyor belt. Then she had to dig into the front of my jeans to feel my money pouch....hmmm. But it was so quick, I was just glad to get out of there with all our stuff.

I know there have been lots of complaints across the country about TSA inspectors doing some really invasive feeling, and requiring passengers to remove prostheses, but my experience wasn't much worse than the old security inspection. I'm willing to give up some privacy for the sake of security.

To Love a Stallion

To Love A Stallion by Deborah Fletcher Mello

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I met Deborah Mello at a Black History Month event earlier this year. Several of us black authors were hawking our books. She bought mine, and I bought one of hers. When I asked which one she would recommend that I read first, she started talking about the Stallion brothers as if they were her own children. There was that look of loving pride on her face when she talked about them. Then she said I should start with To Love a Stallion.

What I didn't tell her was that I had only read maybe five romance books in the last 25 years. I used to read Jacqueline Susann and Danielle Steel until they got to be too predictable and I quit cold turkey. The few romances I have read recently were book club recommendations or were written by an author I knew or had met.

My Stallion brother was a pleasant surprise. Of course a romance novel has to follow certain prescription. Girl meets boy and in spite of their initial conflict we know they will end up together. Marah Briscoe and John Stallion start out with conflict, then they get together, and break up, and get back together. Then there is something else to keep them apart. There are some surprises, even with the prescribed formula. Ms. Mello interweaves the history of black cowboys and the care and breeding of thoroughbreds against a backdrop of western life, where you wouldn't expect to see black people.

There are no trite details of luxury cars, lushly decorated houses, and perfectly matching shoes and underwear. The details are rich, varied, and imaginative. There is even a twist in the erotica, in that John Stallion always uses a condom. I'll have to read another of Deborah Mello's Stallion series, maybe Matthew, Mark, or Luke. I give John 4 stars.



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