Sundays at Tiffany's / James Patterson / 309 pgs

This is one of those books I would have never picked up if not for the reading challenges I do. That said, for a romance, it was pretty good! The ending was a bit cliche and it looked like it was heading for the kind of ending that was in the movie "City of Angels" but I'm glad it didn't quite go there. 

The story involves Jane, the daughter of a famous actress, who doesn't feel loved or have friends save for her imaginary friend, Michael. Michael looks like a handsome 30 year old. On Jane's 9th birthday, he leaves her for good, saying that all imaginary friends must move on to their next assignment once a child hits 9 years old. He tells her that she won't even remember him. In this case, however, Michael was wrong. Twenty-three years later, Jane is an adult, still in the shadow of her mother, in a relationship with an actor who doesn't even care for her. Then she sees Michael, her imaginary friend, looking exactly like he did when she was young. Michael, on the other hand, is at a total loss as to why the sweet little girl all grown up is back in his life.

Like I said, I'm pretty particular when it comes to romances but I really liked the unique twist in the book, the idea that imaginary friends aren't so imaginary. I recommend it for someone who wants something a little different in their romance.

The Icarus Project / laura Quimby / 293 pages

     This exciting book is a juvenile fiction for older grades or even middle school.  A person who is interested in archeology and exotic locations will love this book.  Thirteen year old Maya gets her chance to travel with her father to the arctic for a dig  to uncover mammoths. However what they discover is definitely not a mammoth.  She teams up with a boy she meets on the dig and together they try to discover the mysterious secret since things are not as they seem on the site.  What happens next and what they find are too cool to disclose here.  Simply put, you will have to read the book.  This is an exciting novel that combines a lot of interesting facts and storyline with total fantasy.  An awesome read.

Key of Knowledge / Nora Roberts 352 p.

Key of Knowledge / Nora Roberts 352 p.

In the second of the trilogy, Dana Steele, the librarian, takes on the quest for the key.  The magical key that unlocks the glass box that holds the souls of three demi-goddesses imprisoned by the Sorcerer.  Mallory Price, Zoe McCourt join with her. They are a team.  Dana does the research.  She runs into her former lover author Jordan Hawke.  She's having nothing to do with him and it is not just that she is busy looking for the key and rehabbing a house for her new business.  She not letting her heart get stomped on again.  Roberts does a delightful job of presenting interesting characters, clover plot twists, and getting romance back in Dana's life.

Key of Light / Nora Roberts 352 p.

In this first in Robert's key trilogy, three women, Mallory Price, Dana Steele, and Zoe McCourt receive an interesting invitation for conversation and cocktails at Warrior's Peak.  They learn that they are the key and the lock awaits.  Three locks must be found and turned by mortals.  Three demi-goddess sisters souls are locked in a glass box.  Rowena and Pitte offer each $25,000 to just try.  And a god's ransom if they are successful; and, no one has been successful in a millennium or so.  Mallory, an artistic type, is the first to try.  She begins by bumping into Dana's half-brother newspaper reporter Flynn.  She's attracted to him, but she has other things on her mind...namely getting the key.  She only has a month to find the key.  Sexy guys are not going to get in her way.  (Ah, but he does get involved, this is a romance).

Peach Keeper / Sarah Addison Allen 288 p.

Willa Jackson returns to Walls of Water, North Carolina after her divorce.  She's a lax member of the Women's Society Club, a club founded by her and Paxton Osgood's grandmothers.  The grandmothers were both wealthy until Willa's family lost everything including the Blue Ridge Madam.  Her grandmother became a maid for the wealthy.  Her classmate Paxton, now president of the Club, has never left home.  Paxton is holding gala celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Club at the new restored Blue Ridge Madam.  Paxton wants the two surviving club members to attend.  Willa ignores the invitation.  When a human skeleton is discovered within the roots of a peach tree at the Madam, just days before the big day,  Paxton and Willa join forces to identify the remains.  The process forges a friendship between the two.  Romances develop too.  Paxton's brother, Colin, has returned to supervise the finishing touches on the Madam.  He is gradually eroding Willa's resolve to stay aloof from him.  Allen style incorporates light magic into her stories of these Southern women.

Winter's Tale / Mark Helprin 748 p. Big Book

Astrological winters envelops a mystical New York City surrounding with a magical cloud that absorbs Peter Lake and his white horse, Athansor, and releases him 100 years later in 2000. Before he flies into the cloud, this middle age burglar falls deeply in love and irrevocably with critically ill Beverly Penn, daughter of a wealthy newspaper mogul when he breaks into her house. Helprin tells of this love and wraps it in such lyrical and lush language within this magical realism that involves so many many characters like Lake's evil ex-cronies, the Short Tails whose boss has a thing for color, or the pair of journalists who fall in love before they meet as they talk through the paper thin walls of their cheap apartments.  This is a very dense, intricately plotted book that is much more than a simple love story.  It is a big story of a big city and interesting quirky characters.  At times it seems so real.  A movie is due out soon.

Really Big Book.

Bruiser / Neal Shusterma / 328 pages

     This Truman nominee book was one that I didn't want to finish, but I couldn't turn away.  Brewster, or Bruiser, is an empath.  He takes on other people's emotions and other people's actual physical injuries.  Luckily it only works with people he cares about.  He is a loner with no friends when Bronte decides to befriend him and make him a boyfriend.  Her twin brother Tennyson also becomes a friend. 
     The conflict revolves around Brewster, his abusive uncle, his younger brother Cody, and his secret.  Awful things happen in his home life.  His uncle is a sick, twisted individual who tries to keep Brewster isolated from all others while using him for his own ends.
     Bronte tries to help him make friends and become a part of school life with unintended consequences.  Her brother also helps Brewster, but finds himself using him for his own ends.  The whole book has to come to a resolution for Brewster or he will not be able to survive.
     The character could be compared to the Appalachian "sin eater" or even to a Christ figure taking on "sins" of others.  There is much that could be discussed in a group in this book.  It is not black and white or at all clear cut.

Lace reader / Brunonia Barry 360 p.

Towner Whitney comes from a clan of Salem women who can read one’s future from lace patterns.  She left under a cloud of trouble and reluctantly returns when 85 year old Aunt Eva disappears.  Towner professes to be an unreliable narrator; alas she had shock treatment for hallucinations.  Family secrets, complex family relations, prophetic powers, and past trauma yields twists around every corner from the evangelizing ex-husband of Towner’s mother, Emma; to Aunt May hermetic life on an island; and, her twin’s suicide.

Probable Future / Alice Hoffman 322 p.

The Sparrow women unusual gifts (able to discern liars, to know other's dreams, or even to sense another’s future) bring upheaval into their lives and their relationships even to the edge of catastrophe when Stella’s father is jailed for suspicion of murder when he reported Stella’s foretelling of a young woman’s violent death giving all the Sparrow women and their loves a great shakeup in this telling of their lives and their ancestors.

Sugar Queen / Sarah Addison Allen 276 p.

Books she will need to read just appear magically for Josey Cirrini, self-judged as a sorry excuse for a Southern belle especially a rich heiress; Finding Forgiveness intrudes into her presence repeatedly as waitress Della Lee Baker makes Josey her tough love project starting with Josey's addiction to sweets, moving to her love life and beyond as Josey's life expands dramatically, sometimes cataclysmically as family secrets are exposed when Della Lee makes Josey's closet, a her safe hideaway.  Della Lee engineers a meeting between Josey and Chloe.  Chloe loves books, and they too, appear as she needs them, even to following her; a connection?

Peach Keeper / Sarah Addison Allen 273 p.

Southern Willa Jackson catches Colin Osgood's eye as she secretly observes the restoration of her family's old Victorian home, when he returns to Walls of Water, South Carolina to landscape the Madam for his sister, Paxton; Willa and Paxton are thrust into a friendship as they work to solve long-dead family secrets surround the skeleton found in the roots of a old peach tree--and something magical seems to be at work too.

Garden Spells / Sarah Addison Allen 290 p.

The Waverley’s of Bascom, N. C possess special talents. Claire uses hers in her catering business by creating foods that “affect the eater in special ways”. Some try to escape as her mother did; abandoning Claire and her sister when they were young. Claire has remained close at home, unwilling to open up to people; while her sister Sydney follows in her mother’s footsteps in taking off for New York and living with a string of abusive boyfriends. When the two sisters reconcile, each helps the other. Sydney discovers her power lies in hair dressing; Bay, her daughter, in knowing where things belong. Their elder cousin has the ability to anticipate what items someone will need, whose value is later revealed. And the apple tree on the Waverley’s property plays a part…too much more may be a scene spoiler. Lovely, magical, enchanting all describe this work as well as romantic.