Safe Haven / Nicholas Sparks / 340 Pages

Katie is running away from an abusive husband who is also a police detective in Boston. She ends up in a small town called Southport. Though at first reluctant to make any friends, she eventually warms up to the general store owner, who is a widower and father of two children. You gradually get to know about Katie's toubled path and the story switches from Katie's story to her husband's story. The characters were well-written and real. I don't want to give away the ending for anyone who hasn't read it yet, but her husband does eventually find her and in the usual Nicholas Sparks fashion, you are worried about what character will die at the end of the book. I really enjoyed it, though. And the movie was pretty good, too.

Star Trek Countdown / JJ Abrams / 104 pages

This was a great graphic novel representation of the prequel of the Star Trek movie that was released in 2009. It gives a lot of background information so that the movie makes more sense. Great book, interesting, and well-designed.

Grammar Girl's 101 Words Every High School Graduate Needs to Know / Mignon Fogarty / 120 Pages

This short little book was a great refresher in the definitions of many words that you hear on the news but maybe are unsure of their exact meaning. Words you need to get by in life. Words that are good to know if you want to be engaged in an intellectual conversation. I was worried that maybe I wouldn't know the meanings of most of them, but am happy to say that there were only two words for which I was completely stumped on their definitions. Unlike a dictionary, this book defines the words with a paragraph or two of information, including the word's history, and then includes a quote to show you how the word is used. The quotes come from a wide variety of sources, from books including Gone With the Wind, Sense and Sensibility, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and from TV shows including Star Trek, House, and The Simpsons, among other things. It was a nice little book that was written well and was enjoyable. I will have to check out Grammar Girl's other books.

Star Trek Voyager: Encounters with the Unknown / 208 pages

This comic book is a compilation of four different Star Trek Voyager comics, each with different authors. I found it very enjoyable. I haven't read a comic book before (pretty sad, I know...) and I thought it was easy to read and fun as well. The stories were interesting enought to keep my attention, and I read it all in a weekend. Being based on my favorite Star Trek series helped, as well. False colors / Nathan Archer -- Avalon rising / Janine Ellen Young & Doselle Young -- Elite force / Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning -- Planet killer / Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith.

The Lost Files of Nancy Drew / 32 pages

The Lost Files of Nancy Drew is a book that is told from the viewpoint of Nancy Drew, like a journal. It has excerpts from her diary, clues from several of her mysteries, and tips on being a detective. This is one of those books with the extra flaps to look under, things to pull out and look at, and the like. It was interesting,and concluded with a section on Nancy Drew through the decades and how her style changed, and also some information about who wrote the books. This would be really great for a collector of Nancy Drew mysteries or anyone who enjoyed reading the books as a child.

The Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder / Joanne Fluke / 336 Pages

This is the first book featuring Hannah Swensen, owner of The Cookie Jar, a local business in the small town of Lake Eden, Minnesota. Early one morning she discovers a body, that of her milk delivery man, Ron. He was shot in the alley behind her store on the way to deliver her daily dairy items. She finds herself involved in the case when her brother-in-law, Bill, needs her help in solving the case so he can get his big promotion to detective. She gets into lots of trouble along the way but always manages to get out of it, especially when she brings along her famous cookies to share with those she needs to "interrogate." The book is full of delicious-sounding cookie recipes that were mentioned in the book. Overall, this was a nice cozy mystery with enough going on to keep you reading. I look forward to reading the second of the Hannah Swensen mysteries.

Rhett Butler's People / Donald McCaig / 476 pages

This is the authorized sequel to Gone With the Wind. I found it to be enjoyable and lively. It explains more of the backgrounds of several characters from the original book, mainly Rhett Butler. It made some of the characters more real by giving more details about how they happened to be in certain situations described briefly in the original. It covers the time period of when Rhett Butler was about 12 through a few years after the conclusion of the original book. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who loves the first book!