The Bachelor by Carly Phillips

(400 pages)



The small town of Yorkshire Falls and its colorful inhabitants including a mysterious panty-raider and a fun-loving but devious mother are a sturdy stage for Phillips's (Erotic Invitation) romantic romp. After news of his mother's weak heart summons him home, globetrotting journalist Roman Chandler loses a coin toss with his brothers that determines who will relinquish his bachelor status to give their mother a grandchild. Roman decides to "settle down" without giving up his travel-intensive job, and as one of the most handsome men in town, he can have his pick of the local women except for Charlotte Bronson, his high school crush. Thoughts of her parents' miserable long-distance marriage keep Charlotte from accepting Roman's proposal, despite the sexual sparks that fly at their every encounter. Mutual attraction eventually proves too powerful to resist, however, but first Roman must win her trust. Though Phillips gives sensual friction and emotional introspection equal attention, the emotional chemistry between Roman and Charlotte merely simmers while the sexual chemistry explodes. The first in a Chandler brothers trilogy, this entry will encourage readers who enjoy dining on passion to pick up the next book, but those who prefer more emotionally bonded characters may chose a different course.

Very sweet and fluffy with lots of fun characters..... the mother reminded me of someone close to home.... lol!!!

Asking For Trouble by Elizabeth Young

(404 pages)



Sophy's single and happy about it. She likes her life. She does, however, have an imaginary boyfriend, a little white lie whose sole purpose is to keep her mother off her back. Which is fine until his presence is demanded at a family wedding.

This was a really fun read, lots of enjoyable characters and scenarios.... fab!! I borrowed this from a friend to complete my authors reading challenge, and she wanted it back!! I can certainly understand why!!!!

Sky Burial by Xinran

(166 pages)



In the world of fiction reviewing, extraordinary is an over-used word. Yet there really is no other way to describe Chinese author Xinran's second book, Sky Burial. It is extraordinary in so many ways--the subject matter, the setting, the central character, but mostly its authenticity and the author's continuing search for the woman whose life is told here.

Sky Burial is the true story of a Chinese woman's 30-year search through Tibet for news of her lost, presumed dead, husband. Xinran is working as a radio journalist on a women's programme when a listener calls in to tell her about Shuwen. Xinran travels hundreds of miles across China to interview her and, over two days, Shuwen opens her heart and reveals her tragic, scarcely imaginable life story. Xinran returns to her life and spends the subsequent 10 years trying to find Shuwen again, researching her story and writing this book--a homage to an ordinary woman's extraordinary life-long search for the truth.
The story is a simple one: Shuwen meets her intelligent, idealistic husband-to-be while they are both training to be doctors. After less than 100 days of marriage, Kejun travels to Tibet as a Chinese army doctor and before long, Shuwen is notified that he has died in an "incident". Shuwen decides to join the army herself, travel to Tibet and find out if he really is dead, and if so, how and why he died.
And then, as if travelling to a closed country like Tibet as a young woman in the 1950s is not difficult enough, Shuwen quickly becomes separated from her unit and, close to death herself, is taken in by a family of Tibetan nomads. Her transformation from Chinese doctor to nomadic Buddhist is a long, painful and at many turns, deeply distressing one.
Sky Burial is a slight book--little more than an extended short story--and yet the ground it covers is immense, not just because of the fascinating glimpse it offers into a land and a people still largely unknown in the West. Despite its tragic themes of loss and survival in one of the world's harshest landscapes, it is an uplifting tale of unwavering loyalty and immeasurable inner strength.

The main reason I read this book was to complete a part of a reading challenge, - After all authors beginning with 'X' are pretty hard to find!!!
So as you can imagine, I was stunned to find mysels so gripped by the immensely touching story of Wen. As soon as I started reading, I had to carry on.... i needed to find out what happened next. It gave an insight into the life of Tibetans, especiall under the rule of the People's Liberation Army. It gave a sense of reality to the seemingly remote countries that we see documentaries about. The love story of Wen searching for her husbang was intense and it was essential to find out what exactly had happened. I am so glad that I read this book.

Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey

(254 pages)



The men who rode the dragons were a breed apart. Chosen when the dragons were first hatched, they became soulmates for life with the huge, magnificent beasts they controlled - the green, blue, brown and bronzes - beautiful - terrible - the only creatures who could defend the planet Pern from the blood-red star. But without the Queen, the dragons would become extinct. Only the gigantic, golden Queen could breed the new flights. And the Queen was fading...dying...leaving behind one last, huge, golden egg.

I did enjoy reading this, although it was hard going at times...I simply am not a fantasy novel type of girl. The story was good and the characters engagind, and it was very well written, just not really my tpe of thing.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

(384 pages)



Pirouetting on the boundaries between sci-fi, the crime thriller and intertextual whimsy, Jasper Fforde's outrageous The Eyre Affairputs you on the wrong footing even on its dedication page, which proudly announces that the book conforms to Crimean War economy standard.
Fforde's heroine, Thursday Next, lives in a world where time and reality are endlessly mutable--someone has ensured that the Crimean War never ended for example--a world policed by men like her disgraced father, whose name has been edited out of existence. She herself polices text--against men like the Moriarty-like Acheron Styx, whose current scam is to hold the minor characters of Dickens' novels to ransom, entering the manuscript and abducting them for execution and extinction one by one. When that caper goes sour, Styx moves on to the nation's most beloved novel--an oddly truncated version of Jane Eyre--and kidnaps its heroine. The phlegmatic and resourceful Thursday pursues Acheron across the border into a Leninist Wales and further to Mr Rochester's Thornfield Hall, where both books find their climax on the roof amid flames.
Fforde is endlessly inventive: his heroine's utter unconcern about the strangeness of the world she inhabits keeps the reader perpetually double-taking as minor certainties of history, literature and cuisine go soggy in the corner of our eye. The audacity of the premise and its working out provides sudden leaps of understanding, many of them accompanied by wild fits of the giggles. This is a peculiarly promising first novel.

this book drove me nuts!!!
I had such a hard time reading it, with all the clever plays on words and stupid names like "Braxton Hicks" and my personal favourite.... "Paige Turner".
Unfortunately I dont even think that the ending was worth the effort. The Idea was great, just not done in an especially good way :(

The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

(53 A4 pages (EBook))



The chief part of the story, turned upon the favorite specter of Sleepy Hollow, the Headless Horseman, who had been heard several times of late, patrolling the country; and, it was said, tethered his horse nightly among the graves in the churchyard. The story was immediately matched by a thrice marvelous adventure of Brom Bones, who made light of the Galloping Hessian as an arrant jockey. He affirmed that on returning one night from the neighboring village of Sing Sing, he had been overtaken by this midnight trooper; that he had offered to race with him for a bowl of punch, and should have won it too, for Daredevil beat the goblin horse all hollow, but just as they came to the church bridge, the Hessian bolted, and vanished in a flash of fire. All these tales, told in that drowsy undertone with which men talk in the dark, the countenances of the listeners only now and then receiving a casual gleam from the glare of a pipe, sank deep in the mind of Ichabod...

This was a really wonderful old fashioned ghost story of the legendary Headless Horseman... probably more famous for Johnny Depp's portrayal of Ichabod Crane than anything else :)

Taking A Chance by Janice Kay Johnson

(304 pages)



Jo Dubray doesn’t think much of marriage, and she certainly doesn’t plan to try it herself. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t interested in getting to know her new room-mate’s brother… After all, Ryan’s recently divorced and has two children living with their mother. He can’t be thinking of anything as serious and confining as remarrying.
But what will she do if he is?
Especially once his kids re-enter the picture. Three women, two children, one cat…and the three men who are about to change their lives. It’s the family you choose that counts.

Well written romance about the woman who wont and the man who needs to.... a wonderful supporting cast including a cat with an eyepatch provide some intrigue and need to follow up the story to tie up loose ends and unsolved problems...Very nice and sweet, with complex family life taking the fore.

A Baby Of Her Own by Brenda Novak

(296 pages)



What Delaney wants is a baby of her own. At thirty, she longs to break away from the constraints of her life. Longs to reach out for her heart’s desire. She’d prefer marriage as well, but there’s no man she’s interested in marrying.
Then one winter’s night she and her best friend, Rebecca, go out with the intent of finding a man for Delaney. She meets a handsome stranger named Conner, a man who might be able to provide her with the solution she needs…and the baby she wants!
Afterwards she thinks she must have been out of her mind. But it’s too late-she’s pregnant. And the stranger isn’t a stranger any more. Conner Armstrong is now her neighbour.

This was another typical cheesy fluffy thing, with an unfortunately ridiculous story with a predictable sickly sweet ending.. Fun to read but not classic literature!!!

X-Files: Ruins by Kevin Anderson

(256 pages)



An American archaeologist disappears while exploring the lost Mayan city of Xitaclan - and FBI agents Mulder and Scully are flown to the Yutucan jungles to investigate. Mulder decides there may be more to this case than simply a missing team of scientists.

Really enjoyable. Easy to read and believable. You can Imagine Mulder & Scully being there! I've just finished reading this again as part of my alphabet title challenge for 2005, and I enjoyed it even more than the first time!!

Want To Play? by P.J. Tracy

(454 pages)



Minneapolis, a brutally cold autumn. And a killer is at work. Two bodies are found, two slayings that the police treat as unrelated. But games-creator Grace MacBride knows different. The murders are exact copies of those in a game she’s designing – one that already has hundreds of eager players. As the copycat killings mount up, Grace knows that she is both suspect and potential victim. And with the serial killer getting closer, she is drawn into a murderous game of cat and mouse … want to play?

I couldn't put this down. Once I got into it (believe it or not after the THIRD murder) I was hooked. I loved the characters with the imaginitive names like "Roarunner" & "Harley Davidson" and I absolutely had to find out whodunnit, and I was not disappointed.... shocked but not disappointed!! I think this should be a must read for all those who love Sick Shit books!!!

Michael's Discovery by Sherryl Woods

(244 pages)



The Love Of Her Life?
For years, Kelly Andrews had waited for her big brother’s best friend to notice her. Now navy SEAL Michael Devaney was back in town, as her difficult physical therapy patient…but still every inch a hero. Kelly vowed she would make him whole again-with a little help from his family and her healing touch.
Broken in body and spirit, Michael seemed determined to defy Kelly and his reunited kin. Although he finally gazed at her with the passion she’d always craved, Michael held himself back, saying he was only half a man. How could Kelly convince her lifelong beloved that he was all the man she would ever need?

this was a typical heartwarming soft read....nothing fancy just the boy meets girl etc.... to be expected from Mills and Boon. It was very enjoyable, and the cantancerous Michael was great fun :D

Fishbowl by Sarah Mlynowski

(360 pages)



Allison can't wait for Jodine and Emma to move in to her apartment — until she realizes having roommates means living in a fishbowl:You are never alone.When one small, slightly accidental fire leads to one big repair bill, all efforts to avoid each other are finally abandoned: They've got to raise money... fast ("Insurance? You mean you have to pay for that?"). This means joining forces. Bonding? Well, at least they're talking to each other!
Amazingly, they agree on a plan: shamelessly exploit their combined expertise on the male species for hard cash.Tactics: sell tickets to their swanky soirées and How To Pick Up Women seminars.... But their grand scheme sweeps away any last shreds of privacy with startling consequences. Now that they're forced to take a long, hard look at themselves, Allie, Jodine and Emma's lives — and budding friendship — are about to change, in ways they never imagined....

This was a nice and fun read. Allie, Jodine and Emma were all adorable in their own way, and I couldnt help but laugh out loud in places :)
The story managed to successfully get inside the dynamic of the female relationship, probably because it was viewed from all three perspectives as well as the narrators poit of view. Fab!!!

The Tale of Murasaki by Liza Dalby

(448 pages)



Liza Dalby's enchanting book The Tale of Murasaki is a brilliantly imagined fictional biography of the 11th-century Japanese writer Murasaki Shikibu, author of The Tale of Genji--the world's first novel. The Heian period produced at least two great works of world literature: Murasaki's The Tale of Genji and Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book; Dalby's fine first novel draws directly from the surviving fragments of Murasaki's own diary and poetry (as well as the occasional echo of Sei Shonagon) to create a vivid and emotionally detailed portrait of an intelligent, sensitive and complex woman drawn initially to writing stories about the amorous encounters of Prince Genji as a means of entertaining her friends and expressing her own richly creative temperament. As the stories become public, however, she is forced, against her own natural reticence, to take up a position at court, and the Genji stories become a conduit for commenting on the mores and intrigues of court life. Struggling to write and to stay true to her literary vision, her last tales are inflected by Buddhist thought on the transience and beauty of the world.

This was a beautifully written book with amazing clear descriptions of the land and the people of 11th century Japan. At times it was a little dry, but was certainly worth persevering.

Jewel by Brett Lott

(535 pages)



In the backwoods of Mississippi, Jewel and her husband Leston are blessed with five healthy children. All this changes with the birth of Brenda Kay in 1943. This is the story of a woman's devotion to a child who is both her burden and her blessing.

This was beautifully written and tackled some big issues in the south of the 1940's and onwards.
I liked some of the characters, but the story was a wee bt too slow moving for me.
Jewel was a fabulous mother, putting the welfare of her kids before everything else, but I couldnt help feeling that she was wraping Brenda Kay in cotton wool...... maybe it was because it was the 1940s :s.

Under The Duvet by Marian Keyes

(230 pages)



Setting the record straight about her life as a novelist (less glitz and glamour than sitting alone in a darkened bedroom with a laptop in front of her) Marian Keyes here presents a selection of her articles. These regular bulletins from a woman under the duvet include unpublished pieces.

This was really easy to read because it was broken down into such short 'stories'. In typical Marian Keyes style, she tackles real life with a gusto and huge sense of humour. Really good fun and highly reccomended.

Black And Blue by Anna Quindlen

(293 pages)



"The first time my husband hit me I was nineteen years old," begins Fran Benedetto, the broken heroine of Anna Quindlen's Black and Blue. With one sweeping sentence, the door to an abused and tortured world is swung wide open and the psyche of a crushed and tattered self-image exposed. "Frannie, Frannie, Fran"--as Bobby Benedetto liked to call her before smashing her into kitchen appliances--was a young, energetic nursing student when she met her husband-to-be at a local Brooklyn bar. She was instantly captivated by his dark, brooding looks and magnetic personality, but her fascination soon solidified into a marital prison sentence of incessant abuse and the destruction of her own identity. After an especially horrific beating and rape, Fran realizes that the next attack could be the last. Fearing her son would be left alone with Bobby, she escapes one morning with her child. Fran's salvation comes in the form of Patty Bancroft and Co., a relocation agency for abused women that touts better service than the witness protection program. Armed only with a phone number, a few hundred dollars, and the help of several anonymous volunteers, Fran begins a new life. The agency relocates her to Florida, where she becomes Beth Crenshaw, a recently divorced home-care assistant from Delaware. Fran and her son adapt, meeting challenges with unexpected resilience and resolve until their past returns to haunt them. Quindlen renders the intricacies of spousal abuse with eerie accuracy, taking the reader deep within the realm of dysfunctional human ties. However, her vivid descriptions of abuse, emotional disintegration, and acute loneliness at times numb the reader with their realism.

This was a wonderfu book. It was beautifully written, and the story gently unfolded displaying the true horror of domestic abuse. The characters were on the most part likeable, and I really felt involved with the storyline, especially young Robert. Anna Quindlen hasn't hesitated to hit us between the eyes with the subject matter, and in telling it like it is she has managed to weave a complex and gripping story. A great feature of it was the ending. It was bitter-sweet, not sugar coated as in most cases, this was fantastic, as although you wanted everything to work out perfectly, you are reminded that life isnt really like that. Wonderful.
This book has made me want to read all of Anna Quindlen's novels.... It must've been good!

The Butler Did It by Kasey Michaels

(377 pages)




Morgan Drummond, Marquis of Westham, expects his butler to be awaiting his return home – even when that return follows a five-year absence. But he doesn’t expect the horde of strangers who’ve taken up residence in his house, courtesy of that enterprising butler and a discreet classified ad. Morgan’s plan to toss his unwelcome tenants into the street is thwarted by a beautiful but indomitable débutante, Miss Emma Clifford – who’s not averse to a bit of blackmail for a good cause.

Now Morgan finds himself squiring the lovely Emma to the ton’s most fashionable events – and what’s more surprising, he’s beginning to enjoy it. Surely he’s not falling for such an infuriating woman? That butler has a lot to answer for – but then again, it’s so hard to find good help…


Typical Mills & Boon fluff but very funny woth it. A must for those with a soft centre and love of historical romance :)