Finished: Liar Liar (Jackson) This was a pretty good semi-page-turner, whodunit by an author who I've read quite a bit of. I actually finished this book a week ago, but then traveled, so never wrote the blog entry. I'm going to be really lazy and just cut and paste the blurb about the book from Amazon in my blog. :-) I will say that I kept getting the feeling that I'd read this book before, but it wasn't on my list anywhere, so maybe I had only read about it. Anyway, it was good but not mind blowing. Here's the Amazon blurb:

"In death, Didi Storm is finally getting the kind of publicity that eluded her in life. Twenty years ago, the ex-beauty queen worked the Vegas strip as a celebrity impersonator, too busy to spare much time for her daughter, Remmi. Shortly before she leaped from a San Francisco building, Didi’s profile was rising again, thanks to a tell-all book. To Detective Dani Settler, it looks like a straightforward suicide, or perhaps a promotional stunt gone wrong. But Remmi knows the truth isn’t so simple. Because though the broken body on the sidewalk is dressed in Didi’s clothes and wig, it isn’t Didi.

Remmi was fifteen when she last saw her mother. They parted in the aftermath of a terrible night in the Mojave desert when Remmi—who’d hidden in Didi’s car en route to meet her crush, Noah Scott—instead witnessed Didi handing over one of her newborn twins to a strange man. Then Didi disappeared, as did Remmi’s other half-sibling. The authorities have found no clues. Yet Remmi has always sensed that someone is watching her . . .

Remmi is shocked when Noah resurfaces. He was also in the desert that night, and now runs his own PI firm. He too believes it’s time to find out what happened. As they and Detective Settler dig deeper, the truth about Remmi’s missing family begins to emerge—a story of ruthless ambition and lies that someone will kill again and again to keep hidden . . ."

Finished: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Smith) A very good book which I took my time reading and savoring, about a young girl named Francie Nolan who lives with her parents and brother, Neely, in the slums of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, NY, in the early 1900's. The family struggles to make enough money to keep food on the table and heat in the house, but they make do. Francie and Neely both have to work at a very young age because every penny counts towards the family income. Their mother, Katie, and father, Johnny, were young and in love once, but as Katie has worked to support the family steadily, Johnny, a song and dance man, doesn't have consistent work and has become an alcoholic. He's got a good heart and loves his family, but he succumbs to the alcoholism at a fairly young age. We also meet Katie's mother and sisters and see a bit of their family life. However, the story is seen mostly from the viewpoint of the sensitive, yet strong, Francie, who is a beautiful writer and longs to grow up to write someday. We watch her age from 11 to 16 as she goes through these important years with very little money, few friends, and the typical yearning of a budding teenage girl who would like to fall in love. She does meet and fall in love with one boy, who it turns out is off to the war and was only interested in her for the weekend, which she thankfully declines. The other boy she meets falls in love with her, but she simply likes him...good old dependable Ben. When the story ends when Francie is 16 and heading to college, Ben who is 21, has promised to marry her in a few years when she's old enough. Francie goes along with it, figuring she has a few years to sort her life out and decide if that's what she truly wants. There's so much detail in the book...about the relationship between Francie and Neely, which is close, and Francie and her father, which is also close, and Francie and her mother, who clearly favors Neely, and Francie and her English teacher, who actually discourages some very good, but sad, stories that Francie writes, causing Francie to burn many of her writings. By the end of the book, Katie is remarrying to a man who can actually afford to give them a better life, who they all like, and it is his generosity that allows Francie to go off to college and chase her dreams. A really good book, which actually has me interested in reading more about the author to see if this is rather autobiographical. :-)