Finished: My Sister's Keeper (Picoult) An exceptionally beautiful and heartbreaking story about a couple who decides to have a third child, picking the IVF embryo that is an exact match to their two year old daughter who is diagnosed with a rare and deadly form of leukemia. Years later, when that baby, Anna, is 13 and her ill sister, Kate, is 16, and after Anna has been through numerous medical donation procedures for her sister, Anna brings a lawsuit against her parents to sue them for the right to make her own decisions about donating a kidney to Kate. Kate is finally out of hope when it comes to her cancer treatments, and to make matters worse, her kidneys are failing and she doesn't have long to live. What follows is the beautifully written, emotionally wrenching viewpoint of each party involved: Sara, the mother of both girls; Brian, the father of both girls; Jesse, the older brother of both girls who is spiraling out of control because when tested years ago, he was the one who wasn't able to save his baby sister; Kate, the dying sister; Anna, the donor sister; Campbell, the attorney Anna hires; and Laura, the guardian ad litem assigned to Anna. You will feel as conflicted as Anna does, feel as fiercely as Sara does, feel as protective as Brian does, and feel as hopeless as Jesse does at different times during the story. Just when all is said and done and the trial has been decided, and Anna confides in her lawyer about what she'd really like to do now, one of the biggest shocking endings I've ever read in a book happens and decides everything for everyone. I truly believe my mouth hung open as I read the remaining pages of the book after the shocking event. It's a story that will stay with me for a long time. I'm so thankful I never had to make any of the decisions the members of this family had to make! Thank you to my dear friend Marla for gifting me with this book! :-) 

Finished: Walk the Wire (Baldacci) The next in the Memory Man series which has FBI partners Amos Decker and Alex Jamison heading to North Dakota to investigate a murder in a small fracking town. The two is torn between two powerful families and situated right next to a U.S. military facility. All sorts of characters become suspects, but the game is really upped when  Decker is stalked one night and nearly killed while investigating. To the rescue? Another one of Baldacci's characters with a book series of his own, Will Robie. Will Robie is basically a trained assassin who can get himself out of most any situation. You know if Will Robie is sent in, then it must be serious. It was lots of fun reading this book with  Decker and Robie brought together in one Baldacci book. Though, as busy as December was, I only picked the book up every few days, so the reading was a bit disjointed, but still another clever who-dunnit! :-)