Finished: 56 Days (Howard) A very good, page-turning book about two Dubliners who meet in a food mart line just days before the country goes into lockdown due to the first round of Covid. They have two dates before the announcement and they spontaneously decide to move in together for the two week lockdown. What better way to get to know each other? Ciera is 25 and seems to be very unsure of herself. Oliver, 29, is more outgoing, but is guarded for his own reasons. One of them is hiding a murderous past! What transpires during the lockdown is told from their perspectives counting down from 56 days prior to the present day, AND from the perspective of a detective who is called to the scene of an apartment where a body is found decomposing. Not just an apartment...the one they were sharing. The story is fast-paced with information revealed at each turn. One huge twist caught me by surprise in the end, just when I thought I'd figured things out. :-) Also, having the story occur during the pandemic was very surreal, but also very interesting to see it spelled out in story form...exactly what we all went through at the beginning, and many continue to go through even now. Great book!! 

 Finished: Never (Follett) A haunting story about just how easy it would be for World War III to begin with the launching of nuclear weapons. A myriad of characters are intertwined in the story in various parts of the world, trying to prevent the "smaller" skirmishes that could potentially lead to nuclear war. Tamara is a CIA agent stationed in Chad, along with her French counterpart, Tab. Their current mission is to keep track of their American spy, Abdul, who is trying to infiltrate the jihadists in north Africa to determine the hiding place of the current number one terrorist. Abdul sets off on a bus full of terrified local citizens who have put their trust in an unscrupulous man who has promised to smuggle them to the Mediterranean where they then hope to flee to Europe. On this dangerous journey, not only does Abdul track a shipment of cocaine that they assume is headed to the jihadist leader, he also falls for the newly widowed local mother, Kiah who, with her toddler son, has put all her trust in the people smuggler. Tamara and Tab must also  deal with mounting tensions between Chad and Sudan. Meanwhile, China's top spy and close presidential advisor, Chang Kai, is embroiled in his own political doings, mainly trying to keep the old guard of the communist Chinese at bay, as they constantly want to use their nuclear weapons at the slightest provocation. Kai is in contact with fellow spies in America, North Korea and South Korea as he is constantly stomping out fires and making more neutral, yet firm, suggestions for the president to follow. China is committed to North Korea and the United States is committed to South Korea. Any invasion of either of those countries by the other would almost require the two super powers to get involved, and then lead to the more dangerous war between them. So, of course, a rebel group begins to take over the bases in North Korea that host North Korea's nuclear weapons. Emboldened by that success, the South Korean president takes advantage and launches her own attack on North Korea. Meanwhile, in America, President Pauline Green is also trying her hardest to prevent the next World War. She's even-minded, but tough, as she tries to make the best decisions. When the rebels in North Korea send a nuclear missile to level a city in Japan, President Green finally has to retaliate despite a promise to China not to get American fire power involved in the war between North and South Korea. As the book progresses, the story shows how America goes from DEFCON 5 all the way to DEFCON 1. President Green uses nuclear weapons to wipe out all the remaining nuclear bases in North Korea, which prompts China to retaliate by sending a nuclear bomb to Hawaii. The books ends there before we actually see the total devastation of the human race. One of the few brights spots is that Abdul, Kiah and her son make it to France where they become a family, for whatever amount of time the world has left. :-( It's not my favorite Follett book, but did keep me reading until the end, thinking surely all those characters were going to prevent the nuclear war, and leaving me pretty shocked when they didn't. 

 Finished: We Have Always Lived In A Castle (Jackson) Eighteen year old Mary Katherine (Merricat) to her family, her twenty-something sister, Constance, and their Uncle Julian live in Blackwood, one of the old family estates in a small village. Six  years earlier the Blackwoods were one of the rich, upper echelon of the village with a massive estate and prestige. Until, one night the entire family was poisoned at dinner...the father, the mother, the aunt, the uncle and the 10 year old brother. The entire family died of arsenic poisoning, except for Uncle Julian, who didn't get enough of the poison, eldest daughter Constance, who cooked all the meals for the family and 12 year old Merricat, who'd been sent to bed without dinner for acting up. Six years later Merricat and Constance are town pariahs. Constance had been immediately arrested and tried, but found innocent of killing her family. Even though found innocent, though, the people of the village were all convinced she'd done it. Constance remained a recluse at home, her only joys working in her vast garden and cooking all the meals for their now small family of three. This left Merricat to walk into town once a week for the groceries and errands where she was mercilessly bullied by the children AND the adults of the town. It's truly very shameful the way all the adults treat her and other adults just laugh. No one stickes up for her. Merricat bravely makes this trip every week so that Constance doesn't have to go and face anyone in town. Merricat is very strange, with a wild imagination, beliefs that she can protect the boundaries of their home by burying different things in the ground, and she's very attached to Constance. When a cousin, Charles, comes knocking on the door, their very structured, odd existence is thrown completely out of whack, with dire consequences. And, we find out who poisoned the family. This was such an eerie book, but I couldn't put it down. I had to keep reading to see what would happen next, and when it was over, I wanted to know the backstory of what led up to the poisoning!! 

 Finished: Peter the Great (Massie) The Pulitzer Prize winning story of  Russian tsar, Peter the Great. My son gave me this 850+ page non-fiction beast several months ago and I have been reading it in between all the other books I've read, i.e., the fast reads, as this one is definitely a slow going read in order to take in all the facts, details, history, etc. It is fascinating and I've loved reading it, but so glad to be done. :-) I wouldn't even attempt to recap it, so just going to include the Amazon blurb here. 

"Against the monumental canvas of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe and Russia unfolds the magnificent story of Peter the Great, crowned co-tsar at the age of ten. The acclaimed author of Catherine the Great, Robert K. Massie delves deep into the life of this captivating historical figure, chronicling the pivotal events that shaped a boy into a legend—including his “incognito” travels in Europe, his unquenchable curiosity about Western ways, his obsession with the sea and establishment of the stupendous Russian navy, his creation of an unbeatable army, his transformation of Russia, and his relationships with those he loved most: Catherine, the robust yet gentle peasant, his loving mistress, wife, and successor; and Menshikov, the charming, bold, unscrupulous prince who rose to wealth and power through Peter’s friendship. Impetuous and stubborn, generous and cruel, tender and unforgiving, a man of enormous energy and complexity, Peter the Great is brought fully to life."

 Finished: Go Tell The Bees That I Am Gone (Gabaldon). The ninth book in the Outlander series, which is one of my favorites, with my favorite book couple, Claire and Jamie! It was so very good to read this book after a seven year wait. I love that Jamie and Claire are still essential, busy, feisty, and each other's soul mates as they move towards their 60's (well, Claire is IN her 60's). From Claire's doctoring, to Jamie's being the "laird" of Fraser's Ridge and building their house and caring for his people, to Claire's gardening and beehives, to the impending battle of the American Revolution in North Carolina in which Jamie will have to fight, they remain the heart and soul of Outlander. Of course their lives and stories are intertwined with their daughter, Brianna, her husband, Roger, and their children, Jemmy, Mandy, and now wee Davey. :-) And, with their adopted son, Fergus, his wife, Marsali, and their five children. And, my third favorite character after Claire and Jamie, young Ian, and his wife, Rachel, and baby boy. And, Jamie's sister Jenny from Scotland who now lives with Ian's family on the ridge since her own husband, big Ian, died in the last book. And, Jamie's bastard son, William, who was raised as a British lord by Lord John Grey so that he could ostensibly have a better life than that with a father who'd been a Jacobite traitor. Of course, William found out in the last book that Jamie was his real father (fathered when Claire was back in the present time and thought Jamie was dead, and he thought she was gone from him forever.) William is slowly coming to terms with Jamie being his father, and came to him for help in the last book because he knew he could count on him. In this book, we get to see the blossoming sibling relationship between Brianna and William when they meet up in Savannah and I love it! You can tell they will be protective of each other. SPOILERS AHEAD SO STOP READING IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE END OF BEES!! It's nice to see that William is also forgiving John Grey for deceiving him all these years. John Grey is actually kidnapped by an evil man in the current book and at the end we're left wondering what his fate will be. After a deadly battle towards the end of the book, in which Claire uses her all her strength to mend a near fatally wounded Jamie and bring him back to life, Jamie and Claire are on the porch of the big house on Fraser's Ridge with Bree, Roger, Ian, Rachel and many of the grandchildren all around when a horse comes tearing down the path and stops right at the edge of the porch. It's William!! He looks out of breath and panicked as he says to Jamie, "Sir, I need your help!" and that's where the book ends. Gahhhhhhhhhhhhh! I hope it's not another seven years before Diana Galbadon publishes the tenth book, which is supposed to be the last in the series. You just know that Jamie will go to help William, though, no questions asked, most likely with Claire by his side. :-) <3

 Finished: Local Woman Missing (Kubica) Suspenseful murder mystery told from the viewpoints of just a few of the main characters as they move back and forth to when the local woman goes missing eleven years earlier and the current day. Not only does a local woman, Shelby, go missing, but another woman in the same neighborhood and her five year old daughter both go missing shortly afterwards. The story twists and turns and throws in lots of red herrings as we hear Meredith's and Delilah's stories from their viewpoints eleven years earlier (missing mom and daughter); we find out Meredith was Shelby's doula only weeks before her disappearance; we find out Shelby and her husband were set to sue the doctor who actually delivered the baby with forceps, causing brain damage; we find out Meredith and the husband of another neighborhood friend were lovers in college and the friend is insanely mad and jealous; we find out that after a girl who has been trapped in a basement returns home, giving her name as Delilah, she isn't really Delilah after all. So many twists come out of nowhere, and particularly the person who was actually responsible for the all of the tragic events. It's a good page-turner if you are into this kind of book. :-) 

 Finished: The Judge's List (Grisham) A typical, page-turning Grisham book. In this case, a petrified woman, Jerri, contacts Lacy Stotlz, who works for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct, about a man who has been patiently and systematically killing people for the past twenty years. Jerri's father was his second victim. Jerri has been just as patiently gathering circumstantial evidence for the past twenty years. When Lacy tells Jerri she has no jurisdiction over matters of murder, Jerri says, you do when the suspect is a sitting judge! And so the story unfolds from there. The sitting judge is very prominent and well respected with a spotless record. We learn early on, from his own viewpoint, that he has indeed been killing all sorts of people who have crossed him in his lifetime for a variety of reasons. If they abused him or embarrassed him or made him lose anything, they went on "the list". Jerri can show Lacy all the connections, but there is no concrete proof of his actions. Plus, Jerri is terrified that the judge is so smart that he will find her and kill her as well. It's a fast-paced story that puts Jerri in danger, and threatens to put Lacy and her team in danger as well. In the end, though, the judge is caught...but he has one more surprising act up his sleeve so that only words of respect and sympathy will follow him to his grave. :-) 

 Finished: Survive the Night (Sager) I read this book in one day! It was so suspenseful, I couldn't put it down. Charlie is a student desperate to leave college and just get home when she puts her number on the campus ride board. Her roommate and best friend, Maddy, is the most recent victim of the serial killer in the area known as the Campus Killer. Charlie's too distraught and guilt-ridden to think twice that the stranger who she accepts the six hour ride home from could very well be the serial killer. Having left the very social Maddy at a bar they arrived at together, when once again, Maddy flitted off to dance with a guy, leaving the more introverted Charlie in the corner, Charlie will never forgive herself for the harsh words she spoke to Maddy in the bar parking lot before she headed home for the night leaving Maddy at the bar on her own. Of course, that was the night Maddy was killed and the harsh words spoken were the last she spoke to her. As Charlie arranges for her ride home, the first red flag should be that Josh, the stranger, doesn't want to leave until 9:00 pm, driving through the night. As the night continues on, Charlie catches Josh in several lies, including his actual name and the fact that he's not familiar with the name of the main building on campus despite claims of working there the past four years. I'll not give away any more details about this plot, but it's a really good one! I might seek out more books written by this author. :-) 

 Finished: The Lincoln Highway (Towles) A beautifully written book about two brothers in 1954, Emmett, who is 18 and has just been released from a juvenile home for accidentally causing someone's death, and Billy, who is 8, smart as a whip both intellectually and emotionally. Their father has recently died leaving them with nothing but a small bit of cash after their family farm has been repossessed by the bank. Their mother left them years ago, when Billy was just a baby....but she mailed postcards for awhile, which their father kept from them. Having found the postcards now, Billy is determined that they follow their trail, along the Lincoln Highway that will lead them from Nebraska to San Francisco from which the last post card was addressed. Uncovering his Studebaker from the barn, a car he gets to keep because it is his by title, having bought it with his own hard-earned money as a carpenter's assistant, Emmett agrees. Not because he thinks they'll find their mother, but because he wants to get as far away from the small town they grew up in and because he wants them to start over in a bigger city where he believes he can make money working on refurbishing houses. Plans don't go as expected when two of Emmett's friends from the juvenile home show up at the farm, not having completed their time, but having stowed away in the warden's trunk when he brought Emmett home. Woolly, who just wants to make his way back home to New York for reasons we find out later, and Duchess, the far more nefarious of the two, who wants to make his way with Woolly, hoping to come into some money and to exact some revenge along the way on a few people who have done him wrong. When Duchess takes Emmett's car, and the money from his father that was hidden in it, and heads for New York with Woolly, Emmett has no choice but to follow him by hitching rides on boxcar trains until he can catch up with them. He leaves Billy with their kind neighbor, who'd already looked after Billy before, and his headstrong daughter, Sally, who definitely has a thing for Emmett, and heads off. Naturally, Billy finds his way to following Emmett and all involved, Emmett, Billy, Sally, Duchess, Woolly, and a few other characters they meet along the way, end up in a beautifully written story about following your dreams, doing the right thing, being kind to other people, being heroic, reuniting with family, reliving old memories, and, of course, in the case of Duchess, causing problems that they all must overcome. I fell in love with the honorable Emmett, the effervescent Billy, the no-nonsense Sally, and the tragic Woolly. Definitely a book that is going to have to push another from my Top 100 list! :-)  

 Finished: A Slow Fire Burning (Hawkins) Another mystery murder tale from the author of The Girl on the Train. Not as suspenseful as that one, this book is still good with many twists and turns and a few well-developed characters. When, Daniel, a young man in his twenties, is brutally murdered on his house boat, a handful of people become suspects...from the damaged, down-on-her-luck young woman who goes home with him for a one night stand, only to be ridiculed by him for having a limp; to his deceased mother's sister, his Aunt Carla and her ex-husband, Theo, who hold his mother responsible for the death of their three year old son ten years earlier. In the mix of things is Miriam, a fifty year old, socially inept woman who most of the town kids call "the hobbit". She lives on the houseboat right next to Daniel and she has seen every visitor who went in and out of his houseboat on the night he was murdered, including Laura and Carla. However...Miriam is the one who discovers Daniel's body and is also in possession of Laura's bloody house key which she lost in the argument she had with Daniel before leaving the boat. Miriam has brought a lawsuit against Theo, an author, for taking the manuscript she gave him of her kidnapping as a teenager by a sexual predator, and subsequent escape, and turning it into his own successful novel. So, she's got her own reasons for wanting some kind of revenge. Reading from the point of view of all the main characters, exactly what happened to Daniel and why slowly unravels in good fashion. Another good one from Paula Hawkins. :-)