48. Land of Echoes by Daniel Hecht

This book is a classic ghost story.  Tommy Keeday is attending a boarding school for gifted Navajos when he starts exhibiting all the signs of possession.  Cree Black, a renowned parapsychologist, is called in to investigate.  She soon becomes embroiled in all the drama of a aging beauty queen against the son of her rich ex-husband who died a few years earlier.  So is the ex-husband the ghost or is it Tommy's parents who also died recently?  In order to learn the answers, Cree must get close to the spirit while trying to save Tommy from the practioners of more traditional medicine who want to medicate him and weaken his resistance to the possession.  Normally, I don't like ghost stories or tales of hauntings, let alone possession by a foreign spirit; but this book is very well-written with some intriguing characters, beautiful descriptions of the harsh landscape of New Mexico, and a great study of the Navajo culture. 
Rating:  4.75

47. Glass House by Jane Haddam

I have always loved the Gregor Demarkian mysteries.  They used to always be named after some holiday, but I guess the author ran out.  I tried reading the one before Glass House but couldn't finish it because it seemed to run on for pages about these far right groups planning some big event.  When I quit, Gregor still had not been introduced into the story.  Fortunately, this book jumps right into the mystery and Gregor's odd life.  He is really is a great character and surrounds himself with very colorful people.  This book involves the serial killings of eleven women.  Gregor is called in by the Philadelphis police because they have picked up an alcholic scion of a Main Line family and want to make sure the charges stick.  It's a very convoluted mystery, but Gregor figures it out quite quickly all while trying to get his own life back in order.  In fact the ending is a bit anticlimatic because it wraps up so quickly.  Still, it was a fun read.  Rating:  4

45 & 46. Counting Stars & All the Stars in Heaven by Michelle Paige Holmes

Both of these books are Mormon romantic novels.  In Counting Stars, Jane is thirty and single in a church structured around marriage and families.  She answers an ad in the singles page and meets Paul, the dying father of twins whose wife just dies in a car accident.  He is looking for someone to raise his children and Jane is the perfect one.  She soons loves the babies and is ready to take on their care after Paul dies.  After his death, she learns that she is co-guardian with Peter, Paul's brother who has been serving in Iraq.  You can figure out the rest.  Rating:  3.5

All the Stars in Heaven is a much darker and more interesting book.  It involves a corrupt police chief, his talented but cowed daughter, and a recovering drug addict who is attending Harvard to get a law degree.  There is plenty of adventure and a pretty good love story.  Rating:  4

44. Jane of Lantern Hill by L M Montgomery

This is another charming book by the master of charm.  Jane is a lonely young girl living with her overbearing, mean-spirited grandmother and her mother who does whatever the grandmother tells her.  Even though they have every thing money can buy, Jane is unhappy and restless.  Then she is summoned to Prince Edward Island by her father who she can't remember.  Jane doesn't want to go; but once she meets her father, she loves him immediately and embarks upon a  summer filled with fun, friends and adventures.  The ending is very predictable but satisfying and Jane is almost as fun to read about as Anne of Green Gables.  Rating:  4.5 

43. When Madeline was Young by Jane Hamilton

From back cover:

"When Aaron Maciver's beautiful young wife, Madeline, suffers a head injury in a bicycle crash, she is left with the mental capabilities of a six-year-old.  In the years that follow, Aaron and his second wife care for Madeline with deep tenderness and devotion as they raise two children of their own."

Even though this is an odd premise, I liked the book.  The story is told by Aaron's son, Mac, who is pretty normal but not nearly as daring as his cousin, Buddy.  It is a great look at the U.S. during the early 80's with the beginning of the civil rights movement and the escalation of the Vietnam War.  Over all, a pretty good book.  Rating:  4

42. I Don't Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson (audio)

Kate Reddy is a working mother of two and a wife.  She also works full time as a hedge fund manager.  With her demanding job, she is always trying to justify her time away from home and try to appear as good as all the other mothers.  The books is quite funny at times, but mostly just nerve-wracking.
Rating:  3.5

41. Burning Bright by Tracy Chevalier

Chevalier writes historical fiction that center around known historical figure, in this case, William Blake.  Well, he is not as well known as those in her other books, and mostly just a side character.  The main story involves Tommy Kellaway, new to London from a small village; and Maggie Butterfield, a young girl who has grown up on the streets of London.  It is an interesting look at 18th century London, but overall, the story is not very engaging.  Rating:  3

37, 38, 39 and 40. The Dale series by Gervaise Phinn, Books 1 through 4

Gervaise Phinn is a school inspector in North Yorkshire.  These four books tells of the humorous things that happen when you're working with children.  His obvious love for teaching and children makes these books heart warming and enriching.  During these four books, Gervaise visits multiple schools to observe and help teachers improve their skills in teaching literature, poetry and English.  What a wonderful system.  The children do and say the funniest things and Gerviase's reactions are priceless.  He also falls in love and gets married, deals with an overbearing administrative assistant, and his other colleagues, who are quite the characters.  The school system  has a meeting facility where they hold seminars and showcase the children's work.  The janitor at this place is one of the funnest characters of all.  All the books are great fun.  Rating:  4

36. The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery

All her life, Valancy has been told how plain she is.  At the age of 29 and still single, she is a disappointment to her sour mother.  The rest of her extended family treats like a joke and control her every move.  When she learns she has a heart condition and could die at any time, Valancy decides it is time to start living.  She starts by keeping house and looking after the dying daughter of the town drunk.  Her family is horrified and tries to have her committed, but Valancy perseveres and finally starts to experience all the things she was afraid to do before.

Not my favorite Montgomery book, but still charming and old fashioned. 

Rating:  3.75

35. Domestic Pleasures by Beth Gutcheon

From back cover:

"After her husband dies in a plane crash, Martha Gaver is horrified to learn that the executor of Raymond's estate is charlies, the conservative, insufferable lawyer who represented Raymond in their bitter divorce.  Yet soon after they reenter each other's lives, Martha, Charlie, and their teenage children find they have moe in common than they imagined as they struggle to rebuild their lives . . . and that opposites really do attract."

This is the second book by Gutcheon that I've read.  Although it is not quite as good as the first, I still really liked it.  The characters are engaging and it's a great plot which kept me captivated.  I did get a little tired of the teenage angst and the ex-wife's manipulations; but overall I liked the book.
Rating:  4

34. Messenger of Truth by Jacqueline Winspear

My sister recommended this series to me so I jumped at a chance to mooch this book.  It's about the third in the series; and, after reading it, I would recoemmend starting at the first.  I know there is some bakground I am missing that would have added to my enjoyment of this book.  It takes place in London shortly after World War One.  Maisie Dobbs was a nurse in the war and then trained to do investigations.  she has left her mentor and started business on her own.  A young woman from a wealthy upperclass family hires her to find out the truth about the death of her artist brother.  He fell from the scaffolding while preparing for an exhibition of his work.  Georgina is sure it was not an accident.  Maisie is such an interesting character, very insightful but also questioning of her own motives.  The author also touches on the plight of the veterans in the city as well as the inequality between the haves and the have-nots.   I enjoyed both the mystery and the background.
Rating:  4.5

33. The Seven Sisters by Margaret Drabble

This was one hard book to get into.  It begins with Candida Wilton's journal as she tells about her recent divorce and move into a small flat in a less-desirable past of London.  She takes a class on Virgil and meets some women there that she develops kind-of friendships with plus she maintains contact with a really annoying woman from her old home in Suffolk and an old college friend who has fallen on hard times.  Candida si the most colorless character and I didn't care for her at all.  But she gets a small win-fall and decides to visit the places described by Virgil and invites the three women she met in her class along with the old friend and the annoying old neighbor.  The seventh woman to join their group is the tour guide.  During the trip, Candida becomes much more interesting,  When the trip is over, the book takes a reallay odd turn.  I need to quit reading books about older women who are alone and don't know what to do with themselves.  And it was depressing but there is hope at the end. 
Rating:  3.5

32. The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker

Leeann Buth tells this story about her life with her older sister, Mary Beth.  Mary Beth works to support them both while practicing a unique talent of song reading.  She helps people overcome their problems by analyzing the songs they hear in their minds.  A tragedy develops and Mary Beth is blamed.  She goes into a tailspin and it affects all those around her.  Kind of a depressing book that I found just so-so.

Rating:  3

29. - 31. Uglies -- Pretties -- Specials -- by Scott Westerfield

Tally is about to turn sixteen which is when all everyone turns pretty.  In this futuristic series,  the government has decided that wars, strife, petty misunderstandings, jealousy etc. can all be avoided if everyone is pretty.  In the first book, Tally meets Shay who isn't sure she wants to be pretty and runs away, leaving Tally with instructions on how to find her in the unpopulated wilderness.  In Pretties, Tally becomes pretty but knows something is missing and can't remember what.  The last book takes Tally beyond pretty into becoming a Special, part of a police force who are not only pretty but possess unique physical characteristics, almost super natural.  I found these books to be great reads, lots of adventure, a moral of accepting yourself for who you are that is not slammed over your head, and some great characters.  Definitely a young adult book that I would recommend to anyone.
Rating:  4

28. The Quilter's Apprentice by Jennifer Chiaverini

When Sarah moves to a new town with her husband, she is at loose ends and having trouble finding a job.  The reclusive owner of Elm Creek Manaor offers her a temporary job preparing the estate for sale.  Sarah agrees when she learns Sylvia is a master quilter and is willing to share her secrets as part of Saraah's compensation.  During the lessons, Sarah learns more about Sylvia's life and develops respect and admiration for the older woman.  I like this quote from the back of the book:  "Just as the darker sections of a quilt can enhance the brighter ones, the mistakes of the past can strengthen understanding  and lead the way to new beginnings." 

As a beginning quilter myself, I was interested to read this book, but thought the story a bit simplistic.  It was also very heartwarming.  I just wish I could pick up quilting as fast as Sarah seemed to. 

Rating:  3.5

27. Song of the Lioness by Tamora Pierce

This story, all four books, is about the making of a hero. It's also about a very stubborn girl.

Alanna of Trebond wants to be a knight of the realm of Tortall, in a time when girls are forbidden to be warriors. Rather than give up her dream, she and her brother--who wants to be a mage, not a knight--switch places. She becomes Alan; Thom becomes a student wizard in the school where she would have learned to be a lady.
The quartet is about her struggle to achieve her goals and to master weapons, combat, polite behavior, her magic, her temper, and even her own heart. It is about friendships--with the heir to the throne, the King of Thieves, a wise and kindly knight--and her long struggle against a powerful enemy mage.
She sees battle as a squire and as a knight, lives among desert people and tries to rescue an independent princess. Singled out by a goddess, accompanied by a semi-divine cat with firm opinions, somehow she survives her many adventures to become a most unlikely legend.   Tamora Pierce website

I was into the third story before I realized that my book is actually a compilation of four smaller books.  Aaah, that explains what I thought was unnecessary explanations about things I had just read about in the previous "chapter."  So that was just a minor annoyance in a really good fantasy.  Alanna is a tremendous character as she struggles to learn to become a knight while disguised as a boy.  There are lots of really great characters and evil villains in these four books and the magic and adventure are riveting.  My only gripe is the depiction of Alanna sleeping with her three love interests (not at the same time, but this is a young adult book).  While there is nothing graphic, I thought it was unnecessary and even a bit disturbing in its casualness.  Other than that, I thought the story was great.  Rating:  4

26. American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin

American Prometheus is the first full-scale biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, "father of the atomic bomb," the brilliant, charismatic physicist who led the effort to capture the awesome fire of the sun for his country in time of war. Immediately after Hiroshima, he became the most famous scientist of his generation-one of the iconic figures of the twentieth century, the embodiment of modern man confronting the consequences of scientific progress.

He was the author of a radical proposal to place international controls over atomic materials-an idea that is still relevant today. He opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb and criticized the Air Force's plans to fight an infinitely dangerous nuclear war. In the now almost-forgotten hysteria of the early 1950s, his ideas were anathema to powerful advocates of a massive nuclear buildup, and, in response, Atomic Energy Commission chairman Lewis Strauss, Superbomb advocate Edward Teller and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover worked behind the scenes to have a hearing board find that Oppenheimer could not be trusted with America's nuclear secrets.

American Prometheus sets forth Oppenheimer's life and times in revealing and unprecedented detail. Exhaustively researched, it is based on thousands of records and letters gathered from archives in America and abroad, on massive FBI files and on close to a hundred interviews with Oppenheimer's friends, relatives and colleagues.

We follow him from his earliest education at the turn of the twentieth century at New York City's Ethical Culture School, through personal crises at Harvard and Cambridge universities. Then to Germany, where he studied quantum physics with the world's most accomplished theorists; and to Berkeley, California, where he established, during the 1930s, the leading American school of theoretical physics, and where he became deeply involved with social justice causes and their advocates, many of whom were communists. Then to Los Alamos, New Mexico, where he transformed a bleak mesa into the world's most potent nuclear weapons laboratory-and where he himself was transformed. And finally, to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, which he directed from 1947 to 1966.

American Prometheus is a rich evocation of America at midcentury, a new and compelling portrait of a brilliant, ambitious, complex and flawed man profoundly connected to its major events-the Depression, World War II and the Cold War. It is at once biography and history, and essential to our understanding of our recent past-and of our choices for the future.   textbooks.com

This is such a massive book that I blatantly used someone else's summary.  Don't be dismayed by the size of it.  It has to be big since it took twenty-five years to write, but it's well worth the effort.  Not only did I learn about the enigma that is J Robert Oppenheimer, I also learned about the creation of the atomic bomb, America in the 40's and 50's and the whole McCarthy anti-communist movement.  While Oppenheimer is a hard man to like, his story is compelling.  The book won a Pulitzer prize and I can understand why.  Rating:  4.5

25. Survivor in Death by J D Robb (audio)

I always need a good action book to keep me awake when I'm driving by myself; and, for the most part, Survivor in Death did a pretty good job.  I like the Eve Dallas series for several reasons:  1.  It takes places in New York City in the year 2059 and some of the technology is outrageous.  2.  Eve Dallas is the ultimate strong woman, perfect cop with a heart of steel with just a touch of marshmellow at the center and a past that still gives her nightmares.  3.  Roarke, Eve's husband, is the most delicious male character ever written.  4.  The mysteries are always gripping with great details and interesting twists.  5.  The humor between straight arrow Eve and her fellow police officers keeps things from getting too serious and makes the books even better.  What I don't like is the profanity which is impossible to get away from on an audio version and the explicit sex which is very easy to skip as you see it coming a mile away. 

This particular book involves the mass murder of a family while they are sleeping.  The killers make one mistake and kill a girl who is sleeping over while the real daughter has gone to the kitchen for a snack.  When she sees the shadows, she calls the police and then hides.  Eve finds her and takes her to her home for protection when she realizes the killers will not be satisfied until the mission is completed.  When 9-year-old Nixie is taken to say good-by to her her family in the morgue, it is pretty gut-wrenching.  You don't often find that sort of emotion in an Eve Dallas book, but I thought Robb did a good job with the way she portrayed the little girl's grief and loss.  I did find the rehashing of Eve's early childhood trauma to be tedious as it is covered in almost every book.  Probably important if this is the first of the series you had read, but I would suggest starting at the first and then you might get tired of the angst as well.  I do want to give a shout-out to the narrator, Susan Erickson.  She does an excellent job with the different voices, especially Roarke's Irish accent.  With her narration, I had no problem keeping up with the story and the characters.  Rating:  4

24. Dead Sleep by Greg Iles

Photojournalist Jordan Glass is visiting a museum in Japan and finds herself face-to-face with a painting of herself naked and sleeping.  She quickly realizes that the painting must be of her twin sister who has been missing for a year and Jane is not asleep, she is dead.  Jordan realizes that all the paintings in the exhibit called "Sleeping Women" are actually of dead women.  She quickly returns to the U.S. and joins forces with the FBI and an investigator in New Orleans where most of the women disappeared.  As she tries to find out if here sister truly is dead and who took her,  Jordan begins to also learn more about her father, a famous photographer who went missing in Vietnam twenty years earlier.  This mystery had plenty of suspense and action; and its view into the high dollar stakes of the art world was very interesting.  However, I found the romance that develops between Jordan and the investigator to be implausible and contrived.  Rating:  4

23. Spirits in the Wires by Charles de Lint

Spirits in the Wires is the second de Lint book that I have read and it should have been read before Widdershins.  I would have enjoyed them both even more if I had read them chronologically.  Even so, I really liked this book.  The town of Newford is a magical place even if very few of the resident humans realize what is happening around them.   But, when people start disappearing into a website called Wordwood, everyone takes notice until the site master controls the flow of information and makes it seem as if computers are not involved at all.  Christy (a guy) Ridding's girlfriend is one of those who was sucked into the site; and with the help of his friends, both magical and otherwise, they journey to the otherworld to rescue Saskia.  This story is fantasy and science fiction rolled into one and a great tale of computers run amok.  The visual of being inside a website and the dangers of viruses and crashing is absolutely stunning.  What an imaginative and intriguing book.  I look forward to reading another Newford novel soon.  I should deduct a little for the cover which I don't feel added to the story at all, but I won't  Rating:  5