The Running Bibliophile

The Stranger You Seek by Amanda Kyle Williams is set in Atlanta, Georgia, and the story begins as local media outlets receive chilling letters from a serial killer who promises to strike again. With each message, the pressure mounts on the Atlanta Police Department to identify the killer before another life is lost. Enter Keye Street, a former FBI profiler who now works as a private investigator and bail enforcement agent. As she digs deeper into the case and searches for connections between the victims, Keye begins to realize that the killer may be far closer to her than she ever imagined. This is a gripping debut suspense novel that I couldn’t put down from the very first page. It’s one of those rare books that pulls you in so completely that you wish you could call in sick just to finish it in one sitting. Sadly, I’m far too responsible to actually do that, so I had to settle for squeezing in chapters during my lunch break and every spare moment I could find. Before I gush too ...

Much to my surprise, I won a copy of Curse of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz on a First Reads Giveaway on Goodreads.com in return for an honest review. It was one of the first books I ever won on the site. Super excited that I'd won this book, I picked up the first book in the series The Spellman Files off of my bookshelf so that I could read it before I got the book I won in the mail from the publisher. (Typically, I won't read a book in a series unless I have read all the ones that came before it.) It was kismet that I had found the first book in the series at Barnes & Noble in the bargin bin! Curse of the Spellmans takes place in San Francisco, California and is about a family of private investigators. In this installment, Izzy Spellman has been arrested four times in three months and has to be bailed out of jail by Morty, her aging lawyer because her parents (and managers) refuse to do so. While Izzy is busy surveying her next door neighbor, her sister Rae is bus...

As a high school student, I absolutely loved reading The Great Gatsby . I was enchanted with every book we read my junior year, but I remember this one being one of the ones that I enjoyed the most. When one of the book clubs I belong to decided to read this book, I was excited to reread it as I didn't remember a lot about it, and it allowed me to refresh my memory before the Leonardo DiCaprio version of the movie came out. As an adult, I wasn't nearly as enchanted with it as I was as a high school student.  There isn't a lot of plot to the actual story; the little plot there was moved extremely slow. Basically, Jay Gatsby, the narrator, is a very wealthy man who lives on Long Island in New York and is in love with Daisy Buchanan. He throws a lot of lavish parties where there is a lot of drinking going on. And, then, there is a car accident where a woman ran into the street and was killed by a speeding car. However, the character development and the visual d...

In Lean Mean Thirteen , written by Janet Evanovich, Stephanie Plum does a favor for Ranger by planting a bug in her ex-husband Dickie Orr's office. In the process of doing this, Stephanie sees one of their wedding presents, a clock, on his desk and tells him it is now hers. She then sees a picture of her arch nemesis, Joyce Barnhardt, on Dickie's desk and goes ballistic . . . punching and hitting him (and more). Unfortunately for Stephanie, the whole office sees her do this, so when Dickie goes missing, she's the number one suspect in his case. Overall, I enjoyed this book because it featured Ranger quite heavily, but I am growing tired of him always saying how he is barely keeping control of himself from having sex with Stephanie. I'd really like to see Stephanie's character finally get over her commitment phobia and settle down with Joe Morelli, her on again off again boyfriend. Morelli isn't in it too much and that was quite disappointing to me because...

Something Borrowed by New York Times bestselling author Emily Giffin is a fast-paced, emotionally charged story about friendship, love, loyalty, and impossible choices. Set in Manhattan, the novel follows Rachel White, a hardworking lawyer who has spent her life living in the shadow of her best friend, Darcy Rhone.  From childhood, Rachel has always been the Watson to Darcy’s Sherlock ... the reliable sidekick to Darcy’s dazzling, larger-than-life personality. But everything changes when Rachel unexpectedly confesses her true feelings to Darcy’s fiancé, Dex. To her shock, she discovers that he feels the same way. As Darcy’s wedding day approaches, Rachel finds herself facing an impossible decision: should she steal the man she loves from her best friend, or walk away from him forever?  From Movie Trailer to Must-Read Novel  When the movie trailer for Something Borrowed was released, I knew instantly that I wanted to see it. At the time, I had no idea the film was adapt...

Teamwork (Sweet Valley Twins, # 27) created by Francine Pascal is a story about twin sisters, Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield, deciding they want to visit their great aunt, but their parents decide that the girls need to learn a lesson about money and earning the bus fares themselves. Determined to show their parents that they know the value of money and being responsible, they decide to start their own dog walking business, which quickly expands to dog sitting. Taking on a second client for dog sitting, the girls and their friend, Ken Matthews, quickly learn that the dog has been abused and take matters into their own hands to keep him safe. Sweet Valley Twins is the series that made me an avid reader, and now, that I'm rereading the series as an adult, I love the fact that it teaches kids valuable lessons about serious issues and how to deal with them as a kid. I know some adults might say that Teamwork glossed over the issue of animal abuse, but we have to keep in mind...

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell  opens in 1850 with Adam Ewing, a notary, is traveling home to California on a ship. Then, in 1931, Robert Frobisher, a composer, orchestrates a way into a sickly maestro's home. After that in the 1970's, Luisa Rey, a journalist stumbles across a story that threatens her life. Present Day, a Korean super state has overtaken England. Post-apocalyptic Iron Age, the last days of Earth on Hawaii. Then, we go back in time in reverse order, finding that all the characters are connected and intertwined. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell was a book selection for the first book club I ever joined. It isn't a book that I would've ever picked up to read on my own. I loved the concept of the story when I read the synopsis and was looking forward to reading it. Typically, I don't mind when a book jumps from one time period to the next, but with Cloud Atlas I did mind. It took away from the overall story line and made it very choppy. It fe...

It appears suddenly with no announcements, no advertising. Yesterday, there was nothing, and today ... today there is Le Cirque des Rêves ... a circus like no other. Mystically delightful in shades of black and white and unique acts you'll find no where else. Unbeknownst to those involved, a game is taking place within the walls of the tents ... a chance of only one to remain left standing. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern was published in 2011 and was a selection for one of the book clubs I joined. I promptly bought the novel on my e-reader, a Literati sold by Brookstone. It's in this book club that they announced that the author was doing a book signing with a local bookstore, The FoxTale Book Shoppe , and I immediately bought tickets to attend, and it included a copy of the book that would be signed at the event. Was I ever glad that they allowed us to pick up the books early because my Literati died on me in the middle of the book and wouldn't power back ...

The Devil's Tickets: A Vengeful Wife, a Fatal Hand, and a New American Age by Gary M. Pomerantz opens in 1929, Kansas City, with a seemingly ordinary evening that turns deadly. Myrtle and Jack Bennett invite another couple over to play Bridge, a popular card game of the time. During the competitive match, Myrtle complains about Jack’s poor gameplay, prompting him to slap her and announce he’s leaving. Moments later, in a shocking act of violence, Myrtle shoots and kills her husband. What follows is a sensational murder trial in which Myrtle Bennett is represented by none other than James A. Reed, a former U.S. Senator and one-time Democratic presidential candidate.  I won a copy of The Devil's Tickets through Goodreads.com’s First Reads Giveaway. Entering the giveaway, I was drawn to the book because the premise sounded intriguing ... a story of murder, high-stakes card games, and a courtroom drama with a political twist. I was ecstatic when I found out I had actually won a ...

California Girl (Sweet Dreams # 6) by Janet Quin-Harkin is part of the teen romance book series, Sweet Dreams . The books in this series are written by different authors and rarely have anything to do with any of the other books in the series. The one exception to this that I'm aware of is P.S. I Love You (Sweet Dreams # 1) and Falling In Love Again (Sweet Dreams # 23) , both written by Barbara Conklin. I fell in love with the Sweet Dreams teen romance books in middle school after discovering them at the school book fair. They ended up being very hard to find at the libraries . . . the school library and the public library branches didn't have any of these books to check out. And, I had trouble finding them in local bookstores, so whenever I came across one, I had to buy it.  In California Girl , we meet Jennie, who is an aspiring Olympic swimmer and has just recently moved to Texas. Absolutely miserable with her new swim team and new school, all Jennie wants to...

Back in the Fall of 1989, I was a ten year old girl who watched the pilot episode of Doogie Howser, M.D. I fell in love with the television show immediately. When the show went off the air, I was terribly sad about it. Over the years, I wondered if Neil Patrick Harris would ever appear in another television show or even in a movie. Fast forward to the Fall of 2005 . . . I was over at my parent's house after working out at the gym. My parents yelled at me to come into the living room. A new show called How I Met Your Mother was premiering its pilot episode and who else was on it but "Doogie Howser". I rarely was at home when it aired so I never really watched the show, except for reruns, until the last season because I wanted to know the outcome of the show. When it went off the air, I felt like a piece of me was missing. So, when Neil Patrick Harris came out with his autobiography, I was super excited, and I loved the concept that it was a "Choose Your Own Aut...

In this edition of the Stephanie Plum Between-the-Numbers novel Plum Lovin' , Diesel pops back into Stephanie's life to make a deal with her. He'll help her find Annie Hart, Stephanie's most recent bond enforcement job. The catch? She has to help Diesel play matchmaker for Annie Hart, who is a relationship specialist and is missing, and he knows where she is. Why? Diesel has promised Annie he will work on five of her cases, and he isn't good at relationships. Plum Lovin' by Janet Evanovich is the second between the numbers books and is more of a novella at just under 200 pages. And, I enjoyed it a lot better than the first Between-the-Numbers book, Visions of Sugar Plums because it had less paranormal elements in it. Don't get me wrong, I love paranormal just as much as the next person, but it just doesn't seem to fit in with the Stephanie Plum series. I would be completely fine if all of the paranormal was taken out though because that isn...

A couple months ago, I found out that Barnes & Noble has a book club that actually meets at each of the store locations, so I decided to join and see what it was like. The first meeting I went to was the one where the book Clock Dance by Anne Tyler was the selection. I ordered the book online and picked it up at the Barnes & Noble closest to me. Not sure what to expect of Anne Tyler as I had never heard of this author before, I was surprised to see that the cover of Clock Dance mentioned that she was a Pulitzer Prize winner. The novel she won the Pulitzer Prize for was A Spool of Blue Thread . The concept of the novel intrigued me . . . it follows the defining moments of the main character's life. We first meet Willa Drake at age 11 in 1967 dealing with her mother's disappearance. In 1977, Willa is 21 year old college student who has been proposed to by her college boyfriend. Then, she becomes a widow with two teenage sons in 1997. By the time 2017 rolls aroun...