This book was one of the few that marked the beginning of the hefty book collection I have today. I found it in a used book store, bought it out of curiosity, and found myself hooked on a series.
It’s also a series bound for television – more information on that on Charlaine Harris’ website, the link to which can be found on the sidebar of this very webpage!
From the back cover:

“Sookie Stackhouse is a small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. She’s quiet, keeps to herself, and doesn’t get out much…Sookie has this sort of “disability”. She can read minds. And that doesn’t make her too dateable. And then along comes Bill…But Bill has a disability of his own: He’s a vampire…”

But what, you ask, makes me want to read this book? Other than my fabulous recommendation? I’ll give you the line in the book that hooked me. I found this even better at drawing me in that “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”
The first line of the book: “I’d been waiting for the vampire for years when he walked into the bar.”
Sookie is no stranger to curiosity along with the rest of us and after vampires had officially “come out of the coffin”, the world was curious indeed. Sookie was no exception so when a vampire walked right into the bar she worked in, Sookie was happy as a clam. Even better, she finds that she can’t hear a thing he’s thinking. After all the years of being battered around by what was going on in other people’s heads, it’s a relief. The problem is, how relieved can you be when your newest interest is a murder suspect?

Fred is a mermaid.
No, really! Her mother is a human, but her father was a tall, dark, handsome…merman. Raised in the human world, Frederika Bimm has accepted that she is different. As if the ocean-colored hair weren’t different enough. She works in an aquarium, and enjoys her work, but when the water near Fred’s favorite swimming-hole is found chock-full of toxins…she wants to get to the bottom of things.
That’s how Fred finds herself in the middle of an investigation that also involves a handsome marine biologist, and none other than the High Prince of the Black Sea – a ruler of her people that Fred knows next to nothing about. To top things off, both the marine biologist and the High Prince find Fred fascinating, no matter how cantankerous she is.
So the questions are: Who’s contaminating the local water, and how long will it be before Fred either kisses, or beats the crap out of, one of the new men in her life?

Published by Baptistway Press.
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Back to Bedrock was a very good read for me. It isn’t what I would call a dry, dusty book on religion. Rather, it is informative, well-written, and I personally found is very interesting.
Each chapter covers some basic history and ideologies, but it doesn’t wax technical on the explanations. It covers concepts of God, The Scriptures, Man, Salvation, the Church, Priesthood of the Believer, Religious Liberty…and so on. By chapter. It’s a book I would recommend to someone who is Baptist, is curious about the denomination, or is just plain curious. And, at a mere 172 pages plus a very interesting appendix, it’s not a book that would take you forever to read.
This is a very, very approachable book and I would highly recommend it to everyone, if for no other reason than because it offers a very straightforward, easy-to-read perspective.

Blood Ties, Season 2 has sadly ended. Thanks to the writer’s strike and other factors, I’m wondering if we’ll be fortunate enough to have a Season 3 or if I’ll just have to content myself with what we’ve got. That would make me sad, though. There’s still so much more development possible for the show.
Now, the show is moving more and more away from the books, though I’d still say it “captures the spirit” so to speak. I have spotted where ideas have been taken from the books and pushed, poked, prodded and bullied into a storyline for the show but somehow, it doesn’t bother me all that much that they’ve made such drastic changes because they still seem to get the characters right.
Season 3? I hope so. DVDs of Season 1 and 2. That would be nice, too.

This book is hilarious and wonderfully entertaining. The reason I read MaryJanice Davidson is because she has an amazingly quirky sense of humor that catches even me off guard. It is different in tone from the “Undead…” series, but one can see some similarities.
For Hello, Gorgeous, Caitlyn, a young, well-to-do owner of a salon and former sorority girl is forced into government work by her own death. She finds that they are responsible for her not participating in the long dirt nap, and they want compensation in the form of espionage. Caitlyn has other ideas. She’d much rather be with her friends, run her salon, and live the life she had before her untimely demise.
Like she’s keen to take orders from a government jockey that everyone only knows as “The Boss”. Still, she ends up being roped in because they just won’t let up on the idea that she actually works for them. Drawn into a case, Caitlyn finds herself in a bit of a pickle. The murderer she was sent to find has found her first, and unfortunately for hormones, he’s tall, dark, handsome – and has the same quirk that makes her so valuable to the government.
And can you really feel threatened by a guy who takes you home to meet his mom?
All in all, this is an entertaining read, and if you’re in for some humorous, light reading then this is probably a good book for you. On a scale of 1-10? Somewhere around a 5.5 or 6. Not because it’s substandard in any way, but because it’s really just a nice, entertaining read.
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Nora Roberts is a fair writer. I’d say great and rave about her, but in truth I think she’s just as good as any other author – just more prolific. I do enjoy her books immensely.
For guys – they’re romance novels so I don’t think you’d be too interested.
Dangerous is actually a compilation of three short stories. Each story involves some sort of malicious mayhem (oooh, alliteration) and some questionable lovers. Guilty, or not guilty? That is the real question – at least, for these people it is. After all…could you love a murderer? A thief? A habitual liar? A mercurial personality? Or do you love blindly?
All these questions come up in these stories and I personally enjoyed having the quick reads since I’m often toting book around for whatever reading I can sneak in between classes during the day. (Ever see the weird loner girl eating with only a book for company? Totally me, and I love it.)
Now, I know I’ve told you little about the story. The simple truth is that you either love Nora Roberts, or you find her a dead bore. Personally, I love her writing. She’s very good at what she does and I have yet to see anything of hers I’d say isn’t worth reading.
As a side-note, see if you can spot the reviews I may have done for her before.
Enjoy!

Iris Johansen, for those of you who may not know the name, is a very talented romance/suspense writer. I initially ran into this author because my mom handed me a book of hers entitled, And Then You Die which I enjoyed. It made me curious and now I’m eager to add her to my personal library.
Fatal Tide is not the latest release, but it is a great read. Her style seems a little different in this book, but that’s no bad thing.
In her story, the main character is a young woman whose foster father is obsessed with the legend of Marinth, an Atlantis-like place/civilization that he is sure exists. Her passion, however, is for dolphins; especially the two she keeps safe at her island home. When her father mysteriously lets go of his ship’s crew and sends her what amounts to his will, she goes after him. Then, the unexpected happens.
Enter Nicholas, a very wealthy former Navy SEAL who also harbors a passion for Marinth. Forced into an uneasy alliance with Nicholas, being stalked by a malicious – and notorious – crime lord she decides the lesser evil is to help Nicholas find the lost island of Marinth.
In the end…you’ll have to read the book.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone, male or female. It is a wonderfully written book and I enjoyed it so much that I had to finish it in one sitting. On a scale of one to ten, Fatal Tide gets a 7.5 and only then because it didn’t make me cry, or laugh out loud (though it did get a smirk and a few faces).

Over break for this Christmas and New Years, I managed to read a grand total of 1 book.
*sigh* That’s right, one. It was a very well-written Baptist book called “Back to Bedrock” which outlined the Baptist faith in a sort of this-is-how-it-is-and-why way. I enjoyed it.
The bad news…I have a stack of books taller than I am to read now and so little time to both read and review each one. I’m swamped and I go back to classes soon. Yay, college, taking away from my valuable reading time.
From the top of my head (and what I can make out from across the room) the books I have yet to read are:
Deception Point, by Dan Brown
The Once and Future King
Interview with a Vampire and Queen of the Damned, by Anne Rice
The Cipher (author’s name slips my mind)
Academ’s Fury and Cursor’s Fury, by Jim Butcher
Eldest (loaned to me by my brother)
Ancient Egypt (it looked interesting)
The Dark-Hunter Companion
Confessor, by Terry Goodkind
Fundamentals of Logic Design (a textbook for browsing)
Hello, Gorgeous, by MaryJanice Davidson
…and a couple of books by Nora Roberts…then there are some that I can see from my perch on the couch, but not well enough to copy the title…
I’ve also purchased the Book of Mormon for perusal. I doubt it’ll changed my beliefs at all, being very strongly founded in what I do believe, but I think it’ll be good knowledge to have. If nothing else, it’ll make me more “well-rounded”.
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Just keep in mind this is a page for discussion, not arguments or propaganda.