I recently read this book for my book club.? Being a Dan Brown fan, I didn?t expect to be disappointed; however, I did not expect to be sitting down to read for 2-3 hours in a sitting.? How did I do this with a 2 year old?? I was on a trip to Alaska for work and, after a 10-12 hour work day, didn?t do much else but try to relax.? I ended up staying awake much later than anticipated because I couldn?t put the book down!? I admit the first half was interesting but didn?t ?grab? me to the point of distraction.? However,?around the half way point,?this high action mystery/thriller started getting so intense and moving so fast that even when I finally forced myself to put the book down and turn out the light, I was not relaxed enough to go right to sleep!? Needless to say, I finished a 600+ page book in a week.? A very good read that I would highly recommend!

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What a phenomenal book! I picked this one for our book club, knowing nothing about it, but saw previews for the movie and thought it looked interesting. I’m the type who likes a fast, mindless read but this is not that at all! It is one of the most enthralling books I have ever read while, at the same time, most time consuming book I’ve ever read. It seems that I cannot put it down, and have certainly lost sleep over it (as I read before I go to sleep and cannot seem to put it down until I’m dozing off), but it is so detailed that I read it rather slowly because I don’t want to miss anything! The only other book I’ve read that has compared to this is ‘The Bronze Horseman’ by Paulina Simons.

What’s more enthralling is that in the translaters notes at the beginning of the book, it states that this is the dictated story of a geisha who has since moved to the US and the stipulations of the story was that it not be published until both she and some of the main male characters in the book had passed away. It is a truly amazing story and the geisha had a very difficult life with few choices. An outstanding read!

I have always been a Dean Koontz fan and was skeptical when the book ?Frankenstein? came out. My thoughts were ?how could he put anything interesting into a story/theme that has been around for ages?. How wrong I was. It was an intriguing book with a few different twists to the traditional tale and, of course, ended with a cliff hanger that sent me to the store that very day for the sequel! Frankenstein is an excellent book with a very interesting theme that keeps you turning the pages! However, I would not recommend highly the sequel but, if you?re like me, you have to find out what happens after the last page. The sequel was OK but not as enthralling as Frankenstein.

Being an avid reader, I read as much as time allows with a 2 year old! I recently read ?Cry Wolf? by Tami Hoag and absolutely could not put it down. It is an excellent murder mystery that draws you in, weaves the characters intricately and keeps you guessing until the very end! A must read for any murder mystery fans out there!

Anybody with a child at reading age knows about Harry Potter. I recently came across an article that discussed how reported children injuries go down by about half on the weekends that a new Harry Potter book is released. It’s not much of a mystery to why this happens; while the kids are reading Harry Potter books they have less chances of falling out of trees or off their bicycles! But the article got me thinking about my own favorite books when I was a child, stories that included Leroy Brown and Henry Reed.

Leroy Brown of course is better known as Encyclopedia Brown. Encyclopedia Brown solved mysteries by talking to the suspects and reviewing the “crime scene”. Best of all, the stories invited you to solve the mystery before reading what actually happned. If you ever wondered what C.S.I’s Gil Grissim might have been like as a child then look no further than Encyclopedia Brown. If you think Grissim has it tough, then you never met Bugs Meany, the meanest kid in Brown’s neighborhood.

Then there was Henry Reed. I can still recall discovering Henry Reed, Inc, the first book in the series, on the shelves of our local public library. I have to admit that I can’t remember all the details of the book. But what I do recall was that Henry was an average kid (though maybe the son of a diplomat isn’t average) that exhibited a lot of interest in science, entrepreneurialism, and friendships. The books are a good read for kids. For myself, I think the Henry Reed series was the first time I considered what I wanted to do when I got older. Thanks Henry.