Some Day You'll Thank Me For This!

Haven't most of us heard that title phrase again...and again...and again in our lives? We probably heard it from our own mother, too! I recently read Some Day You'll Thank Me For This: The Official Southern Ladies' Guide to Being a "Perfect" Mother by Gayden Metcalfe and Charlotte Hays and I have to tell you, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The book is a humorous guide to the "Southern Mother," and even if you are not a DSM (Daughter of a Southern Mother), you will still appreciate this book. Metcalfe and Hays state that since southern society is arranged along matriarchal lines, the Southern Mother is a much more formidable being than the Southern Father. Southern Mothers were put on the earth to create good manners in their children and instill the art of ancestor worship into the next generation. This book is a humorous tribute to the Daughters of Southern Mothers, and their finicky, demanding Southern Mothers, and includes appropriate recipes for specific life occasions. Gayden Metcalf and Charlotte Hays are also the authors of two other humorous books: Being Dead is No Excuse: The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral and Somebody is Gonna Die if Lilly Beth Doesn't Catch That Bouqet: the Official Southen Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Wedding. If you have ever wondered why southern women act the way they do...this book is for you! If you enjoy these books, try reading Jill Connor Browne's The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love, another hilarious book about growing up as a woman in the south.

Try a "Rat Pack Mystery" on for Size

Robert J. Randisi's Hey There (You with the Gun in Your Hand) is one of those rare gems in the mystery world. This book truly lives up to its name-- it is the third installment in Randisi's "Rat Pack Mystery" series. If you love reading about the Rat Pack (and/or the time period in which they existed), you must give this book a try! Randisi captures perfectly the timbre of the times in which the members of the Rat Pack existed. He also makes his portrayal of the Rat Pack members believable. The reader finishes the book thinking that he/she really knows Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr. This story is set in Las Vegas in 1961, at the Sands Casino where pit boss Eddie Gianelli is asked by Frank Sinatra to help get rid of an embarrasing photo of Sammy. The pay-off and photo pick-up goes hay-wire and soon Eddie and his friend, New York tough guy Jerry Epstein, are up to their elbows in dead bodies! Randisi's novels resemble the drugstore pulp-fiction of past times, but there is enough description of glitz, glamour, corruption and crime to please any mystery fan. The library also owns the first book in the series, Luck Be a Lady, Don't Die.

Find "The Bodies Left Behind"

Jeffery Deaver's The Bodies Left Behind is another great thriller from this esteemed author. Off-duty Deputy Brynn McKenzie is spending quality time with her husband and son when she receives notice than an abruptly cut-off 911 call has been made from an isolated vacation home in Wisconsin. She sets out to investigate the 911 call and stumbles into the path of two professional criminals, and the visitor, Michelle, who has been staying at the Wisconsin home. Brynn and Michelle flee into the woods in a race for their lives as they try to outrun the killers. Deaver creates a nice tension and contrast between the two female leads in this story --Brynn, the tough deputy with a checkered past and Michelle, the pampered city girl. Both women have to find a way to relate to each other so that they can survive being chased by the killers. The book is a thrill-a-minute ride and full of twists and turns. Fans of this book should also check out 24 Hours by Greg Iles, another heart-stopping, real-time adventure story!

Try out some "Geezer-Lit!"

Retirement Homes are Murder by Mike Befeler is one of the funniest mysteries I have read in a while. This debut novel by Befeler features the utterly zany characters of the Kina Nani Retirement Home located in Hawaii. Amateur Detective Paul Jacobson is their fearless leader, and he battles his own failing memory while attempting to solve murders and spending time relaxing on the beach. Befeler cleverly examines age-related challenges with humor and sly wit and his work celebrates the challenges and rewards of being a Senior Citizen. "Geezer-Lit" is a relatively new genre of mystery (and is classfied as the genre with the 70-plus-year-old sleuths), but is a great choice for older readers or mystery fans looking to try a new type of book! Here's some other good news; the library has Retirement Homes are Murder in both regular Fiction and Large Print, in case your eyes could use a break too! If you like this story, try also Rita Lakin's Getting Old is Murder- the library has it in both Fiction and Large Type too!

Loose Yourself In "The Help!"

If you are looking for a beautifully written, intimate protrayal of life as an African American maid to a white family in Jackson, MS in the 1950's and 1960's, look no further! I did not grow up in Jackson, but many of my friends native to Jackson have read the book and agree that Ms. Stockett's portrayal of society ladies during this time period, is accurate. Kathryn Stockett was born and raised in Jackson and moved to New York City after graduating from the University of Alabama with a degree in English and Creative Writing. She pursued a career in magazine publishing and marketing for nine years before she wrote The Help. Kathryn Stockett's The Help is magnificent writing. She tells the story of Miss Skeeter, an aspiring journalist who is trying to break in to a writing career and decides to write a book detailing interviews with African American maids of white families that she knows. The changes that occur as Miss Skeeter delves into these maids lives, and their experiences with the white families are intense and hard to walk away from. I especially enjoyed Ms. Stockett's characterization of Aibileen, Miss Leefolt's maid, and her examination of how Miss Skeeter's relationships with her white friends changed during the course of her writing the book. The warmth and humor is terrific, and this is writing at its best. If you give this book a chance, it is bound to change you!

Going Somewhere in a Handbasket...

Beth Groundwater's To Hell in a Handbasket is one of my recent "finds." The mystery stars Claire Hanover, a Gift Basket Designer, in a thrilling mystery set on the slopes. Claire's family is on a ski vacation that turns deadly when they find that their social connections are a little more connected than they thought they were! This is the second Claire Hanover mystery -- the first is A Real Basket Case, which was published in 2007. Claire wants some quality time with her family, especially her daughter Judy who's been away in Paris for her senior year of college, so she arranges a ski trip to Breckenridge, which is close to their Colorado Springs home. Willful Judy has more interest in bonding with tall, dark Nick Contino than with her mom, and when Nick and his father Anthony decide to ski the back bowls of Copper Mountain together, Judy agrees to spend the day on Peak Eight with her parents and Nick's sister Stephanie. Stephanie ends up crashing into a tree and sustaining fatal injuries and though Judy thinks a showoff snowboarder ran Stephanie off the trail, Claire finds ski tracks leading from the crash site into the woods. Her suspicions grow when the snowboarder, Boyd Naylor, is run down by an SUV with plates similar to Anthony's. Claire arms herself for danger as she pursues Stephanie's killer and tries to decode the mystery. This book has nice descriptions of Breckenridge and skiing, and a spunky heroine - a perfect book to "get away" from the heat of June!

Sweet Thing

I married very late in life and to say that marriage has been an adjustment is an understatement. I had fallen into the rather bad habit of complaining about my husband to my friends. I had them questioning why I would have married such a rotten person. I ran across a book that made me adjust my way of thinking. It’s called “Remember the Sweet Things: One List, Two Lives, and Twenty Years of Marriage” by Ellen Greene.
For twenty years, Ellen Greene kept a running list of the thoughtful, funny, touching things that her husband, Marsh, said and did. She wrote them down secretly, and then shared them with him every Valentine’s Day when he would find pages from her “Sweet Things List” tucked inside a card. This book is a tribute to a man and marriage and Ellen intersperses selections from her “Sweet Things List” with recollections from their years together. At the end of the book she shares some thoughts on creating a list of your own.
Since I have about 5 years worth of listings to catch up on, I know the three I would put at the very top.
· I love coffee and in the mornings and he would microwave the leftover coffee and set the timer one the coffeemaker for 5 minutes before I get up so I could have fresh, hot coffee.

· When we married he was good to my cats and when one cat developed cancer had to be put to sleep he cried right along with me.

· He doesn’t mind my Disneymania and let’s me go to Disneyworld every year or so with a college friend.

These are just a few items and I’ll work up some more to perhaps put in a card for our anniversary. So what will you put on your “Sweet Things List?”

Dead Ringer

Dead Ringer by Michael A. Black and Julie Hyzy stars kickboxing Private Investigator Ron Shade (from Windy City Knights), and Hyzy's TV reporter/sleuth, Alex St. James (Deadly Blessings). Both authors are based in Chicago and blend their talents nicely in this book which is their first team effort. Ron Shade is working for an insurance company that paid out $12 million in an accidental death case, but now has reason to believe that the insured person is still alive. Alex St. James is working on a story about the homeless that requires going underground equipped with a Taser for protection. Told in roughly alternating chapters, their assignments eventually merge as they separately, then jointly, uncover a massive case of fraud with the unfortunate byproduct of murder. The bad guys, as deadly as they are, are pretty easy to identify, but the way the physically tough Shade and the gutsy St. James deal with them shows the protagonists to be a well-matched pair. The frisson of mutual attraction between St. James and Shade should make readers hope for future joint endeavors. Having two different types of protagonists in this book gives readers the chance to side with one (or both) of the main characters, which should make this book appeal to a wider audience.

Intent to Kill

In the mood for a gripping thriller? Look no further! James Grippando's Intent to Kill is a minute-by-minute thrill ride that will leave you breathless. The book stars Ryan James, a minor-league baseball player about to make his big break into the majors when his wife Chelsea is killed in a hit-and-run accident while driving to Ryan's last game of the season. Ryan must learn to raise his daughter while consumed with the fact that the police never found the drunk who ran Chelsea off the road on that fateful night. Ryan's entire world changes when he receives an anonymous tip on the third anniversary of Chelsea's death, and the tipster claims he knows who committed the homicide. Ryan must face some questions--did the tip come from Chelsea's autistic brother? Why did her brother withhold the information for three years? Ryan and Emma Carlisle, the prosecutor for Chelsea's case band together to unravel a cover-up reaching back to the night of Chelsea's death. This book is a rocking ride until the very last pages. If you like breathless, action-packed stories, this is the perfect book for you!