Montana Books

This book is very intensive. I agree with other reviewer that the car chase description is really difficult to follow, but that only happens at the beginning of the book. If you read "Lord of the Rings" you'll agree with me that the first 100 pages are the most boring thing ever written, but the other 900 pages are really, really good. It's the same here. The rest of the book flows nicely. There are a number of unexpected turnarounds that make it worth reading. And the plus side, this time Hoag hasn't included those really boring "I hate you/I love you" couples. It's just a straight story.

I hope to see a movie adapted from this novel. The plot was excellent, and I enjoyed reading it. Whenever I put the book down, I would rush to get whatever I had to get done so that I could hurry back and continue with the book. Tami Hoag did an excellent job. She made me forget I was reading a novel. I felt so close to these characters...like there were my next door neighbors or something. Great job, Tami Hoag!

I couldn't put this down! Recently given Dark Horse, which I loved, I picked up Kill the Messenger and never put it down! A great read, very suspenseful and interesting characters, you really don't know the outcome until the final chapter. a MUST Tami Hoag read!

Everytime a Tam Hoag novel comes out, one wonders if she can possibly do better than the last novel. She never disappoints. This book is no exception.

Kev Parker, LAPD homicide detective, is on the trail of a young messenger boy who has become the number one suspect of the murder of a bottom-feeding attorney. But, things don't seem quite right. The messenger himself seems to be running for his life from others who are interested in silencing him.
Parker doesn't buy any of it and tries to unravel what has really occurred. In the process he ends up trying to save the life of the suspect.

On a romp throughout some of the seamier sides of LA, Parker finally stumbles upon the solution.

You simply cannot put this novel down. Pure excitement from page to page. Tami Hoag once again outdoes herself. She is, without a doubt, one of the most exciting writers of suspense.

Densel Myers
Yukon, Oklahoma

This is a spine-tingling, action-packed mystery with characters you cannot help but fall in love with starting with Jace, the bike messenger on his last delivery of the day. He's a great guy who just wants to provide a good home for his 10-year-old brother while hiding from the watchful eyes of society and the people who would take his little brother away.

But the real hero of this story is Kev Parker, an unconventional police detective, who becomes intrigued by and later protective of young Jace and his sibling, while trying to solve a dark mystery and a series of crimes surrounding the elusive bike messenger. Jace is the main target and the bad guys will do anything to get to him, including brutally murdering everyone he knows and cares about.

There is a reason critics call Tami Hoag the "Queen of Suspense," and once you read this book, you will understand why. As are all of her books, this one will make you laugh out loud, while simultaneously mesmerizing you with breath-sucking suspense. This was the first one of Hoag's books my husband read and he is now also a big fan of hers. Enjoy!

The first breast problem I had turned out to be a cyst, and this book gave me all the information I needed to prepare myself and understand the procedures. Four years later I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I don't know how I could have gotten through everything without it. If you have a problem, do yourself a favor and buy this book. It is worth ten times the price.

I sent this as a gift to my sister-in-law, who recently was diagnosised with breast cancer. She has already lost her mom and sister, to this dreaded disease. She was pleased to get it, as it will help her make decisions, and teach about the best treatments.

My husband and I both read Susan Love's outstanding book on breast cancer. It gave us answers in a language that we could understand and information we could not find anywhere else. An absolute must for any woman who has or thinks they have a problem with breast cancer.

This book was amazingly helpful. I read through the parts that pertained to me and found it very helpful. I would recommend it to anyone who is diagnosed with breast cancer. The information covered from diagnosed, surgery, treatment after, medications, and helpful hints on how to deal with each stage. A must book for breast cancer victims.

Truly the bible of information for any woman diagnosed with breast cancer. More information than, hopefully, you'll ever need while going through this.
Clear explanations aimed at the lay person to help them navigate through the breast cancer experience.
This Doctor left no stone unturned and no question unanswered. Easy cross-reference, some website references, statistical figures, drawings, and perfectly clear explanations.
This book is a MUST for anyone who has, or knows of someone who has, breast cancer.

This book was a great read, classic Garwood and a book you don't want to miss. I do have to give it 4 stars due to fact it took a while for me to get into the book. It just took a little longer to have the story set up- not a reason to miss out on this book. Once the story was set up, it was smooth sailing. What I love about Garwood is the depth she brings to a story, you don't just read it, she shows it to you in her writing.

This is the first "Frontier" book I have read and enjoyed greatly. I felt I was right along side the Claybourne family with their struggles. There are two books left in the trilogy, The Claybourne Brides (One white rose, One Pink Rose, One red rose) and Come the Spring. I am most looking forward to reading Cole's story in Come the Spring.

For The Roses starts out as one of the best of Ms. Garwood's novels. I found myself laughing out loud a number of times as the charachters were introduced. The fiery interaction between family members was easy to imagine and enjoy. However, about three-quarters of the way through I began to get frustrated with the main charachters. A change in setting brought such a significant alteration to their personalities that I found myself hurrying through to get back to the "good stuff". Overall I enjoyed this novel, though it doesn't follow the format of a typical romance. Readers should be prepared for absence of the expected societal scandal and heroine in distress scenarios that come with most novels of this genre.

I really enjoyed this book. I loved the detailed character development. I felt as if I could identify with each brother and their personalities. I loved Mary Rose and Harrison together. I loved their love!!! Just a really good book.

I usually love Julie Garwood's books but this one I'm having the hardest time finishing. It's just dragging on and on. I like it better when an author really focuses on the main characters story but this has all her brothers piping in and it just bugged me after about 50 pages.

Night Owl Romance Reviews: http://www.nightowlromance.com

For the Roses by Julie Garwood
Score: 4.5 / 5
Clayborne Series
Reviewer: Deidre Sine

Mary Rose is the beloved sister to the Clayborne's. The Clayborne men protect their family and friends with a vengeance and have become a force not to be reckoned with in Montana. Only this family is different than most, the men aren't a blood family but they have forged their family for Mary Rose. The men were a rough gang of street kids in New York, who fought together to stay alive. One night they saw a parcel discarded and in that parcel they found a beautiful baby girl. That girl was Mary Rose and they decided to move to Blue Belle, Montana and raise her as a lady. Well, Mary Rose is now a well-behaved, independent, beautiful young woman who has returned to Blue Belle after her schooling. All goes well until Mary Rose meets a stranger in town.

The stranger is Lord Harrison Stanford MacDonald. He is a gentleman through and through; however, he needs help to learn frontier survival. While the Clayborne's teach Harrison about survival he falls in love with the strong woman Mary Rose is. Harrison carries with him a secret, a secret that could destroy his newfound love with Mary Rose. Mary Rose must deal with the past before she can have a future.

For the Roses is a wonderfully written book by Ms. Garwood, which I have read, and reread. I find Ms. Garwood's ability to create such fantastic and real characters a tremendous gift to her readers. Readers who enjoyed the Clayborne family can read more in the rest of the Clayborne Bride series.

Sure, we love the Mitford novels for their portrayal of life at a slower pace. But this second novel may have dragged the story out a little too long. We all know that Father Tim and Cynthia are made for each other, but I grew tired of Tim trying to read her mind and Cynthia chastising him for failing to read her mind.

I do enjoy reading the novels, but I listened to half of this one on CD. John McDonough takes a slow pace and slows it down even more - at least two discs could have been eliminated if he could have read just a little faster.

Jan Karon continues the stories of small-town charm in this delightful sequel. She keeps up her quick, observant, and witty prose as she relates the various mysteries, comedies, and drama of Mitford life. Even though it seems overly cutesy, Karon has a surprising grasp of human nature and thoughts, and manages to put all sorts of subtleties into the read.

I recently discovered the Mitford Series and have completed books one through 6. A Light in the Window is book two in this charming and captivating series. I had just finished reading a few very heavy books that were wonderful, but draining, and was looking for something light and fun to read. When I began reading the first book in the Mitford Years series I was completely hooked, and now finishing book six I have not been disappointed. I find myself reading and wishing to live in a little town like Mitford.

Jan Karon knows how to make a body feel comfy. Even if all that ever happened in Mitford was an occasional bake sale and the change of seasons, that's enough if we can spend it with Father Tim and crew. This book, however, gives us the idea that just perhaps Father Tim might not be alone with his dog forever. I'm ready for Book Three!

In the interest of full disclosure, this is the only book in the series I have read. As some escapism fluff this book hits the spot, but as some model of Christianity its falls woefully short. As an example, the Miss Sadie character pays an exorbitant sum for a wedding reception for a secret relative while treating her black maid pretty shabbily. Why would Luella want to sleep on a couch at the foot of Miss Sadie's bed in the worn out mansion? All the characters from lower socio-economic groups seem hollow, but I guess that makes it easier to swallow the social injustice.

I guess the lack of four-letter words and premarital sex makes this a "Christian" book. It certainly isn't the behavior of the characters.

Anna is the heir to the Byzantium throne, which is quite the tough job for a teenager. Soon, though, Anna finds herself torn between her kind-hearted mother and her harsh and powerful grandmother. She faces all the difficulties of fighting parents, annoying siblings, boyfriends, and growing up (that is, moving from the selfishness of childhood into the selflessness of adulthood, moving from the weakness of dependence on adults to the independence of adulthood), but all in the sphere of royalty and in the Byzantium Empire. This is a beautiful, complex, dramatic, emotional, and thoroughly clever historical fiction. Grade: A

Anna Comnena thought she would achieve immortality as Empress of Byzantium, but when her father named her younger brother, John as his heir, she was forced to change her career plans.

This fictional biography casts light on a profoundly neglected corner of our past: the history of the Eastern Roman Empire, founded by Constantine the Great in 330 AD and finally brought to an end by the Ottoman Turks in 1453.

The heroine of this book, born in 1083 AD, was the eldest child of the Emperor Alexius I, and received an education as befitted a future empress. As a child, Anna was bethrothed to Constantine Ducas, a distant relative of her mother. When he died, she eventually married Nikephoros Bryennios and they had four children together (not in this book, though.)

Anna's paternal grandmother, Anna Dalassena was the effective administrator of the Empire during the long absences of Alexius I in war campaigns. The old woman was constantly at odds with her daughter-in-law Irene (Anna Comnena's mother) and assumed total responsibility for the upbringing and education of her granddaughter.

This book characterizes the grandmother as a ruthless, tyrannical, paranoid old woman who had a falling out with her ambitious, rather unlikeable granddaughter and caused her to be disinherited.

The `real' Anna Comnena says this of her grandmother in her "Alexiad:" "My father reserved for himself the waging of wars against the barbarians, while he entrusted to his mother the administration of state affairs, the choosing of civil servants, and the fiscal management of the empire's revenues and expenses. One might perhaps, in reading this, blame my father's decision to entrust the imperial government to the gyneceum [women's quarters]. But once you understood the ability of this woman, her excellence, her good sense, and her remarkable capacity for hard work, you would turn from criticism to admiration."

This leads me to believe that "Anna of Byzantium" might be mischaracterizing the old woman, and misleading its readers as to the real cause of Anna's disinheritance--if indeed, she was even in line to inherit the throne after her brother, John was born (she was actually the eldest of nine children).

Nevertheless, this is an interesting look at the Byzantine court and its politics, through the eyes of an intelligent, curious teen-ager, and Anna really did plot with her mother, Irene to either disinherit or murder her brother, John. I hope this book sparks interest in the "Alexiad," Anna Comnena's fascinating history of her father's reign.

This story by Ms. Barrett is a good, but seriously flawed fictional account of the life of Anna Comnenus, a Byzantine princess during the medieval era. For those who like fiction with no connection to reality, (and the plethora of fantasy titles, sci-fi and other `historical fiction' tampering with the past on the market today, is a pretty good indication of such!) this is a noble effort, that comes very close to the real thing, but fails at the very point at which it could have made a good novel, a great one. The author's very good pacing of her storyline, her evocation of some of the elements of a Greco-Roman society, are all well executed- it is clear she is a respected writer (the American Library Association gave it awards, as did Booklist and Bulletin).

But the reality of an [Greek] Orthodox culture and the suffusing of that faith in an overtly Christian realm that endured for over 1000 years, are completely missing in Barrett's novel- as are the realities of how deeply intertwined the Christianity of the Apostles and the Greek culture's dependence on them would have more than deeply influenced not only a royal such as Princess Comnena, but the entire court, far more than Barrett envisioned.

The plot strikes me more as a `junior Lucretia Borgia' than a Byzantine monarch's first-born heir. What I mean is this: the intricacies of plotting, revenge, murder, poisoning and all the rest that were a hallmark of the Borgias- and Italian, Papal culture (including some Popes whose offices were bought and paid for by Borgia money!) are in far shorter supply in the Byzantine records, and are by and large totally foreign to an Orthodox phronema [mindset]. Not that they did not exist, mind you! But Barrett's confusion of Roman Catholic and Orthodox prayers, sacramentals, liturgy, and Weltanschauung are apparent to an informed reader, and all of this is tacitly glossed over, downplayed, or clearly absent [by omission rather than commission in the book?] which confuses an Orthodox reader seeking material for his children to have them learn their own history, and points out how such organizations such as the ALA and Booklist are woefully ignorant of world cultures, even though they preach `multiculturalism.' Such obfuscation is made even more obfuscated because of the cover art on the paperback edition, which alludes to some `inner sanctity' of the Princess, showing her with an iconic nimbus of sainthood, that NEVER appears in her actions, or in the pages of the book, nor can be gleaned from the history of the real ruler!

Not once that I recall, is anyone found praying before an iconostasis, a foundational element of ANY truly Orthodox culture, nor are icons even mentioned! Nor is there any mention, allusion, or talk of one of the most astounding events of this era, namely the actions of the Roman schismatics, when Cardinal Humbert, acting as the Pope's henchman, came to Byzantium (Constantinople) with the `anathema' for the Orthodox, over their non-use of the `filioque' [`and the son'] clause in the Nicene Creed - an addition which the West inserted without canonical authority, and then accused the Byzantines of `omitting'- and it is this ONE event, which started the entire break between East and West Rome, which has yet to be healed, over one thousand years later!!! This is not a minor point in dealing with a fictionalized account of Byzance in the year 1100- it would be as if one were to write a fictional story of Lincoln, and not mention the fact that, under his rule, the Civil War took place! This is an example of pure Western hubris, and wilfull ignorance of another, equally valid culture!

Modern writers are all seemingly afflicted with a skewed, adolescent, egotistical temperocentric view of history, [one that is stuck in only THIS century, and THIS era, as `normative' for all of history] and this is increasingly apparent in children's fiction- see my reviews of other historical fiction. Barrett's book is a good look into ego, pride, lack of Christian charity, and the machinations of power, but as a historical novel of either an Orthodox princess, land, or culture, it is severely lacking. Orthodox parents would especially need to do some `caveat emptor' before giving this novel to their children as a `good look' at their own culture.

Although having been caught in the attempt of murder of her little brother, having her love killed in war, and have been kicked from being the first heir to the throne, Anna of Byzantium stood strong as her life took these nasty turns. She had been the first born of King Alexander III, and despite her parents bearing a son, her father had kept her as the heir to the empire's throne. But when her grandmother Anna Dalassena gets finds out that she won't be able to rule through Anna like she could rule through Alexander, she went out of her way to remove Anna from the succession list and place Anna's brother as the heir of the throne. Putting you in the 11th century, Anna of Byzantium, a historical fiction, will have you experience what the times were like back then.


What was extravagant about this historical fiction was that it was based on one of the few women historians of that time. Many in those centuries thought women were to dumb to write, although Anna proved them wrong. Anna Comnena wrote about her father's legacy as emperor of Byzantium, which also gave historians detail about her life. Anna faced many rigorous times throughout her life. She had to always watch what she did in her life, lest she be exiled. In the end she was banished though for the attempted murder of her brother. She lived in a place in the hills surrounded by nuns. Her courage to keep on going simply baffles you and shows that we are spoiled in our times.


The additions to this historical fiction, Simon and Sophia, were brilliant characters. Although they never existed, the write hoped that Anna had had somebody like them in her life. Sophia had been a Turk, a prisoner of the war Anna's father was fighting, and been made Anna's personal friend and confident. Sophia never was an obedient maid, and Anna soon discovered that she like this "infidel" and they became great friends. Simon was said to be Anna's tutor. In this novel he was the one to rat her out in the attempted murder. He believed still in the great Greek Gods, and despite Anna's loath for him for betraying her, she realized that he had done it only to save her from herself. Simon and Sophia were marvelous additions to the story, for they helped give it the more "real feel" to your mind.


How Tracy Barrett portrayed Anna Dalassena was exquisite. She perfectly showed that Anna Dalassena was the type of person who only though of herself and her bloodline, and anybody not of it was lower in the food chain. Barrett made Anna Dalassena that person that you just want to scream and yell at, and had her fit perfectly in the plot of the novel. When Anna Dalassena took Anna for lessons, her real personality was shown to Anna. Anna saw that her Grandmother was indeed a ferocious liar and plain evil. Anna Dalassena told Anna about how to make treaties and break them, how war was a "glorious" thing, and that to conquer all should always be a goal. Anna Dalassena can be easily thought of as an old and bald female Hitler.


Anna of Byzantium can show you that it wasn't all gold and silver being in a royal family. Your father would be your ruler, and could sentence you to death. You had to watch everything you said and how you acted. You always had to be on guard to make it in the royal court. A novel that gets you reading about a time before America, before Columbus, and before the reign of the English ruler King Henry VIII, you can enjoy a jaw-dropping story that actually gives you a bit of knowledge about the 11th century.

A.Johnson

This is a fascinating and well written book. Set in the closing decades of the 11th century, in the legendary city of Constantinople, this book covers the life of the Byzantine princess, Anna Comnena. Named as heir to the throne from an early age, she grows up conceited, self-centred and ambitious but not without compassion and a strong sense of moral duty. She is loved by both her parents, but her father, the Emperor Alexius, is a distant figure, ideolised by Anna, but away on campaign so often that her true father figure becomes, subconsiously, her tutor, the eunuch, Simon. Simon is one of the best characters of this book, an intellegent, kind man deeply concerned with the other influences acting on Anna.

And other influences there are. From a young age, her ruthless grandmother, Anna Dalassena, takes Anna (Comnena) on as her pupil in the arts of statecraft. Anna Dalassena is an interesting character, one that the reader despises and yet admires, mirroring Anna's emotions. Anna (Comnena) is a willing, and to her grandmother, perhaps a little too able pupil. Some reveiwers have commented that Anna (Comnena)behaves too ambitiously to be a likeable character. I think that this is completely unfair and untrue; we know the real Anna, the compassionate girl that lies behind the princess, and the fact that she makes ruthless decisions makes us familiarise with how she developes as a human being all the more.

Anna has two siblings (in real life she had several but they were "cut" for simplicity's sake; the book looses nothing from it), a beautiful, kind, fairly intellegent but generally childish sister and a much younger brother. The brother, John, appears to be weak, spiteful and capricous, and Anna views him as naught but a minor annoyance, but in fact, John Comnenus is the greatest deciever of all the nobility.

As Anna grows up, both Simon and her mother become worried as to how Anna Dalassena is corrupting her with her cruelty and dishonesty. However, in the rigid, protocal obsessed Byzantine court, it is difficult for Anna Comnena to change arangements. Her grandmother has had the ear of the Emperor for too many years to be easily detatched. Her only confident is another of the book's best character, her maid, a Turkish slave called (by the Greeks) Sophia. One of Anna's rare moments of compassion is called into play when she rescues Sophia's illicit lover from execution, thus aquiring Sophia's eternal gratitude and friendship, something she will need as the years draw on.

As Anna grows older, she begins to hate her younger brother for his spitefullness and her grandmother for her cruelty. Unfortunately, while she expresses these emotions (admitedly rather vehemently) to Simon, she is overheard by her younger brother, John. Her grandmother, realising that Anna will be no ones puppet when she takes the throne, and believing John will be hers, sides with John, and Alexius is persuaded to promise the throne to John, not Anna, leaving Anna bitter. As time goes on, Alexius falls into illness and John and Anna Dalassena come to dominate the palace. Anna's claustrophobic life becomes ever more unbearable; her betrothed is killed in war (she is then betrothed to another man, a historian Anna does neither dislike nor love) and she is shut out from the library by her brother in a particularly malicous mood and the throne room, left with nothing to do but plan her revenge on the child that has ruined her life...

The book is difficult to do justice to in a review. The characterisation is remarkable, with some characters being truly... for a lack of a better word, lovable, while others are utterely hideous. A lesser writer might have made the enemies of Anna so pathetic that they inspire contempt rather than dislike, but Barrett successfuly gives them enough depth, and success, to be threatening and unpleasant. John's character, critised in some reviews, I actually think was very strong, (I won't give anything away, but remember John is a master manipulator, greater than even Anna Comnena, and, as we find out, the master of the Great Game of politics herself, Anna Dalassena.

The culture of Byzantium is reflected well in this novel, particularly the attitudes to women (which I understand the author has some knoledge in). This adds another layer of depth to the storyline.

I have some small qualms about the historical distortions of this book. There are several; there were actually many more than three Comneni children, Anna actually married Nikephorous Byrrenius and had several children by him, and here assasination attempt on John was actually made when she was around 35, not 15. However, these changes are in fact almost irrelevant; Anna's life as a married woman would have really been remarkably similar - claustrophobic and limited. The one more dubious change is that of John's personality; while I think John's behaviour in the book is perfectly consistent, the fact he was actually a benevolent and kind ruler somewhat belies his behaviour in this book. Barrett is a historian herself, rather than a novelist (you wouldn't guess from the book's quality) so I don't dispute that she knows her stuff, and I accept that it will have been almost impossible to streamline John's character with reality, but it still strikes something of a sour chord. This is, however, my only irritation with Anna of Byzantium, an otherwise fascinating story set in a neglected time period.

I'm late to enter the world of MK Andrews' readers. Started with Savannah Blues, which was all that and a bag of chips. It was SO much fun I bought most everything else she'd written. Little Bitty Lies was, occasionally, worth the read. So, it fell into the category, for me, of mostly-speed-read. I've, since, read earlier of her things (under a different name) and later of her things, so I insist this isn't representative. But, in this one case, she seemed to phone it in.

As always Mary Kay Andrews delivers an entertaining and uniquely Southern novel. She has a unique style that reads easily and you always want to turn the next page to see what she has come up with next.

I'd picked up Andrews' "Hissy Fit" at random a couple weeks ago and LOVED it. So much so that I decided I had to read her other books. Savannah Blues was good and I eagerly looked forward to cracking open "Little Bitty Lies."

I don't get the witty humor that is supposed to be found throughout this novel. A woman and her best friend plot the fake death of her husband? I really, honestly, tried to find the elements of Andrews' writing that I've enjoyed in the first two of her books that I've read, and am just not seeing it. I'm bothered by the plot line, adding in the fact that the main character, Mary Bliss, has an entirely dysfunctional relationship with her daughter, and it doesn't seem to bother her that she's going to tell her daughter that her father is dead.

I don't know, I'm just not seeing humor in this book. I'm not quite done reading the whole thing -- and have considered putting it down and NOT finishing it many times. But I've decided I will finish it and hope that there is some humorous element in the end?

Fractured writing at its best, and I just think intertwining plotting insurance fraud and cooking chicken salad and being a sales hostess just aren't Andrews' forte. I'll hope the next books go back to what she does seem to do well, and that's write fun, light-hearted Southern humor.

Little Bitty Lies is the perfect book to lose yourself in this summer. You'll adore quirky Mary Bliss McGowan and wish you had a best friend just like Katharine to keep you up to your eyeballs in gin, bloody mary's, adventures and trouble. Keep this book poolside, beachside, tubside, because you won't want to put it down before Parker McGowan comes back from the dead.

Lucy Adams, author of If Mama Don't Laugh, It Ain't Funny

If you are looking for a great beach read (even if the "beach" is your own back yard), you won't go wrong picking up any of the books by Mary Kay Andrews. This one is good enough that I kept reading it even after I realized I had read it once before soon after it first came out.

The author writes the kind of women characters I'd want to have as friends. Even when they are making big mistakes, they dive in head first and stick with each other through thick and thin.

I enjoyed this book as much the second time around as the first. But this time I'm going to put the recipe for Beyond the Grave Chicken Salad into my recipe files. It sounds so good it might be worth the price of the book!

ETA: I made the chicken salad recipe for my neighborhood block party and it was a big hit!

PRO: Good starting and good ending. The last 50-100 pages were interesting.

CON: It felt like a short story that was forced into becoming a long book. In short, it took too long to get interesting. Also, I never could get into the concept of dragons inhabiting hyperspace (yes, this is my problem, not the author's).

CONCLUSION: This would have made an excellent short story, but 80% of the book felt like filler.

Based on the cover, This Alien Shore is marketed to readers who want to read books about young women in an exotic future. Don't be misled - This Alien Shore is real science fiction, reminiscent of Starfish (Rifters Trilogy), with a dash of River Tam from Firefly - The Complete Series thrown in.

This Alien Shore's apparent story of a young woman in a cyberpunk future, trapped by choices made for her, takes a back seat to a cyberthriller set in that future. That's not a bad thing. Friedman lays out a fascinating future where the humans are the aliens. Earth has cast its spawn far and wide and the journey has changed them. Earth itself holds ten billion plus more on corporation-owned space stations. Every human is given brain-integrate software at birth to enable Innernet connection and monitor his or her health.

Faster than light travel and communications are made possible by wormholes that are controlled by the Guild. The Guild is based on the planet Guera, where the inhabitants are outwardly human, but honor every difference of the human mind. Gueran society has an elaborate system to accommodate and integrate people we'd call crazy or mentally disabled - not only to tolerate them, but tap into the gifts that accompany their differences. Friedman gives us tantalizing glimpses of how this works.

All wormhole pilots belong to the Guild, and someone is targeting them with a lethal, and nasty, brainware virus. It's an exciting rate to the finish to find the rogue programmer and learn his or her agenda before the virus cripples communication to the outer worlds, or broadens its target. Dig in and enjoy!

April and May of this year were the first two months in almost three decades that I didn't manage to read an average of a book a week. I played word puzzles and watched TV and movies for two whole months. I was burnt out on reading series of stories that had lost my interest (see Sword of Truth) and my favorites are at the publisher and not yet released, and couldn't get in to starting a new one. My Dad gave me a couple of stand alone novels that rode around on my back seat for a bit, then a couple of days ago I opened this amazing story.

This Alien Shore is a great warning and promise about the evolution of computing. It is also a great Space Opera full of mutated humans, politics, colonies and pirates. It is also a pretty good look at the subject of diversity inclusion and bigotry.

Ms. Friedman writes with a very readable cadence and has a way of making you care about the characters in the story, both good and bad. And finally, although the concept of Hyper Space is common in Science Fiction, usually it is never really investigated as to what goes on while there. Ms. Friedman gives you just enough to make you ponder without slowing down the main story whatsoever.

So here's the deal,

If you are looking for a well written Space Opera, that is a story all by itself without the need to invest in a 10 book series, you can't go wrong with "This Alien Shore"

This book has my highest praises because it deals with a subject that controls my life, mental disorders. Yet it doesn't preach that pills are bad or that they are needed. It just holds two different societies up side by side and lets you see the benefits and drawbacks of each. Doing this while creating a story which holds my attention and characters who are so well crafted that I can believe they "suffer" different mental aberrations is nothing short of amazing.

I was only sad that my personal aberration is missing from the book.

Since Huxley's Brave New World, Science Fiction has been riddled with stories involving "eugenics." This grim vision of a future when, in extreme cases, human beings are practically manufactured has certainly kept readers interested for decades. Now, in This Alien Shore, C.S. Friedman shows us a very different future, one in which, rather than trying to create the perfect carbon-copy human specimen, humanity at large is promoting and protecting as much genetic diversity as possible. And, thanks to a faulty faster-than-light drive, the "Hausman Effect" has caused branchings of the human genome far more bizarre than any imagineable alien race. Only poor Earth, virtually lost in the mutant-controlled galaxy, refuses to embrace the new diversity of man. Sadly for Terrans, all space travel is controlled by the mutants, or "Variants," and these new humans are still very angry at the homeworld that tried to destroy them once the Hausman mutations were discovered.

This is a wonderfully confusing tale of sci-fi, politics, racism, sexuality, language, and insanity. If you're looking for Heinlein, run away quickly. Friedman herein describes a galaxy packed with slimy, tentacled, freakish humans who would make Starman Jones lose his lunch -- and the only way to travel in this mutant empire is to brave a hyperspace teeming with demonic monsters which feed on the human soul. I found the story both refreshing and highly thought-provoking. After all, what does the racism of skin color or religion amount to when we all have two arms and two legs, and how would I react to a neighbor who looked more like a slug than a human, particularly in the realm of real interaction, like MATING? What if that slug were the most brilliant physician, or violinist, or poet the world had ever known? Friedman makes Earth's racial purity movements (still extant in this oh-so-distant future) seem silly, antiquated, and pathetic -- all against the backdrop of a masterfully crafted sci-fi mystery.

The other reviewers have well detailed the plot in this umpteenth Dave Robicheaux mystery thriller. The "Bobbsey Twins" -- Iberia Parish Sheriff's Detective Dave Robicheaux and his sidekick New Orleans P.I. Clete Purcel are at it again. The commercial series that brought author James Lee Burke wide acclaim and commercial success, after a string of several very more "literary" works which failed to hit the charts, continues, if not con brio. And we continue to love to read Dave Robicheaux books, because we're hooked on Burke's inimitable page-burning style. And we're eagerly waiting the release of the movie version of one of Burke's finest Robicheauxs, "In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead" starring Tommy Lee Jones. But lately, as good as they still are, Dave and Clete's antics all seem to blur into one basic story. Burke does do a good job with continuity in his saga, and the locale of his second home in Montana (he also has one in New Iberia) ties one of the characters in "Swan Peak", a retired college professor, to a short story in Burke's recent collection "Jesus Out to Sea", which compares with his earlier and excellent "The Convict" collection. Also, there is a nice tie-in with Burke's third Robicheaux, "A Morning for Flamingos", which used the Montana locale for Clete's retribution against New Orleans gangster Sally Dio, involving the crash of an airplane which had sand poured into its gas tanks. As is not unusual for Burke, there are careless little factual errors here that go beyond artistic license -- in "Swan Peak" he states that former New Orleans mafia don Carlos Marcello was deported to Mexico -- when in fact it was to his native Guatemala. This is forgiveable, just as his post-Hurricane Katrina op-ed for the Los Angeles Times stated that Jack Kerouac for a time lived in "Bridge City" rather than the actual locale of Algiers across the river from New Orleans, some 40 miles away. Despite my tempered enthusiasm of the coninuation of this series, I still wouldn't miss the next Robicheaux, if there is one, for the world. This was by no means a bad book, just not a great one, which can be said of the last half-dozen books in the series. Other readers may be feeling the same way. Maybe it's just due to an imminent paperback release, but yesterday I saw a stack of about 50 or so copies of "Swan Peak" remaindered at $4.98. Perhaps it's not yet time for Dave and Clete to hang up their rock and roll shoes. What I'd really like to see from Burke is the release of his pre-Robicheaux New Orleans gangster novel, written in the wake of Puzo's "Godfather", the still unpublished "Underneath These Hills", which is a source for the later Robicheaux books. Carry on, Mr. Burke -- you're still kicking, and we're still reading. Three and a half stars.

You might think that, like some writers, by the time they get to their 17th novel based on the same characters, that the quality would diminish. However, this is Burke and Robicheaux and Clete as good as ever, if not better. I really enjoyed this book! The Montana location was a nice change of pace also.

Swan Peak finds James Lee Burke playing many of the same notes that he's played before but it's done so well it's hard to mind.

The big change in this book is the setting as we leave the big easy and move to Montana where both Dave and Clete have some history going back to the book "Black Cherry Blues".

Robicheaux and company are just trying to do some fishing but the plot lands on them quickly as both Dave and Clete get mixed up with some no good rich folks and the lackeys that work for them.

The villians are familiar to anyone whose read Burke but one character, a Texas prison guard, takes a path that has more shades of gray than I expected at first.

James Lee Burke is a master at crime fiction and some of his writing is so lyrical and beautiful that I'd make the argument that it expands genere fiction into the land of literature.

If your a fan your going to buy this book and you'll be well rewarded.

I cannot say loudly enough how much I enjoy reading James Lee Burke. Every new novel seems to be better than his last, and Swan Peak is no exception. (And I'm not saying this just because I'm from Louisiana.) In this book, I particularly loved:

- his pacing
- his character development
- his use of similes
- his dialogue
- his interweaving storylines

If you've never read Burke, do yourself a favor and give him a try (especially if you're from the South).

"Swan Peak" is the latest in the Dave Robicheaux series and one of the least satisfying. Don't get me wrong...one of James Lee Burke's worst efforts is better than all but a handful of mystery writers out there. Burke has a way of drawing readers into the story and dropping them into the action surrounding Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcel.

In "Swan Peak" the Louisiana natives are transplanted to Montana for some rest and relaxation. Then some college kids are murdered in the woods near Dave's cabin. Clete manages to cuckold and attract the attention of a hideously disfigured man, Leslie Wellstone, who wields great power in this part of Montana. And Clete believes he is now on the radar of the FBI for the killing of gangster, Sally Dio, many years (and books) ago in Montana.

That's not even touching the most interesting part of the story which concerns a guard from a contract prison in Texas, his girlfriend that is changing his life, and his pursuit of a prison escapee who has fled to Montana so the escapee can contact his former lover who happens to be Leslie Wellstone's wife.

There is a lot going on in "Swan Peak." I would say there is too much going on to cover adequately in 400 pages. There are plots and subplots galore. Some sections seem rushed. Some sections seem totally unconnected to other parts of the book and yet, in the end, Burke ties them together.

In "Swan Peak" Burke also seems to spend even more time than usual explaining the morality and amorality of his characters. It really bogs down the narrative in places. "Swan Peak" is a good read, but not among Burke's best

cute stories. If you like harry potter and want to read more about boy that have magic & don't know it.

I love to read. I read a wonderful fantasy called Charlie Bone and the

Time Twister. The book was written by Jenny Nimmo. The author must

have a good imagination to think of special powers.

The book begins with a young boy named Henry from the 1900's

playing marbles. Henry was sent to the future when his brother rolled the

time twister. Henry was sent ahead 90 years where he meets a boy named

Charlie Bone. Henry asked Charlie to help him get back to his own time.

You have to read the book to see if Henry made it back.

Charlie Bone and the Time Twister is one of my favorite books. I

would refer it to fantasy readers. It is kind of like the Harry Potter books

because of the special powers.

I bought my 10 yr old son the first two of this series and it has taken him a month to finish them- he is hooked! I am about to order the next couple in the series as he is dying to get back to reading. It doesn't get much better than that!!

For you Harry Potter Charlie Bones is a wonderful substituion. Charlie Bone and the Time Twister is a great book. Charlie Bone finds out more about his endowment and more about his evil aunts. He meets a boy from the past and goes on another journey to save someone he doesn't even know. This book is better then the first, with new characters and new endowments.

I like magic and fantastic stories very much and this one is very good...everything you can imagine of a book and with an excellent message about family values and how to confront common family problems.

Great for kids under 13... :)

Of all the parenting books I have, this is the only one I return to again and again. It's excellent counsel through and through, and you can hear the relaxed wisdom from a doctor who has been around a long time. Dr. Brazelton understands the way young children think and learn, and that informs his approach to them- always respectful, yet firm, reasonable, and loving. He addresses every stage of development by the child's age/main doc visits, which is so great. The book helps me to think about why my daughter does what she does, not just trying to stop her. I highly recommend this as part of every parent's parenting library.

indeed, essential reading!! for any parent who wants to understand their child (and most do), this is the book. it tackles this from a behavioral pov, and dr brazelton gives many, many examples found during his practice and clinical trials. very practical, and in many ways, comforting, becuase i go into parenthood feeling like i'm armed with much more understading of how my baby will develop, the touchpoints he/she will hit, why, and how they are best dealt with.

i love this book! it's my favorite of all the parenting books i've read.

Dr. Brazelton's books guided my through the first years of my son's life twenty-six years ago. His books continue to be my top choice as a gift for new moms. His advise is caring and practical and takes into account (broadly) the different types of personalities babies come with and how best to nurture and cope with the unique needs of each child.

I just love brazelton & sears when it comes to parenting advice...those are the two best Docs out there!!! IMHO.

If you need some guidance in child rearing this book is for yoU!!!

I bought this book along with a few others (what to expect when you're expecting, etc.) prior to having our first son. My wife and I have used it many times to help us out with difficult behaviors. When we reach a point with the kids where we're getting the same results no matter what we try -- we look it up in Touchpoints. In most cases, we've used the advice almost word for word (even the touchy-feely stuff) and the results have always been positive. The book always provides perspective from the child's point of view, which is very helpful. This one should be on the book shelf of any young child's parent.