Where I share my love of books with reviews, features, giveaways and memes. Family and needlepoint are thrown in from time to time.
Showing posts with label Laura Lippman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Laura Lippman. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

and when she was good by Laura Lippman (Blog Tour and Book Review)


Check out all the blogs touring:
Sunday:  08/26  Wendy @ Minding Spot


Monday:  08/27   Vera @ Luxury Reading
                08/27   Heather @ Proud Book Nerd
Tuesday:  08/28   Kari @ From the TBR Pile
                08/28    Kathleen @ Jersey Girl Book Reviews

Wednesday:  08/29  Kristi @ Books and Needlepoint
                      08/29  Vicki @ I'd Rather Be Reading At The Beach
Thursday:    08/30  Mickey @ I'm a Book Shark
                  
 Friday:  08/31  MK @ Popcorn Reads
              08/31  Cheryl @ Sweeping The USA





Title: and when she was good
Author: Laura Lippman
Publisher: William Morrow

About the Book:  When Hector Lewis told his daughter that she had a nothing face, it was just another bit of tossed-off cruelty from a man who specialized in harsh words and harsher deeds.  But twenty years later, Heloise considers it a blessing to be a person who knows how to avoid attention.  In the comfortable suburb where she lives, she's just a mom, the youngish widow with a forgettable job who somehow never misses a soccer game or a school play.  In the state capitol, she's the redheaded lobbyist with a good cause and a mediocre track record.

But in discreet hotel rooms throughout the area, she's the woman of your dreams -- if you can afford her hourly fee.

For more than a decade, Heloise has believed she is safe.  She has created a rigidly compartmentalized life, maintaining no real friendships, trusting few confidantes.  Only now her secret life, a life she was forced to build after the legitimate world turned its back on her, is under siege.  Her once oblivious accountant is asking loaded questions.  Her longtime protector is hinting at new, mysterious dangers.  Her employees can't be trusted.  One county over, another so-called suburban madam has been found dead in her car, a suicide.  Or is it?


Nothing is as it seems as Heloise faces a midlife crisis with much higher stakes than most will ever know.

And then she learns that her son's father might be released from prison, which is problematic because he doesn't know he has a son.  The killer and former pimp also doesn't realize that he's serving a life sentence because Heloise betrayed him. But he's clearly beginning to suspect that Heloise has been holding something back all these years.

With no formal education, no real family, and no friends, Heloise has to remake her life -- again.  Disappearing will be the easy part.  She's done it before and she can do it again.  A new name and a new place aren't hard to come by if you know the right people.  The trick will be living long enough to start a new life. 


My thoughts:  Well, the first word I thought of when I finished this book was 'smart'.  Well written, great unique storyline, characters that, while not having the same experiences, can still relate to in how she presents the story.  

I loved Heloise.  She was a survivor - She started out with a father who ignored who, to a father who beat her, and a mother who was just glad that someone else was taking some of the beatings - so she got out at the first chance she got, even though she wasn't out of high school yet.  Unfortunately the man, Billy,  she left with was worse than her father and in order to get out from under him, she hooked up with someone who, while providing for her physical comforts, never let her forget that he was in charge.  He, Val,  punished her for even getting a library card (because he didn't know how to read). You guessed it, for both of these men she turned tricks - the first to pay for Billy's drug use and the second to help pay for the lifestyle.  Val had a house full of women that worked for him, but for most of her time with him, Heloise was his favorite.

She got picked up by a cop who had been watching her for trying to shoplift a home pregnancy test. This turned out to be somewhat of a blessing, as she was able to trade her freedom to provide evidence against Val.  So Val is now in jail and she has his son (without his knowledge) but still feels the need to visit him in jail.  He gives her the idea and the money to start an escort service, but of course has to have a cut in the profits. 

For 12 years she lives like this - but she is smart, pays her taxes, has fake but plausible businesses to explain her money, and keeps her business separate from her personal life.  But as they say, all good things must come to an end.  When the suburban madam gets killed in the next county, a former employee tries to blackmail her, and she runs into another former prostitute who also tries to blackmail her - she sees that her luck in avoiding suspicion is beginning to run out.  

As I said before I got sidetracked, I loved Heloise - she was street smart - as well as being well-read.  She only had a GED and some online business classes to her name, but she kept informed of current affairs and learned in all situations, or I guess you could say, learned from her mistakes.  She loved her son and despite her lack of good parental examples, she seemed to have gotten it right.  

The book is told in the present, with you learning her backstory in flashbacks.  It moves along quickly and I read it in pretty much 2 sittings.  I was surprised by the ending as I did not figure on the outcome that it had.  About 3/4 of the way through I was telling my 20 year old daughter about it and I had in my head the way it was going to end.  I was wrong, but she and I both agreed on one of the characters - and on that point we were correct.  I wish I could share with you what that was, but it would be a spoiler.  

Point is - this is a great book - and I recommend it!




~I received a complimentary copy of this book from Partners in Crime Tours in exchange for my unbiased review.~








Photo credit by Jan Cobb

About the author: Laura Lippman has been awarded every major prize in crime fiction. Since the publication of What the Dead Know, each of her hardcovers has hit the New York Times bestseller list. A recent recipient of the first-ever Mayor’s Prize, she lives in Baltimore, Maryland, and New Orleans with her husband, David Simon, their daughter, and her stepson.
You can find out more about Laura at her website on facebook or at Harper Collins

Please enjoy this excerpt:
Monday, October 3
SUBURBAN MADAM DEAD IN APPARENT SUICIDE
The headline catches Heloise’s eye as she waits in the always-long line at the Starbucks closest to her son’s middle school. Of course, a headline is supposed to call attention to itself. That’s its job. Yet these letters are unusually huge, hectoring even, in a typeface suitable for a declaration of war or an invasion by aliens. It’s tacky, tarted up, as much of a strumpet as the woman whose death it’s trumpeting.
SUBURBAN MADAM DEAD IN APPARENT SUICIDE
Heloise finds it interesting that suicide must be fudged but the label of madam requires no similar restraint, only qualification. She supposes that every madam needs her modifier. Suburban Madam, D.C. Madam, Hollywood Madam, Mayflower Madam. “Madam” on its own would make no impression in a headline, and this is the headline of the day, repeated ad nauseam on every news break on WTOP and WBAL, even the local cut-ins on NPR. Suburban Madam dead in apparent suicide. People are speaking of it here in line at this very moment, if only because the suburb in question is the bordering county’s version of this suburb. Albeit a lesser one, the residents of Turner’s Grove agree. Schools not quite as good, green space less lush, too much lower-cost housing bringing in riffraff. You know, the people who can afford only three hundred thousand dollars for a town house. Such as the Sub­urban Madam, although from what Heloise has gleaned, she lived in the most middle of the middle houses, not so grand as to draw attention to herself but not on the fringes either.
And yes, Heloise knows that because she has followed almost every news story about the Suburban Madam since her initial arrest eight months ago. She knows her name, Michelle Smith, and what she looks like in her mug shot, the only photo of her that seems to exist. Very dark hair—so dark it must be dyed—very pale eyes, otherwise so ordinary as to be any woman anywhere, the kind of stranger who looks familiar because she looks like so many people you know. Maybe Heloise is a little bit of a hypo­crite, decrying the news coverage even as she eats it up, but then she’s not a disinterested party, unlike the people in this line, most of whom probably use “disinterested” incorrectly in conversation yet consider themselves quite bright.


PURCHASE LINKS:     AMAZON    BN 

and when she was good
Publisher/Publication Date: Harper Collins, Aug 14, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-170687-5
314 pages

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Tome Travelers

I have been picking up books like crazy at library sales and thrift stores in the last week. I am glad that my husband doesn't read my blog so he doesn't know about these books!

These I picked up at our library's used book store:




Thriller edited by James Patterson

Featuring North America's foremost thriller authors, Thriller is the first collection of pure thriller stories ever published. Offering up heart-pumping tales of suspense in all its guises are thirty-two of the most critically acclaimed and award-winning names in the business. From the signature characters that made such authors as David Morrell and John Lescroart famous, to four of the hottest new voices in the genre, this blockbuster will tantalize and terrify.

Lock the doors, draw the shades, pull up the covers and be prepared for
Thriller to keep you up all night. (Amazon.com)



Almost Dead by Lisa Jackson

A Woman Who Wants To Get Even - The first victim is pushed to her death. The second suffers a fatal overdose. The third takes a bullet to the heart. Three down, more to go. They're people who deserve to die. People who are in the way. And when she's finished, there will be no one left. Will Do Whatever It Takes For Revenge. Cissy Cahill's world is unraveling fast. One by one, members of her family are dying. Cissy's certain she's being watched. Or is she losing her mind? Lately she's heard footsteps when there's no one around, smelled a woman's perfume, and noticed small, personal items missing from her house. Cissy's right to be afraid--but not for the reason she thinks. The truth is much more terrifying - Including Murder. Hidden in the shadows of the Cahill family's twisted past is a shocking secret - a secret that will only be satisfied by blood. And Cissy must uncover the deadly truth before it's too late, because fear is coming home - with a vengeance. (Amazon.com)



Every Secret Thing by Laura Lippman


It is early evening, summer time and hot. Two eleven year old girls, Alice and Ronnie, are on their way home from a swimming party when they happen to see a baby's stroller, with baby girl sleeping inside, left unattended on the top step of a house. Ronnie says to Alice: 'We have to take care of this baby.' But what exactly does she mean? Four days later the body of little Olivia Barnes is discovered in a hut in Baltimore's rambling Leakin Park by a young rookie detective, Nancy Porter. What can have happened in those four days to bring about this appalling crime? The girls are arrested and found guilty. Seven years later Ronnie and Alice, now eighteen, are released from their separate prisons, back into their old neighbourhood where the mother of baby Olivia still lives. Another child goes missing, and Nancy Porter and her partner get the case ...(Fantastic Fiction.com)




Kiss Her Goodbye by Wendy Corsi Staub

Woodsbridge, New York, is the sort of upscale community where the American Dream is alive and thriving - shiny cars, beautiful homes, and safe, tree-shaded streets. For Kathleen Carmody, Woodsbridge is an escape from memories of her own rough childhood and a place where her 13-year-old daughter Jen will have everything Kathleen didn't. But suddenly, the sleepy, affluent suburb is gripped by fear: One by one, teenage girls are disappearing from the "safe" streets. (Fantastic Fiction.com)



The House on Hope Street by Danielle Steel

A story of courage and loss, of the power of the family and the strength of the human soul. Life was good for Liz and Jack Sutherland. In eighteen years of marriage they had built a family, a successful law practice, and a warm happy home near San Francisco, in a house on Hope Street. But one Christmas morning, in the midst of joy and children's laughter, tragedy strikes - and Liz is left alone, facing painful questions in the face of unbearable loss. How can she go on without her husband, her partner, her best friend? The months pass, and Liz finds the strength to return to work and tend to her children. Then a devastating accident sends her oldest son to hospital - and brings a doctor called Bill Webster into her life. As the long days of summer blend into autumn, a new relationship offers new hope. With the anniversary of her husband's death approaching, Liz will face one more crisis before she can look back at a year of mourning and change - and ahead to the beginning of a new life, in the house on Hope Street.(Fantastic Fiction.com)

Have you found any good books at a used book store lately?

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman (Book Review)


Title: What the Dead Know
Author: Laura Lippman
Publisher: Harper Collins

First sentence: Her stomach clutched at the sight of the water tower hovering above the still, bare trees, a spaceship come to earth.

About the book: In 1975, two girls went missing, sisters - ages 11 and 15. They were never found nor were their bodies recovered. Now - it is 30 years later and a woman who was involved in a car accident is claiming to be Heather Bethany - the younger missing sister.

This is the beginning of a journey that shows us a family, that in the '70's was just beginning to show some cracks in it's foundation. Dave, the father, was basically married to his store - The Man with the Blue Guitar or tbg as it later came to be known. He was also very involved with a set of beliefs called the Agnihotra - part of the Fivefold Path. Miriam, the mom, a realtor who was having an affair with a co-worker. Sunny, the older Bethany sister just beginning to show some "teenage angst" and Heather, not quite 12, who just wanted to go to the mall with her big sister.

When the Bethany girls came up missing - it didn't take long for Dave and Miriam's marriage to disintegrate under the added stress.

I did not see the ending of this book coming and loved the last few twists! The ending was not AT ALL what I expected. This was my first Laura Lippman book and I really enjoyed the style of writing and the way the story was told. I look forward to reading more books by Ms. Lippman in the future.

About the author: Laura Lippman was a reporter for 20 years, including 12 years at The (Baltimore) Sun. She began writing novels while working full time and published seven books about "accidental PI" Tess Monaghan before leaving daily journalism in 2001. Her work has been awarded the Edgar, the Anthony, the Agatha, the Shamus, the Nero Wolfe, Gumshoe, and Barry awards. She also has been nominated for other prizes in the crime fiction field, including the Hammett and the Macavity. She was the first-ever recipient of the Mayor's Prize for Literary Excellence and the first genre writer recognized as Author of the Year by the Maryland Library Association.

Ms. Lippman grew up in Baltimore and attended city schools through ninth grade. After graduating from Wilde Lake High School in Columbia, Md., Ms. Lippman attended Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Her other newspaper jobs included the Waco Tribune-Herald and the San Antonio Light.

Ms. Lippman returned to Baltimore in 1989 and has lived there since. (from author's website)


Has anyone out there read any Laura Lippman books? What is your favorite?

What the Dead Know
Publisher/Publication Date: Harper Collins, March 2007
ISBN: 9780061128851
384 pages

Barnes & Noble
Amazon

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Tome Travelers: Five books nabbed at library sale

I picked up five used books this morning from our library used book store for only $3.10! The two Gabaldon books are hardcover and in mint condition! Here are the books:

Title: The Fiery Cross (Outlander series, Book 5)
Author: Diana Gabaldon
Publisher/Publication Date: Dell, August 2005
ISBN: 9780440221661

About the book: In this fifth book of the "Outlander" series, time traveler Claire Randall, now firmly ensconced in the past with her daughter, Brianna, and Brianna's husband, Roger, finds herself and her dashing husband, Jamie, at a critical juncture. It is 1771, and the first stirrings of the American Revolution are being felt in the mountains of North Carolina where Jamie, despite being a Catholic, has been given an enormous tract of land by the governor and is ordered to raise a militia. Having learned about the Revolution from his 20th-century wife and daughter, Jamie uneasily complies with the governor's orders and is immensely relieved when the crisis passes and the militia is disbanded. Cynthia Johnson, Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, MA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.


Title: A Breath of Snow and Ashes (Outlander series, Book 6)
Author: Diana Gabaldon
Publisher/Publication Date: Bantam Books, April 2008
ISBN: 9780440225805

About the book: Eagerly anticipated by her legions of fans, this sixth novel in Diana Gabaldon’s bestselling Outlander saga is a masterpiece of historical fiction from one of the most popular authors of our time.

Since the initial publication of Outlander fifteen years ago, Diana Gabaldon’s New York Times–bestselling saga has won the hearts of readers the world over -- and sold more than twelve million books. Now, A Breath of Snow and Ashes continues the extraordinary story of 18th-century Scotsman Jamie Fraser and his 20th-century wife, Claire.

The year is 1772, and on the eve of the American Revolution, the long fuse of rebellion has already been lit. Men lie dead in the streets of Boston, and in the backwoods of North Carolina, isolated cabins burn in the forest.

With chaos brewing, the governor calls upon Jamie Fraser to unite the backcountry and safeguard the colony for King and Crown. But from his wife Jamie knows that three years hence the shot heard round the world will be fired, and the result will be independence -- with those loyal to the King either dead or in exile. And there is also the matter of a tiny clipping from The Wilmington Gazette, dated 1776, which reports Jamie’s death, along with his kin. For once, he hopes, his time-traveling family may be wrong about the future. (from Barnes and Noble website)


Title: Another Thing to Fall (Tess Monaghan Series #10)
Author: Laura Lippman
Publisher/Publication Date: Harper Collins, Feb 2009
ISBN: 9780061128882

About the book: When private investigator Tess Monaghan runs into a TV crew, she doesn't expect an assignment. Keeping a spoiled movie princess under wraps may be more than she can handle. This is not Tess's world. And these are not her kind of people. But the fish-out-of-water P.I. is abruptly pulled back in by murder. Suddenly a wall of secrets is in danger of toppling, leaving a catastrophe that threatens the people Tess cares about . . . and the city she loves. (from Barnes and Noble website)




Title: Dying Breath
Author: Wendy Corsi Staub
Publisher/Publication Date: Kensington Publishing, May 2008
ISBN: 9781420101317

About the book:
A SEASIDE RETREAT.

It's summer on the Jersey Shore. Children play on the beach. Husbands are off working in the city. And the surf echoes in the night. Here, in this perfect place, a serial killer has no worries in the world-except choosing the next victim.

HAS JUST BECOME.

Cam Hastings has come to Long Beach Island with her teenage daughter and the hope that maybe she can save her failed marriage. Cam has never stopped loving her husband Mike nor has she been able to outrun her flaws and demons-a vanished mother, a lost sister, and the ugly visions she has of missing children.

A KILLER'S FAVORITE PLAYGROUND.

Now, Cam is about to step over the edge. For once, she will act on one of her visions-and then face the consequences. For a killer has just struck again. And for Cam, and the people she loves most, fear has come home for good. (from Barnes and Noble website)



Title: Outer Banks
Author: Anne Rivers Siddons
Publisher/Publication Date: Harper Collins, July 1992
ISBN: 9780061099731

About the book: Elegant Kate, walking a tightrope over an abyss of lies...sensitive, sensible, self-contained Cecie...Ginger, the heiress, sexy, vibrant, richer than sin...and poor, hopeless, brilliant Fig—they came together as sorority sisters on a Southern campus in the '60s. Four young women bound by rare, blinding, early friendship—they spend two idyllic spring breaks at Nag's Head, North Carolina, the isolated strip of barrier islands where grand old weatherbeaten houses perch defiantly on the edge of a storm-tossed sea. Now thirty years later, they are coming back. They are coming back to recapture the exquisite magic of those early years...to experience again the love, the enthusiasm, the passion, pain, and cruel-betrayal that shaped the four young girls into women and set them all adrift on the...Outer Banks.
(from the Barnes and Noble website)

Friday, May 1, 2009

Friday Finds 5-1-2009


Wow- May already!! Nuf said. Here are my finds this week.

What the Dead Know
By Laura Lippman

Thirty years ago two sisters disappeared from a shopping mall. Their bodies were never found and those familiar with the case have always been tortured by these questions: How do you kidnap two girls? Who—or what—could have lured the two sisters away from a busy mall on a Saturday afternoon without leaving behind a single clue or witness?


Now a clearly disoriented woman involved in a rush-hour hit-and-run claims to be the younger of the long-gone Bethany sisters. But her involuntary admission and subsequent attempt to stonewall investigators only deepens the mystery. Where has she been? Why has she waited so long to come forward? Could her abductor truly be a beloved Baltimore cop? There isn't a shred of evidence to support her story, and every lead she gives the police seems to be another dead end—a dying, incoherent man, a razed house, a missing grave, and a family that disintegrated long ago, torn apart not only by the crime but by the fissures the tragedy revealed in what appeared to be the perfect household.

In a story that moves back and forth across the decades, there is only one person who dares to be skeptical of a woman who wants to claim the identity of one Bethany sister without revealing the fate of the other. Will he be able to discover the truth?





Darling Jim
By Christian Moerk


When two sisters and their aunt are found dead in their suburban Dublin home, it seems that the secret behind their untimely demise will never by known. But then Niall, a young mailman, finds a mysterious diary in the post office’s dead-letter bin. From beyond the grave, Fiona Walsh shares the most tragic love story he’s ever heard. . .and her tale has only just begun.

In Christian Moerk’s gripping tale of love, family, and murder, Niall soon becomes enveloped in the mystery of the sisters, and of “Darling Jim,” an itinerant storyteller with uncanny powers of seduction who insinuates himself into their lives. Armed with Fiona’s letter, Niall begins a dangerous search for truth – and the vanished third sister – hoping there’s still time.






Therapy
By Sebastian Fitzek


No witnesses, no evidence, no body: Star psychologist Viktor Larenz’s twelve-year-old daughter, Josy, who had suffered from an inexplicable illness, has vanished under mysterious circumstances during a visit to her doctor, and the investigation into her disappearance has brought no results. Four years later, Viktor remains a man shattered by this tragedy. He has retreated to a remote vacation cottage on a North Sea island, where a beautiful stranger named Anna Glass pays him a visit. She claims to be a novelist who suffers from an unusual form of schizophrenia: all the characters she creates for her books become real. While writing her most recent novel, Anna has been tortured by visions of a little girl with an unknown illness who has vanished without a trace, and she asks Dr. Larenz to treat her. Viktor reluctantly begins therapy sessions with the stranger, but very soon these sessions take a dramatic turn as the past is dragged back into the light. What really happened to Josy? Do Anna’s delusions describe Josy’s last days? And is Larenz a danger to himself and others?

Therapy is an absolutely gripping psychological thriller, an intelligent, fast and furious read that will stay with you for a long time after you have followed Viktor into the depths of his own psyche, and have figured out who Anna Glass really is.






Hard Time & Nursery Rhymes: A Mother’s Tales of Law and Disorder
By Claudia Trupp


What kind of woman leaves three young daughters at home every morning to spend her days representing convicted murderers and rapists? That is the question criminal defense attorney Claudia Trupp confronts in this sharp and riveting memoir as she seeks answers—for herself and, mostly, for her daughters. Every working mother faces the challenges of balancing work and home, but the nature of Trupp’s work makes her juggling act all the more precarious—and at times hilarious and bizarre. Trupp’s domestic anecdotes of life with her kids run parallel to narratives of her most memorable, and often unsettling, criminal cases, each providing a platform to explore broader issues such as faith, perspective, and charm. The navigation of two radically different realms—the maximum security prisons where clients serve hard time, and the home front where the nursery’s bookshelves are lined with the tales of Mother Goose—makes for thought-provoking and affecting reading. While the working mother has been a popular subject of fiction and self-help guides, this may be the only book offering a woman’s deeply personal and unapologetic account of how embracing a challenging job while simultaneously guiding a family reaps unexpected benefits on both fronts. In a memoir that will resonate powerfully with all women, Trupp candidly conveys to the reader and to her daughters the struggles and rewards of the conflicting roles in her life, the joy she has found in being a mother, and the value of meaningful work.

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...