Veda lives in India and is a classical (Bharatanatyam) dancer. She lives and breathes dance, has for as long as she can remember. She plans to make dancing her career, despite her mother continually pushing her toward engineering. She is amazingly talented and has just won first place in a major competition. After the competition, the bus taking the competitors back home crashes. She wakes in the hospital with her right leg missing below the knee. Talk about a strong female protagonist! This girl simply will not give up!
Die Again is the 11th title in the Rizzoli and Isles series by Tess Gerritsen. This mystery features a dual story line that takes place in Africa and in Boston, Massachusetts.
In Working Stiff, Judy Melinek provides a fascinating look into the work of a New York City medical examiner. Never sensational, Melinek describes some of the more interesting autopsies she’s performed, how she dealt with the families of the deceased, and cases that landed her at crime scenes and in courtrooms—all surprising aspects of this occupation that I had never considered.
Have you ever felt like you were the only one on the planet to do something? For botanist astronaut Mark Watney, this is a reality for everything he does. Abandoned by the rest of his crew during an unforeseen dust storm, Watney is stranded on Mars after his team fled, thinking it too late to save him. Completely isolated from the rest of humanity, Watney has to figure out not only how to survive, but also how to get back home.
The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman is a difficult yet rewarding read—if you can stick with it. The novel tells the story of four strong-willed and resourceful women living in Masada, a mountain plateau in the Judean desert, in 70 C.E. The book is divided into four chapters with each chapter dedicated to a first-person narrative from one of our four leading females.
Beginning at midnight on Sunday August 13, 1961 the German Democratic Republic, communist East Germany, ran coils of barbed wire fencing through the center of Berlin. By morning, East Berlin was completely cut off from West Berlin. After the wire came the wall and the Stasi – the East German state security service, one of the most effective and repressive intelligence and secret police agencies to ever have existed.
Mistakes made when Annie Black was a 20-year-old American living in London have come to haunt her decades later with very real, devastating consequences. Annie and those affected by her choices endure desire, love, rejection, and forgiveness as they work through the repercussions of choices made years ago. The novel flips back and forth between present-day events occurring in San Francisco and past events that occurred in Annie’s life while she was in Europe. A melancholy, but enjoyable book.
In a phone call that changes her life, Rachel Milligan learns that the parents of her 7-year-old niece, Holly, have had a tragic accident while on vacation. Believing she is the only living guardian left to take care of the little girl, Rachel is shocked when Holly's custody is awarded to Lydia, a distant Amish aunt. Rachel complies with the court order and takes Holly to her new family. However, she hopes to convince Lydia to let the child stay with her.
