Here are some books I have read in the last 2 years and enjoyed:

Gathering Lies by Meg O'brien

Now of Never by Elizabeth Adler

A Painted House by John Grisham

Along Came a Spider by James Patterson

White Mountain by Dinah McCall

And then you Die by Iris Johansen

The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells

Rebeccas Tale by Sally Beauman

The Face of a Stranger by Anne Perry

Dark Waters by Sharon Sala

Bird Song by Sebastion Faulks

The Song Catcher by Sharon McCrumbs

A Dance Through Time by Lynn Kurland

Christine by Stephen King



Here are some I read, but would not recommend:

Don't Say a Word by Andrew Klavan

Superstition by David Ambrose

House of Woman by Lynn Freed

Ghost Killer by Scott Chandler

My Favorties from the last 10 years:

The Killing Game by Iris Johansen

Storm Warnings by Dinah McCall

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan

A Walk to Remember by Nickolas Sparks

The Client by John Grisham

All that Remains by Patricia Cornwell

When the Wind Blows by James Patterson

In Revere, In those Days by Roland Merullo

Revere Beach Boulevard by Roland Merullo

The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline B. Cooney (also a movie with Kelli Martin)



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Once again those are in order to how I liked them...

The Killing Game is actually the 2nd in a 3 book series I believe, but I didn't know that when I read it... I just started to read the first one recently it's called The Face of Deception
and I've got the 3rd book waiting for me as well Body of Lies.
These books are about a woman whose daughter was kidnapped and she became involved in finding missing children by reconstructing skulls to match up with photos.


Storm Warnings is about mind control and spins an amazing tale of 6 woman who were hypnotized in school 20 years before. When they hear a certain sound of thunder and chimes it sets off the trigger... they then start to commit suicide one by one.. (and I'm not telling you anymore! go read the book lol)

The Lovely Bones is one of the best books I've read in a long time.. Its so touching, the story was written through the eyes of the girl who was raped and murdered as she watches her family from Heaven and how they struggle to get on with their lives.

The Hundred Secret Senses is the kind of story that sticks with you long after you've finished. It keeps you wondering about fate and life... if reincarnation really does take place, and this story also teaches you a lot about the Chinese heritage.

A Walk to Remember is an amazing story of a young girl with leukemia and how she copes with school, life and love.

A few years ago I had a phase of Classics and other books on the High School reading lists since I never had to read any when I was in HS.
So I had an employee of mine who was in AP classes print me out a copy of her list from the last few years.

I proceeded to read these:


Watership Down by Richard Adams

Tales from Watership Down by Richard Adams

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

The Perks of being a Wallflower by Stephen ChBoskey

To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee

Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbit

Rebecca by Daphine Du Maurier

Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

A Chiled Called it by Dave Pelzer

The Lost Boy by Dave Pelzer

A man Named Dave Pelzer

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (before the movies were around LOL)

The Lord of the Rings-Fellowship of the rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Something Wicked this way comes by Ray Bradbury

1984 by George Orwell

Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

The Scarlet Letter by Nathanial Hawthorne



I listed them in order to how I liked them, but I do have to tell you about the first few :)


Watership Down will forever remain one of my favorite books... This is a story told through the eyes of the rabbits in the story. Richard Adams created a whole world complete with a language and all! This is the kind of story that you will remember forever...

Flowers for Algernon was an amazing book of human nature, it tells the story in the form of a journal of a mentally retarded man who has brain surgery which makes him a genius, we feel for this character as if we truly know him. I give this book a 5 star rating!

The Perks of being a Wallflower was such a good book that I read it in 24 hours time! This story was in the form of letters from a 15 year old high school boy. You laughed and cried with him through all his ups and downs, it was almost impossible to put down till you've read the last page.

My love of romance started with Judith McNaught:

My favorite book by her was called Perfect

Here is the book description from Amazon:

A rootless foster child, Julie Mathison had blossomed under the love showered upon her by her adoptive family. Now a lovely and vivacious young woman, she was a respected teacher in her small Texas town, and she passionately lived her ideals. Julie was determined to give back all the kindness she'd received; nothing and no one would ever shatter the perfect life she had fashioned.

Zachary Benedict was an actor/director whose Academy Award-winning career had been shattered when he was wrongly convicted of murdering his wife. After the tall, ruggedly handsome Zack escaped from a Texas prison, he abducted Julie and forced her to drive him to his Colorado mountain hideout. She was outraged, cautious, and unable to ignore the instincts that whispered of his innocence. He was cynical, wary, and increasingly attracted to her. Passion was about to capture them both in its fierce embrace...but the journey to trust, true commitment, and proving Zack's innocence was just beginning....

While on Amazon, I had a peek at some of the readers comments and it looks like most people agree with me that this is her best book! And that you will literally laugh and cry and not be able to put this book down till the last word has been read!



I have read almost all of her books and loved them all! Most of them are historical romance and normally I don't like that style all that much, but hers are so very well written and intriguing that you really can't put them down!

Here is the list of all her books that I have read:

Something Wonderful
Perfect
Almost Heaven
Tender Triumph
Once and Always
Whitney my Love
Until You
Remember When


I also read the short stories that she has put out with other authors

A Gift of Love
A Holiday of Love

While looking on Amazon I notice that there is another short story book that she has published with Jude Deveraux, its called Simple Gifts.. I will have to look into that one also.

There are also 5 other books by her that I know of and have not yet read.. one, her newest, which I am reading right now... It's called Someone to watch over you. The others are Double Standards, Paradise, A Kingdom of Dreams and Night Whispers. I have them all here, and hope to read them soon.

And I'm sure I will read them all again someday, it's been close to 10 years since I've read them now and enough time has gone by that I will have forgotten a lot of the major parts and love them all over again... Well with the exception of Perfect since its up there on my all time favorites list I have not forgotten much about that book!! :) But will read it again many times I'm sure!

Another favorite from the past was: Danielle Steel

My two favorite books by her were Accident and Lightning... These 2 books were so packed full of emotion that you really couldn't put the books down!!! I will let the book descriptions tell the tales for you :)


Here is the description for Accident (from: www.randomhouse.com)

Accident is a powerful and ultimately triumphant novel of lives shattered and changed by one devastating moment.

Although frequent business meetings keep her husband, Brad, away from home, Page Clarke feels blessed with her happy family and comfortable marriage. They have a house near San Francisco and she keeps busy looking after their seven-year-old son, Andy, and their teenage daughter, Allyson.

Allyson, at fifteen, is trying her wings and one weekend, instead of an evening with her friend Chloe, the girls lie and go out with two older high school boys. But a Saturday night that was supposed to be fun ends in tragedy when their car collides head-on with another.

At the hospital, Page finds Chloe's divorced father, Trygve, and, unable to locate Brad, she leans on his strength throughout the the long hours of tormenting questions. Will Allyson live? Will any of them? Were the teenagers drinking? Using drugs? Who was at fault? And where is her husband? Without Brad by her side Page feels her life start to come apart as she is forced to confront the fact that Allyson may not live, and if she does, she may never be the same again.

In an inspiring novel that explores how many people are affected by one tragic accident and how they survive it, Danielle Steel brings us close to the characters whose lives are as familiar as our own... and who live, as we all do, in a world where everything can change in a single moment.





Here is the description for Lightning (also from: www.randomhouse.com)

As a partner at one of New York's most prestigious law firms, Alexandra Parker barely manages to juggle husband, career, and the three-year-old child she gave birth to at forty. But Alex feels blessed with her life and happy marriage--until lightning strikes her. Suddenly a routine medical check-up turns her world upside down when tests reveal shattering news.

Sam Parker is a star venture capitalist, a Wall Street whiz kid, and is as proud of his longtime marriage to Alex as he is of his successful career. As a major player in New York's financial world, Sam is used to being in control--until he is caught off guard by Alex's illness. Terrified of losing his wife and family, and haunted by ghosts from his past, Sam is unable to provide any kind of emotional support to Alex.

Unable to cope with her needs, Sam takes his distance from her, and almost overnight she and Sam become strangers. As lightning strikes them yet again, Sam's promising career suddenly explodes in disaster, and his very life and identity are challenged. With their entire future hanging in the balance, Alex must decide what she feels for Sam, if life will ever be the same for them again, or if she must move on without him.

What happens to people when every aspect of their lives and well-being is threatened? In Lightning, Danielle Steel tells the story of a family thrust into uncertainty and explores whether the bonds of love and marriage can withstand life's most unexpected bolts of lightning.




Another book I read by her is: Kaleidoscope

kaleidoscope was very good.. It was about 3 children whose parents died suddenly and they were all adopted separately... shows the story of them meeting again once they were all adults, only one of them had been old enough to remember everything that happened.

Here's a list of books by V.C. Andrews that I read between 1991 and 1997:


Flowers in the Attic
Petals on the wind
If there be thorns
Seeds if yesterday

Those were all part of the Flowers in the Attic series... I loved these books, and the movie Flowers in the Attic as well. As with any series though, the first book was the best, and the book was much better then the movie. This story starts with 4 children losing their father and their mother moving them to the house she grew up in with her mother who did not approve of her marriage or her children. As the title says these children were locked in the attic. The following 3 books in the series tell the story of the children's lives after the attic.


The next V.C. Andrews books I read was:

My Sweet Audrina (This book still has a place in my top 10 books of all time, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for something new to read) this story is about a little girl who is haunted by her "dead" sister with the same name.


The next 2 series were good, but not on my favorites list. I didn't even read all of the first series as you can see...

Heaven
Dark Angel
Fallen Hearts
Gates of Paradise

Dawn
Secrets of the Morning
Twilights Child
Midnight Whisperers
Darkest Hour


This next V.C. Andrews series I found much more enjoyable then the previous two. It's not that I hated the last ones, I don't think I could really hate any of her books, I just don't remember too much about those... I know the first one had to do with a owning a hotel, and I remember thinking how cool it would be.

The Ruby series had to do with a girls mother who found herself raising her daughter alone and eventually leaving her with family and how the young girl coped. Then in the 2nd half of the series finding her mother again and learning about her life.

Ruby
Melody
Heart Song
Unfinished Symphony