Welcome back and Happy New Year!

I meant to get this up last week, but the first week back from a break is always so busy!  I hope you all had a great break and spent some time with friends and family, and enjoyed your time off.  🙂

I managed to get three and a half books read.  And they were big books, too!  I had a whole pile of books at home, of course being way too ambitious, but you never know, right?  Here’s what I got read:

A Whole New World by Liz Braswell.  This is classified as a “twisted tale,” which means they take a classic fairy tale and put a whole new twist on the story.  This one is based on Aladdin, and Aladdin doesn’t get to have the lamp and make his wishes.  He does meet Jasmine, and they become friends and conspirators because…Jafar is the one who ended up with the lamp!  And of course, his wishes are do not include good for all.  Pretty good twist on the original story.

Try Not To Breathe by Holly  Seddon.  A tale of alcoholism destroying Alex’s life, career, marriage, health.  And then a way to escape all that for a while: Alex discovers Amy, who has been in the hospital for 15 years after a vicious attack almost killed her.  Alex dives into the story headfirst, working to get her life and career back on track.  And she finds some surprising twists and truths along the way.

Depraved Heart by Patricia Cornwell.  This is another in the Kay Scarpetta series, which I usually love.  All the usual characters are here: Lucy, Marino, Benton.  And the usual murder mystery and twisty-turny story.  But this was not one of my favorites of hers.  The writing was not as good as some of the others in the series, and of course, nothing was really wrapped up since there will be more.  Oh, yes, I am sure there will be more.

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams by Stephen King.  The newest collection of short stories by the master.  This was a really good collection.  I only skipped one and a half stories in this one.  I think his short work is some of his best, and especially lately – some of his longer works recently were too long for me, but his short stories really get to the heart of it.  This book made me want to go find another of his story collections and read some more…

And there you go!  A pretty good reading break for me.  🙂

Come by the library to check out a book – new year, new reading goals!

Happy Reading!