Top Ten Books I Read in 2013

I have not done much reading in 2013. But I did read some wonderful books. I have been lagging behind in writing reviews too. But I think reading is important

Here is my list, in no particular order:

Suzy's Case by Andy Seigel (CF)
The Roman Prophecy by John Trace (CF)
Back From The Dead by Peter Leonard (CF)
The Summons by John Grisham (CF)
Private Games by James Patterson (CF)
The Frozen Shroud by Martin Edwards (CF)
Hush Little Baby by Suzanne Refearn (CF)
Tomorrow City by Kirk Kjeldsen (CF)
Flush by Jane Clifton (CF)
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle (CF)

I am listing three more novels, which are not Crime Fiction but worth mentioning:

The Boy That Never Was by Karen Perry (thriller)
Perla by Caroline De Robertis (literary Fiction)
Dead Again by Tracy Cooper-Posey (Romantic Suspense)


I must list three poetry books:

The Meaning of Me by Emmett Wheatfall---poetry
Blue Collar Eulogies by Michael Meyerhofer---poetry
ten poems to say goodbye by Roger Housden--poetry

Tomorrow City by Kirk Kjeldsen

"Brendan Lavin woke up with a start to the metallic crash of an empty trash dumspter being slammed to the ground. He looked over at the radio alarm clock, which was blaring some grating Matchbox Twenty song. The time was 6:17 AM, which meant that The alarm had been going off for almost three hours. The bed next to him was empty. Maureen was still at the hospital, working another shift."

Title: Tomorrow City

Author: Kirk Kjeldsen

ISBN: 9789881554215
Publisher: Signal 8 Press/2013

Pages: 197

Brendan Lavin, an ex-con, tries to be straight person doing what he has learnt in prison--baking. However much he tries, he is unable make ends meet. He goes back to his cohorts for a last job. The robbery goes horribly wrong with four fatalities. Now he is a murderer. He has to escape New York City. He steals his cousin's passport and escapes to Shanghai.

Twelve years later, we see him having a flourishing bakery, married to a local woman and has a two year old daughter.  He keeps a low profile as he does not want his conman friends to find him. Somehow without his knowledge, his photograph is published in the public domain and when he learns about it, he is very afraid. Before he can plan to run from Shanghai, his robber friends find him and want payback. They think he turned them in before escaping to Shanghai. They want him to join them for a diamond heist. He is reluctant but he knows that his family will be harmed if he does not go along with them.

The action is full of tension and fast paced. It is an sitting read and very riveting. The action seems to hit hard and streets  of Shanghai come alive. Even with a criminal past, Brendan knows right from wrong. The characters come out vivid. Brendan gains the sympathy of the reader and we want him to go back to his family and his bakery. Those who love dark literature, it is a must read. It is one of the best crime fiction I read in a long time. 

Monday: Mailbox/What Am I reading?/Musing

Mailbox Monday is a gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week and explore great book blogs. Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists. December host is Rose City Reader

I received only four books, thanks to the authors/publicists!

Flush by Jane Clifton

A body washes up on the banks of the Maribyrnong River in flood. Caught in the act of taking his own life, and surrounded by the bloodstained clothes of his wife, Oleg Kransky is a shoe-in for number one suspect. 

But he's not talking. To anyone. 

Oleg's former psychologist, Decca Brand, tells the police that even when Oleg was talking he wasn't telling the truth - about himself or about his wife. 

It's a complicated tale with more twists and turns than a box full of pretzels. 

How much water will it take to flush out a murderer? 

The Memory Key by Conor Fitzgerald

On a freezing November night Commissioner Alec Blume is called to the scene of a shooting.

The victim is Sofia Fontana, the sole witness to a previous killing. Blume’s enquiries lead from a professor with a passion for the art of memory to a hospitalised ex-terrorist whose injuries have left her mind innocently blank; from present day Rome’s criminal underclass, to a murderous train station bombing in central Italy several decades ago. 

Against the advice of his bosses and his own better judgement, Blume is drawn ever deeper into the case, which looks set to derail his troubled relationship with Caterina...

The Boy That Never Was by Karen Perry

You were loved and lost - then you came back . . .

Five years ago, three-year-old Dillon disappeared. For his father Harry - who left him alone for ten crucial minutes - it was an unforgivable lapse. Yet Dillon's mother Robyn has never blamed her husband: her own secret guilt is burden enough.

Now they're trying to move on, returning home to Dublin to make a fresh start.

But their lives are turned upside down the day Harry sees an eight-year-old boy in the crowd. A boy Harry is convinced is Dillon. But the boy vanishes before he can do anything about it.

What Harry thought he saw quickly plunges their marriage into a spiral of crazed obsession and broken trust, uncovering deceits and shameful secrets. Everything Robyn and Harry ever believed in one another is cast into doubt.

And at the centre of it all is the boy that never was . . .

Tomorrow City by Kirk Kjeldsen

After an armored car robbery goes wrong and leaves four people dead,ex-con Brendan Lavin flees New York City and attempts to start over in Shanghai. But twelve years later, after opening a bakery under an assumed name and starting a family with a local woman, his former colleagues show up and force Brendan to assist in another armed robbery. If he doesn't cooperate, they'll expose him and kill his family. Will Brendan help them pull it off and keep his new life intact? Or will his
past bring him down, destroying everything else along with it? 

Tomorrow City is a riveting crime novel that explores the theme of reinvention in Shanghai, the city that's reinvented itself more than any other in the world over the past generation.


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Hosted by Sheila @ One Person's Journey Through a World of Books. We discuss the books that we've read and what we're planning to read for the week. 


I finished reading the following:

The Boy That Never Was by Karen Perry

Tomorrow City by Kirk Kjeldsen
Flush by Jane Clifton
When the Cookie Crumbles by Virginia Lowell
Caroline by Cynthia Wright
Lost And Found Groom by Patricia McLinn
Father Found by Judith Arnold

I am in the midst of reading:

The Land of Decoration by Grace McCleen
A Soul's Calling by Scott Bishop
The Edge of Normal by Carla Norton
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Musing Mondays asks you to muse about something related to books each week…

• Maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

I have not read much in 2013. I read 60+ book. That has to change in 2014! I gotta touch the 100 mark!!

Monday: Mailbox/What Am I reading?/Musing

Mailbox Monday is a gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week and explore great book blogs. Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists. December host is Rose City Reader

I received only one book, and I also downloaded a lot of free e-books!

Dead Water by Ann Cleeves

When the body of journalist Jerry Markham is found in a traditional Shetland boat, outside the house of the Fiscal down at the Marina, young Detective Inspector Willow Reeves is drafted in from the Hebrides to head up the investigation.

Since the death of his fiancée, Inspector Jimmy Perez has been out the loop, but his interest in this new case is stirred and he decides to help the inquiry - for Willow, his local knowledge is invaluable as the close-knit community holds many secrets. Markham - originally a Shetlander but who had made a name for himself in London - had left the islands years before to pursue his burgeoning writing career. In his wake, he left a scandal involving a young girl, Evie Watt, who is now engaged to a crofter. He had few friends there, so why was he back in Shetland?

Willow and Jimmy are soon led to Sullom Voe, the heart of Shetland's North Sea oil and gas industry. In a community where traditional values are held very dear by some, the advent of new energies, even renewables, is not always welcome. It emerges that Markham was chasing a story in his final days. One that must have been - for someone - significant enough to warrant his death...

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Hosted by Sheila @ One Person's Journey Through a World of Books. We discuss the books that we've read and what we're planning to read for the week. 


I finished reading the following:

Love's Fate by Tracy Smith
Coulson's Wife by Anna J. McIntyre
Lemon: 50+ Recipes by Pamesh Y

I am in the midst of reading:

The Land of Decoration by Grace McCleen
A Soul's Calling by Scott Bishop
The Aryavarta Chronicles Book 1: Govinda by Krishna Udayasankar
The Edge of Normal by Carla Norton
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Musing Mondays asks you to muse about something related to books each week…

• Maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

I am on book acquiring spree! But my reading is so SLOW right now! 

Monday: Mailbox/What Am I reading?/Musing

Mailbox Monday is a gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week and explore great book blogs. Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists. December host is Rose City Reader

I received only one book, and I also downloaded a lot of free e-books!

The Edge of Power by Tuhin A. Sinha


The heinous gang-rape of Nirbhaya has jolted the Indian nation out of its apathy but rape and violence against women are only symptomatic of a deeper malaise that ails the nation: the total collapse of governance under the weak and vacillating PM, Devender Singh. Ironically, aiding the PM and his Indian Democratic Party(IDP)’s cling to power is a casual and largely indifferent Opposition led by the venal Ravi Nehra. A ray of hope finally emerges when ex-journalist and RTI activist Daivik Verma and the gorgeous Catherine Khan, a leading Bollywood film-star with a mysterious lineage, decide to challenge the existing system by floating a new political party but lack of funds and cadre-support thwarts their efforts: their only recourse being Shruti Ranjan, who had sworn off politics three years ago.

Will Nirbhaya’s gruesome rape and her subsequent death bring a disillusioned Shruti Ranjan back into the political fray, dominated by crime lords and bankrolled by industrial barons? Will the trio manage to stage a coup and dethrone India’s worst regime? Will the land of great leaders like Chandragupta Maurya, Ashoka and Akbar, finally get a dynamic Prime Minister she so badly needs?

A racy political thriller, The Edge of Power is a powerful enquiry into the underbelly of Indian politics. It raises important questions over the funding of Indian political parties, while presenting Shruti Ranjan, the immensely popular protagonist of The Edge of Desire, in a refreshingly new, resurgent avatar.

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Hosted by Sheila @ One Person's Journey Through a World of Books. We discuss the books that we've read and what we're planning to read for the week. 


I finished reading the following:

Nothing!

I am in the midst of reading:

The Land of Decoration by Grace McCleen
A Soul's Calling by Scott Bishop
The Aryavarta Chronicles Book 1: Govinda by Krishna Udayasankar
The Edge of Normal by Carla Norton
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about something related to books each week…

• Maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

I am on a spree of collecting poetry books. I own some 20+ poetry books. Not much, I know. Anyone who has poetry books to spare can leave a comment. I know I live in India and postal rates are high but I can still solicit, can't I? Maybe someone may wish to be my Santa!! :D :D

Saturday Snapshot: Dec 7, 2013

I was unable to attend my cousin's wedding but my mom did! Here is a picture of the bride with her groom!

My youngest cousin with her bridegroom!!

Posting for Saturday Snapshot, hosted by Melinda of West Metro Mommy.

PICT/PBP Tour: Differential Equations by Julian Iragorri and Lou Aronica

I was supposed to post a review but I have not received it as yet. But I am showcasing it here. 

Book Details: Genre: Literary Fiction Published by: The Story Plant Publication Date: 4/24/12 Number of Pages: 356 ISBN: Print: 978-1-61188-102-8 E-book: 978-1-61188-103-5 NOTE: Explicit sexual scenes Purchase Links:

Synopsis:  This evocative, moving, and gorgeously detailed novel is the story of Alex Soberano, a contemporary man in crisis. A tremendously successful New York businessman, Alex finds it difficult to embrace joy and accept love. When his life threatens to boil over, he escapes for a brief respite on the West Coast. What waits for him there is something he never could have imagined. Intertwined with Alex’s story are the stories of three people from different times and places whose lives affect him in surprising ways: A woman from the South American city of Anhelo in 1928 that everyone knows as "Vidente." For decades, Vidente, has been one of Anhelo's most celebrated citizens because she has the ability to read colors that speak of a person's fate. However, during one such reading, she sees her own future – a future that includes her imminent death. A man named Khaled who left his home in Bethlehem in 1920 to seek fortune in the South American town of Joya de la Costa. He has barely begun to gain a foothold when he learns that the wife and three children he left behind have been murdered. When a magical woman enters his life, he believes that destiny has smiled on him. However, destiny has only just begun to deal with Khaled. A nineteen-year-old student named Dro who flies from the South American country of Legado to Boston in 1985 and immediately walks onto the campus of MIT expecting instant admission. Dro's skills at mastering complex, ever-changing differential equations intrigues the associate admissions director. However, the person he intrigues the most is the celebrated US ambassador from his country, and his relationship with her will define his life. How the stories of these four people merge is the central mystery of this arresting work of imagination. DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS is a story that will sweep you up in its magic, enrich you with its wisdom, and compel you with its deep humanity.

Author Bio: Julian Iragorri lives in Manhattan. He has worked on Wall Street since the early nineties. Catch Up With the Author:   Lou Aronica is the author of the USA Today bestseller THE FOREVER YEAR and the national bestseller BLUE. He also collaborated on the New York Times nonfiction bestsellers THE ELEMENT and FINDING YOUR ELEMENT (with Ken Robinson) and the national bestseller THE CULTURE CODE (with Clotaire Rapaille). Aronica is a long-term book publishing veteran. He is President and Publisher of the independent publishing house The Story Plant. Catch Up With the Author:

Monday: Mailbox/What Am I reading?/Musing

Mailbox Monday is a gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week and explore great book blogs. Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists. December host is Rose City Reader

I received only one book, and I also downloaded a lot of free e-books!

The Diary of a Reluctant Feminist by Bhavna Bhavna

'The problem is the small print in my struggle for a divorce; as with everything in my life, it always reads 'subject to my mother's permission.' And since my mother was not going to give me permission to divorce in a hurry, I was relegated to being an armchair divorcee. But Indian parents will never voluntarily give their children permission to get divorced or have a live-in relationship or conceive a child by any means other than Immaculate Conception which, of course, would only take place after the child is married. So I decided, after two years of being separated, to stop waiting for my parents' elusive permission, and to take the initial steps in the painful journey myself. In this process, I was also branded a 'feminist', which in their view is marginally worse than being a terrorist...' A humorous look at the hapless, Indian, female divorce-seeker ? who not only takes on her in-laws and her ex, but her own family, if she ever so much as suggests she might want to call it quits.

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Hosted by Sheila @ One Person's Journey Through a World of Books. We discuss the books that we've read and what we're planning to read for the week. 


I finished reading the following:

Nothing!

I am in the midst of reading:

The Land of Decoration by Grace McCleen
A Soul's Calling by Scott Bishop
The Aryavarta Chronicles Book 1: Govinda by Krishna Udayasankar
The Edge of Normal by Carla Norton
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Musing Mondays asks you to muse about something related to books each week…

• Maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

I sorted through my Mills & Boon collection. It is time I got rid of those. I own around 400!! I found someone who is interested to take the lot. I am glad and she is happy!

BTW, no news about my buddy and I am worried!! 

Book Beginnings on Fridays/The Friday 56/Friday Four Fill-in Fun Blog Hop

Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader, where bloggers share the first sentence or more of a current read, as well as initial thoughts about the sentence(s), impressions of the book, or anything else that the opening inspires.

Later I would recognise the smell as blood. Much, much later. At the age of five, I had no idea what it was. The room was dark and Iwas scared. My sister wasn't moving but her face and clothes felt sticky. I suppose Iwas panicking, but at that age, with no frame of reference, I wasn't likely to know that. 

The Friday 56 is a fun meme to do hosted by Freda's Voice. If you'd like to join on the fun go to The Friday 56.

Rules:
*Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader.
*Find any sentence that grabs you.
*Post it.
*Link it here.


People did not discuss the specifics of who murdered whom thirty or so miles away.

Never Forget by Lisa Cutts

Few kidnap victims grow up to become police officers - but this is exactly what Nina Foster did. Following a frenzied stabbing she is drafted into her first murder investigation. With former rescuer DCI Stan McGuire as her mentor and John ('Wingsy') Wing as her partner, she thrives on the pace and banter that go with the job. As the body count increases and the force's biggest-ever manhunt gets underway, Nina is determinded to find the murderer. But when the story of her own traumatic childhood comes to light - a past she's worked hard to hide - her role on the team is threatened. Suddenly her job, her peace of mind and her safety are all in danger. And this time DCI Stan McGuire won't be there to save her. Fast-paced, and with a shocking twist, this compelling crime debut by police insider Lisa Cutts takes us to the heart of the Major Incident Room - introducing a gutsy new heroine to the crime scene.

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Every Friday, Hilary of Feeling Beachie lists four statements with a blank for you to fill in on your own blogs.

This week’s statements:

WATCH OUT FOR THIS SPACE!!!

Monday: Mailbox/What Am I reading?/Musing

Mailbox Monday is a gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week and explore great book blogs. Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists. November’s host is Crystal of I totally paused! 

 I received only one book, and I also downloaded a lot of free e-books!

Gold, Frankincense and Dust by Valerio Varesi

Parma. A multiple pile-up occurs on the autostrada into the city. A truck transporting cattle skids off the road. Dozens of cows and bulls go on the rampage, injured and crazed. In the chaos, the burned body of a young woman is found at the side of the road. Her death has no apparent link to the carnage. Commissario Soneri is assigned the case. It is a welcome distraction: his mercurial lover Angela has decided to pursue other options, leaving him even more morose than usual. The dead woman is identified as Nina Iliescu, a Romanian immigrant whose beauty had enchanted a string of wealthy lovers. Temptress, muse, angel - she was all things to all men. Her murder conceals a crime and a sacrilege, and even in death she has a surprise waiting for Soneri

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Hosted by Sheila @ One Person's Journey Through a World of Books. We discuss the books that we've read and what we're planning to read for the week. 



I finished reading the following:

Wild Heart by Jane Bonander

I am in the midst of reading:

The Land of Decoration by Grace McCleen
A Soul's Calling by Scott Bishop
The Aryavarta Chronicles Book 1: Govinda by Krishna Udayasankar
The Edge of Normal by Carla Norton
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Musing Mondays asks you to muse about something related to books each week…

• Maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!


I am so busy preparing assignments for my students that I am hardly getting any time to read. I also miss one of my buddies, who has gone silent on me. I am worried about him and don't know what to do....

Saturday Snapshot: Nov 23, 2013

My youngest cousin is getting married on Dec 4, 2013. I will not be attending her wedding but I have been thinking about her. So here I am posting two photos of hers.

Dec 2011, we met for another cousin's wedding

With her fiance, July 2013 just after her engagement

Posting for Saturday Snapshot, hosted by Melinda of West Metro Mommy.