Finished: My Sweet Audrina by VC Andrews

I liked this book until about 3/4 through. The ending/wrap up for me seemed rushed. I was expecting more. Not a bad book, just a little disappointed at the end.

Synopsis:

V.C. Andrews, author of the phenomenally successful Dollanganger series, has created a fascinating new cast of characters in this haunting story of love and deceit, innocence and betrayal, and the suffocating power of parental love. Audrina Adare wanted so to be as good as her sister. She knew her father could not love her as he loved her sister. Her sister was so special, so perfect -- and dead.
Now she will come face to face with the dangerous, terrifying secret that everyone knows. Everyone except...
My Sweet Audrina

Finished: Garden of Shadows by VC Andrews

Just finished this book.

The novel explains the origin of Olivia Winfield (the grandmother from Flowers in the Attic) and the events that cause her to become the cold, domineering mistress of Foxworth Hall and how Corinne's childhood and eventual betrayal come about.

It was a really great book. It gave me some great perspective as to why the grandmother was so weird.

Here's the synopsis:
V.C. Andrews' thrilling new novel spins a tale of dreadful secrets and dark, forbidden passions -- of the time before Flowers in the Attic began. Long before terror flowered in the attic, thin, spinsterish Olivia came to Virginia as Malcolm Foxworth's bride. At last, with her tall handsome husband, she would find the joy she had waited for, longed for. But in the gloomy mansion filled with hidden rooms and festering desires, a stain of jealous obsession begins to spread...an evil that will threaten her children, two lovely boys and one very special, beautiful girl. For within one innocent child, a shocking secret lives...a secret that will taint the proud Foxworth name, and haunt all their lives forever!

Finished Reading: ashes by Ilsa J. Bick

This book is pretty good. At first I was like Whaaaaat??? Then it got me sucked in. It's not what I was thinking it would be...

After finishing this book. I really want more. This is going to be a trilogy. No idea when the other books come out, this one is fairly new.

Here's the synopsis:
Alex has run away and is hiking through the wilderness with her dead parents' ashes, about to say goodbye to the life she no longer wants to live. But then the world suddenly changes. An electromagnetic pulse sweeps through the sky zapping every electronic device and killing the vast majority of adults. For those spared, it's a question of who can be trusted and who has changed... Everyone still alive has turned - some for the better (those who acquired a superhuman sense) while others for the worse (those who acquired a taste for human flesh). Desperate to find out what happened and to avoid the zombies that are on the hunt, Alex meets up with Tom - an Army veteran who escaped one war only to find something worse at home - and Ellie, a young girl whose grandfather was killed by the electromagnetic pulse. This improvised family will have to use every ounce of courage they have just to find food, shelter, while fighting off the 'Changed' and those desperate to stay alive. A tense and involving adventure with shocks and sudden plot twists that will keep teen and adult readers gripped

Finished Reading: Still Missing

Still Missing by Chevy Stevens

Started this book on Sept 10th finished on Sept 13th.
My sister sent this book to me.

When I first read the back of the book, I didn't know if I would like it.
It turned out to be a really good book. It was an easy read, and was a really good story. The ending was great, one of those plot twists you don't see coming.
Synopsis:
On the day she was abducted, Annie O’Sullivan, a thirty-two-year-old Realtor, had three goals—sell a house, forget about a recent argument with her mother, and be on time for dinner with her ever-patient boyfriend. The open house is slow, but when her last visitor pulls up in a van as she’s about to leave, Annie thinks it just might be her lucky day after all.

Interwoven with the story of the year Annie spent captive in a remote mountain cabin—which unfolds through sessions with her psychiatrist—is the second narrative recounting the nightmare that follows her escape: her struggle to piece her shattered life back together, the ongoing police investigation into the identity of her captor, and the disturbing sense that things are far from over.

Currently Reading.. Kind of (for the past 2 years!) The Witching Hour

The Witching Hour by Anne Rice

This book is terrific! I started it about 2 years ago, and got about 1/2 way through, then stopped reading it for over a year. Once I picked it up again, I was so lost I had to start over.

I am about 1/2 way through again. I do plan on finishing it this time. (I just don't know when)

Synopsis:

In this engrossing and hypnotic tale of witchcraft and the occult spanning four centuries, we meet a great dynasty of witches--a family given to poetry and incest, to murder and philosophy, a family that over the ages is haunted by a powerful, dangerous and seductive being.

It begins in our time with a rescue at sea.  Rowan Mayfair, a beautiful woman, a brilliant practitioner of neurosurgery--aware that she has special powers but unaware that she comes from an ancient line of witches--finds the drowned body of a man off the coast of California and brings him to life.  He is Michael Curry, who was born in New Orleans and orphaned in childhood by fire on Christmas Eve, who pulled himself up from poverty, and who now, in his brief interval of death, has acquired a sensory power that mystifies and frightens him.

As these two, fiercely drawn to each other, fall in love and--in passionate alliance--set out to solve the mystery of her past and his unwelcome gift, the novel moves backward and forward in time from today's New Orleans and San Francisco to long-ago Amsterdam and a château in the France of Louis XIV. An intricate tale of evil unfolds--an evil unleashed in seventeenth-century Scotland, where the first "witch," Suzanne of the Mayfair, conjures up the spirit she names Lasher . . . a creation that spells her own destruction and torments each of her descendants in turn.

From the coffee plantations of Port au Prince, where the great Mayfair fortune is made and the legacy of their dark power is almost destroyed, to Civil War New Orleans, as Julien--the clan's only male to be endowed with occult powers--provides for the dynasty its foothold in America, the dark, luminous story encompasses dramas of seduction and death, episodes of tenderness and healing.  And always--through peril and escape, tension and release--there swirl around us the echoes of eternal war: innocence versus the corruption of the spirit, sanity against madness, life against death.  With a dreamlike power, the novel draws us, through circuitous, twilight paths, to the present and Rowan's increasingly inspired and risky moves in the merciless game that binds her to her heritage. And in New Orleans, on Christmas Eve, this strangest of family sagas is brought to its startling climax.

Stopped Reading: The Postmistress

The Postmistress by Sarah Blake











A co-worker of mine (she loans me a lot of books) sent this book my way.

For some reason, I can not get into this book... I haven't read much, but normally I am more thrilled about a book by this time. It could be because it has to do with history. For some reason, historical things make me want to ram my head into a wall... I will try and read it more, but I may quit while I'm ahead.

Synopsis:
It is 1940. France has fallen. Bombs are dropping on London. And President Roosevelt is promising he won't send our boys to fight in "foreign wars."

But American radio gal Frankie Bard, the first woman to report from the Blitz in London, wants nothing more than to bring the war home. Frankie's radio dispatches crackle across the Atlantic ocean, imploring listeners to pay attention--as the Nazis bomb London nightly, and Jewish refugees stream across Europe. Frankie is convinced that if she can just get the right story, it will wake Americans to action and they will join the fight.

Meanwhile, in Franklin, Massachusetts, a small town on Cape Cod, Iris James hears Frankie's broadcasts and knows that it is only a matter of time before the war arrives on Franklin's shores. In charge of the town's mail, Iris believes that her job is to deliver and keep people's secrets, passing along the news that letters carry. And one secret she keeps are her feelings for Harry Vale, the town mechanic, who inspects the ocean daily, searching in vain for German U-boats he is certain will come. Two single people in midlife, Iris and Harry long ago gave up hope of ever being in love, yet they find themselves unexpectedly drawn toward each other. 

Listening to Frankie as well are Will and Emma Fitch, the town's doctor and his new wife, both trying to escape a fragile childhood and forge a brighter future. When Will follows Frankie's siren call into the war, Emma's worst fears are realized. Promising to return in six months, Will goes to London to offer his help, and the lives of the three women entwine.

Alternating between an America still cocooned in its inability to grasp the danger at hand and a Europe being torn apart by war, The Postmistress gives us two women who find themselves unable to deliver the news, and a third woman desperately waiting for news yet afraid to hear it.

Finished: If there Be Thorns/Seeds of Yesterday

Started around the 20th of August, Finished on the 2nd of September

These are the 3rd/4th books in the Dollanger Series by VC Andrews. These books follow Flowers in the Attic and Petals on the Wind.

These books are weird. I can't imagine living like the people in these books did. I just can't wrap my brain around it. Overall they were good books. There were times when I couldn't put the books down. I liked the story, however I felt that the ending came too soon, like it was headed for several more chapters, but the ending came suddenly in the last chapter.


If There Be Thorns:
Out of the ashes of evil Chris and Cathy made such a loving home for their splendid children...
Fourteen-year-old Jory was so handsome, so gentle. And Bart had such a dazzling imagination for a nine year old.
Then the lights came on in the abandoned house next door. Soon the Old Lady in Black was there, watching their home with prying eyes, guarded by her strange old butler. Soon the shrouded woman had Bart over for cookies and ice cream and asked him to call her "Grandmother."
And soon Bart's transformation began...
A transformation that sprang from "the book of secrets" the gaunt old butler had given him... a transformation fed by the hint of terrible things about his mother and father... a transformation that led him into shocking acts of violence, self-destruction and perversity.
And now while this little boy trembles on the edge of madness, his anguished parents, his helpless brother, an obsessed old woman and the vengeful, powerful butler await the climax to a horror that flowered in an attic long ago, a horror whose thorns are still wet with blood, still tipped with fire....

Seeds of Yesterday:

The final, haunting novel, in the extraordinary story that has enthralled millions! The horror began with Flowers in the Attic, the terrifying tale of four innocent children locked away from the world by a cruel mother.
The shocking fury continued with Petals on the Wind and If There be Thorns. Now V.C. Andrews has created the last dark chapter in the strange, chilling tale of passion and peril.

**There is one more book in the series after Seeds of Yesterday telling the tale of the main character's mother.

Finished Reading: Water for Elephants

A co-worker of mine lent me this book.  I started it several months ago, and stopped to read other things.

Not a bad story. I haven't seen the movie (is it out yet?) I will check out the movie after I read the book.

Synopsis:

As a young man, Jacob Jankowski was tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. It was the early part of the great Depression, and for Jacob, now ninety, the circus world he remembers was both his salvation and a living hell. A veterinary student just shy of a degree, he was put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It was there that he met Marlena, the beautiful equestrian star married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal trainer. And he met Rosie, an untrainable elephant who was the great gray hope for this third-rate traveling show. The bond that grew among this unlikely trio was one of love and trust, and, ultimately, it was their only hope for survival.

Recently re-read The Earth Children Series

Several months ago I re-read a series of books (in preperation for the newest and last book of the series) I haven't gotten the new book yet even though it came out a couple months ago. I plan on getting it very soon.

This series is called "The Earth Children Series"

It is an amazing story, and has to be one of my favorites.

They actually made a movie of the 1st book. (Clan of the Cave Bear) It was HORRIBLE in comparison to the book. I am pretty sure that is why the Author didn't want to do any more movies.

Book One: Clan of the Cave Bear

When her parents are killed by an earthquake, 5-year-old Ayla wanders through the forest completely alone. Cold, hungry, and badly injured by a cave lion, the little girl is as good as gone until she is discovered by a group who call themselves the Clan of the Cave Bear. This clan, left homeless by the same disaster, have little interest in the helpless girl who comes from the tribe they refer to as the "Others." Only their medicine woman sees in Ayla a fellow human, worthy of care. She painstakingly nurses her back to health--a decision that will forever alter the physical and emotional structure of the clan. Although this story takes place roughly 35,000 years ago, its cast of characters could easily slide into any modern tale. The members of the Neanderthal clan, ruled by traditions and taboos, find themselves challenged by this outsider, who represents the physically modern Cro-Magnons. And as Ayla begins to grow and mature, her natural tendencies emerge, putting her in the middle of a brutal and dangerous power struggle.

Book Two: The Valley of the Horses

Cruelly cast out by the new leader of the ancient Clan that adopted her as a child, Ayla leaves those she loves behind and travels alone through a stark, open land filled with dangerous animals but few people, searching for the Others, tall and fair like herself. The short summer gives her little time to look, and when she finds a sheltered valley with a herd of hardy steppe horses, she decides to stay and prepare for the long glacial winter ahead. Living with the Clan has taught Ayla many skills but not real hunting. She finally knows she can survive when she traps a horse, which gives her meat and a warm pelt for the winter, but fate has bestowed a greater gift, an orphaned foal with whom she develops a unique kinship. One winter extends to more; she discovers a way to make fire more quickly and a wounded cave lion cub joins her unusual family, but her beloved animals don’t fulfill her restless need for human companionship. Then she hears the sound of a man screaming in pain. She saves tall, handsome Jondalar, who brings her a language to speak and an awakening of love and desire, but Ayla is torn between her fear of leaving her valley and her hope of living with her own kind.

Book Three: The Mammoth Hunters

The heroine, 18-year-old Ayla, cursed and pronounced dead by the "flathead" clan that reared her, now takes her chances with the mammoth-hunting Mamutoi, attended by her faithful lover, Jondalar. Gradually overcoming the prejudice aroused by her flathead connection, Ayla wins acceptance into the new clan through her powers as a healer, her shamanistic potential, her skill with spear and slingshot and her way with animals (she rides a horse, domesticates a wolf cub, both "firsts," it would seem, and even rides a lion). She also wins the heart of a bone-carving artist of "sparkling wit" (not much in evidence), which forces her to make a painful choice between the curiously complaisant Jondalar, her first instructor in love's delights, and this more charismatic fellow.

Book Four: The Plains of Passage

With her companion, Jondalar, Ayla sets out on her most dangerous and daring journey--away from the welcoming hearths of the Mammoth Hunters and into the unknown. Their odyssey spans a beautiful but sparsely populated and treacherous continent, the windswept grasslands of Ice Age Europe, casting the pair among strangers. Some will be intrigued by Ayla and Jondalar, with their many innovative skills, including the taming of wild horses and a wolf; others will avoid them, threatened by what they cannot understand; and some will threaten them. But Ayla, with no memory of her own people, and Jondalar, with a hunger to return to his, are impelled by their own deep drives to continue their trek across the spectacular heart of an unmapped world to find that place they can both call home.

Book Five: Shelters of Stone

The Shelters of Stone opens as Ayla and Jondalar, along with their animal friends, Wolf, Whinney, and Racer, complete their epic journey across Europe and are greeted by Jondalar’s people: the Zelandonii. The people of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii fascinate Ayla. Their clothes, customs, artifacts, even their homes—formed in great cliffs of vertical limestone—are a source of wonder to her. And in the woman Zelandoni, the spiritual leader of the Ninth Cave (and the one who initiated Jondalar into the Gift of Pleasure), she meets a fellow healer with whom to share her knowledge and skills.

But as Ayla and Jondalar prepare for the formal mating at the Summer Meeting, there are difficulties. Not all the Zelandonii are welcoming. Some fear Ayla’s unfamiliar ways and abhor her relationship with those they call flatheads and she calls Clan. Some even oppose her mating with Jondalar, and make their displeasure known. Ayla has to call on all her skills, intelligence, knowledge, and instincts to find her way in this complicated society, to prepare for the birth of her child, and to decide whether she will accept new challenges and play a significant role in the destiny of the Zelandonii.

Finished: Flowers in the Attic/Petals on the Wind

This is actually 2 books in one.
I have seen the movie "Flowers in the Attic" and really liked it, so when I saw the book, I had to pick it up.

The 2nd book (Petals on the Wind) got weird. Not sure I am a fan of the incest stuff... Its like "oh my god really?"
Not a terrible book by any means, it just makes me feel uncomfortable, like I want to smack these people and bring them back to reality...
Here's the synopsis for Flowers in the Attic:
Flowers in the Attic is the first novel in the Dollanganger series by V.C. Andrews. In this novel, four siblings are locked in a secluded second story room in the childhood home of their mother after the death of their father. The children are told they will only have to remain here until their grandfather has died and left his entire estate to their mother. However, as the years pass and the children have been locked away for more than three years, they begin to doubt their mother's devotion to their safety and begin searching for a way to escape. Flowers in the Attic is a dark, Gothic tale of greed and incest that will keep readers spellbound until the final paragraph.

Here is the synopsis for Petals on the Wind:
For Carrie, Chris and Cathy the attic was a dark horror that would not leave their minds.
Of course mother had to pretend they didn't exist and grandmother was convinced they had the devil in them.
But that wasn't their fault. Was it?
Cathy knew what to do. She knew it was time to show her mother and grandmother that the pain and terror of the attic could not be forgotten...Show them. Show them -- once and for all.

Just Finished The Mummy

Yesterday I finished reading "The Mummy or Ramses the Damned" by Anne Rice.

I got it from my moms house while I was on vacation.

It was a pretty good book, I think it was an easy read. It kept me entertained through the entire book. I was however left wanting more. It kind of ended too soon.


Here's the synopsis:
An archaeologist has just unearthed the find of his career, the tomb of Ramses II. The door to the tomb is lettered with a curse, the mummy of the king who claimed to be immortal lies shriveled inside. The archaeologist dies and the treasures are shipped to his daughter Julie in England, who finds that the mummy comes to life as a perfect man. Julie grows to love him and introduces him to modern life, including the museums that purport to reconstruct his time. He becomes disturbed and disgusted with the modern portrayal of his beloved Cleopatra. Ramses and Julie, her ex-fiance and his father Elliott in tow, travel to Egypt. There, Ramses is further upset by the tourist flavor given to his ancient civilization. In one of the museums, he recognizes an "unknown" mummified woman as his beloved Cleopatra. One night, he returns with the immortality elixir and raises her from the dead. But Cleopatra is not restored to her beautiful body or mind. She is a horrid monster, a walking corpse of rotting flesh and a disoriented mind that kills without mercy. Ramses abandons her, leaving her to Elliott, not realizing that he too is in peril. All in the party partake of the elixir, with Cleopatra and Ramses in the shadows.

Documenting the books I've read

I decided that it would be cool (for me at least) to keep track of the books I have read.
I am not going to start from way back. I'm going to start with the books I have read recently.