Lee Childs has found a way to make his character, Preacher, and his stories remain exciting and tantalizing. However, they are starting to be more of the same. If you like thrillers filled with suspense, you'll find another hit with Gone Tomorrow. Preacher is starting to bore me.

This is my first book trip to Kenya and it leaves me with a longing for more tales of the Maasai and their culture. Ordinarily I would not search for a book about archaeology but found this book utterly fascinating. The author transports you to the dig location, Kihara gorge, and paints a perfect picture even though I have never seen one. The story tied in beautifully with the setting. If you have a "passion" in life, this book is for you. I am adding this to my Book Club selections for 2011.

How many of us have lost a partner and looked into the future and said, "what now?" How does one take that next step to continue to live life? Whether it is for an hour, a day, a week, that first step has to be taken. Life as we knew it must stop a moment for us to think and prioritize. Travel is one of the tools commonly used to make that transition but it is the experiences during that moment that help form the person we become to face the future.

The author brings us the experience of a widow as she looks at herself, her relationship with her family and her ability to go on alone. I became a widow at age 48 and had such a moment in time so it was a familiar experience. We walk through that moment with the protagonist and feel her pain and joy. Great story!

Do all war correspondents and photographers use their working conditions as an excuse to jump into sexual relationships at the drop of a hat, overuse alcohol and drugs, gamble foolishly, setting aside their own rules of decent behavior? Or do authors want us to understand that "war is hell" and this is the only possible way they can deal with it while covering the atrocities? Love came too quickly to Helen so that set the tone for the story not having believability. There was a gap in the story that was never explained. I felt that Soli was able to depict Vietnam clearly and accurately. For those of us who have never seen war first hand, it is always such a shock to read it. Soli shocked me with her descriptions.

I wish she had paid as much attention to the characters as she did to the vividness of the country and the war.

Serena was not the best of the Ron Rash books. It was a disappointment. Grisham and other authors are also guilty of giving us books not on the par with their first few great reads. In his own words, Rash put a "rusty" on us.

I did enjoy the lingo from that time when he used it and, of course, you knew it because he put it in quotes.

The lack of character development and long, boring glimpses into everyday life added little to the story.

Serena was such an unappetizing character even though he tried to make her unique with the use of the eagle and the horse. Murder came so easy to her but what was she about really?

Every once in a while a fictional character becomes so real you care about what happens. A simple story with a simple truth like the original Shall We Dance or Dear Frankie makes for a great story.

When I sink into a book and let the world carry on without me, when I can't wait to pick up the book and continue or when I just don't put the book down until the very last page, I know that I have found such a story.

My heart beat with Olivia's at every turn of the page. She was honest, strong, brave and resilient. As so many women do, she sacrificed and carried on. She loved and was shocked when love came back to her. She touched my heart.

With a smile and a tear and a thank you to Carolyn Wall, I closed the book.

The first 150 pages kept me interested with the location description and the character introductions. The stone hedge building was a different addition to a novel about the UK. Around page 170, I started to skim as I was losing interest. The book ended with a ho-hum. It had potential in the first half but lost me in the second half.
The characters in the hedge building class were colorful and I would have enjoyed it if they were followed to the end of the book. The love scene was not exciting. Disappointing second half. It was a decent enough story to be made into a Lifetime Movie for Women or just a summer beach read requiring little attention.