As every avid reader knows, most books are average to good with a fair number of clunkers thrown in. So when you come across a book you truly enjoy, you savor every minute of it.

One Death at a Time is one of those rare gems that are a delight from start to finish. It is as satisfying as receiving a gift you were not expecting. The characters are quirky, smart, and unique. The mystery is intriguing, the dialogue is witty, and there is plenty of drama.

Retired actress Julia teams with her new assistant/AA sponsor, Mason, to discover how her mortal enemy's body ended up in her swimming pool while she was blackout drunk. They are ably assisted by Julia's housekeeper, Claudia, who keeps them all well fed; Will, her researcher with an encyclopedic memory; and, her attractive new attorney, Archie.

Kudos, Ms. Waxman! I hope further adventures await this fun and eccentric team.

When Margaret and Hal are finally able to purchase their dream home, they never expected their dream to become a nightmare. It turns out an evil presence resides in their basement and his victims haunt their home. Every September, the house comes alive with blood-soaked walls and very active apparitions.

While Margaret accepts the horrors of September and has learned to abide by the rules of the house, Hal, a recovering alcoholic, begins drinking again and begs Margaret to leave with him. She, however, is determined to remain in her dream home. Then Hal disappears. Their concerned daughter arrives at the house at the height of the September hijinks and Margaret tries desperately to hide the behavior of the house from her.

While I did enjoy the book, I felt it took too long to reach its conclusion—which I thought was well done. The author seems to have been a bit undecided about whether she wanted a clever book with a degree of horror or a horror book with a bit of cleverness. But, overall, not a bad way to while away a few hours.

Meticulously researched and deeply detailed, this is the story of an ill-fated British warship, the Wager. Although an entire fleet left England in 1740 on a secret mission against the Spanish, only one ship returned to England. A couple of ragtag groups of shipwrecked survivors, who endured unimaginable privation and hardship, also made it home more than two years after setting sail.

David Grann literally takes the reader onto the deck of the Wager. The reader is swept along as the crew weathers storms, scurvy, and finally, shipwreck. He focuses on the stories of a handful of the officers and seamen who played critical roles in the fate of the ship and its crew. Their thoughts, fears, and determination make for riveting reading.

The book is broken into four sections: pre-mission preparation, the disastrous voyage, the desperate struggle for survival after the shipwreck, and the improbable return of the few survivors to England. The conflicting accounts of the voyage and shipwreck by these survivors adds to the drama. Amazingly, after enduring great hardship to finally return home, the survivors are rewarded with a trial to judge their actions and, potential hanging.

While this is an absorbing and fascinating book, the story takes a long time to get going. There is an overabundance of detail on shipbuilding and the pre-trip preparation, as well as on the other ships in the fleet. However, once the fleet sets sail, the book takes off.

Costanza Casati's absorbing novel, Clytemnestra, transports the reader to a world, familiar through classic literature, that rewards brutality yet honors beauty, that trains women to be warriors then uses them as pawns, and where honor is paramount yet deceit is rampant.

In Clytemnestra, Casati has found the perfect subject to capture the intriguing history of the early Greeks. Born a Spartan princess, Clytemnestra was a trained warrior. She was at once powerful and powerless. While her younger sister, Helen, had the beauty, Clytemnestra had the brains, the cunning, and the heart of a warrior. Clytemnestra proved to be a formidable and vengeful foe; but, her softer side was also clearly evident in her love for her family.

Readers will be engrossed by this vivid, nuanced depiction of a fascinating time and a captivating heroine.

Jackie and Me focuses almost entirely on the courtship of Jacquelyn and Jack. It is told through the reminiscences of Jack's best friend from boarding school and his close confidant, Lem.

As portrayed by Bayard, the young Jacqueline Bouvier is an independent, strong-minded, contemporary woman who defied her mother's wishes that she make a suitable marriage and embarked on a journalism career. So how she came to marry the handsome, ambitious young politician who essentially courted her by proxy seems a strange choice.

Jack's "proxy" is his best friend Lem. Lem was witness to the entirety of the relationship of Jack and Jackie. Jack asked Lem to "keep an eye" on Jackie for him as he campaigned for the Senate. Lem and Jackie fell into a habit of spending time together on Sundays. Jackie's primary connection to Jack was through flirtatious phone calls and whatever information about him she could learn from Lem—who was close to the entire Kennedy clan. It became clear that Jack and Jackie actually had very little in common. Through Lem, the author pointed out a number of crossroads where the relationship might have ended. But Jackie, who had somehow developed a romanticized vision of Jack, stubbornly hung on.

Jackie and Me is a well researched and fascinating perspective on the King and Queen of Camelot. The author definitely comes across as "Team Jackie." Despite Lem's clear loyalty to Jack and the entire Kennedy clan, neither he nor his family are portrayed very favorably.

Winning Story!

Part romance, part mystery, Some of it Was Real by Nan Fischer is hard to put down.

Sylvie is a psychic-medium. Adopted at age 6, Sylvie cannot remember her childhood prior to that time and is subject to recurring nightmares and panic attacks. Thomas is a journalist who is determined to prove that Sylvie is a fraud. The tragic accident that claimed the life of his father and brother has left his mother obsessed with trying to reach them on the other side and unable to move on with her life. Thomas hopes exposing mediums like Sylvie will end her obsession.

Their attraction grows even as he seeks to ruin her career and she maneuvers to stop him. The fact that they are both inherently kind and decent people leaves the reader hoping for a happy ending for both of them.

This is an extremely enjoyable book that will have you reading far into the night.

Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian is one of those books you read when you want to reward yourself for good behavior. In this complicated thriller, young diagnosed psychopaths are recruited into a college study. They matriculate into the school like any other students and are not supposed to know the identities of the other 6 students in the program. But, being psychopaths, three members quickly find each other out. When students in the program start to die, the three must decide if they can trust each other enough to work together to stay alive. Or, is one of them the killer?

These deliciously twisted characters are somehow quite likable and are the reason the book works so well. The ending is satisfying and this is definitely a book that will get passed around from friend to friend.

"Who killed Blake Nelson?" That is the mystery at the heart of Black Widows by Cate Quinn.

On the surface, it seems answering this question shouldn't be too challenging. After all, Nelson lived off the grid in a remote area of Utah with his wife. Actually, his three wives. Clearly, one of them must have killed Blake. But which one? The story is told alternately by the wives. As the story develops, we learn how each of them came to marry Blake, their relationship with him, and their feelings about one another. And though none of them likes the other wives, they also do not believe either of the others is the killer. So, who did kill Blake Nelson?

The two detectives in the case are a nice compliment to the wives. They are competent, professional, and very fair. The practices and beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) are important elements of the book and much of the information about the church is shared through the detectives.

If Black Widows had just been a "whodunit" I would have said that it is a very enjoyable book. The mystery is intriguing, the central characters are well defined and interesting, and the solution wasn't a huge surprise.

As the story drew to a conclusion, however, the narrative veered into a dark and disturbing portrayal of the LDS church. Shocking and disgusting descriptions of cultism including pedophilia, rape, inbreeding, and mass abortion are offered in detail. Unnecessary detail in my opinion.

The traditional LDS church members including the Bishop and Blake's parents do not approve of Blake's practice of polygamy and are deeply prejudiced against Blake's three wives. So, all in all, the LDS church is portrayed very, very negatively. While the author did work the cult plot line into the central story pretty well, it was grossly overblown and just seemed like a way for the author to slam the LDS church.

To be fair, despite the dark elements of the story, the book did have a positive ending.

Readers familiar with Susanna Clarke's book, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, will not be surprised to learn that this is a very unusual story. It takes place almost entirely in a house with a seemingly unending number of levels and hallways. The story's narrator spends his days cataloging the rooms in each hallway, which are filled with statuary. I will admit that I found the constant references to the hallways by geographical location a nuisance and I just skipped over them.

Water is a dominant force in this book so I would liken the reading experience to floating down a lazy river. The plot moves slowly and deliberately throughout most of the book but picks up momentum as it moves toward the conclusion. There were enough clues offered throughout the book to hint at the ending so the reveal felt satisfying—because by then you had a reasonable idea of what was happening—rather than an unfair trick.

I did enjoy this book. Reading it requires some patience but sometimes we just need to slow down and drift along.

Wow. I just finished reading "He Started It" by Samantha Downing and it was a wild and crazy ride from start to finish. The estranged Morgan siblings are tasked by their recently deceased grandfather to recreate a road trip he took them on when they were children, as a condition for inheriting his estate. The story is told by the third child, Beth, and she parses out the history of the original trip—in one surprising and demented snippet after another—while also narrating the current trip, which isn't much more sane than the original. This is definitely a family that should stay far, far away from one another.

As each new snippet was revealed I was caught completely off guard each and every time. It was hard to put this book down. I still feel emotionally spent but it was so worth it!

It is hard not to be at least a little curious about the girl from Philadelphia who became an iconic American actress and then a real-life princess. It sounds like a dream life--but Kerry Maher does a wonderful job of pulling back the curtain and showing the real person behind the image.

"The Girl in the White Gloves" is well-researched and well written for the most part. I struggled in the early part of the book with the way she jumped back and forth from Grace at 40 to early parts of her life. I feel the book found its groove when Maher described the progression of her career uninterrupted by leaps into the future.

Maher is a strong voice in historical fiction. And, in "The Girl in the White Gloves," she has given us a fascinating insight into a remarkable woman.

Secrets and deception abound in Cartier's Hope, so having the intrigue surrounding the Hope diamond at the center of the plot seems appropriate. The main character is a young high-society woman who lives a secret life as a female reporter. She decides to use her alter ego to avenge a family member, with the Hope diamond as bait. It is an absorbing and entertaining read to see how all the threads of this interesting book finally come together.

In D-Day Girls, Sarah Rose recognizes courageous and patriotic women whose contributions to the success of the D-Day invasion have only recently been declassified. Rose chooses to tell the stories of 5 women who were recruited into a special intelligence unit to help organize the resistance movement in France--a move crucial to the success of the planned invasion. Because of the shortage of men, Churchill reluctantly OK'd the use of women in this dangerous role. The women performed with courage and valor and many did not come home. Some even left children to undertake this dangerous mission. They were willing to risk having their children grow up as orphans rather than grow up in a Nazi-occupied world.

Because the book has numerous storylines, it was somewhat difficult to follow. However, it is worth the challenge. It is very well researched and a fascinating read. The writing style reminded me of Erik Larsen in that it delivered the story in a matter of fact manner, yet captivated me from the very start. This is a book I have been telling all my friends about and highly encourage everyone to read. I do warn you though; it is not a casual read. It is a book that requires your attention. But given the sacrifices made by the subjects, I think they are entitled to that consideration.

Many children have grown up in the White House but few have inspired as much public interest as the vivacious and audacious Alice Roosevelt--and this was well before the days of social media scrutiny. American Princess captures the vivacious personality and audacious nature of this fascinating young woman by telling her story in the first person.

I found this book very challenging to read. It had two primary characters--one named, the other, a former CIA operative, remained anonymous. The book switched between the perspective of the two characters and I sometimes had trouble telling whose story was being told. I also struggled to figure out the point of the book. Although it was billed as in-depth portrait of the CIA, that felt more like a subplot. The author has a lovely writing style and though challenging to read, it was interesting.

I just did not really like this book. The story was not compelling enough to distract from how overwhelmingly depressing the characters in the book are. I am not sure why the author felt it necessary that every character have some kind of psychological issue or character flaw. Not a book I would particularly recommend.

The body of young French woman, Severine, is found 10 years after she goes missing. Six college friends on holiday are the last to see her alive. This book kept me engaged from the opening line. It is a really fun and fast read. I highly recommend it!

This debut novel is a fascinating look at a world that exists a few miles from where many of us live, but of which we are only vaguely aware. The title character, Lola, runs a small drug gang, but has to stay in the background--frustrated and constrained by societal expectations--and pretend to be a submissive girlfriend. Love does a great job of making Lola a complex, even sympathetic, character. She shoots a woman between the eyes, then makes empanadas for her gang. She takes in an abused child, yet cuts off her brother's finger for screwing up a job. She hates her mother, but cleans her place every week. With her little gang caught between rival drug lords, and her life on the line, it takes all of Lola's wit, intelligence, and courage just to survive. But clever Lola isn't satisfied with survival, she has bigger ideas....

Underground Airlines by Ben Winters is the best book I have read in a very long time. The book presents an alternative history of the United States. One in which the Civil War never happened. In this America, slavery still exists in four states and the Underground Airlines is the modern-day version of the underground railroad trying to extricate slaves from those states. The book tells the story of "Victor," a former slave conscripted to return slaves to their owners in exchange for his own quasi freedom.

This book is beautifully written and hooks the reader from the very start. While I recommend this book very highly, I do offer this warning: do not read it alone. It is so provocative that it begs to be discussed. It is a no-brainer as a book club selection.

If you are the type of person who likes mental challenges to keep your mind sharp, then this whodunit may be for you. There are so many characters and so many plots and subplots that you really have to keep your concentration as you read. Also, this book is the second in a trilogy. if you did not read the first book (I did not) then you face the added challenge of learning the backstory of many of the characters--which is doable but will increase your overall exhaustion.

For all of its challenges, I did find this an absorbing, albeit somewhat bizarre, book. The ending was extremely abrupt with none of the puzzles that make up the story resolved. It was very clear that another book will soon be on its way. What isn't as clear is whether I will read it.