Made for TV cont (again x13)

 Bones on Ice by Kathy Reichs 

This is another example of an novella being better than the full length books. This had an interesting setting (mountains) and plot (mountain climbing, accident or murder?) and deserved to be a full length book. I was captivated from the start. The bones being sent from Everest back to Charlotte for identification and burial, then the discovery that they weren't who we were expecting them to be. The surprise that the presumed dead was being investigated for fraud and then most likely killed someone who looked very similar and took on her life to escape prison only to be found by someone she was with on the initial climb and then possibly murdered by him? That is soap opera worthy twists and turns. Tempe again went somewhere she shouldn't have, but at least she warned someone. But her luck is going to run out. And then, the book ends with Andrew calling and her ignoring it! This is why I keep listening to this series. Sometimes, the stories are so compelling without being heartbreaking. 

Final YA Fantasy in this Series

 Bloodrose by Andrea Cremer 

If I don't like the ending, then I don't like the entire book. And that's exactly what happened here. This is YA. There were very specific things that were supposed to happen that didn't. No. The book started strong. We have adventure and chaos getting the three remaining pieces of the cross. We have some side characters die, but not like in the last book. We get confirmation that Monroe is really and truly dead and not coming back to life which is horrible. I hate the relationship between Adnie and Connor. That is NOT ok. And Andre Cremer is no ok for condoning that. I do like that even though Connor teased Silas, after the kid died he stepped up and started taking notes in the scribe's memory. The jaguar attack was gruesome but we didn't have time to get attached to any of the characters that died. The volcano was an interesting choice. Calla gets kidnapped after the jaguar attack, she sacrifices herself to a wraith to protect Adnie and ends up in her childhood home with her parents, but she knows something is wrong. Finally she gets a whiff of her mom and remembers that her mom is dead because the scent is wrong. That breaks the enchantment and she wakes all the way up. They leave her with her dad for him to get information, but instead she tells him what's been going on and he agrees to help. Then she is traded back to the Searchers in exchange for Logan and Sabine. Now, time for the battle. Calla and her group are supposed to get Shea to the mansion and not worry about the rest of the fighting. But then a maze pops up. Adnie banishes it before the wraith can attack them and they get to the mansion. Once there, Sabine is done playing the docile pet and she turns on her abuser and finally gets her revenge. Then Calla's dad and Ren's "dad" fight. Ren doesn't listen and he gets involved in the which when Steven gets impaled on a table leg. Ren's "dad" kills him. That was NOT how Ren was supposed to die. He was supposed to sacrifice himself so that Shea could have time to finish closing the door or defeating the Harbinger, not go down in the fight before the fight to the man who he spent years thinking was his father. Calla's dad, Steven, gets the table leg removed and kills Ren's dad, making him the only elder alpha left. Then Logan, who has been crying over his father's dead body (the man Sabine killed) calls the Harbinger and does some kind of incantation that forces him to shed his human skin for his real one so Shea can finally banish him. Then Shea's parents show up. Everything is all good, right? Wrong. Enter the Searchers. Bad news. The door the Harbinger is behind is only closed, not locked. So Shea has to lock it and when he does that everything the Keepers did will be undone, meaning the Guardians will return to their natural state. As wolves. So Ansel, who had his wolf stripped from him will now be stuck as a human with no family. Sabine is like, you said you won't make a Guardian because it would mean killing a wolf, but what it one was freely offered? She had a horrible life as a wolf and doesn't want to go back so she gives her wolf to Ansel and lives as a human. Nobody knows what's going to happen to Shea since he was turned into a wolf. He puts the swords on the wall, creating a lock that only he can open and the wolves become wolves permanently. And so does he. Calla and Shea lead her small pack. Steven, her dad, leads the remains of the Bane and Nightshade packs. Sabine lives as a human with Ethan. The end. This ending was so stupid and I was so frustrated. I will not be reading anything else from this author. 

Made for TV cont (again x12)

 Bones Never Lie by Kathy Reichs 

This book revisits the book that was the reverse Stockholm Syndrome book (I forgot which one that was; I've been listening to this series for a while) so of course, it has kids as victims. But, the M.O. has changed. I saw one twist and one kidnapping coming, but missed the first twist. I knew Tawny was going to be back with Anike, but I did not expect that Anike was going to end up dead in a barrel. I was not surprised when Tawny ended up being Alice the hospital worker who was using that hospital as her hunting ground. I was surprised that she killed the doctor that they had originally thought was the killer. I am glad that Tempe was able to get Andrew back from his self imposed isolation while he mourned the death of his daughter and that he went back to his job. I was not surprised when Tawny kidnapped the kid that Tempe had cat-sitting for her. But I was relieved when she was able to save her. That Tawny ended up in Charlotte because Tempe helped her, and she thought that she was helping the kids she was killing in a similar manner was very strange and it's too bad we didn't get an epilogue with her trial. I was surprised when Andrew showed up at the end and asked her to marry him and just left so she could think about it. We had no Pete sightings in this book so her relationship with her "ex-husband" is still up in the air. I'm glad we got some closure from that previous book, but this was hard to stomach.

YA Fantasy Book 2

 Wolfsbane by Andrea Cremer 

This picks up right where the first book left off. We meet a bunch of new characters including Monroe who is the best and Adnie who is the worst (and also his daughter). This is completely out of order, but we don't get an on the page death for Monroe and if book 3 doesn't start with Ren telling Calla what happened then I will continue to refuse to believe that he is dead. If stupid Logan can show up and say that Shea's parents, who have been dead for basically his entire life aren't really dead, then Monroe isn't dead either. The fact that he is Ren's real father was so obvious and I saw that coming form a mile away. But why does Ren not get to have any happiness? I had just about convinced myself that Shea was in on the plot and now they show up to save everyone and Ren is fine? No torture? He has sided with the Keepers? So Ren is bad? No. He might be a jerk, but I refuse to believe that he's bad. Also, we rescue Ansel, but he's really a double agent because the Keepers stole his wolf from him but they promised they would give it back if he helped them find the Searchers, so he did. And the Searchers are really the good guys. We free Neville, Mason, Bryn, and Sabine. But Cosette, Dax, and Faye stayed loyal. Calla slept with Shea so now he's the new alpha of the pack and Bryn and Sabine have the giggles over it which is the only age appropriate thing that has happened in the entire book. The book ends with Adnie and Calla finding Ren in the house he was supposed to share with Calla. Alone. I cannot. This was a good second book. There was some movement of the plot, but not a lot in regards to the what they found in the cave; they still have to tackle the other three caves. So book three is going to have to do a lot of heavy lifting.

First Informational Book of the Year

 Discipline in the Secondary Classroom a Positive Approach to Behavior Management Third Edition      by Randall S. Sprick, Ph.D

I can see how this would be helpful for someone early in their career (or earlier than I am in mine) and how the repetitiveness would appear reinforcing. However, for me it was repetitive and the book was much longer than it needed to be because of that. I have had this in my possession for years, I got it from a professional development seminar, and if I had read it when I went to the PD, it might have been helpful or it might have been overwhelming; I am guessing the size made me lean toward it being overwhelming and that's why I shelved it for so long.  

Made for TV again (x11 cont)

 Swamp Bones by Kathy Reichs

This deserved to be a full length novel instead of a novella. The swamp as a setting was so interesting. I didn't feel like the characters had time to fully develop, nor did the story line. I really enjoyed this and wanted so much more from it. I felt short changed on how they figured out who did the murders. Finding out the handsome detective was almost picked to be the face of the modeling campaign was a big stretch to him being the killer. And only two pages from her journal with coordinates matching where the older brother did his illegal trapping? Not enough build up. Plus, how did the detective know to follow her? That wasn't answered sufficiently. It was rushed to be a short story when it was interesting enough, and frankly better than many of the previous books, and deserved to be a full book.

Cute Title

 A Duke, the Lady, and a Baby by Vanessa Riley 

The audiobook narrator had a fantastic accent for Patience but her male voice was lacking. Also, I liked it better when I thought his name was Music instead of Busic. And, I do not like secret keeping as a plot device and the entire premise of this book was Patience keeping (many) secrets from him. The banter was the only thing that kept me engaged with this book. I wanted to like it more than I did because the title was so cute, it was giving 3 Men and a Baby which was a movie I loved as a kid, but this didn't live up to my expectations. Patience and Busic had good chemistry but we didn't even get a fade to black scene. For being a former rake he was decidedly moral. Her charades dressed as a man were funny. His schedules, especially crawling practice for an infant, were ridiculous in an adorable manner. For a while I thought their two friends were each others missing spouses, but it couldn't be that easy. I'm glad that she finally came clean with him about her letter, and what she was doing in London and why so he could piece together the actual truth; that Colin didn't kill himself but was drugged months earlier and that's what caused him to walk into the river and drown. And that the evil uncle finally got his karma in the end. I did not like that we never found out who was hiding in the attic and taking stuff. I will probably listen to the next book to see which of the two friends is going to get their happily ever after, but it might be a while.

Made for TV cont (again x10)

 Bones of the Lost by Kathy Reichs 

This was the second book in a row that had a child victim, and kids as the focus. Tempe and Skinny get a hit and run; teenage girl. He thinks she is an undocumented girl working as a prostitute. They are not having much luck with the investigation. She has also been asked to check a package for ICE and make sure there are no human remains mixed in, and to be as minimally invasive as possible. Well, the guy being investigate by ICE ends up being connected to the the hit and run victim. Then Pete asks for a favor, the nephew of one of his buddies from the core is on trial (potential court martial) for a shooting in Afghanistan and they have finally got clearance to exhume the bones and will she please go look and them; and Katie, her daughter, just so happens to be stationed at the same base. She agrees. There is some kind of attack during the exhumation of the first body and she can't prove anything but the second body shows that he was not shot in the back like the witness says and the guy is not court martialed. And she gets to spend some time with Katie. Returning home she finds a piece of ivory in the head of the hit and run victim, further linking her to the ICE guy. But, they get some new clues and do a raid on a "massage parlor" but everything has been cleared out. The tip came from a waitress who called about the hit and run victim, who she then had her tongue cut out while she was still alive and delivered to Tempe. Ryan shows up with the bird and tells her that his daughter died; drug overdose. Then he leaves. Going back over the crime scene photos she figures out where the hit and run victim came from, calls Skinny, and heads over there. She finds the guy being investigated by ICE, shot and killed; turns out he had nothing to do with any of it. He was exactly what he said he was, an importer and a driver who found out about the "massage parlor" trafficking underage girls and he showed up to deal with it and got killed for it. She sees one of the guys, who was on their suspect list, trying to move one of the girls, she grabs the gun discarded by the dead guy, and when he makes a move she kills him. Then, the same guy that she helped not get court martialed shows up; he was the one behind it all. He tries to shoot her but the gun is empty. She falls and happens to find a pipe, which she uses to beat him with until Skinny finally shows up with the cavalry in tow. Turns out the guy really did intentionally kill the two Afghani civilians he was accused of killing; they knew he was abducting girls. He was the supplier of the girls for the sex trafficking ring. Tempe spends a night in the hospital. Skinny shows up to debrief and get her statement, then to tell her to not go running off anymore. I agree; I thought we were past this putting but I guess character development can also be character regression. Then Pete shows up. He called of the wedding and he and the fiancee broke up. Neither of them addressed what this means or if he actually filed the divorce paperwork. And we don't hear from Ryan. This had a lot of moving parts and multiple interconnected crimes. It was not one of the stronger books, crime wise, but did have more character story line development.