Matthew Stanyer's childhood was not a happy one due to his mother's compulsive hoarding. Now as an adult he's still reluctant to return to the house but his mother's dementia is getting worse. After not hearing from his father for several days after he said he'd call, Matthew goes to their house and finds a note from his father saying he and his wife can't go on this way. The police find their bodies near Blackwater Lake and their deaths are ruled a murder-suicide. Now Matthew has the daunting task of going through the mountains of his mother's hoard. He's taken back to their past - one neither parent ever spoke of - and discovers what may have started his mother's hoarding and why his father chose Blackwater Lake to end their lives. A quick read with some twists and turns.  

Teenager Estella Goodwinn is now in WITSEC after witnessing a violent crime and agreeing to testify against the man who killed her mother's drug dealer. She's taken from her friends and family, and the hustle and bustle of city life and plunked in the middle of nowhere in Nebraska for her own safety. Her name has been changed from Estella to Stella. Really creative, especially since she's now in WITSEC because criminals want to find her and kill her. And she HATES the name Stella. Shut up. She's not a likeable character. She's disrespectful to the woman who takes her in. There were so many things I didn't like... the town's baseball star and everyone's leniency towards his actions; Stella's comment about Inny's baby was ignorant; Stella loves Reed, oh wait, no, Stella loves Chet. Ugh.

This story goes back and forth between Jessica and Kim. Jessica Gold has disappeared on Christmas Eve. She's being held captive by a very sick and twisted man who gives her a horrible gift each day to mark the twelve days of Christmas. Kim is the police officer assigned to Jessica's case. She's torn between her job and the promotion she so badly wants, and a life with her husband and two children. The first part of this book was excellent! Five stars! It was very well-written. Jessica's fear and desperation were palpable. While I appreciate how things played out in the second part, it just didn't captivate me the way the first part did. The more I read about Kim the more I didn't like her. Things seemed a little too convenient when it came to her.

A fun way to pass the time. I love Garfield :-)

Beck comes into the bookstore where Joe Goldberg works and instantly he is in love. He Googles the name on the credit card she used to pay for the books she wanted. Her Facebook and Twitter tell Joe everything he needs to know - who she is, where she lives, and where she's going to be so that they run into each other (coincidentally, of course) Beck loves attention, especially from other men and the more negative attention, the better. But Joe is patient. He does what needs to be done to insert himself in the role of boyfriend and to ensure that she ends up loving him as much as he loves her. I didn't care for this book starting off, not because it was second-person narrative but because it seemed like Joe took one breath and away he went. But I came to really enjoy his candor and humour.

This book started off great. I so wanted to know what happened to seven-month-old Mia. Not only does Mia disappear from her crib, but all of her things are gone too. Mia's mother, Estelle, was found days later, barely alive, at the bottom of a ravine, hours away from home, with bits and pieces of her memory. But then the story draaaaaagged onnn. My eyes were reading but my brain was somewhere else, so I had to re-read a lot of paragraphs. I found it jumped around a bit, but that could be me as I lost and gained interest. I did not like the ending. This book was very disappointing.

Heidi is a social worker who brings a homeless teen and her baby into the home she shares with her workaholic husband and their 12-year-old daughter. This was a thriller minus the thrill. It was dull and predictable with an absolutely absurd scenario. I did not like the characters, they were flat. Heidi's story became sooo repetitious. Heidi - go pay attention to your own kid.  

This book lacked any depth or warmth. It seems to be Lucy Barton's jot notes of her life, with Dr. Seuss-like writing.. "I waited quite a while, quite a while I waited." If I change a few words around in this paragraph I swear the author was talking about me: "By the end of one hour her face looked like it had fallen the way white clay loses its shape when it's not cold enough, that is the image, that her face had dropped into a strange shape from fatigue, and at the end of three hours it seemed even more so, as though her white clay face was almost trembling. It took everything out of her to  teach that class read that book , is what I am saying. Her face was just ravaged with fatigue."

Caroline Thompson is living a happy life in the suburbs with her husband and their two daughters. The suburban moms there entertain themselves by Googling everyone in town and then spreading gossip, but Caroline tries to avoid these women and she's relieved to be told that her name only appears three times - all about her philanthropy.  Caroline can't stand not to Google her maiden name, though - a name no one in the suburbs knows. By doing this she finds her sister's obituary - she's been dead for years but Caroline doesn't remember it happening. The more she finds out, the more her life unravels and spins out of control. I loved the author's writing. It's always fun to get caught up in a book where I can't turn the pages fast enough - which happened from the very beginning. I really liked the character Caroline. Great ending too.