Run for your Life by James Patterson

About the Book:

A calculating killer who calls himself The Teacher is taking on New York City, killing the powerful and the arrogant. His message is clear: remember your manners or suffer the consequences! For some, it seems that the rich are finally getting what they deserve. For New York's elite, it is a call to terror.

Only one man can tackle such a high-profile case: Detective Mike Bennett. The pressure is enough for anyone, but Mike also has to care for his 10 children-all of whom have come down with virulent flu at once!

Discovering a secret pattern in The Teacher's lessons, Detective Bennett realizes he has just hours to save New York from the greatest disaster in its history.

From the #1 bestselling author comes BE AFRAID, the continuation of his newest, electrifying series.

Review:

Mike Bennett, a homicide detective with the NYPD, is in for a very unique challenge.

What appears to be a random act of murders, in reality is not. A seemingly very rich businessman, with a metrosexual taste in fashion, has unleashed himself in a series of murders throughout New York City. And, random it is not! Carefully calculating every single victim's demise is definitely thoughtful to say the least. He has to have the victim's learn something that only "The Teacher" can deliver, which he does. But, the murders seem to have at first no rhyme or reason or a pattern, and the teacher is moving through his victims with lightening speed. The NYPD can barely keep up with him.

Mike certainly has his hands full, not only with his job, but at home as well. He is the widowed father of ten adopted children. Recently, all ten children have come down with the flu. Mike is certainly grateful that he has a nanny to help him.

Piece by piece, this story starts to unfold as we learn more about the teacher. Patterson has a way of just giving you a little bit of information at a time for you to digest. This is a book that defies gravity because it is almost impossible to put down.

When Patterson picks up a pen, his readers become Pavlov's dogs!! Brilliant!

About the Author:

James Patterson published his first thriller in 1976 and since then has become one of the best-known and bestselling writers of all time, with more than 140 million copies of his books sold worldwide. He is the author of the two most popular detective series of the past decade, featuring Alex Cross and the Women's Murder Club, and he has written numerous other #1 bestsellers. He has won an Edgar Award--the mystery world's highest honor--and his novels Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider were made into feature films starring Morgan Freeman. His charity, the James Patterson PageTurner Awards, has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to individuals and groups that promote the excitement of books and reading. He lives in Florida.

Michael Ledwidge is the author of The Narrowback, Bad Connection, and most recently,the coauthor, with James Patterson, of The Quickie and Step on a Crack.

Thanks to Miriam Parker at Hachette Book Group for the opportunity to review this fantastic book!

****I will be giving away a copy of this book. To enter, please leave a comment and make sure to have a valid email. I will draw a winner on February 8th. Thanks!

Katie & Kimble-A Ghost Story by Linda Thieman

About the Book:

For ages 7-10. Lexile(R) measure: 280L. Nine-year-old Katie Russell and her family LOOK like a normal family. But the Russells don't know they are living with Kimble, the ghost of a ten-year-old girl. That is, until Katie discovers Kimble and the two of them set off on a quest to find out what happened to Kimble's mother. -- Katie and Kimble: A Ghost Story is a chapter book at RL3 (reading level 3), and is the first in a series. The Katie and Kimble books are funny, engaging and exciting, but are not fear-based.

Review:

This is a book that is geared for children between the ages of 7 and 10. It's about a nine year old girl, named Katie, who has recently moved to a different city because her mother has been offered a new job. They move in the early summer and she hasn't had a chance to meet any new friends yet. She does have her constant companion, though, a dog named Twinkle.

She starts to here giggling in their new home that nobody else seems to here. Eventually, she also sees an image of a young girl about her age. Eventually, this image reveals herself to Katie. She is a ghost named Kimble. The two become fast friends and start to spend alot of time together. Kimble eventually asks Katie to help her find out what happened to her mother. Katie starts persuing this investigation with the help of Kimble to find out how Kimble's mother died.

This book is a mystery that will help children who read it to engage in a small offering of thinking a little like a detective. And even though Kimble is a ghost, this is not one bit scary for kids. It shows a strong bond between two friends trying to help each other.

Thanks to Tracee of Pump Up Your Book Promotion for allowing me to be part of Linda's tour.

Love and Other Natural Disasters by Holly Shumas

About the Book:

Eve is eight months pregnant and in the middle of a Thanksgiving celebration when she discovers that her husband Jonathan has developed an intimate relationship with a woman over the past year. Jonathon asserts his innocence (an affair involves physical intimacy, and he didn't have any), while Eve feels deeply betrayed by the emotional connection he shared with someone else. What Jon has done seems so terrifyingly out of character that Eve finds herself questioning her entire reality. Did she ever really know Jon at all? Was their happiness together a lie? Is emotional intimacy more forgivable than sexual intimacy? And can their marriage survive?

Review:

This is a story about Jon and Eve, a couple who have been married for ten years. On Thanksgiving, Eve, who is eight months pregnant with their second child, finds out that her husband has been having an emotional affair with a woman named Laney for the past year. He condones his behavior with the fact that he and Laney have not had sex. They correspond through e-mails and have met on a couple of occasions. But Eve, none the less, is devastated and asks Jon to leave their home.

What follows is an interesting account of these two individuals finding out who they really are and what their marriage is based on. They both go through alot of soul-searching. At first, they only see "their" side of the story, but eventually they start to see each other's side as well.

This author takes a comprehensive approach to two people re-analyzing themselves and what brought them together in the first place. It helps the reader to also break down his or her own defenses and look at things from another angle. This is a very engaging book that is well written and definitely worth the effort to read.

About the Author:

My first novel, Five Things I Can’t Live Without, was a lighthearted look at the neurotic art of self-sabotage. The central premise was that my character, Nora, was looking for problems where there really weren’t any; she was thinking herself right out of happiness. For my second book, Love and Other Natural Disasters, I decided the main character might still have a whiff of the neurotic but I’d really give her something to worry about.

When I first sat down for the as-yet untitled Book #2, I didn’t know what Eve would find out (I didn’t actually know her name was Eve), but I knew it would happen on Thanksgiving. An affair seemed obvious (too obvious) until I realized it was an emotional affair rather than a physical one. The reason I’m using language like “find out” and “realized” is because for me, the process of writing novels is like that. There’s nothing better than that moment when your character surprises you.

As a practicing marriage and family therapist, the issues of emotional intimacy and fidelity are close to my heart. I’m convinced that one of the toughest things in the world is remaining emotionally connected to another person for the long haul, and it’s a subject that I love exploring in my writing, in my practice, and in my life. It’s a subject I’ll be exploring on my site, too, in both the “FAQ” and “Musings” sections.

If you’d like me to attend your book club, please contact me directly here. For press materials, review copies, and any other publicity-related requests, please contact my publicist at Grand Central Publishing, Elly Weisenberg, at Elly.Weisenberg@hgbusa.com. Thanks so much for visiting.

For more information you can visit the author at http://www.hollyshumas.com/

Win Sunday at Tiffany's by James Patterson

Who wouldn’t love the chance to win this awesome book? How about 5 chances? That’s right, thanks to Valerie Russo and Hachette Book Group, I will be giving away 5 copies of this book. Here are the details:

This contest will end January 19.

It is open to the US and Canada only (sorry everyone).

To enter, all you need to do is comment on this post - I will use random.org to draw the winner.

PLEASE NOTE: Make sure you use a valid email address when you comment.

GOOD LUCK!!

Here is some more info about the book:

As a little girl, Jane has no one. Her mother, the powerful head of a Broadway theater company, has no time for her. She does have one friend-a handsome, comforting, funny man named Michael-but only she can see him.

Years later, Jane is in her thirties and just as alone as ever. Then she meets Michael again-as handsome, smart and perfect as she remembers him to be. But not even Michael knows the reason they’ve really been reunited.

SUNDAYS AT TIFFANY’S is a love story with an irresistible twist, a novel about the child inside all of us-and the boundary-crossing power of love.