Did I Expect Angels?

by Kathryn Maughan

When I received this book in the mail, I looked at the cover for a long time and had all sorts of different thoughts and questions - Someone was mad, angry, depressed, hopeless when they scribbled over that angel; Why the head and eyes?; Is the fact that the angel is playing music pertinent?; It looks like a Christmas ornament, will that be meaningful to the story? You get the idea. Anyway, I love when a cover is that engaging. I always hope the book with a great cover will live up to it.

Did I Expect Angels? did live up to the cover. The story moves from the present to the past and from one point of view to another of the two protagonists. Sounds a bit confusing, but Maughan did an expert job of telling their stories and keeping my mind unjumbled.

On several occasions Jennifer has met Henry who is the greeter at the local Discount Store. Henry came to the United States from Costa Rica and appreciates that Jennifer will talk to him briefly in Spanish. That's all there is between these two until one fateful night when Henry becomes a bit intrusive. Jennifer tries to give him the brush-off, but is unsuccessful. That's all I'm going to tell you about the plot. I didn't know that much starting out.

I also didn't know that I was going to be pulled into Henry and Jennifer's lives like I was. Even though I have not personally experienced either of their personal trials, I felt so in tune with some of their feelings. I think Maughan has a strong skill as a writer and I look forward to reading all of her future books.

The Secret Scroll

by Ronald Cutler

The comparison has to be made to Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code because their is quite a bit of similarity in plot. A religious artifact is discovered that could have worldwide reverberations in the Christian world, if the artifact is indeed authentic and if knowledge of it is made public. There is a fanatic sect that are willing to do all manners of evil things to stop that from happening.

Through visionary dreams and happenstance Josh Cohan is led to a cave where he discovers a scroll that may have been written by Jesus Christ. I could have bought into that premise if the writing on the scroll had any magnificence to it. If Jesus was an ordinary man, as purported in the scroll, he would have shown some brilliance, charisma - after all he was a great leader and persuaded masses of people to follow Him. Instead the scrolls revealed no show of inner character. Basically, Jesus wrote in the scrolls that he was an ordinary man who argued a lot with his parents who always loved his brother James more. He also argued a lot with James. He experienced the ways of the flesh as a teen, but later chose a life of celibacy.

The book lost its credibility as soon as parts of the scroll were presented. I realize it's a novel and is not trying to prove the scrolls are real, but the author needed to convince me of the efficacy of the scroll for me to buy into the premise of the novel.

There was adventure and mystery as to who was leaking information to the fanatic religious sect. This was the author's first book and I think he shows promise. All-in-all, I would only rate this book as average.

The Light Fantastic

by Terry Pratchett

Pratchett is fast becoming one of my favorite authors. His books are pure delight - besides being witty and imaginative, they are well-written, have a great storyline and include full-bodied, whimsical characters. The Light Fantastic is Pratchett's second Disc-World novel and is a direct continuation of the story presented in The Colour of Magic.

Favorite characters include Rincewind who is the main protagonist. While attending wizard school he got a powerful spell stuck in his head that seems to have made lesser spells afraid to lodge there, thus he has never been good at magic. His companion in both books is a tourist named Twoflower who has a rosy way of looking at things. I really like Twoflower. My 3rd favorite character is Luggage, with his multitudes of tiny feet and definite attitude. Luggage is just that - luggage, a trunk in fact. He belongs to Twoflower and is fiercely loyal.

"Twoflower was a tourist and fundamental to his very existence was the rock-hard belief that nothing bad could really happen to him because he was not involved."

Chuckled at this description: "He moved in a way that suggested he was attempting the world speed record for the nonchalant walk."

"She picked him up by his apron straps and glared at him eye to eye. Torn though her dress was, disarrayed though her hair was, she became for a moment the symbol of every woman who has caught a man with his thumb on the scales of life."

House of Secrets

by Jeffery S. Savage

"Shandra Covington simply assumed her grandmothers' house was sold after her grandmother hastily moved in with Shandra and her mother two decades ago. Yet, here it was, deeded to Shandra in her grandmother's will.

Shandra, single, aggressive, and an accomplished journalist, has tender memories of the time spent as a young girl in the old house on the hill, and her curiosity and sentimentality lead her to a final visit to the forgotten home. What she discovers shocks Shandra to her very core. Not only is the house still filled with her grandmother's old belongings, but there is also a body, long since dead, and covered with the same thick layer of dust as the rest of the items in the house.

Returning with the sheriff and his handsome deputy, Clay, they find the body missing. In its place is another body—this one dead less than 12 hours. And all evidence points to Shandra.

Desperate to clear her name and uncover the truth behind these troubling mysteries, Shandra puts her journalistic training to use. Between the reluctant townspeople, ominous warnings, and physical threats, Shandra learns the truth, little by little—knowing full well that someone is determined to keep old secrets buried, even it means burying Shandra as well . . ." -Deseret Book description

House of Secrets is part of the Shandra Covington mystery series. I'm not sure if it's book one or two in the series that presently includes four books. I plan to read the others because Savage writes crisp, fresh and cunning mysteries. Lots of surprises and hard to answer situations kept my interest throughout. I've found another new-to-me author than I suspect will become one I return to often.

Garden of Beasts

by Jeffery Deaver

Oh, WOW! I loved this suspense/mystery. I think I've discovered a new favorite author. It may be premature to say that after one book, so I'm starting on a second Deaver to make sure. I loved this book. The plot, the characters, the setting of Nazi Germany in 1936 were all topnotch.

The book's hero is a mob "button man," or hit man, Paul Schumann, who is caught in the act in New York City. His captures offer him an alternative to the electric chair - to go to Berlin undercover as a journalist writing about the upcoming Olympics, in order to assassinate Col. Reinhard Ernst, the chief architect of Hitler's militarization, seen as a threat to American interests. A German spy onboard Paul's transatlantic liner grows suspicious and sends a warning to Germany before Paul discovers and kills him. Then in Berlin, Paul, en route to meet his contact, kills a second suspicious man who may be a storm trooper, setting Insp. Willi Kohl of the Berlin police on his trail.

Deaver weaves the three manhunts—Paul after his target, Kohl after Paul and the Nazi hierarchy after Paul—with a deft hand,.

One of my favorite parts of the book was the look at the frightening life of 1936 Berlin, a city on the brink of madness. Top Nazis, including Hitler, Himmler and Göring, make colorful cameos, but it's the smart, shaded-gray characterizations of the principals that anchor the exciting plot.

An affecting love affair between Paul and his German landlady goes in surprising directions, as do the main plot lines, which move outside Berlin as heroes become villains and vice versa.

How have I missed reading anything by Deaver before now?! Garden of Beasts is a stand alone novel; not part of Deaver's Lincoln Rymes series, which I've added to my list of new series.