The Twelve; Little Women and Werewolves; Can't Quit You, Baby; Tilt; Hard Eight; The Prophet; To the Nines; The Walking Dead: the Road to Woodbury; Total Recall; Trixie Belden and the Mystery Off Glen Road; Trixie Belden and the Gatehouse Mystery

"The Twelve" by Justin Cronin is the second in the Passage trilogy. When I read "The Passage", I didn't realize there would be two more books, which is why I was disappointed with the open ended finish. Of course now I realize why he did it that way and it makes sense. I'd like to go back and reread the first one, but I'm way too swamped right now. I liked "The Twelve" a lot, even if I didn't understand what was going on a lot of the time. That's an all too common occurrence lately, I'm afraid. I think I have too much I want to read and as a result I don't pay very good attention to what I'm currently reading.

"Little Women and Werewolves" by Louisa May Alcott and Porter Grand was a fun mashup. I've never been a big fan of "Little Women", but with the addition of werewolves it was fun and playful. I enjoyed it.

"Can't Quit You, Baby" by Ellen Douglas was a great Southern fiction tale examining the complex friendship between a white woman and her black maid in Mississippi in the 1960s. Douglas passed away recently, and when I found out she was influenced by William Faulkner I wanted to read something of hers. I enjoyed this one a lot and can't wait to read more by her.

"Tilt" by Ellen Hopkins is the teenager's side of her adult book "Triangles". Mikayla gets pregnant by her boyfriend Dylan and doesn't want to have an abortion but Dylan doesn't want her to keep it and breaks up with her right when she needs him most. Shane's new boyfriend is HIV positive and his little sister is dying. Harley finds herself being manipulated by Lucas, who rapes her while she's passed out drunk one night. Lots of heavy stuff, told in Hopkin's unique style. Even though I knew what was going to happen after reading the adult's POV, it was still interesting to see it from a different angle.

"Hard Eight" by Janet Evanovich is a reread, one of my favorites, where Stephanie and Ranger hook up for the first time. Wowza!

"The Prophet" by Michael Koryta was excellent. Twenty years earlier, Adam Austin skipped giving his younger sister Marie a ride home from school so he could go out with his girlfriend. Marie never made it home, and her body was discovered days later, raped and murdered. Adam lives with the guilt and blames himself, and as a result is estranged from his younger brother, Kent. Kent is the town's high school football coach, and the team is undefeated and going on the the state championships when one of his star players suffers a terrible tragedy when his girlfriend is murdered after going to Adam for advice on how to find her dad. Adam feels the guilt of this murder, too, since he sent the girl to the address where she was killed. Now the killer is after Kent and his family, and Adam isn't going to let anyone else get hurt.

"To the Nines" by Janet Evanovich is another reread, where Steph has to go to Vegas to look for a skip and gets caught up in a brutal game where the other players kill each other off until only one is left.

"The Walking Dead: the Road to Woodbury" by Robert Kirkman is the sequel to "Rise of the Governor". I wasn't crazy about this one. It starts out with a group of survivors and stays with them until about 2/3 of the way through the book, when they find themselves in Woodbury. The Governor is just rising into power, and Lilly wants to get out of Woodbury as fast as she can. She feels the place and the Governor are evil, but her escape attempt is thwarted and even makes Brian Blake more powerful than he was before.

"Total Recall" by Arnold Schwarzenegger was a candid account of his rise to fame as a bodybuilder and movie star who became governor of California. I've always liked him as an actor and thought he did a fairly decent job most of the time as the Governor. The book was a bit shocking in places, at least to me, when he used language and told jokes that were off color. I wasn't expecting that, but at least he didn't try to hide who he really is. That came across loud and clear.

And finally, two Trixie Belden rereads by Julie Campbell, two of my favorites, #5 "The Mystery Off Glen Road" and #3 "The Gatehouse Mystery". "Glen Road" makes me laugh myself silly every time I reread it, it's so funny. I love those Bob Whites of the Glen. "Gatehouse" is where Trixie and Honey find a diamond in the old gatehouse on the Wheeler's property and it turns out the new chauffeur, Dick, is a pickpocket looking to steal the diamond back. I wish there were more than 39 books in the series. I've been reading some great fanfiction online, and it's amazing how good some it is. These writers have really got the personalities and writing styles down. Great fun. Maybe I'll try and reread some of the books I haven't read a million times :)

Castle Rogue; Unwind; Insurgent

"Castle Rogue" by Carole Nelson Douglas picks up where "Chapel Noir" left off. Luckily, Nell is alive! She and Godfrey are being held in a remote castle in Transylvania by Irene's worst enemy, Tatyana, a Russian spy known as Sable. Douglas has a very interesting Ripper suspect, and in the end Nell and Godfrey, who have been joined by Bram Stoker, are rescued by Irene, Pink, and Sherlock Holmes. It was great fun, I really enjoyed having Nell's dry wit back.

"Unwind" by Neal Shusterman was...interesting. I can't say that I really liked it. Set in the future, abortion is illegal but parents can choose to "unwind" their teenagers anytime from 13-17. Unwinding is a process of harvesting them for their parts, so technically they're still alive, but in a different form. Connor discovers his parents are going to have him unwound, so he runs away and ends up with a ward from the state who is also being unwound due to budget cuts, Risa, and Lev, a boy who is actually being tithed (since his parents have 10 kids, 1/10 belongs to the state, so Lev is the tithe). They end up being shuttled through an underground escape network and end up in the desert at an airplane graveyard run by a former Navy Admiral, who helps hide the kids until they turn 18 and can go out on their own. It was an interesting premise, but I just didn't get into it.

"Insurgent" by Veronica Roth is the sequel to "Divergent". It was very good, and the ending nicely set up the third book. Tris and Tobias are working hard to thwart the leader of the Erudite, who is using mind control to make killers out of the other factions. Amity refuses to get involved, and they bounce around in different factions, finally breaking into the Erudite headquarters to take her out.

What You See in the Dark; Pretty Dead

"What You See in the Dark" by Manuel Munoz is about Bakersfield, California in the early 1960s. A young Mexican girl is dating the most handsome white guy in town, and it causes quite the stir. A famous movie star and her director come to town to scout out local motels for inspiration for the movie they're filming. The particular movie (which involves a shower scene) ties into what happens with the girl and her boyfriend. It was interesting and a quick read.

"Pretty Dead" by Francesca Lia Block was an even quicker read. Her books are kind of hit and miss for me: some I like, others not so much. This one was pretty good. Charlotte is a vampire, a beautiful 17 year old girl who befriends Emily. When Emily commits suicide, her boyfriend, Jared, turns to Charlotte and asks her to make him a vampire, too, so he won't feel the pain anymore. It ended up having a neat little twist at the end.