Plane Insanity: A Flight Attendant's Tales of Sex, Rage, and Queasiness at 30,000 Feet by Elliott Hester

Plane Insanity: A Flight Attendant's Tales of Sex, Rage, and Queasiness at 30,000 Feet
Elliott Hester
St. Martin's Griffin
256 pages

Speed and altitude notwithstanding, flying in a commercial jet is not much different than riding in a Greyhound bus.
~ Something Smelly in the Air, Chapter 1, and so begins Plane Insanity ~

It's hard to believe that the stories in Plane Insanity, the hilarious book by Elliott Hester, are true. But they are. Before you read even a single page, you know you're in for a wild ride just from the subtitle: A Flight Attendant's Tales of Sex, Rage, and Queasiness at 30,000 Feet. Hester has encountered just about everything in his 15 years of flying the skies or "riding tin," and he recounts these laugh-out-loud encounters with plenty of attitude and self-deprecating humor. Not to spoil the fun, but a few juicy tidbits include Hester as the hapless victim of a child's projectile vomit, chasing a sparrow around the cabin, mistakenly putting a woman on the wrong flight, and recalling the unfathomable account of an inebriated man defecating atop a liquor cart, to the horror of passengers and crew. Just when you think the stories can't get anymore outlandish he outdoes himself with the titillating antics of amorous couples who vie for membership in the infamous Mile High Club.

I love travelogues. What better way to see the world when vacation is a distant blur on the horizon. There are some truly humorous stories in this book. What an insightful look at human behavior, especially when we aren't always at our best and having a beautiful, shining moment. It's the bad antics and boorish behavior that make this such a fun book to read. I might have taken this book in smaller doses instead of reading it straight through. It isn't a single story that flows from one chapter to another. It is a book filled with short snippets of outlandish human deportment. If you want to know just how the seemingly quiet person in the seat next you might behave when they've had one too many or their luggage doesn't fit in the overhead bin read this book.

** If you've read the book and posted a review on your blog feel free to leave the link in a comment on this post for others to check out **

Scene of the Grime by Suzanne Price

Scene of the Grime (A Grime Solvers Mystery)
Suzanne Price
Signet
256 pages

I was crouched on an expensive Oriental rug under an antique walnut table outside Mr. Monahan's room, thinking.
~ First sentence, Chapter 1, and so begins Scene of the Grime ~

In her mid-30s and recently widowed, Sky Taylor left the big city for Pigeon Cove, a hamlet off the Massachusetts coast. Sky is re-adapting to single life-with a newspaper column and her knack for creative cleaning increasingly in demand. Then she discovers a patron of the Millwood Inn permanently checked-out.

Now Sky's juggling the police chief's questions with advances from the newest-and handsomest-crime reporter in town. But if she wants to clear her name, she has some scouring to do.

This was just an OK cozy mystery for me. Nothing special to write home about. My favorite character was Skiball the cat and he didn't play a very big part. None of the characters really jumped out and grabbed me. They didn't entice me to come back and visit again. I didn't think that the "character" of the murder victim was in keeping with the story. Also, too bad the murder wasn't related to his book collecting as much as it was related to his previous line of work. If the second in the series ever comes out in Kindle format I might wander over but not any time soon. Only makes the so-so section of my reading list for this year.

** If you've read the book and posted a review on your blog feel free to leave the link in a comment on this post for others to check out **

To Pleasure A Lady by Nicole Jordan

To Pleasure A Lady: Courtship Wars
Book 1
Nicole Jordan
Ballantine Books
400 pages

I vow the new earl will drive me to distraction, thinking to marry us off like so much breeding stock. - Letter from Miss Arabella Loring to Fanny Irwin
~ First sentence, Chapter One, To Pleasure A Lady ~

Marcus Pierce, a strikingly handsome aristocrat with a wicked reputation, inherits guardianship of Arabella Loring and her two younger sisters–and immediately declares his intention to marry them off. But gorgeously defiant Arabella sparks frustration–and something deeply erotic–in Marcus. After matching both wits and swords with her, Marcus concludes that this beautiful and formidable foe must be his.

Having sworn off marriage and men, Arabella wishes to be left alone to run her finishing school for young ladies. To that end, she boldly accepts Marcus’s intimate challenge: If he can woo and win her within two weeks, she’ll take her place in his bed as his wife. However, if she can resist his considerable charms, the Loring sisters will be granted their independence. Thus an extraordinary game of seduction begins. . . .

Before we go any further I'm invoking the Reader's Bills of Rights, #5, 6 and 10.
#5 - The right to read anything
#6 - The right to escapism
#10 - The right not to defend your tastes

I wanted something that would provide me with a distraction before starting in on the July Book Blowout. I have a bunch of books lined up but can't start any of them until July 1st. This isn't my usual reading fare. In fact I've read only one other author who writes books in this genre, whose work I enjoy, so I thought I'd give someone else a try. I knew what I was getting into before starting this book so no surprises. While it did provide the needed distraction and, at times, I found myself starting to enjoy the predictable story line there was one scene, in particular, that I was thinking OMG! this would never happen in proper English society in 1817. It actually bordered on pornographic ~ I can't think of any other way to put it. Somewhere down the road I'm sure I'll read the other two only because I'm curious to know which sister ends up with which friend and how they get there. After that I'll probably drop this author and give someone else their fair chance to win my reading affection.

The Broken Window: A Lincoln Rhyme Novel by Jeffery Deaver

The Broken Window: A Lincoln Rhyme Novel
Jeffery Deaver
Simon & Schuster
432 pages

Something nagged, yet she couldn't quite figure out what.
~ First sentence, Chapter One, The Broken Window ~

Rhyme, a forensic consultant for the NYPD, and his detective partner, Amelia Sachs, take on a psychotic mastermind who uses data mining—the business of the twenty-first century—not only to select and hunt down his victims but also to frame the crimes on complete innocents. Rhyme is reluctantly drawn into a case involving his estranged cousin, Arthur, who's been charged with first-degree murder. But when Rhyme and his crew look into the strange set of circumstances surrounding his cousin's alleged crime, they discover tangential connections to a company that specializes in collecting and analyzing consumer data. Further investigation leads them to some startlingly Orwellian revelations: Big Brother is watching your every move and could be a homicidal maniac.

Major cases of identity theft gone murderously wrong. This is a chilling tale, frightening really when you get right down to it. To think that someone or someones know everything about you. Every little, minute detail of your life. And they steal it. They turn your life upside down. They murder, set you up to take the fall and they've done it perfectly. I've read every book in the series and this is my favorite to date. I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning because I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. This one grabs and doesn't let go. Engaging and suspenseful start to finish. Mr. Deaver is a master at his craft and this proves he's at the top of his game.

The Secret Between Us by Barbara Delinsky

The Secret Between Us
Barbara Delinsky
Random House
480 pages

They were arguing in the seconds before impact.
~ First sentence, Chapter 1, The Secret Between Us ~

On a rainy night, Deborah Monroe and her teenage daughter, Grace, are driving home when their car hits a man. The victim, who turns out to be Grace's history teacher, is unconscious but alive. Although Grace was driving, Deborah sends her home and takes responsibility for the accident when the cops show up. Deborah is juggling a lot: as a family doctor, she is in private practice with her über-demanding widower father, who is trying to hide a drinking problem; her son, Dylan, is vision impaired; her mother's death continues to affect the family; Deborah is still dealing with her ex-husband's new, separate life; and her unmarried sister, Jill, has just announced she's pregnant. Grace's guilt about not taking responsibility for the accident makes her withdraw from friends and family, and the accident victim turns out to have a more complex private life than anyone imagined.

This is a bit of a new direction for Barbara Delinsky. While I'm used to reading books from this author with the main focus being romance not so with this book. This book is more about family, how far parents will go to protect their children and the expectations that family members have for one another. It reminds me of another author whose work I enjoy, Jodi Picoult.

We all have expectations for the people around us. Expectations of how they'll behave, react, do things. Are those expectations ours alone or do others have some ownership? They most certainly drive how we react to others when our expectations aren't meet. For Deborah, Grace, Dylan, Jill and Michael their lives are driven by expectations, realistic or not, and when they aren't meet it implodes with unforeseen consequences.

This book is also about how far a parent will, or should, go in protecting a child from the consequences of their actions. While a parent may believe they are acting in the best interest of their child this book shows the ramifications of what happens when guilt sets in for both mother and child and how destructive it can become.

While the end is a little too easy overall I enjoyed this book. While not a parent myself I could understand Deborah's need to protect Grace. I most certainly understood the parent/child expectations between Michael and his daughters. If Ms. Delinsky continues to turn out stories as good as this one I'll continue to read her work.

Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu by J. Maarten Troost

Getting Stoned with Savages
J. Maarten Troost
Broadway
256 pages

I have been called many things in my life, but if there has been but one constant, one barb, one arrow flung my way time after time, it is the accusation that I am, in essence, nothing more than an escapist. ~ First sentence, Chapter One, Getting Stoned with Savages ~

Troost and his wife, Sylvia, move from busy Washington, D.C., to Vanuatu, a nation made up of 83 islands in the South Pacific. As Sylvia works for a regional nonprofit, Troost immerses himself in the islands' culture, an odd mix of the islanders' thousand-year-old "kastoms" along with imperialist British and French influences. This really means that Troost gets to live in a nice house while he gets drunk on kava; dodges "a long inferno of magma and a cascade of lava bombs" at the "world's most accessible volcano"; and checks out the "calcified" leftovers from one of Vanuatu's not-so-ancient traditions, cannibalism. At the end of the book, the couple move to Fiji so that Sylvia will have state-of-the-art medical care when she gives birth to their first baby. While modern-day Fiji provides little fodder for Troost's comic sensibilities, the birth of his son enables him to share some deeper thoughts and decide it is "time to stop looking for paradise."

While not a good as his first book, The Sex Lives of Cannibals, I still enjoyed Getting Stoned with Savages. I knew what expect of his writing style this time around. While his witty humor comes through it's a bit more difficult when he's living in more civilized places than an atoll in the South Pacific. He took what material Vanuatu and Fiji offered and applied his unique perspective. The chapter battling the foot-long centipede had me laughing out loud and provided one of the highlights of this book. The chapter on cannibalism offers an interesting take on a subject I'm sure most of us don't give daily thought to. He loves adventure and always makes sure to seek out local culture. He is usually willing to give every thing a try at least once and, maybe go back and back and back, if something appeals to him such as kava. I'm glad I went along for the ride and look forward to China his next destination in his quest to escape. I'm thinking China might not be quite the escape he has in mind with 2 children in tow.

Intuition by Allegra Goodman

Intuition
Allegra Goodman
Dial Press
400 pages

This intimate portrait of life in a research institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, revolves around a scientific mystery: the groundbreaking, too-good-to-be-true discovery of a virus that fights cancer. Cliff, the rakish, headstrong post-doc responsible for the discovery, is on the verge of dismissal when his tumor-ridden mice exhibit stunning rates of remission; meanwhile, Cliff's co-worker and former girlfriend, spurred by personal and professional jealousy, begins to harbor suspicions about his lab work.

This was fairly enjoyable read overall. The premise of the story and the look inside the world of medical research was interesting though the book did have some downfalls for me. First, I wish the discovery of the flawed data hadn't been tied into the doomed personal relationship between Cliff and Robin. I feel the story would have been better served if another character, without a strong personal relationship, had pursued the flawed data. Secondly the ending. I actually disliked the ending a great deal. For me the story just stopped dead and left me wondering if all the pages of the book were there. I felt like some vital piece of the story had been left out.

It's a light, fast read and if you're looking for vacation book this just might fit the bill.

Abundance by Sena Jeter Naslund

Abundance
Sena Jeter Naslund
Harper Perennial
592 pages

Like everyone, I am born naked.
~ First sentence, An Island In the Rhine River, May 1770, Abundance ~

Marie Antoinette was a child of fourteen when her mother, the Empress of Austria, arranged for her to leave her family and her country to become the wife of the fifteen-year-old Dauphin, the future King of France. Coming of age in the most public of arenas she warmly embraces her adopted nation and it's citizens. She shows her new husband nothing but love and encouragement, though he repeatedly fails to consummate their marriage and in so doing is unable to give what she and the people of France desire most: a child and heir to throne. Deeply disappointed and isolated in her own intimate circle, and apart from the social life of the court, she allows herself to remain ignorant of the country's growing economic and political crises, even as poor harvests, bitter winters, war debts, and poverty precipitate rebellion and revenge. The young queen, once beloved by the common folk, becomes a target of scorn, cruelty, and hatred as she, the court's nobles, and the rest of the royal family are caught up in the nightmarish violence of a murderous time called "the Terror."

This book had been languishing in my TBR pile and reading it was motivated by an offer of book about her daughter's life, Marie-Therese by Susan Nagel, that I'm receiving from Authors On The Web. I had read one other book about her life, The Hidden Diary of Maria Antoinette by Carolly Erickson, and a felt a bit of a refresher was needed. Overall, I felt, this book was a bit disappointing. It's written first person, diary-style, and I never really did adapt to the voice the author used for Maria Antoinette. The voice of the child she is when we start the book carries through until the royal family is forced to flee for their lives and the subsequent imprisonment and deaths of the King and Queen. Marie Antoinette never quites achieves adulthood in this book, and the country's troubles and unrest, are glossed over until it is too late. Once the royal family realizes that their days of power are numbered this book picks up speed and becomes an interesting read. You finally start to get a sense of the unrest in France and begin to understand the motivations of the common people to want to bring down the royal family. While I felt for the her children and the citizens of France I never did feel pity for the Queen.

If you're looking for a light overview of the her life and times then this book might appeal to you. If you're wanting somethinga bit more serious and in-depth this might not be your first choice.

Escape by Carolyn Jessop with Laura Palmer

Escape
Carolyn Jessop with Laura Palmer
Broadway
432 pages

"Let's play apocalypse!" was the cry that set us off and running through the orchard of my uncle Lee's house.
~ First sentence, chapter: Child's Play, Escape ~

Seventeen years after being forced into a polygamous marriage, Jessop escaped from the cultlike Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints with her eight children. She recounts the horrid events that led her to break free from the oppressive world she knew and how she has managed to survive since escaping, despite threats and legal battles with her husband and the Church.

This book was rivetting, consuming, gripping and, many times, soul wrenching. It's like watching a really horrific event. You know you should look away but you can't. You're drawn again and again to watch this unbelievably mesmerizing story unfold. It is mind-boggling and the polar opposite of how I was raised. Coming from what is considered a normal upbringing and stable environment in the FLDS community to be given as a wife (she uses the term property) to a man because it has been deemed by the Prophet that he is the one she recounts years and years of untold mental and some physical abuse not only directed towards herself and her children but practiced on a regular basis in this household. Sister wives turning on one another to secure their place in the household. Children turning on children and the other mothers to secure the love of their Father. She reveals the beliefs and practices the of the FLDS religion. You watch as a religion is turned into a cult by a fanatic. Yet through all this comes the hope and knowledge that it is possible to regain your dignity and your self-esteem. To make a life for yourself and family that is good, kind and loving.

If you want a better understanding and first-hand look inside the FLDS religion read this book especially with what is happening in Texas right now.

Murder is Binding by Lorna Barrett

Murder is Binding
Lorna Barrett
Berkley
288 pages

"I'll tell you, Trish, we're all victims."
~ First sentence, Murder is Binding ~

When she moved to Stoneham, city slicker Tricia Miles met nothing but friendly faces. And when she opened her mystery bookstore, she met friendly competition. But when she finds Doris Gleason dead in her own cookbook store, killed by a carving knife, the atmosphere seems more cutthroat than cordial. Someone wanted to get their hands on the rare cookbook that Doris had recently purchased-and the locals think that someone is Tricia. To clear her name, Tricia will have to take a page out of one of her own mysteries-and hunt down someone who isn't killing by the book.

This was a very entertaining book. I instantly liked the main character, Tricia Miles, as she's living out my dream ~ owning a book store in small town, sharing her life with good friends and a wonderful cat. Tricia has been accused of murdering Doris by the town sheriff who isn't interested investigating any other suspects as she has her own motives for wanting Tricia behind bars. While Tricia is busy spending her time proving she didn't commit the murder she also helps out a woman who is sure to become a good friend in later books and forms a better relationship with her older, somewhat self-involved sister. There are also side stories along the way that provide clever ways to hide clues. I'm not one to try and figure out whodunit. I purely read cozy mysteries for the fun of it though I did manage to get this one. The mystery of the pamphlets being left in books throughout Stoneham was funny and how they got even more so. I should have seen it but didn't. This is very good start to a new series and I'd happily spend time in Stoneham Village again.

The Dark Lantern: A Novel by Gerri Brightwell

The Dark Lantern
Gerri Brightwell
Crown Publishing
336 pages

She sits stiffly on the seat of the cart, her whole self held in against the tumult of the city. ~ First sentence, The Dark Lantern ~

Devon-born housemaid Jane Wilbred has snared her new post with the Bentley family with a letter of reference she forged, omitting any mention of the possibly pertinent fact that her late mother was a notorious murderer. That, however, is trifling compared to the shady games being played both upstairs and downstairs at 32 Cursitor Road while the family matriarch lingers on her deathbed, especially the struggle between mysterious beauty Mina Bentley, wife of younger son Robert, and the wan stranger who claims to be the widow of older brother Henry (drowned recently while sailing home after years in India). Meanwhile, Robert is focused on a battle closer to his heart: winning official recognition for anthropometry, the science of identifying criminals by body measurements. Far from being an arcane digression, Robert's passion eventually figures into the intricate and surprising plot.

Another winning book for me. From the start I wasn't sure exactly what to expect with this story but what I got was a very entertaining, finely crafted read. Full of cunning, deception and intrigue. Every character in this book, especially the leading ladies have some secret to hide and carefully guard because it could be their downfall. Some are not above using what they know, or suspect, the bring others down to save themselves. While the characters may not be admirable and you may even despise them you have to admire their devious ways. The ending is a surprise and not where I thought I'd end up. If you are a fan of Deanna Raybourne's Lady Julia Gray books Silent in the Grave and Silent in the Sanctuary check out The Dark Lantern. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

The Whole Truth by David Baldacci

The Whole Truth
David Baldacci
Grand Central Publishing
416 pages

"Dick, I need a war."
~ First sentence, The Whole Truth ~

Nicolas Creel is a man on a mission. He heads up the world's largest defense contractor, The Ares Corporation. Dick Pender is the man Creel retains to "perception manage" his company to even more riches by manipulating international conflicts. But Creel may have an even grander plan in mind.

Shaw, a man with no first name and a truly unique past, has a different agenda. Reluctantly doing the bidding of a secret multi-national intelligence agency, he travels the globe to keep it safe and at peace.

Willing to do anything to get back to the top of her profession, Katie James is a journalist who has just gotten the break of a lifetime: the chance to interview the sole survivor of a massacre that has left every nation stunned.

I loved this book. A gripping page-turner start to finish. From the minute Nicholas declares he needs a war to very end where Shaw and Katie have done their best to prevent Nicholas' war there is a whole roller coaster ride in between. One minute you think "Ok we've got 'em" then "they've slipped away again." Around every corner is another twist to the story. Watch out for the character(s) you least expect because they just might be the ones you should be watching closely. With society today being spoon fed what those in power want us to believe and manipulating the media to fit their needs I could envision some, if not all, of this happening. This is David Baldacci at the top of his game. I enjoy reading Mr. Baldacci's work and this is one of his finest. If you're a fan of Vince Flynn and his leading character Mitch Rapp you might just want to give Shaw a try.

Hopefully Shaw, Katie and Frank will be back for an encore just as he's done with the Camel Club.