Soap opera dialogue writer turned demon hunter, Meena Harper (not to be confused with Mina Harker) is a clairvoyant. She can tell who is going to die and when.

Her view on demons and vampires isn’t shared by her co-workers, her partner, or her boss. They all believe there's no such a thing as a “good” vamp, but Meena is on a mission to change their views.

While this book is "based on a true story of the first witchcraft trial in Ireland," I would not call it historical fiction. It is just plain fiction. The author takes a seed of historical fact and creates something purely from her imagination. Using terms not yet in use in the 14th century the author uses the basic historical facts behind this story as a way to express her own views. Relying heavily on dialogue that is fanciful and clearly not based in the historical time in which the novel is set further detracts from what could have been a powerful and moving story.

Excellent historical fiction set in eleventh century England where the fifteen-year-old Emma of Normandy has come to wed King Aethelred. Much older than her, Aethelred is haunted by the death of his brother from whom he took the crown. Emma, wise beyond her years, must navigate court politics in order to stay alive. The first in a trilogy, Shadow on the Crown leaves the reader wanting to know more about Emma and her world.

Someone killed Sarah’s sister not long after she gave birth. Sarah took the baby as her own, and why not, the father was missing, maybe dead too. only one problem, authorities belive Sarah's the murder.

Little Zoe is a happy, healthy kid, until the accident. Now all the secrets are coming out – along with the killers who want to put an end to Sarah and Zoe. It's time to run again and run hard. Even the Shadows are no safe place.

Gripping glob trotting tale of Hanna Renstrom. Born of Swedish parents, she ends up the Madam of the Paradise Hotel, a brothel in East Africa. Seen as an outcast both by the colonial society and by the oppressed Africans, Hanna makes some hard choices to keep body and soul intact.

By now you either love or hate her. Anita Blake, US Marshall, necromancer, and Human servant, blah, blah, blah, right? Wrong! She’s in there but, this time it’s all about Micha's dad, a zombie plague, and saving the world.

(Note: reviewer read an advanced reader copy; "Songs of Willow Frost" is scheduled to be published September 10, 2013.) This new book follows Ford's best selling 2009 debut novel, "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet." Through the skillful writing of the author, we experience what it might have been like to be poor, Chinese and an orphan. Set in Seattle in the 1920s and early Depression years, it offers a moving story about Liu Song, a young Chinese American woman who becomes pregnant by her stepfather after her mother's death. With her stunning good looks and lovely voice, Liu is able to support herself for a time by singing in the shop of a sheet music and piano store. Her parents had been stars in the Cantonese opera, and she is encouraged to pursue her dreams of becoming an actress by Colin Kwan, an aspiring but mysterious Chinese actor. She adores her son, William Eng, but because of the restrictive laws at that time, she reluctantly gives him up for adoption rather than turn him over to her odious uncle. Flash foward several years, and William is still living in an orphanage, considered unadoptable because he is Chinese. He does not think his mother is alive until he sees an ad for Willow Frost, a glamorous Chinese American singer and actress who has returned to Seattle to promote an upcoming film. Convinced that Willow is his ah-ma, William is determined to find her and escapes from the orphanage. It is a memorable journey well worth taking.

As someone whose motto growing up was "Question Authority," I found myself enthralled by this book. Author Denise Kiernan gives us a fascinating glimpse of what it must have been like to work in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which came into being in 1942 as the very secret production site for the Manhattan Project, the massive undertaking that developed the atomic bomb. The town, which at its height was home to nearly 80,000 people, all but sprang up overnight, and its very purpose was shrouded in mystery, not only from family members and neighboring town residents, but even from the workers themselves. The author highlights the role of women in this wartime enterprise, many of whom had just graduated from high school and had never been away from home before, by telling us their stories. We meet a chemist but also an African American cleaning woman whose husband had to stay in a separate housing unit from her. Although everyone involved felt that their work was important in some way to the World War II effort, when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, it was the first time that most of these workers knew what they had been working on. While the book is occasionally repetitive, it also provides insight into a chapter of our recent history that few of us know much about. At times funny, at other times chilling, it is a memorable story that I am glad I read.

The mother/son team of Charles Todd has returned with a new title in the Bess Crawford mysteries series. I had not read any of the earlier ones, but this one stands on its own. (Although I do want to go back and read the earlier ones now!) Bess grew up in India in the early 1900s, the daughter of an English military commander in charge of a post on the Northwest frontier, close to the Afghanistan border. The parents of one of her father's officers are killed, the officer escapes, but is presumed dead somewhere in the Khyber Pass, leaving unanswered questions and a stain on the regiment. Flash forward to World War I, when Bess is now a nurse in France, and her parents are living in England. A wounded Indian sergeant arrives in her battlefield hospital, but before he dies, he tells her that the officer is not dead, as was assumed. Bess takes on the responsibility of solving the mystery with the help of her father's trusted aide, Simon Brandon. The authors have written a fast and well told mystery, as well as a fascinating tale of life during World War I from the point of view of a nurse on the front lines.

Americanah by Chimamanda Adichie This is not a review but my expression about the affect a writer can have on a reader.

In the words of James Baldwin—

“At the point when you begin to develop a conscience, you must find yourself at war with your society and; it is your responsibility to change society if you think of yourself as an educated person.”

When I became an educator, and desired to make a difference, I began to read not merely to be entertained but for the sake of learning more about researching facts , interpreting data, and finding answers in order to play my small part in counteracting the systemic issues that are plaguing today’s children and their educational progress.

Therefore, I abandoned the genre of fiction only to read it when required. The last good piece of fiction I thoroughly enjoyed was Family by J. California Cooper.

It was a novel set in pre-civil war south; a tale narrated from the female slave’s perspective about the mental and physical bondage, the traumatic experiences of rape and to unwanted conjugal bonds with the master. I loved how Always risked her life to learn to read and count in order to become mentally free. In the end, she had enough wit to save some of the Master’s money to purchase and free slaves.This was one sense of how African American female’s gained their sagacity of liberation.Family was so good; I wanted to savor each readable moment and felt frustrated when the story ended.

During the latter part of the month of May, while browsing through either an issue of Ebony or Essence magazine, I stumbled upon the suggested list of books to read.

The contributing writer/editor wrote such a well written and certainly intriguing review that I thought if I didn’t check it out, I would probably be missing out on something great.

On May 26th, I immediately went to Barnes & Noble with the intent to purchase Americanah but I was reluctant to buy it because it was a first edition work of “fiction” in hardback and I felt the retail price of twenty six dollars was a little too steep for me at that time .

Unwilling to walk away empty handed; I wanted to give Adichie the opportunity to woo me back to fiction. I decided to sample one of her less expensive books.

After reading the summary on the back of her first book, Purple Hibiscus, published in 2003, I felt more compelled to read her most recent book to date, the one before Americanah ; The Thing Around Your Neck published in 2006.

The Thing around Your Neck is a compilation of twelve short stories based on relationships in two worlds she so intimately knows— Africa and the United States.

Reading The Thing Around Your Neck, was just enough to push me to the next level. So, on May 31st, I purchased Americanah!

As I delved into this great story, from the very beginning, with every turning page, my reader’s palate was wonderfully satisfied. By the time I completed Americanah, I had the same sentiments I had for Family and did not want to depart with it; it belonged in my personal library.

Americanah was so enthralling, so imaginatively pleasing and so very hard to put down. It took me two days to complete this close to five hundred page post- 9/11 America and Africa, Nigeria story about love, race and hair. From the time I started, I could vividly follow the journey of both worlds which she cross-references so beautifully.

Adichie’s layout of this modernized multi –dimensional realistic work of fiction has very few superfluous or unbelievable moments and plenty teachable ones.

A good reader is able to detect this author’s nuances to educate. There are many thought provoking moments for instance how, at college Africans & African Americans socially defined themselves (African Students Association (ASA) vs. Black Student Union (BSU))

“The Africans who go to BSU are those with no confidence who are quick to tell you “I am originally from Kenya’ even though Kenya just pops out the minute they open their mouths. The African Americans who come to our meetings are the ones who write poems about Mother Africa and think every African is a Nubian Queen. If an African American calls you a Mandingo or booty Scratcher, he is insulting you for being African.

I found this very interesting because I have referred to some African Americans males as “Mandingo”; a positive term to mean how handsome and manly they appear to me.

Adichie’s political correctness is so keen; she tactfully addresses the issues of what appear to be racially skewed and ambiguous— hair, the “N-Word”, and immigration issues. She say things most of us are thinking but are afraid to say aloud; always with a balance of objectivity and subjectivity.

I must honestly say that this is one of my greatest reads of the twenty- first century and Adichie has to be classified as one of the best authors!

There you have it. I have returned to fiction for a little while; currently I’m in the middle of The Half Yellow Sun and will purchase Purple Hisbicus when I am finished.

For anyone who enjoys vintage clothes, as I do, this will be a fun read. Dora is a senior in college with little interest in fashion. She was orphaned as a baby and was raised by her grandmother Mimi, who owns a vintage clothing shop. Dora worked in the shop when she was growing up, but never wanted to wear any of the clothes that Mimi set aside for her. When Mimi suffers a major stroke, however, Dora abandons plans to go to grad school and comes home to tend to the shop. In her haste to return home, she did not pack any clothes and must resort to wearing some of those outfits that her grandmother had thought would be a perfect fit. And, indeed, they are. Along the way, she discovers that her grandmother had begun writing stories for many of the clothes in her shop. Add in a cute architect/contractor who is working on a project in the same building as her mother's shop, and a collection of interesting relatives, and you have the ingredients for an enjoyable afternoon of reading. And those clothes!

Another summer, another Elin Hilderbrand novel set on the beautiful island of Nantucket! As she was dying, Jenna Carmichael's mother wrote up detailed instructions and tips to help her youngest daughter plan her future wedding. And now several years later, that daughter is getting married. Without her mother there to guide her, Jenna's older sister decides to take on that role, using their mother's book, of course. Their two brothers, who are polar opposites to one another, and their father, who is unhappily remarried, also return to the island for the wedding weekend. And what wedding doesn't have its stresses and strains that family members inflict on each other. All ends well in a nicely told story full of local color.

This book is the first of a projected new series by the perennially bestselling author Debbie Macomber. The title is a play on words of the main character's last name: Jo Marie Rose, whose husband has recently died in the Iraq war. She is looking for a way to build a new life and buys an inn in Cedar Cove, a fictional small town on the Washington coast in which Macomber has previously set another series. As an introduction to her new series, Macomber describes how and why Jo Marie buys the inn. She interweaves stories of her first two guests who arrive on the first day her new B and B is open, each of whom has their own unresolved family issues to deal with. Macomber lives in a small coastal town in Washington state, so it is no surprise that her descriptions of this small town feel spot on.

I was surprised to learn that this book is Christopher Castellani's third novel about the Grasso family. You do not need to have read the previous two titles to enjoy this book; it really does stand on its own. The story opens with a description of the close relationship between 72-year old Maddalena and her son, Frankie, a doctoral candidate who is having an affair with his thesis advisor. Not a promising beginning, but the story then shifts to focus on daughter Prima, and her plans to take her mother and father, both Italian immigrants, back to their small hometown as a way to introduce her own children to their Italian heritage. Her mother refuses to go and, indeed, has refused to talk by phone with her sister who remained in Italy (and who married Maddalena's first love) since their mother passed away years earlier. We learn about the sorrow that she carries about another son's death through suicide, for reasons she cannot understand. Her husband Antonio and Prima each keep their own secrets and guilt about Tony and why he decided to take his own life. This is a messy novel, but one that is full to overflowing with love--of family, of home, of traditions. And it is also filled with the heartbreak of watching aging family members slip away because of dementia, and how family pulls together in support of one another.

This debut novel by Liza Klaussman (the great-great-great-granddaughter of Herman Melville) traces the intertwined lives of two cousins from post World War II to the mid-1960s. We learn about the respective stresses, competing loyalties, and secrets between and among family members through the distinctive voices of each featured family member. Tiger House, a family estate on Martha's Vineyard, figures prominently in the story. Though the main characters are not especially appealing individuals, the strong descriptions of place succeed in moving the story along.

A leader must “build a culture of collaboration as part of the management strategy.” Nowadays, the era of the globalization requires that a leader must possess a strong skill in building cross-cultural teams that can meet the challenges of the twenty-first century society. The leader must be able to adapt, transform and acquire new mechanism of knowledge that can be amenable to all levels of leadership. Team collaboration is the essential foundation to succeed. In this book, “Why Cutthroat Management is Over--and Collaboration Is In,” the author, Peter Shankman, states that: “It is important that everyone in the company is speaking the same language and understands and shares information and ideas.” This book shares success stories of managers, at all levels, and their pathway of achievement. Excellent informational resource book!

Interesting read about a subject that isn't for the squeamish. I learned something new about Elvis Presley's gastrointestinal health that maybe I didn't need to know.

How to master the Art of Struggle? According to Steven Snyder, author of the “Leadership and the Art of the Struggle: How Great leader Grow Through Challenges and Adversities,” leadership is the metamorphosis of the leader’s imperfection. “By examining a struggle narrative through the Struggle Lens, new pathways emerge for understanding and managing conflict.” Snyder highlights that failure is a normal stage in the life-cycle of a leader. He states that, in this phase, new ideas emanate to resolve proactively the upcoming challenges in the work environment. In addition, the author reinforces the idea that the leader’s decision must reflect a conscious thinking about the consequences of the “ripple effect” in the well being of the company’s culture. As Snyder affirms “...struggle is a natural part of a leadership and it is often the struggle itself that unlocks the potential for the greatest growth.” This book provides many strategies to embrace failure as a learning tool for personal transformation. Excellent book!

Mr. Field is the pleasant school librarian that welcomes the children for a fun tour to the library. In this guided tour, the librarian explains to the school-age children that his mission --as an Informational Professional-- is to help the customers to discover the world throughout the various format of informational resources. The children learn from Mr. Field that the library carries not only materials inside a physical building but also it provides virtual resources that can be found in an online catalog. In this picture book, Gina Bellisario wants to introduce to the children the magic world of knowledge. She highlights, in the storytelling, that the library is an evolving entity that tries to adapt accordingly with the new technological challenges of this century. Finally, the illustrator Ed Myer complements the story with warm colors that suggest to the reader the welcoming environment inside the library. This is a great picture book!

I really believe this account of Andrew Carnegie's life and times. There's so much information of Pennsylvania especially Pittsburgh. This book reinforces how a good work ethnic and the willingness to be confident when needed can make your desires an accomplishment. It proves how making the right connections with people you can trust is of the upmost priorty, or what left of your life could be spent trying to correct those choices. Loretta