Some good books

So while I was writing the post of the best chick flicks, my daughter suggested I do one about which books, in my opinion were some of the best and why.

This post might be a work in progress because I have read a great deal many books in my lifetime.

I am a reader.  When I read, I am one of the lucky ones who "sees" the characters and the actions.  Reading to me is like watching a movie, it just takes longer.

Sometimes I read books just to pass the time, other times I want to be captivated by the story, become part of it, so I read a variety of books.

To start off, I have a few favorite authors



John Saul

 John Saul is a writer of suspense and horror.  This man has a wonderfully twisted mind.  His monsters, if you want to call him that, tend to focus on children, or be children.  He covers mad scientists, many souls with unfinished business, hauntings, possessions, human experimentations.

I own almost all his books and I am slowly converting them from paperback to hard cover.  He is the only author that I wrote to the publishing company to order books I could not find in bookstores (This was before my Amazon and Chapter days).  I highly recommend him. 

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Iris Johansen



Irish Johansen writes in two very different styles: crime fiction and romance novels.  I first discovered her under the romance novel umbrella and noticed that she had a wonderful style.  One day I noticed her name on the cover of a book in the suspense section.  When I picked up the book and flipped it over I saw by the photo that it was the same author.  The book seemed very different from the medieval novels I had been reading from her.  That when I discovered the world of Eve Duncan and Joe Quinn.

In her crime novels, she has central characters around which most of her stories revolve.  Eventually , like a soap opera, you become addicted to the lives of these characters and wonder what kind of new adventures they can have.  Of course, also being a romance novelist, her crime stories have a bit of romance and descriptive love scenes, the best of both worlds.  I am also building up a hard cover collection of her books.

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Catherine Coulter



Catherine Coulter also writes in two different styles.  She reminds me a little of Ms. Johansen, but she does have her very own way of telling a story.  She writes romantic suspense thrillers and historical romances. 



Catherine has a FBI series which has a cast of central characters.  Each book however stands on it's own.  It's interesting to see how each character interweaves through her stories.

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Nora Roberts

Nora Roberts is a truly prolific writer.  How can one person write as many books as she does is a mystery to me.  Sometimes I wonder if J.D. Robbs is not an actual twin or CLONE!  Yeah that's right, clone.  J.D. Robbs is her pen name for her crime series "in Death".

She is at the bottom of my top four because she is the more "commercial" author.  I did have to include her however as I read a great many of her books, and I know that whatever she writes  will be a pleasant read.  She is a safe author, which is probably why she is so popular.

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Now on to my favorite books.  Let's take for granted that any book written by the quartet above is going to be on that list.  What other book have I enjoyed reading?  Well I enjoy almost all books!  Which ones did I enjoy more you say?  Oh you should have said so...

Here they are:

Elizabeth George

This Body of Death

On compassionate leave after the murder of his wife, Thomas Lynley is called back to Scotland Yard when the body of a woman is found stabbed and abandoned in an isolated London cemetery. His former team doesn’t trust the leadership of their new department chief, Isabelle Ardery, whose management style seems to rub everyone the wrong way. In fact, Lynley may be the sole person who can see beneath his superior officer’s hard-as-nails exterior to a hidden—and possibly attractive—vulnerability.

Elizabeth George is a master at describing the torments of her main characters and keeping the secret of "who done it" till the end. 

Unholy Child 

Catherine Breslin

UNHOLY CHILD is a year in the life of Sister Angela Flynn and the people around her, a story of how this secret she's kept affects not only her but everyone she's come into contact with. From the title, I was expecting something like the anti-Christ, but what I got instead was a dead baby and a nun who doesn't remember being pregnant. The twist to this story is that Sister Angela has a split personality, there's also Gayle Flynn (Gayle was Angela's birth name before the order gave her "Angela"). Gayle is a lot freer with herself, drinking, having fun, and picking up men. Angela has no idea Gayle exists. When Angela comes back from a blackout to find herself somewhere she doesn't recognize, hours missing from her life, she doesn't know what to think, and she keeps this a secret as well. 

To be continued...