1- The Summer Garden
2- The Chance
3- The Goddess of Vengeance
1- The Summer Garden
By: Paulina Simons
Hi This is me :) This by far has been one of the most inspiring novels that I have ever read. I am sure, when the time permits again, I will return and will read this novel again. I fell in love with the way how Paulina Simons incorporate emotion, guilt, anger, love and scarification into this book. I am so greatful. and now we return to wikipedia to get an insight on the plot ;)
Four years have gone by since World War II has ended; and Tatiana and Alexander are married and living a life together with their son, Anthony. Yet, they are strangers to each other. Having been separated from each other for years, they do not know each other anymore.
After a hardship of building a decen life, their son Anthony decides to go army and heads down to Vietnam.
Alexander traveled all the way to Vietnam to find his son. Using their heads, Anthony's father and Richter realize that Moon Lai is a North Vietnam communist, who is just a bait for Anthony. Alexander and a group of six (twelve?) people go to rescue him. They first capture Moon Lai who tells them everything. Despite being a trap, Lai loves Anthony, she then tries and fails to stab Alexander and Ha Si (a member of the group). She aimed for Alexander's thigh and Ha Si's face and in self-defense, they slit her throat.
Alexander rescued Anthony (who has had his right arm amputated by the North Vietnamese) losing Richter, Ha Si and others are on the way.
The novel then fast-forwards ahead thirty years to the Thanksgiving of 1999, Alexander and Tatiana's children are all grown and now have children of their own. A very large family, Alexander and Tatiana seem content with their lot. The novel ends one hot day in near their home in Scottsdale, Arizona. Tatiana was sitting on the bench eating ice cream when, Alexander stands across the street, returning from the purchase of a drink, staring at her, a bus passes by and he maneuvers around it. They sit and reminisce on the first time they met those years ago on the 22nd of June, 1941 in Leningrad.
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2- The Chance
- It was a religious based book. interesting. too much miracle going on. not interested ;)
The Chance is a heartwarming story about childhood friends, broken lives, and a long ago promise that just might offer the hope of love for today. In The Chance, Karen delves deeply into a theme that resonates with us all: It’s never too late for those willing to take a chance.
Years ago, the day before Ellie moved from Georgia to California, she and her best friend Nolan sat beneath the Spanish moss of an ancient oak tree where they wrote letters to each other, and sealed them in a rusty old metal box. The plan was to return eleven years later and read them. But now, as that date arrives, much has changed. Ellie, bereft of the faith she grew up with, is a single mom living in a tired apartment trying to make ends meet. Sometimes she watches television to catch a glimpse of her old friend —Nolan, now an NBA star, whose terrible personal tragedies fueled his faith and athletic drive in equal measure. But Nolan also suffers from a transcendent loneliness that nothing has ever eased.
In their separate lives, as Ellie and Nolan move toward the possibility of a reunion at the oak tree, Kingsbury weaves a tale of heart-wrenching loss, the power of faith, and the wounds that only love can heal
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3- Goddess of Vengeance
Jackie Collins’ fierce and wildly beautiful heroine Lucky Santangelo is back with a vengeance—in a novel full of power, passion, revenge, and the raging family dynamics of the Santangelo clan—and, as always, Lucky comes out on top.
Lucky runs a high profile casino and hotel complex, The Keys in Vegas.
Lennie, her movie star husband, is still writing and directing successful independent movies, while Max, her stubborn and gorgeous teenage daughter is about to celebrate her 18th birthday, and her son, Bobby, owns a string of hot clubs. Lucky has everything. Family. Love. Life.
And everything is exactly what billionaire businessman Armand Jordan is determined to take from her one way or the other.
Born a Prince in the small but affluent Middle Eastern country of Akramshar, Armand comes to America with his American mother at an early age, and rises to become a real estate business titan. Armand regards women as nothing more than breeding mares or sexual playthings, so when his people inform him that the one property he covets more than anything, The Keys, is not for sale, he is shocked. That a mere woman would dare to turn down his offer to buy The Keys is unthinkable, and Armand vows to force Lucky’s hand whatever it takes. And so the battle for power begins . . .
Meanwhile Bobby is dealing with shady Russian investors, while his girlfriend—smart and independent Denver Jones—is becoming a Deputy D.A. in the L.A. drug unit.
And Max, Bobby’s seventeen year old sister, is busy embarking on a forbidden affair with a sexy young movie star. An affair they have to keep on the down-low lest Lucky finds out.
The word is that “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” and what happens in Goddess of Vengeance will blow your mind
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4- Something New by: Janis Thomas
Ellen Ivers has it all: a nice house, great kids, and a husband who loves her no matter how much she’s let herself go. There’s just one problem: Ellen is completely, utterly bored. Maybe it’s a mid-life crisis, or maybe it’s just time to make a change. Ellen starts taking care of herself and decides to start trying new things. As the pounds melt away and she begins to feel more comfortable in her own skin, Ellen’s cousin prompts the former writer to enter a blog competition.
At first Ellen is hesitant; after all, what exactly is she supposed to write about? But soon the words start flowing and Ellen gains confidence, in part because of the attention she’s getting from her cousin’s new neighbor, handsome detective Ben Campbell. Both Ellen and Ben are married with kids, and they know their friendship is heading down a dangerous path. As her attraction to Ben grows and her blog starts attracting a lot of interest, everything else in Ellen’s world begins to unravel. Now, she finds herself wondering if the life she has is what she really wants, or if something new is exactly what she needs…
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4- Something New by: Janis Thomas
Ellen Ivers has it all: a nice house, great kids, and a husband who loves her no matter how much she’s let herself go. There’s just one problem: Ellen is completely, utterly bored. Maybe it’s a mid-life crisis, or maybe it’s just time to make a change. Ellen starts taking care of herself and decides to start trying new things. As the pounds melt away and she begins to feel more comfortable in her own skin, Ellen’s cousin prompts the former writer to enter a blog competition.
At first Ellen is hesitant; after all, what exactly is she supposed to write about? But soon the words start flowing and Ellen gains confidence, in part because of the attention she’s getting from her cousin’s new neighbor, handsome detective Ben Campbell. Both Ellen and Ben are married with kids, and they know their friendship is heading down a dangerous path. As her attraction to Ben grows and her blog starts attracting a lot of interest, everything else in Ellen’s world begins to unravel. Now, she finds herself wondering if the life she has is what she really wants, or if something new is exactly what she needs…
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5- Alibi by: Joseph Kanon
Shortly after the end of World War II, Kanon's narrator, Adam Miller, just released from the American Army, is visiting his widowed socialite mother in Venice, where she has taken a grand palazzo on one of the canals. Adam has been serving on a de-Nazification team in Frankfurt -- the ''bloodhound detachment,'' he calls it -- investigating war crimes, ''separating the wicked from the merely acquiescent.'' He finds his mother's social set, the expatriate American Venice of Cole Porter and Peggy Guggenheim, confining and cloyingly superficial. When they're not going out to Florian's or Harry's Bar, Grace Miller and her friends spend their time drinking prosecco at their rented palazzos. Still, Grace seems a little lost here: ''She'd come to a city where she could read menus and street signs but whose real language was unknown to her.'' But she's no more lost than Adam is.
He's also suspicious of the new man in Grace's life, an old flame who wants to marry her. Is the aristocratic, suave Dr. Gianni Maglione a fortune hunter after his mother's wealth? At a party, Adam meets a beautiful young Jewish woman, Claudia Grassini, who turns out to be a survivor of the concentration camp at Fossoli, where she was coerced into being ''the camp whore.'' Claudia's suspicions of Dr. Maglione run far deeper than Adam's: she's convinced that Maglione was a Fascist collaborator who helped the SS round up Jews -- and was directly responsible for sending her father to his death.
Adam begins investigating his mother's fiance, using his Army intelligence connections. But he finds that no one in his mother's circle is remotely interested in uncovering the crimes of the recent past, or delving into any unpleasantness. ''What are his politics?'' Adam asks his mother as she tells him about Maglione. ''I haven't the faintest idea,'' Grace replies nonchalantly. ''I never ask. . . . Besides, it's their country -- things never make sense to outsiders.'' Venice, Adam finds, is a city of artifice, and Venetian society specializes in denial and avoidance. As he begins to uncover all sorts of secrets better left buried, the unintended consequences ripple outward, upending lives and leading inexorably to murder.
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5- Alibi by: Joseph Kanon
Shortly after the end of World War II, Kanon's narrator, Adam Miller, just released from the American Army, is visiting his widowed socialite mother in Venice, where she has taken a grand palazzo on one of the canals. Adam has been serving on a de-Nazification team in Frankfurt -- the ''bloodhound detachment,'' he calls it -- investigating war crimes, ''separating the wicked from the merely acquiescent.'' He finds his mother's social set, the expatriate American Venice of Cole Porter and Peggy Guggenheim, confining and cloyingly superficial. When they're not going out to Florian's or Harry's Bar, Grace Miller and her friends spend their time drinking prosecco at their rented palazzos. Still, Grace seems a little lost here: ''She'd come to a city where she could read menus and street signs but whose real language was unknown to her.'' But she's no more lost than Adam is.
He's also suspicious of the new man in Grace's life, an old flame who wants to marry her. Is the aristocratic, suave Dr. Gianni Maglione a fortune hunter after his mother's wealth? At a party, Adam meets a beautiful young Jewish woman, Claudia Grassini, who turns out to be a survivor of the concentration camp at Fossoli, where she was coerced into being ''the camp whore.'' Claudia's suspicions of Dr. Maglione run far deeper than Adam's: she's convinced that Maglione was a Fascist collaborator who helped the SS round up Jews -- and was directly responsible for sending her father to his death.
Adam begins investigating his mother's fiance, using his Army intelligence connections. But he finds that no one in his mother's circle is remotely interested in uncovering the crimes of the recent past, or delving into any unpleasantness. ''What are his politics?'' Adam asks his mother as she tells him about Maglione. ''I haven't the faintest idea,'' Grace replies nonchalantly. ''I never ask. . . . Besides, it's their country -- things never make sense to outsiders.'' Venice, Adam finds, is a city of artifice, and Venetian society specializes in denial and avoidance. As he begins to uncover all sorts of secrets better left buried, the unintended consequences ripple outward, upending lives and leading inexorably to murder.
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