Book Review and GIVEAWAY: Bone Canyon, by Lee Goldberg {ends 1/7}

Guest review by: Becki BayleyThe city of Calabasas had a split personality disorder. If you entered the city from the east end of Calabasas Road, the main thoroughfare, you went through Old Town, where the frontier storefronts and hitching posts presented Calabasas as part of...

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Book Review and GIVEAWAY: Every Last Secret, by A.R. Torre {ends 12/19}

Guest review by: Becki BayleyIt was interesting to see the evolution in him over the last two months. He used to flinch when I touched him, and avoid prolonged eye contact. Vomited Cat’s name whenever the conversation turned away from work. Now, I noticed his eyes lingering...

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Book Review: Aunt Ivy's Cottage, by Kristin Harper

Guest review by: Becki BayleyZoey’s aunt was consistently gracious to everyone, so she couldn’t imagine her saying or doing anything so offensive it would have caused an estrangement that lasted for years. For decades. Nor could she quite believe that a simple attempt to help...

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Book Review and GIVEAWAY: A Warm Heart in Winter, by J.R. Ward {ends 12/9}

Guest review by: Becki Bayley“Did I ever tell you about Seinfeld?” Qhuinn asked. “Or The Office?”“The, ah, the TV shows, you mean?”“Yeah.” Qhuinn took a deep breath. And then laughed a little. “Not The Sopranos, though. That I couldn’t resist.”Blay put his parka aside and rubbed...

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Book Review and GIVEAWAY: Fortune and Glory, by Janet Evanovich {ends 11/23}

Guest review by: Becki BayleyBenny dug in and made a lot of appreciative sounds while he ate.“You want a beer with that?” Grandma asked him.He stopped eating and looked at Grandma. “You got a beer?”Grandma pulled a cold bottle of beer out of her purse. “I usually carry my gun...

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Book Review and GIVEAWAY: The Museum of Forgotten Memories, by Anstey Harris {ends 11/18}

Guest review by: Becki BayleyIt is an evening from a storybook. The peacock is strutting around nearby. It’s waggling its tail feathers in an effort to attract one of the three peahens that are pecking on the lawn, but none of them so much as glances up. The sun, though it is...

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Book Review and GIVEAWAY - 60 Stories About 30 Seconds: How I Got Away With Becoming a Pretty Big Commercial Director Without Losing My Soul (Or Maybe Just Part of It) by Bruce Van Dusen {ends 11/11}

Guest review by: Becki BayleyI hate preproduction meetings. You hold one the day before a job shoots. They’re soul-killing exercises in asphyxia. Twenty or so people, agency creatives, account people, clients, people you’ve never seen before but who must be connected to the...

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Book Review and GIVEAWAY: The Preserve, by Ariel S. Winter {ends 11/8}

Guest review by: Becki BayleyThe drone led them back to the cemetery’s main entrance. Across the street, there was another small plot with much older gravestones of various shapes and sizes. Standing in the shadow of a tree in the midst of the graves was a white-haired woman,...

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Book Review and GIVEAWAY: You Can Go Home Now, by Michael Elias {ends 11/4}

Guest review by: Becki BayleyThe women in this sorority don’t go to classes, football games, have sex, drink alcohol, and smoke weed at parties with boys becoming men. Here in the shelter are women who, in different ways, have experienced men as people who abuse, batter, and...

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Book Review and GIVEAWAY - Matrimony, Inc.: From Personal Ads to Swiping Right, a Story of America Looking for Love, by Francesca Beauman (10 winners, ends 11/2}

Guest review by: Becki BayleyMarriage ads reached Ohio by the 1840s, and within a decade they were in evidence across the border in Indiana too. In 1852, James Hanes turned to the Richmond Palladium to find “a lady worth a few thousand dollars, of common sense, with a taste...

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Book Review and GIVEAWAY - You're Pulling My Leg! Junior: The Ultimate Storytelling Game, by Allen Wolf {ends 10/29}

Book review by: Becki BayleyTell me about…a time when a friend surprised you with something.ORsomething you enjoy doing.ORsomeone you think is funny.Imagine honestly responding to each of these prompts. Or, if the coin toss indicates, telling a convincing but untrue story about...

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Book Review and GIVEAWAY: Prospects of a Woman, by Wendy Voorsanger {ends 10/28}

Guest review by: Becki Bayley“Show me how to use it,” she said.From a stool in the pine grove, Nate explained how to stuff powder into the Hawken and ram a wad of grass down the barrel with a rod, like he’d been shooting his whole life, when she knew he’d spent his childhood...

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Book Review and GIVEAWAY: Interference, by Brad Parks {ends 10/25}

Guest review by: Becki Bayley“So let me get this straight,” Emmett said, having hurried to Baker Tower at the urging of Beppe Valentino. “This woman and Professor Bronik, they’ve both been infected by this quantum virus, and now she has quantum ESP?”“I wouldn’t call it ESP,”...

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Book Review and GIVEAWAY: The Unspoken, by Ian K. Smith {ends 10/24}

Guest review by: Becki BayleyJuJu Davis had been located at another girlfriend’s home in Grand Crossing, a similarly tough neighborhood just north of Chatham. When the tactical unit had breached the small apartment, they’d found him stretched out on the sofa, eating deep dish...

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Book Review and GIVEAWAY: The Love Proof, by Madeleine Henry {ends 10/22}

Sophie tugged the dangling string of her desk lamp until daylight faded. She kept working until, finally, deep in the black belly of night, she succeeded in converting every description of motion into one independent of time. She reclined against the straight back of her chair....

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Book Review and GIVEAWAY - Api's Berlin Diaries: My Quest to Understand my Grandfather's Nazi Past, by Gabrielle Robinson {ends 10/21}

Guest review by: Becki BayleyBerlin had fallen, but the fighting continued. As Api moved between the bunker and the clinic, he still saw plenty of violence. On Tuesday, May 1, he wrote hastily in his diary, often crossing out lines because he was too exhausted to find the right...

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Book Review and GIVEAWAY: The Girl Beneath the Sea, by Andrew Mayne {ends 10/12}

Guest review by: Becki BayleySolar and I exchange few words as he navigates the canals to an older residential neighborhood in a suburb of Fort Lauderdale. We pass a marine-patrol boat, and I casually wave and receive one in return. It would seem the arriving police never saw...

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Book Review and GIVEAWAY: A Perfect 10: The Truth About Things I'm Not and Never Will Be, by Heather Land {ends 10/11}

Guest review by: Becki Bayley There’s a certain entitlement that you carry with you when you have a little bit of age under your belt. People give you more grace to say and do what you want. You aren’t afraid to make decisions, others’ opinions of you carry less importance,...

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Book Review: Strange Fire, by Tommy Wallach

Guest review by: Becki Bayley “Whooee, but ya’ll gave me a fright! Thought I was about to meet my maker!”His name was Harry Pardo, and once he’d gotten over the surprise of finding a whole Descendant ministry on his doorstep (and put his puny dagger away), he’d invited them...

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