Sunday, March 31, 2013

Big Kitty



The Big Kitty by Claire Donally certainly fits in the What An Animal Reading Challenge as a cat is on the cover and a cat is certainly a big part of the book.  I am using it for B in my A-Z challenge and it is a cozy.

Kitty Harbor is a small town in Maine.  When Sunny Coolidges's father becomes ill, she leave her job as a reporter in Ney York City to come home.  She is working in tourism at MAX.  The local cat lady asks for Sunny's help to find a missing lottery ticket.  When Sunny arrives at Ada Spruance's house, she finds the cat lady at the bottom of stairs.  Stairs that a neighbor said, she did not use. Her cats are taken by the local animal control except for one, Shadow who manages to follow Sunny out of the house.  

Sunny decides to question anyone who might have had a motive to kill Ada and with the help of Will Price they investigate .  Along the way, someone is trying to scare or hurt Sunny and the ticket is still missing.  Ada is not the only one who turns up dead in this book, there are others.  It has a very interesting ending and Shadow plays a big part in nailing the murder of Ada.

I certainly would like to read more of Shadow and Sunny in the future. Shadow does not talk like Joel Grey but we do get to know what he smells and what he thinks.  He does not like Sunny's dad and Mr. Coolidge even tricks the cat into leaving the house.  Though when the cat is hurt, her dad seems to tolerate Shadow more.  It was interesting to read the comments that the cat mystery group shared about this book.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Chase of a Lifetime (LGBT book)




 
Chase of a Lifetime by Ryan Field was a free book when I obtained it in December of 2012.  It fits the LGBT catagory of the electic challenge.

Jim Darling has just graduated from college.  He takes an airplane home and a male stranger puts a hand on his leg.  Jim is not ready for a relationship with a stranger, he feels he does not have enough experience, so he rebuffs the man.

Once home, Jim gets ready for his graduation party.  He goes to his room and masterbates.  He things of his friend, Cain who was his hero, since he had been a quarterback in high school.   Jim goes down to his party, there are older folks there, friends of his parents, no younger people are in attendence.
Len Mayfield, Cain's father, comes into Jim's bedroom and acts strangely.  He then asks Jim to drive him home as his wife took their car..  The car Jim received as a graduation present has a manual transmission and Mr. Mayfield does not know home to drive it so Jim has to drive.  When they get to the Mayfield's home, Mr. Mayfield tells Jim that his wife is out with her tennis instructor and will probably be gone all night.  Len exposeds himself to Jim and does everything he could to seduce him.
Mrs. Mayfield arrives home before anything happens.

Jim finally decides to call Len and the two meet at a hotel.  They finally have sex.  After that, they see each other as often as possible.  Eventually, Jim decides to tell his mother that he is gay, but she already guessed.  The same day, Cain who is back in town, takes Jim to a gay bar, as Cain has known that Jim was gay since they were sixteen. 

Finally, Jim comes out to his father.  Cain decides to surprise Jim bytaking him out to a bar again.  This time he has another friend from high school whose name is Chase with him.  Chase is also gay.
Jim and Chase spend the night together in Jim's room.  Chase had answered the phone when Len had called.  The result of this was that Jim decides to accept a job in California and moves there.

Jim loves his new job and decides to buy the house he has been renting.  He returns home for his father's fiftieth birthday.  His mother asks Jim to pick up a few things at the drugstore.  It is there that he bumps into Len who has a baby with him.  The baby's name is Culum and he is Len's grandchild who Len adopted.  Cain and his girlfriend could not make it and so Len adopted the baby.  Len is now divorced from his wife and has been looking for a place to live.  Jim tells him he is welcome to come to LA and move in with him as long as he does not mind sharing the residence with the puppy Jim had adopted.  They declare their love for each other and Jim decides he has found happiness after his chase of a lifetime.

This is not a genre that I have read before.  I did find that it was well written and I just had to keep reading.  It is a love story in every sense with both lovers being men.  It is very descriptive and would not be suitable for younger readers.



Saturday, March 9, 2013

Boo and the Backyard Zoo



This is a cute children's book that I had on my Kindle for the PC for awhile.  I had a few minutes and read it.  The illustrations are wonderful.  Boo is a ghost who finds a way to help Grape Face into space.  It is full of rhymes and is a wonderful book to read to any child.