Blink & Caution by Tim Wynne-Jones

Blink and Caution are two teenage runaways in Toronto. The story is told in alternating viewpoints, with Blink's segments in a strange second-person present tense.

Blink is getting by day to day by stealing breakfast leftovers from room-service trays in a fancy hotel when he accidentally observes a faked kidnapping of a wealthy CEO. Blink becomes obsessed with the kidnapping he witnessed, and the finds himself drawn the daughter who keeps calling the cell phone he lifted from the hotel room.

Caution is on the run from an abusive and possessive drug-dealer boyfriend when she meets Blink. She sees him purchasing a train ticket and thinks he will be an easy mark, but finds herself strangely drawn to him and to helping him.

To solve the mystery, the teens travel to a remote cabin, where they find that they are in over their heads, and it will take all of their cunning and street smarts to make it out alive.

Very intense teen/adult thriller.  I had read reviews and it looked really interesting and I was not disappointed.  Plus who can not want to read a book jacket with bullet holes.

Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard

While rounding up newborn calves during a 1987 blizzard, Nathan Shellenberger, sheriff of Small Plains, and his teenage sons, Rex and Patrick, discover the naked frozen body of a beautiful teenage girl. Later, Nathan and Dr. Quentin "Doc" Reynolds bash the girl's face to an unrecognizable pulp, since they know who she is and fear that either Patrick or Rex's best friend, 17-year-old Mitch Newquist, is her killer.

Witnessing this terrible scene is Mitch, hidden in Doc's home office supply closet where he's gone for a condom to use with Abby, Doc's 16-year-old daughter. When Mitch goes home and reports what he found Mitch's father, a judge, forces Mitch to leave town after the boy admits what he saw.  He never says goodbye to anyone include Abby who is told it is her fault that he has left.

It's 17 years later, 1994 and it is still a cold case.  During another blizzard 33-year-old Abby Reynolds is reminded of the mystery and decides to find out who the Virgin really is. The secret begins to peel away when Abby realizes that the stories told about that night don't quite ring true. As she asks the people she loves to return to that time in 1987, Abby fears the murderer might be staring her in the face.


Meanwhile Mitch is back in town and no one knows if they can trust him or not least of all Abby. There are many complicated subplots that almost overshadow the real mystery of who is the virgin and who killed her? But overall an excellent thriller.

Speed of dark by Elizabeth Moon

Lou Arrendale, at first seems kind of a quirky introvert but you quickly realize he is a very functioning autistic 35 year old male. Lou is a bioinformatics specialist who has a gift for pattern analysis and an ability to function well in both "normal" and "autistic" worlds. When the pharmaceutical company he works for recommends that all the autistic employees on staff undergo an experimental procedure that will basically alter their brains, his neatly ordered world shatters.

His man group of friends are the autistics from the company but he also has his Wednesday fencing group and the 2 are starting to overflow together.  All his life he has been taught "act normal, and you will be normal enough"-something that has enabled him to survive, but as he struggles to decide what to do, the violent behavior of a "normal friend" puts him in danger and rocks his faith in the normal world. He struggles to decide whether the treatment will help or destroy his sense of self. Is autism a disease or just another way of being?


This book is very thought provoking as what would you do if you could be normal and how would you deal with the consequences.  This topic is obviously very personal to Moon and it's been interesting as while this book was written over 10 years ago I've been reading new research that discusses this very thing.

I've been a huge fan of Elizabeth Moon since she wrote Sassinak and Generation Warriors with Anne McCaffrey and her Deed of Paksenarrion series.   It's probably been 15 years since I've ready anything by her and I just loved this book.  She does such a wonderful job combining the personal stories with a sci fi twist.

Insatiable by Meg Cabot

TV writer Meena Harper creates fabulous plots for Insatiable, the second-highest-rated soap opera, thanks to her burdensome if lucrative psychic ability to see into the future and determine how people are going to die. And just as Insatiable is switching to a vampire theme to attract a younger demographic, a spate of chilling murders-by-exsanguination grips New York City.

Enter Lucien Antonescu, a sexy, melancholic Romanian history professor/vampire who recognizes that the murders are the work of rogue vampires who have broken away from his order. (Lucien happens to be the son of Vlad the Impaler, whom Bram Stoker gave such a bad rep.) Lucien's opposition: Alaric Wulf, a sympathetic detective from the Palatine Guard, who hopes to use Meena and her prophetic gift to stop the murders and track down Lucien.

It was fun to read a Meg Cabot book that didn't focus on the Princess Diaries but it really wan't much a vampire book either.   But while it was a long pagewise book I was able to read it very easily and quickly.

Seeking who he may devour by Fred Vargas

Chief Inspector Adamsberg mystery

A small mountain community in the French Alps is roused to terror when they awaken each morning to find yet another of their sheep with its throat torn out. One of the villagers thinks it might be a werewolf, and when she's found killed in the same manner, people begin to wonder if she might have been right. Suspicion falls on Massart, a loner living on the edge of town.

The murdered woman's adopted son, one of her shepherds, and her new friend Camille decide to pursue Massart, who has conveniently disappeared. Their ineptness for the task soon becomes painfully obvious, and they summon Commissaire Adamsberg from the city to bring his exceptional powers of intuition to bear on layer upon layer of buried hatred and secrets.

This is my 2nd book from Vargas and it is as different as a series can be.  Yes many of the same characters are in this book but how Adamsberg responds and interacts is very different.  But then the settings are so different and I appreciated that.  I like how Vargas hints at the darkness yet brings a fresh lightness to it as well.  The covers are really creepy but done is a very simple way.  Excellent.