Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

First in the Leviathan series.

This is World War I as never seen before. The story begins the same: on June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife are assassinated, triggering a sequence of alliances that plunges the world into war. But that is where the similarity ends. This war, however, won't be waged with mustard gas or in trenches; Aleksander's Great War is one split down the middle of two factions: the Clankers and the Darwinists. The Clankers depend on mechanics and steam power, man-made machines with legs that mimic animals and firepower that rivals the creative weaponry and biotechnology of their rivals. The Darwinists are inspired by Charles Darwin and his Theory of Evolution. In Leviathan, the mystery of DNA --brought forward a few decades for the sake of plot--has been discovered and manipulated to create crossbreeds of animals and huge, living dirigibles as part of their military power.

Deryn Sharp--disguised as a boy so she can fly the floating airships and Alek Ferdinand--heir to the Austria-Hungarian throne, are both 15-year old but very new to the ways of the worlds they've been thrust into. Most of the story is from both their separate points of view until Deryn's ship crashes near Alek's hide-away in the mountains. 

Once their stories intertwine the story gets more interesting as Deryn teases Alek about his irrational fears and disgusts over the conglomeration of living bodies that make up the Leviathan; Alek makes sure Deryn sees the advantage of machines. In between their banter is the truth of the situation: the survival of everything dear to them depends on teamwork; biotechnology is as necessary as gears, metalwork, and engines. Cooperation is the key to success.

Many interesting characters and since this is so obviously first in the series it will be interesting to see how everyone develops.  It is an intriguing concept written in some historical truth but goes much further with a cyberpunk aspects.  Looks like this will be a trilogy so looking forward to the rest of the books - maybe look for on CD.

Binky the space cat  & Binky to the Rescue by Ashley Spires

This simple graphic novel for young readers is an absolute delight.

Binky is a space cat since he has never left the family "space station" he thinks anything outside the house is outer space.  So Binky has a mission: to blast off into outer space (outside), explore unknown places (the backyard) and battle aliens (bugs). Binky must undergo rigorous training so he can repel the alien attacks that threaten his humans. As he builds his spaceship, he must be extremely careful with his blueprints - the enemy is always watching.

But the enemy are bugs and they are everywhere, so Binky spends a lot of time chasing and eating the bugs to save his humans from life under alien control.

Soon Binky is ready to voyage into outer space. His humans go out there every day and he's sure they need a certified space cat to protect them. But just as he's about to blast off with his co-pilot, Ted (stuffed mousie), Binky realizes that he's left something very important behind and it's not the zero-gravity kitty litter.

In the 2nd book Binky the space cat and Ted, his stuffed mouse, fall out of the window and find themselves adrift in outer space (the backyard), the cat has to rely on his training to combat the aliens (bees and spiders) and to get himself home again. Although the feline returns safely, his trusty cohort has been left behind and Binky must save his best friend as one never leaves a mouse behind!

These are so utterly delightful.  I love the cat elements while still making this kid friendly.  It's hysterical when Binky toots after eating too many bugs "aka aliens".  Can't wait to read more Binky adventures.

Shape of Snakes by Minette Walters

For 20 years Mrs. Ranelagh has quietly collected evidence about the suspicious death of her neighbor, a black woman known as "Mad Annie," whose body was found in the gutter one evening. London police concluded that Annie was hit by a passing truck. But Ranelagh now armed with letters, statements and testimonials from both official and nonofficial sources is convinced she was beaten to death in a fury of racial hatred. Moreover, she suspects that one of her neighbors, or even her husband, Sam, may have been the killer.

From such an intriguingly simple setup springs another searingly narrated psychological drama by Edgar-winner Walters in which manners and other forms of propriety slowly give way to raw, ugly emotion. Ranelagh, the story's narrator, is a middle-aged woman whose restrained public persona masks a bitter, unsparing nature driven by a life of disappointment and futility. She herself was scarred by Annie's death, terrorized in the months following for being a "nigger lover" and publicly doubting the police version. Not only does she want to find out who killed Annie, she wants personal revenge. One by one, she confronts her old neighbors a disparate cast of losers and social climbers now spread across the London area. Ranelagh's search, however, turns into not only a quest for justice but an agonizing odyssey that forces to the surface painful truths about herself and her family.

This was an extremely painful book to read.  There is much about torture of cats and just terrible people in general. I found it almost too much.  But obviously Walters did a lot of research about this and felt it was an important element of the story. I had to skim those parts.  I just can only read one of her books every couple of years as though they are really well done are extremely disturbing.

The cat, the quilt and the corpse : a cats in trouble mystery by Leann Sweeney

Jillian Hart's cat is allergic to people. When she returns home from a quilt show, the sneezing of her cat Chablis raises a red flag. Jillian uses a special shampoo and takes precautions so Chablis has no reactions to her. The sneezing can mean only one thing. Someone has been in her home while she was away. A further examination of the premises reveals that her Abyssinian cat Syrah is nowhere to be found. Convinced that Syrah has been kidnapped, Jillian Hart starts her own investigation, an investigation which leads her to stories of more missing cats and a murder.

Living in a small town South Carolina Jillian hasn't really bonded with anyone as her husband died just after they moved their earlier that year. So everyone knows her business but she is oblivious to what has been going on around her. Her world centers around cats, not only her beautiful rescue cats but she imparts her knowledge and love of cats in everything she does. She makes little cat quilts as a business and for the local shelter. When her cat quilts show up at the murder scene, the clues become even more mysterious and the stakes more personal. As she narrows down the possible suspects, Jillian suspects more cats are in trouble and she might just need to save herself as well.

The ending was unexpected as I really didn't have the killer figured out and enjoyed Jillian try to figure out the small town politics and find connections when she has been isolated for so long.

This was a fun cat mystery that has the flavor of the Cat Who books which used to be one of my favorite series from my high school days.  It makes a nice change from traditional cozy mysteries.  I'm looking forward to more by this author.

Size 12 is not fat! by Meg Cabot

Heather Wells mystery

Twenty-eight-year-old Heather Wells rocked out when she was a teen, as a pop star that toured local malls with the boy band Easy Street. But once she stopped being a teenager, started packing on the pounds, and decided she wanted to write her own songs, Heather lost it all. Her recording contract was promptly taken away, her mother took off with her manager and all of her money to Argentina, and her boyfriend, Easy Street member, Jordan Cartwright, dumped her for the newest hot pop star, Tania Trace. But Heather is finally getting her life back on track. She's the Assistant Residence Hall Director at New York College, and she's even shacking up with one of the hottest guys on earth - okay, just as friends - Cooper Cartwright, Jordan's estranged, private eye brother. But when the body of a female co-ed from Heather's residence hall is discovered at the bottom of an elevator shaft, and everyone claims it's just an accident, Heather knows better, because she knows girls, and girls don't elevator surf. Then another body appears, and Heather knows that two accidents in two weeks is utterly impossible. So she begins investigating. The only problem, by the time she finds out who the killer is, it may be too late...for her.



I haven't read a Meg Cabot book in several years - enjoyed several of the Princess Diaries books.  So I was intrigued to read this book, not realizing she was starting a mystery series.  It is pretty light on the mystery but it was a fun look at college life from someone who really isn't in college but living in the environment.  I'm not sure I liked it enough to read more of the series as I got a bit tired of the drama that was interjected on practically every page.  But after reading the prolog by Cabot I have a whole new appreciation for her and this series.  So I'll try again.

Cinderella Deal by Jennifer Crusie

Eccentric Daisy Flattery collects thrift-store furniture, stray cats, and wishes her life were as interesting as the stories she tells.

When her upstairs, uptight, but incredibly gorgeous neighbor Linc Blaise needs a fiancee to clench a position as a history professor in a small-town college, he, against his better judgment, can't think of anyone who could lie better than Daisy Flattery, professional storyteller (and starving artist).

Linc, a workaholic, with his chrome-and-glass furniture and black Porshe has his life just the way he wants it. He finds himself maddened but attracted-against-his-will to Daisy, with her stray cats, cracked Tiffany lamps, and compulsion to embellish her life at faculty gatherings.

When Linc and Daisy conveniently break up after Linc is hired for the position at the college, the chair of Linc's department makes it clear that a fiancee/wife was part of the bargain. Linc is sufficiently compelled to make a temporary "Cinderella Deal" with Daisy that will change them both.

I listened to this on CD and it was highly entertaining.  I've enjoyed other books by Jennifer Crusie but found this more like her older books so wasn't surprised to find it was a Loveswept book.  She makes a nice change of pace from the seriously intense mysteries I sometimes read.  I find her right up there with Janet Evanovich.

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.

Willoughbys by Lois Lowry

A parody of old-fashioned children's book but also reminiscent of the "Series of Unfortunate Events" series by Lemony Snicket.  Timothy, the oldest of the Willoughby children, makes all the decisions and the youngest, Jane, just wants to be noticed and have a name with more than 1 syllable. Twins Barnaby A and Barnaby B, the middle children, are so alike that their parents can't tell them apart even if they bothered to try and have to share a sweater.  Life is not ideal for these children.

When the youngsters find a beastly baby on their doorstep, they leave it at a rich neighbor's house to get rid of it. The melancholy candy maker tycoon who lives there adopts the baby and his life becomes happy after years of grieving over the death of his wife and son in an avalanche in Switzerland.

Meanwhile, the Willoughby children concoct a plot to get rid of their insufferable parents and turn themselves into orphans by sending them on a dangerous trip. At first the plan seems to have worked as their parents go off on the dangerous trip and do all kinds of dangerous activities but keep sending home postcards describing all the terrible things that happen to everyone but themselves.  To top it all off their parents have put the house on the market to be sold while they are gone.  Their instructions to their children are to pack up all their undies and leave everything else to be sold.  Happily the nanny who comes to take care of them turns out to be just what they need to bring out the best in their personalities.

At the end of the book the 2 storylines intertwine in a satisfying way that leaves everyone happy, except for the Willoughby parents who deserve what they get!

A wonderfully humorous glossary at the end defines old-fashioned words in the story with examples and hints for proper use.   An utter delight.  

Monsieur Pamplemouse by Michael Bond

Aristide Pamplemousse, formerly of the Suret, is now an undercover restaurant-reviewer for Le Guide, and his current assignment is the renowned Hotel-Restaurant La Lagoustine in St. Castille. Soon, however, Pamplemousse is distracted from the super cuisine by escalating mayhem. He's served a nasty plastic head instead of Poularde de Bresse en Vessie Royale. Someone peppers his leg with a shotgun-blast, tries to run him down with a car, etc. The Mafia? But why? Or are the attacks really aimed, perhaps, at another hotel guest? (There's a wealthy, unfortunate young man with two hooks instead of hands--who fears that he's the real victim.)

The mystery isn't really important as I read for the crazy escapades he gets himself into and love the perspective that Pommes Frites provides.  Pample-mousse foolishly pretends to be a man with two wooden legs; he is virtually raped by the hotelier's wife, who's into sandpaper; he escapes her clutches with help from an inflatable, wooden-legged male sex-doll, and he temporarily loses doggie-sidekick Pommes Frites.  We briefly meet Pamplemousse's wife as she is carted away by a crane that removes the gazebo she was lounging on, Pommes Frites on the pursuit.

I love Monsieur Pamplemouse and have read this book several times but every time I find something fresh and it always makes me laugh out loud.  I was so excited to see a new book in the series that came out in 2010! 

My Life as a Book by Janet Tashjian

12 year-old Derek has been identified as a reluctant reader by his teacher and his parents. He likes to read, but doesn't enjoy required materials. He says he prefers having his own adventures (tossing as hand grenades the avocados his mother is saving for dinner, climbing onto the roof with a croquet set to hit wooden balls into the satellite dish) to learning about someone else's life. When his teacher gives the class summer reading and writing assignments, Derek finds a way to distract himself from the task. He discovers an old newspaper clipping about a 17-year-old who drowned, and when he questions his mother about it she won't talk about it.  Of course this makes him obsessed with knowing why they saved this article until his mother finally explains that the teen was babysitting him at the time and died saving him. Derek is determined to learn more about her death and his involvement in it.

 
After one more stunt, his parents decide that he needs to be kept busy so send him to Study Camp where kids go to learn!  There he meets up with one of his least favorite classmates, teacher's pet Carly. But one day after camp they give Carly a ride home he discovers that Carly is really interesting and not just a teachers pet.  She has set up a maze of string to get through to get the prize. 
 
Finally Derek convinces his parents they should go visit his grandmother, who lives close to Martha's Vinyard, so he can find out for himself what really happened when he wsa 2 years old.  But he really discovers is that everyone has a story and while some may not be the real story it is the one that helps them get by.
 
The book takes place from end of school year to the beginning of the new year.  Through out the book there are drawings in the the margins that feature vocabulary words illustrated with cartoons.  While I found the character Derek extremely ADHD and annoying there was something kind of endeering about him and his quest for the truth. 

Minding Frankie by Maeve Binchy

A Dublin neighborhood full of many of the characters bands together to help a young single father raise his daughter.  Aware she will not survive her baby's birth, fatally ill Stella tells alcoholic loner Noel that he is the father. He doesn't remember having actual sex with Stella and is far from certain he wants or can handle the responsibility. But with the help and encouragement of his cousin Emily, in Dublin on an extended visit from New York, Noel stops drinking and takes custody of baby Frankie after Stella's death at St. Brigid's Hospital.

His transformation from loser to responsible, loving father and his struggle to convince his uptight social worker that he is fit to raise Frankie forms the central plot. But there are many subplots as there often are in Binchy novels.  But she is the queen of connecting everyone together, though in this story it wasn't as far fetched as other books I've read.  Social worker Moira seems like the stereotypical uptight bureaucrat at first, but her loneliness and painful self-awareness of her failure to connect to others become increasingly heart-wrenching. Moira has to overcome an unhappy family situation, as does Lisa, a graphic artist who moves in as Noel's platonic housemate to escape her parents' sham marriage, although she's in her own sham love affair with a flashy restaurateur. Circling everywhere, is cousin Emily, who on a whim comes to visit family she has never met but finds herself a family far more than she ever imagined.

Mave Binchy has this wonderful way of weaving a story together.  But she deals with everyday life including the good and bad - death, birth, addiction that feels believeable yet not too sweet.  Having to read when one of the older characters died from cancer was heart breaking as it is very close to home.  My favorite book by Maeve Binchy will always "Evening Class" but this one was right up there.

Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer L. Holm

Set in summer of 1935, eleven-year-old Turtle is sent to Key West Florida to live with her mother's family whom she has never met.  Her favorite saying is "Life isn't like the movies, and eleven-year-old Turtle is no Shirley Temple." She's smart and tough and has seen enough of the world not to expect a Hollywood ending. After all, it's 1935, and jobs and money and sometimes even dreams are scarce. So when Turtle's mama gets a job housekeeping for a lady who doesn't like kids, Turtle says goodbye without a tear and heads off to Key West, Florida, to stay with relatives she's never met.Unfortunately, Turtle's Mama has neglected to tell Aunt Minnie she's coming, and Turtle gets the stink eye from cousins with monikers like Buddy and Beans. As Turtle soon learns, everything is different in Key West, from the fruit hanging on trees to the scorpions in nightgowns to the ways kids earn money. She can't be part of her cousins' Diaper Gang (no girls allowed), which takes care of fussy babies, but when she finds a treasure map, she hopes she'll be on Easy Street like Little Orphan Annie.

Florida's like nothing Turtle has ever seen. It's hot and strange, full of wild green peeping out between houses, ragtag boy cousins, and secret treasure. Before she knows what's happened, Turtle finds herself coming out of the shell she has spent her life building, and as she does, her world opens up in the most unexpected ways.Full of flavor of Southern Florida and set during the depression this realistic but funny story of a place and time that feels as fresh as when it actually happened.  It makes me want to go to that part of the country and see it for myself.  I found the author's notes particularly interesting as she explains much of the story comes from the stories her grandmother told.

Highly Effective Detective by Richard Yancey
A Teddy Ruzak series

After his mother dies, Teddy Ruzak who has always been an overweight man and just done what was expected of him decides to start his own business. Failing to become a policeman, he's been a security guard for years; now is the time to break out and get into detective work, the reason he was first drawn to law enforcement. Ruzak is an ironic antihero who not only doesn't know much about detecting, but also can't avoid getting suckered by his newly hired assistant (who goes on shopping sprees with his money) or the local deputy (who is too interested in the case of the gosling hit-and-run to be above anyone's suspicion except Ruzak's). The small-town Tennessee setting is both corny and cozy, but not all of the characters here are sweet: in addition to the gosling killer, there's a man with two dead wives and an arsonist.  But how he puts all the pieces together is truly genius.

This was actually a good and believable read as it felt like someone who really didn't know what they were doing opening their own detective agency and somehow making it work.

Case of the missing servant : from the files of Vish Puri, India's "most private investigator"  by Tarquin Hall

Vish Puri, India's Most Private Investigator uses stealth, cunning and above all discretion to help his clients. He holds many accolades including the 1999 Super Sleuth award from the World Federation of Detectives.  But he dearly loves to eat, especially food that is not good for me him as he is called "Chubby" for a reason.  Vish Puri would readily admit that the vast majority of his clients come to him for the mundane purpose of domestic spying.

So when noted Jaipur attorney Ajay Kasliwal hires Most Private Investigations, Ltd. to locate the missing housemaid he's suspected of killing, Puri is ecstatic at the chance for some real detection. Slipping his agent, a Nepalese beauty called Facecream, into the Kasliwal manage to mingle with the servants, Puri has his driver, Handbrake, take him on a tour of the Pink City to see where a simple country girl from Jharkand might hide.

Meanwhile, after an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Puri's life - his Mummy comes to town to find out who is behind the attack.  We learn that Puri's father was a police detective and Mummy used to help advise him on cases.  I enjoyed this side storyline as it gave more depth to the storyline.  I enjoyed the hustle and bustle the story portrayed of modern day India yet kept some of the magic of this exotic place.  Puri was great fun and I had no idea of how corrupt another place could be.  The mystery really wasn't the main focus as it was more about the place and the people.

Bad Day for Sorry by Sophie Littlefield

Stella Hardesty, a widow and survivor of domestic violence, who owns a sewing shop in a sleepy Missouri town.  Thankfully Stella lives in a small town where while people may ignore the problems they know what the problems.  So after Stella gets off after killing her husband in "self-defence" after years of physical and mental abuse.  She needs more than the sewing shop to keep her mind occupied.

Stella believes that she needs to help battered women like she was as a form of redemption for putting up with Ollie much too long and as an avenging angel dispatching retribution on these bullies. Stella keeps an eye on Roy Dean Shaw, ex mean ass husband of gentle mom Chrissy Shaw. When Roy Dean abducts Chrissy's two years old son Tucker, Stella decides this punk needs a permanent lesson in how to treat a lady. She affirms her feelings about this abusive moron when she learns he is part of the stolen auto parts mob. Chrissy, upset with his taking her infant, has had enough. As Sheriff Goat Jones watches Stella with his dreamy eyes, she hopes it is for her body and not her activity as she leads Chrissy into hell as they team up to take care of Roy Dean and his car ring associates to rescue the baby from the mob.

I'm not sure how I heard about this book but the title definitely intrigued me.  But it was a lot more to it than this kind of glib cover suggests.  It appears there is a sequel so I'm looking forward to it.

Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella

Lara has always had an overactive imagination. Now she wonders if she is losing her mind. Normal twenty-something girls just don’t get visited by ghosts! But inexplicably, the spirit of Lara’s great aunt Sadie – in the form of a bold, demanding Charleston-dancing girl – has appeared to make one last request: Lara must track down a missing necklace Sadie simply can’t rest without.

Lara’s got enough problems of her own. Her start-up company is floundering, her best friend and business partner has run off to Goa, and she’s just been dumped by the love of her life.

But as Lara spends time with Sadie, life becomes more glamorous and their treasure hunt turns into something intriguing and romantic. Could Sadie’s ghost be the answer to Lara’s problems and can two girls from different times end up learning something special from each other?

Great fun, and reminded me of Topper which was one of my favorite childhood movies and series.  I will say that the reader of the book on CD was able to make the most shrill voice when Sadie would do her yelling to make herself heard moments.  Even I wanted to do what she wanted just so she would shut up! 

Sophie Kinsella really does a good job writting comedic British romances.  If you like ghost stories that aren't scary crossed with Bridget Jones's Diary then this is the right book for you.