What are you currently reading?

[QualityBookReviews]

An open discussion on what everyone is currently reading. Make recommendations to others, discuss what is new, hot, bestsellers, anything and everything related to books and the authors.

[Joy Calderwood]

Mesmerizing, and very suspenseful. I don't want to talk about the plot, because almost anything would be a spoiler. I took BREAKING DAWN out with me yesterday morning for errands. I had barely started it then, but by the time I got home at the end of the day I was halfway through it (700+ pages). It was the reason I didn't sign onto the computer for the rest of the day, and again I didn't sleep until I finished it.

Potential readers should bear in mind that the four books are one complete novel. I did find it possible to postpone reading the next book until it was going to be convenient to spend much of a day on it.

I read the first chapter of MIDNIGHT SUN, up on Meyer's website. It is well polished and powerful. I am not going to read the pirated partial early draft of the book. I will buy the book and read it when the author considers it ready.

[Loretta Wheeler]

I haven't read Midnight Sun ( on her site) but I'll be drifting there to check it out in the next day or so. Like you, I found the books so captivating, that I was clearing the deck on as much as I could so I could read:)...I'm glad you enjoyed them as much as I did:)

[Gus Cileone]

Well, I'm playing catch-up, so I just finished the second Dexter book, Dearly Devoted Dexter. Like the first, the main character's voice is great - ironic and funny. Jeff Lindsay really gets into the head of this very different serial killer, and shows how alien he is to the human race. But, the TV series, in my opinion, is better, because it devlops the secondary characters much better than the books do.

Gus Cileone
A Lesson in Murder
www.augustuscileone.com

[Karyn J. Powers]

Just finished Nevada Barr's latest and started Thomas Perry's RUNNER. On my dining room table sit Harlen Coben's LONG LOST and Dana Stabenow's WHISPER TO THE BLOOD waiting to be read.

[HappyRuby]

I recently read Runner and thought it was good. It looks as though there may be more books in the series coming in the future.

[Joy Calderwood]

It feels good to get back to Dana Stabenow's Kate Shugak series. I have so many books forcing themselves on my notice that it's been two years since I read a sequence of this series, even though I love them. The one I just finished is A GRAVE DENIED. Vigor, vitality, and Alaska, my favorite vicarious setting.

[I. J. Parker]

I had to toss Colin Cotterill's DISCO OF THE DEAD in the middle. (John D. won't like that :)) Can't take the woo-woo all mixed in with communist regime realities. I'm now reading Morag Joss, FEARFUL SYMMETRY. It's a rather slow traditional mystery with a lot of music stuff in it and some irritating head-jumping between a pair of lovers. Shades of romance novels! Can't believe she won an Edgar. (Though maybe not with this one).

[Loretta Wheeler]

I'm "trying" to read Dean Koontz's The Face, but it's taking me awhile...it just doesn't move a slick as some of his previous work.

[HappyRuby]

I am reading A Carrion Death by Michael Stanley. I have the second book in this series on the way for review so I wanted to get the first one read before that book arrives. I'm really enjoying reading various books set in different countries and different cultures.

[Loretta Wheeler]

I agree, reading about those far-away places takes you to where you may never go physically, but can visit and enjoy mentally:)

[Joy Calderwood]

Finished the last 4 Kate Shugak books, ending with WHISPER TO THE BLOOD (for now). I didn't want to leave Kate's world when I finished, so I'm starting the whole series over.

There are sure a lot of plot lines waiting for A NIGHT TOO DARK next year.

[Harley Sachs]

I'm reading Dan Browns "Angels and Demons" but find it formulaic and it breaks one of the rules of sci-fi: only ask your readers to suspend disbelief in one instance. The book begins with a flight aboard a super fast jet plane that flies Mach 15. In sci-fi the story has to be about that plane and how people are involved and react to the situation. Of course, Brown only uses the plane as a throwaway gimmick and though I haven't read very far I know the plane won't have another appearance.

Of greater interest is the book I just finished: "How to Break a Terrorist" which is nonfiction about the interrogations in Iraq that led to the killing of arch terrorist Zarqawi. For readers of police procedural fiction, this is an enlightening book and shows how to get information without torture. It is superb and wellconstructed.

My own book, "Conspiracy" is finally out from Zumaya. It's about urban terrorists stalking the author of a best seller. Took years to get this one in print. Zumaya is going to bundle a re-release of my mystery "Ben Zakkai's Coffin" with it. You can read about this at my web site www.hu.mtu.edu/~hlsachs.