Hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

Three To Get Deadly by Janet Evanovich

Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum is getting the wrath of the neighborhood for looking for Uncle Mo, the owner of a candy store.  But why has he disappeared and do it have anything to do with the disappearance of drug dealers?

No Biking in the House Without a Helmetby Melissa Fay Greene

The author and her husband had four biological children and then decided to adopt on more child.  They chose a Romany boy from Romania.  Learning about AIDS orphans in Ethiopia led them to eventually adopting four more children.  This book is story of their international adoptions and learning to function as a family.

I listened to the audio and it was well done.  This was an interesting story.  All of the adopted children had living relatives so they were involved in determining the best life for the child too. 

The Wedding Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini

This book jumps the timeline of her Elm Creek Quilt series forward 25 years.  It discusses all the weddings that have happened at Elm Creek Manor.  There is a lot of review of earlier stories.  This is happening more and more in this series instead of making entirely new stories.  I don’t like it.
I went to my first ever author talk with her on Friday and she explained it as wanting to finish up a lot of side stories without devoting whole books to them. I guess that explains it but this still isn’t a favorite.

Four to Score by Janet Evanovich

Stephanie Plum is trying to find a woman who didn’t show up to court on charges that she stole her boyfriend’s car.  When the woman’s mother and friend start losing body parts and her boyfriend is getting coded messages, Stephanie has to get creative to try to track her down.

The Winter Palace: A Novel of Catherine the Great by Eva Stachiniak

This is historical fiction about the rise to power of Catherine the Great as seen through the eyes of a spy in the house of Empress Elizabeth, her mother in law.

I loved this book. It pulled me in from the beginning. I didn’t know anything about this period of Russian history. This book goes from the arrival of Sophie, a German princess, as a potential mate for Crown Prince Peter to her renaming as Catherine at the time of her marriage to her coup to claim the crown. There is a sequel in the works to cover her reign.

In a Heartbeat: Sharing the Power of Cheerful Giving by Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy

This audio book was by the people who adopted Michael Oher and inspired the movie The Blind Side. I think it is partially about setting the story straight after the fictionalized version people saw in the movie and partially about trying to inspire people to help out other people. It is alternating between Sean and Leigh Anne with interludes by their kids and other people. I found Sean the most interesting.