I'm listening to a wonderful book in the car right now -- Second Glance, by Jodi Picoult. It's a love story and a mystery and a ghost story, all wrapped up in one. There's one story involving a young man who's tried over and over again to kill himself, but been unsuccessful--he no longer wants to live after the death of his fiancé, but nothing he does seems to work. He has a sister who's a librarian, and a nephew who has a rare illness that will probably cause him to die young.
There's another story about a young bride in the 1930's and her sad life and death, one about a development company that wants to build a strip mall on top of a possible Indian burial ground, and a single mother with a young daughter who may be seeing ghosts, or she may be psychotic. I'm in the last third of the book, and all of the story lines are coming together. There are quite a few goose-bumpy, shivery moments; I can hardly stand to stop listening when I get where I'm going. At least it makes the drive to and from work interesting.
I think I mentioned the other day that I'm on a "theme" mystery kick. In the past couple of weeks I've read the four "dead end job mysteries" by Elaine Viets: Shop Till You Drop (dead-end job: sales clerk at exclusive boutique), Murder Between the Covers (chain bookstore clerk), Dying to Call You (telemarketer), and Just Murdered (bridal shop clerk).
In these books, 42 year old Helen is in hiding from her ex-husband and is forced to work a series of "dead-end jobs" that will pay her in cash, because she can't take the risk of applying for a job that would cause her to show up on government records. She lives in a tacky apartment complex in Ft. Lauderdale populated with an interesting cast of Florida characters.
Sometimes I just want something light, that I don't have to give a lot of thought to. Something entertaining. Okay, that's mostly all the time. I choose the books I read because I want to relax and be entertained. I don't have a lot of time to read anymore, so I'm pretty discriminating. If I'm going to devote my time to a book (and spend my money on it), I want to be sure it's something that I'm going to enjoy.
The fifth book in the series--Murder Unleashed--has Helen working as a dog groomer. It just came out in hardback, so I've put it on my wait list at the library.
In their apparent quest to make Amazon.com the place where the world goes to buy absolutely everything, Amazon is now selling groceries (non-perishable items only). I can't remember now how I got to the page, but I discovered that they're selling Stash tea, and they even have some of the loose teas, like the Kopili Assam that Bob likes. It's about the same price as it is at Stash, so not really a bargain, but it's nice to know that there's another place to order it from.
