ONE FOR THE MONEY by Janet Evanovich

This is the first in the Stephanie Plum stories in which Stephanie becomes a

bail bondsman.  She meets Ranger a mysterious security/bondsman who teaches her about the business but he is not a large part of the story. In this story a cop named Morelli is wanted for shooting an unarmed man

and Stephanie is out to bring him in for ten thousand dollars.  Eventually,

she is able to apprehend him and also help to clear his name. 

WHEN CHRISTMAS COMES by Debbie Macomber

When Emily's daughter, Heather, tells her mother that she is not coming home for Christmas but intends to stay at Harvard to work and sutdy, Emily decides to travel across the country and surprise her daughter for Christmas.  When she arrives she finds that Heather did not intend to work and study but to take a motorcycle trip to Florida with a biker boyfriend.  Emily has traded her home with a Harvard professor who is trying to get away from Christmas and work on a textbook he is writing and she is unable to return home until her arrangement with him is over.  Meanwhile, Emily's friend, Faith, decides to pay a surprivse Christmas visit to Emily only to find that the professor is staying in Emily's house and Emily is across country.  Unable to find another place to stay she stays with the professor and they strike up a relationship.  The professor's brother checks in on him to satify his mother's concern and finds Emily occupying his brother's condo in Boston.  You guessed it.  They strike up a relationship, too.  Heather, finds the biker boy undesirable and flies home to Boston to be with her mother and they all live happily ever after.  This was a feel good story, just right for a very easy Christmas read.

I have just recently discovered books by this author and am enjoying reading the Aurora Teagarden Mystery series which this book is from.  Aurora and her husband, Martin, are surprised one day when Martin's niece, Regina, shows up with a baby.  They put her up in an apartment above their garage and then go to a dinner party.  When they come home they find Regina missing, her husband dead on the stairway to the apartment and the baby sleeping under the bed.  This is only the beginning......  There is a lot more mayhem to occur in this story.  This is not an all's well that ends well story so read to the very end to find out if your predictions of who done it are correct and if you were able to guess how this story ends.

THREE BEDROOMS, ONE CORPSE by Charlaine harris

This was a really fun and light mystery story about Aurora Teagarden.  Aurora is a librarian who recently inherited quite a bit of money and a home from a friend.  She decides to quit her job and as a librarian and become involved in her mother's real estate agency.  However, there have been items stolen from listed homes and several real estate agents have been murdered. Of course,  Aurora becomes involved in sorting through the clues to the burglaries and murders. The story gets interesting when Aurora, a young thirty-something, gives up dating a minister when she falls in love with an interesting older man. In the end, Aurora nails the thief and murderer and finds herself wearing a "huge" engagement ring. This was a fun, easy book to  read and has me reading another story in this series.

TRUE COLORS by Kristin Hannah

This is a story of the relationship between sisters who strive to make sure nothing comes between family and their desire to support one another.  They are tightly bound by the loss of their mother while they were young and have worked to maintain family traditions to help keep their mother's memory alive.  Their father is unable to relate to his daughters and give them a parent's unconditional love.The story takes place at the family ranch where horses are trained. Each of the girls struggle with personal problems and these struggles impact their  relationships with each other.  One of the girls finds that special guy only to have her life  turned upside down when he is sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit.She finds that one of the sisters cannot support her because she thinks he is guilty.  Their son struggles with behavior and school problems during the years his father is gone but this story has a happy ending for almost all of the characters in the book.  You will have to read the book to find out who just can't pull it together in the end.  So far, this is my favorite Kristin Hannah book.  Can't wait to read on.  I hear there are other great ones.

SMOKIN' SEVENTEEN by Janet Evanovich

This may well be the best book that Janet Evanovich has written in this series and I
have really enjoyed this series.  Stephanie Plum is a rather inept bonds enforcement officer and is always involved in bungling the apprehension of the people she is trying to capture.  Someone is always trying to kill her but she always ends up being one of the few people in the story that goes unharmed.  In this story, Stephanie is still conflicted about the two guys in her life. (Morelli and Ranger)  This has her mother trying to fix her up with a guy who was once the captain of the high school football team.  Her grandmother who sometimes plays a big part of her stories plays a lesser role for this story but Morelli's grandmother puts curses on Stephanie.  Of course,  people get killed and there are clues that the murderer is after Stephanie, also.  Read this book to find out who it is that is after Stephanie and be sure not to read the the end of the story first because this story has a great ending.

SUMMER RENTAL by Mary Kay Andrews

Summer Rental is just what you think.....a great beach read.  I have read all of Mary Kay Andrews books and they keep you entertained.  This book is easy to read, you can read it in spurts and not forget what you have read earlier.  This is a story of three childhood best  friends staying together in a beach house for a month to reconnect with each other.  Of  course, each one is dealing with personal life-relationship issues and each finds the love of their life during their month at the beach.  I enjoyed this story a lot and will look forward to the next book by this author.

HEAVEN IS FOR REAL by Todd Burpo

     I loved this book!!!  This is a great story of hope for all believers. The story is told by the author whose son who was very ill went to heaven and then came back.  The author relates the glimpses that his young son reveals over time of what he said, did, and saw while he was in heaven. You learn a lot about heaven from this story.  Jesus will be the first person you see and you won't be old!! Each chapter helps us understand what we can expect when we pass over and gives us peace in knowing that those that have passed on before us are waiting there for us.This would be a great book for a family that has lost a child through miscarriage as the son tells his babysitter about the little sister he saw in heaven but never knew he had.  Everybody should read this book!!!

HALF BROKE HORSES and THE GLASS CASTLE by Jeannette Walls

 This story is listed as a true-life novel about the life of the author's grandmother.  If you like stories about strong women who lived a rough lives,  this might be the story for you.  There are many good qualities told about the main character, Lily Casey, the mustang-breaking, poker-playing, horse-race-winning schoolmarm.  The story tells of how she had to adapt to life's circumstances and her ideas on raising and teaching children. At one turn, I would be thinking how strong and inventive this lady was but I also was always thinking in the back of my mind that Lily was a little over the edge. This was an easy read and I recommend reading this book first and then read the story of  THE GLASS CASTLE which continues to tell the family history as it unfolds two generations later.  This story tells how the dysfunction in families sometimes gets carried on into the next generation and how the children struggle to be set free from their family's troubles.  Teenagers that think their parents are embarrassing or weird would benefit from reading this book.  They will be sure to look at their "normal" parents in a more favorable light.

Summer Island by Kristin Hannah

Kristin Hannah writes books in which her characters struggle with personal relationships and this is true in the story of Summer Island.  This story deals with a family that is torn apart when the mother walks out from the family unit. The daughters in the story struggle with relationships and yearn for understanding for why their mother would do this to them.  The younger daughter, Ruby, deals with feelings of hatred for her mother and decides to write a "Mommy Dearest" article for a magazine only to return to her childhood home to care for her mother who has been injured in car accident.  During her stay with her mother, truths about the cause of her parents' breakup are revealed and Ruby rediscovers her mother.  In the end Ruby is able to rediscover other relationships from her childhood and is able to make an important committment.
If you liked other Kristin Hannah books you will also like this one.  It was a quick read and I only shed a few tears.  A secondary character in the book has cancer -  if that is a topic you shy away from.

First graders just love having the Junie B. Jones series of books read to them. My favorite is Junie B. Jones is a Beauty Shop Guy.  If your child has ever cut their own hair or practiced cutting the hair of their stuffed animals or baby brother or sister, you will relate to this book. I've read this book at least 10 times and I still  laugh every time I read this to my class.