Trust Your Eyes by Linwood Barclay
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Thomas and Ray, Thomas is the map obsessed brother, sees someone with a bag over their head in a computer map. Ok, Alison affair with Brooke, enter dirty corrupt politicians, Alison tries to blackmail Brooke, Brooke gets killed by mistake, more people die, Thomas and Ray live, Thomas pushed the dad down the hill ...... 3 stars, some twists, nothing here that is WOW .........

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The Cleanup by Sean Doolittle
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Ok, nothing special here, a good story, the good guy gets away with helping the girl in the end. Matt helps co-worker that kills her abusive boyfriend. Boyfriend has $250k in his car that they did not know about, enter bad guys and bad cops, they die, Matt and the girl (the girl last you hear is in a drug induced coma recovering) as I said get away with it.

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The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

After loving "The Shadow of the Wind" I was so disappointed in this prequil. The reviews said that the 'occult' was a bigger part and oh brother was it ....... not to my liking at all. This guy can write one paragraph and convey such feeling, I just did not need all that, thus my low rating, might be more your cup of tea, but not mine. Anyway David falls in love with a woman that marries his best friend and benefactor, Cristina. He signs up with the devil to write a 'religion' and goes crazy in the process, Vidal kills himself, David kills several policemen, Cristina ended up in an asylum and dies out on a lake as David is trying to reach her, she was about to get better and take David away from the devil. During the story the daughter of the grocer comes to live with David, her name is Isabella, and is just a delight and also in love with him, but Davis can never get over Cristina. Isabella goes on to marry Daniels dad the owner of the bookshop. David escapes all the mayhem, but is forever young, with all of his heart ache. The bad guy shows back up at the end with Cristina as a child and give her to David, so that he can watch her grow old and die ......... REALLY, REALLY ...... booo hisss on this ending .... it will be a long shot for me to pick up the third one.

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The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is now on my Best Ever shelf, so if you have not .... read it. An amazing story with many charcters, times and twists, stories within stories. I have never read a book with some many neat angles and plots. Daniel and Bea are married, Fumero is killed, Jullian escapes Daniel (and his friend Tomas)Julian (and his friends), Penelope, Nuria, Bea ...... Nuria is the daughter of Issac the Keeper at the Cemetary of Forgotten Books ....
My odd notes from the book, just so that I could keep up;
Julian brought to the autopsy clinic September 1936

Nuria visited Julian they became lovers, but Nuira knew that Julian would always love Penelope, Nuria left without saying goodbye

The police come to Daniel and his dad apartment looking for Fermin, a neighbor comes later with a paper that say Fermin murdered Nuria Monfort

Nuria Monfort is the daughter of Issac the keeper at the Cemetery of Forgotten Books

Fremin was a spy in earlier life, Fumero, worked for the communists, Fremin was tortured and gave up his superiors, they were killed, from then on Fremin lived on the street and in prison, hounded by Fumero

Daniel's best friend in Tomas Aguilar, Tomas sister is Bea,

Daniel and Bea meet there again, are about to make love in a bathroom, there was some warmth there, when the door is broken down, and no one is there, before leaving Daniel goes through and down stairs that was locked before, he is in a crypt, and discovers two white coffins, one has Penelope's name on it and the dates of 1902-1919, then her hears Lain Coubert say 'get out of here' .... Daniel and Bea make it out of the house with nothing else happening, Bea promises to call in the next day or 2, she does not, she does not call that whole week, THE LAST WEEK OF DANIEL'S LIFE. He would be dead in 7 days.

Daniel and Bea..... Daniel takes Bea to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, they briefly kiss, then they meet again, at the old house of Jorge and Penelope, which is supposed to be haunted and full of bad history, they make love there, and promise to meet there again, why there with all its bad history.

Penelope disappeared in 1919, a year after Julian went to Paris, Penelope's family went to either America or Argentina

Penelope and Julian fell in love, and were going to escape to Paris with Miquel's help, the week before leaving they are discovered making love in Jacinta's room by Penelope's mother. Julian escapes to Paris, Jucianta is kicked out of the Aldaya household and is committed to an asylum for two years, she never sees Penelope again.

Jacinta Coronado was Jorge and Penelope's governess

Julian is friends with Jorge, Miquel and Javier in school, Javier tried to kill Julian the last year they were in school together, Javier was obsessed with Penelope

Julian is supposedly killed the day before his wedding in a dual. Possibly by someone from his supposed wives family, she was elderly and had supported him and was going to leave him an inheritance. Quite a bit of mystery around Julian's murder, who killed him, was he killed, did his father ID him, when he was at the morgue he never verbally said, 'that's him', Fumero was probably in the morgue at this time, he spit on the corpse face and told them to bury the person in common grave at Montjuic.

Jorge and Julian were childhood friends

There surfaces a picture of Penelope and Julian, along with a letter from Penelope about her love for him

Jorge Aldaya and Penelope Aldaya are probably husband and wife

Talking with Nuria Munfort about Julian, Julian real father was not his mothers husband, this guy verbally abused Julian, calling him a son of sin.

Gustavo and Clara Barcelo, housekeeper is Bernada, Clara is blind, and Daniel fell for her when he was very young, he walked in on her making love to her music teacher. Gustavo wanted to buy the book from Daniel from the very beginning.


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The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Its a good story, it just did not have the suspense to rate any higher, Margaret Lea is asked by Vida Winter to write his life's story. Vida is England's most famous author. Vida was abandoned at the Angelfield home, father was Charles, who was mentally incompetent, Charles sister, Isabelle had twin daughters Emmeline and Adeline, Adeline was also nuts. Vida lived amongst the twins as a ghost, Emmeline who is also mentally pretty much a child gets pregnant and has a child. Adeline becomes jealous of the baby and one night tries to burn it to death, Vida saves the baby, but kills one of the twins, you're not really ever sure who, because of the survivor is horribly burnt in the house fire. Vida takes Emmeline's baby to a neighbor to be raised ........ as I was saying ..... a good story, I found it compelling but it did not capture me.

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The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Its a good book, Harold is a mostly likeable guy ........ Harold gets a letter from a long lost friend, the friend is dying of cancer and writes to say goodbye. Harold pens a reply and ends up walking 600ish miles to take the letter to her. I did not like that Harold once on his way did not prepare for the walk, he stayed with his yachting shoes, and shunned a back pack for a long time .... he also feel into and out of bouts of depression on the trip, some seemed "jump the shark' to me, the whole 'pilgrim' thing was also Forrest Gumpish ..... he makes it there, learns and remembers many things about life and his marriage, and his son David, (how committed suicide). Queenie is barely alive when he makes it, she can not even speak and barely even knows he is there, Queenie passes just after his visit. Harold and his wife are restored.

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