Rainshadow Road

Rainshadow Road by Lisa Kleypas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When Lucy Marinn's boyfriend of two years dumps her for her younger sister, she is devastated. She immerses herself in her glasswork and swears off men, even when one comes to her rescue after a drunk spills his beer on her in a crowded bar. Sam Nolan may be handsome and kind, but he's also pathologically afraid of commitment, having grown up with the town drunks as parents. However, when Lucy is hit by a car and ends up in the hospital, Sam again comes to her rescue and agrees to care for her at his house. Magic is in the air, though--literally--and broken hearts begin to heal.

For readers' advisors: character and story doorways. The book is set in Friday Harbor, Washington. There are a few sex scenes.

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The Woman Who Died a Lot

The Woman Who Died A Lot by Jasper Fforde
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Just sit back and enjoy the wacky ride. Thursday Next is back, a bit more battered than before but still just as determined to save the world from the Goliath Corporation. This time around she's also battling to save the library budget from elimination, find a missing criminal who can manipulate memories, prevent an imminent scheduled smiting of the Swindon business district by the Global Standard Deity, discover the purpose of the illegal body doubles, find out what Jack Schitt is plotting and stop him, keep a genius daughter with bad taste in boyfriends on track to get her Anti-Smite Shield invention working, and figure out why her son is going to murder someone on Friday at 14:02. Among other things. It's a whirlwind of complicated and crazy subplots.

Favorite moments: the reference to Nancy Pearl on page 100!  Thursday's desk has a dedicated red phone with a single button labeled "NP."  It's the emergency hotline to Nancy at the World League of Librarians, and if you summon her, she'll be on the first gravitube from Seattle.  HA!  Also, page 108 and the "Shush Law" that OK'ed violence by librarians against thieves and vandals.

What I love most about Fforde's novels is that they are so very chaotic and zany. They are nonstop action and nonsense that somehow come together in the end to make perfect sense in their own unique way. This series is pure fun , and I love escaping into Fforde's crazy reality.

For reader's advisors: setting and story doorways. Some mild swearing.

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