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Topic: 2 for 1! Thrillers/Horror/Chick Lit and More!

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magnoliafly avatar
Subject: 2 for 1! Thrillers/Horror/Chick Lit and More!
Date Posted: 7/24/2007 8:51 AM ET
Member Since: 5/2/2007
Posts: 57
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Please msg me with your request and the book you want with your 2 for 1.  Also post here your choice so everyone else knows, I will be checking and updating periodically throughout the day.  I will be scouring my shelves for more tonight.

Thanks!

Recently updated my bookshelf:

4 Blondes :: Candace Bushnell


Abduction :: Robin Cook

Along Came a Spider (Alex Cross Novels) :: James Patterson

Black Creek Crossing : A Novel :: John Saul

The Brethren :: John Grisham

The Brethren is in many respects his most daring book yet. The novel grows from two separate subplots. In the first, three imprisoned ex-judges (the "brethren" in the title), frustrated by their loss of power and influence, concoct an elaborate blackmail scheme that preys on wealthy, closeted gay men. The second story traces the rise of presidential candidate Aaron Lake, a puppet essentially created by CIA director Teddy Maynard to fulfill Maynard's plans for restoring the power of his beleaguered agency.

Carriers :: Patrick Lynch

The Cat Who Tailed a Thief (Cat Who...) :: Lilian Jackson Braun

In this latest, The Cat Who Tailed A Thief, Koko again exhibits his preternatural intelligence by trying to tip off Qwilleran to important clues to a murder. That Qwilleran is not possessed of the same mental acuity as his cat is what makes this series work. Braun may not be noted for refined prose, perceptive characterizations, or stunningly original plots, but what she does do well is cats. Fans of felines in general and Koko in particular will find this book, the 19th in the Qwilleran series, almost as irresistible as, well, catnip. Some would even say it's purr-fect.

Chromosome 6 :: Robin Cook

Dr. Kevin Marshall worries that he has traded his ethics for a gleaming futuristic lab. Meanwhile, stateside, Dr. Jack Stapleton, a forensic pathologist, is deeply troubled by an unidentified body that is missing various parts. Jack and his colleague, Laurie, identify the corpse as that of a Mafia kingpin, and their investigation leads them to Africa.

The Cider House Rules :: John Irving

The basis for the popular film.

Contagion :: Robin Cook

Cradle and All :: James Patterson

Desperation :: Stephen King

A notice to those who feel that Stephen King has lost his magic touch: Desperation is the genuine goods. The ensemble cast of ordinary Americans thrown together by chance, including a disgruntled alcoholic writer and a child who is wise beyond his years, may be a bit too familiar. But the nearly deserted Nevada mining town with an enormous haunted mine pit and an abandoned movie theatre where the survivors hang out makes for a striking battleground, and the grisly action rarely flags. Best of all, though, are the characters of Tak, the ancient body-hopping evil who emerges from the mine, and of "God"--whom the New York Times describes as "the edgiest creation in Desperation. Remote, isolated, ironic, shrouded behind disguises, perhaps 'another legendary shadow,' this deity forms a sly foil, and an icy mirror, to Tak."

The Firm :: John Grisham

Hard to believe, but there was a time when the word "lawyer" wasn't synonymous with "criminal," and the idea of a law firm controlled by the Mafia was an outlandish proposition. This intelligent, ensnaring story came out of nowhere--Oxford, Mississippi, where Grisham was a small-town lawyer--and quickly catapulted to the top of the bestseller list, with good reason. Mitch McDeere, the appealing hero, is a poor kid whose only assets are a first-class mind, a Harvard law degree, and a beautiful, loving wife. When a Memphis law firm makes him an offer he really can't refuse, he trades his old Nissan for a new BMW, his cramped apartment for a house in the best part of town, and puts in long hours finding tax shelters for Texans who'd rather pay a lawyer than the IRS. Nothing criminal about that. He'd be set for life, if only associates at the firm didn't have a funny habit of dying, and the FBI wasn't trying to get Mitch to turn his colleagues in. The tempo and pacing are brilliant, the thrills keep coming, and the finish has a wonderful ironic flourish. It's not hard to see why Grisham changed the genre permanently with this one, and few of his colleagues in a very crowded field come close to equaling him.

Girl, Interrupted :: Susanna Kaysen


Godplayer :: Robin Cook

Dr. Cassandra Kingsley is about to discover that neither her marriage nor her job is what she thought. And when she sets out to find the truth, it may just kill her.

The Horse Whisperer :: Nicholas Evans

One morning while teenage Grace Maclean is riding Pilgrim, her goofy, loveable pony, she has a horrendous glass-shattering, bone-splintering, ligament-lynching meeting with a megaton truck that leaves her and her four-legged friend damaged in mind, body, and spirit. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, her jaded, brilliant, bitchy mom, Annie Graves (Kristin Scott Thomas in the 1998 film) is working out a wrinkle in her self-absorbed existence when she gets a call at her plush, Manhattan office about Grace's accident. Racked with guilt, Graves makes it her calling to find the mythical horse whisperer, an equine Zen master who has the ability to heal horses (and broken souls) with soothing words and a gentle touch. Just when it seems he can't be found, what do you know, she finds him. He arrives in the form of Tom Booker-- a rugged, sensitive, dreamy cowboy who helps Pilgrim and Grace repair their fractured selves. To add more mesquite to fire, Booker has a way with not-so-injured, attractive, married women--like Annie. As the plot thickens, so does the familial strife, which threatens to undo Booker's healing work.

 

Midnight Voices :: John Saul

At the heart of this spooky tale are the children, Laurie and Ryan Evans, who are unwittingly exposed to danger when their recently widowed mother marries widower Anthony Fleming. The too-good-to-be-anything-but-evil Fleming lives in the Rockwell, a building rumored to be inhabited by witches and vampires, that has the children in the neighborhood terrified:  "Amber's eyes were still fixed on the building. They were just stories, she told herself once again. They weren't true. But even as she silently spoke the words to herself, a strange chill of apprehension ran through her and she turned away ... I'll die, she thought. If I go in there, I'll die."  Of course, the newly married Caroline does not share the anxiety of her children, despite Fleming's Bluebeard-like determination to keep everyone out of his study, not to mention the horrible whispers and strange sounds coming from empty rooms in the middle of the night. It is this tension, and Caroline's dawning realization of her new husband's shortcomings, that drives the novel to its startling conclusion.

Mindbend :: Robin Cook

Mr. Murder :: Dean R. Koontz

Martin Stillwater is a novelist with a wife and children he adores -- and an imagination he can't control. One rainy afternoon, a stranger breaks into Martin's house and accuses him of stealing his family, his name, and his life. Martin has no choice but to take his family and flee, even as he questions his own sanity. But wherever they go, the stranger is right behind them.

The Partner :: John Grisham

Literary slugger John Grisham returns with a story about-- surprise!--a lawyer in trouble. Patrick Lanigan had been a young partner in a prominent Southern law firm. He had a beautiful wife, a new baby girl, and a bright future. Then one winter night Patrick was trapped in a burning car; the casket they buried held nothing but ashes.A short distance away, Patrick watched his own burial then fled. A fortune was stolen from his ex-firm's offshore account. And Patrick ran, covering his tracks the whole way. But, now, they've found him.

The Pelican Brief :: John Grisham

The Pelican Brief is about how two Supreme Court justices who get murdered on the same night, and why they were murdered. A law student named Darby writes a brief explaining why the two judges were killed. Darby's brief which started out as just a crazy idea ends up hitting it spot on. So now she's on the run for her life. The book gets a little confusing with all the characters and all the information it sometimes hard to keep up. Overall it was a good read. If you like fast pace books with plenty of information the Pelican Brief is the book for you!

The Perfect Storm : A True Story of Men Against the Sea :: Sebastian Junger

Meteorologists called the storm that hit North America's eastern seaboard in October 1991 a "perfect storm" because of the rare combination of factors that created it. For everyone else, it was perfect hell. In The Perfect Storm, author Sebastian Junger conjures for the reader the meteorological conditions that created the "storm of the century" and the impact the storm had on many of the people caught in it. Chief among these are the six crew members of the swordfish boat the Andrea Gail, all of whom were lost 500 miles from home beneath roiling seas and high waves. Working from published material, radio dialogues, eyewitness accounts, and the experiences of people who have survived similar events, Junger attempts to re-create the last moments of the Andrea Gail as well as the perilous high-seas rescues of other victims of the storm.

Rainbow Six :: Tom Clancy

Rainbow Six, Tom Clancy's 10th novel and ninth in the Jack Ryan/John Clark series, once more focuses on the ex-CIA paramilitary field officer known in the Agency as Mr. Clark. This time, the focus once again turns to the challenges of fighting global terrorists and the menace from extremists determined not only to reshape society, but the entire planet's environment. Rainbow Six opens with a tense incident high above the Atlantic as a small group of Basque terrorists attempts to hijack the plane carrying Clark, his wife, his protege and new son-in-law Domingo "Ding" Chavez, and Alistair Stanley, his British second in command, to London. Using their wits and finely honed skills, the three Rainbow members overwhelm the hijackers and save the crew and their fellow passengers.

The Rainmaker :: John Grisham

"The Firm" still remains John Grisham's best novel, but "The Rainmaker" is his funniest. I have never read a book that better managed to hit my funny bone straight on without tipping over the edge into farce (i.e., John Irving). This time around Grisham's hero is Rudy Baylor, in his final semester of law school and required by one of his professors to provide free legal advice at a Senior Citizens home. There he meets Miss Birdie, an old lady who apparently has millions of dollars salted away and who definitely needs a new will, and Dot Black, who's son Donny Ray is dying of leukemia while their insurance company refuses to pay for medical treatment. In the legal world a "rainmaker" is someone who brings in big clients (i.e., big money) to a law firm. When Rudy's future job suddenly disappears in the wake of a surprise merger, these cases might be his ticket to a promising legal career.

Replica :: Lionel Saben (Medical Cloning Thriller)

"I picked this book up shortly after it's re-release, and it has taken me quite a while to get around to reading it. I'm not sure why I picked it up, because when I stared reading it, I wasn't expecting much. One interesting thing I noted, was that the book was first published in 1978 (the re-release coincided with Dolly). And I don't know what the status of cloning was at that time, but it seems remarkably ahead of its time. It struck as a book like The Hot Zone, a book written (in a somewhat fictitious way) of something that really happened, though I know that this book didn't. Still, that is the way it read, and I found it enjoyable to read that way. But don't be taken in by the synopsis on the back of the book, which made the clone sound like he was the evil, when in fact, it was Alfred (who the clone came from) who was more evil. Though I don't think I'd necessarily call him evil, just cold and way too driven by science. I don't know how the science stacks up, but if you are looking for a relaxing, entertaining read, go ahead and pick this up."

Ringworld :: Larry Niven

Two humans and two aliens, who are traveling to distant reaches of space to prevent a future catastrophe, crash on a ringworld apparently created by superior technologies. Tom Parker captures the personalities of the travelers through individual vocalization and provides smooth, expressive narration. The listener is soon caught up in the adventures of these vivid characters as they struggle to survive. Although this is a rousing adventure, some listeners may experience difficulty visualizing the alien settings.

The Runaway Jury :: John Grisham

Millions of dollars are at stake in a huge tobacco-company case in Biloxi, and the jury's packed with people who have dirty little secrets. A mysterious young man takes subtle control of the jury as the defense watches helplessly, but they soon realize that he in turn is controlled by an even more mysterious young woman. Lives careen off course as they bend everyone in the case to their will.

Saucer: The Conquest :: Stephen Coonts

In this humorous UFO thriller, the sequel to bestseller Coonts's Saucer (2003), pilot Charlotte "Charley" Pine is hired to fly a French spaceplane to the moon, where millionaire Pierre Artois is building a base. Once there, she discovers that Artois has equipped the base with an antigravity beam projector and plans to make himself and his malevolent wife, Julie, rulers of the world. Charley promptly returns to Earth to warn everybody. Meanwhile, Newton Chadwick, a mad scientist in the pay of the French, kidnaps saucer-expert Egg Cantrell and forces him to fly to the moon in the original Roswell saucer that landed in 1947. Egg's nephew Rip Cantrell and Charley steal another flying saucer from the Smithsonian, and soon saucers and other borrowed alien high-tech are in pitched battle over the moon. Later, French pilot Jean-Paul Lalouette (perhaps the book's most engaging character) is determined to go down fighting and nearly turns the tables in a gripping aerial duel of saucers up and down the East Coast. Cartoonish characters with names like Senator Blohardt and Joe Bob Hooker add to the fun.

Seabiscuit :: Laura Hillenbrand

Seabiscuit rose to prominence with the help of an unlikely triumvirate: owner Charles Howard, an automobile baron who once declared that "the day of the horse is past"; trainer Tom Smith, a man who "had cultivated an almost mystical communication with horses"; and jockey Red Pollard, who was down on his luck when he charmed a then-surly horse with his calm demeanor and a sugar cube. Hillenbrand details the ups and downs of "team Seabiscuit," from early training sessions to record-breaking victories, and from serious injury to "Horse of the Year"--as well as the Biscuit's fabled rivalry with War Admiral. She also describes the world of horseracing in the 1930s, from the snobbery of Eastern journalists regarding Western horses and public fascination with the great thoroughbreds to the jockeys' torturous weight-loss regimens, including saunas in rubber suits, strong purgatives, even tapeworms.

Shadowland :: Peter Straub

First setting: an all-male prep school in Arizona, where two sensitive freshmen form a bond based on their interest in magic tricks. Second setting: the labyrinthine house of a weird magician uncle in New England, where the two boys spend a memorable summer being trained in the art of illusion. Or is it real magic? Third setting: an alternate world where dark forces are at play--forces that first show up at the school, but intensify their power the summer. Shadowland is a superb, under-recognized, early novel from a master of literary terror.

Sleepwalk :: John Saul

Borrego looks like an ordinary New Mexico town: it borders an Indian reservation, its teenagers are bored and restless, and its only industry is the outdated oil refinery. But someone has a plan to shake up Borrego that involves controlling the minds of the local residents. When Judith Sheffield is asked to return to her sleepy hometown to teach high school math, she discovers that the students' mandatory flu shots don't really contain flu vaccine. The teacher joins forces with refinery worker Frank Arnold; his teenage son, Jed, whose mother belonged to the neighboring tribe; and Brown Eagle, the boy's grandfather, to find out what and who is behind the flu-shot edict and an equally mysterious takeover bid for the oil refinery. There are compelling scenes in which Brown Eagle introduces Jed to Native American mysticism, and the novel's climax involves a spectacular display of man restoring nature to its rightful place--after having almost destroyed everything in the process. Saul's ( Creature ) suspenseful tale leaves the reader with no doubt on the question of who wins and who loses in the struggle of good against evil.

Ticktock :: Dean Koontz

TICK TOCK is probably one of Dean Koontz' most underrated novels. Keep in mind that this book is intended as a comedy. If you're looking for serious scares, this book is not the right Koontz title to read first -- try INTENSITY, PHANTOMS or FEAR NOTHING instead. But if you're looking for some laughs and a fast-paced plot with a lot of witty dialogue, this novel is probably the all-out funniest of Koontz' fifty or so books.

Toxin :: Robin Cook

Just when you thought it was safe to eat a hamburger again, Robin Cook--master of medical mysteries, deadly epidemics, and creepy comas--returns with an all too likely villain drawn right from current headlines: the American meat industry. If you've ever wondered where the E. coli bacteria comes from, and exactly how it can ravage the human body, destroying everything in its path, this is the book for you. As usual, Cook delivers solid information, well-researched medical arcana, and a scathing indictment of managed health care.

Vector :: Robin Cook

Robin Cook's latest plot--the threat of an anthrax [bacterium] turned loose in a New York government building and in Central Park--is ripped straight from the headlines, and as such it may be charitably described as having a certain lumpish quality in the prose and an overabundance of cuteness in the lead characters.

Watchers :: Dean R. Koontz

When Travis Cornell, Koontz's appealing hero, encounters a stray dog while hiking, he quickly realizes that the animal is most unusual and that something terrifying is stalking them both. The encounter with the dog is the beginning of a tightly woven plot involving genetic manipulation that has created two extraordinary animals; one is the dog, named Einstein, the other is a murderous hybrid called "The Outsider." Hunted down by both the government and a professional killer who has learned the secret of the animals, Travis, Einstein and Nora Devon, a lonely woman befriended by man and canine, attempt to escape their pursuers all the while knowing that a confrontation with The Outsider is inevitable.

The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches) :: Anne Rice

"The Witching Hour," Anne Rice's 1990 foray into witchcraft and the occult, is not really a change of pace for the uniquely gifted author more than it is a better realized creation emphasizing her strengths and obsessions. As most readers know, Rice cut her teeth with the enormously successful Vampire Chronicles including "Interview with the Vampire" and "The Vampire Lestat." With "The Witching Hour," Rice has taken a well-deserved break from the immortal lives of her witty vampire clan, creating a fascinating legend of a family of witches stretching back four centuries and two continents.

The witches, known as the Mayfairs, are connected by the haunting thread of the mysterious spirit Lasher, appearing ghost-like to a selected few, standing within the shadows of ominous trees and forming within mirrors, tears streaking his pale face. Lasher forms an eerie, if not erotic bond with the women of the Mayfair clan, providing untold riches and eventually amorous damnation. But Lasher, much like the legacy of the Mayfair family, is an exotic mystery waiting to be solved, and this intimidating responsiblity falls into the modern-day hands of Michael Curry and Rowan Mayfair. This appealing, love-struck couple, set out for New Orleans to solve the mystery and reclaim the souls of the Mayfair family.



Last Edited on: 8/6/07 6:20 PM ET - Total times edited: 1
Generic Profile avatar
Date Posted: 7/24/2007 9:18 AM ET
Member Since: 6/6/2006
Posts: 1,609
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Hello!  I ordered 4 Blondes, could I get Girl, Interrrupted as the freebie, please? :)  Pm'ing also.

 

Penny

magnoliafly avatar
Date Posted: 7/24/2007 9:43 AM ET
Member Since: 5/2/2007
Posts: 57
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Thanks! Noted :)

magnoliafly avatar
Date Posted: 7/25/2007 10:26 AM ET
Member Since: 5/2/2007
Posts: 57
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Bump!  - Help me clear my shelves :)

magnoliafly avatar
Date Posted: 7/26/2007 9:52 AM ET
Member Since: 5/2/2007
Posts: 57
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Daily bump! :)

mhomeyer avatar
Date Posted: 7/27/2007 8:32 PM ET
Member Since: 6/24/2007
Posts: 61
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i ordered abduction and carriers.  I'd like Mindbend and Black Creek Crossing.  Thanks!!

magnoliafly avatar
Date Posted: 7/28/2007 11:09 AM ET
Member Since: 5/2/2007
Posts: 57
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Noted and marked off the list!  Thanks!

magnoliafly avatar
Date Posted: 8/6/2007 4:01 PM ET
Member Since: 5/2/2007
Posts: 57
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Bump!  Back from vacation, want to continue to clean my shelves bare!

Generic Profile avatar
Date Posted: 8/6/2007 5:00 PM ET
Member Since: 7/30/2007
Posts: 12
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I order Contagion and I would like Cradle and All as my freebie. Thanks!

magnoliafly avatar
Date Posted: 8/6/2007 7:46 PM ET
Member Since: 5/2/2007
Posts: 57
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Gotcha! Thanks for ordering, will mail tomorrow.

magnoliafly avatar
Date Posted: 8/10/2007 9:10 AM ET
Member Since: 5/2/2007
Posts: 57
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Anymore takers on this deal?

quackers avatar
Date Posted: 8/10/2007 9:51 AM ET
Member Since: 8/4/2007
Posts: 162
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Last Edited on: 8/17/07 6:23 PM ET - Total times edited: 1