FINISHED -

1. "THE FORBIDDEN MAN" (Edge of Scandal #1) by Elle Wright (A+++++) In Love With the Wrong Man - Sydney Williams has forgiven her fiancé, Den, more times than she can count. But his latest betrayal just days before their wedding is too big to ignore. Shocking her friends and family, she calls off the engagement. She walks out on Den...and into the arms of his brother, Morgan. Known as a player, Morgan Smith has secretly spent years fighting his feelings for Sydney. When Den's latest dirty deed leaves Sydney devastated, Morgan can't stop himself from coming to her rescue. What begins as friendship quickly escalates into all-consuming passion. Despite their intense connection, Sydney would rather deny her desire than come between brothers. But as Morgan is determined to make Sydney his, Den won't give her up without a fight.
2. "THE QUIET GAME" (Penn Cage #1) by David Baldacci (abridged audio CD) (A+++++) Penn Cage- a prosecuting attorney turned bestselling novelist - is returning, with his four-year-old daughter, to his childhood home of Natchez, where he hopes to recover from the extended trauma of his wife's recent death. Once there, he finds himself quickly caught up in an interconnected series of events whose roots reach back into his - and his family's - personal past, and into the troubled, sometimes violent history of Natchez itself. Shortly after his arrival, Penn discovers that his father, a respected physician, is being blackmailed by a local lowlife named Ray Presley. At about the same time, during the course of an interview with Caitlin Masters, the beautiful, Boston-born publisher of The Natchez Examiner, he inadvertently draws attention to the most notorious race crime in the city's history: the unsolved murder of Del Payton, a black factory worker killed by a car bomb in 1968. Penn's caustic, casually delivered comments on the case have immediate and unexpected consequences: Del's widow, Althea Payton, asks Penn to reinvestigate her husband's murder, while several other parties, each with their own agendas to protect, attempt to pressure Penn into ignoring the request, and allowing the case to remain safely - and permanently - unsolved. Penn's own inclination is to do just that until he meets a tormented, alcoholic policeman named Ike Ransom. Ransom makes the unsubstantiated claim that the person responsible for the Payton murder was Judge Leo Marsden, the man who nearly destroyed Penn's father by implacably pursuing a frivolous malpractice suit some 20 years before. Yielding to the desire for personal revenge, Penn reverses his original position and agrees to take a fresh look at the 30-year-old mystery. Penn's investigation forms the heart of the narrative and leads, eventually, in some unexpected directions. Before it is complete, that investigation will widen to encompass not only the Payton murder, but the personal history of the Cage family, the tragic sexual secrets of Livy Marsden - Penn's former lover and Leo Marsden's daughter - and the paranoid manipulations of the long-deceased J. Edgar Hoover. His pursuit of the elusive truth leads Penn from the mansions and ghettos of Natchez to a cabin in the Colorado mountains, and culminates in a desperate, winner-take-all slander trial whose outcome remains uncertain until the final pages.
3. 'RYAN'S RETURN" by Barbara Freethy (A+++++) Famous photojournalist Ryan Hunter has come back to a family torn apart by mistrust and resentment - to the father who disowned him, to the brother who betrayed him, to the little boy who shares his features. Ryan, the charismatic "bad boy" son, has returned - stirring up past conflicts like a whirlwind...and throwing Kara Delaney's fragile, passionate heart into turmoil.
4. "THE TROUBLE WITH JOE" by Emilie Richards (A+++++) Samantha doesn't know how to fight the demons that have come between her and her husband, Joe. But she does know how to fight for something she wants - a child. Corey Haskins is an unwanted seven-year-old girl who just might be the miracle Sam's marriage needs. But the trouble is Joe. Can he accept that he'll never be the man he expected to be?

CURRENTLY READING -

1. "Gastien: From Dream to Destiny" (Gastien #2) by Caddie Rowland (reading on a Kindle app on my computer)
2. "Seven Stones to Stand or Fall" by Diana Gabaldon
3. "Woman of God" by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
4. "Stormchaser" (Cutter Cay #4) by Cherry Adair

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO -

1. "Dark in Death" (In Death #46) by J.D. Robb (listening on an Audible application on my cell phone)
2. "A Good Woman" by Danielle Steel (abridged audio CD)

Finished this month: The Switch by Sandra Brown, Ice Blue by Anne Stuart, Truly, Madly by Heather Webber, The Winds of Change by Martha Grimes, A Clean Kill by Leslie Glass, Deeply, Desperately by Heather Webber, Cat's Claw by Susan Wittig Albert, Please Remember  This by Kathleen Gilles Seidel, High Country by Nevada Barr

Currently reading: Nice to Come Home To by Rebecca Flowers