Book Review: The Look of Love by Mary Jane Clark

She ... scrolled her BlackBerry to where she could reread the Facebook message.

"Saw the cake you made for Glenna Brooks. Would love it if you would do one for my wedding on January 15. We'll pay for your plane ticket, put you up for the week at Elysium, provide you with a car and driver, and, of course, pay for the cake. Let me know ASAP if you are interested!"

Jillian Abernathy. The name was vaguely familiar. (ch. 1)

Title: The Look of Love: A Piper Donovan Mystery
Hardcover: 352 pages; William Morrow
Release date: January 17, 2012)

So begins cake maker Piper Donovan's escape from Manhattan to Los Angeles and to an exclusive spa in the Hollywood Hills, courtesy of Jillian Abernathy, a wealthy client who wants Piper to make a wedding cake for her nuptials at Elysium, the high-end spa she is director of and which her father owns. The work-and-vacation trip to LA turns out to be anything but relaxing for Piper, however.

A housekeeper, Esperanza, is disfigured when acid is thrown into her face by someone who thought the housekeeper was Jillian. Someone either doesn't want the marriage to happen or is seeking revenge against Elysium by trying to harm Jillian.

With two murders and more scares for Jillian later on, Piper is urged by her parents and by her boyfriend, FBI agent Jack Lombardi, to return to New York and extricate herself from the scary mess that the planned wedding has become.

But Piper is also attending try-outs for TV commercials in Hollywood, and her long-held dreams of becoming an actress keep her in LA and at Elysium. She soon becomes friendly with other clients at the spa and discovers more unsavory things at Elysium. She is pulled deeper and deeper into the mystery.

I gave this easy to read and enjoyable novel a 4/5 rating. The book has interesting characters and tidbits of information about LA, including the real life Monastery of the Angels, a religious institution in the Hollywood Hills famous for its homemade pumpkin bread.

Author: New York Times bestselling author Mary Jane Clark is currently taking cake-decorating classes, as she works on her next novel. Her mother made customized cakes for the neighborhood kids when Mary Jane was growing up.

I received a complimentary review copy of this book.
© Harvee Lau of Book Dilettante. Please do not reprint without permission

Book Review: The Face Thief by Eli Gottlieb

"Honey!" he said, touching her trembling back while squelching the desire to shout. I was preyed upon, dammit! I was ambushed by a miserable creature who used the traction of a single kiss to try to wound both of us! That's the truth! (ch. 18)

The Face Thief: A Novel by Eli Gottlieb
William Morrow; Hardcover, 256 pages; Jan. 17, 2012
Genre: literary novel, suspense
Objective rating: 4.5/5

Margot Lassiter, a young magazine journalist, wakes up slowly in the hospital, not rememering much about the fall down a long marble staircase that caused serious head injury and partial amnesia. Had she been pushed? Detective Dan France visits her regularly to try to find out. He also is looking closely into her life before her injury. As she lies in the hospital recovering, Margot remembers her childhood and the influences on her life.

Flashback to Lawrence Billings, a psychologist who gives seminars on face reading, body language and how to use this to advantage in the business world. Margot is one of the attendees at a seminar, and she insists on taking private lessons from Lawrence so she can have improve her skills in business dealings. But it turns out that Margot is the master, not Lawrence,and she is able to manipulate him with her own body language and her sharp ability to read his. "Men speak a stench," she often thinks, and she can sniff them out expertly.

Flashback again to another man, 42-year-old John Potash, a happily married man, comfortably well off, who is persuaded by telemarketer Janelle Styles from Greenleaf Financial to look into investments with her company in the newest green technology. He meets her and her partners and is convinced that he would make a mint by investing almost all of his savings, his wife's savings, and his mother's.

The three stories converge in the novel to create a suspenseful tale of psychology and manipulation. The men - Dan the detective, Lawrence the psychologist and face reading specialist, and John the investor - are no match for Margot, who reads them easily. When Margot recovers and leaves the hospital, the men try to minimize the damages done to their marriages and self esteem.

I wished that the book had gone into more detail about face reading, but it didn't except for when Lawrence gives a few tips in his seminars. A jagged hairline could mean some traumatic experience in the teenage years, shape of the upper or lower lip could show either a sensual or pleasure denying bent, extra plumpness on the lower cheeks around the mouth could mean lots of energy. Large ears low on the head would make the person thoughtful and deliberate; a cleft chin would mean a big ego....and so forth.

The Face Thief made me think of how often people I know or I myself put on a face or attitude that didn't reveal true feelings. It certainly will make me more observant of body language and face characteristics. Not that this novel is all negative...There is at least one innocent, goodhearted man in the book, and at least three good women. None of them are Margot.

A fascinating book that is both a literary and a suspense novel. I am anxious to read the author's other novel, Now You See Him, which also got good reviews.

About the author: Eli Gottlieb’s New York Times Notable Book, The Boy Who Went Away, won the Rome Prize and the 1998 McKitterick Prize from the British Society of Authors. His second novel, Now You See Him, has been translated into eleven languages. He lives in New York City.

I received a complimentary review copy of this book.
© Harvee Lau of Book Dilettante. Please do not reprint without permission

Book Review: The Moment by Douglas Kennedy

Title: The Moment: A Novel by Douglas Kennedy
Publisher: Atria Books (2011), Paperback, 544 pages
Objective rating: 3.5/5

Comments: The book is a love story but also an historical novel with detailed information about Berlin during the Cold War when the city was divided into East and West Berlin. As a writer, American Thomas Nesbitt had access to the city of East Berlin, which was closed off to the rest of the world by the Berlin Wall. It was in East Berlin that he met the love of his life. Years later in Maine, the past and his life in East Berlin return in the form of a package mailed to him from his former love.

Unfortunately, the love story was lost for me in the many pages of  the recreation of the history, climate, politics, and physical atmosphere of the divided city. Those looking for a straightforward romance will also find themselves engrossed in details showing the mood and the terrible politics of the time. As such, I found it a bit too heavy and long, but I'm very sure The Moment would be very worthwhile for those who want to know more about Berlin and its history.

Author Douglas Kennedy is the New York Times bestselling author of Leaving the World. His website is www.douglaskennedynovelist.com

I received a complimentary review copy of this book.
© Harvee Lau of Book Dilettante. Please do not reprint without permission

Sunday Salon: Happy Lunar New Year of the Dragon

Welcome to the Sunday Salon. It's the Lunar New Year, Spring Festival, Chinese New Year of the Water Dragon, which begins tomorrow, Jan. 23! Look for excitement and good fortune this year, according to the fortune tellers.

One custom is to pay all your bills, clean your house, throw away anything that is broken, and fulfill your obligations before the new year sets in. I've been doing new and overdue book reviews like crazy, not that many really, but a lot in one week for  me.  Here are the past week's:
 Oath of Office by Michael Palmer

 The Barbary Dogs: A Mystery by Cynthia Robinson

 Breakthrough: the 5 Living Principles to Defeat Stress, Look Great, & Find Total Well-Being by Shea Vaughn

Living Fully by Shyalpa Tenzin Rinpoche, Buddhism and philosophy

My Evangeline by Heidi Radford Legg, literary fiction
plus posted an interview with the author of The Dark Rose, Erin Kelly.

I have slowed down on accepting new books for review, as I hope to finish the ones I now have first!

What are you planning for the rest of the year?

Book Review: The Barbary Dogs by Cynthia Robinson

The Barbary Dogs: A Mystery by Cynthia Robinson
Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Minotaur Books (November 8, 2011)
Source: library

According to Wikipedia, the Barbary Coast in San Francisco is a seedy red light district. I was expecting more dogs in this mystery, as the author has written a previous novel titled The Dog Park Club. However, there is only one dog of note, a small pug owned by opera singer Max Bravo.

In this mystery, Max is conned into taking care of the affairs and funeral of a former friend, an unsuccessful writer named Frank Kelly, who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. Max finds Frank's journal and is immediately visited by the ghost of Baba, Max's grandmother, who frequently visits to tell Max what's going on and what to do. She thinks that the mysterious man who wrote 20 pages in Frank's journal made Frank commit suicide and will now target Max. Never mind that this man died years before Frank's time, in 1906, the year of the great earthquake in San Francisco.

There is a bit of the paranormal, a lot of Barbary Coast history and San Francisco earthquake history, descriptions of the fog of the city as well as landmarks such as the San Francisco Mission, Chinatown. The book is not just history, however, but what is described as a "quirky literary mystery," with an odd group of writers and references to literary works such as Paradise Lost.

This was a unique book, with parts that I liked as history and mystery and parts that I felt were just a long excuse to describe the city of San Francisco.  Residents and fans of SF are sure to like it.

© Harvee Lau of Book Dilettante. Please do not reprint without permission

Hard Target: a Novel by Howard Gordon - Opening Sentences

Opening sentences in a novel can set the tone and help readers decide about the book. Here are the opening sentences for Hard Target, a thriller by Howard Gordon.

"Gideon Davis scrutinized the Windsor knot in his yellow tie in his rearview mirror as he waited for the stoplight to change. It had been eight years since he was last in front of a classroom, and tying a knot was just one of the skills he had lost. Now, as he fiddled with it in the mirror, he missed his days as a diplomat and presidential adviser, where he'd conducted his business in rolled up shirtsleeves.A least his tuxedo had come with a clip-on bow tie.

The light turned green, and Gideon turned right off the bridge that connected Virginia to Washington D.C. " (ch. 1)

Title: Hard Target by Howard Gordon

Hardcover, 320 pages

Published January 3rd 2012 by Touchstone
Genre: political thriller
Source: Publisher

Book description:
A follow-up to Gideon’s War involves a harrowing attempt to stop a homegrown terrorist plot to destroy the U.S. government.
Gideon Davis has settled into the quiet life of an academic and is weeks away from being married when he discovers evidence of an impending terrorist attack on U.S. soil. He brings his suspicions to his ex-girlfriend, FBI Agent Nancy Clement, but her bosses are leery of Gideon’s source: a meth-head informant affiliated with a white supremacist group. Both Gideon and Nancy become increasingly convinced that a serious plot exists, but their informant is murdered before they can get more details from him. So Gideon enlists his brother, Tillman—newly sprung from prison through a presidential pardon— as an undercover operative to infiltrate a group of white supremacists who may be involved.

Eventually, Gideon and Tillman get on the trail of the real conspirators and uncover their audacious plan to eliminate the entire top tier of the U.S. government during a high-value, mass-casualty attack. With only Nancy’s support, Gideon and Tillman go rogue to stop the powerful titan behind the conspiracy before the entire government is toppled.

Author Howard Gordon has been a writer and producer in Hollywood for more than twenty years. He is the executive producer of the television show 24 and was a writer and executive producer for The X-Files. This is his first novel.

I was sent a complimentary copy of this book.

Book Review - Living Fully: Finding Joy in Every Breath by Shyalpa Tenzin Rinpoche

I have been reading books on yoga and modern approaches to healthy living and find a recurring theme - living in the moment, being aware of the present, being "mindful" of whatever it is you are doing at each moment. To me that means being reflective and self-aware, enough to be conscious of your own breathing. Of course, this also means that you have to be able to block every noise and distraction or be in a quiet place for most of the time.
 
Spiritual leader Shyalpa Enzin Rinpoche doesn't advocate living in a monastery or a cave in his new book, however. He teaches about living in the world while observing the Buddhist philosophy of negation of the self or ego, and "living fully" while nurturing positive qualities in yourself such as honesty, sincerity, generosity, simplicity, openness, respect, and confidence. He devotes separate short chapters on having a compassion heart, how to face obstacles, meditation as a way of life, learning from others, and avoiding the duality of seeing a difference between the self and others.
 
I found that the book is not just for Buddhists, but for anyone open to a different approach in dealing with the stresses of modern life.  I did think some of his teachings would be challenging to follow. Perhaps that's why he advocates also having a teacher or guide, someone that is still not always easy to have or find. His words are full of practical wisdom, however, and I found his words very inspiring. 

 Title: Living Fully: Finding Joy in Every Breath
Author: Shyalpa Tenzin Rinpoche
Hardcover: 296 pages; New World Library; January 24, 2012
Genre: Buddhist philosophy, self-help
Objective rating: 5/5

About the Author:
Preeminent Buddhist Teacher Shyalpa Tenzin Rinpoche was born in the foothills of the Himalaya Mountains. Trained as a lama from the age of four, Rinpoche received transmissions from all the major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Rinpoche is a lineage holder of the Great Perfection (Dzogchen) tradition.

His Eminence Shyalpa Rinpoche has conducted countless retreats, seminars, and empowerments at centers throughout the world and has given talks at Harvard, Yale, Wesleyan, and Naropa, among other venues. His current teaching schedule includes North America, South America, Asia, and Europe.

A complimentary review copy of this book was provided to me.
© Harvee Lau of Book Dilettante. Please do not reprint without permission