Your Heart Belongs to Me - Dean Koontz

I have more than a passing knowledge of what happens while someone waits for a heart transplant. Unfortunately, no knowledge of the aftermath.

However, Koontz's novel traces both sides and adds the supernatural and a mystery with his well-known skill.

I stayed up to finish this book and the ending was not one I expected - or wanted. It was pure Koontz - but with a moral - especially during a time when the "greed is good" phenomena is fading - fast.

Five witchy hats to Your Heart Belongs to Me.

Patient Zero - Jonathan Maberry

Note to self: Do not read a book (albeit fictional) about terrorists while in an airplane.

But that is exactly where I did read Jonathan Maberry's latest thriller. I was flying to and from Seattle and "Patient Zero" was my escape.

And a great escape (...ahem...) it is. There is plenty of action - plenty. So much that it was hard to catch my breath.

Maberry knows how to "up the ante" and to make those later chapters, as he moves quickly to the climax, short and full of drama.

I loved Maberry's Ghost Road Blues triology for it's language - but I love Patient Zero for its action.

I'm looking forward to the next "Joe Ledger" thriller - and maybe, just maybe, a movie.

Five Witchy Hats - a keeper.

Undead and Uneasy - MaryJanice Davidson

On the lighter side....

Remember when e-books came in those very small disks that fit inside the center of your disk drive? Seems like decades ago - but actually only a few years.

In those few years MaryJanice Davidson has become a "name" in paranormal romance. Rightfully so.

I read her first published book, "Undead and Unwed", on one of those mini-disks.

Her last (I hope not) - let's say latest- in the Betsy Taylor, Queen of the Vampires, series, "Undead and Uneasy" was also on a disk - an audio one. I listened to it while driving and found myself laughing out loud and trying not to hit the potholes that grow in Pennsylvania winters.

You would think that being Queen of the friggin' Vampires would give a girl confidence. Well, not so, our Betsy. It looks like her host of paranormal characters living in King Eric's mansion (and even Eric, her beloved) have disappeared on her and so has Eric, only days before their "real" wedding - albeit with wedding cake Betsy can't eat. Well, she IS a vampire.

Davidson makes the series' unusual cast of characters realistic and Betsy's problems seem almost...well...normal.

For a laugh and a bit of romance, five witchy hats to "Undead and Uneasy" and not just because the title made my shrink laugh.

Voluntary Madness - My Year Lost and Found in the Loony Bin - Nora Vincent

I was perusing the cart of the books at the Allentown Library when I came across this title and immediately picked it up. I'd recognized it probably because I'd read about it somewhere - possibly in the New York Times Book Review. I don't remember the review. I remembered the title and the subject.

Norah Vincent is the author of "Self-Made Man", a recounting of her time spent living as a man - reminiscent of the famous "Black Like Me".

Unlike "Self-Made Man", Vincent didn't have to take on the mantle of mental illness to write this book. She'd already spent some time in (in her words) "the bin" for major depression. The reader discovers, along with Vincent, as she travels through the psychiatric inpatient system (only for journalism at first) at various levels of payment (not care), the reasons behind this depression.

We also discover, with the author, how she decides to manage her illness.

I was captured by the eloquent yet clear narrative and as an RN and someone diagnosed with major depression, I found the book eye-opening and inspiring.

Five witchy hats (out of five) to Vincent's newest piece of reality journalism. I only hope she doesn't decide to write a book about surviving heart surgery.