Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, by Seth Grahame-Smith (2010)

I was still bleeding...my hands shaking.

 

Seth Grahame-Smith wanted to be an author.  He worked at a five and dime while growing up in Rhinebeck, New York - home ot the oldest inn in America.  After he graduated from college, he planned to work at the store for nine months, during that time he'd work on his unpublished novel.  Nine years later, he has abandoned writing.

 

Henry has been coming to the store for a year. 

 

"Why did you abandon it?"

 

Seth couldn't help but feel that another conversaton was going on.

 

The last time Henry came into the store, he gave a small package to Seth.  Inside brown paper and twine were 10 leather-bound books.  Journals from the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln.

 

For 17 months, Seth sacrificed everything for those 10 books.

 

This novel is the story...

 

Rating:  9 out of 10 stars

*language, smoking

 

To check this read out at NOLS, click HERE!

Send Me a Sign, by Tiffany Schmidt (2012)

Hillary looked up from her phone, squinting at me in the afternoon sun before she pulled on the sunglasses perched on her head.  "There's nothing happening tonight.  Nothing."

Seventeen-year old Mia Moore is one of the most popular girls at her school.  She's beautiful, popular, a cheerleader, and has adoring parents.  Her life is enviable.

At the beginning of the summer before her senior year in high school, Mia has her three best friends over to sunbathe and relax by her pool.  One of her friends notices a bruise on her leg, and even though Mia blows off the question, she knows something is wrong because she has several bruises all over her body.  Her mom has made a doctor's appointment.

Drs called.  I moved your appt to today.  4 pm.

Leaving now.  Be ready when I get home.

After series of tests, Mia finds out she has acute lymphoblastic leukemia.  She wants to escape her diagnosis, not think about what's going to happen to her, and hide from the truth as long as possible. 

Mia is superstitious.  She looks for signs everywhere to help her make decisions.  She wears a four-leaf clover charm necklace (from her best friend and neighbor, Gyver), she reads her horoscope daily, and she has a horseshoe that she has in her bedroom and brings with her for hospital stays.

"I just need to feel normal for a few more hours.  Before my life becomes a mess of chemo and doctors and drugs."  The last barrier between me and detachment fell, and the doctor's words hit with suffocating reality.  "God...I have cancer."

Mia decides to keep her cancer a secret from everyone except Gyver.  Her mom not only supports this decision, she thinks it's the best for Mia.  But how do you keep cancer a secret when you're in high school?  

Send Me a Sign tells Mia's story of not only how Mia deals with having cancer, but also with keeping it secret from everyone she cares about.  Gyver is always there for her, but now her long-time crush, Ryan (one of the most good-looking, athletic, popular guys), wants to have a relationship with her.  It's really hard to like the characters in this book at the beginning, but Mia's story is gripping and heart-breaking.  

Rating:  8 out of 10 stars
*language, sexual reference, drinking

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, by Jennifer E. Smith (2012)

There are so many ways it could have all turned out differently.

The past two years have been hard on seventeen-year old Hadley Sullivan.  Her father, a poetry professor, was offered a  once-in-a-lifetime chance - a fellowship at Oxford University.  Ever the homebody, he didn't want to go, but Hadley's mom convinced him he should go.  After all, it was only for four months.

Flash forward two years.  Hadley's parents are divorced and her father is remarrying a woman Hadley's never met.  Hadley is still angry with her father for leaving her and her mother.

This is where this novel begins.  Hadley is preparing to make the trip to London for her father's wedding.  She does not want to go.  After a series of mishaps and an argument with her mom as she dropped Hadley off at the airport, Hadley missed her flight.

Who would have guessed that four minutes could change everything?

Luckily, she gets a seat on the next flight which departs three hours later.  And Hadley's whole world changes.

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight is a sweet romantic story about Hadley and Oliver.  I really enjoyed the references to Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend.  If you like romance novels, you'll enjoy this one!

Rating:  7 out of 10 stars

To check this read out at NOLS, click HERE!