THE TUDOR SECRET by C.W. Gortner, 2011.
It's the summer of 1553, and young King Edward VI lies seriously ill in London. Brendan Prescott, an orphan without a past raised by the Dudley family, is sent to serve Lord Robert Dudley at court, and is immediately plunged into a world of politics, danger, and deceit. Within no time at all, he is forced to work as a double agent for William Cecil, a master manipulator whose main concern, along with the dark visaged Walsingham, is for Elizabeth Tudor's welfare. Plenty of villainous nobles, a headstrong lady in waiting, a helpful stableboy, ruthless royals, and enough dark plots and secrets for several books, keep the story moving at breakneck speed. Brendan becomes enmeshed in the attempt to disinherit the Lady Mary and the Lady Elizabeth and place Lady Jane Grey on the English throne, and during his involvement discovers the answers to some questions he has concerning his own troubled past. Gortner weaves his various threads of the plot together very well and provides enough background and details of Tudor England to add depth and interest. He's good with his characters, although at times his villains seem almost too villainous to be credible, but the whole thing is a fun, fast moving adventure with lots of twists and turns and suspense and violence and a bit of romance for good measure thrown into the mix. The end result for this reader: good writing, interesting characters, an appealing hero, and a strong story that kept me wanting to turn the next page. I also appreciated the author's afterword and bibliography. A very enjoyable outing overall; I liked the character of Brendan and hope that as this is the beginning of a series (Elizabeth I Spymaster Chronicles) that he will have many more adventures. If you enjoyed the Ursula Blanchard series by Fiona Buckley or Karen Harper's Elizabeth I mysteries, this novel should appeal.

I STILL DREAM ABOUT YOU by Fannie Flagg, 2010.
Fannie Flagg is a novelist who really knows how to write good stories. While this one is not as good as some of her previous books, her sense of humor is still present, her characters shine in all their wonderful quirkiness, and the story (part mystery, part drama, part comedy) is involving and appealing. Set mainly in contemporary Birmingham, Alabama, with some flashbacks, Flagg's story concerns former Miss Alabama Margaret Fortenberry--Maggie, lovely and charming and the most successful agent of her realty company, feels she somehow has lost her way in life, and missed out on her dreams. Her dreams of having a wonderful husband and children, living in one of the elegant old houses on the mountain, and having a great life. And since her business partner Hazel died, business has gone from bad to worse and so has Maggie's life in general. To everyone else, Maggie's life seems almost perfect, but Maggie has regrets and secrets and decides to end it all, and she comes up with a great plan how to do it. But each time she tries to carry out her plan, circumstances occur to make her put it off, again and again. Flagg's sense of humor and her wiseness are present in this story and she moves things along at a good pace. Her cast is fun and odd, as is her usual--the overweight Brenda, who is Maggie's best friend and real estate partner, the ancient and funny purple-haired Ethel Clipp, who runs their office, the mysterious Edward Crocker, who owned the fabulous mansion that Maggie has always dreamed of living in, all add color and humor. This is a pure pleasure to read, even if it's not her best work. Fannie Flagg is still one of my favorite Southern authors writing today, and I'd recommend any of her books to someone who enjoys Southern humor and quirkiness.

ANCESTOR by Scott Sigler, 2010.
A hugely entertaining science fiction adventure/horror/thriller, with plenty of humor, violence, gore, nasty villains, heroes, mad scientists, murder, mayhem, and horrifying creatures. A corporation run by brothers Dante and Magnus Paglione (Magnus, by the way, is psychotic with a penchant for torture and mutilation) is funding a venture to create an animal whose organs would be compatible with human organs and could be harvested for transplants, saving thousands of lives and making the brothers and their investors immensely rich. By reverse-engineering, their top-notch scientific team creates an animal they call the "ancestor", based on the genes of an ancient mammal that existed eons ago and was a common ancestor of all present day mammals. P.J. Colding, the story's hero and the team leader, and his team are endangered due to ethical and biohazard issues and there governments are out to find the lab and put a stop to their experiments.With success very close, the movable lab is transported by Sara Puriname and her crew by aircraft and placed on a lonely island in Lake Superior. Dr. Rhumkorff, the head geneticist, Tim Feely, and others place viable embryos of their creation into cows, and the embryos grow quickly, too quickly, gaining weight up to a hundred pounds in several days. Meanwhile, time is running out: blizzards hit, agents from the United States are closing in, and the evil Magnus Paglione has his own bizarre agenda concerning the experiments and its participants.Too late, when the cows begin birthing the babies (who actually eat and claw their way out of the cows' bellies), the group realizes they have unleashed powerful, evil, and hungry monsters that live to hunt, kill, and literally devour their victims completely, and from that point, the whole story becomes one of survival. Fast paced, page turning, nail-biting terror and suspense, this one practically kept me up all night. Yes, at times it read like a movie screenplay, but I didn't care. Anyone who has enjoyed the novels of Michael Crichton and/or Robin Cook would probably like this.

THE FAR REACHES by Homer Hickam, 2007.
I picked this up, drawn by the cover, read the flap and was intrigued. I'd certainly heard of Hickam before, but had never read any of his books, and World War II is not a period I'm that fond of. I'm glad I picked it up. Turns out that this title is actually the third book in the "Josh Thurlow Series", but the fact that I hadn't read the previous books did not make any difference in my enjoyment of this story. Hickam opens this entry with the horrific battle at Tarawa in 1943, and introduces the reader to the heroic Captain Josh Thurlow of Killakeet, North Carolina, his buddy Ready O'Neal, and the young Irish nun Sister Mary Kathleen Ryan, and others, amid scenes of blood and gore, horrendous violence and death, bodies floating or piled high on the beaches, blood in the water, men jumping out of barges only to be killed instantly by unending hails of bullets and so on. Reading this definitely gives a sense of war being total hell. Josh, predicting the outcome of the battle, joins in, and becomes involved with the Sister's attempt to escape. Afterward, Josh's nemesis, Colonel Montague Burr, lets Sister and her native "fella boys" take the unconscious Josh, Ready, and several other marines to the Forridge Islands ( the Far Reaches). The Sister, who has painful and horrible secrets of her own, wants help to carry out her own nearly impossible plan for getting the Japanese out of the islands. Colorful, action packed, some romance thrown in, full of adventure and lively characters and dialogue, it was a grand read. Entertaining, educational, and at times thrilling. Great storytelling and a good change-of-pace read for me.