My First Book Arrived

The first of the books I won arrived at the end of last week, and I dedicated some time this weekend to read it. It was amazing! Check out my review, which I posted on Goodreads:

The Expats: A Novel by Chris Pavone

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.

The Expats is a fantastic spy thriller that kept me hooked from beginning to end. I was initially unconvinced by the flashback/flashforward presentation of the story, however as the story went on this helped to clarify the situation Kate was in while still allowing the author to throwing twist after twist at the reader, until the ending was as unpredictable as anything that came before it.

Kate and Dexter are your average American couple, raising 2 young boys and struggling to make ends meet, until Dexter informs Kate that they are moving to Luxembourg where he has unexpectedly received a lucrative job offering. Having known she wanted something different in her life, without quite knowing what that is, Kate agrees and begins tying up loose ends. Although it's a littler harder for her than it would be for most wives, considering that her loose ends revolve around a 15-year career at the CIA.

As we follow Kate's journey across the ocean and into a new country, we soon learn, as does she, that nothing is as it seems. Sweet unassuming Dexter has more than one secret he is keeping and some of the Expat wives Kate meets and befriends are not at all what they seem to be on the surface. In fact soon Kate finds herself embroiled in a mystery that rivals anything she encountered in her years with the CIA. She'll need to brush off her rusty field skills to figure this one out before it destroys her family.

My only reservation about this book is the very very end - literally the last 2 pages. The rest was pure enjoyment, with fleshed out characters, interesting twists and turns in the storyline, and a heroine that readers are invested in. Kate is smart and funny and determined and dedicated to her family and not at all perfect, which makes her relatable and easy to spend time with - and spend time with her I did, once I sat down with this book it was very hard to get back up!



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Happy Valentine's Day

Yes, today I'm celebrating a widely recognized holiday, but I think all the other daily holidays I've been celebrating are equally as important. For example, celebrating "Get a Different Name Day" was easy, since I already have a Rock Band Name, Malika, that I love almost as much as my real name. ;-) And I didn't have to live through the never-ending questions "What did you get for XYZ Day?" I was also pretty excited about Inspire Your Heart with Art Day, that's a worthy cause to celebrate if I've ever heard one.

Thanks to Mom, though, for remembering us with cupcakes on this day of love, and to Trinity for helping to deliver them. My manager also sent out a nice note to the department today - she is such a wonderful lady.

Last week I won 3 books from giveaways held over at Goodreads.com; I'm patiently waiting for them to arrive. The books I'm expecting are Expats: A Novel by Chris Pavone, Sinners of Sanction County:  Stories by Charles Dodd White, and The Big Five For Life - 2012 Edition by John P. Strelecky. They all sound fantastic, and I'm so excited that I won!

I finally finished reading Dormia by Jake Halpern & Peter Kujawinski - Mom gave me that book 2 years ago, she stumbled upon an advance copy of it. It was one of those books that takes a while to get into (it took me a couple of tries), but really picks up steam about 7 chapters in, check it out:

Dormia by Jake Halpern

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


What do you do in YOUR sleep? Do you sleep soundly? Do you dream? Do you sleepwalk? Do you fix clocks? If it's the last two, then perhaps you are a Dormian-in-waiting... perhaps you might even be the next Great Sleeper.

Dormians are best noted for their abilities while sleeping. They don't waste time, as soon as they are asleep their sleeping selves get busy with their own specialties. They are just as productive when they are awake. In fact they make the rest of us look like sloths. Alfonso knows nothing of any of this, however, and is quite disturbed to learn that he does things in his sleep. When his Uncle Hill appears with a strange story of a far-away land, Alfonso is snatched from the comfortable life he has always known and thrust into the adventure of a lifetime.

It's an incredible story that starts off with an odd stranger and builds into an epic adventure. It's rated for ages 10 and up, or grades 5 and up, but it's a hefty book at 528 pages and an intricate storyline. I found it to be a slow read until Chapter 7 - I actually only read the first 5 chapters on my first attempt, but the second time around I stuck with it and I'm glad that I did. By the end I didn't want it to end. The heroes and villains are well-disguised for a good part of the book, increasing the suspense-factor.

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