More Recent Reads

I'm officially done with Karen Kingsbury books. I just read her latest, Even Now. Yet another ridiculous plot! If your daughter runs away from home, and you spend 18 years searching for her, wouldn't you think to go through the box of journals in her room? Maybe, just to find a pertinent clue? No, not in Karen Kingsbury land, where parents conveniently wait until the dad is dying of cancer so we can have a Hollywood reunion scene.

Karen Kingsbury always has something like this in her books. In the Baxter family series, one daughter takes an AIDS test which comes out positive. Instead of getting a second test, even though everyone in her family and doctor's office tells her to do so, she stops living her life, cuts off all her relationships, blah blah blah. Of course she finds out later that the AIDS test was a false positive and all this heartache could have been prevented. But realistically, if you were told you were HIV positive, wouldn't you get a confirmation and then start guzzling AZT drugs? Again, not in Karen Kingsbury land.

On the other hand, I really liked Randy Singer's Self Incrimination. Great courtroom novel about an abusive father who's shot in his home, and the step-daughter confesses. Can't say too much more, but it was highly entertaining even though I figured out the whodunnit pretty early on.