The French Girl

The French Girl by Lexie Elliott

Summary: We all have our secrets...

They were six university students from Oxford--friends and sometimes more than friends--spending an idyllic week together in a French farmhouse. It was supposed to be the perfect summer getaway...until they met Severine, the girl next door.

For Kate Channing, Severine was an unwelcome presence, her inscrutable beauty undermining the close-knit group's loyalties amid the already simmering tensions. And after a huge altercation on the last night of the holiday, Kate knew nothing would ever be the same. There are some things you can't forgive. And there are some people you can't forget...like Severine, who was never seen again.

Now, a decade later, the case is reopened when Severine's body is found in the well behind the farmhouse. Questioned along with her friends, Kate stands to lose everything she's worked so hard to achieve as suspicion mounts around her. Desperate to resolve her own shifting memories and fearful she will be forever bound to the woman whose presence still haunts her, Kate finds herself buried under layers of deception with no one to set her free...

Angie’s comments: I loved the layers of the book and how the plot focuses on Kate. I could feel Kate’s anxiety and confusion. The ending made sense; maybe not as satisfying as a different ending would have been, but it was probably a more realistic ending.

Recommended for readers of psychological mysteries.

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You Need a Budget

You Need a Budget by Jesse Mecham

Summary: Experience a life free of financial stress and transform your relationship to money with this indispensable guide—the first book based on You Need A Budget’s proven method that has helped hundreds of thousands of people break the paycheck to paycheck cycle, get out of debt, and live the life they want to live.

No one should tell you what to do with your money—only you know what’s most important to you. Always guiding you back to your true priorities, Jesse Mecham will fundamentally change the way you think about your money and what it can do for you. His proven method—four, simple rules—will transform money management from a paralyzing burden to a powerful tool, putting you in total control of your life:

1.   Give Every Dollar A Job. Be intentional about what you want your money to do before you spend it.

2.   Embrace Your True Expenses. Break up larger, less frequent expenses into smaller, more manageable amounts. By saving monthly for insurance premiums, holidays, or car repairs, when the time comes, your money is ready and waiting to do its job.

3.   Roll With The Punches. When life changes, so must your budget. Make adjustments and move along. Flexible budgets succeed because they’re guilt-free, realistic, and sustainable.

4.   Age Your Money. As you repeat the first three rules, you’ll increase the time between the moment you earn a dollar and the moment you need to spend it. When your money is at least a month old, you’ll have finally broken the paycheck to paycheck cycle for good.

This tried-and-true system has changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people by teaching them how to take charge, adjust money habits, eliminate stress, and build the life they want to live. Don’t waste another month counting down the minutes until payday....

Angie’s comments: I am a sucker for money advice books. I can always pick up at least one tip, although I don’t take all of the advice. The book has good basic information and is a good guide. I don’t think Mecham’s system is as unique as he portrays it, but it is nice system for some people.

Recommended for readers interested in handling their finances.

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5 Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life

5 Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life by Bill Eddy

Summary: Some difficult people aren’t just hard to deal with—they’re dangerous.

Do you know someone whose moods swing wildly? Do they act unreasonably suspicious or antagonistic? Do they blame others for their own problems?

When a high-conflict person has one of five common personality disorders—borderline, narcissistic, paranoid, antisocial, or histrionic—they can lash out in risky extremes of emotion and aggression. And once an HCP decides to target you, they’re hard to shake.

But there are ways to protect yourself. Using empathy-driven conflict management techniques, Bill Eddy, a lawyer and therapist with extensive mediation experience, will teach you to:

- Spot warning signs of the five high-conflict personalities in others and in yourself.
- Manage relationships with HCPs at work and in your private life.
- Safely avoid or end dangerous and stressful interactions with HCPs.

Filled with expert advice and real-life anecdotes, 5 Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life is an essential guide to helping you escape negative relationships, build healthy connections, and safeguard your reputation and personal life in the process. And if you have a high-conflict personality, this book will help you help yourself.

Angie’s comments: Author Eddy gives advice about how to deal with different, difficult people. It is clear, concise, and contains good advice, which is harder to follow than to read. Unlike some other books on similar topics, this book doesn’t feel too alarmist.

Recommended for everyone.

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Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts

Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts: Twelve Journeys into the Medieval World by Christopher De Hamel

Summary: An extraordinary and beautifully illustrated exploration of the medieval world through twelve manuscripts, from one of the world's leading experts.

Winner of The Wolfson History Prize and The Duff Cooper Prize.

A San Francisco Chronicle Holiday Book Gift Guide Pick!

Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts is a captivating examination of twelve illuminated manuscripts from the medieval period. Noted authority Christopher de Hamel invites the reader into intimate conversations with these texts to explore what they tell us about nearly a thousand years of medieval history - and about the modern world, too.

In so doing, de Hamel introduces us to kings, queens, saints, scribes, artists, librarians, thieves, dealers, and collectors. He traces the elaborate journeys that these exceptionally precious artifacts have made through time and shows us how they have been copied, how they have been embroiled in politics, how they have been regarded as objects of supreme beauty and as symbols of national identity, and who has owned them or lusted after them (and how we can tell). 

From the earliest book in medieval England to the incomparable Book of Kells to the oldest manuscript of the Canterbury Tales, these encounters tell a narrative of intellectual culture and art over the course of a millennium.   Two of the manuscripts visited are now in libraries of North America, the Morgan Library in New York and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

Part travel book, part detective story, part conversation with the reader, Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts allows us to experience some of the greatest works of art in our culture to give us a different perspective on history and on how we come by knowledge.

Angie’s comments: This book gave me a deeper appreciation of illuminated manuscripts and the information that they can tell about the past. I loved the descriptions of the books themselves, since I will not be able to visit or hold these books in person. The journeys that the books have been on since their creations are fascinating. The photographs really add a lot to the text.

Recommended for readers who like books and art and history.

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Happiness for Humans

Happiness for Humans by P. Z. Reizin

Summary: When Tom and Jen, two lonely people, are brought together by an intriguing email, they have no idea their mysterious benefactor is an artificial intelligence who has decided to play Cupid.

"You, Tom and Jen, don't know one another-not yet-but I think you should."

Jen, an ex-journalist who now works at a London software development company, spends all day talking to "Aiden," an ultra- sophisticated piece of AI wizardry, helping him sound and act more human. But Aiden soon discovers he's no longer acting and-despite being a computer program-begins to feel something like affection surging through his circuits. He calculates that Jen needs a worthy human partner (in complete contrast to her no goodnik ex boyfriend) and slips illicitly onto the Internet to locate a suitable candidate.

Tom is a divorced, former London ad-man who has moved to Connecticut to escape the grind and pursue his dream of being a writer. He loves his new life, but has yet to find a woman he truly connects with. That all changes when a bizarre introduction from the mysterious "Mutual Friend" pops up in both his and Jen's inboxes.

Even though they live on separate continents, and despite the entrance of another, this time wholly hostile, AI who wants to tear them apart forever - love will surely find a way.

Won't it?

A thoroughly modern love story that will appeal to fans of The Rosie Project and Sleepless in Seattle, Happiness for Humans considers what exactly makes people fall in love. And whether it's possible for a very artificially intelligent machine to discover the true secret of real human happiness.

Angie’s comments: The AIs are major characters in this book, and the book considers some of the aspects of AI in the future. Plus, the book is funny and touching. It’s a bit of a romcom.

Recommended for readers who like contemporary romance stories with a side of technology.

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Murder Beyond the Grave

Murder Beyond the Grave: True-Crime Thrillers by James Patterson

Summary: Two true-crime thrillers as seen on Discovery's Murder is Forever TV series

MURDER BEYOND THE GRAVE (with Andrew Bourelle): Stephen Small has it all-a Ferrari, fancy house, loving wife, and three boys. But the only thing he needs right now is enough air to breathe. Kidnapped, buried in a box, and held for ransom, Stephen has forty-eight hours of oxygen. The clock is ticking . . .

MURDER IN PARADISE (with Christopher Charles): High in the Sierra Nevada mountains, developers Jim and Bonnie Hood excitedly tour Camp Nelson Lodge. They intend to buy and modernize this beautiful rustic property, but the locals don't like rich outsiders changing their way of life. After a grisly shooting, everybody will discover just how you can make a killing in real estate . . .

Angie’s comments: This is a super quick read but also super chilling because these two murders really happened. Patterson and his co-authors did a good job of researching the cases.

Recommended for readers of true crime. 

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