Fall from Grace by Richard North Patterson

Adam Blaine is called home to Martha’s Vineyard when his father, famous author Benjamin Blaine, has died. Benjamin tumbled off a cliff, but no one believes he would have killed himself. When Adam arrives home after being away for a decade, he discovers that his father has written a new will: one that cuts out Adam’s mother and brother. Adam is the executor of the will, which means he must carry out his father’s last wishes, even though it’s the last thing he wants to do. Adam spends the next two weeks trying to figure out if his father was murdered, who did it, and how he can pull off not following through on his father’s will.

I enjoyed this book. It was full of twists and turns., and it keeps you guessing until the very end. Adam Blaine is a very complex character, and his reasons for leaving the Vineyard aren’t apparent until the very end of the book. He isn’t the only complex character in the book. Each and every character has their secrets, which adds to the mystery and intrigue. I’ve been reading Richard North Patterson’s books for a long time, and he doesn’t disappoint with Fall from Grace. After I finished the book, I wanted to start reading it again.

Readlikes for Fall from Grace: The Testament by John Grisham

Carrie

This Beautiful Life by Helen Schulman

The Bergamots move from a college town in upstate New York to New York City. They begin to adapt to city life, and are able to take advantage of all that upper-class living has to offer, including an elite private school for their children. Jake is fifteen years old and quickly makes friends and is one of the in-crowd. He attends an unchaperoned party where he turns down the advances of an eight-grade admirer. Jake wakes up the next morning to an email from this admirer. She's attached a sexually-explicit video. Not thinking about the consequences, Jake forwards it to a friend, who forwards it onto someone else. Not soon after, the video goes viral. The consequences soon spiral out of control for the Bergamots, and they're left to deal with the scandal.

I had high hopes for This Beautiful Life, but I didn't like it as much as I thought I would. With such an interesting premise, the book could have easily been 100 pages longer. A longer story might have allowed the author to go into more detail and develop the story further. The ending felt very rushed, and it seemed as if the author were just trying to tie up loose ends.

Carrie

Juliet by Anne Fortier

Juliet had an intriguing premise and I waited eagerly to get my hands on the audiobook.  When her great aunt dies, Julie Jacobs is left with a mystery to solve – not the least of which is why she had never been told her real name: Giulietta Tolomei. Taking the new passport, the key, and the letter all left to her by her aunt, Julie takes off for Siena to find her past and maybe the “treasure” her mother had talked about before she died. Sounds great, doesn’t it!? But Julie is one of the most irritating characters I’ve met in a long time. If she is going to be clever enough to unravel all the plot twists, she can’t be as functionally clueless as portrayed at the start. I wanted to stick with it in hopes that we’d ‘click,’ but by the end of disc 2, I was yelling at my car stereo. Sometimes a book is better in one format than another, but I doubt Julie would be any more appealing in print.

CAS