Thr3e by Ted Dekker

This book was sent to me from BestSellersWorld for review.

Kevin Parsons is an extremely intelligent seminary student in California. He considers his dean, John Francis, one of his best friends and most valued advisor.
Kevin is leaving the seminary to go home when his cell phone rings and as he answers, is greeted by a raspy-voiced individual who has a riddle for Kevin that he must solve. He must also confess his sin within 3 minutes or the car will blow up.
Kevin has no idea what he caller could be seeking with the confession and can not solve the riddle. He pulls his car into an almost deserted Wal-Mart and the car then blows up.
This makes Kevin and his story the headlines of the day. The FBI is drawn in with Jennifer being the main figure. Jennifer has just lost her brother, Roy, to a man called the "Riddle Killer" and she is convinced that these are the same individual.
We then start to learn about Kevin's childhood and living with his aunt Balinda, her husband Eugene and his cousin, Bob, who is retarded. Things were not normal for Kevin, but he has stepped away and started living his life on his own.
As this story progresses and you are drawn into the minds of these characters, it becomes so compelling. There are major secrets about Kevin's childhood including his friendship with a girl named Sam and incidents with a boy that tried to interfere with their friendship.
Ted Dekker definitely put twists and turns into the story and will have you guessing right until the very end of the book. I would definitely consider him a new must-read author for me.

http://www.teddekker.com/ 

1 Dead In Attic: After Katrina by Chris Rose

Chris Rose is a reporter for the Times-Picayune in Louisiana. He continued to write his column for the paper after Katrina devastated New Orleans.
How this man was able to survive and forgo his devastation and continue to see the good and the bad during this disaster is the most striking part of these vignettes about life in the aftermath.
The stories of refigerators that line the roads, appliances being sunk into potholes big enough to do that in, how some people didn't experience any devastation, how some holed up in their homes and didn't face it, how some brought major crime to the area, how some went out of their way to help others, even with just a smile or a touch.
I felt a poignant feeling reading this, as I was reading this as Japan became devastated by it's own horrific weather-related undoing. It makes you ponder what you would do in such a situation.
Cudos to Chris Rose and people like him who are working toward making Louisiana a community again, however slowly that happens.

The Mistress House by Leigh Michaels

This book was sent to me by Fresh Fiction for review.

5 Upper Seymour Street becomes the address of three very willful women with strong desires to be taken seriously about who they are and what they want, irregardless of society's views of what they should become.
From the Earl of Hawthorne and Anne Keighley, to Lord Coulton and Felicity, to Marquis Julian and Georgianna, the house sees it's share of outrageous affairs.
All of the women in this novel are not willing to give in to society's demands of what they are expected to be. All are willing to give all that they can to be independent of what is considered to be the moral choices they should make.
The story is well-written and fun. These ladies are all great characters and the men are all chivalrous to a tee.

http://www.leighmichaels.home.mchsi.com/