Live Bait

Live Bait is written by a mother daughter team under the name of P. J. Tracy, which is part of the reason I wanted to read this book. Live Bait is the sequel to their book Monkeewrench, and has a few books that follow after it. I haven't read Mokeewrench or any of the others after LB, but from the reviews I've read they each have a set of characters and each book has one of them as the main person.

The concept of this murder mystery is very thought provoking, making you ask yourself what is right and wrong, and if an eye for an eye is really how it goes. I felt like I really wanted to get to know the characters, because so much was written about them, but there wasn't much depth to them. Now that I know there are more books to this, that is probably why. But if you take away from the characters you should add to the plot, the mystery, right? I didn't feel like that was done here. The climax was more like a hill than a mountain, and I knew what was going on 5-10 pages before it happened. The book flows pretty smoothly, and I think that is the only reason I finished it, once I realised how un-into the book I was, I noticed that I was almost half way through so I thought what the hell, but every time I sat down to read it I found myself easily distracted.

There is a woman named Grace MacBride that I really liked, and I think there was more explained about her in the first book, so I might eventually order that one and read it, but I'm not sure. I highly doubt I'll read any of the later ones, but part of me wants to see if the team get any better at what their doing. The thing I really liked about LB, is that it had a fairly good ending, especially for a series.

"Hen Lit"

Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons was like a version of Desperate Housewives. A more realistic, funnier, and (sometimes) cleaner DH. The book takes you along the friendship of 5 women who live in small town Minnesota. Personally, I don't read the cover descriptions of books if I don't have to, because I think it gives away too much, but I will give you a couple details about each of the women.



Faith is a former southerner that quickly learns life doesn't have to be so lonely on Fresia Court. She later learns that she didn't have to keep her dark secrets as long and close as she thought she did.

Audrey who proudly states that "Good posture and an attitude let you get away with anything" is the more adventurous one of the bunch.

Merit is the youngest, who quickly learns what life is all about, who you can count on, and how to get your revenge with out anyone ever knowing.

Kari finds happiness, after years of loss, in the most unexpected places.

Slip is the smallest of the group, but makes up for it in all her big ways, including being an activist.

As you travel along with these women you enjoy getting to know everything that goes with a friendship from 1968-1998, including which books they like to read.



I'm not much of a "Chick Lit" fan, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Being more of a "Hen Lit" instead of following 20 year old single women around, you follow a group of women of all different ages, and through a span of 30 years. Lorna Landvik makes it easy to become a member of these women's book club. She gives plenty of description where its needed, and keeps certain things hid to keep you turning pages. I cried, encouraged, sympathized, and laughed out loud many times. Much like real life each woman gets knocked down, soars high, and gets just plain bored. The only problem I had with this book is keeping track of who was telling the story, and the way it ended.