Book Review: The Family That Couldn’t Sleep: A Medical Mystery by D.T. Max

For two hundred years a noble Venetian family has suffered from an inherited disease that strikes their members in middle age, stealing their sleep, eating holes in their brains, and ending their lives in a matter of months. In Papua New Guinea, a primitive tribe is nearly obliterated by a sickness whose chief symptom is uncontrollable laughter. Across Europe, millions of sheep rub their fleeces raw before collapsing. In England, cows attack their owners in the milking parlors, while in the American West, thousands of deer starve to death in fields full of grass.

What these strange conditions–including fatal familial insomnia, kuru, scrapie, and mad cow disease–share is their cause: prions. Prions are ordinary proteins that sometimes go wrong, resulting in neurological illnesses that are always fatal. Even more mysterious and frightening, prions are almost impossible to destroy because they are not alive and have no DNA–and the diseases they bring are now spreading around the world.

In The Family That Couldn’t Sleep, essayist and journalist D. T. Max tells the spellbinding story of the prion’s hidden past and deadly future. Through exclusive interviews and original archival research, Max explains this story’s connection to human greed and ambition–from the Prussian chemist Justus von Liebig, who made cattle meatier by feeding them the flesh of other cows, to New Guinean natives whose custom of eating the brains of the dead nearly wiped them out. The biologists who have investigated these afflictions are just as extraordinary–for example, Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, a self-described
“pedagogic pedophiliac pediatrician” who cracked kuru and won the Nobel Prize, and another Nobel winner, Stanley Prusiner, a driven, feared self-promoter who identified the key protein that revolutionized prion study.

With remarkable precision, grace, and sympathy, Max–who himself suffers from an inherited neurological illness–explores maladies that have tormented humanity for centuries and gives reason to hope that someday cures will be found. And he eloquently demonstrates that in our relationship to nature and these ailments, we have been our own worst enemy.

This was an interesting book and you can tell that a lot of research went into the work that was done. However overall I found myself fairly bored when reading it. I guess it was not what I expected which was not the books fault (I guess) such interesting information though could have been given in a less dry manner. This is a shorter review than usual because that is all I can really think to say about the book. Give it a shot if you don’t mind a dry presentation the information is interesting at least.

My Gemstone Rating:

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Book Review: Spellbinding by Maya Gold


Release Date: April 1st 2013

Salem is the bewitching backdrop to this lush, fast-paced tale of one girl discovering the source of her powers.

It is during a routine school project that Abby Silva–sixteen and nearly friendless–makes a startling discovery: She is descended from women who were accused of witchcraft back in 1600s Salem. And when Abby visits nearby Salem, strange, inexplicable events start to unfold. Objects move when she wills them to. Candles burst into sudden flame. And an ancient spellbook somehow winds up in her possession.

Trying to harness her newfound power, Abby concocts a love potion to win over her longtime crush–and exact revenge upon his cruel, bullying girlfriend. But old magic is not to be trifled with. Soon, Abby is thrust headlong into a world of hexes, secrets, and danger. And then there’s Rem Anders, the beautiful, mysterious Salem boy who seems to know more about Abby than he first lets on.

A reckoning is coming, and Abby will have to make sense of her history–and her heart–before she can face the powerful truth.

Having read a lot of the other reviews of this book just before I started it I was a little bit worried, but I liked the sound of the book when I asked for it on Net Gallery and so I was going to read it and form my own opinion about it. So my first thought is that it is a fast read and it is most certainly a young adult book like it states. There is plenty of teenage angst and plenty of silly teenage drama wrapped into the paranormal side of it. So keeping that in mind it was an alright book.

The characters had some depth although really over all they seem like your typical teenagers. There are your usual mean girls that you would expect and the main character Abby must overcome a lot of issues with the mean girls, and other torments in order to come out on the other side. I could guess most of the plot twists well before they happened and a lot of the witch stuff was your typical run of the mill, witches for dummies kind of stuff. However it was still a fun book with some nice descriptions and if I was younger I would probably have really loved it so it is good for the target audience. I would feel alright recommending this one to friends with a firm warning that it is a young adult book, you might not like it and a lot of the turns are very predictable but it is still a pretty decent story.

My Gemstone Rating:

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Book Review: A Secret Love by Stephanie Laurens (Bar Cynster)

All of Regency London knows that no Cynster male would ever walk away from a lady in distress…but their protection can come at a tantalizingly high price. And now, Stephanie Laurens has created her boldest Cynster yet–Gabriel–a man who has known the pleasure of many women, but who has given his heart to no one.

She was desperate for his help…When a mysterious lady, her face hidden by a black veil, begs Gabriel Cynster for his help, he cannot refuse her plea. For despite her disguise, Gabriel finds the woman alluring and he is powerless to deny her. But he exacts payment as only a Cynster would demand: with each piece of information he uncovers, she must pay him–in the form of a kiss.

He was powerless to resist…

Lady Alathea Morwellan knows Gabriel is intrigued, but despite the sparks that fly between them, they have never passed a civil moment together. Yet as the stakes get higher, so does Gabriel’s desire for payment. And with each overpowering kiss, each passionate embrace, Alathea knows that she will not be able to resist his ultimate seduction…but what will happen when she reveals the truth

Time to dive back into the realm of the Ton and the Bar Cynster. Gabriel is next in line who is running from destiny, he is determined (like those before him) not to marry. Of course he happens to be in town for the season and even though he chooses the events he goes to carefully he can not escape what happens next. A mysterious Countess approaches him and is in deep need of help, like any good Cynster male he can not say no to a woman in distress and so he accepts her deal of helping her and not knowing who she is. Will it stay that way however?

Well it is a Cynster book so of course he ends up finding out who the Countess is and it happens to be a woman he has known for his whole life his friend Thea. I really did enjoy this book a fair amount. While there were a couple of times I wanted to smack Thea and tell her just to admit how she felt, or admit to Gabriel who she was it was just because I wanted to see him turn on his full Cynster stubbornness. If your a historical Romance reader and a Stephanie Lauren’s reader there really are no surprises in the turns that take place, however that does not take away from the story. The characters are enjoyable the plot is good and over all it is a fun historical romance read, dive on in and give it a chance.

My Gemstone Rating:

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Book Review: Written on Silk by Linda Lee Chaikin

A royal wedding masks the unfolding of Catherine de Medici’s murderous plot against the Huguenots. Will any of the Huguenot princes survive? Life and death rest with two people …Rachelle Dushane-Macquinet, couturiere from a celebrated silk-making family, has come back to the Louvre Palais to create the royal wedding gown. Recruited into the evil Queen Mother’s ring of women spies, she must use her wits to preserve her honor—and the lives of her fellow Huguenots.Marquis Fabien de Vendome has also returned from a buccaneering venture against Spain. The Queen Mother plans to implicate him in an assassination. But Fabien has designs of his own.A man and a woman caught up in history’s deadly swirl and love’s uncertainties seek to escape the venom of Madame le Serpent. Faith in Christ must uphold them, and all who stand alone, in a city gone diabolically mad.

Written on Silk for me turned out to be not as good as Daughter of Silk. I will probably eventually read the third in the series to have read it, but overall the book was a bit dragging to me. There were parts of it that stood out like the poor massacre of the Huguenots but over all it just seemed to be sluggish and drag. There were a lot of mentions of scripture of course, but this was to be expected given the subject material however I felt it might have been a little bit over done and rather than add to the story it started to sound a bit like you were being preached at.

It is not a bad book just slow moving and I would have liked to see a bit more historical information put into than what was.

My Gemstone Rating:

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Book Review: Blood Flows Deep in the Empire by N. Isabelle Blanco

Dyletri, God of Fertility, has locked away his powers. No woman is allowed to touch him, not until he can return his long-dead lover back to life. All he has to do is sacrifice one human girl. A girl who unlocks his powers and rips his dormant lust right out of his body. Trapped by his promise, Dyletri has no choice but to watch her die, no matter how much he wants her. Yet the darkness of his calling is spiraling within him, demanding he claim the human as his. If he goes back on his promise, the energy of the Fates will cause untold destruction in the Universe. That doesn’t change how Dyletri’s begun exhibiting symptoms that point to more than just lust. How does he allow Ismini to die when she’s come to own him from the inside out?

Well my very first thought when I started this book was, “Well alright this is interesting” but it was not to long before I was fully engrossed and read it in one sitting. Blood Flows Deep in the Empire takes us into a story of myth and legend with Gods and Goddesses and alternate universes. It is a blend of geek science stuff, myths and of course some very hot sex.

Dyletri and Ismini are gripping characters who both struggle with the past and what is going to become of them in the future. It is not easy to accept emotions that come barreling at you when you think that your destiny is something completely different. There were a few formatting errors in the book but because it was an early copy I think that they will be fixed before the release date and overall they were not bad enough to take away from the overall story of the book. The whole cast of characters was entertaining and I found myself literally laughing out loud as some of the interactions that took place. I look forward to reading about the other stories that have been set up and will take place.

If your an erotic romance reader who loves some paranormal and adventure this is going to be a great read for you. N. Isabelle Blanco has created a very hot and very interesting universe that pulls you in. Blood Flows Deep is not your normal erotica at all, although trust me there is plenty of heat to get you through as well.

My Gemstone Rating:

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Book Review: Riding Lessons by Sara Gruen

A stunning new voice in American fiction, Sara Gruen makes a masterful debut with a novel of family, tragedy, rebirth … and the breathtaking love of something wild.

As a world-class equestrienne and Olympic contender, Annemarie Zimmer lived for the thrill of flight atop a strong, graceful animal. Then, at eighteen, a tragic accident destroyed her riding career and Harry, her beloved and distinctively marked horse.

Now, twenty years later, Annemarie is coming home to her dying father’s New Hampshire horse farm. Jobless and abandoned, she is bringing her troubled teenaged daughter to this place of pain and memory, where ghosts of an unresolved youth still haunt the fields and stables — and where hope lives in the eyes of the handsome, gentle veterinarian Annemarie loved as a girl … and in the seductive allure of a trainer with a magic touch.

But everything will change yet again with one glimpse of a red and white striped gelding startlingly similar to the one Annemarie lost in another lifetime. And an obsession is born that could shatter her fragile world.

Riding Lessons by Sara Gruen is an emotional story that takes you down several different paths. It takes you down the what might have been and the what could be path with Annemarie Zimmer. Once a promising eventer on the way to the fast track to the Olympics, that all came to an end in a horrific accident. Annemarie almost lost the ability to walk, move and most of all she lost the horse love of her life Harry. Twenty years later her world starts to fall a part at the seams again with the loss of her job and the end of her marriage and it sends her home. Memories of her beloved horse fill her and consume her when another rare brindle patterned horse comes into her life.

As someone who has been a rider since I can remember I connected with this story on so many levels. I could understand her deep love of Harry. I can understand the basic feelings she had when she walked into a barn, her love of the smell of hay, manure and horse. When Annemarie went up to a horse and pushed her nose to its neck I smiled because I have done that exact same thing many times. Annemarie seems to have her life closing in on her, she has to deal with her past while being hit with a lot of new things that are part of life and difficult. Having to handle a teenage Daughter and the upcoming death of her Father.

This is really a great book that is both emotional and inspirational. There was not any character that I did not like. I could in some way relate to most of them. I would recommend this one to any reader.

My Gemstone Rating:

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Book Review: Burned by P.C & Kristin Cast

When friends stop trusting each other, Darkness is there to fan the flames….

Things have turned black at the House of Night. Zoey Redbird’s soul has shattered. With everything she’s ever stood for falling apart, and a broken heart making her want to stay in the Otherworld forever, Zoey’s fading fast. It’s seeming more and more doubtful that she will be able pull herself back together in time to rejoin her friends and set the world to rights. As the only living person who can reach her, Stark must find a way to get to her. But how? He will have to die to do so, the Vampyre High Council stipulates. And then Zoey will give up for sure. There are only 7 days left…

Enter BFF Stevie Rae. She wants to help Z but she has massive problems of her own. The rogue Red Fledglings are acting up, and this time not even Stevie Rae can protect them from the consequences. Her kinda boyfriend, Dallas, is sweet but too nosy for his own good. The truth is, Stevie Rae’s hiding a secret that might be the key to getting Zoey home but also threatens to explode her whole world.

In the middle of the whole mess is Aphrodite: ex-Fledgling, trust-fund baby, total hag from Hell (and proud of it). She’s always been blessed (if you could call it that) with visions that can reveal the future, but now it seems Nyx has decided to speak through her with the goddess’s own voice, whether she wants it or not. Aphrodite’s loyalty can swing a lot of different ways, but right now Zoey’s fate hangs in the balance.

Three girls… playing with fire… if they don’t watch out, everyone will get Burned.

Once again I jumped into the world of the House of Night and it’s unique set of tattooed vampires. Burned picks up right where we left everyone from the last book, Stevie Rae is recovering from her burns from being on top of the roof and Zoey’s soul has shattered with the death of her human consort Heath. Because it has been a little while for me since I read the last book in the series it did take me a little bit to feel comfortable with everyone again, but because of the nice smooth building writing style of the book it did not take long.

I can not say how much I enjoy this series of books, for every twist that a story takes where I know the answer there is another one in which I don’t. We get to meet another collection of characters in Burned when Stark takes the empty body of Zoey to The Isle of Women, an island said to be off Scotland with a Warrior Queen at it’s head. We are than also introduced to an ancient religion power within this world of two bulls The Black Bull of good and The White Bull of evil. Think that is backwards? Yeah I did to until I read the reasoning given and then it all made perfect sense.

Aphrodite is her usual smart ass self, and yet even while doing that she does good and she is growing on me as a character. There is goodness in her and it is nice to see her maturing into the person that her warrior Darius seems to think she can be. There are still plenty of fun pop culture references that keep the book fresh (love me some True Blood references!) and over all it really is just an enjoyable fast paced read. Of course the ending is a cliff hanger and Kalona the bad guy is still out there along with Neferet, but it is a series after all. I highly recommend this one!

My Gemstone Rating:

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Teaser Tuesday 2/26/13

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

“No one has experienced it’s like since the mighty vampyre Cleopatra casted a protective circle around her beloved Alexandria.”
“No one enters the Isle of Women without the permission of Sgiach, ” Darius said. pg.88 Burned (House of Night)

Book Review: The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant

Alessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father, a prosperous cloth merchant, brings a young painter back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family’s Florentine palazzo. A child of the Renaissance, with a precocious mind and a talent for drawing, Alessandra is intoxicated by the painter’s abilities.

But their burgeoning relationship is interrupted when Alessandra’s parents arrange her marriage to a wealthy, much older man. Meanwhile, Florence is changing, increasingly subject to the growing suppression imposed by the fundamentalist monk Savonarola, who is seizing religious and political control. Alessandra and her native city are caught between the Medici state, with its love of luxury, learning, and dazzling art, and the hellfire preaching and increasing violence of Savonarola’s reactionary followers. Played out against this turbulent backdrop, Alessandra’s married life is a misery, except for the surprising freedom it allows her to pursue her powerful attraction to the young painter and his art.

The Birth of Venus is a tour de force, the first historical novel from one of Britain’s most innovative writers of literary suspense. It brings alive the history of Florence at its most dramatic period, telling a compulsively absorbing story of love, art, religion, and power through the passionate voice of Alessandra, a heroine with the same vibrancy of spirit as her beloved city.

I really tried to like this book, I wanted to like this book as it has been on my to read pile for a long time but it was one I thought sounded really good. Sadly I just could not get into this one and while I read the whole thing it really was not one I probably should have finished.

The core things that I look for in a good historical fiction were there. The history was solid and I liked the time period as well as the location. You can not get much better then a story in Florence during the Renaissance after all. I love hearing about all the art of the time, after all some of the finest art came out of that time. However there was just something about this one that I could not get myself to like. I suspect it was the general writing style as it just did not connect well with me. There is also the fact that after the initial introduction (which I enjoyed) most of the book becomes rather predictable.

While I can look past mistakes in form and technical aspect of things if the story grips me because this one didn’t I tended to find the mistakes in this one easier and it bothered me. I know others have enjoyed the book and I would love for them to perhaps tell me the key to what I am missing here although perhaps I am not missing anything at all, I just did not care for it much. If you like predictable plot, and a lot of art talk this may be a read for you, otherwise I wouldn’t read it.

My Gemstone Rating:

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Book Review: Witches of East End by Melissa De la Cruz

From the author of the highly addictive and bestselling Blue Bloods series, with almost 3 million copies sold, comes a new novel, Melissa de la Cruz’s first for adults, featuring a family of formidable and beguiling witches.

The three Beauchamp women–Joanna and her daughters Freya and Ingrid–live in North Hampton, out on the tip of Long Island. Their beautiful, mist-shrouded town seems almost stuck in time, and all three women lead seemingly quiet, uneventful existences. But they are harboring a mighty secret–they are powerful witches banned from using their magic. Joanna can resurrect people from the dead and heal the most serious of injuries. Ingrid, her bookish daughter, has the ability to predict the future and weave knots that can solve anything from infertility to infidelity. And finally, there’s Freya, the wild child, who has a charm or a potion that can cure most any heartache.

For centuries, all three women have been forced to suppress their abilities. But then Freya, who is about to get married to the wealthy and mysterious Bran Gardiner, finds that her increasingly complicated romantic life makes it more difficult than ever to hide her secret. Soon Ingrid and Joanna confront similar dilemmas, and the Beauchamp women realize they can no longer conceal their true selves. They unearth their wands from the attic, dust off their broomsticks, and begin casting spells on the townspeople. It all seems like a bit of good-natured, innocent magic, but then mysterious, violent attacks begin to plague the town. When a young girl disappears over the Fourth of July weekend, they realize it’s time to uncover who and what dark forces are working against them.

With a brand-new cast of characters, a fascinating and fresh world to discover, and a few surprise appearances from some of the Blue Blood fan favorites, this is a page-turning, deliciously fun, magical summer read fraught with love affairs, witchcraft, and an unforgettable battle between good and evil.

I am a huge fan of the Blue Bloods young Adult Novels by Melissa de la Cruz, so I was happily surprised when I found she had started a series for Adults on Witches. I admit I do not follow authors (even ones I like) as often as I should so I am a little behind the eight ball but I was happy to set to reading this first in the stories of the Beauchamps.

Joanna, Ingrid and Freya are a family of a Mother and two Sisters who after the Salem witch trials were put under a restriction by the council that governs them. They were no longer able to use the powers that they have always had, they must live immortal lives as normal as possible. Not a very easy task when your used to using magic all the time. They were lucky to escape the punishments with out being destroyed however so moving to the seemingly sleepy down of North Hampton they adjusted to life without magic.

That is until they decided like many do to say screw the authority! This rebellion starts selflessly however. The three do not use the powers they have for any personal gain, although it has been tempting it seems to do things such as clean the house (oh don’t we all wish!). Freya the youngest uses her powers to make a love potion to keep a couple together and from things for them ending in certain doom. Ingrid uses hers to help a friend who has been desperate to have a child with her husband to have the child they have always wanted, and Joanna uses hers to help keep a small boy happy. Things of course spiral from there and before long they are doing a lot more than just those small basics, however it is still always to help other people.

I really love the way this story spins and grows as it tells the tale. I had my suspicions of who the three might be because of my knowledge of Norse myths and the name Freya and then her making love potions gave it away some. Still I loved hearing of this and I have to say it was very cool to also see the Blue Bloods woven into the story as well, so we see the fallen angel Christian themes of Blue Bloods woven in with the Nordic Pagan themes of Norse Gods and Goddesses. I will not give away who all the players are because it would spoil a good deal of the plot, however you should be prepared to also see Balder (Baldr) and Loki show up, alas Thor does not but hey maybe next book because the ending is a cliff hanger for sure!

This is a great first adult novel effort by Melissa de la Cruz and I am looking forward to the next in the series. I would recommend this to any fan of her Young Adult books who wants to see what she can do as an adult and of course fans of mythology are going to love it as well.

My Gemstone Rating:

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