Did you receive a great read? If so, please share with us the title of the book, and if you have finished reading, share your thoughts with us.

Pieces from such authors as Stephen Coonts, Hallie Ephron, Robert Goolrick, Wade Rouse, Mahbod Seraji and Donna VanLiere have already been posted. The upcoming lineup will include guest blogs from Sandra Brown, Sandra Dallas, Barbara Delinsky, Jamie Ford, Kristin Hannah, Marcia Muller and Lisa Scottoline — plus many more! The Bookreporter.com feature will be updated through Christmas Day.

Hope everyone enjoys their Holiday Season!   From our Quality Book Review family to yours.

For all the avid readers, have you seen Inkheart? I love that movie and it depicts how reading a book comes to life and the adventure contained within. If you haven’t seen this movie yet, I highly recommend it. I loved it so much I bought the movie to enjoy again and again. A movie about the magic that can be found in books! There are some great lines in the movie as well for all us book lovers!

Inkheart is based on Cornelia Funke’s best-selling children’s book, is a fast-paced adventure film aiming to draw the entire family into its fantasy world. Mortimer is a ‘silvertongue’, someone who can make items and characters from books spring off the page and into this world. Mo possesses the marvelous power to animate the written word. When he reads aloud, the story literally comes alive, as characters and objects pop from the pages and into the real world.

Inkheart‘s a magical movie that sells the idea of books being gateways to other worlds.

With our economy and the hard economic times we are all facing, comes a book which discusses how to strengthen your relationship when money is tight.  The authors are M Gary Neuman and Melisa Neuman.  The book provides relationship advice for couples who are having problems with finances and facing difficult times. The book has so many areas and chapters to help couples and as most of us know if your relationships lacks clear and honest communication, then this can be a great problem within any relationship. The authors inspire your to not to try to handle problems on our own but advise us to incorporate strategies and ways that couples can decide to communicate and work on their marriage and their relationships.

I really liked the exercise on page 41 that can quickly let you and your spouse see, what money represents to you. This will help to determine if the money constraints are the issue at hand and at the core of your marital problems or if it may be something different and you are blaming the problem on money.

The Neumans’ provide several case studies of couples working through their financial and their family problems. Many people have a fear of money and have been paralyzed, allowing their relationship to deteriorate while allowing their finances to dwindle.

I really enjoyed this book, and while I would have preferred more financial topics.  I think this is a helpful book specifically for families trying to keep themselves together, while going through hard economic times. I believe the core message to be is the advice: don’t attack each other, attack the problem at hand. I enjoyed the exercises and case studies that the book presented and it definitely made for a good conversation with my husband. Now my daughter has taken over the book to work on her and her husbands money problems in hopes to save their marriage. As she pointed out a newly wed couple with a new baby on the way and a 3 year old son is very hard when both of them are only lucky enough to have part time jobs. I told them they should be thankful they have a job in this economy, there are so many now that have no jobs and are losing their homes and everything else. Hopefully by discussing this book together they will find advise on how to deal with their difficulties and keep their marriage safe.

Do you think that this economy has added more stress to your marriage?

What have you been doing to stay on track with your family and your finances?

The Lost Throne is one of international adventure that begins with soldiers who are slaughtering a group of monks in present day, the characters are created in such a way that leaves the reader wanting to gain a better insight into the backgrounds of the characters. The monks are being killed by medieval soldiers, after this section we are then transported back in time to a man who is dying all alone in Italy. The man is speaking in many languages as he dies and his words are transcribed by the police, his words hold the secret to the mystery that the novel has been centered around and leaves the reader needing to continue page after page. I devoured this book in 2 days and have to say I am a fan, this is the first that I have read from Chris Kuzneski and he has left me yearning to read more of his works.

The pages are filled with adventures and lost treasures for those who love the thrill of treasure seeking plots lines and are filled with intrigue. The Lost Throne is a new thriller from novelist Chris Kuzneski and includes the characters D.J. Jones and Jonathon Payne, who were in some of his past books. These men are experienced ex special-ops soldiers who are retired but still maintain their contacts and work freelance. D.J. Jones and Jonathon Payne are both interesting characters with different specialties and personalities. The author then introduces us to more various characters such as an Interpol director, an attractive Ph.D. student, and a mysterious monk The Lost Throne is an international thriller which takes us to the United States, then to Russia and finally to Greece.

I highly recommend this book for the adventurers and those who love treasure hunts, you will find yourself devouring this thriller page by page unable to lay it down, enjoy, it is a fast paced and very well written novel.

Prime Time a Charlotte McNally series, by Boston television reporter Hank Phillippi Ryan; she has penned a wonderful absorbing mystery. The story begins with a couple of spam e-mail messages from someone she did not know. Charlie ignored them, and deleted them quickly. A few days later, however, a local newspaper headlined an article about a whistle-blower revealing a pending lawsuit involving a very large sum of money being stolen by officers of a pharmaceutical company. The article goes on to say that an accountant was found dead in an automobile accident – or was it suicide? Charlie recognized the name of the company and the accountant. She remembered seeing the accountant’s name, Bradley Forman, somewhere. But where? Was he the person who had sent her the spam e-mails? Enlisting the aid of her producer, Franklin, they hacked her computer to locate the deleted messages. They still don’t make any sense, but with Charlie being the reporter that she is, she sees a story.
Prime Time is a fast-paced, enjoyable, well written and plotted mystery and Charlie McNally is an appealing lead character. The story she and Franklin pursue lead them to deciphering a code in the message, but not before another man is killed (another automobile “accident”?) and the life of a third threatened. The reader will be as determined as Charlie to unravel this mystery and will be hard pressed to put this book down. The characters are well written and believable and bring the reader into the story, Angela is Charlie’s superior at the station, and she is half Charlie’s age. The author brings humor in the story especially as we read the interactions between the reporter with all of her years of experience and then the young producer whose concern is on the ratings. This is a great debut to the series, and I can’t wait to read the next in the series. This is a fascinating read and I highly recommend, this would also bring much joy as a great Christmas gift.

The Darkest Whisper is the fourth in Gena Showalter’s Lords of the Underworld series. This book focuses on Sabin, the keeper of the demon Doubt. After his demon has destroyed some of his previous lovers, Sabin has sworn off relationships for fear of destroying someone else’s life. When he meets Gwen, his demon thinks that he will be able to lead her down that path; however she is stronger than she appears. This is the first in the series that I have read which made it a little hard to follow and understand all that was occurring with the characters, I wish I had read the other three in this series before reading this one.  The author has developed some fascinating and interesting characters.

The author has penned a romance and intertwined the paranormal. Bound by the demon of doubt, Sabin destroys lovers unintentionally, and his greatest concern is victory and battling on the battlefield until he meets Gwen. Sounds intriguing doesn’t it, well it is and leaves the reader anticipating the next in the series. While waiting for the next in the Lords of the Underworld series I will be reading the first 3 in the series and will be prepared to continue with this great collection.

NP Notes
Nurse Practitioner’s Clinical Pocket Guide
Waterproof and Reusable
by Ruth McCaffrey & Ellis Quinn Youngkin
Publisher F. A. Davis Company
ISBN 10: 0-8036-2167-1
ISBN 13: 978-0-8036-2167-1
Published Date: 2010
Review by: Terry L. South, RN, FNP-S

After much anticipation I finally received NP Notes which is a very nice clinical pocket guide. It is compact and will easily fit into your lab coat pocket, this little gem will be my pocket companion for years to come. They have produced a remarkable waterproof and reusable guide that allows you to write on the pages with a pen and then if you want to remove any of the written information or notes you made, simply take an alcohol pad and wipe the page clean. They have also provided on the third page a place to add sticky notes of 2 7/8 x 2 7/8. The tabs at the bottom are wonderful and allow easy access to the sections you need to find in a hurry. The tabbed sections include Screening, Assess, Labs, Differential Diagnosis which is abbreviated Diff Dx, they also have a Billing & Coding section, Meds, Complementary and Alternative Therapies also abbreviated as CAM, and a Tools section. The guide has a total of 260 pages that is packed with so much information that is pertinent to the field of nurse practitioners. This is one of the best purchases I have made and will use this on a daily basis throughout school and my career. This is a must for every nurse practitioner student as well as the practicing nurse practitioner. Highly recommend, I LOVE this pocket guide!

The back of the guide states:
The vital information you need!
HIPPA-compliant, write-on/wipe-off pages
Portable, indispensable, and pocket-sized.

Comprehensive guidance at your fingertips!
Quickly access the information most commonly needed in clinical practice, including an emphasis on prescribing and using tests to diagnose disorders.

Outstanding Features
Screening tools, including DHHS Health Screening Guidelines for Men & Women
Medicare Preventative Services
Guidelines for Cholesterol Management
CAGE
RAFFT Questionnaire, and more!
Clinical Pearls
Differential diagnosis charts for most common disorders seen in clinical practice
Complementary and alternative therapies
Billing and coding information, including CPT codes, ICD-9 codes, and more!

Visit F. A. Davis Company at www.FADavis.com