Review of Their Wildest Dreams: A Novel (Mass Market Paperback)

Several stories of varied characters converge in a literally explosive climax in this extraordinarily well written novel. On the Mexican US border outside of Tucson, lives Mackie Larkin, a divorced housewife who dreams of owning a dance studio but after a failed real estate deal, desperately needs money just to make ends meet. Her daughter, Lianne falls for an older man who works at the same ranch her father does. Nicholas Loeb is a mystery writer who travels to rural Arizona to get hands on experience in law enforcement. Buck Samsonov is a crime lord who runs a couple of strip joints in the region. All their paths converge in this very clever crime novel. The question is who will be on top in the end.
After a slow start the plot becomes increasingly fast paced once we get to know each of the characters and their separate problems. Alternate chapters are used initially to reveal the individual characters. Part of the change in momentum occurs when the characters' lives converge making the separation by chapter no longer necessary.The characters, a major strength of the work, are all original creations. The conclusion is a bit problematic and unrealistic. However, this one is well written and very much worthy of a reader's time.

Product Description

"Peter Abrahams is my favorite American suspense novelist."
-STEPHEN KING

"Mackie dreaded the mail." From this simple beginning, Peter Abrahams opens the curtains on a mesmerizing world down on the Mexican border, a world of complex and passionate people whose ambitions will lead them on a relentless collision course, a desert world that rises to the mythic in Their Wildest Dreams. The suspense will grab you and not let go, the surprises will shock you, but in the end it will be the wonderful characters who linger in your mind.

Characters like Mackie Larkin, a suburban mother desperate for money, who finds she can earn it as a stripper; Kevin Larkin, her ex-husband whose get-rich-quick schemes left her with a mountain of debt, and who now dreams up an even better one; Lianne, their beautiful, impulsive teenage daughter, for whom almost anything, even bank robbery, is possible; Jimmy Marz, the wrangler she loves, who gets a dangerous onetime offer that could take him to the life he's always wanted; Buck Samsonov, the charismatic strip-club owner building a southwestern empire in the lawless style of a 19th-century robber baron; Clay Krupsha, a twenty-first-century captain of detectives in a border town where no crime is what it seems; and Nicholas Loeb, a struggling mystery writer whose encounter with an unstable muse entangles him in a web of true crime more mysterious than anything he imagined.

Utterly original, multilayered, and marked by the gripping suspense, sharp wit, and fascinating psychological insights for which Peter Abrahams has been acclaimed, here is a major work-a riveting story of modern-day desperadoes living their wildest dreams.


From the Hardcover edition.

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Review of Bride's Wedding Planner: The Perfect Guide to the Perfect Wedding (Paperback)

At $17 (new) it will probably be the most inexpensive purchase you will make for your wedding, but probably the most useful."Brides Wedding Planner- The Perfect Guide To The Perfect Wedding" by the editors of Bride's magazine is just that, perfect.It's a must have for any bride-to-be.Being the first of my friends to get married, I had no idea where to start.When I discovered this book, it was as if a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.This book starts at the very beginning, your engagement, and guides you all the way through the wedding planning process. This book doesn't leave you stranded after the wedding either."Brides Wedding Planner" even helps you write thank-you notes and furnish your new home.This book helps to answer any questions you may have and any questions you hadn't thought of yet.This planner tells you how to choose your church, photographer, DJ or Band, reception hall and when to book each of them.This book even includes sample contracts to help you know what your getting yourself into."Bride's Wedding Planner" even has worksheets to help you make sure you are planning the perfect wedding for you.Are you having an interfaith wedding?There's a guide on that.Want to write your own vows?There's a guide to that too.If you have any questions this book will answer them.It's the perfect accessory for any bride-to-be.

Product Description
BRIDE'S Magazine has helped couples plan their weddings, their honeymoons, and their first year of marriage for more than sixty years. Now, here are the latest, most creative ways to enjoy your special day--plus step-by-step calendars to guarantee that you and your fiancé say "I do" knowing every detail has been covered.

BRIDE'S WEDDING PLANNER

BRIDE'S Wedding Planner answers important questions, solves difficult problems, and provides the necessary timetables and checklists that guide you down the aisle in style--from the moment you announce your engagement to the time you're happily settled in your new home. Inside you'll find

* Consumer tips on shopping for gowns, as well as all your other wedding needs and services (caterers, florists, musicians, photographers, videographers, and more)

* Everything you need to know about contracts and agreements that protect your rights and save you valuable wedding dollars

* All the newest ways to wed, including ethnic weddings, long weekend, progressive, and theme weddings--and a complete section on second weddings

* Modern guidelines on how to word your newspaper announcements, invitations, vows, and thank-you notes

* Hundreds of ways to plan a ceremony and reception that reflect you

Completely updated for our changing times, the BRIDE'S Wedding Planner, from the editors of BRIDE'S, shares important information on interfaith marriage, and the smoothest ways of establishing new traditions. If you're getting married, this is the one wedding planner you need.

From the Publisher
Who better to bring you all of the information you need for planning your big day than the leading magazine on the subject?This completely revised and updated edition by the Editors of Bride's Magazine helps you every step of the way -- from spreading the news of your engagement to figuring out your wedding budget to getting settled in your new home.Timetables, charts, and checklists make planning easy!The new updated material includes information about ethnic traditions, starting your own new traditions, suggestions for divorced or widowed parents, interfaith and second marriages, and much more!

--Laura Paczosa, Editorial Assistant

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Review of Dave Barry in Cyberspace (Paperback)

Let me start by saying that I love Dave Barry's work -- I've been reading everything he's written since the early-'80's, always with great anticipation.With that said, I regret to report that this book is merely OKAY.Of course it was funny (how could Dave Barry not be?!), but I only found maybe two or three rolling-on-the-ground-laughing parts.So, if you're a fan of his, or if you have an interest in computers, you should definitely read it.Just don't expect as much side-splitting as other reviewers have claimed. For laugh-out-loud-til-you-wet-yourself Dave Barry humor, I recommend any collection of his weekly columns, and also *Dave Barry Slept Here*.



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Review of A Golfer's Life (Paperback)

I was pleasantly surprised by this book, by its candor and by how well-written it was.It minimized many warts, but there is still some bite to it.

Arnold Palmer defines what charisma is.Charisma has nothing todo with skill, he certainly was not the most skilled or accomplishedgolfer.His talent and achievements fall short of those of Nicklaus, Hoganand even Gary Player.Yet Palmer with his amazing charisma can arguably beconsidered the most important golfer in the last 50 years.

A few yearsago I was watching a Senior tournament. My wife came by and becameenraptured by what was on.That was extremely odd, she usually does notwatch golf.She asked me who the man on the screen was that was sofascinating.It was Arnold Palmer.

The portraits that Palmer draws ofhis parents, especially of his father, are wonderful.His stories ofgrowing up are wonderful and I feel a good sense of the man and his roots. And he spares no words in discussing the death of his best friend while hewas at school at Wake Forest, a death he still somewhat blameshimself.

However, the story about the Ku Klux Klan meeting and hismother's reaction to it (live and let live) is rather naïve.

Palmerbrings up an interesting theory about his career, that his decision to stopsmoking played a factor in it.Nicotine creates a dependency, physical andpsychological, no doubt about it.Palmer feels that cigarettes helped himconcentrate.But I admire him for not starting again, even if it cost himsome strokes.So do his grandchildren and his fans, if he had not stopped,he would not be here today.

Palmer talks about several people in the golfworld at length.He speaks highly, yet evenhandedly, of Clifford Robertsand the Masters.I daresay that there are others who would not agree withthat opinion.

It is obvious that Arnold did not get along with Ben Hogan,but few people did.Hogan was a hard man and while Palmer speaks highly ofBen's skills, you can see that he did not like him personally.

Thesection about Nicklaus is fascinating.There is a major rivalry in manyways between the two of them, there is no question about it.Palmer makessome very astute observations about their divergent styles andpersonalities.

There is much greater kinship with Gary Player and thestories about Player are quite funny.

People have tried to analyzePalmer's appeal for years.One of the ideas is that he comes across as ablue-collar worker in a rich man's sport.It was him that drew fans acrossincome and class lines.

To many people, Arnold Palmer is old-lineestablishment.He was a close friend of Eisenhower, and of Bob Hope.Thebook slows when he talks of the rich people he is friends with.

Inparticular, I was repulsed by a golf course he built with an airstripwithin, so one can land one's private plane and then tee off.Give me abreak!

And his apparent tolerance for many of the racist policies ofthe PGA is galling as well.Palmer could have done more to bring the PGAinto the 20th Century.His decision to keep quiet and "work within thesystem" again shows naivity beyond belief.

But Palmer has somewonderfully nice things to say about President Clinton, so he iseven-handed.

Palmer is not overly introspective, so he does not tryanalyzing his popularity very much.He does say that he loves to perform,to show off and entertain people.He talks of his joy the first time thathappened.

A section of Feinstein's "A Good Walk Spoiled" discussesPalmer from a fan's perspective and also from a fellow player's.It givesa different perspective on the man.

Palmer has always been treated wellby the press.But he deserves a lot of the credit himself.He tells agreat story about Jim McKay getting all noisy and excited in the 1960Masters and interrupting Palmer's concentration.Palmer could have snarledor been nasty.Instead, he just smiled and McKay realized what was goingon.You can get more with the carrot...

At the time this book was written,his wife Winnie had just been diagnosed with cancer.She is no longer withus and my heart aches for Mr. Palmer and his loss.Palmer also talkslittle of his own fight with cancer and the remarkable recovery he hasmade.Nor does he talk about all the money he has raised for research ofprostate cancer.

There is very little about his daughters as well, orhis family life beyond his early married days.

In an ESPN show, one ofthose daughters said on-camera that her dad loved being Arnold Palmer. There are countless people who can testify of how nice a man he is.

Goodbook!



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Review of The Right Hand of Evil (Mass Market Paperback)

When alcoholic Ted Conway inherits his ancestral home in Louisiana, after the death of an estranged aunt, wife Janet accepts the move as the last chance for the family to stay together. She's almost immediately disappointed, however, and makes plans to leave with their three children and their dog. Then Ted has a remarkable healing, bringing about sobriety, and returning him to the man Janet fell in love with years ago.

The small town of St. Albans doesn't welcome the Conways. The communities' memories and rumors of the wrongs and evils perpetrated by the Conways extends even to the children. The house is said to be haunted. Certainly something evil exists within its foundations, a miasma that aims to mutilate and destroy that which is good or innocent. Ted's remarkable healing as result of the touch of evil will cost both his own soul, and possibly the soul of his son.

The estranged Aunt Cora who passed the house to Ted also passed the family bible to the parish priest. Within its pages are the recordings of the generations of Conway women who know the secret of the house's evil. As father Devlin discovers the tragic stories and locates the missing pages, the generations of evil begun at the hands of a priest lead him to the Conway house to aid the fight against a monstrous evil.

Having checked out the many of reviews at, I find it interesting that the higher marks come from readers like myself who haven't read a lot of John Saul's work. THE RIGHT HAND OF EVIL heavy grounding in Catholicism and Satanism won't be to everyone's taste, nevertheless, I found Saul's approach fascinating and addictive. The convoluted and twisted plot kept the pages turning quickly, and I find the origin of the evil within the Conway house fascinating. A remarkable tale in detail, such as the painted garden in the dining room, and rich characterization, I recommend THE RIGHT HAND OF EVIL.



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