"Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker" by Jennifer Chiaverini reminded me of Elizabeth Keckley herself: understated and dignified. I read Elizabeth Keckley's autobiography some years ago, and this book was basically a fictionalized account of that. Elizabeth Keckley was Mary Lincoln's dressmaker and confidante when President Lincoln was in the White House. She was criticized after publishing her book for exposing Mary's secrets, but I think her intentions were good. It was a nice, simple book.
"Dance with Dragons" by George R.R. Martin is the fifth and for the moment last Song of Ice and Fire series. I enjoyed it immensely. We find Dany marrying to bring peace to Mereen, but it backfires spectacularly. Her new husband is actually trying to kill her, but she escapes on the back of her dragon, Drogon. The Dornish prince who came to marry her arrives too late and is killed when he is trying to capture her other two dragons, accidentally setting them free. Tyrion is okay! He was sold into slavery but his master dies and he sells himself into a sell-sword company. Arya's okay, too, she has regained her sight and is practicing to become a face-changer Cersei was released from prison and suffers a delicious humiliation (ha! Take that!), but she could be executed if her trial goes badly. Varys, the Spider, killed both the Grand Maester and Ser Kevan Lannister, the King's Hand. It turns out Prince Aegon is still alive, Robert Baratheon killed a peasant baby, not knowing the Prince had been spirited away by friends of the Targaryen family. Prince Aegon is all grown up now and ready to claim his rightful throne. The totally evil Ramsay Bolton has captured Winterfell and last we saw of Jon he was raising an army at the Wall to go and deal with him. Exciting!!
"Here I Go Again" by Jen Lancaster was great fun, I really enjoyed it. Lissy Ryder was *that* girl in high school, the most popular, prettiest, thinnest, etc. Twenty years later she's broke, getting divorced, out of work and living with her parents. She goes to her high school reunion, hoping to reclaim some of her former glory. Instead her old classmates are all wealthy and successful and gang up on her. She gets drunk and wakes up at Deva's home. Deva is a girl she made fun of (like all the other girls in high school who weren't in her clique) for being New Age-y. Deva gives her a healing potion to drink that takes Lissy back in time to high school. She spends two weeks trying to correct her past mistakes. She's nice to everyone and even stops one of her good friends from picking on a girl. When she wakes up she's back in the future, and her life is perfect: she's wealthy, successful, happily married. Unfortunately, when she goes to her reunion it turns out that all her classmates lives have been affected in a negative way. Seems like they used her teasing them in high school as motivation to go out and achieve great things. So Lissy has a horrible decision to make. Should she leave things the way they are and live out her perfect life, or should she go back in time once again and be obnoxious again so everyone else will turn out better? It had a great ending, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
"Hit Me" by Lawrence Block is a Keller the Hit Man book. I thought, after the last one, when Keller got married and started rehabbing houses in New Orleans, that that would be the end of the Keller books, but now the economy has tanked and Keller has no rehab work. So he starts taking calls from Dot again, and setting up jobs. Very good fun.
"Fables: Cubs in Toyland" by Bill Willingham is the 18th Fables book. Jealous of her sister Winter, who is picked to be the next North Wind, spoiled Therese is looking for an adventure. When her toy boat starts talking to her, it convinces her to go on a trip and she does. The boat takes her to Toyland: a faraway land where discarded toys go. Everything in Toyland is broken and beat up. The toys make Therese their queen, but she's not happy because there's no food, and she's starving to death. Her brother, Darien, follows her and ends up sacrificing himself to save her.
"In the Valley of Kings" by Daniel Meyerson is the story of how Howard Carter with Lord Carnarvon found King Tut's tomb after searching for 16 years. It was interesting, but Meyerson kind of assumes you know something about Egypt and excavation, which sadly, I don't. I should, but I don't. Still, it was a good start.
And finally, Dave Barry's latest "Insane City". It wasn't nearly as funny as I'd hoped it would be. Normally Dave has me laughing out loud hysterically, but not this time. Seth is marrying the beautiful Tina, daughter of a billionaire, in Key Biscayne Tina is in full bridezilla mode, and of course every crazy thing that could go wrong the weekend of the wedding does. Eh. It's kind of like Janet Evanovich and the Stephanie Plum books: there are only so many times you can blow up the car before it's really not funny anymore.
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