Dating is Murder by Harley Jane Kozak

Wollstonecraft "Wollie" Shelley (great name, huh?) is a greeting card artist and reality television star, trying to pay the rent.  She's had a disastrous dating history and has been roped into this reality dating series, Biological Clock by friends.  A friend who is seen often on the set, Annika, disappears and Wollie feels the need to try and figure out what happened to her.

Along the way she encounters plenty of shady characters, makes some new friends and discovers one man who wants her to mind her own business, who is very handsome and always seems to be around.

I didn't read the first of these books, but I don't think that I missed anything by being ill-prepared going into it.   Wollie is a great character. She's smart, she's funny, she's Amazon woman tall.  There were comparisons to Stephanie Plum on the back cover, but she's not comparable to Stephanie Plum. She did remind me a lot of Kinsey Milhone, though. Different, but just as good.  Wollie has relationships with people like Grafton's Milhone.

This was a pretty fun escape book.  It definitely is below the Evanovich and Grafton books in my estimation, but not by much!

   Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Marty Preston of West Virginia finds an abused beagle and decides to save him.  His family is too poor to consider a dog, but Marty makes a shelter on his own and feeds the dog half of the meals prepared for him.  The dog belongs to a pretty nasty neighbor and he suspects that Marty has stolen him.  Now Marty has to find a way to protect the dog without anyone knowing that he's got it.

This family was just so poor, but sweet.  Marty is a little boy with an enormous heart and for the entire length of the book I was really rooting for little Marty and Shiloh.  Not only does this story have a lot of heart, it's also got a little bit of a David and Goliath feel. Marty manages to earn the respect of the bully, deservedly so.

  My Antonia  by Willa Cather

So, it's my first post back after a vacation that my brain definitely needed.  I haven't stopped reading and I think my current count is about 60 so far this year.  I've been slowing down the last month or so, but I'm hoping it's just a lull and I'll be able to pick up my pace again. 

My Antonia was a Daily Lit book and I read it in small increments that were emailed to me every day.  It's one of a handful of books that I've read recently that had a tie to the homesteading movement (was it a movement?) out west.  Of course, I'm from so far east that out west could be Ohio. The book begins with two old friends meeting on a train. They remember a woman they both knew, Antonia. She was much better friends with the man, Jim and the two agree to write what they remember about her.  The rest of the book is Jim's story about Antonia.

When Jim was pretty young, his parents died and he was sent to live with his grandparents. On the train from Virginia he was introduced to a young Bohemian girl about his age.  The two didn't speak at the time, but wound up living on neighboring homesteads.  The differences between the two properties were like night and day.  The Bohemians lived in what sounded like a hobbit house, a glorified hole, covered in turf, while Jim's family lived in a traditional house.  The two families were neighborly, despite their fundamental differences and definitely had an impact on each other's lives.

Antonia is a brave, strong girl, full of life.  She has to work so much harder than the rest, but she manages to make a life for herself that is truly hers.  Jim has a lifelong crush on Antonia and even though they drift apart, she is always a huge part of his life and she represents his childhood. In fact, Antonia was the most important thing in his childhood.

I am so sorry for my extended absence.  Things have gotten a bit surreal in Fausti World, as they are wont to do and I haven't been keeping up with some of the important things, like this, my precious little blog. I'm especially embarrassed because I got such great comments to my post on The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.  I mean, the kind of dialogue that I've been longing for, and I dropped the ball and didn't even get around to responding. 

I hope to get back on track and get Fausti's Book Quest back up and moving forward once again.  I have such a huge stack of books that authors have been kind enough to send me.  I promise to get working on the stack and get my thoughts up.  I'm really hoping to find that one or more of these overlooked books will be just the gem that I've been hoping to stumble across. 

 Thanksgiving  by Janet Evanovich

This is a reissue of Evanovich's early romance books. They all have the same basic components, switched up and arranged in such a way to keep them entertaining.  There is no comparison between these and my beloved Stephanie Plum books.  In fact, I am eagerly anticipated the release of number 14 shortly. Until I get to wax rhapsodic about the adventures of Stephanie and Lula and Grandma Mazur and, of course, the amazing men in her life, Joe Morelli and Ranger (hmmmm), I'll fill you in on this one.

Megan Murphy is housesitting in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. She's working as a tour guide in the historic village and trying to get over her broken engagement. She's not looking for love, she's just looking to hide in her colonial garb in the historic village.  She was completely unprepared for the fat bunny she discovers gnawing through her dress, or the amazingly handsome pediatrician, Pat Hunter, who is responsible for him.

Megan and Pat begin at odds, what with his rabbit chewing through her wardrobe and are thrown together when one of his patients leaves her infant son in their care.  The two take on parental responsibilities, forcing them closer together and then are beset with relatives who come to visit each for the holidays.  After being forced together and having every imaginable stress thrown into the mix, the two have to figure out how they feel about each other and what they're going to do about it.

This was cute. It was a fluffy little romance that I read in a sitting.  I didn't immediately want to start it over again when I finished, like I do with the Plum books, but I had no regrets.  Evanovich's work is such a lovely escape.  I'd much rather focus on her characters' problems than my own and I get to have a few laughs and some romance while I'm at it.