Advent Calendar

Audiobook: "Change of heart" by Jodi Picoult

Shay Bourne - New Hampshire’s first death row prisoner in 69 years – has only one last request: to donate his heart post-execution to the sister of his victim, who is looking for a transplant. Bourne says it’s the only way he can redeem himself…but with lethal injection as his form of execution, this is medically impossible.

Enter Father Michael Wright, a young local priest. Called in as Shay’s spiritual advisor, he knows redemption has nothing to do with organ donation – and plans to convince Bourne. But then Bourne begins to perform miracles at the prison that are witnessed by officers, fellow inmates, and even Father Michael – and the media begins to call him a messiah. Could an unkempt, bipolar, convicted murderer be a savior? It seems highly unlikely, to the priest. Until he realizes that the things Shay says may not come from the Bible…but are, verbatim, from a gospel that the early Christian church rejected two thousand years ago…and that is still considered heresy.

Change Of Heart looks at the nature of organized religion and belief, and takes the reader behind the closely drawn curtains of America’s death penalty. Featuring the return of Ian Fletcher from Keeping Faith, it also asks whether religion and politics truly are separate in this country, or inextricably tangled. Does religion make us more tolerant, or less? Do we believe what we do because it’s right? Or because it’s too frightening to admit that we may not have the answers?

Books by Mary Higgins Clark

I recently started reading and/or listening all of Mary Higgins Clark books. Here is a list of the books she has written. The one with a * are the ones I've read/listened to already. For a detailed list, click here.

THE MAGICAL CHRISTMAS HORSE
I'LL WALK ALONE

*THE SHADOW OF YOUR SMILE*
*JUST TAKE MY HEART *
*WHERE ARE YOU NOW?*
GHOST SHIP (A Children's Book Illustrated by Wendell Minor)
*I HEARD THAT SONG BEFORE*
TWO LITTLE GIRLS IN BLUE
*NO PLACE LIKE HOME*
*NIGHTTIME IS MY TIME*
*THE SECOND TIME AROUND*
KITCHEN PRIVILEGES (A Memoir)
*MOUNT VERNON LOVE STORY (A Biographical Novel – George & Martha Washington)*
*DADDY'S LITTLE GIRL*
*ON THE STREET WHERE YOU LIVE*
BEFORE I SAY GOODBYE
WE'LL MEET AGAIN
ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT
YOU BELONG TO ME
PRETEND YOU DON'T SEE HER
MY GAL SUNDAY
MOONLIGHT BECOMES YOU
SILENT NIGHT
LET ME CALL YOU SWEETHEART
*THE LOTTERY WINNER*
*REMEMBER ME*
I'LL BE SEEING YOU
*ALL AROUND THE TOWN*
*LOVES MUSIC, LOVES TO DANCE*
THE ANASTASIA SYNDROME AND OTHER STORIES
WHILE MY PRETTY ONE SLEEPS
WEEP NO MORE, MY LADY
STILLWATCH
*A CRY IN THE NIGHT*
*THE CRADLE WILL FALL*
*A STRANGER IS WATCHING*
WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN?

Books with her daughter, Carol Higgins Clark

DASHING THROUGH THE SNOW
SANTA CRUISE
THE CHRISTMAS THIEF
*HE SEES YOU WHEN YOU'RE SLEEPING*
DECK THE HALLS

Audiobook: "The girl who kicked the hornest's nest" by Stieg Larsson

Currently reading "We'll meet again" Mary Higgins Clark

At the heart of this "diabolical plot that Mary Higgins Clark prepares so carefully and executes with such relish" (The New York Times Book Review), a respected doctor is murdered -- and his beautiful young wife is charged with the crime.

Dr. Gary Lasch, prominent Greenwich, Connecticut, doctor and founder of the HMO Remington Health Management, is found dead in his home, his skull crushed by a blow with a heavy bronze sculpture, and his wife, Molly, in bed covered with his blood. It was the Lasches' housekeeper, Edna Barry, who made the grisly discovery the morning after Molly's unexpectedly early return from Cape Cod, where she had gone to seclude herself upon learning of her husband's infidelity. As the evidence against Molly grows, her lawyer plea-bargains a manslaughter charge to avoid a murder conviction.

Released from prison nearly six years later, Molly reasserts her innocence to reporters, among them an old school friend, Fran Simmons, an investigative reporter and anchor for a true-crime show. Molly convinces Fran to research and produce a program on her husband's death, and as hidden aspects of Gary Lasch's life and the affairs of Remington Health Management come to light, Fran herself becomes a target for murder.

Audiobook: "The girl who played with fire" by Stieg Larsson

Audiobook: "The Killing Hour" By Lisa Gardner

Each time he struck, he took two victims.

Day after day, he waited for the first body to be discovered-a body containing all the clues the investigators needed to find the second victim, who waited … prey to a slow but certain death.

The clock ticked-salvation was possible.

The police were never in time.

Years have passed; but for this killer, time has stood still. As a heat wave of epic proportions descends, the game begins again. Two girls have disappeared … and the clock is ticking.

Rookie FBI agent Kimberly Quincy knows the killer’s deadline can be met. But she’ll have to break some rules to beat an exactingly vicious criminal at a game he’s had time to perfect.

For the Killing Hour has arrived …

Audiobook: "The Witness" by Sandra Brown

The title character is Kendall Deaton, newlywed and newly appointed public defender in a small mountain town, where secrets are as impenetrable as the dense woods surrounding it.
The Witness begins with Kendall surviving a car accident. She pulls the injured driver from the car, along with her newborn son. At a county hospital, the casualty is diagnosed with a broken leg and temporary amnesia. Kendall identifies him as her husband and, as soon as possible, escapes with him to a remote farm house.
The injured man realizes all is not as Kendall would have him believe — especially that he is her husband. Instinctively he knows that she's hiding something — something that terrifies her. Frustrated by her endless deceptions and his own inability to remember who he is, who she is, or where they were going before the car crash, he plays along with her charade . . . until his memory returns.
Kendall knows her time is running out. She must once again escape — from the FBI, from an untimely and impossible love, and from the members of the Brotherhood, who would kill her for witnessing the atrocities they commit in the name of righteousness.

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