2020 Reading Challenge -50 Books 50 States - Eat, Tan, Read

Book 20: Maryland

I love that Dan Brown has brillant woman cryptographers as his characters! It’s so awesome to see a male author put women in powerful positions that are male dominate roles. Cyber books always bring out the geek in me.

“When the NSA’s invincible code-breaking machine encounters a mysterious code it cannot break, the agency calls its head cryptographer, Susan Fletcher, a brilliant and beautiful mathematician. What she uncovers sends shock waves through the corridors of power. The NSA is being held hostage … not by guns or bombs, but by a code so ingeniously complex that if released it would cripple U.S. intelligence. Caught in an accelerating tempest of secrecy and lies, Susan Fletcher battles to save the agency she believes in. Betrayed on all sides, she finds herself fighting not only for her country but also for her life, and in the end, for the life of the man she loves.”

Book 19: Maine

We all know this story and I am so excited to FINALLY read it. It is has been sitting on my bookshelf for YEARS and I am a asshamed to admit that I have been avoiding it due to the size, 1089 pages. 😳 I knew that this would take a long time to read and did not want to derail my reading goal so I always put it off, well not any longer. I got the brillant idea to listen to it on audio instead. It’s still gonna take me some time with 45 hours of listening to do but at least I can multi task while doing it.

“They were seven teenagers when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they were grown-up men and women who had gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But none of them could withstand the force that drew them back to Derry, Maine to face the nightmare without an end and the evil without a name…”

Book 18: Louisiana

A young adult Paranormal Fantasy Novel. I love how fast you can just breeze through a YA book! Its a nice break from the novels I have recently been reading. I so needed it to help get me back on schedule and I am enjoying it more than I thought I would.

“As a sixteen year old voodoo queen in the making, Joan Renault just wants to be like all the other girls in the small town of Monte Parish, Louisiana—obsessed with boys and swamped with social lives. If the other kids would quit calling her “hoodoo hag,” she might have a small shot at normality. It would also help if Joan’s weekend outings with her secret crush, Dave, weren’t always being interrupted by her dead Grandmere, the legendary Marie Laveau. After all, it’s hard to make out with your best friend when your grandmother is watching! But when you come from a long line of voodoo priestesses with dried gator heads decorating the wall of their huts, normal doesn’t come easily.

When Joan witnesses the brutal sacrifice of a child to a tree Druid, she learns her Grandmere’s scandalous past has come back to haunt those living in the present. Hera, a vengeful voodoo priestess is determined to use the residual energy of Pandora’s Box to revive a sleeping voodoo god and declare war on the descendants of Marie Laveau, especially Joan. Suddenly, Greek myths are being re-enacted all over town, and Joan has her hands full trying to sort it all out. With the approach of Samedi’s Day—the voodoo day of resurrection—Joan must learn to accept her destiny in order to stop the approaching threat to her family and friends.”

Book 17: Kentucky

Book 2 in the Catherine Ling series. This is a spin off of the Eve Duncan series, which I am obsessed with! The first book which was #12 in the Eve series, Eve meets Catherine and helps her get her son back from a murderous Russian mafia head. I am looking forward to finding out if I like Catherine Ling as much as I like Eve Duncan. Only time will tell.

“It’s the deadliest poison known to man. He’s the only one who knows its true power. She’s the only one who can stop the evil.

The chase is on. . . .

Catherine Ling was abandoned on the streets of Hong Kong at age four. Schooled in the art of survival, she traded in the only commodity she had: information. As a teenager, she came under the tutelage of a mysterious man known only as Hu Chang—a skilled assassin and master poisoner. As a young woman, she was recruited by the CIA and now she is known as one of their most effective operatives. When her old friend Hu Chang creates a formula that’s not only deadly but completely untraceable, the race begins to be the first to get it. Catherine finds herself up against a group so villainous and a man so evil that she may not survive in her quest to protect those she cares about: Hu Chang and Luke—the son who was stolen from Catherine and only recently brought home safe. Using all of her formidable skills, Catherine Ling proves the age-old belief that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

Book 16: Kansas

Book 16: Kansas

“Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice” of Kinnakee, Kansas.” She survived—and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, the Kill Club—a secret secret society obsessed with notorious crimes—locates Libby and pumps her for details. They hope to discover proof that may free Ben. Libby hopes to turn a profit off her tragic history: She’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings to the club—for a fee. As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started—on the run from a killer.”

I am half way through and thoroughly enjoying this book. I have already seen the movie, so I already know what the twisted ending is but it is still a great read.

Book 15: Iowa

“There’s nothing strange about bodies buried in cemeteries—unless they don’t belong there. And when six murdered women are discovered in other people’s graves, the hunt for a sadistic serial killer begins before he can claim a seventh victim.

Agent Cam Prescott of Iowa’s Division of Criminal Investigation is leading the search alongside forensic psychologist Sophia Channing, who knows the minds of psychopaths inside and out. And after a brief but passionate affair, she knows Cam almost as well. What she doesn’t know is that her high-profile involvement in the case has caught the twisted predator’s eye—and sparked his fury.

When Sophia suddenly vanishes, Cam and his team shift into overdrive to keep horrific history from repeating itself. But for Sophia, being trapped in the same isolated lair where so much innocent blood has been spilled may get her inside her vicious captor’s head—and may offer her the only chance she has to escape an agonizing and lethal fate.”

Book 14: Indiana

“The murder of a minister’s family near South Bend at the end of April 1989 was, at the time, the worst case of mass murder in the history of northern Indiana. Police very quickly focused on Robert Jeffrey Pelley, the son of the minister, Robert Lee Pelley, and within a matter of hours concluded that he had to be the killer.

But was Jeff Pelley, as he was called, really the murderer? The case of the Pelleys fascinated Indiana for almost two decades – for every fact that seemed to suggest that Jeff Pelley had murdered his father, stepmother, and stepsisters, there were other facts that seemed to show he was innocent.

It took Indiana authorities years to charge Jeff Pelley with the murders of his family, and still more years to bring him to trial. And the story isn’t over yet …

But the truth of what really happened on April 29, 1989, remains a mystery.”

Oooh, I do love me a good true crime mystery! 🕵

Book 12: Idaho

“What went wrong at Ruby Ridge? Why was Randy Weaver’s son fatally shot in the back?

How could the FBI justify shooting a woman as she held her infant child?

Why were the Weavers given a $3.1 million settlement by the U.S. Government?

Was there an FBI cover-up and how high did it go?

Every Knee Shall Bow answers the critical questions that cut to the heart of the most explosive issues in the United States today.

The Weaver Family took to the woods to escape what they believed was a sinful world on the brink of Armageddon. But Randy Weaver’s indictment on a firearms violation escalated into a deadly shoot out at his northern Idaho cabin. Before it was over, a federal marshal, Weaver’s wife and his only son were dead.”

I live about 60 miles from Ruby Ridge and to be honest I didn’t realize all that occurred here. I thought that it was a hate spreading, racist, radical, that when law enforcement came to arrest him on a weapons violation, a standoff ensued. Similar to Waco, the government made some errors in how they handled the situation and saddley that resulted in loss of life. But it seems there was more to the story than I knew and some cover up going on.

I am ashamed that this happened so close to home, that there are people so filled with hate that used to live here. I don’t want people to think that only Aryans live in North Idaho. My community has done a lot over the decades to clean the hate from our streets.

I know that I am not the only one that feels this way. Does your home have a past or present that you are ashamed of?

Book 11: Hawaii

“A gothic tale of horror, secrets, and an unimaginable past…”

On the island of Maui, Sara lives with her adoptive elder parents who are very set in the old ways. She lives a very secluded life, no telephone, not able to make frieends. Then one day 4 mysterious “cousins” arrive to live with them for a month. She is told by her parents that under no circumstances is she to feed them.

“Something wicked, something dark has Sara’s family in its grip. An insidious terror will soon sweep through the small valley where Sara lives, threatening the lives of her neighbors. In a race to discover the truth of who her cousins really are, Sara forms a tenuous friendship with an unlikely pair: Jenny, a shy newcomer to the island, and Sunami, a tomboyish local girl. As the girls discover a chilling truth, they realize to their horror that time is running out and some secrets should never be disturbed.”

Book 10: Georgia

True Crime –

“Follow Ann Rule inside the twisting case of Bart Corbin, the Atlanta dentist and “handsome twin” tied to two murders nearly two decades apart. With a successful practice and an upscale suburban home, Bart Corbin appeared to share an idyllic life with his pretty wife, Jennifer, and their two young sons. But there were secrets – including an affair of Bart’s that drove Jenn to look for love in the internet – that would prove deadly on the December morning Jenn was found with with a single gunshot wound to her head. Police suspected suicide, but a relentless county investigator dug deeper to find a shattering revelation from Bart Corbin’s past: a former girlfriend whose death from a gunshot wound was also ruled a suicide…. The chilling discovery would soon ensnare the remorseless killer behind both tragic deaths: Bart Corbin.”