Breaking Dawn: Best Seller or Bad End
By Clare Beusch

Most fans of the Twilight Saga would think “How can this series get any better?”  Anyone who has read the fourth book of the thrilling saga will say, “It can!”  Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer is the fourth and most adventurous of the books in the series.

In the previous books and in the beginning of Breaking Dawn, we get a sense of how Bella, a girl who moved from sunny Arizona to dreary Forks, Washington, feels about her vampire sweetheart, Edward Cullen.  Through a series of vampire battles and struggles, she discovers the fantasy world of immortals that she never thought existed.

The second book in the saga, New Moon, shows how Bella’s life is altered again when she discovers that her best friend, Jacob, is a werewolf.  Werewolves and vampires don’t get along, so Bella is constantly conflicted about which side to be on, without hurting anyone she loves.  Read the rest of this entry »

Two rogues swindle and fight their way through the bloodthirsty and brutal landscapes of the 10th century. Amram, a towering pillar of virility, carries a giant axe known for its propensity to remove heads from necks. His companion is Zelikman, a scarecrow of a man clad all in black who uses a much less devastating but no less effective physicians lance. Their tongues are nearly as nimble as their weapons of choice and get them into and out of more trouble than a lifetime needs. Like two amiable brothers, they carry a strong bond between them, and they work together to separate the drunken and debauched from their money as easily as possible. They are mercenaries, criminals, thieves. They are gentlemen of the road, but when one of their plans goes awry, the two find themselves entangled in a war between nations, and they are forced to choose what is right and what is wrong. Read the rest of this entry »

Review: This book records the life and times of Enzo the dog. Enzo is part labrador, part poodle and german-shepherd, unofficially part terrier (because terriers are problem-solvers, and Enzo would like to believe that he comes from “a determined gene pool”) and wholly sagacious. Plucked as a pup from the lap of his mother by Denny Swift, Enzo becomes fast friends with his new owner. Frustrated by his lack of thumbs, lips that cannot pronounce words, and inability to sit on a toilet and flush it, Enzo works hard both to understand his master and to be understood. Surprisingly, television finally serves a useful purpose, and Enzo becomes assimilated to the urban world he inhabits through days spent watching T.V. while waiting for Denny to return home. The two share a common bond: race car driving. Denny possesses an uncanny ability behind the wheel, especially when weather conditions in the Pacific Northwest make track conditions far from ideal. The two, master and dog, share in Denny’s dream, but life gets in the way and they both must find ways to cope with the harrowing turns that are thrown at them. Read the rest of this entry »