Finished 11-27-11, rating 4/5, fiction, 295 pages, pub. 2011

Toni owns her own business planning celebrations, but on the night she expects a wedding proposal, she is disappointed.  To make the night worse she also receives news that her mother has had a stroke and is in a coma back in Blue Hills, Missouri.  Toni heads home to be with her emotionally distant mother and finds questions about her mother and family she’s never known.

The chapters alternate between Toni and her mother’s life.  Anna grew up with family drama of her own, drama that led to the discovery of a little black dress that showed visions of the future.  When Toni finds the dress and discovers its magic she needs her mother’s counsel.

I loved Anna’s story.  It unfolded at just the right pace and there was enough mystery there to keep me interested.  The dress itself was an interesting character- showing up in various scenes, mysterious and sexy.  I actually found the dress a more compelling character than Toni, who was fine, but a bit bland compared to Anna and the dress.

I thought this was a fun read.

I won this during October’s 24 Hour Read-a-Thon 🙂

So, if you had a little black dress that gave you visions of the future would you keep it in your closet or get the temptatation out of your house?

Finished 11-24-11, rating 3.5/5, fiction, 385 pages, published 2011

Lawyer David Zinc spent the majority of his day overbilling clients at the very successful Trust Tower in downtown Chicago.  One day as he takes the elevator to the 93rd floor he knows he cannot step off.  He cannot go to work.  He finds the closest bar and drinks enough alcohol to kill a normal person.  When the taxi drops him at Finley & Figg instead of home to his wife his fate is sealed.

Finley & Figg are ambulance chasers.  They’ve been hustling for 30 years and have nothing to show for it but a barely profitable law office.  Inconceivably, David makes himself an office out of storage space and signs on with the two lawyers.  When Wally Figg finds the next big tort case that will make them millionaires all three are thrown into a class action lawsuit that none of them are prepared for.

I’ve read Grisham here and there over the years and usually really enjoy them, but this one really did bore me until about 250 pages in and even then I didn’t love it, but at least I was more engaged.  The problem might have been that I didn’t really enjoy Figg and Finley and whatever positive feelings I had toward David were tempered by confusion over why he’d saddle himself with such shady lawyers.

I did like David and the office manager  Rochelle and was more interested in the smaller plot line involving children’s toys tainted with lead paint.  Made me want to throw out all of Gage’s toys immediately.  The end was good, but the book overall was just average for me.

I checked this book out of the library.