Great Reads: De-stress with mysteries, thrillers

The 2012 summer season is winding down as students are back in school and those much needed vacations are now for the memory books.

However, amidst the record breaking heat and those monsoon rains, we’ve taken solace in a good book to occupy our time. Reading is one of the best stress relievers I know of, especially after a day filled with endless deadlines and appointments.

Keep in mind research has proven a few minutes of daily reading can be helpful for everyone no matter their age. So with that thought in mind, this new edition of Great Reads has some drama, suspense, murder and plenty of long-hidden secrets ready to be revealed all designed to give you a temporary “mental escape” from life’s endless demands. 

On the first day of school at the very exclusive Atwood School, a group of five children become friends. Eventually, they become known as the Big Five: Gabby, Billy, Izzie, Andy and Sean and this bond of friendship lasts throughout elementary school, high school and into the college years with each of them experiencing their own struggles.  Their lives and the emotional bond between them are explored in Danielle Steele’s Friends Forever.

Marian Caldwell, a successful television producer in New York City has the life that most people only dream about, but that all changes when a young woman named Kirby Rose enters Marian’s world in Emily Giffin’s Where We Belong.  

Sheriff Joanna Brady’s next case hits to close to home in JA Jance’s Judgement Call. The sheriff’s daughter finds her high school principal’s dead body in the desert, a very incriminating photo appears on Facebook, a doctor gets his son a lawyer, a group of teens have a grudge against the victim and Principal Highsmith had a few secrets of her own.  Complicating matters for Sheriff Brady, her daughter’s reputation may be at risk as this case becomes far to complicated even for Bisbee’s top cop.

Michael Bennett’s longtime friend Hughie McDonough has been killed and the Mexican crime lord is vowing revenge on Bennett and the city of New York when he’s arrested for the murder in I, Michael Bennett by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge.  

If you enjoyed reading A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness, the story featuring witch Diana Bishop and vampire Matthew Clairmont continues with Shadow of Night, the newest book in the All Souls Trilogy. This new story begins where the previous one left off taking Diana and Matthew back to Elizabethan England in this brand new adventure.

A series of fires are occurring in Washington, D.C. and Maggie O’Dell is called in to aid the investigation when a dead body is found in Fireproof: a Maggie O’Dell Novel by Alex Kava. Making things difficult for Maggie is reporter Jeffrey Cole who’s desperately seeks his big break and starts digging into her past and complicating her investigation.

FBI agents Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich rush to San Francisco when a good friend of theirs is shot in Backfire: an FBI Novel by Catherine Coulter.