I finished Salem Falls by Jodi Picoult

I purchased it as an ebook for $8.99 from eReader.com (Amazon shows a list price of $15.00 and their price of $10.20 for a regular book). I use the free version of the eReader software on my Palm Treo (also downloaded from eReader.com). I order and download the ebook on my computer and then install it on my Treo. However, there are some issues with Microsoft Vista so I can't install the ebook in the usual way. That's ok, though, because the work-around is just as easy: I email the ebook file to myself as an attachment then just open the attachment on my Treo and it installs automatically.

I read my first Jodi Picoult book a couple of years ago and right away I was hooked. They sound so obvious (and sort of ridiculous) in a short description, but I'm usually amazed at how interesting, subtle, and multi-layered they are. That said, Salem Falls is probably my least favorite so far—I found it particularly unbelievable in places (one—or two—too many coincidences) and much more predictable than the others.

Salem Falls was published in 2001 and was a Booksense 76 Pick. Here is the brief synopsis:

Jack St. Bride was once a beloved teacher and soccer coach at a girls' prep school - until a student's crush sparked a powder keg of accusation and robbed him of his career and reputation. Now, after a devastatingly public ordeal that left him with an eight-month jail sentence and no job, Jack resolves to pick up the pieces of his life. He takes a job washing dishes at Addie Peabody's diner and slowly starts to form a relationship with her in the quiet New England village of Salem Falls. But just when Jack thinks he has outrun his past, a quartet of teenage girls with a secret turn his world upside down once again, triggering a modern-day witch hunt in a town haunted by its own history…