Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner and At Risk by Patricia Cornwell

Certain Girls (cloth edition)

Good for light summer reading.

Now Cannie's back. After her debut novel—a fictionalized (and highly sexualized) version of her life—became an overnight bestseller, she dropped out of the public eye and turned to writing science fiction under a pseudonym. She's happily married to the tall, charming diet doctor Peter Krushelevansky and has settled into a life that she finds wonderfully predictable—knitting in the front row of her daughter Joy's drama rehearsals, volunteering at the library, and taking over-forty yoga classes with her best friend Samantha.

It was interesting to see how things turned out for Cannie and the effects of her actions (from earlier novel Good in Bed) on the rest of her life. However, she was sometimes too wimpy for my tastes, particularly when dealing with her daughter. Also, I didn't really care for the ending—it was just too much.

At Risk (ebook)

I have not yet found a Cornwell book that I really like, but I can't put my finger on what it is that doesn't work for me. I think I'll go back and try the early Scarpetta books (I'm pretty sure my mom has them all).

A Massachusetts state investigator is called home from Knoxville, Tennessee, where he is completing a course at the National Forensic Academy. His boss, the district attorney, attractive but hard-charging, is planning to run for governor, and as a showcase she's planning to use a new crime initiative called At Risk—its motto: "Any crime, any time." In particular, she's been looking for a way to employ cutting-edge DNA technology, and she thinks she's found the perfect subject in an unsolved twenty-year-old murder—in Tennessee. If her office solves the case, it ought to make them all look pretty good, right?

Her investigator is not so sure—not sure about anything to do with this woman, really—but before he can open his mouth, a shocking piece of violence intervenes, an act that shakes up not only both their lives but the lives of everyone around them. It's not a random event. Is it personal? Is it professional? Whatever it is, the implications are very, very bad indeed . . . and they're about to get much worse.