February Reads Part 2

THE PACT by Jodi Picoult (Avon, c1998, ISBN 978-0-06-115014-2) was up next, #3. Set in Bainbridge, New Hampshire, the Harte and Gold families have been intertwined ever since their oldest were born. Melanie and Gus were best friends, Emily and Chris grew up together and loved one another. Until they are 17 years old and make a suicide pact. When Chris is arrested and imprisoned for the murder of his best friend and girlfriend, the book takes off like a shot. Jumping back and forth between past and present, we learn what led up to that fateful night and are witness to a great depiction of two families torn apart by tragedy.
Jodi's books are absolutely spectacular and I kick myself every time I read one of her older books for having missed it in the first place. This book was no exception.
It begins:

NOW

November 1997

There was nothing left to say.

Can you believe that it's another Janet Evanovich book?
#4 for me in February was WIFE FOR HIRE by Janet Evanovich (Harper, c1990, 2007, ISBN 978-0-06-059888-4), one of her reprints.
Maggie Toone moves to Skogen, Vermont to fulfill her contract with Hank Malone: she has been hired to play his wife! Hank needs a wife to secure a loan, Maggie needs to get out of Riverside, NJ to write her book. The two pair match up and it's a match made in...heaven? Quick read, quirky characters, 'nuff said.

The first sentence is:

At the turn of the century the Bigmount Brick Company hired new arrivals from Eastern Europe to work in the New Jersey clay pits.

Fifth for me, was NO PLACE LIKE HOME by Mary Higgins Clark (Simon & Schuster, c2005, ISBN 0-7432-6489-4).
I seemed to use February as a month to catch up on some old reading as well as read some new to me authors which was really nice for a change.
In this book, set in Mendham, New Jersey, Celia Nolan's husband, Alex, bought her a house as a surprise for her birthday. What he didn't know was that the house he purchased was the house she grew up in, the house where, 24 years prior she murdered her mother trying to protect her. Now, living back in Mendham, strange things are happening and it's as if someone knows Celia's identity.

I thought this book had a great premise and was upset that I had missed it when it came out. However, I thought that the plot was paper thin and unrealistic. I knew within the first 100 pages who the bad guy was and this book had few likable characters.
It starts:

Prologue

Ten-year-old Liza was dreaming her favorite dream, the one about the day when she was six years old, and she and Daddy were at the beach, in New Jersey, at Spring Lake.