The Valley of Horses by Jean M. Auel is great historical fiction which is the second book of Earth’s Children Series. Earth’s Children Series show how things happened after last Ice age. The Valley of Horses is about the time,  Ayla, the heroine of the Earth’s Children Series spends in this beautiful valley. Story is all about  nature, Animals and the way of life as how it happened thousands of years ago before all major civilizations started. Jean M. Auel is extremely good at detailing every tiny thing, which take you in to story and make you feel like you are there watching all these events unfolding in real life. Author makes the reader live inside the story let them feel the emotions the characters in book. I’m a action, thriller, comedy fan but I enjoyed this novel a lot. I can tell same about all books of this Earth’s Children Series and all of those  novels show how the talent of wonderful author.

Going Home by Harriet Evans is a cool British chick lit novel.  It’s a simple novel but I have to say its pretty good.  It’s not one of the greatest Chick lit novels or one of the funniest chick lit novels but still you can enjoy the book without getting bored.

Twenty something Lizzy Walter is living the good life, working in London at a film–production company and visiting her family’s manor in the country whenever she wants a change. Until, still stung over her boyfriend’s betrayal, she arrives home for Christmas with her sister Jess and cousin Tom to discover that Keeper House must be sold to pay her adored, but unreliable, Uncle Mike’s debts. Her family seems to have accepted the loss of their ancestral home, but she is in denial, so that while they are planning her aunt Chin’s wedding and packing up the house, she sequesters herself in her London apartment and broods, using sex as a panacea but refusing to commit to any relationships.

Going Home is the first chick lit novel written by Harriet Evans but its very impressive for a first novel. I’m looking forward to read other books of Harriet Evans.

The Moscow Vector is a thriller written by Robert Ludlum and Patrick Larkin. This is the third Covert One book and this has more action than last 2 books. I can say this is bit more like a Action-thriller.

One might think that time would have taken its toll on the crusty, disgruntled Soviet dinosaurs who want to return Russia to its Communist glory days, but evidently not. Larkin, helming Ludlum’s Covert One series, has dreamed up a new bunch of hard-liners, armed with HYDRA, a designer poison that singles out and kills victims based on DNA. With HYDRA having dispatched numerous U.S. and allied intelligence agents, Russian President Viktor Dudarev is poised to launch Operation ZHUKOV, a takeover strike against Kazakhstan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and half of Ukraine. Leading a covert investigation of HYDRA is series regular Lt. Col. Jonathan Smith, U.S. Army molecular biologist and chief operative of supersecret spy agency Covert One.

Like most of  Robert Ludlum Russian government play the bad guys role and white house trying to save the world. I don’t know this idea is still selling or but storyline is good. I was told by few Robert Ludlum fans The Moscow Vector is not good as first 2 Covert one books but maybe that’s because this book has more action than usual Robert Ludlum thrillers. Still you can see enough high rating at Amazon.com to take it as a great thriller novel.

Sabriel by Garth Nix is another great Fantasy Novel which should be read by all Fantasy novel fans. I guess anyone who love the Lord of the ring series gonna love this Fantasy novel. I have to say I enjoyed the book very much. I think I’m falling for Fantasy novels.

After receiving a cryptic message from her father, Abhorsen, a necromancer trapped in Death, 18-year-old Sabriel sets off into the Old Kingdom. Fraught with peril and deadly trickery, her journey takes her to a world filled with parasitical spirits, Mordicants, and Shadow Hands. Unlike other necromancers, who raise the dead, Abhorsen lays the disturbed dead back to rest. This obliges him–and now Sabriel, who has taken on her father’s title and duties–to slip over the border into the icy river of Death, sometimes battling the evil forces that lurk there, waiting for an opportunity to escape into the realm of the living. Desperate to find her father, and grimly determined to help save the Old Kingdom from destruction by the horrible forces of the evil undead, Sabriel endures almost impossible exhaustion, violent confrontations, and terrifying challenges to her supernatural abilities–and her destiny.

Now I can’t wait to read second and third novels of  Abhorsen Trilogy. Garth Nix‘s writing style is great and he knows how to built a story well. Sabriel
is a great book for both young and adult fantasy novel fans though it was written for Young readers. If you check reviews at Amazon.com you ll find how good the book is.

The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud is a fantasy novel which I enjoyed a lot. I have justed finished reading it and now I want to find the second book of  The Bartimaeus Trilogy, which is The Golem’s Eye. This novel reminds me the Harry Potter which is the most famous Fantasy novel of all times. But There are differences specially in main characters.

When five-year-old Nathaniel’s parents sell him to the government to become a magician’s apprentice, the boy is stripped of his past and is given over for training to a grim, mid-level magician from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Over the next seven years, Nathaniel studies the lessons given by his cold master, but in secret he delves into advanced magic books, gaining skill beyond his years: he summons a djinn to steal the powerful amulet of Samarkand. Inspired by a desire for revenge, this bold act leads to danger and death.

If you like Fantasy Novels which are about magic then you are gonna enjoy The Amulet of Samarkand a lot. The story is written in cool way, Nathaniel’s third-person narrative alternates with the first-person telling of Bartimaeus the djinn, a memorable and highly entertaining character. This is the first novel of  The Bartimaeus Trilogy and if you read this you will be want to read the second book. Amazon.com has lot of positive reviews about The Amulet of Samarkand, highly rating the book.

Sick Puppy by Carl Hiaasen is  a comedy. I’m kinda bored make a review about this book. Maybe that’s because I’m sleepy. I read the book till end and its readable. It has its moments like those 911 messages were hilarious. But I don’t think it gives you laughter like a true comedy book gives. But I’m just a one person and not a fan of Carl Hiaasen. So fans of his wouldn’t agree with me.

When budding young ecoterrorist Twilly Spree begins a campaign of sabotage against a grotesque litterbug named Palmer Stoat, he gets much more than he bargained for. Stoat is a political fixer, involved with a bevy of shady types: Dick Artemus, ex-car salesman, now governor; Robert Clapley, a crooked land developer with an unhealthy interest in Barbie dolls; and his business expediter, Mr. Gash, a permed reptilian thug with ghastly musical tastes: “All morning he drove back and forth across the old bridge, with his favorite 911 compilation in the tape deck: Snipers in the Workplace, accompanied by an overdub of Tchaikowsky’s Symphony No. 3 in D Major.” After a wave of preemptive strikes centered on a garbage truck and a swarm of dung beetles, Twilly ups the ante and kidnaps both Palmer’s dog and his wife, Desie, who finds Twilly a great deal more interesting than her slob of a husband. In doing so Twilly uncovers a conspiracy (well, more like business as usual) to jam a bill through the Florida legislature to develop Toad Island, a wildlife sanctuary, in a deal that will make a mint for all the politicos concerned. Chapley wants Twilly silenced and dispatches Mr. Gash. Palmer wants his wife and dog back and asks Dick Artemus to help in the rescue without derailing the bill.

Amazon.com ratings for this book is better than I thought. Seems Carl Hiaasen has lots of fans specially in Florida. You can read reviews of these fans and get an idea about the book.

Night Watch is the 28th book of  Terry Pratchett‘s DiscWorld Series. The 28th addition to Pratchett’s “Discworld” series explores time travel and historical inevitability with cleverness and humor. The author’s talent for comedy does not falter as he continues to set the standard for comic fantasy. Terry Pratchett is one of best British Comedy novel writers. I have read around 15 Discworld novels and love those all. These books are really fun to read.

Sam Vimes, Commander of Ankh-Morpork’s City Watch, can’t complain. He has a title, his wife is due to give birth to their first child any moment and he hasn’t had to pound a beat in ages but that doesn’t stop him from missing certain bits of his old life. Thank goodness there’s work to be done. Vimes manages to corner a murderer, Carcer, on the library dome at Unseen University during a tremendous storm, only to be zapped back in time 30 years, to an Ankh-Morpork where the Watch is a joke, the ruling Patrician mad and the city on the verge of rebellion. Three decades earlier, a man named John Keel took over the Night Watch and taught young Sam Vimes how to be a good cop before dying in that rebellion. Unfortunately, in this version of the past, Carcer has killed Keel. The only way Vimes can hope to return home and ensure he has a future to return home to is to take on Keel’s role.

Night Watch has most of usual DiscWorld characters, but this time story tells us about their early days. ‘young’ Vimes, Fred Colon as a corporal, Nobby Nobbs as a street urchin, Reg Shoe as a non-zombie revolutionary and a young new street vendor named Dibbler just starting out. It was to read this book. Reminds you the movie “Back to the Future”.

The Chancellor Manuscript by Robert Ludlum is another great Espionage Thriller / Political Thriller by this great master of Thriller novels. The Chancellor Manuscript is not heavily action packed thriller like The Bourne Identity or that series. But still its good enough. Story is well built and it goes smoothly.

Peter Chancellor, who found unlikely success as an author of political thrillers after his ambitions to become a historian were frustrated, writes a work of fiction that comes close enough to the scenario described that the people who controlled those files, a group called Inver Brass in the novel, decide that someone else may also know too much. This sets the stage for the international intrigue that follows

The Chancellor Manuscript by Robert Ludlum is highly praised by many of this fans as well as those who bought this novel from Amazon.com. But for me its little bit lack of action. I think I’m more into The Bourne Identity type novels which are full of  action. Still The Chancellor Manuscript a good thriller and nice novel to read in a weekend.

The Third Option by Vince Flynn is another above average political thriller. This is the 3rd of of  Vince Flynn’s Mitch Rapp series. I enjoyed to the book though I don’t like the end. If you like Thrillers then The Third Option by Vince Flynn is good book to read.

Rancorous political infighting surrounds the selection of a successor to the dying head of the CIA just as Mitch Rapp, the agency’s top operative, embarks on a dangerous mission to take out a well-known German industrialist believed to be supplying Middle East terrorists with highly sensitive equipment critical to constructing a nuclear bomb. When Rapp’s ultimately successful mission is compromised from within, ailing CIA director Thomas Stansfield puts his imprimatur on the efforts of his chosen successor, Irene Kennedy, director of the agency’s Counter-terrorism Center, to identify the powerful interests both inside and outside the agency that wanted Rapp to fail…

The Third Option had received 45 five stars and 32 four stars out of 123 customer reviews. Which means majority of readers like the book. I’m with them too. But I also agree with who put negative reviews because lack of an ending. Main culprit hadn’t been discovered or dealt with. Vince Flynn should have given the book better ending than this. The Third Option diserve a better ending than this.

Ice Station by Matthew Reilly is one of the greatest  action thriller novel. This Novel has extra load of action that a usual thriller novel. This is the first Matthew Reilly novel I read. I Thought it must be some kind of science fiction novel since I saw story was about a Alien spaceship. But I was wrong I was reading a novel full of action which make to glue to the book till the end of story. Its more like those action movies. I have become a Matthew Reilly fan from that moment. this is not classic literature this is pure entertainment. Ice Station is the first book of  Matthew Reilly’s Scarecrow thriller novel series.  Area 7 and Scarecrow which are second and third books of Scarecrow thriller novel series are same as Ice Station.

After a team of American scientists at Wilkes Ice Station discover what seems to be a spaceship in a four-million-year-old cavern below the ice, two of the divers disappear while checking out the craft. Lt. Shane “Scarecrow” Schofield and his highly trained team of Marines respond to the scientists’ distress signal. By the time the leathernecks reach Wilkes, three days later, one of the scientists has killed another, six more members of the Wilkes team have disappeared in the ice cave and eight French scientists from a nearby station are for some reason at the U.S. base. Would the French government kill Americans to capture a frozen UFO? Probably: six of the French “scientists” turn out to be the members of the French special forces. From that discovery onward, this first novel offers nonstop thrills as Schofield and his team fight for their lives and for those of the remaining American scientists Against French and British commandos and a secret American spy group; against killer whales and strange aquatic mammals; and against time, for both the French and British commandos harbor “eraser” plans to wipe out all survivors in case of mission failure.

If you are just fan of Vince Flynn or Robert Ludlum type thriller fan, you might find Ice Station has way too much action than you might want. But for me that’s what makes this book better. in  Ice Station action tells you story rather than dialogs. Ice Station is absolutely non-stop action + action thriller its more like you are watching movie. I have seen some negative reviews about Matthew Reilly novels such as Ice Station but those guys miss the point. These are not Literature masterpieces, These books are for entertainment purpose not for collecting in person library.  If you want that kinda book you should try novels like War and Peace. Matthew Reilly‘s novels make people read books even those who think its boring to read books. My person opinion is you can’t find a better example about Action Thrillers than Matthew Reilly‘s Ice Station.