This book was a good read. It had a good plot and I liked the way that both the hero and heroine were actually in love before they made love. It made the love scene all the more sweeter. The fact that they have to struggle to be together makes the reader feel like they will always stay together no matter how hard things get.

Like most young women in London in 1663, all orphaned Vivienne Burroughs has to look forward to is an arranged marriage. But unlike most young women, Vivienne is determined to rebel against her fate. Her parents married for love, and that is Vivienne's dearest wish, to find a man she loves, and marry him. Having fled from her home to escape from a loathsome prospective husband, Sir Philip Martlebury, Vivienne is found on the docks by Robert Harding, a solicitor. Rob's heart goes out to this young woman, and when he learns she is trying to escape from what is sure to be a miserable marriage, he advises her to find out anything unfavorable about Sir Philip that she can, in the hopes that her uncle will chose another husband for her. Rob and Vivienne never expect to meet again, but they do when Sir Philip hires Rob - to draw up the marriage contract! Before long, Rob and Vivienne find themselves falling in love, and they will have to overcome obstacles to be together. I read this book because I enjoyed others by the author, and I was not disappointed. I knew this story would end happily ever after, but the author kept me reading to find out how. I was also pleased by the setting of this book, which seemed to be a usual one for a historical romance.

It's funny how, on your way "up", when you have nothing to lose, you'll do whatever it takes to survive. But, at the moment you become a "have", you're reminded of all you stand to lose.

Rob was born one of England's poor. A guttersnipe. A pickpocket. A boyhood of starvation and deprivation. He becomes the ward of a wealthy man who teaches and trains him. Eventually, he becomes a solicitor. Modestly low middle class, he manages to make a living.

He meets, and falls in love with, Vivienne, the niece of a wealthy silk merchant. A woman far above his station. To further complicate matters, Robert is the solicitor preparing the wedding contract between Vivienne and Sir Philip.

This is a sweet story. Robert is determined to succeed, but has feelings of self-doubt. He was a guttersnipe. A pickpocket. A man unworthy of love.

Vivienne's love is a balm. A salve. And the knowledge that he is loved - by anyone, but of course by Vivienne, whom he loves - changes Rob. Instills a bit more courage in him.

This was a good book. Rob is definately a "beta" man. But even quiet beta men need love, too.

This bright and cheerful book is filled with several learning possibilities == animal names, animal sounds, names of colors, how to share, and the tolerance of those different from yourself. The story is about a stormy night on the farm when the animals want to crawl into bed with the farmer and his wife to keep warm and dry. But once the skunk tries to join them, all the animals run back outside, leaving the farmer and wife and skunk all cozy in the bed. The animals learn it's better to share than have none at all. The illustrations are wonderful and the book is a combination of text and rhyme, perfect for reading aloud in funny voices. I recommend it!

This story offers a wonderful way to teach children about the risks of passing judgments. A group of farm animals excludes a poor skunk until a good downpour and the lure of a warm, dry feather bed forces them to rethink their skunk stereotype. In the end, they realize they can all be friends. My 3-year-old daughter loves the rhyme (and a chance to yell, "skunk!"). The hilarious illustrations are fun as well.

This story offers a wonderful way to teach children about the pitfalls of passing judgments. A group of farm animals excludes a poor skunk until a good rain and the lure of a warm, dry feather bed forces them to rethink their stereotype of the skunk. My 3-year-old daughter loves the rhymes, and the pictures are hilarious as all of the farm animals crowd into one bed.

There is some very valuable advice on how to deal with your kitten. I immediately stopped playing the foot under the covers game with my kitten in order to discourage her from attacking my toes. There are sensible suggestions on how to say "no" to your kitten. And I'm anticipating a move in the next few months, and I think Moore's suggestion to rub a wet towel on your kitten and then rub the towel on the walls of the new house, so that she'll recognize her own scent, will work. On the other hand Moore thinks you ought to keep a first aid kit for one cat that would easily fill the needs of a family of five, she suggests cutting the handles off of paper bags so that kitty won't get herself strangled in them, she suggests making your own scratching post, and gives advice on how to make several toys that pretty much amount to ones you can buy or glorified versions of regular items (socks, a belt from an old robe) that are sure to bring out kitty playfulness without the elaborate Martha Stewart like construction. I was also confused by some of the eating strictures. One table says kittens can't eat dry food until 12 weeks, but the text has kittens eating dry food much earlier. Moore seems to make light of lactose intolerance, and among her kitty treats includes scrambled eggs with margarine and cottage cheese!!! And her kitty chowder seems more like a human treat to me. Counterpointing the interesting suggestion to give your kitten a small piece of raw tuna as an alternative or addition to brushing are chapters on command training, new age therapies and kitty massage. This is fine and cuddly, though I doubt I'll teach my kitten to do much more than sit, if that, and I'm not taking her for acupuncture. This primer is written not so much by a cat lover as a cat fanatic. (Though I admit that if you're going to be a fanatic, it may as well be of cats.) Still I prefer the more practical down to earth advice of Cats for Dummies, than some of the outlandish, occasionally preposterous, cat adulation techniques of the Kitten Owner's manual. Then again, I am going to try the kitty massage.

I learned more than I ever thought possible regarding the care of cats. A terrific book, and my only regret is that it was not available some sixty years ago when I started my love affair with cats. I am doubly impressed that the Humane Society of the Unted States has endorsed this terrific owners manual. My hats off to Arden Moore along with thanks for writing such an informative book for all cat owners.

I have been a cat owner for over 7 years and there was alot in the book that I was amazed at. I never knew you could train your cat to speak and things. I was able to follow the guide and now my cat speaks! It took alot of treats tho!!!
Cant wait til her next book comes out.

Did you grow up in the 70's? If you did, you'll enjoy the trivia and reference in this engaging murder mystery. The coming of age of a nation is relived through the obsessions of a Jewish girl from Brooklyn. Who did it, and what chutzba! Only Marty knows for sure.

I picked this up with no great expectations but was wonderfully surprised by the author's witty writing and her ability to capture the 70s. It's also nice to see a mystery heroine who enjoys sex and actually gets it! Brava, Ms. Moore!

I loved the wild sex scene with Mr. Teeth! Can't wait for the new book! I fantasize about Marti ever since I read last dance. She is a starlet.

Gracelin O'Malley flees Ireland escaping starvation and the law ,and leaves behind her baby son and Father. Having read the first of this 2 part tale (so far, its obvious # 3 will be coming) of Gracelin O'Malley I find I rated Ann Moore's first effort a little higher. Although Leaving Ireland is a good book and I would surely recommend it,I found it predictable, especially towards the end. It was wrapped up in the last 3 chapters with an amateurs touch and for me that took away from the whole story.

Ms. Moore's portrayal of the passage from London to New York was real. One could feel the torture and pain of the characters portrayed. I wanted to reach out and help poor Liam as he watched his mother and sister die to the fever. But he was oh so lucky to have found the brave soul of Ms. O'Malley who had herself experienced the lost of the one man she truly loved.

Upon their entry to America, though they were afforded the basic needs of life such as food and clothing, they still lack the higher needs afforded to those who did not have the stigma "Irish need not apply".

I found myself a part of these characters wanting so much more for them, for it seems those who have suffered so do deserve so much more. I hope Ms. Moore creates a third book which will reunite her with her son, and with the man man who truly loves her.

If you loved Gracelin O'Malley, then Leaving Ireland is a must-read! Fleeing an Ireland full of pain and suffering, tragedy and broken dreams, Grace journeys across the Atlantic to build a new life in America. The plot is action-packed from the start and, in my opinion, much more uplifting overall than the first book. Familiar faces return and new friends and nemesis are made along the way as Grace continues her struggle for survival and her fight for a better life in a new world. Through it all, Grace perseveres with courage, dignity, unwavering faith, an indomitable spirit, and a heart of gold (thank you Ann Moore for creating such an inspirational character!). Although Leaving Ireland is a wonderful novel in itself, I recommend reading Gracelin O'Malley first. You'll find your enjoyment of the story even greater having met the characters before. Grace seems to be on the road to happiness and I eagerly await the third installment of her story!

I found the book hard to put down. Bud Moore writes of first hand travels through the mountains of Idaho and Montana and has some great tales of encounters with wildlife and nauture as he grew to become a Mountain Man.

I had the please of meeting Bud while visiting Condon MT several years ago and he shared first hand many of the stories on this book..

Purchase this one and you won't be sorry!

Russell

Outstanding history, which is very easy to read, of a wonderful part of the West. Also, is a great wake up as to how changes in the environment affects the wildlife that lives there. I recommend highly.

In 1930, thirteen-year-old Bud Moore climbed over the high ridge above his parent's western Montana homestead, carrying "a battered .30-.30 Winchester, light tarp, one blanket, fish line and hooks, and salt, bacon flour and oatmeal to supplement berries and game." He wanted to explore the wilderness of Idaho's Lochsa River country -- then one of the largest wild regions left in the country. As it turned out, his journey lasted a lifetime, returning as a young man to trap furs in winter, and later as a U.S. Forest Service ranger. His book recounts the history of this region, beginning with the Nez Perce Indians and early Anglo explorers, through his own days as the man responsible for overseeing the first logging and roadbuilding on the forest. As a witness to man's sometimes destructive effects on the forest and its wildlife, Moore has spent a lifetime trying to understand how we can cultivate a better relationship to the land. He shares his wise reflections with us in a deeply personal narrative. Anyone who is concerned with the future of this beautiful region will learn much from "walking the trail" with Bud Moore. The Lochsa Story is an eloquent plea for understanding the land and treating it with respect.

Lily and Sean have grown up together...their mothers are best friends, and their grandmothers are best friends. Personally, I loved the grandmothers' plotting and conniving to get their way--I thought it was hilarious. That said, Lily & Sean have never gotten along. Then Lily is called back home to do a research project for her organization on the coral reefs in the area. Sean is the mayor of the town, and they must work together and battle their way through all the hurt feelings of their youth.

You will know what's coming, most of the time, but it is still a good read---it's fun just to see them try to get back at each other for supposed wrongs from the last 20 years.

The first chance Lily Banyon could leave her hometown of Coral Beach, Florida she fled. It is several years later and she has become a highly regarded marine biologist renowned for her international work on coral reefs while working for the prestigious Marine Center in Massachusetts.

Coral Beach is in the midst of a controversy between the environmental leaning Mayor Sean McDermott and the business development leaning council over the reef. When the advisor Dr. Lesensky becomes deathly ill, the town obtains the assistance of the Marine Center to determine the health of the reef. Over her objection, a reluctant Lily is sent home to complete the study.

Immediately, Sean and Lily send attraction sparks to each other that could ignite the southeast. Both have secretly loved each other since their teen days, but circumstances and a lack of confidence has kept them from connecting. As they fall in love as adults someone tries to sabotage her efforts in favor of development regardless of the findings.

NIGHT SWIMMING is a pleasant contemporary romance that entertains on several levels besides the lead couple's skirmishes that hide their love for one another. Two engaging additional subplots (the health of reefs and the high school age "relationship" between Lily and Sean told in flashbacks) add leagues of depth. The villain is too greedy and sleazy to take seriously hurting the meaningful debate between environment and development. Still sub-genre fans will appreciate Laura Moore's fine tale.

Harriet Klausner

'Night Swimming' is a truly enjoyable and nicely written contemporary romance with a bit of suspense added. It is the first book by Laura Moore that I have read but it will not be the last.

Lily Banyon reluctantly returns to Coral Beach, the home town she escaped from ten years ago, to complete an ecological study of the coral reefs. There she must confront her difficult past, her childhood nemesis, Sean McDermott, upon whom she had a devastating crush and a group of investors determined to sabotage her study. McDermott, now mayor of Coral Beach, is also bothered by Lily's return but the longer they work together the more attracted he becomes to the brilliant and beautiful marine biologist. Will romance blossom while they fight to protect the compromised coral reefs and prevent the town from approving a plan to develop the pristine shorefront?

Moore has written a charming story with two main characters who are extremely likable. This makes a great beach read. You won't be disappointed.

Toothpick Men is thoughtful and entertaining, exactly the kind of book that is a great summer or beach read. The stories are quirky and short enough to read quickly, but serious enough to give you something to mull over, too. It would be a good winter book, too. The size of the MAMMOTH Press books is great, by the way: they feel comfortable and almost alive in your hands. I like the way the stories surprise you with unexpected twists and information. Just when you think you know who a narrator is and what makes him tick, Mr. Moore throws a curve ball at you. Not all the stories are equally well-done, but my only serious complaint is the emphasis on male perspectives to the exclusion of the women characters (of course the title tells you that that is going to be the case). I'd like to see a bit more depth to the female take on things, even if males or men are the focus. Overall it's a charming book and I recommend it.

Moore's stories are contented and inviting, but they have abandoned ulterior traces, and more, to rims we hadn't suspected. Curing the daily subordinate, they visualize a parochial human being of discomfiting and sometimes enervating complexity. Moore invites us with the blackness of his laughter, his chancy hilarity. Moore's accounts show us that although one is history, this does not mean life is easy, nor gilded and assessed; but we as humans excavate utterly in the disquieting. Marvelously pursued and implied, that one only knows that history, the illumination of readers, Dinty invents ways to read and be read.

I have taught the book in freshman writing classes at two colleges in Sarasota, Florida: Manatee Community College and Ringling School of Art and Design. From the opening, White Birds, the students are intrigued--what do the birds symbolize, they wonder--and they continue eagerly with the stories. Moore explores the psyche of human conflict wonderfully. We held wonderful classroom discussions on things such as male and female interaction and communication, racism, assumptions, love, honesty, and how these things fit into our lives. The literature can be used to illuminate real life, and to provide a springboard for discussions of important human issues.

This is a rare example of contemporary stories that have such literary merit as to be worthy of classroom use. In addition to the human issues, the stories are staged and set nicely, and the characters are believable, even if sometimes aggravating, and use of symbolism is astounding: toothpick men, white birds, water images, and so many more.

Alan Moore produces his first superteam story since his run on WildCATS, this time choosing to portray a police station's officers in a city of people with superpowers.

He is obviously having fun, with a variety of criminals and other threats that we might not otherwise expect to see. The characters are many and varied, some of whom have powers, some have super-science weaponry, some are simply people in costumes. With a whole city of super-beings, we have normal jobs being carried out by people in costumes. For example, the book begins with fears about the return of the Libra Killer, who in previous years has killed and decapitated prostitutes. In Neopolis, the prostitutes have super powers, and these are used to play to their clients peccadilloes.

Then there is the murder investigation of the death of the Norse god of beauty, Baldur. Boy, his relatives are an odd bunch - his father Woden, mother Frey, brothers Thunor and Hod, and uncle Lokk may help redefine your view of the Norse gods, especially if you read that other comic with Norse gods...

More fun is had by artists Gene Ha and Zander Cannon. Look closely - you'll find possibly recognisable characters in all sorts of odd circumstances. My favourite, possibly, is someone who looks like Charlie Brown in a Doctor Doom costume! How much of this is from Alan Moore's scripts is another question...

If I have a problem it is that there is so much happening, so many throw away pieces, so many characters... It's a little too much. But then, you can read it over and over again for more detail.

Assuming you're somewhat familiar with what's good and bad, hot and not, in the comics world, you're already familiar with Alan Moore, his towering reputation (as author of groundbreaking works like "The Watchmen" and "From Hell" [soon to be coming to a movie theatre near you]) and--currently, anyway--prodigious output. Of all the Moore titles currently in production, Top Ten just barely makes the top of the heap.

What we've got here is a set of sly in-jokes blended into a fusion of Hill Street Blues and the JLA. In an imaginary city populated with all manners of superpowered individuals (right down to the cats and mice), who keeps the peace and enforces rule of law? The good officers of Precinct 10, of course.

Top Ten is a lot of fun and usually good for a few laughs--every issue is a winner, and this collection should appeal to anyone who enjoys police dramas, superhero ensembles, or farcical humor. Moore is at his best when he's playing with the structure of the superhero concept, and in Top 10 he's found an excellent vehicle for a few of his more offbeat ideas. Dedicated comic book fans will find lots to enjoy in his subtle jabs at superhero conceits of the past three decades.

(But don't just buy it because there's a nekkid superhero involved--there's really not much to see!)

It will crack you up and still keep you interested in the dramatic story. A great cop story and an unbeatable satire on superhero comics. I laughed out loud a number of times. The background jokes alone are worth the cost of the book.

Think of a smarter, funnier NYPD Blue policing city where everyone is a super-hero, robot, movie monster, god, or mad scientist.

My only complaint is to the publisher. Top Ten should be released in one volume, not two. It is ONE story. Duh! Do you want this to have the kind of a shelf life as Watchmen has or not?

Great writing, differentt style, but kept my attention. Not too, trashy, exciting and refreshing.

I had a lot of fun with it. The characters are better developed than in a lot of romances. Not much of the plot depends on unlikely coincidences. And the heroine's not so perfect that you want to throw up, and I can believe in the central relationship (wish I had one like it.) The setting really made me want to be there.

I'd give this book five stars instead of four if I knew for sure it was really a romance. The publisher doesn't seem sure either; there's no clinch on the jacket... It was good, but not exactly what I was expecting; I mean there are two guys around for half the book (she picks one, but it takes a while) and there's some other stuff going on too. It all ties up tight, but you kind of want to say "just get together, already." The sex isn't all that graphic--a lot is suggested instead of described in detail, more is done with the lead-in--and in a couple of places I wondered if the author was having too much fun.

Probably the hardest thing to do in a romance is generate really strong emotions between the characters and on the page without sliding into the goo. Cate Moore not only avoids the goo, but manages to generate wonderfully rich, complex emotions for her characters, and then makes us care about the secondary plot, too. The second hardest thing to do is writing non-cliche sex scenes, and Moore manages that beautifully, too. There's plenty of steam (at one point, literally), and a good deal of nicely erotic writing. The consistent use of humor, much of it off-beat without being off-putting, helps drive all these factors. Also, the secondary plot, which revolves around the preservation of wetlands and endangered species, provides the book with a juicy villain, and the reader with another issue to root for. Really engaging characters, fast and smart dialogue, wonderful secondary characters, great sex, nice laughs, an intelligently developed plot, and convincing emotions . . . what else is there to ask for in a romance? This is first-rate fun.