Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes, 369 pages

I wanted to read this book when I saw the upcoming trailer for the movie coming out in June.  Me Before You is a very touching story about a young woman, Louisa Clark, who finds herself unemployed and needing to find a job to help support her family.  Louisa decides to take on a most challenging position when she becomes caregiver for Will Traynor.  Will was an active young man until he was hit by a motorbike and lost the use of his arms and legs.  Will has pretty much given up on life until he meets Louisa, who gives him new found adventures that may give Will hope to live.  The ending may shock you, but won't leave you dry eyed.

Make Me by Lee Child

Make Me: A Jack Reacher Novel by Lee Child --- 402 pages

Jack Reacher is one of those guilty pleasures on my reading list.  Lee Child knows how to tell a fast-paced, hard-hitting and suspenseful story, and Jack Reacher is one of my favorite book characters.  In my mind's eye I picture him as a young Tom Selleck. Although Reacher is no longer young, and perhaps no longer invincible, he doesn't back off from trouble when it comes looking for him. As it always does.

In this, the twentieth book in the series, Reacher is taking a train to Chicago when he makes a spur-of-the-moment decision to stop off in a small rural Nebraska town (really not much more than a wide spot in the endless wheat fields where the railroad tracks cross an old two lane road. It's a place where the local farmers bring their grain to be shipped on to market. The sign says the place is called "Mother's Rest," and that piques Reacher's curiosity, so he gets off the train to find out how the town got that name.

But bucolic Mother's Rest is anything but restful for Reacher.  There's a woman anxiously waiting who briefly mistakes Reacher for someone else.  It turns out Michelle Chang is ex-FBI and currently a private investigator who was called in for back-up by a colleague named Keever.  But when Chang arrived in Mother's Rest, Keever was nowhere to be found and nobody in town will admit to having anything to do with him. Although his suitcase and clothes are still in his room at the local motel. It soon becomes clear that the locals don't like strangers who hang around town asking questions. But Reacher is not a man who takes no for an answer.

Click HERE to see the trailer for Make Me.

Click HERE to watch Lee Child and Stephen King talking about Jack Reacher.

Click HERE to read about Make Me on the DesPlaines IL Public Library Blog. CAUTION: SPOILER ALERT