844. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson)

The title page of the first London edition

Synopsis from Amazon:
Robert Louis Stevenson originally wrote Dr. Jekyll And Mr Hyde as a "chilling shocker." He then burned the draft and, upon his wife's advice, rewrote it as the darkly complex tale it is today. Stark, skillfully woven, this fascinating novel explores the curious turnings of human character through the strange case of Dr. Jekyll, a kindly scientist who by night takes on his stunted evil self, Mr. Hyde. Anticipating modern psychology, Jekyll And Hyde is a brilliantly original study of man's dual nature -- as well as an immortal tale of suspense and terror. Published in 1866, Jekyll And Hyde was an instant success and brought Stevenson his first taste of fame. Though sometimes dismissed as a mere mystery story, the book has evoked much literary admirations. Vladimir Nabokov likened it to Madame Bovary and Dead Souls as "a fable that lies nearer to poetry than to ordinary prose fiction."

My rating: 4 stars

843. Silk and Shadows (Mary Jo Putney)

Synopsis from Barnes & Noble:
Cutting a dazzling swath through Victorian society, wealthy and seductive Peregrine weaves a web of desire around Lady St. James, who's pledged to wed Peregrine's enemy. Only the burning power of love can pierce Peregrine's chilling silence about his secret past and hidden purpose, and Sara plunges into a whirlpool of uncertainty with a man who has everything a woman could want -- and fear.

My rating: 2 stars

842. Decadent (Shayla Black)

Synopsis from Amazon:
Kimber Edgington is a virgin with a crush-on a pop star with a penchant for threesomes. Determined to prove that she's woman enough for singer Jesse McCall, Kimber turns to bodyguard Deke Trenton for sexual education ... lessons that include his super-sexy friend Luc. Though she's saved herself for Jesse, Kimber soon learns that he's not the man adept at stoking her aching, endless need. That's Deke, and he can't resist when Kimber begs for more -- and more.

My rating: 4 stars

841. Surrender's Edge (Pepper Espinoza)

Synopsis from Amazon:
Geoffrey Kirk has been in love with his best friend, Nash, since almost the moment they met. Convinced that Nash would never return his feelings, he forced himself to move on, and fell for his assistant, Sunny. Despite his strong feelings, he never acted on them, and when he discovered Sunny and Nash together, he thought he lost his chance for happiness forever.

Until Sunny and Nash make it clear that he hasn't lost anything ... and he still has a great deal to gain ....

My rating: 2 stars

840. Unnatural Death (Dorothy Sayers)

Synopsis from Amazon UK:
"No sign of foul play," says Dr Carr after the post-mortem on Agatha Dawson. The case is closed. But Lord Peter Wimsey is not satisfied ...With no clues to work on, he begins his own investigation. No clues, that is, until the sudden, senseless murder of Agatha's maid. What is going on in the mysterious Mrs Forrest's Mayfair flat? And can Wimsey catch a desperate murderer before he himself becomes one of the victims?

My rating: 4 stars

839. Odes and Epodes (Horace)

Synopsis from Amazon UK:
The poetry of Horace (born 65 bc) is richly varied, its focus moving between public and private concerns, urban and rural settings, Stoic and Epicurean thought. Here is a new Loeb Classical Library edition of the great Roman poet's Odes and Epodes, a fluid translation facing the Latin text. Horace took pride in being the first Roman to write a body of lyric poetry. For models he turned to Greek lyric, especially to the poetry of Alcaeus, Sappho, and Pindar; but his poems are set in a Roman context. His four books of odes cover a wide range of moods and topics. Some are public poems, upholding the traditional values of courage, loyalty, and piety; and there are hymns to the gods. But most of the odes are on private themes: chiding or advising friends; speaking about love and amorous situations, often amusingly. Horace's seventeen epodes, which he called iambi, were also an innovation for Roman literature. Like the odes they were inspired by a Greek model: the seventh-century imabic poetry of Archilochus. Love and political concerns are frequent themes; here the tone is generally that of satirical lampoons.

My rating: 4 stars

838. The Metamorphoses (Ovid)

Synopsis from Amazon UK:
Bringing together a series of ingeniously linked myths and legends, Ovid's deliciously witty and poignant Metamorphoses describes a magical world in which men and women are transformed - often by love - into flowers, trees, animals, stones and stars. First published in 1567, this landmark translation by Arthur Golding was the first major English edition of the epic, which includes such tales as the legend of Narcissus; the parable of Icarus; and the passion held by the witch-queen Circe for the great Aeneas. A compelling adaptation that used imagery familiar to English sixteenth-century society, it powerfully influenced Spenser, Shakespeare and the character of Elizabethan literature.

My rating: 5 stars

837. A Passage to India (E. M. Forster)

Synopsis from Amazon UK:
After a mysterious accident during their visit to the caves, Dr Assiz is accused of assaulting Adela Quested, a naive young Englishwoman. As he is brought to trial, the fragile structure of Anglo-Indian relations collapses and the racism inherent in colonialism is exposed in all its ugliness.

My rating: 3 stars

836. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Jules Verne)

Synopsis from Amazon Canada:
Seeking a strange and monstrous creature that has been sighted in the ocean depths, exciting the maritime population of 1866, Professor Armax begins an incredible underwater journey from Atlantis to the South Pole.

My rating: 3 stars

835. Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)

Synopsis from Amazon Canada:
"I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion." A summer evening's ghost stories, lonely insomnia in a moonlit Alpine's room, and a runaway imagination--fired by philosophical discussions with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley about science, galvanism, and the origins of life--conspired to produce for Marry Shelley this haunting night specter. By morning, it had become the germ of her Romantic masterpiece, Frankenstein.

Written in 1816 when she was only nineteen, Mary Shelley's novel of "The Modern Prometheus" chillingly dramatized the dangerous potential of life begotten upon a laboratory table. A frightening creation myth for our own time, Frankenstein remains one of the greatest horror stories ever written and is an undisputed classic of its kind.

My rating: 4 stars

834. Dracula (Bram Stoker)

Synopsis from Amazon Canada:
A naive young Englishman travels to Transylvania to do business with a client, Count Dracula. After showing his true and terrifying colors, Dracula boards a ship for England in search of new, fresh blood. Unexplained disasters begin to occur in the streets of London before the mystery and the evil doer are finally put to rest. Told in a series of news reports from eyewitness observers to writers of personal diaries, this has a ring of believability that counterbalances nicely with Dracula's too-macabre-to-be-true exploits.

My rating: 4 stars

833. Eva Luna (Isabel Allende)

Synopsis from Barnes & Noble:
A woman makes love to an Indian dying of snakebite, miraculously restoring him to life and engendering a daughter named Eva``so she will love life.'' Thus begins Allende's latest novel, a magnificent successor to The House of the Spirits and Of Love & Shadows. Set in a Latin American country, it relates Eva's picaresque adventures. Brought up in the house of an eccentric doctor devoted to mummifying corpses, where her mother is a servant, Eva is left an orphan at six. Her black godmother, or madrina , leases her as a servant to a series of bizarre households of metaphorical significance, the last of which she leaves in grand style upon emptying a government Minister's chamberpot over his head. Interleaved with Eva's story is her account of a certain Rolf Carle, with whom her life will become linkedshe tells of his youth in Nazi Austria and young manhood as a filmmaker in South America. Through a series of improbable and felicitous coincidences, Eva is taken under the wing of such exotic benefactors as a street urchin who becomes a guerrilla leader, a colorful whorehouse Madam, a kindly Turkish merchant and a stunningly beautiful transsexual.

My rating: 1 star

832. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (E. L. Konigsburg)

Synopsis from Amazon Canada:
Claudia is bored. She's ready for a big change, but wants to make sure she does it with style. When she decides to run away, Claudia plans to be a runaway with specific goals: to be comfortable, to be changed, and to be appreciated at home. She carefully appoints a partner (her younger brother), and selects a destination (The Metropolitan Museum of Art), but there are some adventures you simply can't plan in advance. Claudia and her brother Jamie are soon embroiled in an artistic mystery even the experts can't solve, but discovering a solution to this puzzle might just help Claudia find the answer to her personal quest.

My rating: 4 stars

831. Island of the Blue Dolphins (Scott O'Dell)

Synopsis from Amazon Canada:
In the Pacific, there is an island that looks like a big fish sunning itself in the sea. Around it blue dolphins swim, otters play, and sea birds abound. Karana is the Indian girl who lived alone for years on the Island of the Blue Dolphins. Hers is not only an unusual adventure of survival, but also a tale of natural beauty and personal discovery.

My rating: 2 stars

830. That Hideous Strength (C. S. Lewis)

Synopsis from Amazon:
The final book in C.S. Lewis's acclaimed Space Trilogy, which includes Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, That Hideous Strength concludes the adventures of the matchless Dr. Ransom. Finding himself in a world of superior alien beings and scientific experiments run amok, Dr. Ransom struggles with questions of ethics and morality, applying age-old wisdom to a brave new universe dominated by science. His quest for truth is a journey filled with intrigue and suspense.

My rating: 3 stars

829. Whose Body? (Dorothy Sayers)

Synopsis from Amazon:
The stark naked body was lying in the tub. Not unusual for a proper bath, but highly irregular for murder -- especially witha pair of gold pince-nez deliberately perched before the sightless eyes. What's more, the face appeared to have been shaved after death. The police assumed that the victim was a prominent financier, but Lord Peter Wimsey, who dabbled in mystery detection as a hobby, knew better. In this, his first murder case, Lord Peter untangles the ghastly mystery of the corpse in the bath.

My rating: 5 stars

828. Slightly Single (Wendy Markham)

Synopsis from Amazon:
Tracey Spadolini has always been insecure. She's somewhat overweight, unhappy in her job, and dating Will, a handsome but commitment-phobic actor. Will is spending the summer in upstate New York, leaving a morose Tracey behind in Manhattan, so she decides to use the time to turn herself into the woman she has always wanted to be. She goes on a diet and starts to read classics. She also meets Buckley, a good-looking, sweet guy who pursues a friendship with her even after he mistakes their first trip to the movies together as a date. Tracey can't help but compare him to Will, and Buckley comes out ahead every time. Will hardly ever calls and seems hesitant when she tells him she wants to come to visit him, but Tracey is sure that he'll be won over by her new look.

My rating: 2 stars

827. The Black Cauldron (Lloyd Alexander)

Synopsis from Amazon:
The Black Cauldron (Holt, 1965) is the second book in the five book series by Lloyd Alexander, and is a Newbery Honor Book. It continues the story of Taran, the Assistant Pig-Keeper of Prydain. Taran, with a band of warriors and friends, is called upon to find and destroy the Black Cauldron, which is being used by the evil Arawn, Lord of the Land of Death, to produce deathless warriors from the bodies of his fallen enemies.

My rating: 5 stars