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At A Loss

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 17, 2008

The last thing Lexi Smart recalls is going out with friends and trying to hail a taxi. "'Remember Me" by Sophie Kinsella finds Lexi waking up in a hospital in a new year and she cannot remember anything at all about the past three years. Her amnesia is so severe she barely recognizes her mother and sister and is stunned to find out that she had an executive job and is married. She views a DVD of the wedding but it rouses no memories. Her husband is handsome and rich and agrees to let Lexi come home and have the master bedroom to herself until they become reacquainted. Lexi begins to find her way cautiously in her new life and thinks she is doing well until a handsome architect named Jon tells her they have been secret lovers and that she was about to leave her husband for him before her accident. Lexi is attracted to him but has no memory of him but she does eventually decide that she and Eric are not compatible. She leaves her job and decides to start her own company, to revive battered old friendships and maybe try her luck with Jon.

Picture Perfect

"End Of Manners" is a thrilling, timely and darkly funny story of friendship, human frailty, and war-and the role of outsiders in a country where they do not belong.

Maria Galante, rule-abiding, shy, and a perfectionist, teams up with journalist Imo Glass on an assignment in Afghanistan. Imo is to interview girls who've attempted suicide rather than be married off to older men. Maria is assigned to photograph the girls. But in a culture where culture is a grave taboo, photographing these women will dishonor and perhaps endanger them. Maria and Imo must find their way among spies, arms, dealers and mercenaries and through the back alleys of Kabul. Before the assignment is over, Maria will have to decide if it's more important to succeed at her work and please Imo, or to follow her own moral compass.

Marie Wood is a book reviewer for the Sun. She may be reached at woMarie@aol.com.

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