Last of the 2014 Books 25-30

Sail by James Patterson & Howard Roughan

Only an hour out of port, the Dunn family's summer getaway to paradise is already turning into the trip from hell.  The three children are miserable-and not shy about showing it.  Katherine Dunne had hoped this vacation would bring back the togetherness they'd lost when her husband died four years earlier.  Maybe if her new husband had joined them it would all have been okay.  Suddenly, a disaster hits-and it's perfect.  Faced with this real threat, the Dunnes rediscover the meaning of family.  But this catastrophe is just a tiny taste of the true danger that lurks ahead-somewhere out there, someone wants to make sure that the Dunne family never leaves paradise alive.

Live to see Tomorrow by Iris Johansen

Raised on the unforgiving streets of Hong Kong, Catherine Ling was pulled into the Agency at the age of fourteen, already having accumulated more insight and secrets than the most seasoned professionals.  If life has taught her anything it is not to get too attached.  But there are two exceptions to that rule: her son Luke and her mentor Hu Chang.  When Luke was kidnapped at the age of two, it nearly broke her.  Now, nine years later, her son has astonishingly been returned-and Catherine vows never to lose him again.  But when her job pulls her away from home, she relies on the brilliant and deadly Hu Chang to safeguard Luke in her absence.
Erin Sullivan, an American journalist with mysterious ties to Hu Chang, has been abducted in Tibet.  If Catherine doesn't agree to spearhead the CIA rescue mission, she knows that Hu Chang himself will go-a possibility she can't risk.  But the job grows more complicated when Catherine meets Richard Cameron, a supposed ally who's clearly not telling all he knows.  Their attraction is immediate, but Catherine isn't at all sure that he can be trusted.  If she's going to rescue this journalist with a story worth killing for, she'll need to keep Cameron very close.  From the treacherous landscape of the Himalayas to the twisting back alleys of San Francisco the clock is ticking for Catherine and those she loves most.  At every turn she faces a ruthless enemy who is determined to keep the truth buried, even if it means that none of them live to see tomorrow.

Susannah's Garden by Debbie Macomber

When Susannah Nelson turned eighteen, she said goodbye to her boyfriend, Jake-and never saw him again.  She never saw her brother, Doug, again, either.  He died unexpectedly that same year.
Now, at fifty, Susannah finds herself regretting the path not taken.  Long married, a mother and a teacher, she should be happy.  But she feels that there is something missing in her life.   Not only that, she's balancing the demands of an aging mother and a temperamental twenty-year-old daughter.
Her mother, Vivian, a recent widow, is having difficulty coping and living alone, so Susannah goes home to Colville, Washington.  In returning to her parents' house, her girlhood friends and the garden she's always loved, she also returns to the past-and the choices she made back then.  What she discovers is that things are not always as they once seemed.  Some paths are dead ends.  But some gardens remain beautiful....

Open Secret by Deryn Collier

On a fall day in Kootenay Landing, a local man abandons his van at a remote border crossing and disappears into the bush.  Hours later and miles away another man, known to be a small-time drug dealer, is shot in the forehead along a popular hiking trail.  On the surface, the two incidents seem unrelated.  And yet the two men have been best friends since elementary school.
As Bern Fortin works alongside police constable Maddie Schilling to connect the two cases, they discover secrets with roots buried deep in the past.  Why did Gary Dowd disappear?  Who shot Seymour Melnychuk?  Why was Dr. Sinclair already on the scene?  Who really controls the hills and forests around Kootenay Landing?
Amidst the chaos of the case, a reporter shows up, asking questions about Bern's military past.  Everyone has something to hide, and no one in Kootenay Landing seems willing to talk.  But Bern Fortin is well aware that no secrets can remain buried forever-not even his own.

The Liverpool Basque by Helen Forrester

In the early years of this century, many Basques left their homeland in the Pyrenees, between France and Spain, to seek a better life in the New World.  Most passed through the great port of Liverpool on their way.  The family of little Manuel Echaniz stayed.
The Liverpool Basque is the story of Manuel's childhood and coming of age in the teeming streets of the Mersey docklands.  It is a story of poverty, comradeship, hardship and generosity.  Brought up by women while the men are at sea, Manuel grows up with a fierce pride in his heritage and a powerful will to survive in an era of deprivation and unemployment.  Against all odds, he gets himself an education of sorts, and sets off on the long voyage of his life.

Fear the Worst by Linwood Barclay

Suppose you come to pick up your daughter from her job-and find that no one has heard of her and she's never worked there.  If she hasn't been working all day, what has she been doing?
Tim Blake's teenage daughter Sydney is staying with him while she works a summer job at a hotel.  But when one day she fails to arrive home from her shift and the staff at the hotel say they have no Sydney Blake working there, he begins to see his life going into freefall.
What could have made her step out of her life without leaving a trace?  Only one thing convinces Tim that the worst hasn't already happened-the fact that some very scary people seem just as eager as he is to find her.
The question is: who is going to find her first?

That is the end of all the books I read in 2014.