The Animal Under the Fur by E.J. Mellow 

In which we have an assassin working for a secret government agency who has long red hair and lives with her best friend.  Then we have another assassin working for a sister agency.  They are sent to eliminate the same foul underworld boss.  Then they are told they must work together on an assignment to kill a drug lord in Mexico who is selling bioweapons to the highest bidder, since his original customer was killed in the prior assignment.  Only this drug kingpin turns out to be our redhead’s father.

Robert Parker's Cheap Shot by Ace Atkins

Another finished book of Robert Parker's Spenser series.  Kinjo Haywood is an NFL linebacker with people who want a piece of him.  He hires Spenser to find out who has been following him.  Spenser thinks it has something to do with an altercation his client was in years ago.  Whoever is behind the harassment kidnaps his daughter.  He hires Spenser to find her and get her back.  The local FBI agent doesn’t want Spenser involved.  Kinjo does and it’s his girl and his money.  The girl’s mother is Kinjo’s first wife, the woman he is married to now is way out of her depth.  Spenser and his buddies track down an attempt to get ransom, only to find it was a scam.  They still don’t have the kid.  Spenser keeps following leads that all go to dead-ends.  Then Kinjo gets on the radio and announces he isn’t going to pay to get his kid back, he’s going to offer the reward money to anyone who kills her kidnappers.  That doesn’t make anyone happy.  Spenser tracks down the brother and a woman who were at the earlier altercation and finds the girl.  Then he figures out the real reason it all happened.

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Klara is an Artificial Friend who longs to be picked by a young girl.  She resides in a store where the manager tells her how to do her best to represent the store and other artificial friends.  She receives nourishment from the sun (she is solar powered) and while in a storefront window, watches a homeless man sit each day with his dog across the street.  One day, neither the homeless man nor his dog rise and Klara is afraid they are dead.  But when the sun comes out the next day, they  rise and seem to be better than before.  A machine is parked in front of the store that produces terrible pollution.  When  it is moved, Klara sees the homeless man become reunited with a woman as they embrace.

When Klara is picked, the girl who asked for her, Josie, is a 'lifted' youngster (genetically edited) who has trouble with her health.  From Josie's room, Klara observes the sun sets, goes to rest, on the far side of the field in a barn.  Josie has a  friend, Rick, who is not lifted, but is brilliant with drones.  They play and squabble.  But Josie's health gets worse.  Klara comes up with a plan to ask the sun to heal Josie with his special restorative nutrition.  So she travels to the barn with Rick's help.  She offers to destroy the pollution machine in exchange for Josie's improved health. 

The family, including Klara go into the city for Josie's 'portrait' where Klara discovers it is a replacement artificial friend body that upon Josie's death is to become a new body for Klara.  Klara is convinced that her bargain with the sun will result in a healthy Josie.  She finds the pollution machine and with the help of Josie's father, takes some of her own lubricant and pours it into the exhaust of the machine, disabling it.  Now Klara plans to watch the sun restore Josie.  But Josie does not get better.

While the family surround Josie, expecting her to die at any moment, odd weather comes through the area where the family lives.  Klara suddenly gets everyone to go into Josie's room and she open's the blinds so that the sun floods the room.  Josie sits up and says she is feeling better.  Klara's sacrifice has not been in vain.

Josie eventually gets well enough to go off to college.

The book ends with the manager finding Klara in a storage yard, discarded, but spending her time reminiscing her time with Josie.

Song of the Forever Rains by E.J. Mellow

In which three sisters born 2 years apart from the middle sister on the same day, wield magic with music: Arabessa, with her violin, Niya, with dance and Lark, with voice.  The story opens with Lark, the youngest at four years, having never uttered a sound since her birth, when her mother died, are exploring a part of a castle where they should not be.  An immensely powerful guardian creature traps them in a dead-end while an all-powerful creature, Achak, who has two souls trapped in a single body, brother and sister, looks on.  At the last second, Lark turns around, looks the approaching monster in the eye and screams NO at the top of her lungs, shattering the creature.

Achak takes over the teaching of the children, helping them learn how to control their magic, and how to use swords, knives, and other deadly arts so they don’t have to always use their magic.

We skip forward in time to Lark, at almost 19, disguised as a street urchin, having stolen a ring and getting her finger cut off.  She refuses to let any sound out, because that would kill everyone around and make it obvious that she has magic.  She meets a well-dressed man who seems to be lost and leads him to safety, but not until having to use a knife to defeat a group of thugs with swords.  Once back to the part of the city that she is really from, she gets cleaned-up and is presented to her father.  He tells her she is to be pseudo-engaged to a Duke so they can find out what is going wrong in his part of the kingdom and steal his treasure.  Her father is also the King of Thieves.

World Without End by Ken Follet 

The second book in the Pillars of the Earth that takes place four generations later and pits descendants of Tom Builder on two sides.  A group of children, Merthin, Caris, Gwenda and Ralph are exploring the forest, where they should not be, stumble upon a scene where two men-at-arms are attacking a knight. Ralph grabs a bow from his brother, Merthin, and sends an arrow into the eye of one of the men.  The knight dispatches the other but is wounded.  All but one of the children run away.  The knight gets the remaining child to help him dig a hole and bury a secret.

The knight becomes a monk, saving his life, but not his arm.   Merthin grows up to become a carpenter and a builder.  Ralph grows up a bully and a squire.  Ralph gets in trouble for raping a serf girl, is sentenced to death and runs from the court to become an outlaw.  When he is caught, the local Earl commutes his sentence in order fulfill the King's demand on men for his war on France.

Merthin is entrapped by the pregnant daughter of the man he is apprenticed to.  Because he refuses to marry the girl, he is fired, just two months short of becoming a journeyman.  But he is a better builder and eventually becomes richer than his former master.  He is also in love with Caris, but she won't marry him.

All this is against a backdrop of the plague and Caris, because she has a mole at her groin is accused of being a witch.  To save her self, she has to agree to become a nun - even though she does not really believe in God - mostly because she can see the corruption in the local priory.  Caris studies what happens when different methods are tried on the sick.  She does not agree with the centuries old methods of bleeding patients.  She wants to use masks and keep the sick away from the healthy to try to keep the plague from spreading.

Eventually, her methods are used, a more trustworthy man is made prior, Merthin succeeds in Florence and England with his dreams as a builder, replacing a crumbling tower on the cathedral with the tallest tower of the time, Caris is released from her vows and they marry and run a hospital.