Tag: MYSTERY

Book Review: The Shape of Night

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Tess Gerritsen is one of my favorite authors. My love for her started with Rizzoli & Isles and now I’ll pretty much read just about anything she writes. So when Netgalley offered me the opportunity to read her standalone (thriller/mystery/ghost story/ghost sex story?) I jumped at the chance. Without knowing much about it except:

“After an unspeakable tragedy in Boston, Ava Collette flees to a remote village in Maine, where she rents an old house named Brodie’s Watch.

In that isolated seaside mansion, Ava finally feels at peace . . . until she glimpses the long-dead sea captain who still resides there.

Rumor has it that Captain Jeremiah Brodie has haunted the house for more than a century. One night, Ava confronts the apparition, who feels all too real, and who welcomes her into his world—and into his arms. Even as Ava questions her own sanity, she eagerly looks forward to the captain’s ghostly visits. But she soon learns that the house she loves comes with a terrible secret, a secret that those in the village don’t want to reveal: Every woman who has ever lived in Brodie’s Watch has also died there. Is the ghost of Captain Brodie responsible, or is a flesh-and-blood killer at work? A killer who is even now circling closer to Ava?”

Who wouldn’t jump at the chance to read that? Apparently, I shouldn’t have. When I checked Goodreads the vast majority of the reviewers LOVED it.  I wanted to. I so badly wanted to love and appreciate this book if for no other reason than I too am a writer compelled to write in different genres. This book, however, is a hot mess and no matter how hard I try I just can’t make myself finish it.

I love reading too much to spend my Sunday yelling at a character “You in danger girl!” in my Whoopi Goldberg voice to make myself finish this book.

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2 Stars because Tess Gerritsen is an amazing writer, her descriptions make you see, smell, taste, and feel whatever she is attempting to portray on the page. This book just didn’t do it for me personally.

Read if you like genre-bending books and have ever fantasized about fucking a ghost. 43808355.jpg

I received this book in exchange for an honest review from Netgalley. 

Faultlines: Whoops I Didn’t See That Coming

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One moment in Jordan Cline’s life tears his entire family apart. He and his cousin Travis have been in a tragic accident. All three of the car’s occupants were terribly injured but what happened? Jordan may go to prison for thirty years because although he says that he was not driving all of the witnesses and all of the evidence point directly towards Jordy. And no one believes him except for his mother. Of course, mother’s never want to believe that their children are capable of terrible things.

Faultlines takes us along for the wild ride that Jordan and his mother’s life are on after the accident. Was Jordan drinking and driving?  If he wasn’t then why is the town hero Officer Huck out to destroy Jordan’s life? Barbara Taylor Sissal has written a mystery that keeps the reader guessing the entire time.

I loved Faultlines, the way that it unfolds kept me engaged and rooting for Jordy and Sandy. I kept wanting him to be innocent even when all of the signs pointed to his guilt. Oh and the climax… I DID NOT see THAT climax coming. I was literally sitting there staring at the book with my mouth wide open.

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Also, That small town attitude that the story describes is XACTLY why I love living in the city. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

I gave this story 4 stars and would gladly read another book from this author.

 

Grist Mill Road: A Wild Ass Ride

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Christoper Yates’ Grist Mill Road is a weirdly entertaining wild ass ride. Every time you think to yourself, “this story can’t get any crazier” or “these people can’t get any weirder” Yates unveils another level of hurt, betrayal, misunderstanding, violence and resentment.

In 1982 a group of friends suffer a traumatic ordeal where one of them is seriously injured by another one. In 2008 we meet this fractured group of friends again living their own lives under the shadow of what happened all  of those years ago. Why did it happen? What actually happened? Who was really there? And what’s next?

The story jumps back and forth from 1982 to 2008 giving us background and telling us their version of the story in the three character’s, Patrick, Hannah, and Matthew, voices. Sometimes this method of story telling can be a little dizzying but Yates weaves the story together magically.

I felt like I was on a rollercoaster ride the entire time and give the story 4 Stars.

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*I was given an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*

The Doll Maker Book 1/100

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Last year I challenged myself to read 150 books. I had no idea that I would decide to chase my dreams, change my major, start multiple new businesses, or just be all around ridiculously awesome. This year I’ve taken that fact into account and am challenging myself to read 100 books.   
 
  
Book 1: The Doll Maker by Richard Montanari which I gave 3 *** 

  
It’s a decent book with a good plot line. Sometimes authors go really far to prove to you that their characters are super smart. If you do that you have to make sure that they don’t make really stupid mistakes. If you don’t your audience spends too much time annoyed that someone so smart would do something so out of character. 

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I found out that this book is number 8 in a series. I wasn’t inspired to go and find the others. 
#JustMyTwoCents #AmReading #GoodReads

Brilliance; One Authors Take on Using Differences to Fuel Wars.

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One of my favorite things about reading is that authors have the ability to discuss world problems in a fictional way. If you’re a thinker and the author is a decent writer you begin to contemplate and compare real world events to the events of the book.

Marcus Sakey’s Brilliance pits Brilliants against Normals in a way that Gays vs Straights, Blacks vs Whites, or Christians vs Muslims happens everyday. It showcases examples of ways that governments capitalize on fear and people’s differences to create wars that benefit the governments. Mr. Sakey does a great job exhibiting in his writing how a few human lives are  sacrificed “for the greater good” in order to further  political plans.

As I read this book I kept thinking that  if more people could realize that these examples are happening everyday then we would stop allowing our countries to instill fear in us in order to further separate us and make it easier on them to satisfy their own crude agendas.17171909[2].jpg

This book is the epitome of “fiction is the truth in the lie” and I liked it so much that I just purchased book two.

Aside from the political undertone which was handled brilliantly, Brilliance is written really well, action packed, and exciting to read. I gave it four stars.

War is Hell.

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It’s pretty interesting to me that I have grown big enough cojones to even write this post. Firstly, if you speak any negative feeling about war, people assume that you are putting down the military. Which in America these days seems to be punishable by death. Secondly, I’m not sure how I chose to read two different books in the same week which contained characters whose lives were destroyed by war.

Eye of Vengeance is the story of crime reporter Nick Mullins who is covering the story of a convicted murderer’s assassination. Over the next couple of days other criminals are gunned down in the same manner and Nick soon realizes that each of these people were the subjects of his old in-depth crime stories.

Michael Redman is an ex-cop and former military sniper who draws the distinction between being a swat team member on the police force and having to follow strict rules and regulations before killing someone. While also being a sniper in the military and being directed to kill people without knowing if they committed a crime, pissed off the wrong person, or are just someone’s mother/sister/child who lives on the wrong side of America’s enemy list and is in the right place at the wrong time.

During an interview Redman informs Nick that War is Hell. A quote that he attributes to William Tecumseh Sherman. I rated this book a five, which I very rarely give but this book more than deserved. It made you feel something. I never wanted the “villain” to get caught. I actually felt bad for him. Also anytime a book leads me to do further research it has served its purpose.

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“It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.” William T. Sherman
Deadline by Sandra Brown doesn’t contain this quote in so many words but when a character describes how the person who wrote letters to the families of the deceased members of his squadron, always cheered everyone else up, always stayed positive, and was just a funny well-loved guy; gets to the point where he asks the reporter to meet him on a ridge then proceeds to blow his own brains out, I’d say that the author has definitely just described that war is indeed hell. Of course this book is another five-star rated book.

Because I may get some slack for these reviews let me just say that:

I support our troops. The ones who do their jobs without raping and torturing people. The ones who joined the military out of love for our country, because they wanted to make something of themselves, because they needed the money for school, and for whatever reason they deemed important enough to join. However, I don’t support these wars we keep embarking on. Is there a ship sitting at the port waiting to pillage, plunder, and rape our women either physically or metaphysically? I would support a war on this but with the way the politics game is being played I can’t believe any reason we’re given for going in to someone else’s home and killing their citizens while concurrently screwing up the lives of our citizens.
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