Tag: fiction

Fiction/Science Fiction · Mystery/Crime · Suspense · Thriller/Horror

Dead woman walking – Sharon Bolton

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33602123| GOODREADS | AMAZON | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ |

Goodreads synopsis: In Dead Woman Walking, from master of suspense Sharon Bolton, the sole survivor of a hot-air balloon crash witnesses a murder as the balloon is falling.

Just before dawn in the hills near the Scottish border, a man murders a young woman. At the same time, a hot-air balloon crashes out of the sky. There’s just one survivor. She’s seen the killer’s face – but he’s also seen hers. And he won’t rest until he’s eliminated the only witness to his crime. Alone, scared, trusting no one, she’s running to where she feels safe – but it could be the most dangerous place of all…

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My thoughts: This book was hard to rate and i´m gonna tell you why. At first I thought this was a book by Sharon Sala. But when I started reading something was off so I looked it up and found out that this is no Sala book. It is a Bolton. I just confused the names. And no worries because I actually like Bolton more than Sala. I have read her Lacy Flint series and really liked it. Funny that I could detect that this was not a Sala book. Anyway, when that misunderstanding was out of the way I could really start reading. And i did. And did. And my god, the book is so slow. I mean, turtle on a snail, slow.

Then after 50% it started to pick up but it is still slow. Nothing really makes sense and it feels like you as a reader are missing several important clues. I even reread some pages because I was certain that I was missing something.

Then at 70% it really started to pick up and the rest was just one curve ball after another. One twist after another and the truth is finally making some sense. It even made me gasp and say “NO WAY” out loud so Mr M thought I had company in the living room. (In one way I did but not the way he thought.)

So the book went from a two star rating to a five star rating. But, and here is the but! It was to slow and now when I´m done I feel that Bolton did leave out to much so now after, I can see how much holes there is in the story. The writing was also a little bit off. But overall it is a great book and a great story as long as you are a patient reader and it deserves a four star rating by me.

And one last thing. I´m glad this one is not a series becalms i don’t know if I could take one more book like this. I hope not her other books are like this. Her Flint series was not.

Fantasy/Paranormal · Fiction/Science Fiction · Thriller/Horror

IT – Stephen King

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36013075| GOODREADS | AMAZON | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ |

Goodreads synopsis:‘They float…and when you’re down here with me, you’ll float, too.’

To the children, the town was their whole world. To the adults, knowing better, Derry Maine was just their home town: familiar, well-ordered for the most part. A good place to live.

It was the children who saw – and felt – what made Derry so horribly different. In the storm drains, in the sewers, IT lurked, taking on the shape of every nightmare, each one’s deepest dread. Sometimes IT reached up, seizing, tearing, killing . . .

The adults, knowing better, knew nothing.

Time passed and the children grew up, moved away. The horror of IT was deep-buried, wrapped in forgetfulness. Until they were called back, once more to confront IT as IT stirred and coiled in the sullen depths of their memories, reaching up again to make their past nightmares a terrible present reality.

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My thoughts:
It is a lot of talk about “IT” right now and it´s all because of the movie who had premier earlier this month. Me my self have not seen the new movie yet but I saw the old one when I was a kid. I thought that I should read the book this time since I don´t remember that much from the movie. So I did. I did not only read it. I also listened on the book so I could follow the story even when at work or doing boring house chores. Perfect solution. 🙂

It is a really good book. It is a good story, great characters and a exciting plot. Can not say that it is scary in any way though. But i´m not that kind of person who gets scared by books. I like that you feel like you are really there in the story. You can feel the heat of the summer sun in 1958. You can feel the panic and your own feet against the ground as they are being chased. You are just there. But you can also really clearly see that this is a Stephen King book. Because everything takes just to long. It is a little to much in the end and one thing just don’t make sense to me. And that’s to bad really.

I felt a few times through out the book that it was going to slow and I wanted them to “just get on with it”. Around page 500-600 it was dead calm. The calm before the storm, you could say, but it was a boring calm. If I didn’t have the pressure to get done with the book so I could see the movie, it would have been easy for me to lay down the book at that point. That’s the problem with me and Kings book. They are great, then they are like on hold, in a grey area that´s just pissing me off and makes the story stop. If I don’t get myself over those 100+ pages, I will probably never pick up the book again.

But I ended it and i´m happy for it. I would totally recommend this book to who ever likes to read big books. I don’t think you have to bee an horror fanatic och fantasy reader or anything like that to read this book. It is really for everyone, I believe. Just have an open mind.

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Fiction/Science Fiction · Mystery/Crime · Thriller/Horror

The Dry – Jane Harper

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27824826| GOODREADS | AMAZON | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ |

Goodreads synopsis: Luke Hadler turns a gun on his wife and child, then himself. The farming community of Kiewarra is facing life and death choices daily. If one of their own broke under the strain, well…

When Federal Police investigator Aaron Falk returns to Kiewarra for the funerals, he is loath to confront the people who rejected him twenty years earlier. But when his investigative skills are called on, the facts of the Hadler case start to make him doubt this murder-suicide charge.

And as Falk probes deeper into the killings, old wounds start bleeding into fresh ones. For Falk and his childhood friend Luke shared a secret… A secret Falk thought long-buried… A secret which Luke’s death starts to bring to the surface…

My thoughts: Wow! This one was so much heavier than I first thought it would be. A really good, old-fashioned crime fiction. Right up my alley and actually that genre I first fell in love with when growing up. It was nice and cozy to be back in a book like this. A book that is so great written, amazing characters and the settings was just like you really was there with them, in the heat and longing for the rain. It´s hard to believe that this is Jane Harpers debut novel. That´s how great it is.

The book was published in 2016 and has since then been a big talk about on the web. Her in my country, the book has not reached as far yet, but I believe this will be a big seller this autumn/winter.

The story is really awesome and makes you as an reader both frustrated and excited. A little slow in the start but it did pick up the speed and in the end I just couldn’t wait to get all the answers. Many did surprise me and I really like the ending. No cliffhanger but a promise that there will be more.

An there will be. The second book about Aaron Falk will be published late September 2017.

Fiction/Science Fiction · Mystery/Crime · Thriller/Horror

Still Life With Crows – D. Preston & L. Child

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39033| GOODREADS | AMAZON | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥|

Goodreads synopsis: A small Kansas town has turned into a killing ground. Is it a serial killer, a man with the need to destroy?
Or is it a darker force, a curse upon the land?
Amid golden cornfields, FBI Special Agent Pendergast discovers evil in the blood of America’s heartland.
No one is safe.

My thoughts: This is the fourth book about Aloysius X.L. Pendergast. Yeah I know, what a name! And this is so far the least good book out of them I have read. Loved the first and second one. The third was great because it gave you the ability to learn more about Pendergast. This one however was not that exciting. It is good, absolutely. Its just kind of slow and predictable and not the greatest work.

But i´m still a little bit in love with Pendergast that i´m definitely gonna read more books in the series. And I hope i´m not gonna have more of these bad experiences. 😉

Fantasy/Paranormal · Fiction/Science Fiction · Suspense · Thriller/Horror

Odd Hours – Dean Koontz

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2029927.jpg| GOODREADS | AMAZON | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ |

Goodreads synopsis: The legend began in the obscure little town of Pico Mundo. A fry cook named Odd was rumored to have the extraordinary ability to communicate with the dead. Through tragedy and triumph, exhilaration and heartbreak, word of Odd Thomas’ gifts filtered far beyond Pico Mundo, attracting unforgettable new friends – and enemies of implacable evil. With great gifts comes the responsibility to meet great challenges. But no mere human being was ever meant to face the darkness that now stalks the world – not even one as oddly special as Odd Thomas.

After grappling with the very essence of reality itself, after finding the veil separating him from his soul mate, Stormy Llewellyn, tantalizingly thin yet impenetrable, Odd longed only to return to a life of quiet anonymity with his two otherworldly sidekicks – his dog, Boo, and a new companion, one of the few who might rival his old pal Elvis. But a true hero, however humble, must persevere.

Haunted by dreams of an all-encompassing red tide, Odd is pulled inexorably to the sea, to a small California coastal town where nothing is as it seems. Now the forces arrayed against him have both official sanction and an infinitely more sinister authority…and in this dark night of the soul, dawn will come only after the most shattering revelations of all.

My thoughts: Fourth book about the strange but lovable Odd Thomas. Non of the earlier books has been a wow, love and need to read more, and now after this one i´m starting to ask myself, “why do I keep throwing away time?”

Well the answer on that question is “Come on, its Dean Koontz!”. Well, I do really like Koontz and his books and I did really like the first books about Odd and to follow his life. Its just that I don´t really like the writing in this one, and the story is just weird and a complete train wreck. To many page fillers and stuff that sidetrack the story and don´t makes any sense in the end.

No black monsters this time, just weird visions and dreams. More ghosts and completely strange side characters who makes the story even more confusing. No, not one of the greatest books. Time will tell if I ever will complete the story about Odd Thomas.

Chick Lit · Contemporary · Fiction/Science Fiction

The Rosie Effect – Graeme Simsion

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23492671| GOODREADS | AMAZON | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ |

Goodreads synopsis: Don Tillman and Rosie Jarman are back. If you were swept away by Graeme Simsion’s international smash hit The Rosie Project, you will love The Rosie Effect. The Wife Project is complete, and Don and Rosie are happily married and living in New York. But they’re about to face a new challenge. Rosie is pregnant.

Don sets about learning the protocols of becoming a father, but his unusual research style gets him into trouble with the law. Fortunately his best friend Gene is on hand to offer advice: he’s left Claudia and moved in with Don and Rosie.

As Don tries to schedule time for pregnancy research, getting Gene and Claudia back together, servicing the industrial refrigeration unit that occupies half his apartment, helping Dave the Baseball Fan save his business and staying on the right side of Lydia the social worker, he almost misses the biggest problem of all: he might lose Rosie when she needs him most.

Get ready to fall in love all over again.

My thoughts: I absolutely loved the first book. I loved Don and Rosie and even disgusting Gene. I connected with Don in a way that I rarely do in books and I think that it is because I have more knowledge than the general person about these types of people. Growing up with a mother with Asperger, a sister who is high functioning Autistic/ADD, a brother with Asperger/autism and another brother with ADHD. And I have been diagnosed OCD. It is so much that Don says, thinks and do´s that are so familiar to me.

So I loved the first book, this one however I did not love. I liked it, but no love here. My heart breaks for Don. He is just trying so hard to be what Rosie needs and when one thing fails, he tries something ells. Rosie who choose to not communicate does not make it easier and I actually gets a little mad on here for her selfish ways. Yes Don has secrets and even tho i´m all for communication and honesty, I think it would not have made a difference at all if he would have been honest or not, and as a result by being dishonest, he meet new people, gets new experiences that in the end will be god for them all. Even his friends who have there own secrets and problems gets to experience new things with Don that has a positive impact on there own life.

BUT, there is no red thread or a clear plot. Rosie is pregnant, we hardly see her rest of the book except to ignore Don, do it harder on him or do something bad. Gene has a really big part of the story but he really don´t do anything. Its kind of weird. Then we have Dons friends who are there with Don trough it all. Rosies reasons for everything does not make sense to me and i cant really say anything more without giving you spoilers and we definitely don´t want that.

So no, i´m so sad. But I cant like this book as much as the first one because there is nothing besides Don him self who is touching my heart and that is just not enough. Certainly when I was bored for like 70% of the story.

Fiction/Science Fiction · Mystery/Crime · Romance · Thriller/Horror

A Merciful Death – Kendra Elliot

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29986740| GOODREADS | AMAZON | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ |

Goodreads synopsis: FBI special agent Mercy Kilpatrick has been waiting her whole life for disaster to strike. A prepper since childhood, Mercy grew up living off the land—and off the grid—in rural Eagle’s Nest, Oregon. Until a shocking tragedy tore her family apart and forced her to leave home. Now a predator known as the cave man is targeting the survivalists in her hometown, murdering them in their homes, stealing huge numbers of weapons, and creating federal suspicion of a possible domestic terrorism event. But the crime scene details are eerily familiar to an unsolved mystery from Mercy’s past.

Sent by the FBI to assist local law enforcement, Mercy returns to Eagle’s Nest to face the family who shunned her while maintaining the facade of a law-abiding citizen. There, she meets police chief Truman Daly, whose uncle was the cave man’s latest victim. He sees the survivalist side of her that she desperately tries to hide, but if she lets him get close enough to learn her secret, she might not survive the fallout…

My thoughts: I really liked the story. I liked that preppers had a big part of the story. I know what a prepper is but the complete meaning of it was new to me until I read Fan the flames by Katie Ruggle where the female lead character had grown up as an extreme prepper. The culture intrigued me and that is mostly why I wanted to read this book.

However I wasn’t that happy about the characters. They felt kind of detached at times and some of the history never was told to you as an reader, which would have made somethings a little clearer. And I totally dont agree with the ending of the book. Tho no cliffhanger.

Overall it is an great book with some mistakes. After my experience, the first book in a series are often not that good as it could be and i´m still interested to read more about Mercy, and perhaps get some answers on stuff that you didn’t get in the first book. I do not like to end a book with questions but here it do not do anything since they are minor and just my own curiosity. Another reader would probably not even have those questions when the book ends.