Tag: reading

Contemporary · Mystery/Crime · Romance

Beating Ruby – Camilla Monk

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30212829| GOODREADS | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ |

Goodreads synopsis: Life hasn’t been quite the same for computer engineer Island Chaptal since March, an OCD-ridden professional killer, burst into her life to clean her bedroom and take her on a global chase for a legendary diamond. Sadly, the (hit) man doesn’t just break bones; he breaks hearts, too.

Since then, Island has found solace in Alex—the perfect boyfriend—and Ruby, a software project about to revolutionize online banking security…for the worse. When Island’s boss is found dead after allegedly using Ruby to steal a vast fortune, it’s up to her to clear his name and recover the money. Someone else wants answers, though, and this time, Island might be in over her head.

From New York to Zürich, it’s going to take the return of a cleaning expert, a mini-octopus, and Island’s wits to beat Ruby. All while deciding whether to trust a man who already jilted her, or one who may have his own deadly secrets…

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My thoughts: This is the second book in the Spotless series. It is not a standalone and you will have to read the first book before this one to really understand some of the references. I would recommend that you do not read this review either if you haven’t read the first one, since it will be a little “spoilerish”. There are things I can’t discuss without referring to the first book. You do not have to worry if you already have read the first book.

You have been warned!

In this book we gets to follow Island, 6 months after the Tokyo fiasco and finally in a good place again. Then her boss goes and kill himself, her big project gets stolen and there is something that doesn’t feel right to her. As a new, stronger, woman she sets out to try and find the truth about what really happened, but she finds more truth than she had barged for. Then in walk March and you could say that the whole situation gets a 100 times worse. Or better. Depends on your point of view.

I can’t say that this book is as good as the first one, but it is still good. Not as fast paced and explosive but still entertaining. It was nice to meet all the characters again. The whole March and Alex situation is certainly entertaining but still a little hard to wrap my mind around. It was not until the end that I really understood what have been going on the whole book. By then I felt some things could have been changed on, written in another way to give the story a little more depth about those three characters. There is no cliffhanger per say, but still an indication that there will be a third book. Now I know that it already exists a third, but at one point there wasn’t. You can see that in the book. I do however not like Islands passivity in this book. She stands in situations with blind eyes and takes no action until the end.

I think the third book will be really entertaining and I would recommend this book to anyone who would like to have some explosive action, quirky characters, secrets, funny humor and heartwarming love.

Fantasy/Paranormal · Suspense · Thriller/Horror · Young, New adult/College

Shutter – Courtney Alameda

Book Chick1 Comment

20757532.jpg| GOODREADS | MY RATING: ♥|

Goodreads synopsis: Micheline Helsing is a tetrachromat—a girl who sees the auras of the undead in a prismatic spectrum. As one of the last descendants of the Van Helsing lineage, she has trained since childhood to destroy monsters both corporeal and spiritual: the corporeal undead go down by the bullet, the spiritual undead by the lens. With an analog SLR camera as her best weapon, Micheline exorcises ghosts by capturing their spiritual energy on film. She’s aided by her crew: Oliver, a techno-whiz and the boy who developed her camera’s technology; Jude, who can predict death; and Ryder, the boy Micheline has known and loved forever.

When a routine ghost hunt goes awry, Micheline and the boys are infected with a curse known as a soulchain. As the ghostly chains spread through their bodies, Micheline learns that if she doesn’t exorcise her entity in seven days or less, she and her friends will die. Now pursued as a renegade agent by her monster-hunting father, Leonard Helsing, she must track and destroy an entity more powerful than anything she’s faced before . . . or die trying.

Lock, stock, and lens, she’s in for one hell of a week.

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My thoughts: I’m so disappointed with this book. I don’t think It’s due too high hopes, since the author was new to me and I haven’t heard or read any chatter about the book or author before. It was just something Book Depository recommended me since it was a similar to another book I bought a time back. Well it was a bad recommendation.

I have so many problems with this book that I don’t even know where to start. Here’s a list!

  • It is repetitive
  • Not enough description
  • No variety
  • Kind of cliché
  • To many questions
  • Lack of information
  • Slow and way to much teen angst.

My biggest problem is that there is not enough description of the characters itself or the history. The readers get thrown into the story with no knowledge or background history. Like for an example, all the unnatural creatures seems to be common knowledge. Does every person on the planet know that all you have seen in horror movies are true? That they really exist? Well apparently so. To a certain degree at least. But this is never 100% verified. And I missed proper information and descriptions of other things. Like characters! I should not have to read on page 220 that a main character actually has Aborigine heritages and that his skin is like a 5 shot Café au lait. That totally messes with my mental picture that I have tried to build up. And it is like this through the book. On everything! And some of the bad stuffs description is to easy that I can’t form a picture fitting with the story. And I have a pretty good imagination, to tell you the truth!

How about the story itself? Well, our heroine, Micheline Helsing, descendant from the big Abraham Van Helsing, killer of all unnatural, is around seventeen years old (I counted but it is never mentioned) and goes to school to become a hunter. She however, takes water over her head when trying to prove to her father that she is capable of taking care of herself, her team and save innocent people. She has a tough relationship with her father and to be honest, that is the only thing that kept me reading. Because I wanted to know what would happen between her and her father.

Other have described this book as fast paced and edge of your seat, kind of book. I however did not find it like that at all.   And I think Alameda tried too hard, to push that horror feeling trough out the book which gave it the opposite effect. No I’m not happy. Not at all.

Contemporary · Fiction/Science Fiction · Sports/Games

Beartown – Fredrik Backman

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33413128| GOODREADS | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ |

Goodreads synopsis: People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.

Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semi-final match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.

Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.

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My thoughts: This was one hard book to read. It was a lot darker than first expected and was certainly not what you would expect from Backman. He has changed his tone and the seriousness of it is mindblowing. And the worst part is, I know this from real life experience. I know how it is to grow up in a town that is dying. I know how it is to live so far north that in a year, you have more dark days than light days. Where snow is more than a way of life. It comes a part of you. When I moved south, I did miss all that snow, but life was just so much more simpler without it being so much of it. And I still do not live far enough south to get no snow at all. The difference is that where I come from, it’s not Hockey that is the big sport everyone love. Where I come from there is two type of “family’s”. Those who ski some way or another. Or those who hunt. I’m from a hunting family. That’s what we do. Live for. Talk about. And plan to do next season. Sometime I miss it, but in reality I’m more of a city girl with one booted foot in the woods and one foot in a 6 inch high heel outside the city’s IT club. When I don’t read of course. And I like it just like that. The best of two worlds. But I do understand that mindset from a small community. We take care of our own. We offer coffee or beer instead of asking how you are. I do not always agree, but I do understand.

Even though the book could be described as hard, cold, dark and so Swedish that it is incredible Backman has been able to put it into words. But still the book is warm, fuzzy and lovable. Some parts of it I had to seek comfort in the arms of my man. I wouldn’t be able to read more if not. I have few triggers when it comes to books but one of them is in this book and even tough it is not that graphic, a girl/woman do understand without not being in that situation herself. And it is heavy. Maybe more heavy for me this time than what it would have been if I didn’t recognize the characters as people I grown up with. Backman understands. He is Swedish to. Other parts I feel that the book is awesome and even some parts a little funny. The seriousness of it all takes a big toll of it tough.

The writing is as always, fantastic. Backman has a great ability to put worlds, characters, minds, feelings and his own soul  between the lines in his books. You can just feel him and it is a wonderful experience. One I do not often get to feel when reading books. Often when I give a book a top star rating, it is more for the story itself. This one it is more for the meaning of the story and what it leaves me with when done. It is impossible to explain.

I do however miss Backmans funny, easy-going, fuzzy heartwarming way of writing his books. This one is just a little too dark and it will take me sometime before I’m ready to read the second book in the series. I will someday, but right now my soul is just not ready for that kind of hit. Soul-wrenching. That’s a word I would describe this book with. Soul-wrenching!

Fantasy/Paranormal · Fiction/Science Fiction · Young, New adult/College

The lightning thief – Rick Riordan

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28187| GOODREADS | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥|

Goodreads synopsis: Percy Jackson is a good kid, but he can’t seem to focus on his schoolwork or control his temper. And lately, being away at boarding school is only getting worse—Percy could have sworn his pre-algebra teacher turned into a monster and tried to kill him. When Percy’s mom finds out, she knows it’s time that he knew the truth about where he came from, and that he go to the one place he’ll be safe. She sends Percy to Camp Half Blood, a summer camp for demigods (on Long Island), where he learns that the father he never knew is Poseidon, God of the Sea. Soon a mystery unfolds and together with his friends—one a satyr and the other the demigod daughter of Athena—Percy sets out on a quest across the United States to reach the gates of the Underworld (located in a recording studio in Hollywood) and prevent a catastrophic war between the gods.

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My thoughts: Of course I have seen the movie and more or less already knew what to expect. I do not often like to read (or in this case listen) to books after I seen the movie, but I have seen reviews that the books is so, so much better than the movies and felt like I was missing out on something. However I did not find the book as great as all those reviewers raved about. But it was a good book.

I did somewhat enjoy it. It started of really good and the ending tied itself together real nicely. A little slow sometimes but it was okay. I would probably have liked it more if I read it before the movie though. There are some things changed between the movie and the book. I do not know why really because I can’t see a reason to why they could not do it as in the book. It was like the same but different. And I think some stuff in the movie had made more sense if they did it more like in the book. But that is just my opinion.

There are also a lot of stuff in the book that is not in the movie, which surprised me. This whole “half god” thing would have had a bigger impact with it. But I guess they had their reasons. The book, however is educational in a fun way. Greek mythology was a big topic when I was in school and after what I can remember, the history facts are correct in the book. I love books for younger readers that also is educational. And I think if this came out when I was a kid, I would probably have loved it. I was really interested in Greek mythology and history at a time.

I will probably listen to more of the books. They are easy and relaxing and perfect to listen to when I’m at the gym working out. But I will probably not love the series as so many others seems to do.

Mystery/Crime · Suspense · Thriller/Horror

Diabolical – Jana Deleon

Book Chick1 Comment

31396255| GOODREADS | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥|

Goodreads synopsis: Nine years ago, the police found Shaye Archer wandering in the French Quarter, beaten and abused and with no memory of the previous fifteen years, not even her name. Now, at twenty-four, Shaye is a licensed private investigator, determined to get answers for her clients when the police can’t help. But her last case uncovered more than anyone anticipated, and pieces of Shaye’s missing past have surfaced with unexpected consequences.

She’s starting to remember.

Will Shaye unlock the secrets buried deep in her mind? And more importantly, can she handle the truth if she does?

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My thoughts: In this third book about Shaye Archer, the mystery is finally starting to unravel. Her memories starting to flow back and along the way discovers not only her but every one she love or has helped her, is in danger. A madman is back on the street of New Orleans and no one is safe anymore.

I do not often read series where it take several books to unravel some secret but this has certainly been a great journey. Deleon has a really unique style of writing. It is capturing and explosive. I do however feel that it was a little less this time. Both book one and two got a full five star rating. That is how good they are. This one however never reached that five star. Something was missing. I felt a little detached and the ending was somewhat weird even tough a lot surprising. I love the way the story started of several years before Shaye even was born. Deleon did do a great job with the interweaving the past with the future and the now.

I’m happy that there is more books in the series. I really want to follow Shay some more especially now that the truth is out. I would also love to see how the relationship between her and Jackson is unfolding. I have my own wishes and I really hope that they come true.

It is a great series and I recommend it to everyone who will listen. Its that good. 😀

Fantasy/Paranormal · Fiction/Science Fiction

A Glimmer of hope – Steve McHuge

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36605004| GOODREADS | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ |

Goodreads synopsis: From Steve McHugh, the bestselling author of The Hellequin Chronicles, comes a new urban fantasy series packed with mystery, action, and, above all, magic.

Layla Cassidy has always wanted a normal life, and the chance to put her father’s brutal legacy behind her. And in her final year of university she’s finally found it. Or so she thinks.

But when Layla accidentally activates an ancient scroll, she is bestowed with an incredible, inhuman power. She plunges into a dangerous new world, full of mythical creatures and menace—all while a group of fanatics will stop at nothing to turn her abilities to their cause.

To protect those she loves most, Layla must take control of her new powers…before they destroy her. All is not yet lost—there is a light shining, but Layla must survive long enough to see it.

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My thoughts: First of I want to thank Midas Public Relations, who contacted me and asked if I would be interested in reading and reviewing Steve McHuge’s new book A Glimmer of Hope. The first book in his new series The Avalon Chronicles, that will be released 1st April 2018.

Second of I want to say, I freaking loved this book and I’m so happy that I got the chance to read it. It is highly energetic, action filled book of pure fun and I really enjoyed it. It is a greatly written, easy but still deep story not anything like I have ever read . It is highly imaginative and it is hard to anticipate what will happen next. The book is intriguing and exciting and I liked the way it was build from page one. It was suspense to the verge where I actually could not sit still.

Imagine that every horror story you ever read actually are real. That monsters under the bed, is not a imagination of a young mind. That warewolfs, warebears, shapeshifters, demons, and other mythical creatures is walking among us. Some are good, some are bad and some are even worse. Imagine all of this put in ONE book, melted together in one incredible story.

I only have one problem with the book, and it is unfortunately big enough to lose one star because of it. And that is the middle of it. The story lost some of it’s *ompf* and actually got a little boring. But I do feel that it was necessary since there was some things that needed to be explained, but maybe the explanations could have been done with a little more finesse, depth and without the juvenile behavior from Layla. I lost some of my reading energy because of it and it was hard to get back in the story. As soon as I did tho, I never lost it again.

I will definitely read the second book when it comes out. There is still a lot of questions I want to see pan out, and the world still needs saving. I can only imagine that it will be a bumpy but incredibly fun ride to read.

One other thing I would like to mention is that I love when publishers think another step forward. I was expecting a boring cover under the dust jacket of the book. I certainly did not expected that they have though about it and made it so beautiful. That was one more exciting, unexpected thing with the book.

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Contemporary · Fiction/Science Fiction

Eleanor Oliphant is compleatly fine – Gail Honeyman

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35508633| GOODREADS | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ |

Goodreads synopsis: No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine. 

Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.

Smart, warm, uplifting, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is the story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes, The only way to survive is to open your heart…

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My thoughts: I was quite surprised when I started to read this book. It was not quite what I had expected and actually a lot darker. I had imagine that it would be like an female version of Don Tillman (The Rosie project) with a lot of charm and humor. Well, in my opinion it was not!

Eleanor is a lost soul, a person who has had a rough childhood and never got to learn all those social rules that everyone else seems to understand without even trying. She has no friends, no family and a quirky way of handling her mundane routine of daily life. She is so content in her own world that she doesn’t seem to realize that she misses something and wants more. She just trots on in the same way she have done the last 10 years or so. One day, fates steps in and breaks her life down to pieces and gives her the ability to build it up again, just the way she wants it.

The book is a lot darker than expected and touches hard subjects like depression, loneliness and alcoholism in a lighter kind of way. I would have found the book a little better if it was a little deeper in those subjects though. It is pretty much what the book is all about, so why not do it proper. I read somewhere that Honeyman didn’t want to make Eleanor an victim. But I feel the book lost something in that decision. You can be two victims. That one who accepts and does nothing, or that one who fights for something better and the right to live. Use it! Anyhow, back to the topic, loneliness and depression is something I personally knows a lot about and it is probably the reason to why I did not find this book as funny and humorous as many others have found it. Yes it certainly had its moments and Eleanor do say some pretty funny stuff sometime. But it was no a laugh out loud type of book for me.

I did however cry a couple of times and I did enjoy the book immensely. Eleanor is an oddball, you can’t do anything but love her and Raymond is my hero. He stands so far away from my typical literary love, but he seized my heart and refused to let it go. He is so ordinary and common to real life people that he is so easy to relate to and he felt warm and lovable.

I missed the charm I had expected in the book. The tone is very up and down, but it is still cute. I often felt to step in the book to hug her and say that everything is going to be alright. Because when it is bad, it can get better. Speaking by experiences here.

I can’t say that I loved, loved the book. But I did love it.

Fantasy/Paranormal · Suspense

Assassin’s Apprentice – Robin Hobb

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21956219.jpg| GOODREADS | AMAZON | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ |

Goodreads synopsis: In a faraway land where members of the royal family are named for the virtues they embody, one young boy will become a walking enigma.

Born on the wrong side of the sheets, Fitz, son of Chivalry Farseer, is a royal bastard, cast out into the world, friendless and lonely. Only his magical link with animals – the old art known as the Wit – gives him solace and companionship. But the Wit, if used too often, is a perilous magic, and one abhorred by the nobility.

So when Fitz is finally adopted into the royal household, he must give up his old ways and embrace a new life of weaponry, scribing, courtly manners; and how to kill a man secretly, as he trains to become a royal assassin.

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My thoughts: This is an complex book with many layers. Great read and a lot different from all those YA Fantasy books that seem to take over the shelf’s in the bookstores. It is a slow burner and I don’t have a good history with slow books, since I easily get bored. I did however not get bored with this book but I’m not used to read fantasy anymore (read a lot as an kid) and it took me awhile to get used to the writing style and language. So it was quite “heavy” for me in the beginning. Fantasy is often written in a different kind of rhythm and has words not that common in today’s literature (that I read anyway). It is more medieval, proper and sentences are usually a lot longer with more describing words. So it took some time for me to get used to it again, but eventually my reading speed went up and it got much more easier for me to enjoy the book. I do think that if I read the book in my own language, it would have been easier from the start. But I find reading on English suits me better in the long haul so that’s why I stuck with it.

The book is about Fitz. The bastard boy, son to the king in waiting. Not officially acknowledged by the royal house, he lives with the king in waiting’s first hand man. Eventually he gets mixed up and pushed in to situations beyond his own control and you get to follow him through his childhood years, becoming the Kings man and fight for more than life.

The world Hobb has built in this book is amazing. The environment is livid, the Red Ships terrifying and the story over all, insanely enthralling. This book is the first one in the Farseer Trilogy and the first book in the 16 long series about The Realm of the Elderlings.

I read this book for the first time as an kid. Not remembering much more than that it was a great book and that I had a crush on Fitz, I am now happy that I chose to read the book in an adult age. It is certainly a hidden gem  and it is sad that it took me 15 years to read it again.

Contemporary · Romance · Suspense

Rock chick regret – Kristen Ashley

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13184992.jpg| GOODREADS | AMAZON | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ |

Goodreads synopsis: Sadie Townsend is known by all as The Ice Princess and she’s worked hard to earn her reputation. Her father, a now-incarcerated Drug Lord, has kept her under his thumb her whole life and she’s learned enough from living in his world to give everyone the cold shoulder. But one inebriated night, she shows the Real Sadie to the undercover agent she knows is investigating her father, the handsome Hector Chavez, and he knows he’ll stop at nothing to have her.

Hector makes one (huge) mistake; he waits for Sadie to come to him. Tragedy strikes and Sadie’s got a choice, she can retreat behind her Ice Fortress or she can embrace the Rock Chick/Hot Bunch World. Guided by Hector, the Rock Chicks, the Hot Bunch and her new gay roommates, Buddy and Ralphie, Sadie negotiates a life out from under her father’s thumb, a life that includes poison, arson and learning how to make s’mores.

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My thoughts: What a great book. What a great, great book. I don’t even know how I should put my feelings for this book into words. This one is by far my favorite in the Rock Chick series. And even though I loved the other books, this one stands out on its own and completely touched me. It is by far more emotional and graphic than the other books have been, but not in a way that makes it hard for me to read. Yeah I do have triggers when it comes to sexual assault but as long as it not very graphic, I can distance myself to get through and focus on other things. In this book, it is not that graphic but it is the aftermath that can be heart wrenching.

Her we get to know Hector more. He is Eddies (book 2) brother and Hector have been a character that has gone in and out throughout the series due to that he is an DEA agent and often undercover. Well in this book he is done with DEA and has gone to work for Lee Nightingale instead. That’s when Sadie (who’s criminal father Hector brought down before quitting DEA) walks in and turns everyone’s life upside down.

You get to meet some new, crazy lovable characters and the story is just heart wrenching and warming in the same time. I haven’t cried so much as I have done to this book in a long, long time. Maybe because I can relate to some of it. The part with not having friends and that feeling of being completely, utterly alone and the feelings that all the good that is happening will be taking away from you, because you do not deserve better, is something I do understand.

I also love that Asley went a little different with how the story is build and the dynamic between Sadie and Hector. And that it is not as repeatedly as the books sometime can be. It is truly a work of art and to think I had to read six books to have this next in line is just…. Well, I didn’t know what I had and if I knew, I would have read it a lot earlier.

Gosh I just rambling here. But this was the perfect book to end this month’s reading spree on and I just want to recommend the Rock Chick series because it is just perfect.

Contemporary · Romance · Suspense

14 Weeks – Jessica Gadziala

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33950707| GOODREADS | AMAZON | MY RATING: ♥ ♥|

Goodreads synopsis: I was a bit of a wild child.
I had a past.
I had gotten into trouble.
All that was behind me, though.
And for the first time in my life, trouble had found me.

When the other private investigators wouldn’t help me, I found the huge, hulking Tig willing to lend his expertise. What I didn’t expect was the growing attraction between us or the crazy series of events that would put our budding relationship to the test.

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My thoughts: Well, the book is okay. I got myself through it. But it was not one of my favorites which is to bad. I do really like Gadziala and her books but obviously, I can’t like them all. And this one is not on the top of the list.

I didn’t really like Kenzi. I understand that she wanted to be strong and independent but you don’t have to be a bitch about it. And since it was such an focus on her strength and attitude I felt that Tig just got lost. And the constant repeating of thoughts about them self and each other was a little irritating and later on just boring. When they started a rant about there feelings och thoughts and questions (that they have already ranted about before) I started to skim read. And I hardly never skim read Gadzialas books, even if it´s not one of my favorites. And that just show how unenthusiastic I was about the book.

The story is nice but i would have liked to read more about the abduction because that really was no suspense at all. And I did have ha feeling from the start which made it easy for me to figure out what is what and how. And the part with Kenzie and Cass in the park was just fantastic. I loved that part and I needed that. It probably saved the book a star.

I really liked Reese though and she was hardly not there the entire book. But she is a character I probably will completely love when I get to her book. She will get her man in the Henchman series and there I still have book nr 8 to read before I can read about Reese and she is in book nr 9. But i´m really looking forward to it.