Tag: review

Mystery/Crime · Romance · Suspense

Tennessee takedown – Lena Diaz

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18343283.jpg| GOODREADS | MY RATING: ♥ ♥|

Goodreads synopsis: A SWAT officer in small-town Tennessee will do anything to protect the innocent beauty whose life has been put on the line in Lena Diaz’s Tennessee Takedown

It can’t be a coincidence that in the past twenty-four hours, three different thugs have tried to kill or abduct Ashley Parrish. Sexy SWAT team leader Dillon Gray saved her, but now he wonders why someone would want to murder the beautiful accountant and why he finds her so infuriatingly attractive.

Then the FBI comes after Ashley for embezzlement, and Dillon knows he must protect her from a killer and prove she’s being framed. Taking her on a hair-raising run through dangerous terrain barely fazes him. But wanting her from more than just one night scares the hell out of him.

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My thoughts: I have read Lena Diaz other series (Deadly Games) and I LOVED it. There is four books in that series, filled with hot alpha males, strong women, incredible thrilling suspense and complicated character relationships. Three of the four books got a 5/5 score and the last one, number four got 4/5. That is how good that series was. Can you imagine my surprise that I found this first book in one of her other series, extremely lacking and disappointing?

I had expected the same level of writing skill and imagination but there was nothing. Nothing! My mind is blank! I feel nothing other than disappointment toward this book. It starts right in the middle of a shootout and then there is action throughout the whole book. There is never a break and I think that is maybe the point that rubs me the wrong way. Ashley is just to TSTL (too stupid to live) and I Dillon is just a used up character with no real depth. I could not connect with them and they more irritated me than anything else. The plot was quite interesting until the end, when it just got too much. I mean, come on, can you be that stupid? I do like the whole stolen identity plot even though it was predictable right from the start.

What really saved this book is the other characters. Chris, Chief Thornton, Donna and so on. I don’t know if Diaz did it on purpose, but it did feel like she put more thought in those characters than what she did in her main ones. That is the only reason I feel I would like to read the second book in this series. The second book is about Chris and I do want to read more about him. *Wink*

Contemporary · Romance

Crash – Susan Fanetti

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32613951.jpg| GOODREADS | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥|

Goodreads synopsis: Tulsa, Oklahoma. 1995

Conrad “Radical” Jessup, Sergeant at Arms of the Brazen Bulls Motorcycle Club, has life just about where he wants it: he’s free of a bad marriage, and his club is cruising along healthy and strong, their business relationships as solid as their brotherhood. He’s a contented man, riding his road at his speed.

Until a massive highway wreck brings a blonde on a little sportster crashing into his life.

Willa Randall is making a new life in Tulsa, working hard to put a demolished past in her rearview mirror. Trying to keep herself safe, she’s built a life insulated by locks and walls. Inside those walls, she’s alone, but she feels secure, and that’s enough.

Until a big, tattooed biker holds out his hand and helps her up from the pavement.

A love seeded in chaos grows fast and deep. But when chaos is a constant, can any love endure?

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My thoughts: I have read one book by Fanetti, earlier back in 2016, and I can’t remember on top of my head, why I did not finish the Signal Bend series, but I must have had my reasons. Crash is the first book in the series about another MC Club that do exist in the same universe but still are a standalone series from the signal bend series.

It is a good plot and it certainly had potential, but for me, I had problem with connecting to the characters. And I don’t really know why. They are characters I usually love and connect with. Willa is this strong, kick ass woman, who have been in a shitty situation for like the last 10 years. But she has a fighting spirit and with her protecting dog Ollie she feels strong and ready for whatever will happen and she do not need a man to “save” her. Then we have Rad. Hard skinned, stubborn, overprotecting, sexy and hot alpha male who is happy to finally have peace in his life after a bad childhood and an even worse marriage. But he is open to his feelings and when Willa comes crashing into his life he takes the chance to explore and find even more.

How can I NOT love this? It is like I wrote the plot myself. It is like all that I want from this type of books. But still it didn’t do it for me. When I think about the highlights of the book, it still feels kind of grey and bland for me. I read the story but there was not really anything that captivated me. It is a good read. It’s just not a great read. One thing I really liked is that even though it is predictable, I could point out early in the story, stuff that would happen, it did not happen as I first had expected it. So even if it is predictable, it was not as predictable as I had predicted. Haha.

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.

Classic/Historical · Fiction/Science Fiction · Romance · War/Military

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows

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2728527.jpg| GOODREADS | AMAZON | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ |

Goodreads synopsis: “I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.”

January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb….

As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends—and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island—boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all.

Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society’s members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.

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My thoughts: This is an brilliant, work of art. Brilliant! That you could write a complete story like this, with good character development and fantastic environments and different story lines, just by the form of letters, is beyond me. It is really fantastic and I’m completely in love. I love Juliet, Isola, Kit, Sidney and not at least Dawsey. I love them and that the book eventually ended, made me a little sad.

In this book you get to follow Juliet. An unmarried writer who tries to find herself now that the war is over. London is a broken city and she lives temporarily in a borrowed apartment since her old one got bombed to ruins. She is an strong minded book lover who will not settle, but feels lost in the new world. We get to follow her trough letters to her best friends Sophie and Sidney. Later on to her new friends on the island Guernsey. She wants to write a book but are not happy with the subject she first had chosen. In a pursuit for something she care and want to write about, she travels to the island too meet hear new friends and finds more than just a book to write.

To write a book completely trough letters is an brilliant idea in my opinion. I cannot see the book been written in any other way now that I have read it. I must say that at first I was skeptical. But it gave me as an reader the freedom to imagine and use my mind to fill in the blanks that where not written in words. It felt liberating somehow. The book is written with warmth and humour even though the aftermath of the war is a huge part of this book, and it makes it emotionally hard sometimes.

But as great as it is, it has one flaw in my opinion. First I gave the book a five star rating but after my emotions had settled down and I started to really think about it, I wanted to end it to four stars. That is because of the ending. It ended perfectly, but it went to fast, did not fit in with the rest of the book and I got the feeling that the authors just wanted to get it done. Be over with. But then I looked in the book and wondered, should I really take of a star for ten pages in the end that was not to my complete liking? It felt unfair so I left the rating as I first had put it.

This books also comes as an movie in 2018. I love movies made on books I have read and really looking forward to it. 🙂

 

Everyday things

Why does that make me less of a reader?

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IMG_1591I was watching one of Peters (Peter likes books) videos on Youtube and he briefly talked about all the negativity a public reviewer get and specially when talking about audio books. And I thought I should write a post about my opinion since I have experienced some of that negativity personally from the bookish community for no other reason than that I read eBooks. I don’t write much about what format I read books in on my blog or GoodReads. I don’t feel the need to clarify if it is a physical, audio or a eBook in my reviews since that has nothing to do with the book itself. But apparently it is important when it comes to defining me as an real or a fake reader.

Some (note some, not all) people seems to thinks that a real reader are those who only read physical books and often feel them self compelled to tell everyone just that. Other thinks that if you read books (physical or not) you are a reader. That do however not include magazines, comic books or audio books (why not I wonder?). Then there are people, like me, who do not care as long as you read. Because isn’t that the most important thing in the end? Then I see arguments like “Listening is not reading”! Yeah? Says who? Okay, fine. Down to the core, listening is not technically reading since you do not “read” the words, but you still take part of a book right? And aren’t that reading then? If you are blind and “see” a movie, haven’t you seen the movie then because you listened and not seen it with your eyes?

I often get negative comments on that I read so many eBooks. I love all the formats that are available for me as a reader and I utilize them all to my own satisfaction. I will always love physical books! The feeling of them, the smell, the written word on paper, but I do mostly read eBooks. I could be full of myself and say that I read eBooks because I want to save the environment and all that blah, blah, blah. But no, I’m a lot more selfish than that. I’m stingy! English eBooks are often a lot more cheaper than the physical book, and I read mostly eBooks because I read 100+ books a year and do not have the money to buy them nor the room to store them all. And I do not see any fault in that. I don’t think I’m any less of a reader than you because of it. And I love audio books. It makes me able to take part in books, while working and earning my pay check so that I can buy all those books I read. How wonderful isn’t that?

So, to be mean and judgmental is something I don’t feel belong in the bookish community. Books should unites us and learn us that we do not have to think the same about everything. That we all should be able to accept and discuss the books we read without personal attacks just because you can’t change another person’s opinion. And I think we should be happy that the all the options are there and that it makes it easier for people to take part in the literate world. With all the social medias like Facebook and what not I think it is easy to get shallow and forget that there is more. In my humble opinion, books bring us back to earth.

What are your thoughts about the topic?

Fiction/Science Fiction · Thriller/Horror · Young, New adult/College

Rot & Ruin – Jonathan Maberry

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7157310.jpg| GOODREADS | AMAZON | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ |

Goodreads synopsis: In the zombie-infested, post-apocalyptic America where Benny Imura lives, every teenager must find a job by the time they turn fifteen or get their rations cut in half. Benny doesn’t want to apprentice as a zombie hunter with his boring older brother Tom, but he has no choice. He expects a tedious job whacking zoms for cash, but what he gets is a vocation that will teach him what it means to be human.

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My thoughts: I don’t know if I’m just incredibly lucky or if I have found a way to choose good books. Because my five star ratings and good books just keep pouring in. And I’m a little surprised. As much as I love Joe Ledgers series by Maberry (still more than this), not one of those books (that I have read) have received a five-star rating and yet this one does. But One thing is for sure, Jonathan Maberry takes my mind and heart by storm, Again!

This is a wonderful book and I am surprised over how much I loved it. It is a little different from what I normally read and it is a Young Adult book. YA books are often not for me due to that I often find the books a little meek and dramatic. Not in a good way. Anyhow, this book was nothing like that and it evoke feelings that I did not foresee it would.

Here we get to follow Benny. A fifteen-year-old teenager who live in a world post zombie outbreak. He was too young when the outbreaks began and he can’t remember a world before the Zombies. And I totally loathed Benny in the beginning. Yikes I hated him. Later, he grew on me and by the end of the book, I loved him. Him and his brother Tom. Tom however was old enough to remember the world before the zombies and he is the reason Benny still is alive. But misunderstandings and half-truths have made their relationship hard and they are not that close to each other as brothers should be. Different circumstances outside their own power makes them thrown together and they must work together and fight for their life’s and what’s right.

I often feel that Zombies, like vampires, are a subject that have been done to many times that there is nothing new about it anymore. But I think that Maberry has taken a step back and brought the subject back to its core and just stayed with what’s simple and that worked in favor of the story. It feels real and totally perfect. It even made me cry some parts.

I short, I totally loved it and can’t wait to read the other books in the series. I have ordered the whole box from Book depository and hope it will arrive soon.

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I’m really happy that I was able to find this book signed. I ordered it from some guy in USA and it took almost tree weeks for it to arrive. But I’m really happy and this is the first signed book on my shelf. Totally worth the money. 🙂

Contemporary · Romance · Suspense

Midnight rainbow – Linda Howard

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350523| GOODREADS | AMAZON | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ |

Goodreads synopsis: Grant Sullivan had been one of the government’s most effective agents, and he’s agreed to rescue Jane Hamilton Greer, a wealthy socialite possibly engaged in espionage. In the time they spent together, questions of guilt and innocence began to fade against the undeniable reality that two people from such different worlds should never have met.

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My thoughts: Somewhat cliche and predictable but at the same time exactly what I needed to get over my hangover from the Kristen Ashley book I read last. This is one of those old school, romantic suspense that are the core of what I love with an romantic suspense book. We got the strong, independent woman who do not need her father or any other man to “take care” of her. We have that alpha, jaded military man who has forgotten anything according to love and a woman’s touch. We have some bad men, corrupted governments, spies and a hunt trough the jungle. All to save there lives and there country.

It is not this great literary work of art but it is still beautiful and did what it was suppose to do. Now I’m ready for other adventures. 🙂

Contemporary · Romance · Suspense · War/Military

Midnight captive – Elle Kennedy

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23398610.jpg| GOODREADS | AMAZON | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ |

Goodreads synopsis: Former CIA agent Bailey Jones has spent months trying to forget her night of passion with mercenary Sean Reilly. An elite and methodical assassin, she has no room in her life for a reckless, rule-breaking Irishman, and she’s vowed to steer clear of the tempting bad boy who lured her into his bed under false pretenses.

When Sean is implicated in the robbery of a Dublin bank, Bailey knows something isn’t right. So what if she can’t trust him? There’s no way Sean would end up on the wrong side of the law. In fact, he’s stuck in the middle of a dark and dirty conspiracy that could put his twin brother’s life at risk with one wrong move. And Bailey’s life too when she agrees to help.

As the stakes are raised and Bailey finds herself torn between two brothers, the fine line between danger and desire is crossed…and it’ll take more than a killer instinct to survive

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My thoughts: I thought this book was going to be a love triangle since that is the impression I got from the synopsis. So, to be honest, I have been avoiding this book because I really don’t like that kind of drama. But since I have loved pretty much every book before this one, I couldn’t ignore it any longer. I just needed to get it read and done with it so that I could read the next book in the series. I just hoped it was not as a big part of the book because it is always the same thing. One girl, two guys and it is just exhausting. Well I can happy announce that this is not one of those books. There is no real love triangle and it made me so happy. This book is the 6th book in the Killer Instinct series. It is a standalone series with small stuff that twines them together. But Kennedy does a great job with recapping that if you want, you can read in which order you like. But as always, I do recommend that you read it in order.

The series is awesome and there is no difference here with this book either. I totally love Bailey and Sean who are the main characters. They are like oil and water and have a history that is not that great. Which makes them fight all the time but it never gets boring or too much of it. Sean is a little rougher around the edges than the other guys in the books and are not from the same kind of military background. He is a former IRA soldier who, with his brother, has been running their own business for the last eight years.  Bailey is a little more mysterious and you do not know that much about her. The truth will come out eventually and it is somewhat cliche, just to warn you, but still a good story.  I love it. There is sparks and fireworks in every chapter they are together in and it is freaking awesome.

I loved the story. Somewhat unusual compared to the other books and much more personal. And even a little sad. But it was perfect for these two characters. I hope it is/comes a book for Sean’s Twin brother, Oliver, to because, hot damn I need to read that one.

I do have to warn that this book ends one somewhat of a cliffhanger. Not a serious one but still.

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

The fire witness – Lars Kepler

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16085509| GOODREADS | AMAZON | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥|

Goodreads synopsis: Detective Inspector Joona Linna, under internal review by the National Police for an alleged infraction, is on leave to solve some troubling personal business when he is called in to “observe” the investigation of a gruesome and strange murder at Birgittagarden, a youth home for wayward teenage girls. But it’s not long before Linna is drawn deeply into the intricate, disturbing case. Intriguing, astonishing, and with all of the suspense that first captured audiences in The Hypnotist, The Fire Witness is Lars Kepler at his most psychologically complex and thrilling.

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My thoughts: The third book about the Swedish/Finish Cop Joona Linna. He is a ruff character with an immensely good moral compass and somewhat of an enigma. But in this book, you finally are starting to get some answers to who Linna really is and why he is and do as he does. However, you do sit in the end of the book, with a ton of questions but there are more books in the series so I’m pretty sure I will get my answers someday. The book do not end on a cliffhanger however, for those who are like me and don’t like that.

The books story is just great. Joona Linna is under internal review due to some stuff that happened in the second book. But since he is that good guy that he is, he breaks the rules to save a kid after getting called in to “observe” a crime scene at a youth home, where a young girl and the homes nightwatchman has been killed, and another girl is missing. Not only that but he has some personal issues to resolve and it makes the suspense a lot more intense. And not only that. A psychic comes in and stir the pot even more. And I just say, wow!

Lars Kepler is really not a person but an pseudonym for the married couple Alexander Ahndoril and Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril. Yeah I think they did the right thing with one name since theirs are so alike. I love their way of writing and how they succeed to include the readers in the story in a way I don’t feel many Swedish authors are able to do. Scandinavian litterateur is not one of my favorites but I try to broaden my view to also close authors. Not just authors from the other side of the glob.

I do have to warn you that this series is not an standalone series and I do recommend that you start with the first book if you are interested. But it is total worth it.

Contemporary

A man too old for a place too far – Mark W Sasse

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36582442.jpg| GOODREADS | AMAZON | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ |

Goodreads synopsis: If she wanted help changing the world for one forgotten child, she chose the wrong man. Seventy-two-year-old Francis Frick would scorn his own family to close another deal. But Bee doesn’t see the world like you or me. She is an optimist, searching for potential where none exists, and so she hovers above Frick’s bed every night, eating pomegranates and waiting for his eyes to open to the possibilities. One night, it finally happens. A rogue droplet of juice slips through her fingers and hits the sleeping Manhattan businessman on the forehead, thrusting him on a series of baffling adventures to some of the twentieth century’s most brutal regimes—all to help Bee save a forgotten child of history.

A Man Too Old for a Place Too Far is part one of The Forgotten Child Trilogy—a one-of-a-kind adventure that mixes time travel, magical realism, and historical fiction into a contemporary story about an old man, his estranged daughter, and a tiny flying person in a white robe, who chooses to believe that anything can happen with enough prodding and an endless supply of pomegranates.

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My thoughts: A received this book from the author against an honest review. I haven’t heard about Sasse before he contacted me and I was a little skeptical when I started the book but now I’m happy that I gave it a shot. I’m pleasantly surprised with the book and its story and Sasses unique way of writing. It was refreshing and new.

In this book, you get to meet some really unique characters that keeps growing and evolve in this unique story. We get to follow Francis Frick, who is like a modern Scrooge, you know, the stingy character from Mr Dickens’s story “A Christmas carol”? Frick is a man who has lived his life in the purpose to make money. He hates everything and everybody and has no care for anyone but himself. Not even his daughter. He is a grumpy old man who one night meets Bree, who takes Frick through time and place and forces him to see others than himself. The big different here is that Bree in reality, takes Frick back in time and everything he does there, changes the future. She has a purpose with everything she does but nothing of it is clear for the readers or Mr Frick.

It is an intriguing story and Mr Sasse do not give the readers much to figure out how it all fits together until the end. The language is easy to read and understand and the book keeps the same flow through and through. All the characters are great and keeps evolving deeper in the story and the whole book just captivates you. However, it feels a little long sometimes since you don’t get a lot of clues and after 200 pages, I still didn’t know more than I did at the 50 pages’ mark. Well, not more than that Frick is a total asshole and every human in his company is a freaking saint who put up with it.

And I feel that how it all hangs together, is still not 100% clear to me even though I’m done with the book. There are some questions I have that I never got any answers on. Probably done with purpose since this book is part of a series and there is a strong possibility that those answers will come in another book. However, I do not feel that the book ended on a cliffhanger and you, who have followed me for some time now, knows how much I hate cliffhangers.

So one question still stands unanswered and that is “Would I read anything by Mr Sasse again?” and after reading this book I only have one answer. Yes! Yes, I would.