Orlando Shooting

A Heartbreaking and Thought-Provoking Post

I’m not sure how to write this post. After hearing the news I felt shocked, then angry, then sad, but now I just feel numb. I don’t know how to write a post feeling this way. I don’t know how to express how horrible I feel thinking about the 50 innocent people who lost their lives, the families and friends of those dealing with the loss of their loved ones, the 53 who were insured. My heart breaks for them. I hate to think that I live in a world where such hatred exists. It’s sickening.

Aaron and I have gotten calls from friends all day telling us, “How many times have we gone to a club, a bar just looking to have some fun. It could have happened to us, it could have happened to anyone.” I think about all the boyfriends that went together, looking for a night out together(maybe…

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How To Disappear ~ Ann Redisch Stampler – 3.5 Stars

Tags

Mystery, Thriller, YA Fiction

Thank you NetGalley and Simon Pulse for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: June 14th, 2016

Synopsis: Nicolette Holland is the girl everyone likes. Up for adventure. Loyal to a fault. And she’s pretty sure she can get away with anything…until a young woman is brutally murdered in the woods near Nicolette’s house. Which is why she has to disappear.

Jack Manx has always been the stand-up guy with the killer last name. But straight A’s and athletic trophies can’t make people forget that his father was a hit man and his brother is doing time for armed assault. Just when Jack is about to graduate from his Las Vegas high school and head east for college, his brother pulls him into the family business with inescapable instructions: find this ruthless Nicolette Holland and get rid of her. Or else Jack and everyone he loves will pay the price. 

As Nicolette and Jack race to outsmart each other, tensions–And attractions–run high. Told in alternating viewpoints, this  tightly plotted mystery and tense love story challenges our assumptions about right and wrong, guilt and innocence, truth and lies.

How To Disappear is a pretty decent YA thriller although I had some issues with one of the main characters, Nicolette. The chapters alternate between her and Jack which keeps the action going at a pretty fast clip. They don’t actually meet until halfway through the book, which is when a romance develops that I was never really able to buy into. This is partly because I disliked Nicolette right from the beginning. She’s supposed to be a smart girl yet she makes some incredibly stupid decisions. I made my mind up fairly early on that she was either an absolute idiot, or a cold, conniving manipulator. Jack, while not pure as the driven snow either, comes across more sympathetically. He’s tried so hard to distance himself from his family, but he’s unwillingly recruited for this mission in order to protect his mother. I truly did feel sorry for him at times. The story itself is filled with plenty of thrills and chills and even some snarky humor courtesy of Nicolette’s and Jack’s inner monologues. The ending is particularly twisty and clever, and I honestly didn’t see it coming. In the end How To Disappear is an exciting cat-and-mouse thriller sure to appeal to older teens. 

Pressure ~ By Brian Keene – 4.0 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Adventure, Environmental Disasters, Horror, Mystery, Science Fiction, Techno-Thriller

Thank you NetGalley and Thomas Dunne Books for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: June 21st, 2016

Synopsis: Off the coast of tropical Mauritius, an ecological catastrophe with global implications is occurring. The ocean’s floor is collapsing at a rapid rate. World-champion free diver and marine biologist Carrie Anderson joins a scientific expedition determined to discover the cause–and how to stop it. But what they uncover is even more horrific. Deep beneath the surface, something is awake. Something hungry. Something…cold. Now, the pressure builds as Carrie and her colleagues must contend with the murderous operatives of a corrupt corporation, an unnatural disaster that grows bigger by the day, and a monstrous predator that may spell the extinction of mankind.

Brian Keene is an author who I’ve always counted on to provide a good, tightly written suspense, thriller, horror story, and for the most part, Pressure does not disappoint. The action begins immediately and never lets up. Especially scary are the scenes where Carrie and her dive partner Paulo, are underwater in the area known as the “Mouth of Hell”. You can literally feel the cold blackness surrounding them, and I actually felt claustrophobic at times. While the first part of the novel focus on the environmental disaster and the monster(s) lurking in the depths off of Mauritius, the second part is set on land with all too real human monsters. This part of the story didn’t work quite as well for me. It was fast-paced, but the villains were a little too cartoonish for me in regards to their evil machinations. I kept wishing for more of the horror, gore and mayhem that was in the previous chapters. Instead there was your stereotypical evil conspiracy involving a shadowy corporation and its gun-toting minions. Don’t get me wrong. I love a good conspiracy as much as the next person, but there wasn’t anything new or especially creative about this one. I also wish the book had been a little longer than its 288 pages as I felt everything was wrapped up a little too quickly and predictably. Overall though, Pressure is a solid beach read, which you’ll breeze through in one or two sittings, although you may hesitate about going out on a boat after reading it!

 

Pulse Nightclub ~ Worst Mass Shooting In U.S. History

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Pulse Nightclub Mass Shooting

As of right now (11:00 a.m.) there are 50 dead, 53 injured after this mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida. I’m not going to get into the potential politics of this horrific tragedy. I just ask that you join me in sending your thoughts and prayers to the deceased, survivors, and their loved ones. 

The Girls In The Garden ~ By Lisa Jewell – 4.0 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Dysfunctional Families, Mental Illness, Mystery, Psychological Suspense

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis: Imagine that you live on a picturesque communal garden square, an oasis in urban London where your children run free, in and out of people’s houses. You’ve known your neighbors for years and you trust them. Implicitly. You think your children are safe. But are they really?

On a midsummer night, as a festive neighborhood party is taking place, preteen Pip discovers her thirteen-year-old sister Grace lying unconscious and bloody in a hidden corner of a lush rose garden. What really happened to her? And who is responsible?

Dark secrets, a devastating mystery, and the games both children and adults play all swirl together in this gripping novel, packed with utterly believable characters and page-turning suspense.

The Girls In The Garden is one of those books whose pace might be a little slow, yet is no less mesmerizing. The setting of this communal-like neighborhood is beautifully and somewhat chillingly detailed. From the moment I read the synopsis I was fascinated by the idea of this little community in the center of busy London. It harkens back to a more innocent time when parents could let their children outside to play without feeling the need to constantly supervise them. But as it is so often in life, all is not as it seems, and it quickly becomes obvious that something sinister has invaded this little garden of Eden, and disturbed it’s idyllic nature. There are actually two mysteries in play here. The current day one pertaining to young Grace and who assaulted her, and an earlier mystery involving the death of a young girl which was never solved to everyone’s satisfaction. The story is told from the multiple viewpoints of the adults and the children involved. I think Lisa Jewell was brilliant in choosing this format because it made everything so much more personal. Especially the chapters that are related by the kids. After reading the first couple of them, I was reminded a little of The Lord of the Flies. These are kids that despite being surrounded by adults, receive very little supervision. None of them are “bad”. They’re all products of dysfunctional families, and they deal with their issues as best as they can. They’re so richly drawn, that when I finished the book I felt as though I had actually met them. My favorite though was Pip, the younger sister of Grace. First there’s her beautiful letters to her schizophrenic dad who’s been institutionalized after burning down the family home. Her love for him just pours off the pages and there were so many times I wanted to reach in and give her a hug. While only twelve-years-old, she also possesses a wisdom far beyond her years, and she recognizes the growing menace before anyone else, including the adults. This brings me to the one criticism I have. While the children literally kept off the pages, the adults, at least for me, did not. I really didn’t care for any of them, especially Leo who while being attractive to practically every woman he meets, just gave me the creeps. To be perfectly frank, except for Rhea, the kind elderly neighbor who befriends young Pip, they all gave off an air of immaturity and self-involvement, which made it difficult for me to connect to any of them. Despite this, I remained captivated right up until the very end. Lisa Jewell’s writing is so lush and descriptive, that you really can’t help but be pulled into the story. The Girls in the Garden is the first book I’ve read by her, but it’s made me want to go back and read some of her previous novels. If you like character-driven stories and psychological suspense, I highly recommend this.

The Long Game (The Fixer #2) ~ By Jennifer Lynn Barnes – 5.0 Stars

Tags

Mystery, Political Thrillers, Suspense, Terrorists, YA Fiction

Thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury USA Children’s for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis: For Tess Kendrick, a junior at the elite Hardwicke School in Washington D.C., fixing runs in the family. But Tess has another legacy, too, one that involves power and the making of political dynasties. When Tess is asked to run a classmate’s campaign for student council, she agrees. But when the candidates are children of politicians, even a high school election can involve life-shattering secrets. 

Meanwhile, Tess’s guardian has also taken on an impossible case, as a terrorist attack calls into doubt who can–and cannot–be trusted on Capitol Hill. Tess knows better than most that power is currency in D.C., but she’s about to discover first-hand that power always comes with a price.

Phew! I just finished this last night and I feel like I just got off a roller coaster! I really loved The Fixer, but I have to say I think Jennifer Lynn Barnes has really outdone herself with this sequel. I think I described the first book as a combination of the tv series Scandal and Veronica Mars. Well The Long Game moves a little away from that, and after a somewhat humorous beginning, segues into much darker territory, culminating in a shocking and brutal turn of events which leaves not only our spunky heroine Tess reeling by the betrayal of someone close to her, but the reader as well.

What the author has done is to take the events from the first book and build upon them, creating an intricately woven story that throws Tess, Henry, Vivvie, and Asher into a terrifyingly dangerous situation where it’s not clear if they’ll all come out unscathed. Trust is the prevailing theme in this book and it impacts every relationship in this story. Tess still doesn’t trust her mother due to the revelations in the previous book, yet her friendship with Henry and Vivvie is put in jeopardy because of the secrets she’s keeping in the interest of protecting them. And then there’s the rather complicated relationship Tess has with her grandfather. This man could have competed with the Machiavelli family as far as hidden motivations and secret agendas go! All this adds to an already tension-filled plot, with the suspense building to a fever pitch. And once the revelations begin it’s like a stack of dominoes falling. Everytime I thought I had figured everything out, WHAM! Something new and mind-blowing would be revealed!

Barnes made some pretty gutsy choices regarding character and plot development in this, but never more so than with the ending. It’s not your stereotypical happy ending, and it leaves me wondering where things will go from here in the series. I honestly don’t have a clue because Barnes has proven that absolutely nothing is off the table!

The Long Game is not a nice relaxing read. It’s a high-octane thriller in every respect. It’s a story that will touch all of your emotions and leave you exhausted at the end. Here’s how I felt when I finished:

 

One cautionary note: there’s a lot of violence in this book. It’s never gratuitous and always serves to further the plot, but because of it I wouldn’t recommend this to younger teens. That said, I think it’s a brilliant follow-up to The Fixer and I cannot recommend both books highly enough, especially if you’re a fan of political thrillers!

Ink and Bone ~ By Lisa Unger – 4.5 Stars

Tags

Adult Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Paranormal Fiction, Serial Killers, Suspense

Thank you NetGalley and Touchstone for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: June 7th, 2016

Synopsis: Twenty-year-old Finley Montgomery is rarely alone. Visited by people whom others can’t see and haunted by prophetic dreams, she has never been able to control or understand the things that happen to her. When Finley’s abilities start to become too strong for her to handle–and even the roar of her motorcycle or another dazzling tattoo can’t drown out the voices–she turns to the only person she knows who can help her: her grandmother Eloise Montgomery, a renowned psychic living in The Hollows, New York.

Merri Gleason is a woman at the end of her tether after a ten-month-long search for her missing daughter Abbey. With almost every hope exhausted, she resorts to hiring Jones Cooper, a detective who sometimes works with Eloise Montgomery. Merri’s not a believer, but she’s just desperate enough to go down that road, praying she’s not to late. Time, she knows, is running out. 

As a harsh white winter moves into The Hollow, Finley and Eloise are drawn into the investigation, which proves to have much more at stake than even the fate of a missing girl. As Finley digs deeper into the town and its endless layers, she is forced to examine the past, even as she tries to look into the future. Only one thing is clear: The Hollows gets what it wants, no matter what.

Ink and Bone is the first full length novel set in The Hollows following three short stories collected under the title The Whispering Hollows. You needn’t have read the previous stories in order to enjoy this, but if you do try Ink and Bone, you’re probably going to want to go back and get caught up. This is one of those suspense/thrillers where the tension begins on the very first page and never lets up. Finley is an interesting character even without her cool motorcycle, pink hair and many tattoos, taken into consideration. She’s conflicted about her psychic abilities thanks to her mother who denied her daughter’s gift while she was a child. Although Finley has always had the support of her grandmother, Eloise, she tends to indulge in some self-destructive behavior. Her tattoo addiction is actually tied to her psychic dreams, as she feels compelled to have the images from her visions inked on to her skin. She’s a strong heroine, yet also fragile in many respects. I also really liked her ex-boyfriend Rainer. He’s one of the reasons why she left Seattle to begin her voyage of self-discovery. She feels they bring out the worst in each other, yet you can’t help but be a little charmed by him despite his past philandering and addictions. He is so in love with Finley that he follows her to The Hollows and starts his own business. I know this sounds a bit stalkerish, but it’s really not. He’s determined to clean up his act and prove himself to Finley, and is extremely supportive and protective of her. If there are future books in the works, I hope these two stay together because I think they’re soul mates. The book is told from multiple viewpoints so in addition to Finley, you also hear from Merri and Wolf, the parents of the missing girl, and others. With so much action going on, having the story formatted in this way could have been confusing but wasn’t because each character has their own distinctive voice. By the time I finished, I felt that that the story couldn’t have been told as successfully without seeing things unfold from different perspectives. It’s also focuses on the psychological makeup of each character and their relationships which adds another interesting layer without slowing the pace down. The only criticism I have is that while the book is filled with exciting twists and turns, near the end I felt things got a little too frantic and over-the-top. Overall though Ink and Bone is a top-notch thriller perfect for fans who enjoy suspense, the paranormal, and horror.

 

 

 

 

The Leaving ~ By Tara Altebrando – 2.0 Stars

Thank you NetGalley and Bloomsbury USA for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: June 7th, 2016

Synopsis: Eleven years ago, six kindergarteners went missing without a trace. After all that time, the people left behind moved on, or tried to.

Until today. Today five of those kids return. They’re sixteen, and they are…fine. Scarlett comes home and finds a mom she barely recognizes, and doesn’t really recognize the person she’s supposed to be either. But she thinks she remembers Lucas. Lucas remembers Scarlett too, except they’re entirely unable to recall where they’ve been or what happened to them. Neither of them remember the sixth victim, Max. He doesn’t come back. Everyone wants answers. Most of all Max’s sister Avery, who needs to find her brother–dead or alive–and isn’t buying into this whole memory-loss story.

The concept behind The Leaving is an intriguing one, but the quest to obtain the answers seemed interminable, and I struggled to get to the finish. The first issue I had was with the  author’s decision to only have Scarlett, Lucas, and Avery have their own chapters. I liked Scarlett and Lucas, but there was absolutely no insight into the other missing kids’ lives and they wound up serving no purpose whatsoever. Avery should have elicited some feelings of sympathy with what she’s going through, but instead she’s your stereotypical spoiled, rich, self-involved mean girl. And, while I don’t ordinarily mind third person point of view, in this instance I think the narrative would have come across much stronger if it had been in the first person. The story itself I thought was messy and meandering at times. Especially frustrating was the vague and mysterious school shooting which took place shortly before the kids disappear. It’s obvious that it’s somehow related but the hints as to how are vague and confusing right up until the end. Speaking of which, the ending does provide the answers to where and why the kids were taken, and what happened to Max, but everything is hurriedly solved in the last few pages and there are so many loose ends that aren’t tied up, that it made for an unsatisfying conclusion. In the end, The Leaving could have been a truly exciting mystery, but for me it wound up being a poorly told and frustrating read. However, one of the great things about book lovers is how they can have completely different reactions to the same book. While The Leaving wasn’t to my taste, there are many readers who have a much more positive view of it, so if the premise appeals to you then I definitely encourage you to try it.

 

RIP Muhammad Ali ~ 1942-2016

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Muhammad Ali

Impossible is just a word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.

Frayed ~ By Kara Terzis – 2.5 Stars

Tags

Mental Illness, Murder, Mystery, YA Fiction

Thank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: June 7th, 2016

Synopsis: Dear Kelsey,

My therapist tells me I should write you a letter. Like flushing all my thoughts and feelings out of my system and onto paper. I tell her it’s a stupid idea.

But here I am, writing a letter to a dead girl. Where do I start? Where did our story begin? From the moment you were born…or died?

I’ll start with the moment I found out about you. Your lies and my pain. Because it always begins and ends with you. And that end began when Rafe Lawrence came back to town…

Ava Hale will do anything to find her sister’s killer…although she’ll wish she hadn’t. Because the harder Ava looks, the more secrets she uncovers about Kelsey, and the more she begins to think that the girl she called sister was a liar. A sneak. A stranger.

And Kelsey’s murderer could be much closer than she thought…

I had a difficult time coming up with a rating for Frayed. While there were some genuinely good moments in it, in the end the bad outweighed the good which is why I wound up going with a lower rating. This is one of those stories where no one can be trusted, which in some respects I liked. Everyone seems to have hidden motivations and it’s intriguing discovering each one. I found Ava to be a difficult character to relate to though. While I sympathized with her circumstances, I found her incredibly annoying at times, particularly in regards to her relationship with her boyfriend. Her constant letting him off the hook really got on my nerves. As did her allowing herself to be used and walked on by just about everyone in her life. The secondary characters are all unlikable and have no real depth, and I found myself thinking on more than one occasion that I wouldn’t wish to meet any of them in real life. The identity of the murderer caught me completely by surprise, which ordinarily would be a good thing, but in this instance, the shock came because of a complete lack of foreshadowing. Just to make sure I hadn’t missed something, I went back and re-read a few chapters, but nope–not a hint. When the big reveal came it was totally out of the blue and made little sense to me. Ultimately I think Frayed could have been a much better book if more time had been spent on developing both the characters and the plot. It has received many positive reviews on Goodreads, so if the premise interests you, I definitely advise trying it. Personally though, this just wasn’t for me.