Awakening by S.J. Bolton

It's official: I'm now a hardcore S.J. Bolton fan after reading her second novel, Awakening. It may not be as terrifying as her first, Sacrifice, but what it lacks in terrifying, it makes up for in creepiness--literally and figuratively. It is equally as hard to put down; when I was away from it, I was seriously wishing I was home reading it. I have her third novel at home waiting for me after I finish John Connolly's latest Charlie Parker installment (another equally gripping read). The only disheartening thing is that after Blood Harvest, Bolton's next book, I'll have to wait, impatiently, for her fourth release.

Like Bolton's first book the setting plays an important role in the fabric of the story; it is set in a tiny village in Dorset County, England, which has seen its snake population increase seemingly exponentially and inexplicably.

Clara's a wildlife veterinarian and a near recluse who seeks the quiet solitude of an extremely low key and low profile lifestyle in response to a lifetime of taunts, harassment, and bullying due to a facial disfigurement incurred as an infant. Her physical disfigurement is the result of a horrifying, harrowing, and sickening childhood accident that left her not just physically scarred but also emotionally scarred and damaged as well.

Clara sought out her tiny village in hopes of leading a nearly invisible, solitary life, but five years on, the snake population in the surrounding countryside explodes in scores of mostly harmless grass snakes that turn up unexpectedly in various village homes. However, among the swarms of grass snakes appear a handful of dangerous and poisonous adder snakes and one very deadly taipan snake, native to tropical climes not found in Britain. Thus, it's made clear the appearance of the snakes in village houses are deliberate incidents set in motion by a shadowy, unknown individual with murky motives.

Unwillingly drawn into the mystery, and before long forced to dig for information to clear herself, Clara does some research into the village's past and uncovers a mysterious church fire in 1958 that resulted in the deaths of several individuals and the exodus from the village of a pair of brothers belonging to the Witcher family. The more Clara uncovers the more she is convinced that the Witcher family holds the key to the bewildering past and current events happening in the village. Before long the deaths of elderly individuals with connections to the 1958 fire land Clara in hot water with the local police. When she becomes their main suspect, it's obvious in the interrogation room that the local detectives are convinced she's the murderer largely due to her physical disfigurement; before long the interrogation devolves into a cruel series of taunts from the detectives in one of the most harrowing, tensest, cruelest scenes of the entire book.

This second Bolton book is as much about the mystery of the snakes and the murders as it is about a growing experience for Clara, who will emerge from her self imposed recluse lifestyle by the end of the book. Suspenseful and hard to put down, this book quickly turns into a frantic, fast read.

--Reviewed by Ms. Angie

How To Be A Heroine: Or What I've Learned From Reading Too Much by Samantha Ellis

I feel as if I could write a book subtitled "What I've Learned From Reading Too Much" except all my lessons would be culled from Greek mythology, the Babysitters' Club, the lives of British queens, crime mysteries, suspense thrillers and celebrity and entertainment gossip. I first ran across How To Be A Heroine by Samantha Ellis in an ad in BookPage. The title sounded intriguing and once I looked it up on Amazon, I was in for reading it. It reminds me of the literacy autobiography writing assignment that I had in one of my English composition classes in college--except this is the literacy autobiography on steroids. The premise of this book is that the author revisits the seminal texts that she read in her youth by examining the lessons and impressions of the novels that she had upon her first readings when she was younger. Ellis has then re-read the novels as an adult specifically for the writing of her own book to see if the novels hold up to her original i

Heat Lightning by John Sandford

I'd previously read John Sandford's first Virgil Flowers novel, Dark of the Moon , a few years back and found it to be a quick, well written read. Recently I discovered he has since written three more Flowers titles and decided to start with the second title and read through to the fourth and most recent one. Heat Lightning is the second Flowers installment. The darkness of the crimes committed that must be solved in the novel are leavened by the lighter presentation of Flowers and the story. It works well together--a dark crime doesn't always need dark prose to back it up. Virgil Flowers is Lucas Davenport's go to man in the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension when there's a sensitive, tough or otherwise puzzling case to solve. Flowers has a high clearance rate and can often turn around a case in about a week. This particular case is especially perplexing with quite a few red herrings thrown into the mix to throw everyone--Flowers and the reader in

The Whisperers by John Connolly

If there was one thing Jimmy didn't care for, it was competition, ... There were some exceptions to that rule: he was rumored to have a sweet deal with the Mexicans, but he wasn't about to try to reason with the Dominicans, or the Columbians, or the bikers, or even the Mohawks. If they wanted to avail themselves of his services, as they sometimes did, that was fine, but if Jimmy Jewel started questioning their right to move product he and Earle would end up tied to chairs in the [bar] with pieces of themselves scattered by their feet, assuming their feet weren't among the scattered pieces, while the bar burned down around their ears, assuming they still had ears. from page 86 The Whisperers is John Connolly's newest Charlie Parker installment in which some beloved characters reappear and in which previous characters from another Parker installment reappear to shed further light on the big baddie that may or may not be coming for Parker in the future. This newest inst

A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

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