A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

Long (long) time regular readers of this blog know by now that I'm a fan of S.J. Bolton.  I've read and reviewed all of her (now) six books on the blog.  You can go here , here , here , here and here to read those other reviews.  If you haven't already read any of her books, well, I highly recommend that you do.  A good one to start with is her first, Sacrifice .  You will be suspicious of authority figures in all the books you read after that one.  Looking back over my other Bolton reviews, I see that I've said in nearly all of them that this is her most twisted and darkest yet.  And at the time it's true--until the next one comes out.   Lost is S.J. Bolton's sixth book overall and the third in the Lacey Flint series. Lacey is still reeling from the terrifying ordeal she was forced to survive when the undercover sting she was part of in the last installment pretty much went off the rails in a blaze of twisted, blackest glory.  She's c...

I'm catching up on my reading from 2012: I've read the latest releases from Karin Slaughter, Tana French, Tess Gerritsen and now S.J. Bolton.  I've done some sleuthing on the 2013 releases of these authors and the only one I found information  on (via Amazon's UK site) was Bolton's follow up to Dead Scared , called Like This, Forever , or at least that's what they're calling it in the U.K.  That comes out in April in the U.K.  I haven't checked into the U.S. release date.  I still have to read the 2012 releases from John Connolly (Charlie Parker series) and M.J. McGrath and John Sandford (Virgil Flowers series).  I also want to track down the latest from Anna McPartlin--what is up with her anyway?  She released something in the U.K. last year or the year before, but I haven't heard anything about any new releases from her. Dead Scared is the latest from Bolton--and it is a scary and terrifying ride.  I do have one quibble I wish to get off my...

Now You See Me is S.J. Bolton's newest release.  I've been waiting since the last one I read which means I've been waiting nearly a year.  It's been a long, hard wait.  Then it finally FINALLY dropped and then... the library's copy took a month to get here from Amazon.  A MONTH!  I refrained from asking after it every day even though I wanted to.  But when it arrived it came with two or three other titles I really wanted to read so I'm willing to forgive because it brought friends. I must say that Now You See Me was worth the wait.  My immediate feeling after reading the last chapter was that it was Bolton's best novel yet.  And now I have to wait another year for the next one.  This was a very quick read.  The action starts literally on the first page, and it's very hard to put down.  It's thrilling, suspenseful, frightening, and disturbing. Detective Constable Lacy Flint is thrown into the middle of a bloody murder scene whe...

Blood Harvest is S.J. Bolton's third release; she has another upcoming but just when it's coming out in the UK and then how long it takes to get to the States, I don't yet know. I haven't investigated that yet (and believe me I will...), but I have discovered her blog in which there are hints about the upcoming book and upcoming, possibly returning, characters. I can't wait. It'll be hard, but I'll survive. I just started Karin Slaughter's latest release, and I'm still waiting (somewhat apprehensively I might add) for Tess Gerritsen's newest title to come in on reserve. Blood Harvest differs slightly from her previous titles, Sacrifice and Awakening , in that it has a third person narrator as opposed to a first person narrator. There are similarities, though; for example, one of main characters suffers from a physical handicap that leads to insecurity or reclusion, but since it's a third person narrator the reader doesn't have as ...

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...

It may have been a long while since my last post, but that doesn't mean I haven't been reading. Recently for a couple days I was reading three books at once which doesn't usually bode well for me--this often means one or two get pushed aside in favor of finishing the one that sucks me in, never to return to the other two. However, I did finish one of the three: Aimee Bender's The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake ; I made a push one evening to finish reading the entire last half of the book. I thought maybe the ending would make it worth it. I was wrong. It has an interesting concept: a girl discovers on her ninth birthday that she can taste in the food she eats the emotions of the person who prepared it. There is also her brother and his mysterious secret that was not resolved to my satisfaction and her father's avoidance of hospitals at all costs issue that was kind of pointless. I've also been reading a book about royalty and their salacious scandals....