A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

The Perfect Stranger is Megan Miranda's follow up to All the Missing Girls .  I read and reviewed All the Missing Girls back in January.   The Perfect Stranger differs in structure to All the Missing Girls which largely unspooled its story backwards.  While  The Perfect Stranger follows a more traditional story structure, it is no less gripping. After Leah Stevens torches her career in Boston in pursuit of the truth, a seemingly chance encounter with her former, post-college roommate, Emmy Grey, spurs the two women to move to western Pennsylvania.  Both women are in search of a fresh start and while Leah finds hers as a high school English teacher, Emmy flounders in nameless, nondescript, dead end jobs.  When a woman who bears a striking resemblance to Leah is found left for dead on the shores of the nearby lake, Leah soon realizes that her roommate has been missing for an undetermined length of time.  And Leah realizes that it is the beginnin...

In Bitter Chill is the debut novel by Sarah Ward; it's the first book in the DC Connie Childs series.  I didn't realize this was the start of a series when I started reading it.  Just as when I read and finished The Dry by Jane Harper, I didn't realize that too was the start of a series.  I'm not sure how I feel about starting more book series.  But then the book series that I followed, I haven't been reading anyway, so maybe it's time for some new book series.  This series is set in Derbyshire, England.  And while the prologue didn't really grab me, once I read the first couple chapters, I was sucked in. While there is a mystery in the present day story, it's very much tied to an unsolved kidnap from 1978.  The present day chapters are sparsely intercut with chapters that flash back to 1978.  Were it not for the kidnap case in 1978, there wouldn't be a present day mystery to solve. In 1978 when Sophie Jenkins and Rachel Jones are kidnappe...

I had already started reading another book when I started  Without Warning by David Rosenfelt.  The other book isn't a library book, but Without Warning is, so I decided to read that one.  When I first started reading this book, I wasn't sure I'd stick with it.  Then after several chapters, the story sucked me in, and it was hard to put down.  I mostly wanted to see how the story ended and who the mastermind was behind the big crime and why the perpetrator was doing what he was doing.  I feel as if the whole motive behind the crimes was one of misplaced blame and rage.  It's clear the perpetrator is local, that he/she has spent years meticulously planning their revenge and that both protagonists know this person. Ultimately this person is hiding in plain sight under an alias.  And I kind of wondered why Jake didn't recognize the person sooner. In the wake of a hurricane that has devastated a small, Maine town, the local newspaper publisher, ...

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 ...

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...

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....

I have now read every Karin Slaughter book out there and must now wait for the next one. I believe I talked about Slaughter's penchant for the wicked twist in a previous blog entry; whether it's in the opening chapters or at the end, she's got a talent for them. Another thing I like about Slaughter's books is how the mystery of whodunit is revealed and resolved. She makes the resolution believable and organic--though this does not mean it was necessarily predictable by any means and is often quite the opposite. Maybe it's a testament to Slaughter's meticulous development of characters throughout the story that one never feels that the culprit appears suddenly from the mists out in left field. Fractured opens in an affluent, Atlanta neighborhood. A wealthy teenage girl has been beaten to death and quite possibly raped during the course of her brutal murder. Before the sun sets on this murder, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has taken over the case and ...