Friday, February 27, 2015

BLACK LIES, RED BLOOD by Kjell Eriksson *

I can  barely get into the beginning and started to concentrate to figure out why. He does not have a main character in the beginning so it's hard to get into. You get dragged from person to person or scene to scene without a warning. That stupid asshole who wrote Shades of Gray has prompted all fucking asshole publishers to insist on invading every book written with descriptive sexual bullshit.

On chapter three (par example)  there is a person-WTF, who is it? Where is it? And why the fuck do I care if someone at her desk has a throbbing stomach clench, shades if gray here, (it's the clitoris morons) when she won't stop obsessing about the dick that just slid out of her. I have no idea what her name is until the last page of the chapter, don't know what desk it is, where, cop station? People are asking if she has a fever for shit's sake. From reexamining her every sexual move? Or his? Look, bad enough the writer is frickin Swedish I despise foreign writers, should I say NON writers? How does this MOVE the story forward? Every word should MOVE the story forward yet I'm stuck in this bitches day dreaming about her dripping sex parts and being licked under her armpit for an entire chapter. DONE. No more for me.

Bye bye.

Thursday, February 26, 2015

SLEEPING BEAUTY by Phillip Margolin ****

This book was given to me by a friend printed in 2004 so you have to look to find it. I thought most of it was pretty good. The characters were well rounded out and the scenes of action were good. The only thing is the ending. One main character Maxwell began as a writer had a one hit wonder then he did proofing for others for extra money. He hit a writers block and couldn't write well after that. He described some murders down to details withheld from the public and everyone thought he was a serial killer.Apparently and coincidentally he and the real serial killer were in the same towns at the same time. How odd right?

Anyway as the story progressed around Ashley she runs away to hide from the killer who killed her dad, then her best friend and was after her-she believed. She finds out she was adopted and that became a reason for a serial killer chasing her OR so she thought.

The end left me confused because I think EVERYone knows a plagiarist would never be offered a contract for a book. Once a liar always a liar. No one would touch him with a ten foot pole yet this guy who stole someone else's novel is very successful after the stuff was over. Highly doubt that would happen.

Otherwise well written, interesting characters, not a bad premise and all around would get it at the library.

Thursday, February 19, 2015

The GOLEM of HOLLYWOOD by Jonathan & Jesse Kellerman ***

This book is very big, if you fall asleep reading, it could fall and knock you out. There are several stories at the same time.

Murders of women with ligature marks, having been sexually abused are found and the alcoholic detective Jacob Lev is on the case. The victim's heads turn up here and there without provocation and Lev is trying to figure out who the killer is. There are 3 killers, he finds 2 heads and it takes awhile to realize there are 3 killers. So he runs off all over the globe trying to figure out where they were and what cases he can pin on them globally.

Meantime back in the dark ages we have a golem made from weird materials and (it was a she now a he) he goes around killing people deserving of death to protect the Jews being killed and stop the massacres. You're supposed to think that from way way back in history when this female jumps off a tower with a guy she supposedly hates becomes a golem and at the end she must have told someone she would love (whoever it was) forever (I have NO CLUE who this is) and so she is a beetle that can burrow into people when she's not a clay copy someone created for her to live in instead of the stupid cabinets she started with. I don't get any of this so don't expect a very coherent analysis.

So the golem girl/guy saves Jacob and turns out there are like 23 people on earth God put here to protect the Jews and Jacob's father happens to be one of them. Very likely. Then this rabbi type guy hid the mom away in a mental institution without telling his own son, Jacob.

Let's see a wrap up: no one tells Jacob much of anything A golem is in love with him? He's never gotten a good look at her except when her 'clay' body turned real he saw her once. Then the dad is a secret member of the Jews protection squad, and the mom is nuts. There, I tried to make it an easy puzzle to solve but forget it. Worth reading but you may want to take notes. The alcoholic cop (cliche) gets really tedious after a few chapters.

Monday, February 9, 2015

LIONS, ELEPHANTS & BEARS by P.K.Foster *****

This book is written and self published by a former animal control officer and dated 2002, the author's first year doing the job. There is a wealthy couple in town owning the lion and elephant so this makes for a nice title and her territory in a small New England town is loaded with bears.

All the stories are written from her daily diaries from the job and are real and/or fictional situations she incorporated to keep the story busy and interesting. The sisters have a good relationship despite their age difference. There are a lot of German shepherds and dog behaviors described. As an ACO she takes her job seriously and helps out all the animals she can legally.

There is a disclaimer on the back "anyone assuming they are in the book of stories are making assumptions that may not be true. All names have been changed to protect the innocent and guilty. It all happened a long time ago and is mostly forgotten."

There are 3 more diaries to be written if sales justify the year it takes to write one.
From a description of the book:" There was a Manx kitten, black and white. Her name was PK.
Poor Kitty had no name, no home and no tail. She found a home and a name but is still without a tail unless you consider this her tale." This book by PKFoster is a blend of fact and fiction. It is an exciting year for Lexi and her sister Ruby when Lexi gets a job being an animal control officer. She has some interesting cases, repeat customers, a German shepherd Al Capone, runaway horses, frisking female prisoners, so much more and her love life, having been a joke before this year, is almost a reality. Who the heck kidnaps animals for a couple weeks and returns them?


Digital and softcovers HERE: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/BackYardDog 
Read 2 FREE CHAPTERS HERE:http://sneakpeeks4books.blogspot.com/

BATHING THE LION by Jonathan Carroll **

I read the entire smallish book. It's described as 'residents all share exactly the same dream and realize they are aliens leading normal lives' until they meet up and shake hands letting loose their life experiences or some such b.s. For one thing not one of the dreams has a beginning where someone falls asleep in a bed. I have NO IDEA when any dream existed. Not a clue.

Next you meet one person then they are with someone else, so you follow along with the new person until that person meets someone else and so on. Very confusing and non coherent. Too many characters to keep track of. I really had trouble figuring out the mess in this author's mind. I have no idea where I was led by reading this, why I was led there and what information was exchanged or how it helped/didn't help mankind.

What was the POINT?????? I don't understand what the point of the novel was. I read a TON of books and under normal circumstances I can tell you what the book is about. This one is a no brainer, meaning has no brain. It says on fly leaf, "from the dream they learn they came here from  another place, somewhere unimaginably distant where they once worked to determine the fate of every single thing in the universe.' WTF??? Also it reads "now they're being called back" which you think means a disappearance of some sort. NOPE they are happily going about their old lives as if nothing happened and will have no memory of what happened, just like ME.

And.....who fucking bathed a lion? What the hell does that mean??? Either too obtuse or meaningless made up name picked from a hat of titles. No bathing. No lions so don't go looking for any.

Sunday, February 8, 2015

SEEDERS by A.J. Coluci ****

This was an interesting idea, plant fungus taking over the world one mind at a time. Which makes it a bit unreal because it takes awhile to work on a brain/person and other people unaffected wouldn't necessarily put up with it. But that's why they call it fiction.

So a woman, her 2 sons, a girl they're "fostering" all end up on an island her grandfather left her when he died. She left behind her domineering cop husband who didn't approve of the trip. There are found "bodies" with plants growing in them, about everyone on the island except Isabelle is overtaken and murdered. Even main characters, which I didn't really like  because the people were well enough described that you sort of cared about their outcome and none of them faired well at all.

Then stupidly after more biologists over flow the island to kill off the fungus she returns,god only knows why, after all her family is dead or gone because of the island. But there she is getting overtaken by the fungus once again. She's a weak character-not as described but as a character. She would never have survived as long as she did on that island, enough to walk away she's too easily manipulated and controlled.

I thought it was so so but worth a library visit.

Monday, February 2, 2015

The MAGICIAN'S LIE by Greer Macallister ***

I want to give more stars but there are too many troublesome spots for me. For one thing, she hesitantly falls for a guy while working as a maid. She ran away from home cuz her mommy didn't really care that the new step brother Ray was threatening to rape her and hurt her and animals disappeared around him, he drove spikes into a horses hooves etc. Then becomes a doctor. Haha. Yeah right.

Second, the guy she falls in love with, Clyde sort of asks her to marry him for some reason like a job or money I forget and she is insulted by the fake proposal and runs off to join the circus. Oops, I mean the train-traveling magician female named Adelaide.

Third, she gets arrested for killing someone during her ax hacking magic trick yrs later but she claims she's innocent. Fourth she tells her life story in narrative form (often boring and deadly dull) from time she left home to time of arrest for murder including hair brushing, underwear, wigs, all the employees etc. Apparently, Clyde, who proposed for money from his family reappears in her life and I gotta say this, the author has no clue how to write love stuff. The protag Arden barely trusts him, refuses to marry him yet screws him every night until Ray shows up and locks her in her train room. Then somehow or other ends up back on the stage with her old boyfriend Clyde (nice name) and Clyde kills off Ray (finally) and they all live happily ever after.

I hated the narrative driving you more and more away from the action and the moments that weren't happening right then. Only time that kind of closeness happened was when she was being interviewed by the only cop arresting her. He feels sorry for her or some shit and lets her go, sort of accidently.

I don't like the presumption that book group readers are going to buy this and she has questions for them at the end. Like WTF does the title have to do with anything? What's the fucking lie? That she can't get out of handcuffs? That she's not the killer? What? I don't get the title. Has nothing to do with her. Never saw a lie in there she didn't explain away. No lie convicted her. No lie was important. I wasn't exactly crazy in love with the book. Arden never completely trusts the only guy in her life she has sex with. Never really forgives him. EVER. So I don't like that part of it either.