Wednesday, September 26, 2012

STAY CLOSE by Harlan Coben *****

Very good reading, a page turner that has twists and turns and keeps me on every page. An ex-hooker/dancer left her life behind when she thought her boyfriend killed someone. She got a husband 2 kids and is living like a regular family, she doesn't even need to work. So she hears about another killing on the anniversary of the first killing and goes back to her old haunts stirring up all kinds of trouble for herself and a lot of other people.

Even tho she meets up with old true love-who she believed did the killing-she doesn't go back to  her old life. Eventually cops she knows and other people begin to solve things she and her boyfriend have proof of, or saw. Captivating storyline for mystery readers like me. I was very into it and didn't want to give up reading for bed. So it's not S&M, lol...it's a well written book by a really good author who knows at least how to write a story without little virgins biting off their lips. 1,000x better than Shades of Gruesome.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

The MESSENGER by Stephen Miller *

I'm half thru the boring  book. You don't really need to read the first half, it's redundant and boring. Some stupid refugee dimwit decides to carry smallpox into the US. So you get to travel around on her plane ride, her walks, her boring and mindless contaminating of people and things. I mean BORING. Just BORING the shit out of me. Meanwhile some other guy named Sam Watterman has a sick wife at home and some background with terrorism in anthrax and other ways to poison communities.
So they grab him one night, say nothing else, plop him whereever they want for a couple days and you get to hear how absolutely bored HE IS??? C'mon, I'm ready to get drunk and cry myself to sleep here. I'm half thru the book and it's so mindless I can't stand it.

Daria is bad; Sam is good; then start your reading after Day 6 you still get the basics without the boredom. Hate it. I hope I can get past the dreadful parts just in case something happens.....it's so boring it frustrates me for 110 pages or more. Just deadly dull. I don't care about anyone at this point. They could all go up in smoke and I'm not invested in one person.

So like I said above, I finished it. Just begin after page 110. Once you get going from there it's not too horrid. I've read similar stories, much much better ones. There isn't one likable character in this story except the dying wife cuz there is NO interaction with her at all. Otherwise everyone is an asshole.
This guy cannot create characters. He makes puppets who have strings pulled. They have no feelings, no passions, no voice. They're all robotic.

LIVING PROOF by Kira Peikoff ****

I normally don't like religion in my novels but this one shows how religion screws with medicine and the future of stem cell ressearch. Starts with a woman, Arianna who is a doc and she has a fertility clinic. She also has MS and needs stem cell research to save her life. It's been years since the church took over (insanely) and makes sure no eggs are killed. So Arianna has a few people who are helping her out keeping track of eggs while she has a doc cloning them to keep the count right for the religious police but she needs experimentation to help her overcome the MS and needs the eggs for the research.

Needless to say one of the agents sent to discover her secret falls in love with her and questions all his religious crap, then decides instead to help her live. It's a good story and proof we need more doctors doing this but they've learned to use other means of stems cells nowadays I think and don't need baby cells anymore.  It's fast paced, easily readable and easy to follow. I had no questions at the end. Basically a well written story. Liked it. Good library find for me.

Friday, September 21, 2012

BECKON by Tom Pawlik ****

Pretty fast paced novel with likable characters all trying to survive after discovering either a cave or being lured to live in the mansion of a guy who has access to an underground cave of secrets. Seems some alien life forms have lived in the caves for 100s of years and are proficient at keeping other people alive with a substance they can't stray too far from due to needing it daily but they never grow old and are difficult to kill.

I thought it was ok, I really liked some characters and didn't like to see them die while others I couldn't wait for them to get killed off. Page turning, a little tiny bit religious but I liked one sentence quoted by Walter M. Miller Jr. "You don't have a soul. You are a soul...you have a body." I thought that was profound and really like it.

Not a long hard to follow book so I gave it 4 stars. Good reading, takes you on  a trip and you see inside another person's imagination. Exactly what writing should do.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

WAKING HOURS by Lis Wiehl *****

This is called "An East Salem Novel" which suggests many more are involved. I happened to like this one a lot but I wouldn't go running out to read a similar book because I just read this one, I don't like reading series, I don't like reading the same type story over and over.

It has a psychiatrist out to figure out who murdered some high school girl one night and more than one person was involved. Lots of interviews with high school students and finding evidence, sending it out waiting for results. Meanwhile an old high school football player (personally they did nothing for me) secretly has been in love with her and he joins up while he's getting a PI license to help her out tackling trouble whenever it shows up.

There are people in love not having sex in the book, lots of that. Apparently this is something in the Twilight novels that this author reveres so she has it in her books as well.

There are some really disturbed people in the book, some have overcome their past, others are causing trouble now. While there is evil in a person there's also an angel around to help or give hints or dreams or whatever. Mr. stud muffin in chains and leather. So there's some religious (non specific) stuff involved probably due to the 'Salem' aspect of the story. Not much else describes this town in Massachusetts to me but I only lived next door in NH so why would I know anything when the authors are from NY. I have also been to Salem which is a quaint little town with brick houses, I didn't see any angels running around. There are very few descriptions of any real Salem settings.

Still I guess for younger people this would be a very good read, it's not looking to go further than a teenager I don't think; so in that respect you'd want your kid to read it...maybe I don't know...depends on how you feel about angels etc.

I thought it was well written, good pace, intriguing story line and different from most other novels so I 5 starred it.

Monday, September 17, 2012

XO by Jeffery Deaver ***

I'm not much of a musician fan. I mean the kind of musicians that are famous and screwed their way to the top. Or their daddy or mommy was a musician. So this book is about some singer's stalker and Kathryn Dance who is supposed to "read" body language can't figure out the stalker is killing everyone in the general area until the last few pages. Meantime he frames other people, there's someone else trying to horn in on a governer's job, so much other stuff is happening that you can't really follow the stalker part of the story with all the sidetrack b.s. to distract you.

Sure Lincoln Ryme and Ameila "the super model", karate expert, diver expert and whatever else she makes up for in talent because Lincoln can only move one arm but they're lovers. Hmmmm where else but a novel.

Anyhow with all this cop presence no one catches the killer till the last few pages. Lots of crap happens between the start and finish it's just a matter of shuffling thru it. I wasn't happy with the singer-music aspect of the novel so I didn't really like it at all. If you like music and famous star people you'll like it.

Saturday, September 15, 2012

COUNTY LINE by Bill Cameron ***

This is about some guy in love with a girl who has a mysterious past....I hated the basketball scenes, I hated the flashbacks. I hated the girls punching each other stuff and I hated how "tough" she was. She really wasn't all that frickin tough. She just had an attitude. Doesn't everyone. So she's not Miss Innocent, lots of girls have/had harder lives than hers.

So we go back and forth from today looking for Ruby Jane, and then to her childhood. I wasn't happy with how it was handled going back and forth. It was boring me. I skipped a lot of stuff that bored me for too long.

She has a "haunted" past. lol, whatever. Mommy was a rich girl drunk who didn't get any money due to her marriage to a drunk. At the end we still don't know where the ring or the money went do we? I read it all and sure don't have a clue. Money kept disappearing from grandmoms account and nobody konws where it is. Ruby Jane or RJ, knows her brother didn't kill daddy but never tells him and for some mysterious reason he runs out of a bar in front of a car. End of brother. I have NO IDEA why or what that was about. Stupid. Anyways. Someone else can unravel the thing, I got tired of it all.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

TRAUMA PLAN by Candace Calvert

This is sort of a romance. I was really hoping it was a hospital type story as written by Robin Cook. BOY was I wrong. It should be under a "religious" category. So a romance with a lot of faith, god and prayer. Not for me at all. I don't like religion shoved down my throat while I'm trying to enjoy a story.
Keep it to yourself. I hated it. I got more than half thru it hoping it would let up a little but it gets more and more preachy as it goes on. Yuck. No stars.

Monday, September 10, 2012

BIRDS of PREY by J.A.Jance*

I got about half thru it. Some people on a cruise, someone goes overboard. Some guy who sounds like he's gay but isn't is your main police character. The story is repetitive, boring, slow, too many people, too much descriptive crap. I hated it and shut it down less than half thru it. Everyone is crying, or moaning or bitching or fake having fun. Too many family members, cheating. Just way too many people for me to care. This was a yard sale find. Back to the paper recycling bin. Buh bye.

Saturday, September 8, 2012

INTO THE DARKEST CORNER by E.Haynes ***

It was a good read, the main character had no backbone to speak of. Even when she's at the point where she's ready to take control of her life and deal with her violent ex she has no plan whatsoever. Most women would have a plan-- so duh ,there. She just got lucky.

This bitch drinks so much tea she must have to piss every 5 minutes, I had to pee after all the tea she drank. Nobody in their right mind drinks that much tea. But naturally this is an English tea sucker writer so that's what comes of that. Really I don't need a list of times she's off drinking tea.

So we have a bad ex boyfriend, a terrible nasty best friend, some marks on the dope's body (main idiot) and nowhere did the ex use a knife on her that I read so maybe she cut herself up. Who knows. She's such a dummy that even when he applies for a job she's advertising she treats him like any other person applying for a job after he spent 3yrs in jail for trying to kill her. She has a lot of mental issues.

Her new boyfriend Stuart doesn't seem to stand out as much different. Does she check his background to be sure he is what he says he is? Does she check his past girlfriend history or speak to any of them to see if he's truthful about anything? She's such a wuss. I don't really like her from start to finish but the story was well written and fast paced. I kept reading to see when she'd grow a pair but her OCD took up a lot of the story. And I don't think the author did a very good job researching OCD. I thought main tea sucker was very easily manipulated even AFTER the yrs in mental places, and seeing doctors etc. She never had a bone in her body. Ever see the movie "Enough" with Jaylo? Well that's more like it. THAT'S THE KIND OF GIRL to write about! Not this sniveling locked-door-checking whiner drowning in tea.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

SPILLED BLOOD by Brian Freeman *****

I thought this was a great read and the author made me stay up at night reading when I should have been trying to fall asleep. Lots of tension, twists, turns and at the end of each chapter you got a shove forward to the next one. That's why I couldn't put the damn thing down.
I liked most of the characters, if he wanted me to like Olivia I didn't, but most of the others in the story I either liked or the personality was filled out enough not to like them. A bully is a bully and Mr. Freeman can create some powerful ones.

The town is broken because science caused cancer to some victims, mostly children and the protagonists' wife as well. A nutso scientist put some chemicals in the water that went into the homes of people downriver. It was a cancer cluster, more could have been written about some of the victims to make them more real but the one or two were just barely enough to keep you reading. So a court case was tampered with and the company found innocent making it all the more tragic for everyone.

There's a mysterious note writer named Aquarius and in the end he creates a lot of destruction.
I didn't like to see Lenny killed, because he was redeemable and cared for Olivia. Maybe he was a little off but growing up without parents and having a bully-brother contributed to his personality. I think author was too quick to kill him off instead of finding a more satisfying ending for him. Not one person liked the poor guy and he tried hard to be ok but the author made him go in a worse direction so his death wouldn't seem all that bad but I thought he got a bad deal there. JMO

All in all it was a very good read, would buy it.


Monday, September 3, 2012

The TRUTH OF ALL THINGS by Kieran Shields **

I don't even know why I continued to read this religious mumbo jumbo written about the time of Lizzy Borden 1890s? It had way too many bad people coordinating way too many grotesque murders and killings and hangings and removal of body parts. They were all talented in make-up and disguises. I couldn't stand all that religious text stuff and skimmed it all.

So there are some guys Lean, and Grey who are trying to solve these murders together. The book is highly reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes and Watson but I just can't separate them enough to discern which is which. Or witch is witch. I don't even know at the end if anyone doing the murders was getting even for his/her past treatment or really believed all the religious baloney. Whatever. I would not recommend trying to unravel this tripe. It was written ok, but boring as all get out most of the time.