Tag: TLC Book Tours

Review: The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
queen of the tearling by erika johansenFormat read: ebook provided by Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, ebook, audiobook
Genre: fantasy, dystopian
Series: Queen of the Tearling #1
Length: 448 pages
Publisher: Harper
Date Released: July 8, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

On her nineteenth birthday, Princess Kelsea Raleigh Glynn, raised in exile, sets out on a perilous journey back to the castle of her birth to ascend her rightful throne. Plain and serious, a girl who loves books and learning, Kelsea bears little resemblance to her mother, the vain and frivolous Queen Elyssa. But though she may be inexperienced and sheltered, Kelsea is not defenseless: Around her neck hangs the Tearling sapphire, a jewel of immense magical power; and accompanying her is the Queen’s Guard, a cadre of brave knights led by the enigmatic and dedicated Lazarus. Kelsea will need them all to survive a cabal of enemies who will use every weapon—from crimson-caped assassins to the darkest blood magic—to prevent her from wearing the crown.

Despite her royal blood, Kelsea feels like nothing so much as an insecure girl, a child called upon to lead a people and a kingdom about which she knows almost nothing. But what she discovers in the capital will change everything, confronting her with horrors she never imagined. An act of singular daring will throw Kelsea’s kingdom into tumult, unleashing the vengeance of the tyrannical ruler of neighboring Mortmesne: the Red Queen, a sorceress possessed of the darkest magic. Now Kelsea will begin to discover whom among the servants, aristocracy, and her own guard she can trust.

But the quest to save her kingdom and meet her destiny has only just begun—a wondrous journey of self-discovery and a trial by fire that will make her a legend…if she can survive.

My Review:

I don’t often carry books with me when I go out to dinner, but this is one I just couldn’t put down, all 450 pages worth. It also helped that I just saw The Hunger Games movie, so I got where the references were coming from, even though I only saw a teensy bit of resemblance.

The Queen of the Tearling is in the absolutely classic fantasy mold of young person discovers/inherits their throne and powers, and then must figure out a way to be a good ruler with not much training and nearly every hand against them.

It’s a damn good formula when it works, and in The Queen of the Tearling, it definitely worked.

Kelsea Raleigh has been raised in obscurity, not to say anonymity, out in the woods. She wasn’t quite raised by wolves, but rather by an ex-guard and a teacher. Although they’ve prepared her as well as they could, they were forbidden from teaching Kelsea anything about recent history, such as the reign of her late mother Queen Elyssa, and anything that has happened under her uncle’s regency while she was in hiding.

Carlin and Barty hid one hell of a lot of crap. Kelsea’s kingdom, the Tear, exists under the yoke of the Red Queen of Mortmesne, the country next door. And there are lots of people in the nobility who want things to stay just the way they are, because they make money and/or get privilege from the current nasty state of affairs.

Kelsea’s uncle the regent is one of those people. He wants Kelsea dead before she reaches her throne.

How bad are things? The late and not terribly lamented signed a treaty with Mortmesne granting them a title of 3000 slaves every year. There is a lot of money in that slave trade on both sides of the border.

Kelsea, after a life-threatening heart-pounding journey from her cottage to the capitol to take up her throne, disbands the slave-tithe immediately upon arrival and in a flourish of fire. From that moment on, anyone who had any involvement is out to kill her, and the Red Queen mobilizes her army.

Kelsea, mobilizes her people’s hearts and minds, an infinitely stronger force.

Escape Rating A+: The description doesn’t do this one justice. It is simply awesome, and sticks with you long after you’re done.

Kelsea is a fish-out-of-water type of heroine. It’s not that she hasn’t been educated, because she certainly has, but her knowledge is book learning rather than experience, and it can be hard to translate one to another, especially if you’re only 19 and have been isolated all of your life.

The Tear Kingdom is an absolute mess. It seems like all the officials are corrupt, and the people have given up hope of things ever getting better. There’s a saying that “the fish rots from the head down” and in Tear, the Regent couldn’t be any rottener. Elyssa was just weak and stupid, but the Regent is weak, venal, stupid and bought and paid for by the Red Queen.

The contrast between the extreme poverty of the population, and the bizarre excesses of the nobility is one of the places where the descriptions of the Hunger Games universe apply. (Of course, this could also be said for pre-revolutionary France, including the extreme hairstyles).

The tribute of slaves is also a similar point, but it is different in Queen of the Tearling. Not just because thousands of slaves are taken as war repayments, but because the slave tribute is designed to take from every age group, including children and babies. Also because the fate of the slaves is completely shrouded.

Kelsea is the point of view character, and the one that the reader needs to sympathize with if they’re going to enjoy the story. This is Kelsea’s journey from obscurity to living in a fishbowl, from childhood to adulthood, from innocence to knowledge. She makes mistakes along the way, but her heart is always in the right place. She wants to do the right thing, and not just in a fairy tale way. She knows that some things are just too far to be allowed, but that there can be mercy.

She’s conflicted because she recognizes that the right thing can have dire consequences, and still must be done anyway. She’s learning.

The book ends on an upnote, but one that clearly marks the beginning of the conflict between Kelsea and the Red Queen. I want the next book. I want to see how the war goes, with all the starting handicaps faced by the Tearling.

I also want to see more about how this world came about. It is definitely a future version of our world, but it is on Earth. It’s a new continent that rose up out of the sea. But how and when, and why did everyone leave Old America and Old Europe?

Last, there is an enigma character. At first the Fetch seems like a version of Robin Hood, robbing from the rich and living as an exile until the True Monarch arises. But from hints at the end, he is something far older, and possibly not completely human.

This story must continue!

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: The Spymistress by Jennifer Chiaverini + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | blog tours> book reviews> C Reviews> Giveaways
spymistress by jennifer chiaveriniFormat read: ebook borrowed from the library
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: historical fiction
Length: 384 pages
Publisher: Dutton/Plume
Date Released: October 1, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Born to slave-holding aristocracy in Richmond, Virginia, and educated by Northern Quakers, Elizabeth Van Lew was a paradox of her time. When her native state seceded in April 1861, Van Lew’s convictions compelled her to defy the new Confederate regime. Pledging her loyalty to the Lincoln White House, her courage would never waver, even as her wartime actions threatened not only her reputation, but also her life.

Van Lew’s skills in gathering military intelligence were unparalleled. She helped to construct the Richmond Underground and orchestrated escapes from the infamous Confederate Libby Prison under the guise of humanitarian aid. Her spy ring’s reach was vast, from clerks in the Confederate War and Navy Departments to the very home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

Although Van Lew was inducted posthumously into the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame, the astonishing scope of her achievements has never been widely known. In Chiaverini’s riveting tale of high-stakes espionage, a great heroine of the Civil War finally gets her due.

My Review:

This is a quiet kind of story. While the U.S. Civil War that is the reason for the book contains myriad stories of blood, gore, guts and warfare, the story of Elizabeth Van Lew is about a much quieter kind of courage, and makes for a quiet book.

What do I mean by that? Elizabeth Van Lew was a real person, a woman who was born and raised in Richmond Virginia, and continued to live there throughout the Civil War, in spite of being a strong Union sympathizer caught in the capital of the Confederacy.

Lizzie decided that her duty as a loyal citizen of the United States, the entire United States and not just the South, was to provide as much aid and comfort as she could to Union prisoners of war, up to and including running a sort of underground railroad to help them escape across Union lines.

She also created an extremely effective spy ring, and found ways to get messages to Union generals. Lizzy knew her stuff, she had embedded a servant into the “Gray House” to spy on Jefferson Davis, and had inserted a Union sympathizer guard into the infamous Libby House prison.

Lizzie was effective. But while she was the spy ringleader, most of what kept me reading was her accounts of the Confederate strategy and her reports of battle-readiness (or the lack thereof) of the Confederate troops and the defenders of Richmond.

Because she is most effective as a reporter, we don’t see her act. While she does feel threatened, she doesn’t face much personal danger. Her co-conspirators are arrested, but she isn’t touched.

We also don’t see as much of her interior life as necessary to make her a sympathetic character. We don’t see her displaying her feelings, even in private, beyond her jubilation at Union victories and her dismay at Confederate winnings. She’s so busy trying to make sure that she manages everything and everyone she can, that we don’t get to know her as much as readers might want.

But the life of the city that she reports on is fascinating. We see the war from the other side, not just the Confederate propaganda to its own citizens but also the way that things were on the ground. The hunger, the desperation, the effect of the continuing war on regular citizens.

The battles are often far away, but the effects are felt at home. And then, Richmond falls and Lizzy is finally recognized for her true accomplishments.

Escape Rating C+: It took me about 100 pages to get into the book, but it got more interesting as the war progressed, even when the battles are far from Richmond. Lizzie’s eyes and ears in the Gray House gave her a view of what was really happening, as opposed to what was being reported in the press.

Because she so often worked from the shadows, we don’t see enough of her in action. While this is historically accurate, it also takes some drama away from the fiction.

As a character, Lizzie is a bit dry, but the events that she reports on keep the reader pushing on, even though we know the result. The last quarter of the book, when the Union troops are closing in and Lizzie and her friends aren’t sure whether to celebrate or lock themselves in, do an excellent job of portraying a city on the edge of collapse.

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.

~~~~~~GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

Jennifer is giving away a paperback copy of The Spymistress to one lucky (U.S.) commenter.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: The Dirty Book Murder by Thomas Shawver + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
dirty book murder by thomas shawverFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: mystery
Series: Antiquarian Book Mystery #1
Length: 220 pages
Publisher: Random House Alibi
Date Released: May 6, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

Book merchant Michael Bevan arrives at the Kansas City auction house hoping to uncover some hidden literary gold. Though the auction ad had mentioned erotica, Michael is amazed to find lovely Japanese Shunga scrolls and a first edition of a novel by French author Colette with an inscription by Ernest Hemingway. This one item alone could fetch a small fortune in the right market.

As Michael and fellow dealer Gareth Hughes are warming up for battle, a stranger comes out of nowhere and outbids them—to the tune of sixty grand. But Gareth is unwilling to leave the auction house empty-handed, so he steals two volumes, including the Colette novel. When Gareth is found dead the next day, Michael quickly becomes the prime suspect: Not only had the pair been tossed out of a bar mid-fistfight the night before, but there is evidence from Michael’s shop at the crime scene.

Now the attorney-turned-bookman must find out who wanted the Colette so badly that they would kill for it—and frame Michael. Desperate to stay out of police custody, Michael follows the murderer’s trail into the wealthiest echelons of the city, where power and influence meet corruption—and mystery and eroticism are perverted by pure evil. Unfortunately for Michael, one dead book dealer is only the opening chapter in a terrifying tale of high culture and lowlifes.

My Review:

Dirty books, dirty politics, dirty money. Interesting isn’t it, that one doesn’t think about the same kind of “dirty” in those three instances. But in this mystery, they all lead to the same place and the same dirty people.

Mostly.

Kansas City bookman Michael Bevan has a used book store that keeps him mostly out of trouble. And Michael needs to be kept out of trouble, because he let himself into much too much of it when he was the lawyer for most of the shady operators in town. Sampling too much of the illegal merchandise on offer got him disbarred. The relatively straight and narrow is easier to keep to at the bookstore, and he’s found his calling.

But he discovers that bookselling can be way more interesting, and dangerous, than he ever imagined. He has hopes of getting into the antique book trade by scooping up a single lot of rare erotica at an auction. Instead, the big collection of “dirty books” starts him down a crazy trail to solving a series of murders and saving his daughter’s life.

Along the way, Bevan is accused of murdering one of his rivals, and discovers that his adult daughter is using drugs. Also that she’s never forgiven him for her mother’s death in an auto accident.

His life only gets messier when he gets involved with a local reporter who may either be one of the criminals, one of the investigators, or both.

The worst part is that the murder has nothing to do with dirt in the books. It’s all to do with the dirty secrets about the rich and powerful in town that is hidden within the books. Secrets that are worth killing for.

Escape Rating B: Anyone who enjoyed John Dunning’s Bookman series will enjoy The Dirty Book Murder. The concept is similar, a used book dealer with an interesting past finds himself investigating crimes that involve rare books.

Booklovers will find The Dirty Book Murder a treat. It’s possible that we’ve all wanted to own a bookstore at one time or another, and this is a terrific introduction into the work involved in buying, selling, and trying to keep your head above water. It’s a precarious living at the best of times, which these are not, even without the murder.

The story gets into both the provenance of a couple of very particular, and valuable books, but the murder is about the secrets that someone hid inside one of those books. It’s all about dirty blackmail material. Enough to bring down some careers.

There are some very thick plot-strands in this story; who framed Michael for the first murder, who wants the blackmail material, and who is the murder. As bodies start piling up, there seems to be more than one.

Michael is interesting but not always a sympathetic character. We know he didn’t do it, but that doesn’t make him a terrific guy. He seems to have screwed up a lot in his life, and is barely keeping it together. He has lots of acquaintances but no one is close.

The ultimate villain (and there definitely is one) is pretty much batshit-crazy. This particular person turning out to be the prime mover of events seemed a bit over the top.

But following Michael’s journey from mostly uninvolved bystander in life to someone who has been forced to care, and makes it count, makes for a solid mystery.

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.

~~~~~~TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

This tour includes a Rafflecopter giveaway for a Grand Prize of a $30 egiftcard to the ebook retailer of the winner’s choice, and a First Prize Mystery Prize Pack of three mystery mass market paperbacks!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: The Garden Plot by Marty Wingate + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> Book Giveaway> book reviews> Giveaways
garden plot by marty wingateFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: mystery
Series: Potting Shed #1
Length: 267 pages
Publisher: Random House Alibi
Date Released: May 6, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

Pru Parke always dreamed of living in England. And after the Dallas native follows an impulse and moves to London, she can’t imagine ever leaving—though she has yet to find a plum position as a head gardener. Now, as the sublet on her flat nears its end, the threat of forced departure looms. Determined to stay in her beloved adopted country, Pru takes small, private gardening jobs throughout the city.

On one such gig in Chelsea, she makes an extraordinary find. Digging in the soil of a potting shed, Pru uncovers an ancient Roman mosaic. But enthusiasm over her discovery is soon dampened when, two days later, she finds in the same spot a man’s bludgeoned corpse. As the London police swarm her worksite, ever inquisitive Pru can’t quite manage to distance herself from the investigation—much to the dismay of stern Detective Chief Inspector Christopher Pearse. It seems that, much as he tries, even handsome DCI Pearse can’t keep Pru safe from a brutal killer who thinks she’s already dug up too much.

My Review:

The title is a play on words; the main character is a gardener who specializes in creating new and unique gardens, and there is a plot in one particular garden that leads to murder.

Pru Parke makes for a very different heroine, not because she’s 50, but because she has chosen that point in her life to pull up stakes, move to another country, and finds romance while she’s creating a fresh start.

For a middle-aged private female to get involved in a murder investigation has been done before, but that the woman finds romance along with the culprit is unusual, and fun.

Pru gave herself one year to try her hand at finding a full-time gardening position somewhere in England. She has savings to see her through, and a dual citizenship to make her eligible for employment in Britain. What she also has is a bunch of odd jobs that barely supplement her income and a year’s worth of rejection slips.

She’s just about given up hope when she discovers a body in the potting shed. Not her own potting shed, the shed belonging to her latest clients. And next to the body, there’s an exposed corner of a Roman mosaic. Too bad about the body.

As Pru winds down her gardening jobs, she can’t resist poking her nose into the mystery surrounding that corpse. Especially because she’s been adopted by the nice couple renting the potting shed (and the house that goes with it) and she can’t bear to see the way that poor Harry Wilson seems to be getting put in the frame for the murder.

And every time Pru looks just a bit further into the mystery, she finds herself tripping over the Detective Chief Inspector in charge of the case, Christopher Pearse. He wants her to get her nose out of his investigation, but that wish conflicts with his desire to get her into his life.

Meanwhile, time is running out on Pru’s sojourn in England, and possibly on her life.

Escape Rating B+: Pru Parke strikes me as a combination of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple and China Bayles from Susan Wittig Albert’s series. The story has been described as being very “English”, and it does have that feel to it, very much as the Miss Marple stories do. Pru gets involved in everyone’s life, and develops lasting friendships with the people that she meets. At the same time, the murder that finds her has some very dark aspects, and there’s definitely a sense that she is under threat from fairly early on.

China Bayles in the Albert series is a professional gardener who owns her own herb shop in Texas, where Pru is from. China also falls in love with, and marries, a cop who investigates one of her early cases.

But the fascinating part of Pru’s investigation is all about that mosaic. There are lots of Roman ruins buried pretty much everywhere in Britain. A normal case often involves “follow the money” but here, it doesn’t start out to be money so much as the thrill of discovering something truly spectacular. Not that money doesn’t come into it–if the thing is real, the questions of who owns it and who is planning to sell it are paramount. And a huge part of the confusion about who really done what and why.

The romance isn’t “in your face”, instead it’s sweet and creeps up on the reader just as it does on the protagonists. These are two people who discover that they have something in common, enjoy each other’s company, sometimes drive each other crazy, and want a chance at something that’s real and better than what they’ve experienced in the past. They have patience and impatience in equal, and real, measure. It was great to see a couple who are older than 30 still capturing that marvelous flush of falling in love.

And solving crime together, especially because the solution wasn’t quite what I expected!

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.

~~~~~~TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

This tour includes a Rafflecopter giveaway for a Grand Prize of a $30 egiftcard to the ebook retailer of the winner’s choice, and a First Prize Mystery Prize Pack of three mystery mass market paperbacks and a gardening title from Random House!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Under a Silent Moon by Elizabeth Haynes

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
under a silent moon by elizabeth haynesFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: mystery, police-procedural
Series: DCI Louisa Smith #1
Length: 368 pages
Publisher: HarperCollins
Date Released: April 15, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Two women share a grisly fate in the first entry of this exciting new British crime series—a blend of literary suspense and page-turning thriller that introduces the formidable Detective Chief Inspector Louisa Smith—from the New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Haynes, “the most exciting thing to happen to crime fiction in a long time” (Sophie Hannah, author of Kind of Cruel).

In the crisp, early hours of an autumn morning, the police are called to investigate two deaths. The first is a suspected murder at a farm on the outskirts of a small village. A beautiful young woman has been found dead, her cottage drenched with blood. The second is a reported suicide at a nearby quarry. A car with a woman’s body inside has been found at the bottom of the pit.

As DCI Louisa Smith and her team gather evidence over the course of the next six days, they discover a shocking link between the two cases and the two deaths—a bond that sealed these women’s terrible fates one cold night, under a silent moon.

In this compelling new detective series, Elizabeth Haynes interweaves fictional primary source materials—police reports, phone messages, interviews—and multiple character viewpoints to create a sexy, edgy, and compulsively readable tale of murder, mystery, and unsettling suspense.

My Review:

This is the first book I’ve read by Elizabeth Haynes, but based on this outing, I will definitely be looking for her in the future.

I always enjoy a good police procedural, especially British police procedurals–probably because I watch too many BBC mysteries on the “telly”. Under a Silent Moon reminded me particularly of some of those series, as there is a side-character in the book who seems like a younger and less foul-mouthed version of Andy Dalziel in Dalziel and Pascoe. He’s even named Andy, but he doesn’t have Dalziel’s nose for pulling a solution to the crime out of his hat (or his arse) in the nick of time.

The lead detective in this case is Louisa Smith, and it’s her first case as DCI (Detective Chief Inspector). She’s the supervising investigator into a particularly messy murder at a farm. The case is complicated enough by the victim’s life, it seems as if she was in or had broken up a relationship with every adult in the village, married or single. The number of ex-lovers and cheated-on spouses seems to be legion.

But Polly Leuchars isn’t the only dead body in the neighborhood. Barbara Fletcher-Norman committed suicide by driving off a ledge into a rock quarry on the same night that Polly Leuchars was murdered. Two unrelated deaths on the same night in the same small village is a bit much for the long arm of coincidence.

The story is in the evolution of the investigation and the unraveling of the myriad secrets and lies that link the close-knit inhabitants of this small community. The more that the investigation pulls itself together (sometimes because of, and sometimes in spite of the investigators) the faster that relationships fall apart in the village.

The way that the course of the investigation changes and morphs as the team pokes at all the holes in every witness’ story is fascinating. First it seems as if it’s all about sex. Then the tide turns, and it’s all about a cover-up. At the last moment, it turns into something else entirely. But the readers are just as caught up in following the trail of evidence as the police, and are just as surprised at the end.

Escape Rating A: Under a Silent Moon definitely puts the “procedural” in police procedural, but in a way that makes the reader feel as if they are a part of the investigation. The device of showing the reader the police reports as they are being written draws one compellingly into the action as it happens.

Louisa Smith is a sympathetic point-of-view character with a whole bunch of flaws that make it easy to identify with her. She’s smart and capable, but also has realistic self-doubts about leading a team for the first time, especially with the Deputy Chief Constable believing that he is her sponsor and mentor and has boosted her career.

Unfortunately, Louisa’s big flaw is not that she is a workaholic, although she is, but that she looks to her co-workers to serve as her dating pool. It was a problem when she was just a Detective Inspector, but now that she’s a boss, there’s big trouble up ahead. And behind, as one of her former lovers is on her team, and it makes a mess for both of them.

Still, I really liked her as a protagonist, and particularly the way she let her team members be the experts in their respective fields.

The way that the case continued to reveal more and more layers of the town’s secrets, and how that pushed the investigation into different directions kept me picking up the book every spare minute to see what happened next. I truly hope we’ll see more of DCI Louisa Smith and her team!

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Trinity Stones by L.G. O’Connor

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
trinity stones by lg o'connorFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genre: paranormal romance
Series: Angelorum Twelve Chronicles #1
Length: 366 pages
Publisher: She Writes Press
Date Released: April 22, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Anxiety-ridden New York investment banker, Cara Collins, has little to smile about on her twenty-seventh birthday between a hostile work environment and her impossible romantic situation with her longtime friend and first love, Dr. Kai Solomon. But before the day ends, she learns she has inherited $50 million—a windfall that must remain secret or risk the lives of those close to her.

As Cara unravels the truth surrounding her inheritance, she makes a startling discovery: angels walk among the living, and they’re getting ready to engage in a battle that will determine the future of the human race. In the midst of these revelations, she meets mysterious and sophisticated Simon Young, who offers her the promise of romance for the first time since Kai—but when Kai and his daughter are kidnapped by dark forces, Cara must choose: accept her place in a 2,000-year-old prophecy foretold in the Trinity Stones as the First of the Twelve who will lead the final battle between good and evil . . . or risk losing everything she holds dear.

My Review:

Trinity Stones is the first book in what could be a twelve book series. It has a LOT of weight to carry to set up this slightly alternate version of our world where angels walk among us, waiting for the proverbial Last Battle between angels and demons.

Of course, they aren’t just waiting around, sitting on their feathered wings while humanity marches on oblivious. Although most of humanity is oblivious.

Mixed in with the prophecy of that last battle are signs and portents. The story of Trinity Stones is what happens when the first of those portents finds herself part of something that she was never prepared for.

Cara Collins is an investment banker who hates her boss and is in love with a man she can never have. Life sucks, right up until the point where she inherits $50 million and a whole lot of otherworldly trouble.

$50 mil certainly solves the “hate the boss” problem, but doesn’t do a thing for the loving someone she can’t have bit. Although it certainly provides one hell of a distraction–including visits from demons who really do reside in hell.

It’s not just that Cara finds out that her belief in a supreme deity has to expand to encompass more classes of angels than she thought imaginable, but also that she is going to be a front-line fighter in the war between heaven and hell–if she can manage to get out of her own way.

Her new life leads to danger, but also to fantastic new friends and a purpose bigger than she ever dreamed of. She even finds someone she can love, a man who makes her forget all about the one that got away.

Until she finds out that Simon Young is even more forbidden to her than her first love. Simon is assigne to be her Guardian as she fights the demons, and they aren’t permitted to let love get in the way of definding mankind against evil.

Escape Rating B: There were a lot of things to like about this story, and a few that drove me a bit crazy. YMMV.

There are, and there need to be, a lot of explanations for how this world is set up. Cara is supposed to be the first of the “Final Twelve” that portend the upcoming battle between good and evil. Which means there has to be tons of setup for the angels who help in the fight, and the people who are “assigned” to Cara as backup.

The portrayals of the growing friendship between Cara and the people assigned to help her, particularly Cara’s platonic friendship with Michael, are beautifully done. It is terrific to see a friendship between a straight man and woman that is clearly never going to tease at a possible romance. You don’t see that often, and it’s refreshing. Also Michael is just plain a great guy.

But there is a lot of necessary worldbuilding, to explain the angels, the soul-seekers like Cara, and the support network that they need. Occasionally there is quite a bit of info-dumping, and I still didn’t get the relationship between Cara’s “trinity” and the cornerstone, which is a person she needs to save from evil.

The angels are almost a military organization. That Cara wasn’t allowed to be involved with her guardian felt a lot like the military anti-frat regs. They can be involved with anyone but each other, so of course they fall for each other. And there was a bit of fated-mate in the relationship that pushed things along faster than would have happened otherwise.

Trinity Stones is a fascinating start to a series. I’ll be very curious to see what directions it goes in. On the one hand, I liked the fact that any belief system could lead to heaven, as long as the person lived a good, moral life. On that other hand, the story does presuppose acceptance of a lot of other traditional Judeo-Christian concepts, and I want the story to always be of primary importance. So far, so good.

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Black Chalk by Christopher J Yates + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> Book Giveaway> book reviews> Giveaways
black chalk by christopher yatesFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook
Genre: mystery, suspense, thriller
Length: 352 pages
Publisher: Random House
Date Released: April 1, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

One game. Six students. Five survivors.

It was only ever meant to be a game.

A game of consequences, of silly forfeits, childish dares. A game to be played by six best friends in their first year at Oxford University. But then the game changed: the stakes grew higher and the dares more personal, more humiliating, finally evolving into a vicious struggle with unpredictable and tragic results.

Now, fourteen years later, the remaining players must meet again for the final round.

My Review:

I’m tempted to start out by saying, “Shall we play a game?” where the time-honored response is from the movie War Games. Black Chalk is not about global thermonuclear war, but the results to the six players of “The Game” are every bit as shattering as war.

Perhaps a better analogy would be Truth or Consequences, except that in this particular game, the proper title would be Truth AND Consequences, because each consequence reveals yet more truth about the one suffering it.

Six students meet in their first year at Oxford; 5 Brits, 1 American on a one-year study-abroad fellowship. They spend their first term as the absolute best of friends, and the rest of the year as increasingly bitter and brutal rivals.

What happens?

The simple answer is a game. In pursuit of a £10,000 prize, they invent a game that temporarily becomes their whole universe. While it appears on the surface to be a game of luck, in fact, it’s a game of mental manipulation. One they play against each other, and one that the prize committee is playing against them. Or perhaps it goes further up. That’s one of the mysteries.

What isn’t a mystery is what happens to the players. While they start out as friends, they are also fiercely competitive. They would have to be to get into Oxford University. Once the game starts, they all play to win. Some of them play to win at any cost.

Although the storyline is about the lives of the players as their friendship disintegrates and they self-destruct, the perspective is that of an unreliable narrator remembering his own misbegotten past. A past he sees through a glass not just very darkly, but with cracks.

We view the game through the lost memories of one of the players, a man who is now completely broken and trying to pull himself together for the final round of the game.

When the winner takes it all, what is it that he takes from the losers? And what has he lost in his own pursuit?

Escape Rating B+: As I read Black Chalk, it reminded me of The Magic Circle by Jenny Davidson. It has some similar themes about the potentially all-encompassing nature of games, and the manipulative lengths that people will go to win them at all costs.

The reader of Black Chalk starts out the story not knowing which of the six players is narrating. And as the story progresses, even the narrator is not sure that he is totally responsible for the course of the story as he writes it. He is sure that others are adding material that he doesn’t remember writing, even if he does remember the experience.

As cracked as Jolyon’s perspective is, we’re not sure whether someone really is messing with him, or whether he is so broken that he doesn’t remember all the things he does. Probably both.

In reading Jolyon’s account, it’s difficult to decide whether the players are exactly likeable or not. When they were at Oxford, they were all young, seemingly invincible and felt somewhat entitled; not by money (at all) but by their intelligence. The shattered Jolyon of 14 years later is much less manipulative and much more sympathetic.

The ending is sly and subtle and hits like accidentally biting on a jalapeno pepper. It takes a minute for you to realize that your mouth, or brain, is on fire..

~~~~~~GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

Chris and Random House are giving away a copy of Black Chalk to one lucky winner. It’s the winner’s choice of paperback or ebook, and this giveaway is open internationally!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: The Time Traveler’s Boyfriend by Annabelle Costa + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
time traveler's boyfriend by annabelle costaFormat read: ebook provided by the author
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genre: time travel romance
Length: 183 pages
Publisher: Dev Love Press
Date Released: February 2, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

Claudia’s geeky boyfriend Adam has just invented a time machine.

No, really—he has. She doesn’t believe it either until Adam provides her with definitive proof that he does, in fact, have a functioning time travel device sitting in the living room of his Manhattan brownstone.

But instead of getting ready to accept the Nobel Prize, Adam has very different plans for his groundbreaking invention. He wants Claudia to use the machine to travel back in time and stop the accident that landed him in a wheelchair over a decade ago, and prevent the trajectory of events that he believes ruined his life.

When Claudia reluctantly agrees to become the first human time traveler, she knows she’s making a big gamble. If she succeeds, she could have the happy ending with commitment-phobic Adam that she’s always dreamed of. But if she fails, it could mean the end of the universe as she knows it.

My Review:

The Time Traveler’s Boyfriend is a sweet and utterly charming tale about the lengths that people will go to in order to help the ones they love. Or to keep the ones that they love.

Claudia wants to fix the past for Adam, the man that she loves. But what he wants her to fix, and what she wants to fix, are not exactly the same.

Adam wants Claudia to go back to the day of his accident, and prevent the events that put him in a wheelchair for the last 14 years. Claudia wants to go back to the past and keep Adam from becoming commitment-phobic by preventing his relationship with the woman only known as “The Bitch”. Said “Bitch” was Adam’s first relationship after his accident, and when she left him abruptly, he lost his willingness to try again.

But he says that he loves Claudia, he’s just “not ready”. (Manspeak never changes). After a year together, Claudia is more than ready, and at 36 she’s starting to think that she’d like to have children with the man she loves. Adam.

Then there’s that time machine. Adam is an inventor, and he’s created a device that will let someone go back and fix everything that went wrong in his life. But, as has been proven so often in time-travel stories, you can’t actually change what has already happened.

All you can do is make sure that it happens again.

Escape Rating B+: The thing that sticks with you after the end of the story is how much Adam and Claudia love each other. They will both do anything to make the other happy, in a case where “anything” is pretty extreme.

She can’t fix his accident. When he asks her to try, and she goes back to prevent him from riding his bicycle to work on the fateful morning, he ends up being hit by a taxi. The time stream really wants to stay in place.

The idea to go back and fix his relationship with “The Bitch” is all her own idea. She sneaks back to the time machine and sets herself for two weeks back in the past. Claudia’s intent is to fix Adam up with her younger self, to save him heartbreak and to save herself from the years in between, which contained too many lessons from the school of hard knocks.

But “the past is foreign country, they do things differently there.” Claudia’s younger self thinks that geeky and wheelchair-bound Adam is a loser–she’s 22 and still chasing hard-bodied bad boys. She’s also nasty, self-serving and a bitch. But then, she’s also not really grown-up yet either.

And Adam, even at 24, knows a good thing when he sees it. He falls for the 36-year old woman who values him as he is, and sees beyond the surface.

Claudia is in over her head, and her heart. She’s afraid that any move she makes might erase her personal past, which is Adam’s future. And as much as she loves the young Adam, she wants the one that he will become.

I really felt for Claudia and her dilemma. She wants Adam to be happy, and selfishly, she does want him to be happy with her. But they are happy in the future, she just wants to make it possible for him to accept that.

And her dealing with her younger self is both funny and touching. We all say that “if we knew then what we know now” we’d do something differently. But when confronted with that possibility, Claudia can’t make it happen, she can only go forward and hope she’s making things better.

The ending still makes me smile.

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.

~~~~~~GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

Annabelle and TLC Book Tours are giving away an ebook copy of The Time Traveler’s Boyfriend to one lucky winner. Since this is an ebook giveaway, the contest is open to everyone!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Duke City Split by Max Austin + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
duke city split by steve brewerFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: mystery, thriller, crime fiction
Length: 208 pages
Publisher: Alibi (Random House)
Date Released: April 8, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble

A cool, calm, and collected bank robber—with two kids at home—heads a fascinating cast of characters in Duke City Split, the first in a trilogy of white-knuckle thrillers from Max Austin.

Bud Knox isn’t your average bank robber. He’s happiest fixing a nice lunch for his wife on her lunch break or watching his two young daughters play soccer. He leaves the boldness and brawn to his partner, Mick Wyman. In the past fourteen years, they’ve hit nearly thirty banks all over the West—everywhere but “Duke City,” their hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

So when Mick calls him about the perfect job, Bud is less than convinced, because the target is on their own turf. But with the potential to haul in millions, Bud simply can’t say no. If they do this job right, Bud may never have to work again.

As it turns out, the heist is the easy part. Holding onto the money while evading everyone from the FBI to the Mafia to the low-life criminals who want a cut will be the hardest thing Bud Knox has ever done—and it might just cost him his life.

My Review:

One could quickly summarize Duke City Split as “Murphy was an optimist”. It’s not just that everything that can go wrong does go wrong in this caper thriller, but even everything that can’t go wrong or shouldn’t go wrong, absolutely does, and with deadly results.

Perhaps the moral of the story is that there is no such thing as “the perfect job”, of course, this is true in real life too, not just in fiction.

Duke City Split is about a pair of bank robbers. Mick and Bud try very hard not to be exciting bank robbers, for Bud especially, robbing banks is just his job. And they are very good at it; the pair have robbed 30 banks in 14 years.

It’s a good living, as long as you stay out of trouble. Or out of any more trouble than you’re already in. And that’s where they go wrong.

Mick and Bud have a system for robbing those banks. A system that starts with not robbing any bank in their home territory of Albuquerque. Then some kid comes to Mick with the idea to rob the bank where the armored car from the nearby Indian casino deposits its weekend take.

It’s supposed to be $3 Million worth of easy pickings. The bank is a little tiny suburban outpost in a strip mall, with only one usually sleepy guard. Bud ignores the little voice in his head that says if something is too good to be true, it usually is, and focuses on the big score. His share of that loot will finally allow him to retire from his life of crime; something he’s always promised his wife. They’ll be set for life, including college funds for both daughters.

Yes, we have a bank robber who is a devoted family guy. Bud’s the careful planner in the partnership. Mick is the badass. It works for them, up until now.

The kid with the idea wants in on the heist, and that’s where everything starts to go pear-shaped.

The FBI riles up the wrong pair of bank robbers, so suddenly there are two low-lifes cutting their way through the underside of Albuquerque to find the real thieves who have the real score stashed away. The bank guard decides he’d rather blackmail the kid instead of being a hero with the cops. And the casino’s silent partners decide to send someone from Chicago to make sure that no one ever thinks they can rip off the Mob, even in secret. Even if it is the bank’s fault.

Everyone is after Mick and Bud, wanting the money, a piece of their hides, or both.
All because they tried to go for one last big score. Now instead of counting money, they’re counting bodies–and theirs might be next.

Escape Rating B: Duke City Split reminds me a bit of Donald Westlake’s Dortmunder books. Although Mick and Bud have had a very good run, in Duke City Split things go nothing but wrong, and there’s frequently a sense of underlying gallows humor as the situation goes from bad, to worse, to cosmically worse every minute. If their luck had been half this bad earlier in their thieving careers, they’d be in the slammer for life.

Instead, everyone who might possibly lead to their shadowy real selves gets dead, and not necessarily by our two unlucky robbers. The coincidences that cause everyone to be after them, but not be aware of any of their fellow pursuers, make it seem like all their bad karma has come calling, all at the same time.

The two men make an interesting contrast, and not just because Mick is big and tall, and Bud is short and mousy. Mick is the adrenaline junkie who makes things happen, and Bud is the quiet family man who sits back and plans every detail. The irony is that Bud got into bank robbing so that he could be his own boss.

In the end, circumstances are the boss of both of them.

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.

~~~~~~TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

This tour includes a Rafflecopter giveaway for a Grand Prize of a $30 egiftcard to the ebook retailer of the winner’s choice, and a First Prize Mystery Prize Pack of mystery paperbacks from Random House: The Alpine Xanadu, Dying for Chocolate and A Bat in the Belfry!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: The Accident by Chris Pavone + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Accident by Chris PavoneFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: Suspense, Thriller
Length: 400 pages
Publisher: Crown
Date Released: March 11, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

As dawn approaches in New York, literary agent Isabel Reed is turning the final pages of a mysterious, anonymous manuscript, racing through the explosive revelations about powerful people, as well as long-hidden secrets about her own past. In Copenhagen, veteran CIA operative Hayden Gray, determined that this sweeping story be buried, is suddenly staring down the barrel of an unexpected gun. And in Zurich, the author himself is hiding in a shadowy expat life, trying to atone for a lifetime’s worth of lies and betrayals with publication of The Accident, while always looking over his shoulder.

Over the course of one long, desperate, increasingly perilous day, these lives collide as the book begins its dangerous march toward publication, toward saving or ruining careers and companies, placing everything at risk—and everyone in mortal peril. The rich cast of characters—in publishing and film, politics and espionage—are all forced to confront the consequences of their ambitions, the schisms between their ideal selves and the people they actually became.

The action rockets around Europe and across America, with an intricate web of duplicities stretching back a quarter-century to a dark winding road in upstate New York, where the shocking truth about the accident itself is buried.

Gripping, sophisticated, layered, and impossible to put down, The Accident proves once again that Chris Pavone is a true master of suspense.

My Review:

The Accident is a gripping, stunning page-turner about the cost of secrets that are too dangerous to be revealed; and about who gets to decide what those secrets are.

It’s also about the publishing industry, how the changes in the way that books are sold (and not sold) affects the immediate futures of the folks who used to be some of the more important cogs in the system, and who are increasingly seeing the careers that they loved disintermediated out of existence.

Writers are discovering that it is possible to have a lucrative career without either a New York publisher or an agent to negotiate rights and contracts with that no-longer-needed New York publisher. The agents and publishers are a dying breed.

Which doesn’t mean that one big blockbuster book can’t stave off economic disaster for an agent and a publisher, providing they can get the book to market. And providing that the story inside isn’t too hot for anyone to handle.

The Accident is a “story within a story”, because The Accident is the title of the book that gets delivered to agent Isabel Reed anonymously. The book will be a blockbuster, as the story it tells will topple both a worldwide media empire and expose that the CIA was complicit in exposing foreign officials to corruption charges for the financial gain of one of its operatives. That operative being the head of the aforementioned worldwide media empire.

Charlie Wolfe built up his Rupert Murdoch-type news and entertainment empire by getting the CIA’s permission to knock out his competition. Someone is determined to make sure that Charlie’s secrets are exposed before he runs for political office. Unfortunately for Charlie, the man he thought must be the author of “The Accident” has been dead for six months. Since he can’t find the author, he’ll settle for destroying all the copies. And the CIA agent he hires doesn’t seem to mind leaving a trail of bodies in place of the manuscripts.

Or is there anything about this book and the people involved with it as they seem?

Escape Rating A+: This story is the ultimate in break-neck pace suspense. The entire thing takes place in a single 24-hour period, from the point where Isabel Reed receives her copy of the manuscript, until the point where the race is over. Or is it?

Isabel knows that “The Accident” is a book that will not just revive her career as an agent, but give her the chance to start her own company–if she can hang on to it. She drags in her best friend and editor, trying to keep the circle of information as close as she can, but the secret is already out.

Every other person who touches the manuscript becomes collateral damage in the coverup.
It’s amazing that the conceit of the story being a single day works; we’re rocketed through events as Isabel figures out what she has, what it can do, and how much trouble the damn thing is. At the same time, we see events from ex-CIA agent Hayden Gray’s perspective, as he attempts to contain the damage that Isabel and the book will cause.

Neither of them wants to be in the positions they find themselves, but they can’t find a way to get out of the labyrinth. Or do they?

The end will keep you guessing long after you’ve finished The Accident.

~~~~~~GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

The author is giving away a hardcover copy of The Accident to one lucky winner. To enter, just fill out the rafflecopter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.