Fiction

Review: Death of a Nurse by MC Beaton

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25747142This was an okay read for me. Not a brilliant read, but certainly not a rotten one either. I can easily imagine having rated the book higher if I were more familiar with Hamish and his very quirky acquaintances. I love thriller crime stories, but perhaps murder mysteries of the good old-fashioned Agatha Christie style just aren’t really my cup of tea…However, since I’ve never actually read Agatha Christie I can’t really say that for a fact…

I did read enough to know that I would like to go to the start of the series and see if I can fall in love with Hamish as I see so many other fans have. I do see his appeal, however, coming into his entire weaponry of charm (hahahahaha) unprepared was perhaps my downfalling. I think I needed to gradually introduce myself to him and all of his charms…not just jump in buck naked and unprotected**….

**I hope you note my sarcasm and see that although I didn’t rate this book as high as I might have that I am very much worthy of learning up enough to become an avid fan

Until next time…

Urania xx

Review copy provided by Netgalley for an honest review

Buy it now Death of a Nurse by MC Beaton

Review: Paperweight by Meg Haston

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This is a book that has been on my TBR list for a very long while.  Not sure why it sat there, unread and neglected for so long.  As with so many of us readers, surely it was simply a case of “too many books, too little time.”  Still, it caught my eye recently when I was looking for a  possible five-star book to pull me in.  Mission accomplished.

Stevie just has too much going on in her life to be a mere seventeen years old.  Her family is fractured, with mom living abroad after abandoning the family.  Dad has good intentions but finds it hard to manage after the death of Stevie’s brother, Joshua, in a tragic accident.  And Stevie?  She copes by controlling the only thing she can:  what goes into her body.  In the full throes of an eating disorder, she finds herself at a treatment center as her dad struggles to save what’s left of his family.  Rescuing herself is no easy task.  First she has to admit she has a problem.  And at the root of that problem are memories from the past that she’d rather not face.

I loved this story from the beginning until the very end.  It’s a very realistic portrayal of what goes through the mind of someone with an eating disorder.  And the author does an excellent job of giving us a cast of characters who show that there’s no “one size fits all” diagnosis or cure.  An outstanding story about a very serious issue.

~Thalia

Buy It Now:  Paperweight

Review ~ The Travelers by Chris Pavone

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imageThis is the third installment from Chris Pavone that includes The Expats – Pegasus’ review, The Expats – Urania’s review And then The Accident – Pegasus’ review. As is Pavone’s M.O., once again, we are transported to a world of traveling and European locales.

The Travelers is a travel magazine, one of the last in a dying business of print media. Its senior reporter, Will Rhodes, is on assignment in Argentina, when he is approached by a woman who he ends up sleeping with and then being told that he must join the CIA due to his carte blanche access to foreign locations. Yes, I wouldn’t blame you if you had puked whilst simultaneously caused yourself ocular strain by the eye rolling. However, bear with me…. From here, Will is thrust into an espionage world where nothing is what it seems.

This is not a unique storyline, but with all the different locations, the double crossing, characters who have multiple motives, and fast pace chapters, The Travelers, is truly a fun and exciting read. The characters are good enough (although I feel as though they could have had more room to develop), if not a little one dimensional, but let’s face it, this isn’t type of novel that necessarily requires it.

Whilst all three novels are definitely stand alone, Pavone has managed to interweave some characters and plot points that you’ll probably recognize if you read the books in order of publication (The Expats, The Accident, and The Travelers). This books is solidly entertaining and well worth reading if you enjoyed the previous two.

Until next time,

Pegasus.

The Travelers: A Novel

Waiting on Wednesday~ Allegiance of Honor by Nalini Singh

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TITLE:
Allegiance of Honor
AUTHOR:
Nalini Singh
PAGES:
492 pages
PUBLISHER:
Berkley
GENRE:
Romance, paranormal, fantasy
RELEASE DATE:
June 14, 2016

SYNOPSIS:
The Psy-Changeling world has undergone a staggering transformation and now stands at a crossroads. The Trinity Accord promises a new era of cooperation between disparate races and groups. It is a beacon of hope held together by many hands: Old enemies. New allies. Wary loners.

But a century of distrust and suspicion can’t be so easily forgotten and threatens to shatter Trinity from within at any moment. As rival members vie for dominance, chaos and evil gather in the shadows and a kidnapped woman’s cry for help washes up in San Francisco, while the Consortium turns its murderous gaze toward a child who is the embodiment of change, of love, of piercing hope: A child who is both Psy…and changeling.

To find the lost, protect the vulnerable—and save Trinity—no one can stand alone. This is a time of loyalty across divisions, of bonds woven into the heart and the soul, of heroes known and unknown standing back to back and holding the line. But is an allegiance of honor even possible with traitors lurking in their midst?

Preorder HERE

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Review: Extreme Prey (Lucas Davenport #26) by John Sandford

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26025992This one took me a bit longer to finish…I did enjoy it…I did! However, if not for the ending I might very well have rated it a teeny tiny bit lower.

The thing is, I love Sandford so much because of his incredible gift of writing dialogue. When Davenport is with his comrades, well it just doesn’t get any better. The banter between him and his friends/colleagues…well it just doesn’t get any better….Stanford really shines and it’s probably the main reason he’s been a favourite author for decades.

With this novel I just felt Davenport was adrift. Yes, he did his “job non-job”…but he was out on his own. Yes, we met some really interesting characters that I hope to run into again in the future….yes, we saw some old characters that we haven’t seen in a while. All of that was great…but that closeness, dialogue, and teamwork that we’ve always seen in the past was just missing for me.

Lucas hasn’t been happy professionally for a while now. That has left him adrift professionally, and now that seemed to leak into his personal life as well. I mean, really, he didn’t even seemed to connect with his family like he used to…

Hopefully the ending of this book will clear all of this out and Lucas will be part of a team again…in his personal life as well as his professional one…yes, he’ll always be the top dog, even when he isn’t…but at least he’ll be a member of the pack instead of just a lone wolf…

However…this does bring up new developments for that F’ing Flowers now doesn’t it…

Until next time…

Urania xx

ARC provided by Netgalley for an honest review

Buy it now Extreme Prey by John Sandford

Review: Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult

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What can I say about Jodi Picoult?  Her stories have moved me in ways few others have been able to.  From the stories of families lost to love found, she gets me every time.  For some reason this one had slipped by me until recently.  And that’s a shame, because it’s one of her best to date.

Jenna is a child without a mother, and also very much without a father.  Her mom disappeared years ago after a tragic accident (or not?) at the family’s elephant sanctuary.  And her dad, for all intents and purposes, is lost to her as well as he wastes away in a mental institution.  Even though she has the love of her grandmother, she just can’t come to terms with the fact that her mom is not in her life.  Is it because she doesn’t want to be or because she can’t?  So Jenna enlists the help of a washed-up psychic along with the detective from the decade old case.  With their help, can she finally figure out what happened all those years ago?

Playing a central role in the story are the elephants.  Not just the physicalness of them, but of the similarities between their emotions and the emotions of humans.  So very different, but so very much alike.  For anyone who thinks these animals don’t feel, don’t love, don’t grieve,  I dare you to make that argument after reading this book.

This book is about so many things.  It’s about a child without a mother, a missing person, an unsolved mystery, and of course, the elephants.  It’s a cliffhanger until the very end.  And just in case you think you’ve figured it out before the last chapter, you’re wrong…

~Thalia

Buy It Now:  Leaving Time

Review: Sister Eve and the Blue Nun by Lynne Hinton

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I adored the first book in this series, and I love Sister Evangeline’s character so much that I keep reading the next in the series. Blue Nun is number three, and although there was too much history and Blue Nun factual information (like a documentary!) for me, I still enjoyed the terrific characters and dialogue. 

In this book, Sister Eve returns to the convent for a long weekend, only to happen upon a murder. Like any literary amateur sleuth, Eve ignores police instructions to stay out of the investigation, and she gets herself into a bit of trouble here and there. Thankfully there’s her private eye dad and a handsome police detective to save Eve as she catches the bad guy and solves the case! 

-calliope

Buy SISTER EVE AND THE BLUE NUN

Review – The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

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22557272There’s nothing I find more eye-roll inducing than lazy marketing campaigns that rely on previous successes. So when I heard that this book was “the next Gone Girl” (a book I enjoyed quite a bit), well, you can safely assume that the eye-rolling commenced! This is why I left it a looonnnggg time before I decided to read this one; I wanted the hype to die down and to not be bombarded and influenced by all the reviews.

The book has three different narrators – all with their skewered version of events. We have Rachel, Anna, and Meghan. All three women have cause to be labeled an unreliable narrator – a trope that seems to have utilized tenfold since Gone Girl was published to international praise. However, for me, it turns into a bit of pity fest, and I lose a connection with the characters.

As mentioned above, perhaps my biggest gripe with this novel was indeed the portrayal of the characters. Without giving too much away, one group of the characters were given these complex, emotional issues (that quite frankly didn’t get the depth of exploration they deserved), and another group are painstakingly 2 dimensional. Having equally flawed and indeed, despicable, characters was one of the reasons I really enjoyed Gone Girl (Yes, I know, I keep comparing the two – but hey, the comparison was already made by the marketing), and in this case, Hawkins tries to get you to dislike certain characters, but just doesn’t have the necessary push-off-the-cliff-dedication.

I will give Hawkins her dues though: The Girl on the Train did keep me reading (or listening in this case), and it is entertaining. It might not be a When Harry Met Sally “I’ll have what she’s having” kinda experience, but it is definitely a quick entertaining read. Give this one a go, and if you’ve also read Gone Girl, let us know in the comments how you think the two compared and if you thought that maybe it is an unfair comparison.

Until next time,

Pegasus

The Girl on the Train

Review: Like the Red Sky at Morning (Forget Me Not #2) by Brielle Sky

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If you go back to my review of the first book and have now read both, I would just like a moment to gloat that I was, in fact, correct about my predictions.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way…teehee…

I did enjoy this book. Perhaps not as much as the first one…wait….maybe I need to clarify that…I HATED what was going on in the first book (My review of Book 1) but the fact that it made me so angry and feel so passionate about what was happening really made me appreciate the book. I didn’t feel outrage and anger during the reading of this novel, so I’m sad to say, it didn’t move me as much…but don’t think I didn’t enjoy it! I did enjoy it.

***Spoilers without spoilers*** If I had any complaints it would only be that I don’t necessarily see how Isaac could know the things he knew about the man Max was dating at the end and just leave it at that…regardless of the past or anything else…

I also wish that this book had been wrapped up nicely in this 2nd installment…It’s pretty obvious to me that there will be a third book (provided this one does well and I hope it does) to finally wrap up the ending. If not we’re all doomed to loose countless nights worrying about people that might or might not come back to ruin the HEA ending…

I saw everything coming in this book…even if Max didn’t…I saw the betrayals that many she considered closest to her were committing…all throughout both books…does that make it any less of a good book? Perhaps….

However, did it make me enjoy it less or wish I hadn’t bothered with it? Not at all! I really enjoyed this book and I am still waiting on Brielle Skye’s next book! I’ll be sure to crack it open almost as soon as I get word about it…just as I did this one…There’s not many books that don’t spend some time on my TBR piles (I just have so many great choices!!!! It’s not the books’ fault!!!!) However, Ms. Skyes books have never resided there…they are always quickly read…as I’m sure the next one will be…

Until next time…

Urania xx

ARC provided by the author for an honest review

Buy it now Like the Red Sky at Morning by Brielle Skye

Review: The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall by Katie Alender

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I love a good ghost story.  Sure, blood and gore are fine.  But the scariest stories take you right to the edge and no farther, leaving your imagination to conjure things far scarier than the author’s words alone could ever manage.  This one from Katie Alender does just that.

When Delia’s aunt passes away, it comes as a surprise that she’s left her home to Delia.  Sure, they wrote to each other from time to time.  But they weren’t especially close, or at least that’s how it seemed to Delia.  But apparently she was wrong.  So off she goes with her mom, dad, and sister to clean out the rambling estate and sell it off.

She wasn’t prepared, however, to be the owner of an abandoned insane asylum.  And not only that, but it’s haunted.  When the first odd happenings start, she brushes it off as just her imagination. But then things get too real too fast.  And then Delia’s dead.

Here’s where the real fun begins.  Now she’s one of them.  She can see, feel, and communicate with the other ghosts at Hysteria Hall.  And boy, are there plenty of them.  It seems that more than a few patients didn’t ever leave.  Now they’re stuck there forever.  Delia probably could have resigned herself to wandering the hallways for eternity.  Until her family comes back to the house.  She can’t just sit around and watch her sister suffer the same fate she did.

This was a fun book to read.  Lots of ghosts with great descriptions, high on the goosebumps factor, and high on the page-turning scale.  Also a great read for young adults!

~Thalia

Buy It Now:  The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall