100 Book Challenge Weeks 4 & 5
Author: Graham Hurley
Genre: Police investigation
This book attracted my attention because of the tagline on
the dust cover: greedy politicians who get a come-uppance. With the apparent
illusion of our current politicians that the money they’re wasting is theirs, I
liked the idea of them getting payback. Not that I think we should shoot them, but maybe they should be
rotated a little more often, you know?
Anyway, this turned out to be written a few decades ago,
when Ireland
The story is very well written and I enjoyed it immensely.
The author has a knack for suspense, and there were sections were I almost
wanted to skip forward to find out what happened to a character or sequence.
I guessed the bad guy really early in the book, then
second-guessed myself, then went back to tagging him as the bad guy, then he
wasn’t… Yup, a skillfully written conundrum with lots of red herrings.
The ending, unfortunately, did not really work for me. Maybe
it would for others, but I felt it was not neat and realistic. I was unhappy
with those who got killed, and unhappy with the final verdict. It just didn’t
feel right to me, it felt more like the required “happy ending” you get in
movies. However, Himself has commented that I shouldn’t bust the author’s chops
over something minor when I actually enjoyed the book.
So it’s over to you. Read it, and leave me a comment on your
opinion of the ending?
Author: Stephanie Meyer
Genre: Fantasy
It was in the news yesterday that the cast of the Twilight
movies was in China
Book 2 begins with Bella’s 18th birthday, one she
dreads and wishes away because she is now aging and Edward, the undead, is
forever 17. (I loved the line in the movie where Emmett asks Edward what’s it
like to date an older woman!) Edward confesses to Bella that he cannot live,
figuratively of course, without her and, should anything ever happen to her, he
has worked out a plan for bringing an end to his existence. Vampires cannot
just commit suicide, you see, they’re sort of indestructible as well as being
super fast and gorgeous and all the other stuff they share with Superman and
Chuck Norris.
This morbid beginning sets the tone for this book, which is
all about Bella’s blue funk when an accident leads Edward to decide that Bella
would be safer without him around to constantly bring her into danger, so he
breaks up with her and goes abroad, leaving an empty spot to be filled with the
other hero in our love triangle.
Bella, being Bella, mopes and is childishly inconsolable.
However, her life takes a turn for the better when she meets up with Jacob, the
grandson of her father’s good friend, the local chief of an ancient tribe.
Jacob is the shining ray of delight in this book, exuberant,
content, a great kid and fun to be around. Fortunately this rubs off on Bella a
bit, but she still manages to make me grit my teeth and want to shake some
sense into her.
In order to be a love triangle and not just a tale of loves
lost and found, Edward is reintroduced to the story in the usual convoluted
manner of this author’s devising, which does, however, set you up nicely for
the rest of the series. This must be the “explaining” book in the set.
Did I enjoy it? Sure. If you promise not to look for
plausible (you are, after all, reading a book about the undead) or reasonably
mature action, you will too. J
Author: Madeleine Urban and Abigail Roux
Genre: Crime/Detective/Police
Ty Grady is a scruffy, seasoned FBI agent who gets a new
partner. As is usual with police novels (when will they have one that is
different?) he is seriously pissed at getting a partner at all, and even more
so when he meets him and discovers he’s a Suit. Nattily dressed in coat and
tie, Zane Garrett is equally horrified with his assigned “wreck of a partner”
(quoted from the novel), and these two spit nails and fire with the requisite
fervor these stories persistently provide.
Apart from the ubiquitous unhappy pairing, this crime
mystery has a good plot. A serial killer with no apparent MO is littering the
streets of New York
With nothing to go on, no links between the murders, and no
idea who in the Bureau can be trusted, it is only these rare skills that keep
the two Agents alive and on the case.
I get the feeling that these authors are new to writing and
will tend to polish up as they progress with the series. Yes, there is a
series, but each book is a stand alone, so can be enjoyed individually. There
were some sections that were somewhat amateurish in delivery, where I felt I
was reading a draft more than an edited version. Yet they held my interest and
I happily devoured the book, gobbling my way to the ending.
Er... well, there were a couple of sections that sort of
made me choke and cough. While I have no issues with homosexuality per se,
graphic writing of homosexual sex made my strict Anglican upbringing wing its
way back into my adult consciousness with puritan distress. Oddly enough,
watching a TV series with homosexual soft porn did not have the same effect,
perhaps my imagination is raunchier? Hmm…
Yup, unfortunately, Special Agents Grady and Garrett turn
out to be gay. And I say unfortunately because they are described as my
personal version of love gods, and I despair when anything that gorgeous cannot be had by me, personally. I mean, come on,
you’ve just wiped out my fantasy life! I adore big men with big muscles, wide
chests, slim hips and … oh… weak at the knees here… they’re gay? No! The fates
cannot be so unkind. Would I feel more comfortable with them being gay if they
were, say, 5’8” and average looking? Hell yeah! Let’s be honest here, would you
feel quite as happy if your favorite dreamboat, Brad Pitt or George Clooney,
for example, were gay? See? And my imagination can make these characters as real
to me as Hugh Jackman, my private hunk-of-deliciousness, in any role he plays
on the silver screen.
However, the man-on-man action aside, I enjoyed this book
and will definitely read another in the series. I may end up skimming past the
sexy bits, though. A girl has to be able to dream a bit, right?
P.S. This is WAY cheaper in the Kindle version, if you have one.
P.S. This is WAY cheaper in the Kindle version, if you have one.
Author: Stephanie Meyer
Genre: Fantasy
Edward and Bella are now accepted as a couple and she has
received a promise of her “conversion” to the vampire state. However, in return
for Edward being the one to convert her, he insists that they marry first, and
this sticks in her craw. Seriously uncomfortable with an early marriage due to
her mother’s bad luck in that department, Bella cannot reconcile herself to the
same fate. Edward is equally stubborn in his position and the two are saved
from an impossible argument by Bella once again being center stage in a life
and death drama.
The vampire who desired her for dinner in Book One had a
mate, who now desires her for revenge. This mate, Victoria, is determined to
make Edward feel her desolation and creates an army of newborn vampires to wipe
out Edward’s coven and help her kill Bella, so that Edward feels her pain.
Book Three is devoted to the development of this revenge,
the development of Jacob into a fully-fledged wolf, and the development of the
characters of and relationship between the vampires and the wolves. An awful
lot of development in this one novel!
In order to defend themselves from the army of newborns, the
wolves and the vampires forge an alliance, and a plan to protect Bella. It all
comes together in a battle for survival between eons old enemies and the one
vampire who wants Bella at any cost!
This book was longer than the previous two, far more
cohesive, and extremely seductive. It draws you in and holds you enthralled for
all three hundred and some-odd pages. The interplay and wit between Jacob and
Edward is biting and brilliant, and your allegiances will swing between the two
sides so that you are as much at war within as Bella. Excellent writing!
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