Latest Book Reviews and Comments

I really enjoyed getting to finally read about Thatcher & Ysathea (Ysa) after seeing hints about them previously. Ysa is such a fun character and the family bond she has formed with the two other engineers (Ivo and Grunn) is a fun element to see come into play as Thatcher becomes more involved with them. I look forward to continuing this series and finding out what happens with Flack.

The book held my interest, not sure if the main character would live or die, whether his wife would leave him, whether his family would survive, or whether he would stick with the life of crime.  So, while I liked the book, I am conflicted at the end of the book whether I liked the main character with all his criminal activities.

This was my first book by Grippando.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  The story line was very interesting involving stock market manipulation and algorithms that made many individuals and banks rich beyond belief.  It was a good, believable story what they might do when threatened to lose their golden goose egg.  I also liked that one of the bad guys was a surprise.  I plan to read more of his books.  

The seventh Murderbot adventure is set immediately after the events of Network Effect, where Preservation and the University are attempting to convince the Pre-Corporate Rim colonists not to sign indentured contracts with the ruthless Barish-Estranza corporation. Complicating matters are the people and machines still being exposed to mysterious alien contamination, and the fact that Murderbot has no armor and is also glitching out due to a false memory disrupting its functions.

Reading the first book in the series, Nash Falls, is a necessity before reading this sequel.  I really like all of Baldacci’s novels.  While not the best series, it is still a very good book and I recommend reading it.  I find them easy to read and kept my interest throughout.  I really liked the several “surprises”.  Overall, the story is full of lies, betrayal, and intrigue.

I LOVED this Goose Girl Retelling and it has become my new favorite retelling of this story! Both Princess Emaline & her handmaiden Corrine are wonderful characters and I liked that the handmaiden isn't the villain in this story but that she is acting out of concern for Emaline's safety and they have a sincere and caring relationship between them. The goose in this story is also a great trouble maker that creates a lot of at times amusing problems for Emaline. I also really enjoyed getting to know the character Dane and his interactions with Emaline while she was a servant. The last chapter of the story was really sweet and wrapped things up on such a wonderful note. I haven't read Burning Snow: A Retelling of The Little Match Girl & The Snow Queen about Safara (Emaline's younger sister) but it is on my TBR List.

The title of this novel is a marketing department’s dream come true. It’s the kind of title that tells potential readers what the book is about without them even having to read the synopsis. The book is about time travel (obviously). There are rules to traveling through time and the third one is clearly important, and, by implication, will almost certainly be broken. The butterfly (effect) on the cover is also a nice piece of foreshadowing. I fully admit that I judged this book by its cover before I even opened it.

What actually occurs between those covers is a bit of a mixed bag. The premise is straightforward enough: Beth Darlow is a physicist who, along with her late husband Colson, invented a machine that can transport a person’s consciousness back in time to an earlier point in one’s life, where according to the infamous third rule, one can only observe said past event, but cannot affect it. Beth is the only one who is allowed to use the machine, and upon returning from one of her trips she must answer an identical set of questions – and hopefully give an identical set of answers – to those asked before the she activated the machine, to ensure the third rule has held true. Beth also has a sufficiently adorable daughter, Isabelle, who she loves deeply but neglects too often in favor of her work, and an insufferable boss who is trying to get her sidelined from the project. Additionally, there is the question of why Beth’s trips are only sending her back to her most traumatic memories, specifically the plane crash that she survived as a child while her entire family perished, and the night her husband died in a car accident. These elements provide ample dramatic tension to carry the reader’s interest through much of the novel.

The biggest problem with the novel is that most lay, non-scientist persons are already aware of the “observer effect”, so the fact that none of the scientists in the story (least of all Beth) points out the fundamental absurdity of relying on this untenable third rule that threatens their very existence is baffling. The novel’s big twist relies entirely on this fallacy and leads to Beth’s Homer Simpson moment (“Doh! Why didn’t I think of this before!”), unintentionally acknowledging the very fatal flaw that undermines the novel’s premise from the start. Even for readers who were not aware of the observer effect when they picked up the book, the fact that the scientist protagonist fully admits to “forgetting” a fundamental principal that every scientist in the world is aware of is a problem that is difficult to look past.

My interest in the remainder of the novel deflated like a balloon after this. What had otherwise been a well-plotted story with solid, relatable characters turned into a bit of a letdown. Discovering that the answer to the one question that had been bugging me throughout the book – why is no one addressing the observer effect? – is that the author was just hoping I wouldn’t notice, is tough to overlook.

This was a really enjoyable Rapunzel Retelling that can be enjoyed as I standalone story (I haven't read Alien Awakening yet), although reading more of the series adds more background for characters who are mentioned from previous books but aren't main characters here. Baylin & Liora make a great couple in this story and it's interesting to see how they develop their bond despite the initial interference of the towers protective AI "ARIS". The AI made an interesting character as well that felt complex with seemingly human emotions. Liora also had an animal companion named Pip that was entertaining as well. I look forward to reading many more by this author.

Overall, I enjoyed the book.  Read pretty quickly.  I liked the new character, John Sherwood, and his banter with Lucas.  Not the best of the series as it was pretty straight forward without surprises but I still recommend reading the book.

Listened to audiobook.  Narrator has strong Australian accent and was difficult to understand at first (I was playing at 1.66.  Slowing down to 1.33 helped quite a bit.  Overall, I liked the book.  Good cast of bad characters and buildup to make it difficult to predict guilty party.

For fans of Erin Flynn, this will be a very good series.  Her writing is very unique and recognizable.  Book deals with many triggers of sexual abuse, rape and the power or lack of that females usually have in male world dominated environment.

Overall, this book was a disappointment.  I also did not like the earlier Le Carre books with Smiley but was hoping this one would be good as it is in the 1001 must books to read before you die.  I found it slow and difficult to follow.  Maybe the movie would be better.

Overall, I enjoyed the book.  I liked the main character and his wisecracking personality.  Reminds me of Harlen Coben’s Myron Bolitar.  The story was easy to follow and had some nice unexpected twists.  My only complaint would be it could have been shorter, there was a fair amount of unnecessary info.  I listened to audio book, the narrator was excellent.

This terrific sequel to The Icarus Plot finds Roarke and Selene continuing their "day job" scouting new worlds while working undercover for the Icarus Group to find portals left behind by a long-vanished alien race. No sooner do they discover a mysterious figure stalking them are they accused of murdering said stalker. This of course leads them to conflict with the villainous Paath, and more physics-defying portal fun ensues. Two books in and Roarke constantly quoting his father's wacky sayings still hasn't gotten old.  Fast-paced storytelling; Zahn at his classic best.

I finally got around to reading this, in anticipation of the sequel's publication next week. I will say I was both satisfied and slightly disappointed. The novel hits all the right buttons you would expect from the authors of The Expanse: compelling narrative, great characters, strong visuals, terrifying aliens. The story involves a human colony world that is invaded and subsumed by an alien empire called the Carryx, and the aftermath of that disaster. A research group is brought to the Carryx homeworld to determine the "usefulness" of human civilization to the empire. The humans are forced to ask themselves if they should make themselves useful and consign their civilization to permanent enslavement, or rebel and face certain extinction. The disappointing aspect of the novel is that the ending is basically telegraphed two-thirds of the way through, and though I read on expecting some sort of surprise reversal that would upend my expectations, it actually ended exactly the way it told me it would. This slightly soured an otherwise terrific reading experience.

It started well but soon the story became reliant on coincidences and happy chance, many of the characters are one dimensional and some of the plot developments are just ridiculous.

Overall a very mediocre book.

Adequate ending to the series. So many things happened in the final part, that there might have been material for one last book. But alas, no loose ends!

This was an engaging story with references to Goldilocks and the Three Bears but as an Explicit Novella that is definitely geared to adults. I enjoyed getting to know all four main characters in this fast paced story and thought it had a good plot.

Steam Rating: Explicit and Plentiful

I received a free copy of this book and am voluntarily leaving a review.

Mary Downing Hahn is apparently a fairly popular and award-winning author of horror and suspense books for children in the U.S. She specializes in ghost stories. I read Closed for the Season, in which 13-year-old Logan moves with his parents to a new town and meets Arthur. Arthur tells him all the most important things about the small town, including that an elderly woman was murdered in Logan’s house and money was stolen from the local amusement park before that. So the boys set out to solve these unsolved mysteries.

This was my first time reading anything about East of the Sun, West of the Moon but I am familiar with The Frog Prince and thought this story was interesting. I enjoyed getting to know both Damario & Seraphina and was glad that they were able to get their happy ending together.

A fairly dark story with a twist at the end.

Jacqueline Harpman’s I Who Have Never Known Men speaks to the reader in a quiet way. The book opens with a scene in which a group of women and an unnamed young girl are locked in an underground cell, guarded by silent male guards. The story is told from the girl’s perspective. She has no memory of ever having lived outside the cell. The women have been in the cell for a long time. I was completely absorbed in the book and read its 200+ pages in one sitting. I liked the story’s mystery and gloomy atmosphere. A very powerful story.

The first book of the multi-award-winning series, features an imaginative crossroads of different worlds: a boarding school where special children and young people are “safe” until they can return to the place they long for—or learn to adapt if they cannot. The story features intriguing fantasy elements, for which the author deserves credit. The characters, on the other hand, are fairly typical YA characters with their typical struggles. None of them sparked any particular interest. It follows in the footsteps of, say, Narnia and Alice in Wonderland, and I hope that the story and world will develop in a more multidimensional direction in the sequels.

A woman visiting a hunting lodge in an Alpine valley finds herself isolated within a transparent wall surrounding the valley, along with a few animals. Those on the outside appear to be dead. This descriptive, leisurely-paced work, rich in the repetition of everyday life, touches the heart throughout. I am grateful for the author’s narrative choices, which helped a more sensitive reader like me make it all the way to the end. An impressive classic. This book left a lasting impression. Highly recommended.

This is a story about the struggle for survival. It makes you wonder what drives a person to stay alive, and where one finds the willpower not to give up even when all hope seems lost and humanity is nowhere to be found. The story is well told, even though the introduction to the heart of the matter is long... even after about a hundred pages, I was still wondering what the book was really about. The reflections on faith, different religions, and the descriptions of the zoo animals are precise. The book also seemed to convey an important message about the relationship between animals and humans. The text is a plain and unpretentious account of Pi’s reality. But in the end, reality is still open to the reader’s interpretation. The solutions for survival are sometimes brutal. The book kept me hooked, and when it ended, I felt that this book was worth reading. That feeling isn’t easily forgotten. Life of Pi isn’t a light read, but I recommend it anyway, especially to those who have the patience for a slow start and who don’t shy away from the moral lessons of the story.