thriller

Girl on the Run by Daryl Wood Gerber – #WAYRW

~ Erika K ~ 2 Comments

whatareyoureadingwed

What Are You Reading Wednesdays is a weekly meme hosted by It’s A Reading Thing. To participate, open the book you are currently reading to page 34 (or 34% in your ebook) and answer these three questions.

The Questions are:
1. What’s the name of your current read?

2. Go to page 34 in your book or 34% in your eBook and share a complete sentence. (or two!)

3. Would you like to live in the world that exists within your book? Why or why not?

Now for my answers this week…

2. Girl on the Run by Daryl Wood Gerber
Girl on the Run

2. As Chessa lifted the items, her body trembled with grief. Zach. How could you? She pushed the painful thought from her mind, slipped inside the guest bathroom, and took her first full breath since the sheriff’s department had arrived.

3. It very much depends…I would not have a problem living in Lake Tahoe, but if i had to take off like Chessa, then no thank you! 🙂

So tell me, what are you reading this week? Let me know in the comments, and feel free to leave a link if you have a post to share.

 

New Release Review – Try Not to Breathe by Holly Seddon

~ Erika K ~ 4 Comments

Try Not to Breathe by Holly Seddon
Try Not to Breathe

Goodreads Description:

For fans of Lianne Moriarty, Paula Hawkins, and Tana French, an arresting debut novel of psychological suspense: a young journalist struggles to keep the demons of her alcoholism at bay as she finds her purpose again in tackling the mystery of a shocking headline-making crime, still unsolved after fifteen years.

Amy Stevenson was the biggest news story of 1995. Only fifteen years old, Amy disappeared walking home from school one day and was found in a coma three days later. Her attacker was never identified and her angelic face was plastered across every paper and nightly news segment.

Fifteen years later, Amy lies in the hospital, surrounded by 90’s Britpop posters, forgotten by the world until reporter Alex Dale stumbles across her while researching a routine story on vegetative patients.

Remembering Amy’s story like it was yesterday, she feels compelled to solve the long-cold case.

The only problem is, Alex is just as lost as Amy—her alcoholism has cost her everything including her marriage and her professional reputation.

In the hopes that finding Amy’s attacker will be her own salvation as well, Alex embarks on a dangerous investigation, suspecting someone close to Amy.

Told in the present by an increasingly fragile Alex and in dream-like flashbacks by Amy as she floats in a fog of memories, dreams, and music from 1995, Try Not to Breathe unfolds layer by layer to a breathtaking conclusion.

Genre: Mystery / Thriller
My Rating: **** (4 stars)

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Top 10 Tuesday – Ten Books I Plan To Have In My Beach Bag This Summer

~ Erika K ~ 2 Comments

Ten Books I Plan To Have In My Beach Bag This Summer

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Every Tuesday they post a new Top Ten list prompt. This week’s list is the Top Ten books I plan to have in my beach bag this summer.

I’m not much of a beach person since I don’t like the heat, but these are the books I’m looking forward to reading on vacation this year.

I’d love to hear what you’re looking forward to reading this summer too! Let me know in the comments, and if you have a blog, why not write your own Top Ten list? Just be sure to link back to The Broke and the Bookish, and feel free to leave a link to your post in the comments here, too.

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Audiobook Review – The 6th Extinction by James Rollins

~ Erika K ~ 8 Comments

The 6th Extinction
by James Rollins

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Sigma Force #10
Genre: Thriller
Audiobook read by Christian Baskous
My Rating **** (4 of 5 stars for the story, 2.5 out of 5 stars for the narration!!)

I just finished this audiobook, and while I love James Rollins and the Sigma Force series, I did not care for this narrator. His voices and accents were strange, and he does not pronounce some words the way I would pronounce them. He also made some of the dialog seem stilted and unnatural. Having read all of the previous Sigma Force books in print, I’m sure it wasn’t written that way!

Narration aside, I still enjoyed the story and the exotic locations – the story takes place across the globe from the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California, to the remote tepuis of Brazil, and all the way to Antarctica. It was a very fast-paced thriller, with less investigation and more “diving-right-in-and-doing” than some of the other books in this series. The returning characters from previous novels were a nice surprise, but I won’t names in case you are a fan of the series and haven’t read this one yet. Jenna, Nikko, and Drake were nice additions to the team, and I wouldn’t mind seeing them pop up again in future volumes. I do wish that Seichan had a bigger part in this one though.

As always with James Rollins’s books, be sure to read / listen to the Notes to the Reader at the end of the novel. He always explains what out of the book is science, and what is fiction. In this novel particularly, that is the scariest part of all.

Review – Blue Labyrinth by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

~ Erika K ~ 3 Comments

Blue Labyrinth
by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

Blue Labyrinth (Pendergast, #14)

Pendergast Series, #14
Blackstone Audiobooks, 13 CDs, narrated by Rene Auberjonois

My Rating **** (4 of 5 stars)

This was another audiobook I listened to during my commute back and forth to work, and Rene Auberjonois continues to do a great job narrating this series. Sometimes I don’t even mind the nearly-hour-long drive! 🙂

Lincoln and Child are two of my favorite authors, whether they are writing together or individually, but I really enjoy their Agent Pendergast novels. If you haven’t read anything in this series however, Blue Labyrinth might not be the best place to start. There are returning characters from previous novels, and reading some of the earlier books (especially Relic, #1 in the series)  will make this one even more enjoyable.

I love revisiting old friends and old places in this series, and the New York Museum of Natural History is by far my favorite place in Pendergast’s New York. Blue Labyrinth opens with a dead body in the museum, and Margo Green called in to assist with the police investigation. Full of danger and Pendergast family drama, this installment moves along at an incredible pace, and is a great addition to the series.

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May 2015 New Releases I’m Looking Forward To

~ Erika K ~ 3 Comments

My shelves are all full and the TBR pile on my nightstand is about to topple over, but I just can’t help myself. I get excited over upcoming releases even though I don’t know when I’ll find the time to read them. Here are a few I’m looking forward to picking up when they are released next month.

I, Ripper by Stephen Hunter
Published by Simon and Schuster, release date May 19th
Mystery / Thriller
I, Ripper
A new twist on the Jack the Ripper tale, told from the perspective of both Jack and the Irish journalist who is tracking him.

Pre-order from the publisher

Kingdom of Darkness by Andy McDermott
Published by Penguin Random House, available April 28th (not May I know, but close!)
Mystery / Thriller
Kingdom of Darkness by
Another adventure in the Nina Wilde and Eddie Chase series. Is there a fountain of eternal life hidden in the tomb of Alexander the Great?

Pre-order from the publisher

Murder at Beechwood: A Gilded Newport Mystery by Alyssa Maxwell
Published by Kensington Publishing, release date May 26.
Historical Mystery

In this addition to the series, Emma finds an infant left on her doorstep and must try to locate the baby’s mother.

Pre-order links on the publisher’s site

Flourless to Stop Him by Nancy Parra
Published by Berkley Prime Crime, release date May, 2015
Cozy Mystery / Culinary Mystery

A Baker’s Treat Mystery, #3 – I haven’t read any in this series yet but I like the sound of this one. A dead man is found in a hotel room registered to the heroine’s brother, so she has to figure out who set him up. (while baking delicious goodies, of course!)

Pre-order links on the publisher’s site

Lessons learned from The Girl on the Train

~ Erika K ~ 2 Comments

The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins

The Girl on the Train

My Rating: ***** (5 of 5 stars)

Rachel Watson rides the train into London each day to get to work. Her train happens to stop across from one particular house almost every day, and Rachel has created imaginary identities, Jason and Jess, for the man and woman she sees frequently in their back garden. When Rachel hears the news about a missing woman named Megan, she soon realizes that Megan is her “Jess”, and she becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to her.

The story is told from three separate perspectives – Rachel, her ex-husband’s new wife Anna, and the missing woman, Megan. Each woman knows only a part of the story, and we are left to piece it together as we go. This book kept me on the edge of my seat from the first page right up to the very end. It’s full of terrible people, pitiful people, and broken people. Both Rachel and Megan had me wanting to alternately shake them, and then give them hugs to comfort them. I felt emotionally exhausted after finishing the book, but I didn’t walk away empty-handed. There are several life lessons to be taken away at the end.

1. Men are not to be trusted.
2. People are not always what they seem.
3. If he does it with you, he will do it to you.
4. Women are not to be trusted.
5. Alcohol can be your best friend and your worst enemy. Both at the same time.
6. Therapy can help.
7. Your memories are not to be trusted.
8. Life is pain.
9. People lie. (A lot.)
10. If you do everything right, nothing can go wrong. (Wait, I think that was supposed to say everything…)

Although I really enjoyed this book, I think it’s time to read something a little more light-hearted! 🙂 Review of “Oh Say Can You Fudge” will be coming soon.

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