Our Little Secret by Darren O'Sullivan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery, Psychological Thriller 



A deserted train station: A man waits. A woman watches.

In the middle of the night Sarah is waiting for the train when she notices a man standing on the platform. A man who thought he would be alone at this hour. Alone so he could step under the train and end his life without any witnesses. Because he doesn't want any witnesses, Chris tries to get rid of Sarah by offering her money so she can go buy herself a cup of coffee to warm herself up while she waits for her train. She mistakes his offer as an act of kindness and instead of leaving feels drawn to him. She soon realizes that something is not right and stays until finally Chris leaves the train station. After Sarah stops Chris from committing suicide she becomes obsessed with finding out who he is and why he wanted to kill himself.

But there are some secrets that are meant to stay buried…

Our Little Secret was a quick read that was pretty engrossing even though the plot was obvious to me almost from the beginning. In fact it was so obvious that I wondered if it was supposed to be a mystery who the killer was. The book is broken mostly into two points of view, Sarah's and Chris's, with the occasional point of view from Chris's friend Steve thrown in. There are also journal entries from Chris's murdered wife. The mystery is all about who killed Chris's wife and why. As I already said though, I figured it out very early on so there was very little mystery for me in this book. Mostly just how exactly it all happened. The why was pretty easy to predict, almost as easy as who had done it.

I thought Sarah made some incredibly stupid choices at times and that really annoyed me. Sarah was not the best judge of character, especially when it came to men and her younger sister and her fiancé pretty much took on a rather parental type role to try and save her from her stupidity. This irked me a little, but I could also understand why they did this. I did not always feel like Sarah's actions were plausible. Who meets some random person and then becomes that obsessed with them? I guess the whole suicide thing played a big part in it, but still, Sarah just seemed like a glutton for punishment. From the ex-boyfriend who she kept going back to in the past, even though he treated her badly. To the way she kept going back to Chris, even when he made it clear he didn't want her there. I really can't say that I cared whether she lived or died at the end of the book, but I won't spoil that here.

Despite not really connecting with Sarah and the lack of mystery I still enjoyed this enough to give it three stars. This is one of those books that does not end happily for everyone, but the end was fitting.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher HQ Digital for giving me a copy of this book.


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The Evaporation of Sofi Snow by Mary  Weber

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Category: Young Adult
Genre: Sci-fi


 
Ever since the Delonese ice-planet arrived eleven years ago, Sofi's dreams have been vivid. Alien. In a system where Earth's corporations rule in place of governments and the humanoid race orbiting the moon are allies, her only constant has been her younger brother, Shilo. As an online gamer, Sofi battles behind the scenes of Earth's Fantasy Fighting arena where Shilo is forced to compete in a mix of real and virtual blood sport. But when a bomb takes out a quarter of the arena, Sofi's the only one who believes Shilo survived. She has dreams of him. And she's convinced he's been taken to the ice-planet.

Except no one but ambassadors are allowed there.

The Evaporation of Sofi Snow is a YA sci-fi story that I thought had potential, but ended up being just mediocre for me. I thought the games in the book were interesting. The mix of real and virtual reality was an interesting concept but I was a little confused about how exactly it worked. I also felt like the part at the beginning with the games was maybe a bit too long. One of the most interesting parts of the book was the "planet" and the aliens. I'll give you one guess what the planet really was, think Star Wars. Why no one figured this out before a bunch of teens did is beyond me. I really don't care for books that make the teens smarter than the adults.

I really didn't care for any of the characters in the book. Both Sofi and her ex, Miguel had too many issues for me. Sofi is angry with her mother, with good reason, and she is acting out and doing things just to spite her. And Miguel has done some really shady things in his past. These kids are way too young to have so much baggage which is really sad. I think it would have worked better as a story if it had been written about adults. Then maybe we would have been spared the teen angst. There is also the friend Heller who initially seemed really cool, but then got super annoying with his jealousy.

The book ends on a huge cliffhanger and you definitely have to read the next book to find out what happens next, but I'm pretty sure I can predict what is going to happen and what all the secrets probably are, so I'm good leaving it where it is.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Thomas Nelson for giving me a copy of this book for review.

Saving Grace by Michele Paige Holmes

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Historical Romance
Content: Clean


Saving Grace is a Regency romance set in the latter part of the Regency period. Just like in most of these type books there was a lot of second guessing how the other person feels and being foolish about it, but for some reason I just keep enjoying these anyway. They are mostly great for when I don't have a huge attention span for reading, but just want to breeze through something light and easy. And they also warm the heart and make me feel good, sort of like a Hallmark movie. This one had a very grumpy love interest whose heart needed melting after the loss of his sister and father.

The novel started out a bit shaky, but got much better as it went on. At one point I wasn't sure if I liked the protagonist when she was so willing to ruin other people's reputations without seeming to give them much thought, even if it was to save her sister. But later she seemed to realize what she had done and she grew on me until I really liked her. This is a clean romance and can be read by teens as well as adults. There are two companion novels that I also read and enjoyed that I'll post about later.

Sweet Little Lies by Caz Frear

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Mystery


 
What happens when the trust has gone?

Cat Kinsella was always a daddy's girl. Until the summer of 1998 when she sees her father flirting with seventeen-year-old Maryanne Doyle.

When Maryanne later disappears and Cat's father denies ever knowing her, Cat's relationship with him is changed forever.

I was expecting Sweet Little Lies to be suspenseful, but it was more of a police procedural. Although I thought the mystery was rather intriguing at times, ultimately I did not find it all that compelling of a read. Parts of it felt really drawn out and I had a hard time wanting to pick it up and read it when that happened. The main character, Cat was not all that likable to me either. The good thing about this book is that I did not figure all the details of the mystery out. On a random note, since finishing this I've had the Fleetwood Mac song stuck in my head.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Bonnier Zaffre for giving me a copy of this book for review.


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June 2017 Book Club: The Aeronaut's Windlass

The Aeronaut's Windlass by Jim Butcher

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Fantasy, Steampunk



Since time immemorial, the Spires have sheltered humanity. Within their halls, the ruling aristocratic houses develop scientific marvels, foster trade alliances, and maintain fleets of airships to keep the peace.

Jim Butcher is one of my favorite authors and I thoroughly enjoyed the Aeronaut's Windlass. The world is interesting; a great steampunk and traditional fantasy mix, and I am looking forward to more world building and character development in the next books in the series. The characters were all great. I can't think of one that I didn't like. If you like cats you will love this book. I loved the addition of Rowl the cat, and I think this book would be appropriate for my teen daughter to read even though it's written for adults. I ended up reading excerpts aloud to her when the point of view shifted to Rowl.

I think besides Rowl, what I liked the most about this book were the airship battles and the quirky Etherealists. I loved the Etherealists and can't wait to read more about them in coming books. I'm looking forward to reading more and hopefully also finding out a lot more about the world on the ground.

In the After by Demitria Lunetta

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Young Adult
Genre: Sci-fi, Post-Apocalyptic, Dystopian
Content: Clean


They hear the most silent of footsteps.
They are faster than anything you've ever seen.
And They won't stop chasing you...until you are dead.

I was really glued to In the After during the first part of the book when it was sort of like reading a mash up of I am Legend and Falling Skies. Amy is left on her own after everyone around her has been killed by "Them". The news has reported that they are aliens who have landed to take over the earth. Soon there is no more news and as far as Amy can tell no other people. She observes how the aliens behave and figure out how to hide from them and get around them. I thought it was different that they were day time creatures instead of night time creatures and I liked that about the story.

One day while scavenging for food in a grocery store Amy finds a 3 or 4 year old child who she names Baby. There is never an explanation as to how Baby got there in the first place, although we learn some other important things about her later. I kind of thought this was a hole in the story. I loved Amy and Baby and I think their relationship is one thing that made the book work so well. However, in part two the post-apocalyptic survival story turned into a dystopian society story. From then on I thought it lacked something. The interaction between Amy and Baby became sparse and we are introduced to a lot of other characters that I really didn't care about.

Amy was mostly pretty smart while she was living on her own, but after she was brought to New Hope I thought she kind of stopped being smart and started doing some really stupid things. Knowing that the doctor didn't trust her and had his eye on her, you would think she would have been quieter about her suspicions and rebel in a more covert manner. Unfortunately she makes stupid mistake after stupid mistake for the whole rest of the book.

While I liked this book ok, I wish it had ended with this one instead of being a duology. At this time I feel like one book is enough so I'm not planning on reading the next one.



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Bonecaller: Book One by Logan Keys

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Content: Clean

Raven doesn’t know she’s the most important player in a magical war.

Raven is a servant girl to the cruel witch Esme. She doesn't remember much about her life before. A young wizard cursed with old age also lives there. Raven and the wizard Sim become close friends and help and support each other through the witch's cruelty. One day Raven accidentally steals an old magic that the witch has been looking for. This sets off a chain of events that finally leads them away from the witch who has kept them captive for so long, but that doesn't mean they are going to be safe.

Across the sea John is a ship captain who has been running from his past. One day John finds the witch Mira stowed away on his ship and little does he know how drastically his life is about to change. Eventually the lives of these characters intersect and quite a few secrets are revealed.

Bonecaller is a young adult fantasy that could pass for adult as well. The writing style is easy to read, but the characters feel more grown up than most characters in young adult books. With the exception of maybe Raven who has to be at least 17 or 18 they all seem to be adults anyway so I'm not sure why this ended up being a young adult book.

I was drawn into this story from the very first page. The witches reminded me a little of the Fae at times with their elemental characteristics stemming from the seasons. I also really liked the romantic elements of the story. The relationship between Raven and Sim was a sweet one and I couldn't help but think of Howl's Moving Castle with the whole aging curse. However the relationship between John and Mira was more tumultuous, and though I liked them together some of the things John said and did irked me a little. Despite that I still couldn't help but like him.

At only 200 pages this is a very quick read and it was just what I needed after reading a very long fantasy. This ends with some of the characters still in bad situations and I have no idea when the next book will be released but I definitely want to continue on with the series.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me a copy of this book for review.



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