Category: O

AUTHOR, Book Review, Fiction, O, Read in 2008

One Last Scream by Kevin O’Brien

Tara
One Last Scream
by Kevin O’Brien

Copyright: 2008
Pages: 476
Rating: 5/5
Read: Sept. 9-15, 2008
Challenge: 2008 2nds Challenge

First Line: She turned the key in the ignition, and nothing happened, just a hollow click, click, click.

Twelve women disappear and eleven years later there is still no closure to those disappearances. Amelia Faraday is a beautiful young women who is having blackouts. And she fears that she is responsible for the deaths of some of her close family members during those blackouts. It will take Amelia and her therapist before she can really find out what is really going out during those lost times.

I really enjoyed this book! It was really a great read! This is the second O’Brien book that I have read, the first one I read a long time ago but I still remember enjoying it as well. I’m definitely looking forward to reading more Kevin O’Brien. I highly recommend this book!!

5/5, AUTHOR, Book Review, Fiction, O, Read in 2008

A Cold Dark Place by Gregg Olsen

Tara
A Cold Dark Place
by Gregg Olsen

Copyright: 2008
Pages: 372
Rating: 5/5
Read: Aug. 16-19, 2008
Challenge: No challenge; personal read

First Line: Women with transparent vinyl purses that exposed the shredded remainders of coin wrappers stood in line.

Cherrystone, Washington is generally a quiet place. But in the span of one week they are the victims of a horrible tornado that devastates part of the town as well as learn that there was a triple murder of a well-liked family. Only one family member of the dead family is missing, oldest son Nick, and single mother and cop Emily Kenyon is determined to find him. But when her daughter, Jenna, declares that she feels that there is no possible way that Nick could have committed the slaughter Emily cannot believe the steps that Jenna will take to back up Nick. As Jenna disappears with Nick to who knows where, Emily must piece the puzzle together before a crazed serial killer kills them all.

This book was really amazing! I picked it during my overnight trip to Cincinnati because my Michael Palmer selection was horrendous. I was absolutely hooked!! I couldn’t get through it fast enough to find out what the ending would be! I highly recommend this book!!!!

3/5, AUTHOR, Book Review, Nonfiction, O, Read in 2008

The Unspeakable Crime of Andrea Yates by Susan O’Malley

Tara
The Unspeakable Crime of Andrea Yates
by Susan O’Malley
Copyright: 2004
Pages: 371
Rating: 3/5
Read: Jan. 25-29, 2008
Challenge: Triple Eight – True Crime category
First Line: A little before 10:00am — 9:56, to be exact — Russell “Rusty” Yates’s cell phone rang in the sixth-floor Shuttle Vehicle Engineering Office he shared with three other National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) employees.
O’Malley discuses the Andrea Yates case. She goes into a lot of detail in regards to the mental illnesses that Yates suffered from. There is no doubt that this woman was severely ill. Unfortunately, things could not be straightened out for her and she instead killed her five children. This case captured the attention of the nation: what kind of a woman could kill all of her children?! And besides that, O’Malley goes into great detail about the family dynamics and how Andrea’s illness overshadowed everything. I only wish that more could have been done for this woman so that five innocent lives could have been saved. That being said, I personally did not care for this book. I remember this case going to trial and keeping up-to-date. I felt that the writing style and layout of this book was a little weak. I understand that the author had to discuss a lot of mental illness and religious matters, but I felt a little bogged down in those areas. I simply was not impressed.