Category: Book Review

Alex Cross, AUTHOR, Book Review, Fiction, P, Read in 2009, SERIES

Jack & Jill by James Patterson

Tara

Jack & Jill
by James Patterson

Copyright: 1996
Pages: 466
Rating: 4/5
Read: Jan. 31-Feb. 2, 2009
Challenge:  2009 100+ Reading Challenge; RYOB 2009
Yearly Count: 8

First Line: Sam Harrison swung his agile body out of the silver blue Ford Aerostar, which he had parked on Q Street in the Georgetown section of Washington.

Jack and Jill have come to the Hill. That’s right, there’s a serial killer couple on the streets in Washington D.C. And they’re killing celebrities. And leaving a little rhyme at each crime scene. This is only one string of killings going on in the city though. There are also little children being killed. And unfortunately, the celebrity murders are getting more press than the children’s murders. But Dr. Alex Cross has a bad feeling that somehow the two are connected. It will take a lot out of Alex in order to figure out what is really going on in his city.

I love James Patterson’s books. I’m definitely enjoying reading this series. They keep getting better and better. I really recommend this series if you’ve never tried it before.

AUTHOR, Book Review, Fiction, M, Read in 2009

All We Know of Heaven by Jacquelyn Mitchard

Tara

All We Know of Heaven
by Jacquelyn Mitchard

Copyright: 2008
Pages: 310
Rating: 4.5/5
Read: Jan. 28-30, 2009
Challenge:  2009 100+ Reading Challenge
Yearly Count: 7

First Line: Once she understood that she was dead, her first thought was that heaven was overrated.

Bridget Flannery and Maureen O’Malley have been best friends forever. But one terrible car accident will take everything away from them. One girl will die, the other will survive, barely, with a very long road of recovery ahead of her. As time goes by and progress is made in the healing process, once again the two families lives are turned upside down. The doctors made a horrible mistake that fateful December night and misidentified the girls.

Based on what I am assuming is the case of the Taylor University students that were misidentified after a bad accident a couple of years ago, this story is really something to read. Mitchard really portrays the feelings of all of the characters in a way that is something else! I was unsure about giving Mitchard a second chance after not really being all that impressed by The Midnight Twins, but this book was really good! I would have rated this book a 5/5 had it not been for my growing dislike of Maureen. She got on my nerves after a while. Other than that, though, the book was a really great read.

AUTHOR, Book Review, Fiction, K, Read in 2009

Perfect by Harry Kraus, MD

Tara

Perfect
by Harry Kraus, MD

Copyright: 2008
Pages: 325
Rating: 3.5/5
Read: Jan. 25-28, 2009
Challenge:  2009 100+ Reading Challenge
Yearly Count: 6

First Line: I peered over a box of Special K at my husband and smiled because today I was going to run away with another man.

Wendi Stratford has a perfect life. Absolutely perfect. She has a successful job as an accident reconstructionist. She is married to a successful surgeon. Everything is perfect – perfect career, perfect marriage, perfect home. But there’s a big problem looming in the background: it’s all a sham. Wendi feels like nothing but a fake. So when she decides to run away with her piano teacher she feels liberated. However, when he is critically injured in an accident just outside her driveway, heading home to pack for their romantic getaway, she feels like this is her chance to start over – to make her perfect life perfect again. But as she looks into the accident, something that she has to do herself, she realizes that the accident was no accident. As she follows the clues she is being led straight into the hands of a killer.

This book was okay in my opinion. It wasn’t horrible but it wasn’t wonderful either. It was a quick read for me. I got a little irritated by the main character because she was obnoxious with her feelings of guilty going on 24/7 in this book. But if you can ignore that, it’s actually a pretty good story.

AUTHOR, Book Review, Fiction, L, Read in 2009

Over Your Dead Body by David L.

Tara

Over Your Dead Body
by David L.

Copyright: 2007
Pages: 275
Rating: 2/5
Read: Jan. 23-25, 2009
Challenge:  2009 100+ Reading Challenge; Countdown Challenge
Yearly Count: 5

First Line: “You made me do this to you, Janelle!” I yell out loud, looking over at the lifeless corpse of my once loving wife.

Preston Price had it all. He had a six figure career, a beautiful house, a loving wife and two little children. So what will make him kill his wife?! Preston has never once been unfaithful to his wife and yet she is accusing him adultery. Before he knows it he loses everything – his wife, his children, his job, his house, everything. And it’s the stress of all those losses that will cause him to resort to murder.

This book was really weird. I honestly didn’t like it all that much. When I picked it up at the library it sounded really good. When I got it home and began to read it I regretted picking up this book. I made myself get through this book, although I really wish I hadn’t. I don’t recommend this book at all.

Alex Cooper, AUTHOR, Book Review, F, Fiction, Read in 2009, SERIES

Final Jeopardy by Linda Fairstein

Tara

Final Jeopardy
by Linda Fairstein

Copyright: 1996
Pages: 310
Rating: 4/5
Read: Jan. 15-23, 2009
Challenge: 2009 RYOB Challenge; 2009 100+ Reading Challenge; 1st in a Series Challenge
Yearly Count: 4

First Line: I sat on my living room sofa at five o’clock in the morning with a copy of the mock-up of the front page of the day’s New York Post in my hand, looking at my own obituary.

When Alex Cooper wakes up one morning to find her obituary in the morning newspaper, she is stunned. But what really throws her for a loop is the fact that the body of a friend and Hollywood actress, Isabella Lascar, was misidentified as that of Alex’s and caused all this confusion in the first place. Isabella was shot while driving towards Alex’s vacation home. Was Isabella the target, or was it Alex? Alex knows that she has to get to the bottom of this and has a feeling that Isabella’s recent brush with a stalker is what is at the heart of this case, but her curiosity and innocence will land her squarely in the sights of a crazed killer.

I really don’t know what to think about this series. I have previously read Entombed which is about, I don’t know, the 6th or 7th in this series. But honestly, I’m not impressed nor unimpressed. I’m still undecided on what I really think about this series. This book was not as good as Entombed was. I’m sure I will continue reading this series, I’m just not in any real rush. I would recommend giving this series a try, but it’s not one that I would rave on and on about either.

AUTHOR, Book Review, Fiction, M, Read in 2009, READING CHALLENGES 2008

The Midnight Twins by Jacquelyn Mitchard

Tara

The Midnight Twins
by Jacquelyn Mitchard

Copyright: 2008
Pages: 235
Rating: 3/5
Read: Jan. 13-15, 2009
Challenge: What’s in a Name 2 – Time of Day in title category; Countdown Challenge; 2009 100+ Reading Challenge
Yearly Count: 3

First Line: Meredith and Mallory Brynn looked exactly the same.

The Brynn twins are quickly becoming famous in their little hometown. On their thirteenth birthday they narrowly escape a deliberately set house fire, saving their younger brother and cousins from the flames. As they begin to heal, strange things begin happening to them. Being twins, they always had a sort of telepathy between the two of them. But since the fire occurred, they have been having strange dreams. As they begin to sort through these dreams, they realize that Meredith can see the past and Mallory can see the future. And what they see scares both of them. But they know that they are the only two in their town that can stop the danger that a boy that they have known since they were born is causing and will stop at nothing to keep the twins from stopping him.

Okay, seriously. I wanted so much to love this book. I am fascinated by twins and the telepathy that some of them experience. So when I saw this book reviewed on another blog, I ran to the library to pick it up. It sounded great! I’m starting to kind of get into young adult reads (they give me a sort of “break” from my reading occasionally). And I read a lot of this book in one day. But I just did not like it. I found myself struggling to keep the twins straight, there were a lot of occasions where Mitchard would start a sentence without indicating which twin was talking. I found myself waiting for the climax to happen – and when it did I was like, that’s it?! When I read in the author’s acknowledgements that she had never tackled a mystery before all I could think of was, this was a mystery? I just wasn’t impressed. I hastily put myself on the wait list for another one of Mitchard’s books at the library, but I’m not sure that I really want to read it now. This book was just okay for me.

Archie and Gretchen, AUTHOR, Book Review, C, Fiction, Read in 2009, SERIES

Sweetheart by Chelsea Cain

Tara

Sweetheart
by Chelsea Cain

Copyright: 2008
Pages: 325
Rating: 5/5
Read: Jan. 11-13, 2009
Challenge: What’s in a Name 2 – Body Part in title category; Countdown Challenge; 2009 100+ Reading Challenge
Yearly Count: 2

First Line: Forest Park was pretty in the summer.

Archie and Gretchen are back!! The police detective and serial killer’s lives once again intersect. This time Archie is investigating a body that was dumped in the same area as Gretchen’s first known kill. It brings back bitter memories for Archie. With the help of Susan Ward, Archie identifies the Jane Doe in the park and his case is only made even bigger by the identification. But everything has to be put on hold when the Beauty Killer case is blown wide open: Gretchen has escaped from prison! While everyone else is panicking, Archie is somehwat relieved. He knows that Gretchen is the person who has wrecked his life, and he also knows that he is the only one who can catch her. With that in mind, he formulates a plan that will help him get out from underneath the spell of Gretchen Lowell, the Beauty Killer. Are you ready, Darling?

Okay, I’m going to be honest here. I wasn’t really very impressed by the first book by Chelsea Cain featuring these two characters, Heartsick. But this book – I absolutely loved!!!!! You have to read the first book to understand what is going on in the second, and this second book actually answers a lot of unanswered questions from the first book (which was one of the complaints that I had about the book). Either way, though, you HAVE to read this book!!! I absolutely adored it. I’m really looking forward to the next book in this series, because I’m dying to know what happens. Oh and by the way, when you read that the character of Gretchen Lowell has been compared to the greatest serial killer since Hannibal Lecter – believe it!!

AUTHOR, Author Debut, Book Review, Fiction, M, Read in 2009

The Chemist by Janson Mancheski

Tara

The Chemist
by Dr. Janson Mancheski

Copyright: 2008
Pages: 449
Rating: 4/5
Read: Jan. 2-7, 2009
Challenge: What’s in a Name 2 – Profession in Title category; Countdown Challenge; 2009 100+ Reading Challenge; 2009 1st in a Series Challenge
Yearly Count: 1

First Line: Jagged clouds scudded across the starless June night sky.

Last spring three young women went missing. Three months – three missing girls. There was no evidence that the cases were linked. There wasn’t even any evidence to suggest foul play. Then one of the women’s bodies was discovered in Lake Michigan, headless and full of date rape drugs. Detective Cale Van Waring has no proof, but he knows that these cases are indeed related and that these women are being abducted and possibly murdered. But eventually these cases end up in the cold case pile. After a long winter, spring has once again arrived. And with spring’s arrival, another young woman goes missing. But this time, Detective Van Waring finds a very loose trail. But with his boss watching his every move and his personal life starting to crumble, Van Waring struggles to solve this case before more young women goes missing or ends up dead.

This book was sent to me to spotlight on my blog. After a somewhat slow beginning, I was quickly hooked on this book!! It took me a while to read it simply because my life has been hectic. This should be a quick and easy read for people. I really enjoyed Detective Van Waring’s quick wit. And the interaction between him and his two colleagues on the police force, “Slink” Dooley and Anton Staszak was great in my opinion. I thoroughly enjoyed this debut novel by Dr. Mancheski and I am looking forward to the future Van Waring books!

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

A Wicked Snow by Gregg Olsen

Tara
A Wicked Snow
by Gregg Olsen

Copyright: 2007
Pages: 369
Rating: 5/5
Read: Dec. 26-30, 2008
Challenge: 2008 2nds Challenge; Countdown Challenge

First Line: The girl remembered the snow and the evil that had come with it.

When Hannah Griffin was a girl a terribly tragedy struck her family. She still remembers the flames of the fire that engulfed her house as well as the twenty bodies that the police found, three in the house and the rest buried in the back yard. The three in the house were that of her mother and two brothers. But the killer was never found and it remained one of the worst unsolved cases. Twenty years later Hannah is now a successful CSI with a loving husband and daughter. She still has difficulty dealing with her past, but things get ripped wide open when she opens a box that was delivered to her office that reads “Your Mom called…” With those three words, Hannah’s world is turned upside down.

I really enjoyed this book. This is the second Gregg Olsen book that I’ve read this year, the first being “A Cold Dark Place” which I also enjoyed a great deal. I’m definitely glad that I had this one on my shelf because it was a great way to end my 2008 reading! I highly recommend this book (as well as “A Cold Dark Place“) to anyone who is looking for a great mystery!

AUTHOR, Book Review, Fiction, G, Read in 2008, READING CHALLENGES 2008

By Order of the President by W.E.B. Griffin

Tara
By Order of the President
by W.E.B. Griffin

Copyright: 2004
Pages: 608
Rating: 3/5
Read: Dec. 14-26, 2008
Challenge: Celebrate the Author

First Line: As he climbed the somewhat unsteady roll-up stairs and ducked his head to get through the door of Lease-Aire LA-9021 – a Boeing 727 – Captain Alex MacIlhenny, who was fifty-two, ruddy-faced, had a full head of just starting to gray red hair, and was getting just a little jowly, had sort of a premonition that something was wrong – or that something bad was about to happen – but he wasn’t prepared for the dark-skinned man standing inside the fuselage against the far wall.

When a Boeing 727 is hijacked from Angola and is flown to an unknown location, the various security agencies of the United States race against the clock to find out where this plane has been taken to and what the hijacker’s intentions are. Unfortunately, those same agencies end up in a power struggle to find the plane first. The President gets fed up with all the in-fighting and asks an outsider, Major Carlos G. Castillo, a West Point graduate and a pilot to get to the truth of the missing airplane. But what Castillo finds out in the end is not only surprising but terrifying, and Castillo must move very, very fast in order to wrap things up before it’s too late.

Military-esque books are very much out of my comfort zone, which is why it took me so long to read this book. However, I did really enjoy this one quite a bit, which would be why I hung in there to finish reading it. I would have given it a higher rating, but I thought that the ending could have been a lot better than it was. It was all a little too neat for my personal tastes. But this is the first in a series which I am definitely going to want to keep an eye on in the future.