4/5, AUTHOR, Book Review, Fiction, R, RATING, Read in 2011, SERIES, SIGMA Force

2011.24 REVIEW – Sandstorm by James Rollins

Tara

Sandstorm 
by James Rollins

Copyright: 2004
Pages: 569
Rating: 4/5
Read: May 11 – 18, 2011
Challenge: No challenge
Yearly Count: 24
Format: Print

First Line: Harry Masterson would be dead in thirteen minutes.

Blurb: An inexplicable explosion rocks the antiquities collection of a London museum, setting off alarms in clandestine organizations around the world. And now the search for answers is leading Lady Kara Kensington; her friend Safia al-Maaz, the gallery’s brilliant and beautiful curator; and their guide, the international adventurer Omaha Dunn, into a world they never dreamed existed: a lost city buried beneath the Arabian desert. But others are being drawn there as well, some with dark and sinister purposes. And the many perils of a death-defying trek deep into the savage heart of the Arabian Peninsula pale before the nightmare waiting to be unearthed at journey’s end: an ageless and awesome power that could create a utopia … or destroy everything humankind has built over countless millennia.

Review: This is my first time reading James Rollins, I have always heard good things about him and I love a great thrill ride of a read and this book fit that bill perfectly. The characters were interesting and the plot was intense at times. There were a few moments in the book where the science involved was a little over my (science-hating) head. I’m not a science fan and I will be the first to admit that the hydrogen-oxygen-antimatter information was way beyond my understanding. Other than that one issue, I really enjoyed this book and I highly recommend it.

Miscellaneous Ramblings

30 Day Book Challenge: Day 4

Tara

Favorite book of your favorite series

Roses are Red. To me this was the absolute best in the Alex Cross series. This is the one where The Mastermind is revealed – and it was definitely quite a shock to me. I went back and read my review on it and I can actually still remember how I felt when The Mastermind was finally out in the open, it was definitely a twist that I never would have imagined. And after reading the following books, well The Mastermind is definitely the best villain that James Patterson could have ever come up with, in my opinion.

Miscellaneous Ramblings

30 Day Book Challenge: Day 3

Tara

Your favorite series.

No brainer: Alex Cross. Remember how I said that I didn’t like to re-read books? Well, I think I could re-read this entire series and love them just as much the second time around. Mr. Patterson has really developed a character in Alex Cross, the supporting characters are enjoyable, and the villains are unbelievably psycho! They are quick and easy reads, they are escapism at its best. I do believe that I will shed a tear when this series comes to an end.

Miscellaneous Ramblings

30 Day Book Challenge: Day 2

Tara

A book that you’ve read more than 3 times.

Honestly – I have never read any book more than 3 times. In fact, I can only think of one book that I have read twice: the first Harry Potter book. No wait, I have to take that back; I re-read a Harlan Coben book once by accident, I realized about 100 pages into it that I had read it before, but by then I had to know what happened since I could not remember. But generally I am not a re-reader. I just don’t like to do it. I know some people re-read books all the time, I just can’t seem to bring myself to doing it. There are too many books on my TBR … between the ones that I own and the ones that are on my virtual wishlist/reminder list, I don’t have the time to re-read.

4.5/5, AUTHOR, Book Review, Fiction, P, RATING, Read in 2011, READING CHALLENGES 2011, SERIES, Women's Murder Club

2011.23 REVIEW – 10th Anniversary by James Patterson

Tara

10th Anniversary
by James Patterson & Maxine Paetro

Copyright: 2011
Pages: 395
Rating: 4.5/5
Read: May 13 – 15, 2011
Challenge:  TwentyEleven Challenge
Yearly Count: 23
Format: Print

First Line: This was the day I was getting married.

Blurb: Detective Lindsay Boxer’s long-awaited wedding celebration becomes a distant memory when she is called to investigate a horrendous crime: a teenage girl is badly injured and left for dead, and her newborn baby is nowhere to be found. Lindsay discovers that not only is there no trace of the criminal – but the victim may be keeping secrets as well. At the same time, Assistant District Attorney Yuki Castellano is prosecuting the biggest case of her life – a woman who has been accused of murdering her husband in front of their two young children. Yuki’s career rests on a guilty verdict, so when Lindsay finds evidence that could save the defendant, she is forced to choose. Should she trust her best friend or follow her instinct? Lindsay’s every move is watched by her new boss, Lieutenant Jackson Brady, and when the pressure to find the baby begins interfering with her new marriage to Joe, she wonders if she’ll ever be able to start a family.

Review: This was a really good book. But my goodness, edit edit edit! There were grammatical errors in this book, which isn’t usually something I come across in a James Patterson book. I understand that these things happen, but if I can spot them it always makes me wonder if anyone even edits/reads these books anymore! Spell check doesn’t catch everything! Anyway, grammar issues aside, I felt like this was a good read. I enjoyed the two plot lines that were going on. I enjoyed more character development with Lindsay and Joe and Yuki’s new relationship as well as Cindy and Conklin’s relationship progression. It’s always like getting together with friends when I read this series. I really like this series, and although I prefer the Alex Cross series, this is another one of my favorite series that I would highly recommend.

Miscellaneous Ramblings

30 Day Book Challenge: Day 1

Tara

Best book you read last year

Wowzers, that is a toughie to answer! I’m simply going to answer based on the first book that came to my mind: 31 Bond Street by Ellen Horan. For whatever reason, this book really stood out to me. I don’t read a lot of historical fiction, sometimes I find myself struggling to follow along, especially if it is set in an era that I’m not familiar with. However this book took two of my favorite things: crime fiction and history and blended them together so perfectly that I had an absolute blast reading it. As someone who reads a lot of books (like most of the other book bloggers out there) to have a book stick out in your mind 8 months after you read it, well then it must have been one heck of a book! I highly recommend this book if you haven’t read it (or even heard about it).

Meme, WWW Wednesdays

WWW Wednesdays – May 11, 2011

Tara

I haven’t participated in this meme in two months, thought it would be a great opportunity to jump back in, here goes:

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

* What are you currently reading?

  • Sandstorm by James Rollins – REALLY GOOD so far! I’m hooked and I’m not even that far into it!
  • The Eighth Scroll by Laurence B. Brown – a review e-book (I know I said I was on a self-imposed review ban, but I couldn’t resist) look for my review sometime next week.

* What did you recently finish reading?

*What do you think you’ll read next?

  • I’m not really sure. I’m getting ready to go on vacation so I need to start thinking about what I’m going to take (Books or Nook? I’m thinking books because my Nook’s battery doesn’t stay charged long enough for the long plane rides I’m facing).
Miscellaneous Ramblings

30 Day Book Challenge

Tara

So I found this over at Lost in Books and thought I would copy it and participate myself 🙂 My plan is to pre-schedule some of these so that I will have something to post every day while I’m gone on vacation (countdown: 11 days til sailing and it cannot come soon enough! Words cannot express how much I need this 10 day vacation) I will start to pre-schedule these for next week.

Day 01 – Best book you read last year
Day 02 – A book that you’ve read more than 3 times
Day 03 – Your favorite series
Day 04 – Favorite book of your favorite series
Day 05 – A book that makes you happy
Day 06 – A book that makes you sad
Day 07 – Most underrated book
Day 08 – Most overrated book
Day 09 – A book you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving
Day 10 – Favorite classic book
Day 11 – A book you hated
Day 12 – A book you used to love but don’t anymore
Day 13 – Your favorite writer
Day 14 – Favorite book of your favorite writer
Day 15 – Favorite male character
Day 16 – Favorite female character
Day 17 – Favorite quote from your favorite book
Day 18 – A book that disappointed you
Day 19 – Favorite book turned into a movie
Day 20 – Favorite romance book
Day 21 – Favorite book from your childhood
Day 22 – Favorite book you own
Day 23 – A book you wanted to read for a long time but still haven’t
Day 24 – A book that you wish more people would’ve read
Day 25 – A character who you can relate to the most
Day 26 – A book that changed your opinion about something
Day 27 – The most surprising plot twist or ending
Day 28 – Favorite title
Day 29 – A book everyone hated but you liked
Day 30 – Your favorite book of all time

Mailbox Monday, Meme

Mailbox Monday, May 9, 2011

Tara

Mailbox Mondays

Mailbox Monday is still on tour, with April’s spot being at MariReads.

Another slim mailbox, but that’s okay 🙂 This was a PBS wishlist book:

      London in 1856 is gripped by a frightening obsession. The specimen-collecting craze is growing, and discoveries in far-off jungles are reshaping the known world in terrible and unimaginable ways. The new theories of evolution threaten to disrupt the fragile balance of power that keeps the chaotic city in order – a disruption that many would do just about anything to prevent. When the glamorous Lady Bessingham is found murdered in her bedroom, surrounded by her vast collection of fossils and tribal masks, Adolphus Hatton and his morgue assistant Albert Roumande are called in to examine the crime scene – and the body. In the new and suspicious world of forensics and autopsy examinations, Hatton and Roumande are the best. But the crime scene is not confined to one room. In their efforts to help Scotland Yard’s infamous Inspector Adams track down the lady’s killer, Hatton and Roumande uncover a trail of murders all connected to a packet of seditious letters that, if published, would change the face of society and religion irrevocably.

And these two came from a trade with a fellow reader on the MysteryBookSwap Yahoo group:

     In the remote wastes of Greenland, a young scientist has unearthed an artifact hidden in a cave for a millennium – a 50,000-year-old meteorite known as the Sacred Stone, which possesses potentially catastrophic radioactive power. But the astounding find places him in the crosshairs of two opposing terrorist groups who seek the stone for themselves. One is a group of Muslim extremists who have stolen a nuclear device. With the power of the meteorite, they could vaporize any city in the West. The other group is led by a megalomaniacal industrialist who seeks to carry out the utter annihilation of Islam itself. Caught between two militant forces bent on wholesale slaughter, Juan Cabrillo and his ship of high-tech mercenaries known as the Corporation must fight to protect the Sacred Stone – and prevent the outbreak of World War III…

     Kansas City trial attorney Lou Mason is back … and this time, it’s personal. Hired to defend the accused murderer of local lawyer and political fixer Jack Cullan, he finds himself putting everything on the line to exonerate none other than his friend and mentor, ex-cop Wilson “Blues” Bluestone, Jr. With private files that rivaled those of J. Edgar Hoover, Cullan had the goods on any number of Kansas City high-rollers, from Mayor Billy Sunshine on down. But the homicide detective on the case has it in for Blues, who faces the death penalty if he’s convicted. Digging deeper, Mason unearths the kind of secrets someone will do anything to keep. And as he closes in on a desperate killer who’s leaving a bloody trail through very high places, Mason may be setting himself up as the next target…

Sunday Wrap-Up

Sunday Wrap-Up, May 8, 2011

Tara

Happy Mother’s Day to all you mothers out there 🙂

Another week gone by. This week I kind of hit a reading slump. I ended up DNF’ing the book that I was reading and then picking up a “fluff” book to get me back on track (I consider cozies “fluff” because they’re easy reads for me – sorry if that offended cozy lovers, I don’t mean it in a bad way). It’s been a crazy couple of weeks here in Paducah with the river being WAY over the flood stage and flooding going on in Paducah. For those of you who watch national news, you might have heard about the levee that was blasted in order to save Cairo, IL – a tiny town that a lot of people in Missouri wanted to let flood. Well, let me set the record straight, seeing as how the media didn’t really portray the entire picture. When the Army Corps of Engineers decided to blow the levee (after a short-lived courtroom fight from Missouri) that not only saved Cairo, IL it also helped the river level here in Paducah and other places throughout western Kentucky. Before the levee was blasted the river was expected to crest at 58 feet (our flood stage is 39 feet), but after the levee was blasted the river crested earlier and much lower than originally predicted, at 55 feet. However, the only thing that has been reported in regards to this flood is that of Cairo, IL and the decision to blow the levee and flood a lot of farm ground (which, incidentally, was originally set aside for that purpose, in case this ever happened, hence the very short-lived courtroom fight that was continually shot down by the judges, including the United States Supreme Court refusing to even hear the case). But that’s not what’s getting reported. I know a lot more than what has been going on around here because my husband works for the City and is very well-informed as to what is going on, he’s put in a LOT of hours trying to get everything in order for this flood, from making sure all the floodgates get closed to calling people and businesses to inform them of the need to start sandbagging. We have friends who live in another state who called last night and knew hardly anything about what was going on in our area – that’s how little this second-worst flood in history is getting media attention. Pretty sad if you ask me.

*Steps off soap box*

So, it’s been another quiet week here at the blog, with only a few things posted, but here’s what you might have missed:

I posted one review: