Two Short Reviews: Weathering Old Souls by JamesJayCudney and Didi Oviatt | Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica

A book about reincarnation – a subject I have never read about before. Right from the very beginning I was hooked. Twice, I missed my bus stop! Abigail, the main character is so entirely interesting, it’s very hard to stop reading. Her journey through life, adjusting to her own mind, and the adjustments her family has to make, make for absorbing reading. Definitely a unique book. I wondered how it was going to end, and was a little worried, as so often, (for me) the ending ruins a good book. But not this time! The ending was just right, all the threads drawn together perfectly. Nothing rushed, nothing forced, nothing contrived, all as it should be, has to be; I can’t imagine a different ending.

The characters were all believable; the prose was terrific; the shape and pace of the book exact. I can’t recommend this book highly enough. For an absorbing, unique story, it’s easily 5 stars.

This is one of those books which is great at the beginning. I don’t to give spoilers so I’ll try to be vague. We are introduced to Delilah (a young girl) first, and I was totally involved with her story. She was brave and strong and resourceful. I expected the book to follow her and solve the mystery. However, the book has two time lines, now, and eleven years ago. And after a while I began to find eleven years ago tedious although for the purpose of the book they were necessary. There is a massive shock which was well done, but after that, things started to slip. The other characters were believable and well done, and interestingly various.

However, towards the end, there were several new threads which felt to me to be contrived and unlikely. I can’t say any more without giving the plot away – but there are several points I would like to make. I found the ending rushed, contrived, frankly unbelievable. I was aware of the writer writing. I feel that there was a really good story to be told here but it didn’t materialize. Over all it was a readable and interesting book so I will give it three stars.

Has anyone else read these books? What did you think?

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Aggravated Momentum by Didi Oviatt | A review

The first thing that impressed me about this book was the atmosphere. I found it chilling and creepy. The plot is engaging from the beginning; you are drawn in straight away, and the tension doesn’t drop half-way through as it does in a lot of thrillers. The intensity is carried throughout.

Markie, the main character, lives with her sister, Kam; they have a strange love/dislike relationship and they share feelings about their unfeeling mother – who’s a great character by the way. I enjoyed reading about her.

None of the characters is perfect; they all have their foibles and their secret thoughts; this is, of course, more realistic, and true to life for the reader. Generally, there’s the heroine and the hero, and you like them and want things to work out for them, but I didn’t feel like that about any of these people. However, I liked the huge FBI agent, Reese, very much indeed. I felt the sisters were safe when he was about.

There are many things about this book that I loved, like unusual little details about the killer. I also really liked the different POV chapters – I always love that in a book, and I could have done with larger chunks of it.

The dialogue is terrific; Here’s a little bit of it:

“Tiny beads of sweat grow in my hairline and on the tip of my nose. The walls of my office creep in closer, leaving me suffocated. I’m drowning in my own imagination.”

One of the most impressive things about the book is the shock element. There were moments when I actually gasped and put the book down to think about what had just happened!

I wonder if there will be another book about Markie and Kam; I would definitely read it with anticipation.

A review of “Iron Lake” by William Kent Kreuger

So, I was looking forward to reading this book as it had been highly recommended, and I did like it, but not as much as I expected. To begin with the main character Cork O’Connor is interesting and likable. He is part American Indian and there are quite a lot of American Indian characters in the book, known collectively as “the people” which interested me very much as I know nothing of their culture.

The story is gripping from the off – incomprehensible murders, a wealthy politician, a crumbling marriage, a sweet love story – and secrets and silence everywhere. An occasional mention of a supernatural element adds to the whole but doesn’t intrude. There’s an easygoing quality as well, and many back stories, but they are so engaging – and easygoing doesn’t mean slow.

However. nearing the end of the book I found that some situations were very contrived to allow the hero to unravel the mystery. Also, the denouement is very drawn out and quite boring. It was disappointing after so good a story.

There isn’t any quotable dialogue here but the pace and shape of the story is good. This is the first in a series of books featuring Cork O’Connor and I will definitely read another one in the future. If formally reviewing this book, I would give it three and a half stars.

A Review | The Chalk Man by C. J. Tudor

The plot of this novel revolves around four young boys and a girl, who – eventually – find a dismembered body in the woods. The story moves backwards and forwards between then and now. Eddie, the main character grows into early middle age, single, lonely, and too fond of the bottle. He has never forgotten that awful time and still tries to make sense of it all.

The narrative drive at the beginning is so strong I couldn’t stop reading but as I continued I found myself waiting for the story to get to the point. It seemed to meander all over the place. For me, the book had no structure, no shape, no core, no coherent skeleton. Some parts were undeveloped; some characters were so vague and indistinct they were hardly there at all. One of the main characters, Eddie’s teacher, Mr Halloran, was enjoyable and interesting to read about but I almost feel the book could have been written without him.

In general, I found the book very disappointing as I love a good thriller, and it began so well. But to end on a positive note, I liked the characters (and their nicknames) and the writing was very good and kept me reading to the end. Here are two quotes from a nightmare Eddie was having:

“Something has woken me. No. Correction. Something has wrenched me into wakefulness. I stare around the room. Empty, except no room is ever empty, not in the darkness. Shadows lurk in the corners and pool on the floor, slumbering, sometimes shifting. But that’s not what woke me. It’s the feeling that someone, just seconds ago, was sitting on my bed.”

“The first pile of leaves bursts open and a pale hand claws at the air . . . I stifle a cry. From another pile, a foot emerges and hops out, pink painted toes flexing. A leg shuffles forward on a bloody stump and, finally, the largest pile of leaves erupts and a slim, toned torso rolls out and starts to push itself across the ground like some hideous human caterpillar!”

The entire nightmare takes up a couple of pages and I was truly frightened by it. I enjoyed the book on a lot of levels and I think I would read this author again.

A review: The Chain by Adrian McKinty

I have read a good many books by Adrian McKinty, all of them a series of police procedure thrillers set in the north of Ireland and centred on the detective, Sean Duffy. They were great fun to read.

But here we have a stand alone novel, a new look at the kidnap and ransom trope. You r child is kidnapped; to get her/him back you have to pay a ransom and kidnap another child. When you have done that your child is set free; you free the child you have taken when her/his parents repeat the procedure. This is the chain and you are given to understand that it has been going on for a long time, unknown to the police or the general public.

At the beginning I thought – I can’t read this; I hate anything to do with children suffering in any way but I was intrigued and the narrative drive was so good I decided to read on for a bit. After a while I realised that this could never happen – life and people are too unpredictable, and unforeseen complications would always arise. So I relaxed into the story then, treating it as a puzzle to be worked out.

I found the characters interchangeable, loving desperate parents, cute, clever children; the story is entirely plot-driven and everything depends on whether parents, mothers in particular, are capable of doing ANYTHING for their own child.

To avoid spoilers I won’t give details, but I had many questions regarding the Big Brother aspects of the plot. I couldn’t imagine how the story would be resolved and it was a terrible anti-climax when it arrived. The reason the baddies were caught was far too light considering the heavy material being written about here.

The writing itself was fine and the dialogue was good but the pace just wasn’t right, especially in the last quarter of the book. It was a novel idea though and I think the book should have been a good bit longer with a more thought-out resolution.

I’ll give it 3 stars ***