Pierce Brown: Red Rising

In his debut novel Pierce Brown takes the reader to Mars, where the human traits of wealth and corruption have followed the inhabitants all the way from Earth:

The Earth is dying, so the human race had to find other planets to colonize in order to insure the survival of the human race. Mars was one of the planets that was chosen to be colonized, but there was a lot of work that needed to be done before it could be colonized. Darrow, is a Red, a miner in the interior of Mars. The Reds' mission to extract enough of a precious element that helps make the surface of Mars habitable so that the human race can survive there. It is the Reds' that are helping to ensure the future of the human race and for a few hundred of years they have been living a lie. Mars has been habitable for several generations of people all of whom who have been using the Reds' as slaves. Darrow may not have been one to make push for changes on Mars, but heartbreak can make an individual do anything to see vengeance through and so begins Darrow's journey.

When I first started reading this book I thought that it was going too sci-fi for me with all the different terms, machines, that I was actually thinking of putting the book down and moving on but holy crap I'm so happy that I stuck through this book. Brown did a really good job at world building and creating the life and structure of where Darrow lived on Mars. I also liked how Brown showed the world through Darrow's eyes and learning with him the strange people, things and places that he has never been before as well as the final testing grounds. I liked the medieval twist that Brown was able to put into the novel, which kind of more familiar ground for reading material for me and it was a great counter to the sci-fi world that the book is set in. It was also in this medieval setting that Brown took the book to a darker place than I thought it would go. From rape to maiming to fighting dirty, even torture Brown does not hold back on the dark side of human nature. Although Brown does not go into great description of these events you know what is happening. It was a surprise that Brown went as dark as he did and I liked that he did. This made the book much more of an adult novel than a YA book in my opinion.

It was interesting that through all the technology that has been created over the years, humans are still like to divide themselves into a caste system, greed rules their lives and everything is about power. However, I found the weeding process that the Golds have to perform really interesting, unexpected and once again a lot darker than I thought Brown would go. It was also interesting that they do try to learn from the past and what caused other great nations to fall. They mentions the Roman Empire more than once.

Although Darrow is 16-18 years old within this novel he is portrayed more as an adult, as he has already worked for many years of his life, has is own home as well as a wife. He has had more life experience than any of the Golds that he runs into later in the story. I became enthralled with Darrow's story and the pain both physical and emotional that he has to endure through the book. You can tell that Darrow is a survivor even when he is not making the best decision, he wants to survive. Darrow grows as a character throughout the book as he is constantly learning from his mistakes and those of others.

Another character I was really interested in was Sevro. I felt like he was never a Gold as you can tell by the way he acts and the tasks that he takes upon himself to achieve for Darrow. Darrow could not ask for a better ally in this fight especially when it seems like Sevro has not limits to what he will do or try. He is basically a guerrilla army in himself, so basically awesome in my books.

I am so happy that I continued on reading this book, it was great, imaginative and Brown did an excellent job getting the reader to become invested in Darrow and his struggle and story. Highly recommended read for those who like the sci-fi genre and for those who want to try it out as it get less sci-fi and more medieval-ish later on in the book. I'm looking forward to reading the next book.

Enjoy!!!

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Jeff Altabef: Shatter Point

Jeff Altabef takes the reader to the future where new drugs are being developed, the city is more of a caste system and there is always someone who wants to rule it all:

Normally I would write a premise here about how I think the book should be portrayed and sometimes it is similar to the author's but other times it is not. With this book I do not know how to write a premise for this book and I guess that would start the beginning of the issues I had with this book...

I think that Altabef tried to put too much into this book, struggled to connect everything together and for me keep me entertained throughout. I personally got bored about half way through, I just kept waiting for something more to happen but it felt like it never was going to, almost like the book and plot had already hit its peak. Altabef could have separated this into two separate books that could have had some commonalities, but had different focuses, on for the government/fourteenth colony and the other one on Cooper. I say this as while the premise sounded interesting (it is what drew me to this book), I almost feel cheated in some instances. I wanted more time with Cooper and his sadistic nature which is what the premise is about but very little about this in the book. I found it was more about EFB-22 and fourteenth colony than it was about Cooper and Maggie.

I'm not sure why the author felt he had to place this plot in the future could have taken place today with very few changes and often I forgot that they were in the future, as there was not much different from today. I personally just read it as taking place today as I do not think that Altabef was very innovative about his world building about the future.

 

I thought that when Jack was given EFB-22 he would gain some sort of super human powers and while his hearing appears to have improved and he becomes sensative to light (maybe some night vision is kicking in, but we never really get that far), he really is more of a hindrance than help in most of the situations. Really his brother Tom who is a black belt in jiu jitsu is more useful than Jack ever is in the story and I really question introducing EFB-22 into the story as that storyline never really adding anything to the story other that Altebef's attempt to bring the two intersecting storylines together.

I think my main problem with this book is I never felt any type of connection with the characters either good or bad. They were just there and maybe Altabef tried to have too many points of view or too many characters but it has been awhile where I have felt nothing for even one character in the book.

I found out after reading this book that there is one before it called The Fourteenth Colony, maybe if I would have read that one it would have had some of the threads already figured out. However, I read some other reviews who said this one could be read as a stand alone, so I'm not really sure what to think. All I know is that Altabef has some good ideas in this book, but I think that he had too many and it became a challenge to put everything together that I as the reader got bored with what was occurring. I was hoping there would be more about Cooper and his sadistic serial killer ways, as that is how I read the premise. This book was just not for me.

Cheers!!

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Alex Marwood: The Killer Next Door

Alex Marwood takes the reader to a boarding house and one event will bring the tenants closer together but they will also realize how very little they know about each other:

Everyone who lives at 23 Beulah Grove has a secret and this is just the place that Collette needs to be to hide from the men and police that are chasing her. She needs a place where keeping a secret comes natural to the six tenants of the boarding house. But one of the residents has the ultimate secret that can never be found out. When a strange series of events push the tenants close together, hiding all of their secrets is about to become impossible and some secrets are worth killing for.

This is the first book that I have read by Marwood and I was really impressed with her writing style, plot and different take on psychological thriller/serial killer novel. Although the premise of this book makes it seem like Collette is the main character within this book, she is not, all of the tenants of the boarding house have their parts to play. This mean that the book has multiple points of view, basically one for each tenant in the building, and each of them has a story and history they are trying to get away from. It is through these point of views that you try to figure out which of them is the killer and based upon the information you get from the killer's point of view or The Lover as he likes to call himself this really narrows down the suspect pool for the reader. I think the most interesting part of this book is that none of the tenants within the apartment building  realize that there is a serial killer living in the building and makes you realize that you don't really know who your neighbours are along with a very creepy landlord.

I truly mean Creepy Creepy landlord, Roy, who watches everything that his tenants do and in their most privates moments. He also has the personality of a slug (and the shape too) as he walks through the halls and tries to intimidate his renter into paying more as he discovers that they are running from something. I especially feel sorry for Cher who is an young teenager girl who has run away from a horrible foster situation but Roy would love to sample what she is trying to sell on the streets, so he continually jacks up her rent in the hope that she cannot pay. As I said creepy. As I'm not one for sex scenes so I'm really not going to like masturbation scenes and I found that this one had too much description attached to it especially when you take into account the shape that Roy is in, made it downright disturbing. This book makes me really glad that I am done living in a condo or apartment buildings.

I was really intrigued when Marwood brought in the mummification techniques that The Lover would do to his ladies. Marwood is very detailed in what The Lover would do from the oils he used to keep his ladies' skin from flaking away to the way in which he removed the organs to keep them from decomposing further. Additionally, you get to learn what happens to a body when he decides that he no longer likes one of his ladies and how that can do damage to the sewer system and I would not want to be there when the sewer decides to back up.

I was able to figure out who the Lover was before it was revealed by the author, but as much as this book is about a serial killer it really is not. It is about how little we know people in our life and no one is really who they seem to be, well except for the landlord, he was one creepy man and he was portrayed that way. Although this was not quite what I expected I still found the I enjoyed this book, but it wasn't the thriller or as scary it was portrayed to be (though I will say that there are other reviewers out there that found it scary and even Steven King thought it was scary). I would read another book by Marwood, as I liked her writing style an her different take on a mystery/thriller book, I'm going to check out her debut novel Wicked Girls.

Enjoy!!!

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Hailey Edwards: Dog With a Bone

In the first novel in a new series, Hailey Edwards explores just how far people will go to have some part of the Fae:

Thierry is a half blood, half Fae half human and she is really only given two choices become a marshal and enforce the Fae laws or go back to human society. Thierry doesn't really have much of a choice as she is a special type of Fae, where her powers are not completely understood, but she can cause a lot of damage. Fresh out of the academy Thierry is about to get the case of a lifetime and she is going to have to rely on her partner Shaw more than she would like to admit but this case is way bigger than her and Shaw, and Thierry is about to learn that the Human side of her is where the monsters really lie.

When I requested to read this book on Netgalley I did not realize that this book was going to only be 100 pages. Contrary to what some people believe it is actually harder to write a short story than a regular pocket book as there is so much that the author needs to achieve in a lot fewer pages. I will say that Edwards succeed on a few fronts but not all. I think she was able to create a world that I understood (for the most part) in which the humans do not know about the Fae and that some Fae even consider humans food. They have their own form of government and police themselves. Perfect I understand that part of the world, though i'm not sure how the whole half blood thing happened as humans are kind of seen as taboo, but i guess forbidden fruit kind of thing maybe. Edwards also did a good job in introducing and reinventing different types of Fae. I'm not sure 100% what some of them were but quite a few of them sounded really different interesting and cool and there was a whole spectrum of what they look like, I hope that Edwards is able to keep that up in future books.

I think that Edwards had a great idea for a story but was unable to execute it to the fullest extent as the book was short. I felt like everything was rushed and maybe Edwards tried to put too much in the book. I never felt like I got to know the main character Thierry, Shaw and the history that they have together. I know they are paired up because Thierry's magic won't work on him but that is never fully explained. The power that we are able to see Thierry use is bad-ass, but that is also not fully explained or why she is such a rare Fae. I also felt that the mystery aspect was rushed as well, and a little too well laid out for Shaw and Thierry to the point where they seemed to be the only investigators that could get it done and were just too lucky with the information the received.

There were dark aspects of this novel that I was surprised were there as at the beginning of the book I thought it was going to be a paranormal romance with a bit of mystery which is kind of true but the mystery went a lot darker than I thought it would. It seems like every moment that Shaw and Thierry can spare (and there are quite a few considering it is an active investigation) is about their relationship and if they should have one or how Shaw is making Thierry feel weak in the knees. I kind of got sick of this by the end of the book.

I really liked the darker elements that Edwards was able to put into her story, but for me there was a little too much of the romance in the storyline for me, but those who like paranormal romance will probably like it. I think if the book would have been longer the romance aspect would not have been so condensed and I also think she could have developed her characters more. It was good first try, but I think it still needs work and maybe will improve with the next book.

Cheers!!

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Michael Koryta: Those Who Wish Me Dead

Michael Koryta takes his reader to the vast wilderness of the Montana Mountains where death can come at natures hand at any moment but this time, nature is not the most deadly thing on the mountain:

Jace Wilson is swimming in a quarry when he comes across a dead body where there is no question that the individual has been murdered. While trying to escape the quarry and the body he becomes aware that there are people headed towards him and he witnesses a murder committed by the Blackwell brothers. Jace it put into witness protection, but they need to place him some place special as those who can afford the Blackwell brother's services have fingers in all type of law enforcement. With a new identity Jace is enrolled in a wilderness skill summer program where only the witness protection officer knows he is there. Ethan and Allison Serbin who run the program each summer know why one of the boys is there but have no idea which one he is. Ethan takes the job seriously of protecting the boys, but the Blackwell brothers have no issue with slaughtering people in order to find out where Jace has been hidden. With a trail of bodies behind them they are on their way to Ethan and Allison's ranch and nothing is going to stop them from taking care of Jace or any one else who stands in their way, permanently.

This is the first book that I have read by Kortya, actually I had never even heard of him before this book and I don’t know why. This book was great and a high grade thriller novel with twists and turns that you will not see coming. I know I was surprised more than once throughout Koryta's novel and I did not want to put it down. I like that Koryta has the ability to let his characters questions themselves, get hurt and yes even die off. I always like an author that is able to take risks with his characters and that made me love every minute of this book. Just a great read all around.

The Blackwell brothers are very scary assassins they are the type that you higher when you want something done and have no fear of emotion coming to play into it. That mens everyone is a target for them; men, women, children all are fair game. They are emotionless creatures(?) and the way they would talk in that monotone voice like their victim was not even there just lets you know how serious they are about the wet work that needs to be done and the victim also realizes that there fate has been sealed. The brothers are some of the best killers I think that I have ever read in a book. The way they have their murders planned (or think on the fly), the torture they decide to use, to never being able to look at them both at the same time, they are masters at the art of death. I think the brothers were my favourite part of the book and plot that Koryta wrote.

There are a few main characters in this book therefore, there are multiple points of view throughout the book. The main views are that of Jace Wilson, Ethan and Allison Serbin and later on in the book Hannah Faber. Jace is a 13 year old boy who is trying to be tough but you can tell underneath that he is just a scared boy, but when survival is at hand especially his own survival he tries to think like a man. He does have some 13 year old moments in the book, but he needs to as after all he is just a kid.

Allison Serbin is an one tough lady and the sacrifices that she makes within the book are amazing and I question whether I would be able to be as strong as her. Ethan was an interesting character as he struggled to do what was right not only for Jace but also to protect his wife and often in order to do both they were at odds with each other. He had some hard issues to deal with and you can tell that he is mentally strained by the end of the book by continually trying to do what is right. We don't get to know Hannah too well, but we do get a glimpse to her past and why she is manning the fire station, I think that Hannah is an interesting character but not as developed as the other due to her less page time and really most of her life is based around fire and fighting fire.

This is the first book that I have read by Koryta and I know that it will not be the last. I enjoyed every minute of reading this book and I look forward to discovering his other reads. Really well written, well thought out plot, with twists and turns you will not see coming, as a reader you really cannot ask for more. One of the best thrillers I have read in a long time.

Enjoy!!!

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Amanda Carlson: Red Blooded

As this is the fourth book in Amanda Carlson's Jessica McClain series you are going to want to read the first three books in this series first; Full Blooded, Hot Blooded and Cold Blooded.

Jessica McClain's life is about to go to Hell, literally. Her brother has been kidnapped by the Prince of Hell and has told Jessica that the only way to get him back is to come get him herself. Hell has it's own creatures, rules and landscapes that Jessica is going to have to transverse in order to save her brother and this time she is on her own with who knows when help will come. Jessica may just find out what it is like to live eternally in Hell.

There are times in every series where you start to question if you are going to continue on in them or not. Book two Hot Blooded was my favourite book and the books since then have only been just okay for me. Now we are in the fourth book in the series and I wonder how I got here and how much Jessica changed as a character. I may be the minority here but I preferred the first half of this book when Jessica is travelling through Hell on her own. I find when Rourke is in the picture he is way to over protective and Jessica is basically forced to take a back seat to him. I understand that she is his mate but times it seems like all he sees her as is good for sex. Wen Jessica is by herself or in this case with Lily she is forced to make her own decisions and fight which I found missing in the latter half of the book. Rourke for me takes the spark out of Jessica as a character, one which I really loved in the beginning of this series.

 

When you have your character enter Hell I guess as an author you get to decide which way you are going to take it; the conventional Hell of dark doom and gloom or do you try to redefine Hell. I'm not a 100% sure which way Carlson was trying to go. The Hell landscape and description she created was creepy but never scary (as in I never want to visit there) but the demons who reside there are forced to glamour themselves to look human, not so scary if you ask me and possible a lack of imagination on that front. What I found interesting about the Hell that Carlson created was the caste system and the business like ventures that the demons enter into, but still not scary. As well as the preferred eating choice of the demons, some piglet type thing be alive when they eat it; still creepy and kind of gross but not scary. I personally want Hell described to me as the most desolate place you could ever go to and have the hair on the back of my neck stand up as the scariness and horror of the place freaks me out. Maybe the UF genre is not the place for this type of Hell, but I think if you are going to bring your characters to Hell maybe you are transporting out of that genres in a way.

One character that I really want to know more about and his transformation is Ray. He seems like a completely different character from the first book in this series in more than one sense. I like the way he has changed and I am interested in knowing more about his power as a reaper.

This is not my favorite book in the series, and like I said above I prefer when Jessica is out of reach of Rourke as I find he hinders Jessica as a character. I know there is another book in this series, and I debate whether I will continue on or not. I've come to the point where I hope that Carlson can recapture what she had in the first and second book, but I'm beginning to have my doubts.

Cheers!!!

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