Shirley Jackson and her husband had four kids. Apparently her deep understanding of the human psyche extends just as well into humor as it does into horror.

Personal copy

I've finished the bit I love best, that starts "We are all of us, in our family, very fond of puzzles."

It's three card monte on the page, which is a really challenging bit of sleight-of-hand, what with the ability of the reader to slow down the action and go back over it just as carefully just as many times as one wants. I had misremembered that it was a pillow lost, but otherwise it was as good as I remembered.

I have chosen wisely with my Christmas book gift card.

The first chapter wastes no time setting up the situation and introducing the characters seamlessly. By the second chapter, the creep factor is already seeping in and escalates from there.

A group of people are stranded on an island after their ship sinks followed by getting thrown out of their life raft by a big wave against a reef from a second storm. They have to survive but not everyone got on the island ok.

It could use an edit for occasional awkward language or wrong form of words (bare instead of bear) but it's mostly well written. Gotta wonder where writers get character names sometimes. Dallas and Quinn? Really?

Despite the occasional hiccups, it's an engrossing story and kept my attention. The personalities of the characters develop along the way and only a couple of them border on the cliche, but basically they encourage sympathy and there were a few I hoped would survive.

There's a transition that I thought happened a little too suddenly where the title earns its name and some supernatural elements, but mainly it's a story about people who get some things right and some things wrong in their efforts to survive. There's some intense action at the end and an outcome that fits the story.

Overall I thought it was a good read for the genre.

No matter what other reviewers say about a particular author or story it may not be to my liking...and unfortunately, although I do normally enjoy the writing of Greg F Gifune, this  was a rather poor offering. I usually associate his work with the darker side of relationships and family life( good examples being Saying Uncle and Gardens of Night) however I found Savages reminded me somewhat of" Predator" where a group of soldiers are sent on a rescue mission and a technologically advanced form of extraterrestrial life secretly strikes and hunts down the group. In Savages 7 friends are lost at sea when they encounter a small uninhabited island and hope that by resting here they can survive until the "cavalry" arrives. An entity decides that he does not welcome this intrusion and so this evil monstrous predator proceeds to remove those poor defenceless trespassers. A formulaic story, pleasant to read but totally unoriginal.

** I received a free copy through NetGalley in exchange for a honest review**

The story of Breen and Drakkone was interesting. I love the tribesmen with their way of life, they ideals and the fact that they would do anything to protect their people. I love the main idea behind the Academy, taking "savages" to make them fight for the Empire. I think it was a great subject to explore.

The first part of the story is about Breen, how she is taken from her tribe and made to fight for the Emperor. Breen is strong and does not want to break, but it is difficult, she wants to give up. Until she meets Drakkone who seems to want to help her. She is wary but she soon starts to develop feeling for him. Their relationship was evolving way too fast for my taste, I did not really enjoy that fact. There is also another event that felt really unecessary for me, but I won't mention it because of spoilers.

I enjoyed this part of the book. It was interesting to meet these people and see how strong Breen can be, even if in the end, she is only human and cannot stomach everything.

Part two is about another character (you will discover who she is by reading the story). I did not really enjoy it. I felt like a big part of the story was unexplained. I do not really know what was happening with Nina, why she had these powers, what the powers really were etc. I don't know if it was on purpose or if it is because I did not read the first book (it is the second book in the series, but it does not seem to follow the same characters so I'm not sure of what I miss).

I did not really connect with any of the characters either.

In brief, I enjoy reading this story but not more than that. It was not bad, but it was not great either. Still, I recommend reading it if you want something a bit exotic.