Shadow Days was a tough, but ultimately cathartic, read for me.

The main character is Emily Holt, a widow living in Florida whose sons are away at college. On the anniversary of her husband's death, Emily gives into an impulse to flee. She gets in her car and drives away, wandering aimlessly, until her car breaks down on a winding mountain road. The sheriff's deputy who picks her up takes her to the nearest town -- which happens to be Cedar Hollow. There, Emily begins to find her way out of her complicated emotions, and she also finds a way to tell her sons the truth about their father's illness.

Clayton has created a realistic portrait of a woman with a loved one who's suffering from mental illness. Emily's husband, Greg, was manic-depressive, and she spent the vast majority of her marriage covering for him in one way or another: finding him work, dealing with his behavior and his medical needs, and raising their children pretty much by herself. To compound matters, she strove to shield the boys from all knowledge of Greg's illness.

Without going into detail, I'll just say that I identified with Emily in a lot of ways. I was in tears more than once. And I was heartened that Emily's story might eventually have a happy ending.

Shadow Days is available both on its own, and as part of Clayton's Cedar Hollow omnibus. All four novels are highly recommended, but I think this one might be my favorite.

Dodie Chase is a solitary self-proclaimed geek that has had a crush on her neighbor, Christian Casillo, for a while. The problem is every time they have a chance meeting, she panics and rudely leaves. When she gets called to pick her best friend up at the ER, Christian happens to be coming home from his stripper job and insists on helping her.

I’m not really sure what I expected, but this turned out to be a really great story that I read in one sitting. I loved Dodie’s personality. She felt like a kindred spirit to my own. Christian reminded me of Magic Mike meets Buffy. I liked getting to know him, especially his determination to win Dodie over while saving her and the city. I highly recommend and can’t wait to read more.

**I received an ARC of this story in exchange for an honest review

I received an ARC of 'Strange Days' from Rebecca Royce, in exchange for an honest review.

I didn't even read the description for this book when offered an ARC, I just jumped right in & although at times I was a little freaked out, I thouroughly enjoyed every second of this book. Let me elaborate just a bit, I'm not really a horror fan & there were a couple of scenes that reminded me of a certain clown... but I read on. 'Strange Days' is book 1 in Rebecca Royce's "Shadow Promised" series, it's such an amazing introduction to the series. So there were only moments of the scary clown, compared to the story that weaved itself around those moments, I could handle the clown.

Curvacious, geeky, computer game tech Dodie, has a massive crush on the man next door Christian, a karatee black belt, dancer, cover model... who has a secret life that no women has ever been able to handle. Then the madness hits Austin, murders, heinous crimes... Dodie's best friend is in the hospital after the brutal stabbing of her boyfriend, turning her hair white.

I loved everything in this, well except for the clown, from the characters which I quickly feel in love with, to the storyline, which was fast paced.... throw in the paranormal happenings jumping up every so often & I was HOOKED. I can't wait to read what Rebecca has in store for the next books in the series.

Thank you Trapdoor for providing me with a free copy for an honest review!

A priceless local relic is stolen from Kautokeino, a village in Lapland, that lies in the middle of the isolated snowy tundra. Two reindeer polices, Klemet Nango, an experienced police, and Nina Nansen, fresh from the local police academy, sends out to investigate the crime. Then a local reindeer herder is murdered and Klemet and Nina suspects that the two events are linked to each other.

The Sámis in Sweden, Norway and Finland have during century’s, just like other indigenous populations, been oppressed, and one thing the church did against them was burning their drums, there used to be thousands of them, now there are only 71 documented left.  I have been for years fascinated by the Sámis so that made the experience of reading this book so much greater. Because even though this is a crime novel, it’s also a glimpse into the Sámi world, both the present one and the one the high power was hell bent on destroying, when they sent up people to colonize and make Christians out of the natives.

This book was truly well written, I mean it took me days to get through because I just couldn’t skim any part, because it was so well written and interesting to read. Of course the characters was great even though the police for instance fell into the risk of being stereotypes, bad cop, good cop, a new cop, but I didn't mind that. One character I really came to like was Aslak, the reindeer herder that preferred the old traditional way of herding reindeer instead the modern way with snow scooters.

The only part that I didn’t like was the abrupt ending; suddenly the book was just finished and I wanted more. I hope Olivier Truc writes more books, because this, his debut book was marvelous!

4 ½ stars!

Olivier Truc was born in France in 1964. He has worked as a journalist since 1986, and has been based in Stockholm since 1994, where he is currently the Nordic and Baltic correspondent for Le Monde and Le Point. As a reporter, Olivier Truc covers subjects from politics and economics to social issues like immigration and minorities. He has also produced TV documentaries, including one that portrays a group of Norwegian policemen in Lapland. This is his debut novel.

It has taken some time to read this book but now I'm nearing the ending. But this is the kind of book you really don't want to haste through. I enjoy the characters, the scenery and the story very much.