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review 2018-02-25 15:55
Spin by Robert Charles Wilson
Spin - Robert Charles Wilson

Series: Spin #1

 

I changed my mind. Three stars feels a little too generous for this so I'm going with 2.5.

 

It's a great concept and wanting to find out what had happened kept me reading. Basically, one night all the stars go out and humanity discovers the entire planet has been enveloped in a weird opaque (-ish) membrane that has a simulated sun but doesn't actually let anyone see through it. And somehow Earth's perception of time has slowed way down with respect to the rest of the solar system. So Wilson invokes crazy physics in an interesting way because the general consensus is that some alien race has done this...for reasons.

 

So I really wanted to found out more about these "Hypotheticals" (the aliens) and what they had done to the Earth, but I struggled to get through the book because I didn't actually like any of the characters. Tyler was tiresome, Jason was your sort of typical nerd genius, I got tired of E. D., the abusive father (verbal and mental abuse, not physical) real fast, and I had zero patience for Diane's desire to ruin her life by running off to find religion and marry a controlling husband. Tyler's thing for Diane was more pathetic than romantic, and some of what I would have found way more interesting (the stuff that was happening to Jason) got glossed over near the end because Tyler just wasn't around for most of it.

 

I know Wilson already played the crazy physics card with the Spin membrane but I just couldn't suspend my disbelief very well for the Mars terraforming plan. Mars is just too small for that to work, especially over that kind of time scale. Seriously, you'd lose all the "atmosphere" you liberated unless you repeatedly crashed comets into it, and even then....

 

But I did want to keep reading, which why I debated between 3 and 2.5 stars.

 

Previous updates:

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review 2017-05-02 03:07
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman

This was a reread for me, and it didn't disappoint. I had initially read it years ago as a teenager, so although I remembered roughly what happened, it was a whole new experience. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what to say about it other than it's pretty awesome in a slightly creepy, slightly unsettling way. I just love the way Richard Mayhew falls through the cracks into London Below and the people he encounters there. Marquis de Carabas is the true hero of the story, of course, because he's such an awesome character.

 

I'm counting 215 pages of this book for square #29 for booklikes-opoly, The Monorail, since London definitely has a subway and its subway even features in the book (I rolled this square when I was 36% into the book). This gives me another $3 for my bank, bringing me up to $51. Now onto my next square!

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review 2017-03-06 13:22
The Trophy Child
The Trophy Child: A Novel - Paula Daly

By:  Paula Daly

ISBN: 9780802125941

Publisher: Grove Atlantic

Publication Date: 3/7/2017

Format: Other

My Rating: 3 Stars

 

Paula Daly returns following The Mistake I Made landing on my Top Books of 2015, with her fourth and latest domestic suspense THE TROPHY CHILD with an array of dysfunction and madness, mixed with mystery.

Our favorite DS Joanne Aspinall (from previous books), revisits—always finding herself in the middle of trouble and mischief.

Karen Bloom (achievement-obsessed) is a tiger mom to ten- year-old Bonte. Karen is married to womanizer Noel and does not pay much attention to her stoner son, Ewan, and her teenage stepdaughter, Verity (drug possession). She had to agree to weekly onsite drug tests and counseling sessions.

Of course, Karen compares the other two children, to her precious Bonte. Brontë goes missing, and Karen is, of course, crazy with worry, since her daughter is her life.

Karen did not care that people called her a tiger mom. She was proud of it “It was an easy way to justify their own lazy lives, their own acceptance of mediocrity.”

And Karen was very sorry, but she wasn’t having that for Bronte. It was her duty to prepare her daughter for the life ahead of her in the best way she knew how.

Life was a competition. Only the best and the brightest succeeded, and if that meant Karen had to put her own hopes and dreams on the back burner, while she invested everything she had in Bronte’s future, so be it.

In the meantime, we catch up with Joanne, joining secondchance.com and her share of bad men and dating. She is always good for a few laughs.

Joanne is called in to investigate when Bronte goes missing from Windermere. She soon learns and is shocked to find a connection to Noel. (Seamus-whom she had gone to bed with six nights previously). She had no idea he was married. She had sex with the father of a missing child. Not cool.

Noel is a small-town GP. He had to be careful so as not to run into his patients. There was his first wife, then Karen. Second marriage problems, and stepchildren.

The child returns unhurt, (where was she), but not before Karen has stirred up all sorts of problems and outrage. Then Karen turns up murdered. Not liked by many, did Noel kill his wife? Was she sleeping around? There is a long line of suspects.

Now Joanne must find the killer and figure out what happened to Bronte. Was the same person involved?

A crazy bunch, this was my least favorite of all Daly’s books. I have read all her books and each has been 5-star, except for this one. Too much drama and not enough likable characters, except for Joanne (she is always a spark); however, beginning to question even her choices.

Fans of Liane Moriarty's Big Little Lies may enjoy the dysfunction, drama and dark humor.

A special thank you to Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Source: www.judithdcollinsconsulting.com/single-post/2016/09/03/The-Trophy-Child
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review 2017-01-24 23:30
Fatal
Fatal: A Novel - John Lescroart

By:  John Lescroart

ISBN: 9781501115677

Publisher: Atria 

Publication Date: 1/24/2017

Format: Other

My Rating:  4 Stars 

 

New York Times Bestselling author, John Lescroart returns following The Fall (2015) with a totally different type novel than his norm. FATAL, the unexpected, the deadly consequences of a one-night stand.

As you begin reading you will think you are embarking on another “The Affair” American television series (currently catching up with the last season); however, minus all the continuous down and dirty sex scenes.

Set in San Francisco, a gripping domestic suspense of a woman who chooses a burning desire--to commit adultery-- infidelity, leading to a dark and suspenseful journey. A dangerous web of deceit.

Kate Jameson, age 44 is married to Ron (a lawyer) with two children.

They attend a dinner party and Kate becomes obsessed with Peter, also married. Her best friend is a cop, Beth Tully. They had been friends since college and shared their thoughts. She had warned her not to act on her lustful feelings.

However, Kate does not listen. A one-night stand turns into a nightmare. The lives it touches. Crossing lines. Harmful secrets. Could she go back to normal? Shattered lives. Deadly consequences. Murder.

A gang of terrorists. A shooting. Kate and Beth are wounded, then six months later. Peter winds up dead, plus more.

Be patient, a slow start; however, about 50% the intensity heats up.

 




A shocking stand-alone tale (coming from this author), straying from the usual Dismas Hardy style---writing from a woman’s point of view, a strong driving force which navigates the novel. A different tone than the norm, character-driven, with more sensitivity and relationships between women and men.

Give Fatal a whirl! Lescroart is welcome to lead us down a different path, as long as he leads us back with another Dismas Hardy (coming soon), can’t wait! A superb storyteller (no matter the genre) from the master. Perfect cover!

A special thank you to Atria and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

JDCMustReadBooks

 

Check out the Interview with John! 

 

 

Source: www.judithdcollinsconsulting.com/single-post/2016/06/11/Fatal
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review 2017-01-15 05:26
The Guests on South Battery
The Guests on South Battery (Tradd Street) - Karen White
Tradd Street #5
ISBN: 0451475232
Publisher: Penguin/Berkley
Publication Date: 1/10/2017
Format: Other
My Rating: 4 Stars 
 
The queen of the South, Karen White returns following Flight Patterns (2016) landing on my Top 50 Books of 2016 list and (2014) Return to Tradd Street (Tradd Street, #4) with the continuation THE GUESTS ON SOUTH BATTERY (#5) with more mystery, history, spirits, a twist of paranormal and dark family secrets.
 
"There is always a way to look past the bad to see the good."

Set in the Holy City - historic Charleston, SC, we pick up from the last book with Melanie (Middleton) and Jack Trenholm, settling into marriage with a busy lifestyle and twins, Sarah and JJ (Jack, Jr), and Jack’s daughter, Nola, a sophomore at Ashley Hall. Nola is also interested in a boy named Cooper which Jack must warm up to.

They are the owners of a historic home on Tradd Street (an interesting story from previous books), with its quirks and their dogs. The restless dead had left her along for almost a year as Melanie settled into her new life as wife and mother without the distraction of spirits needing her for something.

Jack is a bestselling author (charming, funny, and irresistible) and Melanie, a successful Realtor, is returning to work after her maternity leave. They are coming up on their first year as parents. Melanie is having a hard time finding and keeping a nanny since she likes things a certain way with her routines. This has been the reason she has been delayed getting back to work, much later than she planned.

Melanie’s first day back, feeling a bit insecure, not having lost all the baby weight, she lands a new client, Jayne Smith from Alabama, who has recently inherited a prominent historic home, the Pinckney mansion. Being an orphan, she is not related to the owner and hates old homes and has never been to Charleston.

She wants Melanie to sell it and find her a new one. Something fresh and new with lots of metal, glass, and stone. Ironically, she is a qualified nanny and does not mind Melanie’s attention to order and details. A match made in heaven.

However, Jayne is not so sure she wants to move into Melanie and Jack’s house since it is also old and historic until she decides about her own living arrangements. However, she soon learns it feels like a home and feels comfortable there.

Melanie and her mom (both with psychic gifts) decide they want to try and discover the past of the house, to warn off the spirits for Jayne to possibly decide to hold on to the home since there was a lot of history. After all, it was on South Battery near the corner of Legare, a huge white house with the portico and columns.

Button Pinckney was an acquaintance of Melanie’s and a good friend of both her mother and mother-in-law. They all went to school at Ashley Hall years ago, and her mom had attended the funeral.

Why would Jayne inherit a home from a stranger? Jayne was raised in the foster care system and was never adopted. Melanie liked her and wants to help. If they can warn off and rid the house of spirits, evil, and ghosts- maybe Jayne will decide to keep the house.

Melanie had a flash of déjà vu, since a man Vanderhorst had left her his crumbling old home that she did not want or need either, not so long ago. She knows all too well about an albatross of a house left to an unsuspecting stranger.

We meet up with Dr. Sophie Wallen-Arasi, professor of historic preservation at the College of Charleston, and Melanie’s mom, Ginette, as well as Melanie’s annoying cousin and Jack’s ex-girlfriend, Rebecca—plus her husband, Marc Longo who stole Jack’s book idea, the story of a disappearance and a murder that occurred in the twenties in her house and made it into a runaway bestseller (with Jack being dropped by his publisher as a result).

An ongoing mystery of the Pickney house. Button never married. She had an older brother-Sumter. He married Anna, another classmate and they had a daughter. She died when she was a child. Anna and Sumter divorced shortly afterward and Anna remained in the house with Button. She died about ten years later. Sumter never remarried and moved to New York after his divorce.

Melanie’s parents have recently remarried and have a good relationship. In the meantime, Melanie lets her old insecurities get in the way making her jump to the wrong conclusions. We also meet up with Detective Thomas Riley and he helps Melanie run a background check on Jayne for the nanny job and he seems to like Jayne. Melanie and Ginette are curious why a generous philanthropist decided to give her entire estate to a deserving orphan.

However, Melanie and Ginette get more than they bargained for with ghosts of the past at the old Pickney mansion. From chilling spirits, haunting ghosts, a cat, a disturbing antique doll, a hanging, a past mental illness, warnings to go away, and desperate cries of help— Jayne, Melanie, and Jayne may have more in common than they may know.
 
Under the mold, falling plaster, spirits of the past, and its sadness, they soon realize there must have been happiness before the tragedy within the walls. It may be worth the chance of a new beginning. Houses are like people. They all deserve a second chance at happiness.

Old secrets which have been buried, all come to the surface. A decades-old mystery to be solved with a shocking conclusion.

As always, Karen White is multi-talented, writing southern women’s fiction, mystery, suspense, paranormal, romance, literary, and historical, crossing many genres. Always love her tales of Charleston and the dark family secrets of the South. I especially loved the reference to Wendy Wax (very cool) —another favorite.

Charleston is such a beautiful city with its historic architecture, and always love catching up with familiar landmarks. Well-crafted and engaging. An intriguing twisty mystery with paranormal elements, enjoy catching up with familiar characters. I enjoy Jack and Melanie’s relationship and the dramas of their lives. If you love history, southern fiction, and ghost stories you will enjoy the series.

Having read and enjoyed all the books in the series, highly recommend them all! In addition to the reading copy, also listened to the audio version (nicely done as always), narrated by Aimée Bruneau, with a charming southern accent.

Looking forward to the next- hoping we hear more about Jayne's mysterious past. 
 
Cannot wait for The Night the Lights Went Out (cover love), Coming April 11, 2017.

A special thank you to Berkley and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

JDCMustReadBooks
Source: www.judithdcollinsconsulting.com/single-post/2016/06/04/The-Guests-on-South-Battery
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