All Fall Down

by Julie Coulter Bellon
Book 1 of Hostage Negotiation Team

My TBR List -- November Winner!
See Other My TBR List Reviews (link coming soon) @ Because Reading

I read this book as part audio and part Kindle book, though towards the end, it ended up being mostly audio as I found myself listening to it while playing computer games.  It was very easy to just lose myself in a book while playing mindless computer games.  It was a good evening, well spent.

Anyway, the audio book is narrated by Simon Pringle-Wallace, and was actually done quite well once I got used to his voice.  Since the majority of the characters were male, it was easier to get used to his voice once you get past his softer voice for Claire.

But enough of that.

Book-wise, even though I DID enjoy the book, it still seems, sort of, like I'm in the minority of opinions about it.  While it was exciting, fast-paced, and enjoyable enough, there were still things about All Fall Down that didn't quite work out for me, mainly the events at the beginning.  I haven't been able to really pinpoint why, but that some of the actions and events didn't seem to make much sense to me.

Even so, having great characters helps the book.  All Fall Down is bite-sized and flew by before I knew it.  Once the action got started, everything just kind of fell into place.

We already get to see a bunch of side characters, many of whom will probably be getting their own book.  At the same time, the introduction of all these characters doesn't seem awkward or forced.  And while I did like Claire and Rafe just fine, I felt like they were fairly standard as a main couple for a romance novel; though, to be clear, that doesn't take away from the fact that both are great characters.  They just don't really stand out.

Very enjoyable, though not much more unique than any other romantic suspense outside of being about a hostage negotiation team, which is a premise I haven't come across in other romantic suspense books yet.  HOWEVER, I have been introduced to this concept in an old Hong Kong television drama series, which I very much enjoyed, which is why I'd been drawn to the concept of All Fall Down in the first place.

I will definitely find the time to continue this series.


***

2016 Reading Challenges:
• Goodreads Reading Challenge
• BookLikes Reading Challenge
• Reading Assignment Challenge
• Bookish Resolutions Challenge
• Mount TBR Challenge

Last week, the books I had everyone vote on were:

My Lady, My Lord by Katharine Ashe
All Fall Down by Julie Coulter Bellon
Whirlpool by Elizabeth Lowell

The voting was actually an extremely close one as the week went by.  Whirlpool had a very strong start, being ahead of the other two books for a short duration of time before the votes started coming in rapid-fire soon after.  And surprisingly, All Fall Down had been the book to start the race with the fewest amount of votes on the first day.  Then all of a sudden, it shot past My Lady, My Lord and ended up right up there next to Whirlpool.

I would say that they left My Lady, My Lord in the dust, but truth be told, it only lost by one vote.  One more vote in that direction and I'd end up with a triple-tie!  then I'd have to invoke special powers of the BFF vote (essentially that would involve begging my best friend to pick one of three books).

As it is, with a simple tie, I will be using my special admin powers (pfft, admin powers) to make a decision between the two winners.  But pretty much, my decision will be that I will read both books, since I need two Reading Assignment books to read this month anyway, but that Whirlpool will be the book I post as the My TBR review on the last Saturday this month.  My decision is based on the fact that Whirlpool had been at the front of the vote since the start of this.

But I WILL also mention All Fall Down as one of the two winners as well.

Again, thank you to everyone for voting!

Coming up next for the My TBR List:

• 11/26:  Review of the winning book, Whirlpool by Elizabeth Lowell
• 12/3:  Next Month's My TBR List Voting

***

See Also: My TBR List -- November 2016 Voting

And the TBR List Voting is back at Ani's Book Abyss!  For the past two months, I'd been happily buried books with a delightful seasonal bookish activity, Halloween Bingo 2016, so knowing my own ability to juggle too many things at the same time, I chose to skip this monthly meme for that time.  But now I'm rejoining the fun of this.

I had a lot of different themes I wanted to pick for the next few My TBRL months, but what really stood out to me was the fact that the end of the year is drawing near... and I'm running out of options for my Reading Assignment Challenge.  And since I actually DID flounder about what books I wanted to read for November's Reading Assignment, I figured that My TBRL was the best way to decide for me what to read.

The November Reading Assignment edition of My TBR List includes three of the remaining eight Reading Assignment books on my 2016 list.  Since I'm really supposed to read four books each month, I might just end up reading also, the book with the second highest number of votes; I already picked two other books (though those choices are always subject to change as well).

My Lady, My Lord by Katharine Ashe
-- Book 1 of Twist series

Whirlpool by Elizabeth Lowell

**For BookLikes members reading this in the BookLikes dashboard view:  Click here to generate the voting box on another page if you would like to vote.  I don't know why the voting box doesn't show, though it appears in blog view just fine.

**For everyone else voting via BookLikes blog view or at the Book Abyss's Blogspot home:  You may ignore the above tangent.  The voting box shows just fine.

Again, thank you for stopping by and voting!

Previous My TBR List months at Ani's Book Abyss can be found at the Bookish Memes page.