High Strung, A Glass Bead Mystery by Janice Peacock published by Booktrope Editions is an entertaining mystery. Jacqueline O'Connell, aka Jax, received a house and savings account from her Great-Aunt Rita Haglund. The only condition was that she live in the house in Seattle, Washington and be creative. The house was divided so one side was a rental unit. I gave it four stars.

 

She had a fluffy gray cat named Gumdrop who she thought had psychic powers. When her boyfriend Jerry came home and started bossing her around, she called the attorney and told him that she would move.

 

Val had moved in opposite where Jax lived in her Great-Aunt's house. She had her bead studio in the back of the house. She hadn't thought it was what she would be doing but she was happy.

 

"Val was forever after me to look nice and act pretty. Or was it look pretty and act nice? I could never remember. I wasn't particularly good at either--at least not at the same time."

 

Jax went to Tessa's Aztec Bead shop and came across Dylan McCartney there. "Dylan never seemed to be in a hurry and was always scruffy around the edges. That comes with being a 22-year-old guy. If he’d been in Southern California, I’d have called him a surfer dude. Here in the Pacific Northwest, his T-shirt, flip-flops, and threadbare jeans looked out of place. He never looked like he was cold, but I couldn’t wear so little without freezing to death when temperatures dipped to the 40s outside."

 

I received a complimentary copy from itunes. This did not change my opinion for this review.

Link to purchase: https://www.amazon.com/High-Strung-Glass-Bead-Mystery-ebook/dp/B01GIBQTFY

High Fantasy: (Book Three) (Sci-Fi LitRP...

*I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Jeff returns to continue with the series as narrator. Cool! I've grown to know the voices he's assigned the characters and enjoy the vast cast he can voice in a book with this many characters that speak. Totally mind blowing! It's great to hear. He also has Quantum's personality locked down, along with all the characters we've grown to enjoy. Another amazing job in vocals and audio.

Quantum likes a challenge, like trying to attack and kill with unconventional weapons in the loop. lol. Him and Aiden have a great friendship. I have enjoyed Aiden, aka Morning Assassin from the first book. I'm glad we get to carry on with many of the secondary characters that are created for in games. You wouldn't think they would have personalities, but goodness do they have them. And Quantum's interaction with them brings them to life.

Frances isn't as highly present in this story as previous one. But she still knows how to play Quantum in what needs to be done. In listening to the audio book, we can hear and get the feel of the excitement of Frances on the pain medicines in the hospital. And see her interact with Quantum in the real world. But with her accident and not diving into the loop it opens the opportunity for us to meet and interact with other members of The Dream Team. We do get to spend time with Zedic Woods. Zedic seems rather cool when we meet him. And he's in a band, which we get to "see". I like him thus far.

Oh, the FDA guidelines for foods and drinks. lol. This is terrible. The government regulates types of food and amounts one should eat. Quantum doesn't follow these guidelines and hears about it constantly. It's a continuous battle for him to get what he wants. It would get on my nerves too. I feel Quantum's irritation when he reads these emails as I'm irritated for him.

Other than fighting with the FDA, Quantum seems to be settling into real life. He's not as sassy. He seems to have found the balance in fighting in the Proxima worlds and living. We get to see Quantum interact with more people, and he does well.

I feel we get a closure to one piece of the story with Quantum. With his Proxima world he's lived in for eight years and finding Strata Godsick. This book also leaves open the next mission started here, finding Strata's son. We are left looking forward to the next book with plans of what they are to do.

**** April's Review **** 5 Dreams and Screams
Silicon Valley's rougher than it looks Being a scientist gives Lauren Taylor a purpose in life. At twenty-five, she's the CEO of a billion-dollar biomedical company, Paragon Laboratories. On the brink of a major discovery, Lauren lets nothing interfere with her work. The only thing she's not prepared for? Her overwhelming attraction to Gabriel Betts, the gorgeous and brilliant CEO of another Silicon Valley startup.

Billionaire Gabriel Betts is a successful scientist in his own right. He's made his way in the world by being an early adopter and never losing focus. Captivated by Lauren's brilliance and unselfconscious beauty, he's determined to win the reclusive female CEO over.

But what neither Gabe nor Lauren expect is the white-collar danger that's lurking in Silicon Valley... The danger that threatens not only their companies, but their very existence.

Loved everything about this book. The suspense left me guessing on what was going to happen next. Loved Lauren and Gabe. It like the two of them were meant to be. I really couldn't stand Clive. Can't wait to see what happens next. If you don't like cliffhangers then this book isn't for you? Thanks Netgalley for giving me the opportunity of reading this book.

Great Suspense

Coming from the UK, I don't understand the importance of high school girls wanting to be cheerleaders, but you don't need to know to enjoy this book.
Dakota has started high school and like a lot of girls her age wants to be on the Cheerleading squad. Unbeknown to her there is a sociopath, with their own agenda to get revenge on the school, starting on the cheerleaders.
Sydney has been Dakota's best friend throughout school, but with all the strange incidents going on, their friendship feels the strain.
Amanda is the new kid at the school, living next door to Dakota, they slowly become friends, but with her dysfunctional family and her dating Dakota's ex boyfriend, could she also be the sociopath.
Dakota has to start trusting her new friends and with a new boyfriend tries to find out who is after them.
The main characters are your typical teenagers with their own personal worries, cheerleading, boys, grades but with the added worry of who is going to die. Whilst reading this book, you will not stop yourself trying to guess who the sociopath is. The scenes involving them are written in their POV, which adds more suspense to this book and you know that they are playing with the students like a cat plays with a mouse.
I was surprised at the ending of this book, but is this the ending. No its not, with the author adding another twist, will we know.
This is another great start to the author's new series and the 2nd book is out soon.

High Interest is the first book in The Paragon Series by Leigh James. It's a story that looks into corporate espionage. First, we meet the creator of Paragon, Lauren Taylor. Paragon is biomedical company, that works on producing and testing important devices, many of which Lauren hopes to bring to the world. She doesn't care for the fame or wealth, as long as she has enough to fund her experiments. Gabriel Betts is also a CEO; he runs the successful Dynamica and hopes that they can partner with Paragon.

Lauren is kind of boring and I also feel like she's a hyped up character with little background substance. She has a very stereotypical existence; brilliantly smart with little to bring her down, having created her own biomedical company. Yes, she's meant to be smart, but there's something about the way she's written that makes her seem less so. For example, when Clive Warren is known to be visiting the company, she can't think why he's been doing it. He even said himself that he's considering partnering with the company and wants information about their work, so why can't she or anyone else work out why he might be visiting...? Is it not obvious? Why do she and Gabriel, two supposedly smart people, need to spend so long determining what Clive's doing...? Gabriel Betts, as mentioned just now, is meant to be smart as well. Yet the majority of his existence in the novel is showing off. He doesn't really add anything really intelligent to it, simply showing off his money at every point. My other consideration is that, after only meeting each other twice, Lauren is unnecessarily laughing at Gabriel's comments as if she's trying to impress him. When I say comments, I mean things that aren't even meant to be jokes. It's weird and seems very forced. Not to mention, on their second date, Gabriel is talking about bashing Clive's head in, just for having a date with Lauren. The relationship between Lauren and Gabriel is very forced and neither of them seems likeable. I thought it unfortunate for her that she would want to continue dating him in the first place; threatening violence at such a non-issue is definitely a reason to steer clear of Gabriel. His constant threats to Clive are completely unnecessary.

Other characters also seem lack lustre. Hannah, for example, is Lauren's sister. She's very encouraging and seems to press Lauren into doing things that Lauren doesn't want to do. I wouldn't want to know her if she tries to make people do things that they don't want to do. It also seems like she's riding on her sister's coat tails; in the book, we don't see her do much save for trying to convince her sister to date rich men. Clive Warren is another potential love interest for Lauren, made to look utterly annoying. At first, Clive isn't as bad a person as the author makes him out to be. Yet, for some reason, Lauren makes him out to be a creep. He, like Gabriel, took Lauren out to a meal and made an offer to partner with the company. Yet, the author writes it as if Lauren automatically hates him, even though Clive has done nothing very different than Gabriel has. Until the next day, he didn't really do much wrong in my eyes. It's a double standard, really; we're obviously meant to prefer one male over the other, which (in my opinion) is a poor quality to the story. Yes, Clive did turn out to do something wrong, but those portions weren't written very well. It happens far too quickly and we don't get a lot of the back story of the situation, which is important to creating the scene. For example, we have little knowledge of their prior contact. They were meant to have known each other and then he went to China (he made a joke about taking her back there with him). So, he can't have been that bad of a person if she agreed to a date with him now. So, why is he such a bad person now...? I don't understand what the author is trying to do. Was it because he didn't ask her whether she ate meat or not? Lots of people don't do that...

The book itself has an interesting premise. I appreciate that the author has tried to write people to be intelligent, but that point doesn't really get properly put across. Especially considering that neither Lauren nor Gabriel seems to make very smart decisions. A few examples: spending an entire dinner on trying to figure out something that was completely obvious, Gabriel's constant threats of violence which would simply get him put in prison and accomplish nothing, and Lauren's ignorance to dating and how weirdly she was acting... Like I said, I appreciate the attempt to make smart characters, but these ones are just lacking. The book and basic plot seems kind of reminiscent of other things I've read and lacks a distinct uniqueness. It's a fairly typical dating portion as well; main character dates #1 and it goes well, then dates #2 and (for no reason) it goes badly. #1 (for no reason) wants to harm #2. It's not very original, especially given that there was no reason for either Lauren or Gabriel to initially hate Clive. For improvements, I think it could have all been explained a lot better and to have the work spread across a realistic timeline. There's obviously a lot of information that we're missing and a lot of things that the author didn't make available to the reader. It feels like there's a lot left on the editing room floor, if you catch my drift.

Overall, it's a book that I wanted to like; a book about corporate espionage in a biomedical company...? It sounds great! Yet, neither the characters nor events are very original. Plus, like I've said, there's a lot that just doesn't make sense. I don't think I'll be reading the second book.

I received a free eCopy of this book via Instafreebie and these are my honest thoughts of it.