Week 46: A Hard Landing (book 47)

After a quiet couple of weeks, I've just finished A Hard Landing, by Stephen Leather, which I read as an Ebook. It's a fast-paced thriller and the first in a series of books featuring Dan "Spider" Shepherd - an ex-SAS trooper and now, undercover policeman. The action gets going from the very first page and the tension builds up leading to a big finish! We follow Shepherd on an operation that he thinks has come to an end, but finds himself in prison as a result and is asked to maintain his undercover character while starting a whole new investigation to try and find a mole who is helping a particularly unsavoury drug baron who is on remand inside the same prison. All Spider wants to do is get home to his wife and son, but cannot resist this new case. As more witnesses seem to be disappearing, so making the case against the drug baron become weaker and weaker, the pressure mounts. Can Spider maintain his cover and his sanity and find out what's really going on before the baddie goes free? If it's a thriller you are after that carries you along on the crest of an action wave, then Stephen Leather is for you. A good read, although sometimes a little confusing with huge gaps between the time some of the characters are mentioned again and you find yourself thinking ... who was that, and where do they fit into the story again? But despite this, I enjoyed it - but it's not for the faint-hearted (as you would expect with these types of characters), with a smattering of brutality thrown into the mix. It's such a shame that the rest of the books in the series are not priced as nicely as the first ... but it's a great marketing ploy, price the first one cheaply and get you hooked into the character so that you buy the next!

My star rating: FOUR.

The stats bit:
Length: 384 print pages.
Price I paid: £0.49 (Kindle).
Other formats available in: print; audio (cassette).

Week 44: Timeless love triangles (Book 46)

As if one love triangle wasn’t enough, there are two in The Things We Cherished, by Pam Jenoff, which I read in print. Sixty years ago, in war torn Poland, Roger goes to live with his brother Hans and his wife Magda, who, he discovers is a Jewess. Hans is hardly ever at home, either with his official work, or his secret underground activities trying to save Jews from the concentration camps. In their isolation, Roger and Magda are slowly drawn together, but their lives are torn apart when Magda and her daughter are arrested by the Nazis. Roger is offered the hope of rescuing them by the Gestapo - but only if he betrays his brother.

Fast forward to the present, where Roger is being accused of a war crime – and in a bizarre twist of fate, two brothers, Brian and Jack, enter the arena to defend him. The former asks for extra help in the form of Charlotte, an idealistic public defender, who has had her heart broken by him in the past. Despite her reservations, she jets off to Europe to help with the case and finds herself being sucked into not only the heart-breaking case of Roger and Magda, but also the confusion of feelings that surface following her contact with her former lover and his brother. 

I have to warn you now, there aren’t many laughs in this sometimes confusing but ultimately satisfying tale – but then tragedy and romance are always close allies.

My star rating: THREE


The stats bit:
Length: 288 print pages
Price I paid: £0.00
Other formats available in: Large print, eBook

Week 43 - is kidnapping a goat ever a good idea? (Book 45)

What a cracker of a book I've finished ... Getting Sassy, by D.C Brod, which I read in audio format, starts with a dilemma for our heroine, Robyn ... how is she going to afford to keep her elderly mother Lizzie in the local care home when the money is running out, and she's just not getting enough freelance writing work to cover the expense! Enter her accountant - who helpfully points out the difficulty she already knows she is in. Robyn is then tasked with writing about a new medium in the city, and goes to a seance for research. Thus sets off a train of events that eventually lead her and her mother down a long and twisting path that ends with finding out about her father - a man she had never known. In the meantime, she gets ever closer to her accountant and somehow, they manage to come up with a plan to steal a goat - name of Sassy - and ransom it for money! There is a lot going on in this book, but not to the extent that it confuses or bothers the reader. Full of humour and humanity - the conversations between Robyn and her spiky mother have an authenticity that is refreshing. I highly recommend this book for anyone struggling to take care of an elderly relative, or maybe those who likes goats!

My star rating: FIVE.

The stats bit:
Length: 264 print pages.
Price I paid: £1.95 (on iTunes).
Other formats available in: standard print.    

Week 42 - blog one: A mercy killing (book 44)

I've not been around to blog over the last couple of weeks - what with family visitors and then a trip to France ... but I'm back and have two books to tell you about. In this first blog, I'll talk about Mercy, by Jodi Picoult, which I read in print. I think Jodi Picoult is an author who divides people - you either get her, or you don't. Her books usually contain challenging themes that might not necessarily appeal on first glance, but I do recommend giving her a go. There have been maybe two books that have actually made me cry and also completely taken me by surprise - and one of them was by this author. However, enough general preamble. Mercy is set in a small town in Massachusetts, where the population are almost entirely descended from one Scottish clan, the head of which is also the chief of police. Into this quiet and peaceful town, enters Jamie MacDonald (also a member of the clan) in a pick up truck. Sitting next to him is his wife, his dead wife, who he has just smothered with a pillow to relieve her of what remained of her painful, cancer-ridden life. As Jamie is taken into custody, so begins a legal debate about assisted suicide versus murder ... was this a mercy killing? Not that Jamie cares what happens to him - as his beloved Maggie is no longer with him. Meanwhile, the chief of police is going through a personal crisis of his own - drawn to a woman who is not his adoring wife, but who has a freedom of spirit that he longs for. Is this his chance to break away from the tradition and responsibility of being the head of the clan?

I wouldn't say this is one her best books, but at the same time, the story telling is good - I just didn't quite warm to the characters as much as I usually do. I'd still recommend it - there is always something to recommend in a Jodi Picoult!

My star rating: FOUR.

The stats bit ...
Length: 449 print pages.
Price I paid: £1.00 (from a charity shop)
Other formats available in: Audio CD; Audio Download; Ebook.

Week 40: A story of everyday trolls ... book 43!

Switched (Trylle Trilogy, Book 1) by Amanda Hocking stars Wendy, a troubled teenager (when aren't they), who never seems to be able to settle in one place. Mind you, it's not surprising when we find out that her Dad walked out before she could really remember him, and her Mum tried to kill her on her sixth birthday - screaming that she was not her child, but a changeling. Not the most auspicious of starts a girl could have. Her two constants are her protective older brother Matt, and her fabulous Aunt, who raised her in a loving environment. One day, a new boy appears at her school - and he keeps staring at her. Should she be flattered, or creeped out? At the school dance, she starts to feel something for this boy, but when he appears at her house in the middle of the night and starts to tell her that she is not human and was swapped for one as a baby and now needs to come away with him back to her own kind ... she is, well, as you would imagine, weirded out! And so begins a surprisingly enjoyable trip into troll- (or trylle-) dom, where Wendy starts to find out who she is and is amazed to find out how important she is to her kind! This is a mixture of all sorts of genres - coming-of-age, fantasy, thriller, teen-romance - to name but a few. There was a good pace to the book and I did start to root for Wendy as she struggled to come to terms with who she is, but can't help being drawn back home to the people she loves and is loved by. Whilst this book is no doubt aimed at a much younger audience than myself (my teens were a very, very long time ago), I can still remember the angst of being awkward and not knowing what your place was going to be in the world, and whether I would find true love ... ah, the memories! This is the first of a trilogy and I hope to dip back in and find out where it goes - as long as the price is right. I read this as an Ebook - and even though there were a few errors (words missing for instance) it didn't detract from the book.

Amanda Hocking should be a bit of an inspiration to budding authors everywhere and a Kindle hero - she has self-published her books on the Kindle at very low prices (not anymore!), but built up a quick following and is now a multi-millionaire. A film of Switched is planned too!

My star rating: THREE and a HALF

The stats bit ...
Length: 306 print pages (not available until 2012)
Price I paid: £0.49 (but notice that it's now £4.79 on the Kindle store)
Other formats available in: paperback in 2012

Week 39: Good as Dead - Book 42

Phew, at last, a real bowl-along thriller that didn't require a huge amount of thought, but after the last few books, I really needed it! Good as Dead, by Mark Billingham which I read in print, features DI Tom Thorne - a London police officer with a chequered personal history (would we expect anything else!), but who usually "gets his man". When police officer Helen Weeks pops into her local newsagents on the way to work, she is stunned to find herself face to face with a gunman - and is taken hostage. The hostage-taker is desperate to find out what really happened to his son, who died in a youth prison the year before. His demand ... DI Thorne must investigate the death and uncover the truth. The pressure is on - can Thorne get to the bottom of this tragic case before the father completely loses control? And will he even be able to handle what might become a very uncomfortable truth? If you like a crime thriller - then you can't go far wrong with the DI Thorne books. Mark Billingham seems to have finely tuned his writing and is turning out one great book after another - books that you want to keep reading and are disappointed when they come to an end. Highly recommended.

My star rating: FOUR STARS.

The stats bit:
Length: 394 print pages.
Price I paid: £0.00 (borrowed from a friend)
Other formats available in: Unabridged audio download; Ebook (Kindle).

Week 38: An unusual philosphical epic ... in Oz!

I have just finished my 41st book -  A Fraction of the Whole, by Steve Toltz, which I read as an audiobook. It is an epic - telling the life story of Martin Dean ... the most hated man in Australia, who is the brother of Terry Dean ... the most loved man in Australia. How did two brothers become the polar opposite on the popularity stakes? Well, as the book unfolds, we find out in graphic detail about the Dean family, from before the brothers were born to their deaths. Told from two perspectives - Jasper, the much put upon and regularly bewildered and disgusted son of Martin, and from Martin himself. The use of two excellent narrators to voice each of these two works fabulously. Full of philosophical musings (and the odd rant), with Jung, Frome and others all in the mix - we journey through a lifetime of lows and disappointments, with the odd highpoint thrown in to prevent you from complete despair. Despite the often desperate (and usually self-inflicted) situations Martin finds himself in - there are an amazing number of laughs and chuckles smattered throughout. It is a long, long book - and there are some tricky sections to plough through, but it is definitely worth the effort. Not for the faint-hearted (language, violence and general seediness are to be found!), this is a book that will stay with me, despite having a central character that you just want to slap. It's a book about life - luckily, someone else's life - but the core themes of relationships - siblings, fathers and sons, mothers and sons, wives and girlfriends - are thing any of us can related to. I'll miss the Dean family - and I never though I would say that.

My star rating: FOUR

The stats bit:
Length: 720 print pages (around 26 hours in audio)
Price I paid: £7.99 (via my monthly download from Audible)
Other formats available in: Print; EBook; Audio CD.