Tag: author

Blood Memory Book Review

February 12, 2016

Title: Blood Memory
Author: Perrin Briar
Genre: Post-apocalyptic, paranormal

BloodMemoryEP1This book is about a group of people out at sea who’ve survived a zombie apocalypse but realize that they are running out of food and need a new alternator for their boat.  They see a ferry in the distance and decide to see if they can take the alternator from it knowing that there could still be living zombies on that ferry.

This was an okay story.  It was easy to read and had some enjoyable action scenes.  World building wasn’t so bad.  It was basically around the sea and the boat but I got a good feel for it.  What it lacked was pacing and character development.  The story moved from one thing to another pretty fast and moved in steps which was unrealistic and predictable.  Character development was minimal.  Right up front we learn their names and age and a sentence or two of their characteristics but aside from that there was hardly any personality or depth.  Dialogue was a bit cheesy and didn’t really add to the characters.

Overall, I’d say read this book if you want a taste of zombie apocalypse.  It’s a short read and as mentioned earlier moves along at a pretty fast pace.

Note: This book was given to me to read and review by the author’s publicist.

Neverhome Book Review

February 5, 2016

Title: Neverhome
Author: Laird Hunt
Genre: Historical Fiction

NeverhomeThe book is about a wife who leaves behind her husband to be a soldier for the Union army during the Civil War.  It is written in the first person through her eyes.  She gets captured and jailed by the Confederates but she outsmarts them and escapes.  Then she gets betrayed and thrown into an asylum by the Union where she’s tortured.  So much happens to her that she doesn’t know whom to trust anymore.  There is humor and sarcasm and great details of war.  The prose is wonderfully done.  The author did amazing research work creating true to life characters and atmosphere.

At first I was hesitant to read this story because when I read the synopsis, and it mentioned the Civil War, I just wasn’t ready to read into that part of history again, even if it was a fiction story.  But, what intrigued me was the fact that women went into the war secretly in disguise.  I wanted to know how they were able to do it and so the journey with this book began.

I find it odd that I never learned about this part of American history throughout my schooling.  I was very touched by it all that I felt compelled to do additional researching.  Not only were the women brave in making this choice but so many young boys (not even men yet!) fought for the emancipation of slaves in the South.  Over 620,000 lives were taken.  I think there could have been another way.  Not war.  Not all those lives.  It tears at my heart.

Overall, this was a wonderful read.  I cried and laughed and I came out with a whole new respect for the women who fought in the Civil War.  The only downside to this book was that it was too short.  I would have loved an additional 300 to 400 pages.

A quote from the book:

“You stand in a line in your bright blues with your filthy face and your lice and all the dead you now know and get shot at regular, your thinking takes a change.  You get to where you can do things you couldn’t have dreamed up the outline of before.”

The Infinite Sea Book Review

January 22, 2016

Title: The Infinite Sea (2nd book in The 5th Wave Trilogy)
Author: Rick Yancey
Genre: Sci-fi, apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic, dystopian, paranormal, YA

theinfinitesea[Side note] Today is the opening of the movie, The 5th Wave, and I wish I could go see it today but I’ve got a busy schedule.  I hope to get my chance sometime next week.

This is the second book to The 5th Wave trilogy.  This book delves deeper into Ringer.  She was not a main character in the first book and we only got to see a little piece of her at the military camp.  She came across as someone who added depth to another character. She was portrayed as mysterious, tough, and excellent with weapons, but otherwise there wasn’t much to her.  In The Infinite Sea, we get to see her weakness.  We get to be inside her brain and understand who she really is.

The story begins with the cast: Cassie, Ben Parish and his buddies from the camp including Ringer.  Ringer leaves their hideout and gets captured and returned to the camp where she is inserted with a head device and gets alien data downloaded into her brain.  Part of the download included some superpowers which allowed her to see in the dark and heal quickly from injuries.  In essence she becomes a carrier of alien knowledge, alien control, and super strength.  This “upgrade” to Ringer was Commander Vosch’s plan to use her to track down Evan Walker.  Evan is the guy Vosch wants.  This becomes an alien vs. alien thing.

There is a lot of action and suspense throughout the book.

I enjoyed this book just as much as the first book but there were a few things that I felt could have been explained better/deeper such as:

  1. Ringer’s character.  Even though we got to read from her first person, I didn’t feel that I could relate or even understand her.  There was back story to her past but it just didn’t feel very strong.  It didn’t feel believable.
  2. The upgrade to Ringer could have been explained better. I guess I wanted to know more about how she felt.  She had fevers and physical pain but it lacked emotional pain.  She had this “so what” attitude as if she accepted whatever was happening to her.  I felt that she could have fought it more.  Cried more.  Screamed more.  I thought she should have shone more anger toward these aliens and what they were doing and what they’ve done to humans.
  3. The soldier that aided and assisted Ringer was intriguing but there were things about him that I didn’t understand like when he stared blankly at Ringer when they had escaped. How was he controlled in that way?  Why weren’t some of the other humans controlled the same way?  When he came out of his control, he and Ringer just continued with their conversations as if it was normal.  He continued to take care of her as per directives and she just went along with it.  That was hard to believe.

Overall, this was a great read.  The humor was still great.  The weapons descriptions and actions/fight scenes were superb.  There was a bit of Cormac McCarthy’s, The Road, writing style in the book.  I’ve grown to like the no quotations conversations and was excited to see it in this book.  I cannot wait for the 3rd book!

Book Review: Heir to the Sundered Crown (The Sundered Crown Saga Book 1)

May 9, 2015

I love reading.  My genre of interest is sci-fi and fantasy but I will also read other genres if they are interesting.  Last year, I did a marathon and read 101 books with most being sci-fi and fantasy.  This year, I’ve lowered my goal to 25 books.  I wanted to read without any pressure of deadlines but somehow I found myself just 5 books away from my goal.  I don’t tend to do thorough reviews unless they are just totally beyond my expectation or I’m asked by the author but I will always rate them.  I rate on Goodreads.com and sometimes on Amazon.  Here is the most recent book I finished.  This book was given to me to read and review by the author.  Thank you for allowing me the pleasure to read and review, Mr. Olney.

HTHSC_Book

After I read the book, I had to sit back and let it soak in. It was very fast pace with a lot going on. Lots of action and gore. Lots of characters and interactions. The storyline was great. The characters and the world they lived in were clearly thought out and well created. The dialogue moved the story forward and explained a lot of what was going on. A lot of the history of that world came out in the dialogue but the author also put the history in an appendix at the end of book, which was very helpful. Overall, I enjoyed it.

One thing I felt the story lacked was character buildup. There wasn’t enough substance in the main characters. They felt one-dimensional. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around why they want to rule so badly. What do they gain besides being a ruler and having all the power? There has to be something much deeper. Wanting power is usually driven by something very personal that one can’t seem to let go of that can manifest in the form of revenge. I did not sense that if that was meant to be part of character buildup. The characters had too much trust in everyone they came across. They seem to all be unintelligent and gullible.  Another thing was that I also found myself wondering why, after Luxon fainted a couple of times, he would continue to use his magic. I would think he would be afraid to even feel his magic knowing it would make him weak afterward.

I read this book on a Kindle and should mention that there were lots of grammatical errors and typos. Also, the word, “whilst” was overused (but this may be just a personal thing).  If these things don’t bother you too much and you simply love the pure enjoyment of reading, or if the fantasy genre is up your alley, I definitely recommend this book.