Author: Travis

The Back Road

Review by Travis Starnes The Back Road is a thriller about the secrets that surround Ellie Saunders, her family and her friends. The tale is punctuated with murder, stalking and a whole lot of lying. I will start by saying that I did not love this book. It wasn’t terrible but I found some the book off-putting. Generally the book is well written. Rachel Abbott is clearly a talented writer and the story does have a decent flow to it. It should be noted that this is the slow psychological style of thriller and not the heart racing, fast moving story that many thrillers have become. Abbott is focused on weaving a complex story and trying to keep the reader on edge, and for the most part she is successful. I found the dialog particularly well written. In so many thrillers the conversations are either weird expositions that sound strangely… Read more »

Harrowgate

Review by Travis Starnes A dark and disturbing thriller about a family, life, and loss, Harrowgate is a suspenseful mystery about a man who finds his new baby and wife slightly different every time he comes back home. He must fight to keep his family together in the face of a malevolent force. Although this book does dark and disturbing very well I really did not enjoy reading it. On the positive side Maruyama has a good handle on writing suspense and mystery. The plot and its various twists definitely have the potential for keeping the reader on the edge of their seats. If this plot was in the hands of another writer it could possibly be an amazing tale. The big issue however was that it was not written by someone else. I found the writing to be extremely clunky and heavy handed. Sentences have a very strange structure… Read more »

Halloween Double Feature

Review by Travis Starnes Halloween Double Feature is exactly as the name implies. You get two short stories of the spooky variety. The first is about a man named Sonny and a vicious creature while the other focuses on a man in a dead end job. I will start by saying that I am generally not a fan of either short stories or novellas. They almost always leave me unfulfilled and wanting more. That being said in this book it totally worked for me. The spooky Halloween tale is almost tailor made for this format. It is the literary version of sitting around the camp fire telling tales. These two stories aren’t particularly scary but that doesn’t detract from the book. In fact these stories were almost certainly not intended to be scary. It seems instead the goal was for cleverness and a bit wit, which is fine by me… Read more »

Stone of Tears

Review by Travis Starnes The adventure continues with Richard, Khalan and company. Richard’s life is turned upside down, again, when he learns what it means to be the True Seeker. This is the second book in the series and it holds up well compared to the first book. For me it actually scores marginally higher than its predecessor since it maintains what I enjoyed from Wizard’s First Rule, namely the characters, and fixes some of the problems I had with that book, such as the writing. The story and themes this book touches on are generally pretty interesting. Goodkind holds with the love story from the first book, delving into the importance of love and its dangers. While I had a lot of trouble with the love story in the previous book, here it works well and is one of the better themes. This is a bit strange when you… Read more »

1633

Another year has gone by and the residents of Grantville and the new United States are making their way in 17th century Europe. In 1633 this new country will be reaching further into their world and continuing their conflicts with the Catholic countries that oppose them. 1633 is not only a quality sequel to its predecessors but one of the rare occasions that a sequel beats the original in some ways, although not all. I would credit a lot of the advances this book makes to the addition of Weber partnering with Flint. I can feel a lot of his structure and character work behind the Flint façade. As with 1632 the majority of characters are still pretty cliché. However many of the major character, including previously minor characters who have been moved up to the big leagues, are getting fleshed out a bit more. Raising the profile of already… Read more »

Practice to Deceive

Review by Travis Starnes Practice to deceive follows a murder investigation on a small island in the Puget Sound. A lot of unusually suspicious parties surround the Christmas day murder of Russell Douglass, unfortunately evidence is a lot more sparse. The detectives spend eight years talking to anyone connected to the man and his murder in an effort to solve one of the toughest mysteries they will come across. Ann Rule has been doing true crime for more than 30 years and she is a real master at her craft. While this book is far from perfect it hits all the notes you would want in a true crime novel and is pretty solid read. This book has everything going for it; greed, sex and scandal. The one big thing that stands out for me in this book is the narrative voice Mrs. Rule uses. Unlike many of the true… Read more »

Wizard’s First Rule

Review by Travis Starnes Wizards First Rule follows the exploits of Richard, the soon to be seeker, and Kahlen, the confessor, as they embark on an epic journey to save their world from an evil wizard who set on taking over the world. This is the first book in a series of contemporary fantasy novels in the vein of JR Tolkien. I want to start off by saying I did actually enjoy reading this book, although the following review might make you think otherwise. Yes, this book does have some things going against it but in spite all of those I enjoyed my time reading it and that is all that really matters. I rated this book a 4 out of 5 purely on my emotional connection to it, and I do recognize the large number of fantasy readers who feel the structural and technical problems with the book can’t… Read more »

Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets

Review by Travis Starnes Homicide is one of the better true crime style books I have read, although that might be because it is more crime reporting then true crime. Simon spent a year with the Baltimore police following members of the Homicide division and focuses primarily on 3 of its members. Many will recognize the names and some of the situation in this book as it was made into the well acclaimed TV series Homicide: Life on the Streets several years after the book came out. Even without all the hype around this book following the success of the affiliated TV show, Simon was definitely at the top of his game. His writing is very engaging and he has the non-fiction narrative down to a science. The book has more of a novel feel then a biography of the people involved yet never feels like fiction. More importantly this… Read more »

Murder in Mississippi

Review by Travis Starnes A real life tale of a murder and a capital trial set in the Deep South. A self-proclaimed white supremacist who may or may not have been involved romantically with a black man, an Australian “gotcha” style journalist akin to Michael Moore, and a rogues gallery of slightly strange investigators, neighbors, lawyers, and on lookers. The premise of the book caught my eye and I had to check it out. In the book the author compares his work to Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and it is an accurate comparison. Or rather I can see that the author struck out to get the same kind of story when he stumbled upon a murder with a similarly interesting set of characters. The problem comes from people he has contact with. While they are almost always interesting these people feel like they were edited to… Read more »

Interview with Colin Fulton

Interview by Travis Starnes I recently had a chance to talk to Colin Fulton about his book The Reichbank Robbery which I read and loved. As I said in my review I am a big fan of historical fiction and this book was hitting on all cylinders. It had action, intrigue, a very well researched historical backdrop and some interesting twists. I was pleased when Colin reached out about my review and we had a chance to talk. It gave me a chance to get some questions I was thinking about actually answered by the author as well as get a small peek into what Colin has coming up in the future. I have to say I am excited about his future work. On a side note I was also happy that he is such a friendly and well-spoken guy. There is always that chance when you meet the creator… Read more »