Posts Categorized: eBook

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A Darkling Sea

A Darkling Sea is an interesting sci-fi novel about first contact, misunderstandings and events spiraling out of control. I read a lot of sci-fi but a novel that is essentially focused on first contact and the repercussions of that contact is a premise I have not seen very many times. This book is really well paced in the front half and kicks into gear early on with the death and dissection of a major character only a handful of pages into the book. While it isn’t the rip-roaring ride you would get from a thriller this book moves fairly quickly for a thoughtful work of sci-fi. That pacing does have some issues in the second half however as the story bogs down and the end feels a little rushed as Cambias works to put all the pieces together and wrap everything up. The idea behind the pitfalls that could come… Read more »

I Shall Be Near To You

I Shall Be Near To You brings historical fiction to an interesting yet not often talked about occurrence from the 19th Century, women pretending to be men in order to enlist. Erin Lindsay McCabe manages to make the subject both historically interesting while presenting a story that was interesting and moving. Something many may not know is that woman masquerading as men to enlist was a real event. In the Civil War alone there are many recorded cases of it happening, and almost certainly many more that were never recorded. It is clear that McCabe did solid research not just of Civil War battles but of the home life of the time. Everything beat felt historically right, which is something I often feel is missing from much of the historical fiction I read. This book also manages, with one exception, to avoid the trap of having the book involve major… Read more »

The Wife, The Maid, and the Mistress

Books that revolve around fictionalizing a real life mystery have always fascinated me, as do books set in the 20s and 30s with their iconic art styles. Those two things come together in The Wife, The Maid, and the Mistress in a way that, if not completely amazing, were at least enjoyable. This book manages to take the style that I love of that time period and really bring it out on the page. Through the dialogue and the attitudes you get a feeling of this world and in Ritzi and Maria Simon you get head strong female characters that embody everything I like about the changes in society at the time. Lawhord really does an excellent job in pulling the reader into the New York of that Era and gives you both the glitz and grime that really make it so enjoyable to read about. The real historical mystery… Read more »

The Ghost of the Mary Celeste

A fictional take on a real mystery, The Ghost of the Mary Celeste takes a strange nautical event and turns it into a ghost story. I was really excited by the premise of this book as I love it when a writer plucks a real history out of history and turns it into an intriguing ghost story. That unfortunately is not what this book is. One of the biggest problems with this book is the overall structure and how disjointed it feels. This book is really not a cohesive story but rather tales that are barely related to each other being mashed into a single story. While the delineation between stories is clear, so at least the reader isn’t confused, it makes it both hard to care about what is happening and keeps the book from feeling like a real take on the mystery. And if you make it through… Read more »

Red Rising

Red Rising is the story of a dystopian future and a lie that has been perpetuated against workers on Mars. For those who love a good sci-fi novel set in a less then idyllic future this book really aims to hit all the points you would want. The plot itself is very well done. The overall setup with multiple castes and the inherent tension that causes and a huge secret that could rock the very foundation of their society is well thought out. That premise alone offers a lot of possibilities and on top of it a Brown does a good job living up to a lot of those possibilities. This is further supported with excellent and well thought out world building, which helps give the rest of the story pretty solid bedrock. Unfortunately, while the story is good the pacing is only ok. It tends to drag in sections,… Read more »

Snowblind

Strange occurrences surround the return of a blizzard where years before many residents went missing. On first examination Snowblind dredges up thoughts of ghost stories told around a campfire. It however really isn’t that, at least not completely. For this kind of supernatural suspense book Snowblind is a lot more subdued and restrained then you find in most other mainstream books of the genre. Sure there are scares and surprises but it tries to play with your mind more than hack and slash its way to horror. It is more Stir of Echoes than it is Nightmare on Elm Street. Because of this the pacing is a lot slower the some will be used to. Not to say it is overly slow as this is the type of pacing you need to make a story like this work. However this also causes the middle of the book to really drag. … Read more »

Secret Prey

Review by Travis Starnes Secret Prey is the 9th book in the Lucas Davenport series and this time he is trying to find out why the CEO of a bank was murdered. While the main plotline follows this search for truth we also have the fallout of Lucas’s troubled relationship with Weather and the personal drama that comes with it. Davenport books come in two flavors, adventure/thriller style and mystery. The adventure/thriller style books we already know who the villain is and even most of their motive. In those it is more about the chase between the crook and Davenport rather than a mystery. Then there are the books that are mystery, or at least semi-mystery, where the reader has to figure out who the criminal is along with Davenport. Secret Prey, as the name might imply, definitely falls in that second camp. Not only do you not know who… Read more »

Hammett Unwritten

Review by Travis Starnes Hammett Unwritten is an interesting take on the author and his creation. It starts with the premise that the events in the Maltese Falcon were autobiographical and that Sam Spade was in fact Hammett himself. I have to give this book points for uniqueness. I haven’t read a novel quite like this and considering how many books, and specifically mysteries, I read that is saying something. The book takes meta to a whole new place and for that I commend Fitzstephen. If you are knowledgeable about Hammett himself then this book might be tough to read as it completely recreates the author’s life and experiences. However if you only know him from his works then this book is a unique mystery worth checking out. There is however some reliance on knowing the original works. If you haven’t read any of Hammett’s books then first, shame on… 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 »

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 »