The Animal I've Become

Expected Published:  January 28th, 2014

Her Dark Curiosity (The Madman's Daughter #2)

By: Megan Shepherd

Balzar + Bray

ISBN-13:  9780062128058

To defeat darkness, she must first embrace it.

Months have passed since Juliet Moreau returned to civilization after escaping from her father's island - and the secrets she behind.  Now, back in London once more, she is rebuilding the life she once knew and trying to forget Dr. Moreau's horrific legacy -- though someone, or something, hasn't forgotten her.

As people close to Juliet fall victim one by one to a murderer who leaves a macabre calling card of three clawlike slashes, Juliet fears one of her father's creations may have also escaped the island.  She is determined to find the killer before Scotland Yard does, though it means awakening sides of herself she had thought long banished, and facing loves from her past she never expected to see again.

As Juliet strives to stop a killer while while searching for a serum to cure her own worsening illness, she finds herself once more in the midst of a world of scandal and danger.  Her heart torn in two, past bubbling to the surface, life threatened by an obsessive killer -- Juliet will be lucky to escape alive.

Review

     Juliet thought that she might be able to have some semblance of a normal life after she left the island behind - along with all its twisted 'experiments', the creatures and her now dead father.  She is starting to become part of polite society again and has been taken under the wing of Professor Von Stein, her father's former colleague, who is now her guardian.  But Julitet is still unable to let it all go, because her illness is steadily killing her.  Without a cure soon Juliet will die, so she's been studying her father's diary and notes looking for an answer - for a serum that will end her suffering.  Keeping a secret appartment and selling hybrid roses to buy ingredients, Juliet is horrified when people with a connection to her begin to turn up murdered.  They have a signature mark, three clawlike scratches, that are familiar to Juliet.  Turns out not everything died on that island and something is more obsessed with her than ever.  If he can't have Juliet, no one can.  Can Juliet find the killer before Scotland Yard does?  And will the situation turn out to be even worse than she ever dreamed?

     This book was a slight bit of a slow starter, with Juliet by herself trying to hybridize roses, and come up with a cure for herself - in secret.  I enjoyed the quite obvious allusions between Shepherd's story and the original tale of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  It's really hard to write a comprehensive review that compares the two though, unless I want to give out some pretty major spoilers!  The murders were pretty gruesome and the identity of the killer, while pretty obvious from the start to people who read book #1, still had some puzzle pieces missing in regards to motive, etc.  There is a really great camraderie between Lucy and Juliet, who have renewed their frienship now that Juliet is back in the city and society.  They are both involved with the murderer (knowingly and unknowingly), have connections to the experiments of Juliet's father and are connected to up and coming Scotland Yard Detective John Newcastle.  Probably my least favorite part of this book was the love triangle.  It carried over from the first book, and while I could understand it somewhat, it did make Juliet loose some backbone when making decisions for herself.  There are some points where she gets downright pathetic about it too.  Probably the least historically realistic to me was Juliet engaging in premarital sex.  It's the Victorian Era!!!  And she absolutely NEVER struck me as the type to do something like that, even if she was a societal outcast.  Just way out of character for me.  Overall I greatly enjoyed this book and it was an extremely strong follow up to The Madman's Daughter.  The plot twist at the end of the book was completely unexpected, had me shaking in surprise and slapping myself on the forhead saying D'oh! for not realizing it sooner!

VERDICT:  4/5  Stars

*I received an Advanced Reading E-book Copy from the publisher, Balzar + Bray (Imprint of Harper Collins), via Edelweiss.  No money or favors were exchanged for this review.  This book's expected publication date is January 28th, 2014.*

When The Lights Go Out

 

Published:  September 24th, 2013

Sleep With The Lights On (Brown and De Luca #1)

By: Maggie Shayne

Harlequin MIRA

ISBN-13:  9780778315544

 

Through the eyes of a killer

Rachel de Luca has found incredible success writing self-help books. But her own blindness and the fact that her troubled brother has gone missing have convinced her that positive thinking is nothing but bull. Her cynicism wavers when a cornea transplant restores her sight. The new eyes seem to give her new life, until they prove too good to be true and she starts seeing terrifying visions of brutal murders crimes she soon learns are all too real.

Detective Mason Brown's own brother recently died, leaving behind a horrific secret. In atonement, Mason donated his brother's organs, though he's kept the fact quiet. Now he wants to help Rachel find her brother, but when he discovers the shocking connection between her visions and his own brother, he suddenly has to do everything in his power to save her from a predator who is somehow still hunting from beyond the grave.

 

Review

 

      I haven't been reading thrillers/mysteries on a regular basis for years now.  It seems like they are all the same after awhile and nothing fresh is left to be surprised by.  This book didn't necessarily have the freshest premise ever, but it just might have helped rejuvenate my interest in thrillers!  Shayne's whole backbone to the book is the idea that evil can live on once its host is dead, through a process like organ donation.  The story is about Rachel de Luca who has been blind since she was a pre-teen and has made a fortune selling self-help books with a philosophy she thinks is complete crap.  Detective Mason Brown has a chance encounter with Rachel, shortly after which he witnesses his own brother's suicide.  Turns out Mason's brother had been hiding a secret from his family - he was a serial killer and the guilt was no longer bearable.  Mason covers it up and donates his brother's organs to make up for it.  Rachel receives corneal tissue belonging to him and starts to have visions of murders and a strange connection to a killer.  Searching for her own brother who has disappeared, can Rachel and Mason come together to find out the truth behind how the murders are continuing - when the killer is already dead?  And will they both make it out alive?

      Rachel is a sassy, sarcastic and mostly downright rude ball-buster.  She doesn't take anyone's crap, does what she wants and has no filter for what she says to people.  Mason was just an average cop, with a slightly screwed up family history until he was forced to keep his brother's twisted secrets.  They clash almost immediately and spend the entire book circling around one another, each unsure of the other's motives until almost the end of the novel.  I liked the usage of an old idea (seeing visions of murder through eyes donated by a killer), with the twist that the evil was hosted in the body and transplanted along with the organs.  It needed to find a receptive host to survive.  It didn't completely discount the fact that the people it took over were evil in there own ways.  But it did give way to the notion that there are different types and degrees of evil.  I loved Rachel as a character, especially a heroine.  She made me laugh a lot and still feel sorry for her when her past was given to the readers, including the loss of her sight.  My favorite thing was when she adopted an old, blind bulldog named Myrtle.  It just about broke my heart, because Rachel did it so Myrtle could live and not be put down at the pound.  But soon enough she was buying driving goggles and matching scarves for Myrtle and taking her everywhere. 

      The way the murder plot wrapped up wasn't all that unpredictable, but I still appreciated the resolution.  And the way Shayne developed the organ-killer/host idea and the amount of organs donated as a setup for further novels was pretty ingenious.  Overall I really enjoyed this novel, and the characters took it up a notch from the thriller with paranormal leanings that could easily fit in with the rest of the pack.  They made it distinguishable and unique and I'd recommend it for that alone.

 

VERDICT:  4/5  Stars

 

*I received an Advanced Reading E-book Copy from the publisher, via NetGalley.  No money or favors were exchanged for this review.  This book was published September 24th, 2013.*

Divining the Future of Us

Published:  September 18th, 2012
The Diviners (The Diviners # 1)
By: Libba Bray
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
ISBN-13:  9780316126113


Evie O'Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to the bustling streets of New York City--and she is pos-i-toot-ly thrilled. New York is the city of speakeasies, shopping, and movie palaces!

Soon enough, Evie is running with glamorous Ziegfield girls and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is Evie has to live with her Uncle Will, curator of The Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult--also known as "The Museum of the Creepy Crawlies."
When a rash of occult-based murders comes to light, Evie and her uncle are right in the thick of the investigation. And through it all, Evie has a secret: a mysterious power that could help catch the killer--if he doesn't catch her first.

Review

 

     Evie O'Neill has a bubbly personality, loves to party and has loads of friends in her 1920s Ohio town.  She also unfortunately has a talent for reading objects and being able to tell people's secrets from them.  When she exposes the secrets of the wrong person, Evie's parents send her to live with her Uncle Will in New York, who curates the Museum of "Creepy Crawlies," thinking it will be a punishment.  It isn't too long before she's living it up in speakeasies, befriending glamourous Ziegfeld girls and partying until dawn.  Then things take a dark turn when murder victims start showing up in the city with nothing in common, except for strange and ritualistic markings made to their bodies.  The police enlist the help of Evie's Uncle Will, realizing that they are connected to something occult related.  But no one realizes at first just how sinister these murders are, with a killer who himself is no longer alive.  How do you stop a killer from striking when he can't be killed because he's already dead?  It's up to Evie, Uncle Will and her friends to figure it out before it's too late.  This was a book that I was looking forward to a lot.  I really enjoyed Bray's Gemma Doyle trilogy, with it's historical and paranormal/fantasy elements woven together - its something she does well.  So I was excited to see her go back to her strong point of writing.  That said, the plot was something very different and new from the normal, run-of-the-mill YA fiction which I appreciated.  It was obvious that Bray had definitely done her 1920s research.  However, she really went to great lengths to make that obvious and she really went overkill on the 1920s slang in the book.  It was almost 600 pages of novel and almost the whole way through I really felt like I was being watched and winked at the whole time about how "smart" and period the characters were.  It was annoying.  Also, the amount of plot and world-building made things move at a mostly glacial pace and almost caused me to quit reading a few times.  There was very little character development due to how many "main" characters there were (Evie, Theta [Ziegfeld girl], Mabel, Jericho, Sam, Uncle Will, Henry, Theta, Memphis and Isaiah) and how wide the plot tried to spread itself around them.  I finished feeling little connection to any of them, even Evie who I could tell the author wanted me to care about.  Evie came across as selfish, airheaded and extremely immature 99% of the time, with the other 1% being when she showed kindness or common sense (usually followed by idiocy or unwitting meanness).  Overall, I was disappointed with the lack of character development and the overly self-awareness of the plot.  Good story, not so wonderful follow-through.  I probably won't read the next one due to my ambivalence.

 

VERDICT:  3/5  Stars

 

*No money or favors were exchanged for this review. This book is now available in stores, online, or maybe even at your local library.*

The Vampire and The Virgin (Not a Sacrifice, We Promise)

Published: March 9th, 2010
The Vampire and the Virgin
By: Kerrelynn Sparks
Avon Books
ISBN-13: 9780061667862

Olivia's packing list:

1. Sunscreen
2. Bathing suit
3. Flip-flops

FBI psychologist Olivia Sotiris was looking for a cool ocean breeze, sand between her toes, and a break from her crazy, chaotic, and sometimes all-too-dangerous life. But when she escaped to the small Greek island of Patmos, all she got were meddling grandmothers trying to marry her off. Can't they see that none of the men around interests her—except Robby MacKay?

Robby's packing list:

1. Synthetic blood
2. More synthetic blood
3. Jogging clothes
(even vamps have to stay in shape!)

Robby needs to cool off, too, since all he can think about is revenge on the Malcontent bloodsuckers who once held him captive—but then he meets Olivia, the beauty with wild curls and a tempting smile. When a deadly criminal from a case back home tracks her down, Robby will have to save her life—along with giving her a first time she'll never forget . . .

Review

   Olivia Sotiris just needs to get away from life for awhile - including the demented serial killer who's been stalking her since she helped put him behind bars.  Going to Patmos, Greece to visit her Grandmother for a few weeks seems like a good idea.  Robby Mackay has been forced to go on a vacation in Greece, because he is single-mindedly focused on revenge against those who held and tortured him; even if it means harm to himself and others.  Robby is just biding time at first but then he meets Olivia, who he is drawn to against his better judgement.  Olivia didn't go to Greece looking to meet someone, but when you have the ability to tell lies from the truth, getting a date isn't easy.  It helps that she can't read Robby.  But when the serial killer manages to get to Olivia on Greece and she has a misunderstanding with Robby, it's going to take a lot of work for them to realize they belong together.  This was a decent story and the characters were well developed for such a by-the-numbers plotline.  I enjoyed reading about Olivia's struggles, but Robby kind of annoyed me with his fixed desire for revenge.  Plus, in this book the other characters didn't have as much of a presence as in the other ones because of the fact that Robby was mostly alone (except for Carlos) when he went to Greece.  I like it when there are more than a few supporting characters.  The romance in this one was a little too 'Twilight' for me to truly get behind it's success.  All in all it was a fun and quick read, but I won't be re-reading it again.

VERDICT:  3.5/5  Stars

*No money or favors were exchanged for this review. This book is now available in stores and online.*