Blackout - Marc Elsberg

A NetGalley e-book in exchange for an honest review.

A modern reality on the end of the world. Blackout is about… a blackout. All of Europe is plunged into the dark. The electric grids collapse and surges in power and technical failures keep everyone in the dark. In our modern world everything relies on electricity, and I do mean EVERYTHING. Take a moment and just go through your morning routine.

*alarm goes off, typically these days that is your phone, the one that you plugged in to charge while you slept *head to the bathroom to get ready. Can your toilet flush more than once? Can your taps turn on? Do you have enough windows to let in natural light to see what you are doing? *breakfast. Can your food last without electricity? Where do you even get your food? Where do they get their food? *jump in the car to head to work. Electric cars, electric trains and other public transports, do those affect your commute? *at work, do you use a computer? Electric equipment? *Gas, how is that pumped to the surface to fill up your gas tank? * and just keep going from there.

What caused the blackout though? How did an entire nation’s grid collapse?

A former hacker starts investigating the situation when he notices some anomalies. Of course he becomes prime suspect in the disaster and the following chaos as millions of people are left without power, food, water and basic sanitation needs.

I wanted to love this book. This is quickly becoming a huge subgenre in the thriller/post-apocalyptic world. The loss of power would not kill people, the symptoms of lost power would though. By the thousands people will die.
I just couldn’t fall into the story. It was hard to fall into the characters and felt a little disjointed. It was good to see the effects on different groups of people but I felt this part was dragged out and not executed in the best way. I liked the technical and dry side of explaining how the electric grids were connected and what that would mean for the people that are so heavily reliant on them. It definitely makes you take a pause and review your own life. What would happen if you were in a blackout that lasted longer than a few hours?

The Switch - Joseph Finder

A Penguin First to Read ARC e-book in exchange for an honest review.

The story had potential but failed in execution for me.

Michael Tanner is the owner or a slowly failing specialty coffee shop. On the way home from a business trip his lap top gets switched with S. Robbins. S. Robbins turns out to be Senator Susan Robbins. The Senator has been up to no good though. She has downloaded highly sensitive information onto her laptop and then left a sticky note with her password on it.

My main problems are right at the very start. I don’t care who you are, if you lost your computer, especially an expensive one, and your business isn’t doing so hot, you would care. Second, a senator no matter how technically inept would not leave a password on the computer she/he was carting around especially if they knew they had overly sensitive information that should never have been downloaded in the first place.  Third, Tanner knew the initial reach out was a lie and probably from The Senators office, and he pulled up all the contact info for the Senator, so why not contact himself and solve the laptop problem and the novel be over in 100 pages?

Just seems like the author got a little lost in the way details worked out. It was an interesting story line could have been executed in a better way. The initial blunders were hard for me to overcome.

UNSUB (UNSUB #1) - Meg Gardiner

A Penguin First to Read ARC e-book in exchange for an honest review.

“Abandon all hope you who enter here”

This book sucked me in. It was fast paced and the tension built and built. It was so frustrating and horrifying watching how easily a killer can slip by.

The Prophet, inspired by The Zodiac killer, is terrorizing The Bay Area. Eleven brutal and horrific murders lately he all the sudden disappears. When two grisly murders happen 20 years later that have the Prophet’s calling card the fear that gripped the city then is even stronger than before.

The apple does not fall far from the tree as Caitlin takes up were her father failed. She chases the Prophet’s trail into the depths of hell. She learns more about herself, and recognizes what the Prophet meant to her father all those years. With the most notorious killer on the loose in her backyard she struggles to balance between the hell he made and her life.

The Weight of Lies - Emily Carpenter

A NetGalley e-book in exchange for an honest review.

"The child had some oddities - a few secretive tendencies and strange habits" 

Not going to lie, it took me a few chapters to get invested in the characters and plot. Once things started going though I got sucked right in. 

Megan Ashley (Meg) leads a life of privilege since her mom, Francis Ashley, wrote arguably one of the greatest books of her time. As the 40th anniversary of the book rolls around Meg’s anger and hatred toward her not always there mother has grown exponentially. What better way to get back at her then write her own book, a tell-all memoir that exposes the real Francis Ashley.

As Meg digs into her mother’s past she starts uncovering more than she bargained for. With a cast of crazy characters that all have their own 40 year old lies the plot takes some interesting turns.

The Marsh King's Daughter - Karen Dionne

A Penguin First to Read ARC e-book in exchange for an honest review.

It was a good life. Until it wasn’t.

Helena is the daughter of a notorious child abductor who is dubbed The Marsh King. Two years into her mother’s captivity Helena is born, her mother wasn’t even seventeen.

The Marsh King taught his daughter everything he knew about hunting and tracking. Now Helena needs to use those skills to hunt him down.

I liked the struggle that Helena relays on her emotions around her father. Yes, to us he was a horrible monster and there were no buts on what we should feel, hate and disgust. On Helena’s part though, her life was very much normal. For 12 years she did not know any better. Her mother never told her and her father was her idol in the world that only consisted of the three of them and a couple National Geographic’s. It does not matter what Helena learned later, she will always love her father that she remembers as kind, the one that taught her all her life skills. She knows what he did was horrible, the kidnapping and abuse to herself and her mother, and she does hate those things about him but that doesn’t mean she cannot be conflicted at times.

It was a quick read but with difficult subject matter (rape, domestic abuse, child abuse).

Bad Housekeeping (An Agnes and Effie Mystery #1) - Maia Chance

A NetGalley e-book in exchange for an honest review. A cute, and blundering, whodunit. The main character reminds me of a wannabe Stephanie Plum, down to the crazy family members, driving around a huge classic car, hot guy in jeans, and the sane and actual capable characters that help her save the day. I would recommend this to those that like cozy mysteries. It is set in a quaint little town with people that you can see as your neighbors and friends. There are not overly gory details or explicit situations (keep in mind someone is murdered and there are consenting adult characters). Agnes Blythe is having the week from hell. Her “boy genius” boyfriend has left her for the towns Pilates instructor and her temp job has ended and school this semester is not an option since the ex has aligned himself to be her graduate adviser. To top it off she literally trips over a dead body. The dead body of a strangled woman she was just seen arguing and threatening to strangle to death the night before. Making the situation worse is that Agnes is not alone as the prime suspect, her Great Aunt Effie is also being pegged as a prime suspect and it is in Effie’s Stagecoach Inn that the body is found. To cloud the situation even further, the woman that is killed does not have a short suspect list. The two women take off to investigate these suspects in a blundering fashion and also learn the meaning behind returning home.

Perfect Ten - L Philips

A Penguin First to Read ARC e-book in exchange for an honest review.

Cover love! 

The cover got my attention and the synopsis made me think it would be a cute quick read.

I liked the witty banter that the narrator had with the reader, and there were a few scenes that seemed genuine and caught my attention. Overall though, the characters were just whiny dramatic kids. The initial romance was too quick to start and too quick to fizzle out. 

Maybe I just don’t remember what it was like to be a teenager that’s love struck or maybe that type of behavior just is not real and totally an over dramatic stereotype, but you do get caught up in it even if you want to punch some of the characters.

I really wanted to love it but it was just a strong like. It was a quick easy read and entertaining. Maybe it would have been better if the characters were college aged and the author could add more maturity into the character development and less vapid behavior.

The Party - Robyn Harding

A NetGalley e-book in exchange for an honest review.

Hannah Sanders is turning 16! She is about to have a sleepover party full of food, games, and unbeknownst to her parents, booze, drugs, and boys. It’s all fun and games until someone loses their eye.

Jeff and Kim can’t believe that their oldest child is 16 already. Their perfect little girl is growing up. Kim is the perfect parent and works hard to maintain her perfect reputation within the community. So when she wakes up in the middle of the night from a wine and Ambien sleep with her daughter at the end of the bed with her hands covered in blood she is just a little shocked.

As the nights event unravel the truth is exposed about the Sander’s and all those involved in that horrific night. Are the Sander’s at fault for not babysitting the party? Are the kids at fault for sneaking in the booze and drugs? Or did the train wreck start before Hannah and her friends were even born?

This book not only exposes a family’s secrets but the horror and pressure that teenagers face to fit in and be cool. How one child can be the driving force of a chaos that will lead to a lifetime of disfigurement and regrets.

I liked the basic plot of this story. The party, the accident and the follow up could happen to any family. The struggle with the teenage relationships, the trying to fit in and be cool of children and parents alike is relatable. The internal struggle that Hannah feels over wanting to be liked an popular and the horrible bullying that her one time friend faces felt natural. Yes, you wanted to punch and kick and scream at the characters. How can they not see how stupid they are. Well, humans are emotional and messy creatures. We do the best with what we know at the time we are faced with the decision. I think the author did a good job with showing that.

Hex - Thomas Olde Heuvelt

They’re the faces of Black Spring. And when they try to smile, it looks like they’re screaming.

This book… I will never sleep again.

I am easily scared and was worried that this book would be too much for me. That being said, the first 2/3 of this book was not scary at all to me. Katherine, the Black Rock Witch, is almost a joke at the beginning. I mean, every time she was mentioned I kept seeing a young mummified woman that was a gray Sally Ragdoll with a bright orange construction cone on her head… does not really inspire fear.

Slowly though, very slowly, the plot and tension thickened. By the last third of the book I was terrified. Still not scared over the witch, she did make me feel uncomfortable but she herself did not overly inspire my horror.

Great read, just not alone, or at night…