Tag: mystery

“Shatter the Earth” Cassandra Palmer 10 Karen Chance

Yeah. I scratched something that had imbedded itself near my hairline, and a couple bits of rubble fell out and hit the white tiled floor, making little clattering sounds. The attendant didn’t say anything, so I didn’t, either. I guessed we were both going to agree that hadn’t happened.


It was funny how you couldn’t tell now, I thought, staring. Like you couldn’t tell if a lot of the bodies around Vlad’s city of the dead were male or female, after a while. They just turned into corpses, blackened and split open, with ropes of trailing entrails festooned with maggots and dripping with unknown liquids. Mothers, fathers, lovers, friends; they were all the same in death, rotting under a cheerful blue sky . ..


Somebody had told me that war was a lot of serious tedium interspersed with moments of sheer terror, however. Which I thought described my job perfectly.


…liberated my new cat. Who looked in disbelief at my bed, which was round and so oversized that they needed a new designation for it. Orgy-sized maybe, because it could have fit ten, maybe twelve in a pinch.


You got it, I gritted out, after half a freaking hour. I had been awake for going on a day, under less than ideal conditions. My body ached, my brain was fried, and my eyes actually burned. I was going to sleep right now, damn it! Only I didn’t. I tossed and turned and tried every conceivable position. I plumped my pillow, changed it out for a different one, and then pounded that one into submission, too, before giving up and going back to the first one again. I put on a sleep mask. I took off a sleep mask, because I had black out curtains that my vamp bodyguards almost always kept closed even when they weren’t in here. I didn’t need a sleep mask, goddamnit! The problem was, I didn’t know what I needed.


Somebody had told me that warm milk helped insomnia. It sounded nasty, but I was willing to give it a try. Right now, I was willing to try anything. Of course, that required that I play the fun and exciting game of Hunt the Milk, which was no mean feat. The penthouse’s kitchen had been designed to feed a horde, with three fridges—two regular ones and a shorty under the counter—a standalone freezer, two wine coolers, another wine cooler that was used only for beer, and God knew what else. I didn’t, because I couldn’t find half of it! And what I could find, I often didn’t want


Tami, my friend and self-appointed life manager, and I had sat around one night shortly after we moved in playing “guess the item” with a couple drawers full of weird, one-use-only gadgets. We’d managed to correctly identify an avocado slicer, a carrot peeler, a pair of herb scissors, a strawberry stem remover (okay, we cheated with Google on that one) and a vertical egg cooker. Plus some stuff that even the search engine of the gods hadn’t been able to help us out with.  Tami’s go-to greeting for visitors to the kitchen these days was to drag them over to the mystery item drawer and try to make them identify something.


I didn’t have an answer for her. It was one of a whole host of things I didn’t know, because this job didn’t get easier as you went along, like I’d expected. It actually seemed to be getting harder, which was a problem since I was already giving a hundred and fifty percent. Literally. I turned around and went back to bed.


Only you can’t. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.” She leaned forward and put a hand on my arm. “Everybody wants a piece of you, all the time, but you can’t give it to them. They’ll take and take, until there’s nothing left. That’s how people are—”


I seriously contemplating just sleeping where I lay. The bed had one of those down-filled mattresses that grabs your ass like it’s trying to get handsy, and then draws you down into enveloping softness. 


I groaned and put a hand to my head, where it felt like I had the mother of all hangovers. And the grandmother and great-grandmother as well, I thought, trying to take stock.

Now, if you please.” Damn it, Gertie! I thought. But I stomped over anyway. “What?” “Pear?” She offered me one. I looked at it blankly. It was fat and yellow, with a blushing bottom. It was a nice pear. It also made no sense at all. “What?” “Yes, I have an apple,” Gertie said, and jerked me inside. “What are you doing?” I demanded, because this was bizarre, even for her. But she just shushed me and turned me toward the crack in the door. It was still open maybe a quarter of the way, giving us a sliver of a view, although why we needed one, I didn’t know. I needed to get back—“Watch,” Gertie said, and ate pear. I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I watched anyway. Don’t argue with teacher, I thought. Only I didn’t know what I was supposed to be watching. The little girls were the easiest to see, still facing their wall. Or most of them were. One was playing with a doll she’d smuggled out, hidden in a fold of her dress, and another had squatted down to examine a fat green caterpillar. But most of the rest were dutifully reciting something, I didn’t know what, because it was in some other language. “A test,” Gertie said, her voice low. “For what?” “To see if they can age a flower.” I looked back at her. “How? They don’t have access to the Pythian power yet.” “No, they don’t,” she agreed. “The question is, can any of them get its attention?”


Or a fight, I thought, catching sight of the rest of the courtyard. “I told you I needed to get out there!” I said to Gertie, as my acolyte faced off with her own mother. I started forward, but Gertie pulled me back, and she was surprisingly strong for an old woman


Why London had what was essentially a petri dish of plague running through the city was beyond me, but it wasn’t my main concern


He’d come back for me, all right, but to capture not to kill. He’d started grafting souls onto his body, like adding apps onto a phone, and I was supposed to be his next upgrade. There to add to his power, but with none of my own, and no say in what mine was used for. Or any way to stop the process or even to die and make the torture end.


Throughout history, the number three has been fundamental to how we understand the world. The space we inhabit is measured in length, width, and height. Time is measured in past, present, and future.” He paused, and I just sat there, expectant. Until I realized that he was smiling slightly. “What?” I asked. “What are you waiting for?” “For the rest—” I stopped, realizing that I had unconsciously been waiting—for another example. I frowned. “The third instance would be body, mind, and spirit,” he continued, “which is how we understand ourselves. But the fact that you knew—instinctively—that there was a third example indicates how our minds classify things…People have always seen the world in threes. Look at religion: Christianity is fundamentally based on the Trinity—the father, son and holy spirit. The magi gave Christ three gifts, the devil tempted him three times, and he rose from the dead after three days. Even the Christian universe is traditionally seen as having three expressions: the upper world of heaven, the middle world of Earth, and the underworld of hell…The Greeks were also particularly fond of the number: there were three Fates, three Graces, three Gorgons and three Furies. There were three brothers who ruled over three realms: Zeus, Hades and Poseidon. Artemis…is often seen as a triple goddess, a unity of the divine huntress, the Moon goddess and the goddess of the underworld… the rest of the world’s religions follow a similar pattern: the Sumerian Goddess Inanna is remembered for having spent three days and nights in the underworld. There are three main gods in Hinduism: Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Shiva the Destroyer. Yggdrasil, the sacred tree of life in the Norse religion, has three roots under which are three sacred wells——not to mention how often the number shows up in the world’s imagery. The triskelion, a three-legged spiral, can be found on items dating back more than six thousand years. The Borromean rings are a centuries-old symbol of unity made up of three interlacing circles. The Valknut rune of Odin——consisting of three interlocking triangles, stood for his power. Even the old superstition of not walking underneath a ladder stems from an ancient Egyptian belief that one should not “break a triangle’. The geometry of the number three was seen as being complete and perfect, and therefore not to be disturbed—”


“When shall we three meet again?” he quoted. “In thunder, lightning, or in rain? When the hurly-burly’s done, when the battle’s lost and won.”

Kelley Armstrong’s Alone in the Wild (rockton 5)

I will start this off with a few caveats: I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley in return for this review AND I am a Kelley Armstrong fan.  I have been a fan from the first time I was introduced to her in Bitten, and have followed her bodies of work avidly since then.  One of the things I love about her body of work is that she has a vision.  She stays true to that vision even when fans criticize her for it.  Sometimes, the vision isn’t immediately apparent but it is always there.  She also has a number of compelling stand alone novels that are unique and compelling.
I have greatly enjoyed the Rockton series and I was one of those who read the first book in installments.  The premise is unique and it seems like there are many ways for the story to advance over time.  I didn’t see that at the beginning, but now I do.  I have to say that once again Kelley Armstrong has delivered a compelling series with well rounded characters that will appeal to readers.    These multifaceted characters defy classification as heroes or villains.  It highlights the fact that everyone has both good and bad and must be evaluated on their own merits.  This is especially true of the residents of Rockton, where everyone is running from something.
I do not want to ruin any of the books by alluding to parts of the plot line that are spoilers for earlier books: so SPOILER ALERT (not for this book but for others in the Rockton series)!
When the series started, we followed Casey Duncan and her best friend Diana on the journey to Rockton a town in the Yukon that isn’t on any map.  It’s billed as a town for those who need to get away from something.  You have to cut off contact with everyone in your old life.  There will not be any contact once the decision to go is made.  A generic open end message will tell friends and loved ones that you will be out of touch and then you disappear when you get on the helicopter.  There can be no cellphones, no GPS, no email, not even an air-gapped computer.  The town itself is camouflaged by the terrain.  AND everything is controlled by the town; unless the council think it’s necessary you won’t be getting it.  Once you arrive you must contribute to the workings of the town.  Casey has a vital role as a homicide detective.  Even that is different in Rockton–there are no forensic teams to call.  Not having the internet to research forensics makes a large difference and there is no end to the challenges that Casey faces.  And getting used to life with less electricity isn’t a walk in the park either.
Once Casey arrived, she discovered there was a hidden underside to Rockton and to Diana who she thought she knew so well.  Turns out that Diana and her Abusive Ex-husband had stolen a large amount of money and that was why he kept turning up like a bad penny.  Being in a town without internet makes it easy for people to hide their true natures.  But all of that is another story, literally…so go read the first 4 books!
At the beginning of Alone in the Woods, Casey and Sheriff Eric Dalton are on a much needed vacation after all the truly daunting challenges they have faced in earlier.   Casey has had a steep learning curve sine she walked out to that helicopter so many moons ago.  But when Casey awakens alone in the camp with her Newfoundland puppy Storm and she hears what she thinks is a baby crying she doesn’t quite believe her ears.  When she finds a baby clutched to the chest of a murdered woman, it raises a number of issues.  The most immediate of which is that Rockton doesn’t admit children of any age.  Solving the mystery of how this baby came to be in the Yukon without any others in sight will be one of the toughest challenges Casey faces.  It will introduce a number of new characters into the world of Rockton.  And, seeing Sheriff Dalton with this newborn will cause Casey to face emotional pitfalls that surprise her and force both she and Eric to have a relationship talk Casey never thought to face.  Since I wholeheartedly hope you will read this book I will stop here.
I have enjoyed the journey with Rockton so far and I cannot wait to get my hands on book 6.  At the beginning, I was anxiously awaiting the next installment and I still am!  Seeing Casey settle into Rockton is a pleasure and seeing the world expand to include so many characters  reminds me of the early books of Otherworld.  Even more of a Kelley Armstrong fan even though this book kept me up all night!

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An Unwavering Recommendation…

Usually, I post about the books I read, the friends I find within each story and reconnecting with them.  And right now I am reconnecting with Olivia and Gabriel–and all the mystery and magic of Cainsville.  But I wanted to tell you about something seemingly unconnected and in the process I will explain the thought train that led to this post.

I love reading, as you know all to well.  And I dislike audiobooks because depending on narrator, the book can be enriched through the process of creating an audiobook or it can be ruined by the slightest thing-a name pronounced differently, an accent that is different than what was expected or any other of a million reasons.  When we read a book, we imagine the characters, their accents, and a million other things.  An audiobook can ruin that because it makes the elements written in stone and each of these things can skew the enjoyment of the book.

I have been a long time fan of the Elfquest comic book series.  When I first found them they had been reprinted as a graphic novel and were in color.  When they later rereleased the comics in Black and White, they used a similar explanation–that the coloration of the comics limited the possibilities and locked the characters descriptions in stone.  Printing the comics in black and white allowed for infinite possibilities and for the enjoyment of the stories in a whole new way.

For years I was a physical book reader, and my daughter still is.  For her a book has to have a physical presence in order to be a book.  Ebooks do not work for her-without the pages to flip and the smell of the paper and weight of the book in her hands, they do not seem real to her.  Now, I fully enjoy all the facets of having ebooks- the ability to carry hundreds or thousands of books in the palm of my hand, rather than having to carry an extra suitcase on trips.  I enjoy having multiple copies of the books in multiple places and the ability to transfer from device to device.  I was and am a firm supporter of amazon kindles and have been for a long time.

Anyone who reads ebooks should look into the freeware program Calibre.  It allows you to organize your library by author or series or even by publication date.  It allows you to convert your books from one format to another and that allows you to use multiple devices.  It can also manage your devices.  You can merge files together (using plugins) and a million other things.

So now I have found the best program for my needs to be google play books.  First off, google offers 24-7 tech support on using the play books app for free. In addition to allowing books to be read on multiple devices, with your progress in each book being communicated no matter which device you read the books upon.  Google Play has a read aloud feature-it uses a computer voice of your choice.  Much like the black and white comics, it still allows me to add the details to the story.  It also allows me to speed up the reading so I can keep pace with where I would be approximately without using the read aloud feature.

So, whats the point of this long rambling post?  It’s actually quite simple.  My smartphone has become my reading device of choice.  And protecting that smartphone has become VERY important.  While there are a million choices in the market for cases, tempered glass protectors or plastic film protectors I want to speak with you about my experience with a company called Skinomi.  They produce plastic film phone protectors.  You can buy one just for the front screen, one for coverage of the entire device (front, back and sides), or one for just the front and back.  he plastic film is self healing and the have a lifetime warranty on their products.  They now have lines that can be used to change the look of your phone from wood to tempered steel or even  cool black carbonite looking skin.

They are the best phone protectors out there.  I have used a lot of different ones, but theirs have stood the test of time with each of my phones.  In addition, they have exceptional customer service and replace your screen protector if there is an error in installation or for some other reason you need a new one.  And it is a lifetime replacement on their products and there is a bubble free guarantee.  So protect your phone-get a skinomi protector, they are the best on the market and worth the price!

 

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Rachel Caine’s Stillhouse Lake

This book is a departure for Rachel Caine, but it was still a great read.  It starts with a “typical” housewife who is happy in her life until, in a Blackbeard’s wife situation, it is discovered that her husband has been kidnapping, torturing and killing women in the families garage.  After being tried as an accomplice, she takes her kids and runs, buying fake identities and running anytime it appears that she may be found out.

She’s found a place that she likes, though, and decides to fight to keep her life there despite the fact that murders similar to the ones her husband committed start occurring.  And in the process she finds an ally whom she ends up falling in love with.  And it may be just in time, too, as her husband escapes just at the books end.  Can’t wait to read book two!

I look forward to discussing all of this with fellow fans at my site bestbooklover.net and at the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/BestBooklovernet-336745780072074/

If you want to help support this website, donations are accepted at paypal.me/Bestbooklover/

 






Stillhouse Lake Book Cover




Stillhouse Lake





Rachel Caine





Fiction




Thomas & Mercer




2017-07




300



An Amazon Charts most-read book. Gina Royal is the definition of average--a shy Midwestern housewife with a happy marriage and two adorable children. But when a car accident reveals her husband's secret life as a serial killer, she must remake herself as Gwen Proctor--the ultimate warrior mom. With her ex now in prison, Gwen has finally found refuge in a new home on remote Stillhouse Lake. Though still the target of stalkers and Internet trolls who think she had something to do with her husband's crimes, Gwen dares to think her kids can finally grow up in peace. But just when she's starting to feel at ease in her new identity, a body turns up in the lake--and threatening letters start arriving from an all-too-familiar address. Gwen Proctor must keep friends close and enemies at bay to avoid being exposed--or watch her kids fall victim to a killer who takes pleasure in tormenting her. One thing is certain: she's learned how to fight evil. And she'll never stop.

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