Call Down he Hawk (Dreamer Trilogy #1) by Maggie Stiefvater

Book Description:

Published: November 5, 2019

Format: Audio/OverDrive

Stars: 5

The dreamers walk among us . . . and so do the dreamed. Those who dream cannot stop dreaming – they can only try to control it. Those who are dreamed cannot have their own lives – they will sleep forever if their dreamers die.

And then there are those who are drawn to the dreamers. To use them. To trap them. To kill them before their dreams destroy us all.

Ronan Lynch is a dreamer. He can pull both curiosities and catastrophes out of his dreams and into his compromised reality.

Jordan Hennessy is a thief. The closer she comes to the dream object she is after, the more inextricably she becomes tied to it.

Carmen Farooq-Lane is a hunter. Her brother was a dreamer . . . and a killer. She has seen what dreaming can do to a person. And she has seen the damage that dreamers can do. But that is nothing compared to the destruction that is about to be unleashed. . . .

Review –

“Dreams are reality and the apocalypse is nigh in this spinoff from the Raven Cycle series.

Ronan Lynch can pull objects from his dreams; but as blowback from his powers complicates his life (including his relationship with Adam), Ronan follows cryptic clues from a voice in his dreams to learn the scope of his abilities. Simultaneously, art forger and dreamer Hennessy seeks a solution to a life-threatening hitch in her powers. Ronan’s older brother, Declan, works to keep his siblings safe at the expense of pursuing any passions of his own. Plus, government recruit Carmen Farooq-Lane aims to prevent the apocalypse by hunting down dreamers. This cast of characters, each with their own palpable desires, orbit one another until their paths come crashing together. Mysterious magic and secrets abound. The exquisitely painted characters and artful prose propel the plot, which is filled with satisfying twists and turns. Despite the scope, the narrative stays focused, drawing to a dramatic conclusion. While most rewarding to readers of the original series (though they should prepare for brief-but-necessary pockets of summary throughout), the novel is accessible to new readers, too. Ronan and Declan are white and of Irish descent; Hennessy is dark-skinned and English.” Kirkus Reviews

I haven’t read many young adult books in the last few months but when Call Down the Hawk became available on OverDrive I couldn’t wait to start listening. It’s the first in the Dreamer Trilogy and a spin-off from the Raven Boys Series, which is one of my favorites. This book was off the charts on all levels: humor, character development ,action, suspense, and entertaining dialogue . If I could have stayed up all night I could have finished it in one sitting.

The end was a total cliffhanger and the next installment doesn’t come out until next year. I can’t wait!

 

The Gift of Time (Nine Minutes #3) by Beth Flynn

Book Description:

Published: July 16, 2016

Format: Audio/Audible

Stars: 4

Three months have passed since Jason “Grizz” Talbot was put to death by lethal injection for crimes he committed. His former wife, Ginny, whom he had abducted from a convenience store when she was a teenager and became the love obsession of his life, has spent more than the last decade trying to carve out a life of normalcy in the bustling suburbs of Fort Lauderdale—including a thriving and happy marriage to Tommy “Grunt” Dillon, a former member of Grizz’s gang.

Tired of the secrets and the lies, Ginny and Tommy thought the final piece of their past could be left behind forever with Grizz’s execution. However, the past comes crashing around Ginny and Tommy when a newly discovered secret threatens to destroy their marriage. When tragedy strikes, Ginny is forced to reach into her heart and decide, once and for all, what she really wants.

​In this third book in the Nine Minutes trilogy, A Gift of Time takes readers from the busy tropical metropolis of South Florida into the serenity of the North Carolina Blue Ridge mountains as Ginny chases down the answers she needs.

Will she have the strength to confront the secrets of her past…and her heart?

Review –

I had to decompress after finishing book two in the Nine Minutes series but it’s been since July 31st so I think it’s time I finish this bad boy of a series, even though I’m very nervous.

I won’t explain much about the plot as I don’t want to spoil your fun. Just know the book begins where the second book ended and is told from multiple points of view, with Kit, Grunt and Grizz being the most prominent. The author  still uses the back and forth between past and present events and she organizes her chapters so cleverly it works effortlessly, giving that unique style I loved so much in her former books.

Details as to how and why Grizz did what he did took a back seat to the present situation. As with most series, you need to read the books in order, beginning with Nine Minutes.

The origin of the story is dark, but A Gift of Time is more upbeat with the focus being about getting on with life. As the story progressed, it was evident this was going to be a long slow wind-up. An impressive start but it soon became the gift that kept on giving, causing me to wonder where the story was heading, and it had the tendency to drag in sections. I was grateful to Ginny’s daughter, Mimi who through her inquisitive mind maintained a degree of suspense but nowhere near the level it had been previously.

I was  invested in the overall story and wanting to know the answers I have held been looking for since starting this series. Was I happy with the ending? I am leaning towards a yes. It was not an easy transition from the middle of the book to the end but the character of “James” and his personal growth made it easier and I loved the epilogue with it’s hint of a spin-off for Mimi, but that’s another story. I haven’t found it on audio so maybe one day I will actually read it!

Fantastic motorcycle club series!

 

The Bedroom Experiment (Hot Jocks #5.5) by Kendall Ryan

Book Description:

Published: February 11, 2020 

Format: Audio/Audible

Stars: 4

When your stepbrother is a hot hockey stud with more notches in his bedpost than, well anyone, he’s the perfect candidate to help you gain a little bedroom experience. At least that’s my plan this V-day…

Note: This is a hot and steamy standalone novelette. Contents include: One sweet but rough-around-the-edges hockey player who’s going a little crazy. One blunt, knows-what-she-wants heroine who picks through his self-defense. No cheating. Low angst. No stress. And a sweet, melty HEA.

Review –

The Bedroom Experiment is a quick read that was originally shared by the author to her newsletter subscribers but it’s been cleaned up and added to. This novella is part of Kendall Ryan’s ongoing Hot Jocks sports romance series and utilizes the step-sibling romance. Morgan’s father and Isla’s mother got married when the former was twenty and away at college and the latter was seventeen and still in high school. In the two and a half years since then, Morgan’s only seen Isla during breaks and vacations. When their parents go on their long delayed honeymoon, Morgan’s tasked to watch over his step-sister and he can’t help but take note of just how much Isla has grown up.

They spend one unexpected hot weekend together, but they didn’t have sex, while their parents are away and then they grow a friendship after that.Then they are apart for a year. During that year Isle  texts Morgan about times she has tried the “techniques” he taught her on other guys. He is not jealous but is “turned on”. She loses her virginity, having sex with 2 other guys, and who knows how many puck bunnnies he has screwed. Then she comes into town to visit and they end up having sex (he asks about whether she has done it before and says yes she’s been “experimenting”. This whole thing read like a  porno, and that’s a good thing. Suffice it to say all in well in the end and there is a hea.

Very hot and steamy!

 

The Accident by Natalie Barelli

Book Description:

Published: January 21, 2019

Format: Audio/OverDrive

Stars: 3

If only she’d said no…

Katherine knew she’d had too many drinks, but they were only going a short distance. And as Eve pointed out, it was late, there was no traffic anyway…

Now, Katherine would do anything to turn back the clock. If anyone ever found out about the accident, it would ruin Katherine’s life. But no one needs to know because Eve was there too, and she’s going to help make it all go away.

Except something’s not quite right with Eve, and by the time Katherine realizes that…

It’s too late.

Review –

Arghh, when I started this I thought “oh no, how predictable, I know what’s going to happen here.”

So many red flags starting with a protagonist who can’t stop saying how brilliant she is and how clever and how everyone said so including her married boss, whom she is having an affair with (who of course is going to divorce his wife, not). Her mother is in an assisted living and sort of chokes on a bit of food . Why the woman is told her mother almost choked but didn’t is beyond me but this is the set up for her to meet Eve who has every women’s fiction sociopathic trait. The brilliant main character gets her a job for almost saving her mother then parties with her and allows this young woman to convince her she can drive drunk and on and on. The whole book is a spoiler. Its painful reading or listening. You know where its going , one misstep at a time.

Very disappointing for this Natalie Barelli fan.

The Other Mrs. by Mary Kubica

Book Description:

Published: February 18, 2020

Format: Audio/OverDrive

Stars: 4

Propulsive and addictive, The Other Mrs. is the twisty new psychological thriller from Mary Kubica, the New York Timesbestselling author of The Good Girl

She tried to run, but she can’t escape the other Mrs….

Sadie and Will Foust have only just moved their family from bustling Chicago to small-town Maine when their neighbor Morgan Baines is found dead in her home. The murder rocks their tiny coastal island, but no one is more shaken than Sadie.

But it’s not just Morgan’s death that has Sadie on edge. And as the eyes of suspicion turn toward the new family in town, Sadie is drawn deeper into the mystery of what really happened that dark and deadly night. But Sadie must be careful, for the more she discovers about Mrs. Baines, the more she begins to realize just how much she has to lose if the truth ever comes to light.

Review –

“Human ecology professor Will Foust and his wife, Sadie, a doctor, have two boys, 14-year-old Otto and 7-year-old Tate. On the outside, they look like the perfect family. After Will’s sister, Alice, dies from an apparent suicide, Sadie hopes that she and Will can provide stability for Alice’s 16-year-old daughter, Imogen. They’ve also decided to leave Chicago and move into Alice’s home on a small island off the coast of Maine, which Will has inherited. Unfortunately, Sadie, who used to practice emergency medicine, finds no satisfaction in her work at a local clinic; Otto is starting to show signs of the problems Sadie hoped he’d left behind; and though she understands that Imogen is devastated in the wake of her mother’s death, the girl is behaving in a downright alarming way, including gleefully showing Sadie a picture she took of her mother as she hung from the attic rafters. Sadie also thinks Will might be cheating on her. Again. The family tension stretches to a breaking point when a neighbor woman (whom Sadie thinks Will has been cozying up to) is stabbed to death. It’s not long before Sadie finds herself at the center of a murder investigation. Kubica ably molds Sadie into a (very) complicated woman with simmering secrets; as usual, she is a master of atmospherics who can turn almost any location into a swirling cesspool of creepy possibility. However, in a story told from multiple perspectives—first person and otherwise—a few are less compelling than others, such as that of over-the-top Camille, who claims to be having an affair with Will. And while Kubica sprinkles in a few clues about the big twist, she still asks readers to suspend disbelief to the breaking point.” Kirkus Review

All in all, a very pleasant read.

To the Power of Three by Laura Lippman

Book Description:

Published: June 14, 2005

Format: Audio/OverDrive

Stars: 4

There are excellent reasons why New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman has won the Edgar®, Agatha, Anthony, Nero Wolfe, and every other major award the mystery genre has to offer. To the Power of Three is just one of those reasons. Lippman’s brilliant and disturbing tale of three inseparable high school girlfriends in an affluent Baltimore suburb who share dark secrets literally until death, To the Power of Three is this “writing powerhouse” (USA Today), who has “exploded the boundaries of the mystery genre to become one of the most significant social realists of our time” (Madison Smartt Bell) operating at the very top of her game. Not merely crime fiction, but fiction that gets to the deep psychological, emotional, and human roots of a terrible crime, Lippman’s novel is one that will not be easily forgotten—a must read for fans of Kate Atkinson, Tana French, Jodi Picoult, and Harlan Coben

Review –

A murder-suicide that rocks a Baltimore suburb may not be what it seems.

Thornton Hartigan built Glendale from the ground up, buying farmland and replacing fields with houses bought by families who wanted an easy commute to Baltimore, but with better schools. Now only the Snyder and Muhly places are left, and farmgirls Binnie Snyder and Eve Muhly struggle to fit in with the Banana Republic–clad divas of Glendale High. At the top of the social ladder stand Perri Kahn, a serious drama student whose parents don’t even own a TV; Josie Patel, who loves acrobatics so much that she’s a cheerleader, even though she doesn’t know or care which team won-won-won; and Kat Hartigan, daughter of Thornton’s son Dale, who’s nice to everyone in spite of being first in her class and prom queen. Since third grade, three girls have been best friends: rich, pretty Kat Hartigan, athletic Josie Patel and dramatic Perri Kahn. Now high school seniors, they’ve come to a gruesome end in the girls’ bathroom. Kat is dead. Perri, the presumptive shooter, is missing half her face. Josie has a bullet in her left foot. She alone can talk, and it’s clear to Lenhardt that she’s lying. Lippman zigzags her way to the moment of truth. Some of the scenes are wonderfully well told, and Lippman, as always, neatly skewers people in power (the school principal tells a 911 dispatcher, “I wouldn’t characterize it so much as a school shooting… but as a shooting at the school”). 

This newest stand-alone from Lippman  takes a searching look at the implosion of the American dream into every parent’s worst nightmare.

Family Pictures by Jane Green

Book Description:

Published: March 19, 2013

Format: Audio/OverDrive

Stars: 4

NY Times bestseller Jane Green delivers a riveting novel about two women whose lives intersect when a shocking secret is revealed.

From the author of Another Piece of My Heart comes the gripping story of two women who live on opposite coasts but whose lives are connected in ways they never could have imagined. Both women are wives and mothers to children who are about to leave the nest for school. They’re both in their forties and have husbands who travel more than either of them would like. They are both feeling an emptiness neither had expected. But when a shocking secret is exposed, their lives are blown apart. As dark truths from the past reveal themselves, will these two women be able to learn to forgive, for the sake of their children, if not for themselves?

Review –

This book had it all – family drama, anorexia, verbal abuse, empty nest syndrome, bigamy, public shame, etc. – and then some.  I swear, when it seemed like people were finally making progress a new setback would rear its ugly head and bring everything crashing down once again.  It was crazy and was like listening to a LIFETIME movie!

Right away I knew the premise of the story , but the double life of a**hole husband was only the beginning. The real story was of the survival of the two, now broken, families and the happy ending they deserved.

Excellent read!

Darkness,My Old Friend (The Hollows #2) by Lisa Unger

Book Description:

Published: June 26, 2012

Format: Audio/OverDrive

Stars: 4

New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger returns to The Hollows in this “gripping psychological thriller” (Publishers Weekly) that uses the fears found in everyday life to keep readers up all night. “This is one book that will have you racing to the last page, only to have you wishing the ride wasn’t over.” (Michael Connelly, #1 New York Times bestselling author)

After giving up his post at the Hollows Police Department, Jones Cooper is at loose ends. He is having trouble facing a horrible event from his past and finding a second act. He’s in therapy. Then, on a brisk October morning, he has a visitor. Eloise Montgomery, the psychic who plays a key role in Fragile, comes to him with predictions about his future, some of them dire.

Michael Holt, a young man who grew up in The Hollows, has returned looking for answers about his mother, who went missing many years earlier. He has hired local PI Ray Muldune and psychic Eloise Montgomery to help him solve the mystery that has haunted him. What he finds might be his undoing.

Fifteen-year-old Willow Graves is exiled to The Hollows from Manhattan when six months earlier she moved to the quiet town with her novelist mother after a bitter divorce.  Willow is acting out, spending time with kids that bring out the worst in her. And when things get hard, she has a tendency to run away–a predilection that might lead her to dark places.

Review –

“Bethany Graves and her teenage daughter, Willow, moved to The Hollows from New York City when the bestselling novelist divorced Willow’s stepfather, a shallow, self-absorbed plastic surgeon. Thinking that the experience of small-town living might provide a cure for Willow’s recent penchant of lying about everything, Beth settles into writing another book. She also jumps back into the dating game with Willow’s high-school principal, Henry Ivy, a nice, nerdy sort of guy who has been nursing a secret for many years. But then, this is The Hollows, and everyone has some sort of secret in his past, including Jones Cooper, the retired cop resurrected from a previous novel. Jones has been doing odd jobs for the neighbors since he left from the force. Now, instead of chasing bad guys, he feeds the neighborhood cats and lets the repairman in while the neighbor’s at work. But soon a former colleague comes calling and wants his help with a cold case, and a young mother seeks him out to find the missing mom of a classmate of Willow’s. Before Jones knows it, he is back in the investigations business, but a local psychic warns him that she has seen a terrible vision involving him and, if her predictions hold true, this could be Jones’ last case ever. Unger introduces a dizzying number of characters who seem to have little, if anything, in common except for their location, but manages to tie them all neatly together. Although the outcome is not exactly a shocker since Unger sprinkles clues like breadcrumbs along the way, it’s a satisfying story with an eclectic and interesting cast of characters and believable dialogue. Unger shows her usual deftness at intricate plotting and explores the mother-child relationship from multiple angles, but too often refers to back story from a previous novel without explanation. That tendency often leaves readers wondering if they missed something along the way.” Kirkus Review

Even though Jones isn’t on the police department any longer – don’t count him out. I loved how he is determined to make his recent derailment from life count as he plots a new way for himself. I also love how we find out more about Henry’s backstory which adds to the interesting friendship of people in the Hollows.

 

Fragile (The Hollows 31) by Lisa Unger

Book Description:

Published: July 26, 2011

Format: Audio/OverDrive

Stars: 4

Bestselling author Lisa Unger has “made her mark” (Boston Globe) and delivers another exciting blockbuster that explores one community’s intricate yet fragile bonds and will leave readers asking, How well do I know the people I love? and How far would I go to protect them?

Everybody knows everybody in The Hollows, a quaint, charming town outside of New York City. It’s a place where neighbors keep an eye on one another’s kids, where people say hello in the grocery store, and where high school cliques and antics are never quite forgotten. As a child, Maggie found living under the microscope of small-town life stifling. But as a wife and mother, she has happily returned to The Hollows’s insular embrace. As a psychologist, her knowledge of family histories provides powerful insights into her patients’ lives. So when the girlfriend of her teenage son, Rick, disappears, Maggie’s intuitive gift proves useful to the case–and also dangerous.

The investigation has her husband, Jones, the lead detective on the case, acting strangely. Rick, already a brooding teenager, becomes even more withdrawn. In a town where the past is always present, nobody is above suspicion, not even a son in the eyes of his father.

Determined to uncover the truth, Maggie pursues her own leads into Charlene’s disappearance and exposes a long-buried town secret–one that could destroy everything she holds dear.

Review –

“The Hollows is the kind of place where “your doctor was also your neighbor…the cop at your door had been the burnout always in trouble when you were in high school.” So when self-dramatizing Charlene Murray vanishes after a fight with her mother Melody, everyone uneasily remembers the disappearance two decades earlier of perfect student Sarah, who turned up dead in the woods. Most unnerved of all is local cop Jones Cooper; it’s clear from the novel’s opening that he was somehow involved in Sarah’s death. That may be why he’s willing to believe that his son Ricky, Charlene’s boyfriend, was the one who picked her up in a green car the night she left home. Jones’ lack of trust infuriates and bewilders wife Maggie, a psychiatrist who knows there are plenty of kids in The Hollows more troubled than mildly rebellious Ricky. First and foremost among them is Maggie’s patient Marshall Crosby, sinking into severe depression now that he’s returned to living with his abusive father. Travis Crosby has been bounced from the police force after his DUI conviction, but he’s still armed and dangerous, not least for his hold over Marshall, who is both deeply creepy and heartbreakingly vulnerable in Unger’s multidimensional portrait. All the other anxious, guilt-ridden characters are painted in equally perceptive shades of gray. For a while it seems the author has planted too many dark secrets in her plot—even Maggie’s elderly mother has something to hide—but gradually she pulls the narrative threads together in a rich tapestry of psychological wounds passed down through generations. The denouement is grim, but the final resolution of both missing girls’ cases offers hope for the future. In the novel’s most moving scene, Ricky offers his tormented father the understanding and acceptance Jones is shamed to realize he has never given his son.” Kirkus Review

This book had me totally captivated from the beginning and I just fell in love with Jones Cooper’s character. First of all, there’s  his name: Jones. How many Jones do you know? He is flawed yet lovable and he captured my heart. I look forward to reading more of this series.

 

 

 

Gwendy’s Button Box (The Button Box #1)by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar

Book Description:

Published: May 16, 2017

Format: Audio/OverDrive

Stars:3

The little town of Castle Rock, Maine has witnessed some strange events and unusual visitors over the years, but there is one story that has never been told… until now.

There are three ways up to Castle View from the town of Castle Rock: Route 117, Pleasant Road, and the Suicide Stairs. Every day in the summer of 1974 twelve-year-old Gwendy Peterson has taken the stairs, which are held by strong (if time-rusted) iron bolts and zig-zag up the cliffside.

At the top of the stairs, Gwendy catches her breath and listens to the shouts of the kids on the playground. From a bit farther away comes the chink of an aluminum bat hitting a baseball as the Senior League kids practice for the Labor Day charity game.

One day, a stranger calls to Gwendy: “Hey, girl. Come on over here for a bit. We ought to palaver, you and me.”

On a bench in the shade sits a man in black jeans, a black coat like for a suit, and a white shirt unbuttoned at the top. On his head is a small neat black hat. The time will come when Gwendy has nightmares about that hat…

Journey back to Castle Rock again in this chilling new novella by Stephen King, bestselling author of The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, and Richard Chizmar, award-winning author of A Long December. This book will be a Cemetery Dance Publications exclusive with no other editions currently planned anywhere in the world!

Review –

Gwendy Peterson is a slightly chubby twelve year-old girl nicknamed “Goodyear.” Yes, because of the blimp. She is set out to lose weight before she starts middle school, so she runs up a steep set of stairs every day that are known as the Suicide Stairs in the town of Castle Rock. During one of these runs up the killer steps, she meets a strangely charming man by the name of Richard Farris. Wearing a small black hat that will come to haunt Gwendy, Farris charms her into taking a button box from him. This box, her box, made of mahogany, 2 levers and 8 hard-to-push buttons will haunt her and help her throughout the next part of her life in this dark coming-of-age horror novella. Gwendy’s Button Box draws on old school horror, for me. Where you can’t see the monster under the bed and the things that we don’t know are scarier than the things we do. You are basically told in the first chapter what this box does, but there is still this huge mystery floating around it. What power does the box have? Why was it given to Gwendy? Who had it before her? Is Richard Farris always watching? Was the success in Gwendy’s life always meant to be? Or is the box influencing her life? Are regular people more evil than what’s inside the box? Like the classic scene from Se7en, what’s in the box? While we’re asking ourselves these dark questions, we’re watching Gwendy grow into a beautiful young woman. We watch her have fights with friends, become a track star, study for school, go on dates, deal with grief, and find love. However, the box never leaves her mind. The whole story is enjoyable and entertaining with a ton of nostalgia – drive-ins, your first car, school dances, first jobs and obviously the supernatural (we are talking about a King, here). Though Stephen King did co-author this book with Richard Chizmar, it doesn’t have as much horror as a typical King. That doesn’t mean, though, that there aren’t some cool horror scenes. The horror is there, but it’s not shoved into every crevice of every page. It is well placed exactly where it is needed. This book feels like a coming-of-age horror for those that are coming of age. It is kind of like an introduction to Stephen King for younger teens before they tear into ‘It.’ The writing style is a little more simplistic and the horror is way toned down, but I would recommend it to anyone in any age range. I read it in one sitting and was eager for more. But the length was perfect, any more and it would have answered too much to have the intangible horror aspect that I loved so much. And any less would have just left me mad. I could describe this book as horror that left me smiling, but for me it feel flat and that’s why I gave it three stars. Maybe I needed more gore and mayhem.