Author: debra

Books, great reads, Reviews

Naked In Death by J.D. Robb

debra

Hey everyone,

I know I am very late in starting this series, but better late than never!  This series is set in the not to distant future and stars Eve Dallas as a Lieutenant In New York and Roarke as a suspect in a murder mystery she is investigating.  I really enjoyed this story. The writing is tight and the plot has staying power.  I would expect nothing less from Ms. Robb, who I am sure everyone knows is Nora Roberts.  The plot moved right along and as someone who enjoys murder mysteries, I liked how the mystery unfolds. There is enough suspense in the plot to keep it interesting and enough suspects to give you something to figure out. (The bad person was in my top two suspects. Yay me!)  I also enjoyed how the relationship between Eve and Roarke plays out.  It was not rushed in my opinion (a personal pet peeve of mine).  Eve has to work through her emotions due to Roarke being a suspect.

If you haven’t started this series yet, give it a try.  I will be moving on to Book 2 very soon.

Happy Reading,

Debra

Books, great reads, Reviews

Needing Moore Trilogy by Julie A. Richman

debra

Hey everyone,

This is a longer than normal review—I couldn’t decide what to leave out!!

I think this trilogy is possibly the best story I have read this year.  If you have not read it, you owe it to yourself to try it.

Two friendly warnings upfront:

  1. The story takes all three books to tell.  Books 1 and 2 are cliffhangers!! Be forewarned.
  2. This story has a lot of emotional upheaval in it, especially as it relates to the character of Mia.  Emotions, both good and bad, are very strong in this story.

Now, for a brief synopsis.  Schooner (I love this name) and Mia meet in college.  They are soul mates and know it.  Through a misunderstanding, the characters’ immaturity in knowing how to straighten out misunderstandings, and some devious behavior on the part of another character, they are torn apart and their lives take very different paths.  Twenty-four years later, they find each other again and are determined to be together.  The story starts present day and their lives are told largely in flashback, so to speak.  We learn what happened in college and their respective lives apart while they are re-discovering their relationship and figuring out how to make things work.  I laughed and cried throughout this story.  The moments of humor, largely due to a secondary character, are so very important, especially in contrast to the moments of total heartbreaking sadness that occurs as the story unfolds (see warning #2 above).

What I thought made this story so strong:

  1. The characters.  Obviously, Schooner and Mia are front and center.  They are well-developed throughout the story and we fall in love with them for who they were and who they become.  Mia in my opinion is a very strong female who is not afraid to tell Schooner what she thinks when he needs to hear it. Schooner is a wonderful character.  Also, all the secondary characters are completely essential to the story.  They all play an important role in the story of Mia and Schooner’s lives.  There are not any extra characters who just take up space.
  2. The story itself.  I don’t think the author uses any extra “filler” materials.  Everything that happens in the story (especially in Mia’s life) is important to how Schooner and Mia matured and developed as characters.  Life happens (the good, the bad, and the very ugly).  The author wasn’t just using up pages in the books.

This story is an emotional roller-coaster, but a ride well worth taking.  Do yourself a favor and if you decide to read it, go ahead and get all three books—you will need them.D

Happy reading,

Debra

Out of the Box Blogs

My Love/Hate of Ebooks

debra

First of all, I have a love relationship with my Kindle Fire and my ebooks.  Sometimes, I am a mood reader which is why I keep a couple of books going at a time.  With my Kindle, I can take it with me and have many books available if I am in a mood for something particular.  I enjoy the portability of having lots of my books available to me while only carrying a few ounces of weight.  However, I also have a hate relationship with some ebooks I have gotten over the years.

I started reading ebooks before ereaders were common place among us.  At that time, I downloaded the books from ebooks sites generally in PDF formats.  I still have them, have converted them using Calibre and moved them to my Kindle.  When I got my first Kindle (keyboard generation and still my favorite although it died), I got a lot of inexpensive ebooks from new authors or authors who had not been traditionally published and had opted for self-publishing. Before continuing, I want to say that I have found some authors this way that I love and am very happy with.  However, I have also noted many problems with these types of ebooks.  My pet peeves:  bad grammatical errors, spelling errors, etc.  Kid you not, I purchased an ebook from an indie author that had a sentence in it wherein the lead character went to one of the tropical island paradises and the author mentioned the name of the capital city.  Immediately after the capital city’s name was a set of parenthesis with a question mark in them, so we had the name and then (?) behind it.  My only thought was that I did not have a problem with the author in their draft not being sure of the name of the capital and leaving herself a note to check it out, but then it was published with the question mark still there!  Really?  I don’t remember now if I checked to see if the name of the capital city was accurate, but at that point, I did not care.  More than once, I have screamed, “Where is the editing in this book?”   I certainly do not mind the occasional error—it happens.  Nobody is perfect.  But repetitive errors in the same book are not acceptable to me when I pay hard-earned money for a book.

I need to stop ranting now.  Seriously, I love ebooks, but I feel that the industry has a lot of work to do.

To Be Continued.

Happy Reading,

debra

Books, great reads, Reviews

Where One Goes by B.N. Toler

debra

Hi everyone,

If you have not read this book, I recommend you to.  I found this book by way of an online book club that I belong to and it was the September selection.  This is the first book by this author I have read.

This book has three main characters:  Char, Ike and George.  Char can see the spirits of the dead and helps them crossover to the other side by helping them with their “unfinished business”, whatever it is that is keeping them here on this side.  This has been very hard on Char (short for Charlotte) since her family thinks she is crazy and kicks her out and her job of helping the dead is very difficult.  After being on her own for several years, she has had all she can take and decides to end her life.  As she is preparing to jump, she meets Ike and the story starts unfolding.  Ike died in the service, yet can’t move on because he is worried about his twin brother, George.  George owns a business that Ike was co-owner of.  As twins, Ike and George had that unique relationship that twins have and not only has he lost brother, but also his best friend and business partner.  George can not relate to this new reality and becomes messed up with drug abuse.  So Char and Ike are on the case to try to help George.  Over the course of the story, an interesting “relationship” develops between Char and Ike.  Interesting because the relationship cannot happen–Ike is dead.  However, there is a very strong connection between Char and Ike.  The problem is that a relationship develops between Char and George.  The story at times is heartwarming and heart wrenching, especially when the truth of Char’s abilities are brought out to George and his family.  Throughout the story, Char also helps Ike and George’s parents as well as a deceased little girl as she needs to cross-over but can’t yet.. Some additional suspense is also introduced because of a case that Char is helping a spirit with at the beginning.  Char also helps a buddy of Ike’s from the service who is in Ike’s hometown working at George’s bar.  She helps him deal with Ike’s death.  The characters evolve throughout as we watch how the story starts with Char helping Ike and in the end Ike helping Char and both helping George.

I thought this story was very touching and I enjoyed it.  I don’t believe I can ever re-read this book (I do this with books I enjoy) because of the level of emotional angst in it.  However, I do suggest you give it a look.