Tag: missingperson

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#BookReview: Lost Little Angels by Holly S. Roberts

Quite Possibly More Demented And Disturbing Than The First. This is one of those police procedurals that directly deals with the fallout from the first book – so make sure you read that one first. But then it goes even darker, even more twisted, even more tense. And just when you think this thing couldn’t *possibly* get any more twisted, dark, or tense… it very clearly is *still building* to some final showdown, likely in the finale of the series – whenever that might be. Overall truly a great work that is bound to piss off at least some, particularly in polygamous Mormon circles, but shows a great deal of care in showing that the evils perpetrated here are not “mainstream” Mormonism. Very much recommended.

This review of Lost Little Angels by Holly S. Roberts was originally written on July 18, 2023.

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#BookReview: Have You Seen Her by Catherine McKenzie

Not McKenzie’s Strongest Work, Still A Solid Read. I suppose this is how you know when an author is truly good overall – when they can have a book that is rather far from their best, and still create a mostly compelling tale from it. Here, it almost seems like McKenzie is phoning it in. Clearly, *something* happened here, but that is for her to know and we readers to simply move on from. 🙂

The book itself is both interesting and yet slow. There is enough of the mechanics built in to move the plot along and to ratchet up the mystery and tension before a wild curve late in the book that very nearly gives a sense of whiplash, and there is even room here for a sequel, should McKenzie choose to go that route. There is a lot of telling what happens rather than showing what happens, and yet McKenzie overall makes this work within the space of this tale and how she is telling it.

If you’re a fan of Yosemite National Park and/ or want to vicariously live a summer there, this may be of interest. If you’re interested in learning something about the volunteer search and rescue teams that spend summers in some of these parks, this may be of interest. And if you’re a long time fan of McKenzie, this will absolutely be of interest. But for anyone else, I actually recommend reading almost any of McKenzie’s *prior* works first, to see how good she is and build some trust first. *Then* come into this book with that trust, and hopefully it works out for you. I know it did for me, as I’m still looking forward to the next one. Recommended.

This review of Have You Seen Her by Catherine McKenzie was originally written on June 19, 2023.

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#BookReview: The Vanishing Hour by Seraphina Nova Glass

Solid Use Of Multi-POV To Create Compelling Thriller. Ok, this is one the “intelligentsia” claim “you can see coming from a mile away with a blindfold on”. Eh, maybe. I didn’t, not until the actual reveal. But I don’t read mysteries or thrillers *trying* to do that. If anything, I’m looking for deeper connections to the current zeitgeist or to some legend or lore. (None of which is really present here, to be clear, other than this being yet another missing person based book.) What I found here was a solid use of multiple POVs and perspectives to create a thriller where everyone has secrets, everyone is lying… and yet one person’s lies are hiding an awful truth that will unravel the entire thing. And then there is the back quarter or so, where all the lies are revealed, and the tale instead turns into a race to save a life… or end another. This part was where Glass apparently lost some readers, who felt that the tale fell off the rails here. Again, I disagree. While a different approach through this section (yet still maintaining the multiple POVs), I felt it was at least as compelling as anything that had come before it, and indeed even the ending itself felt justified and at least understandable, if not completely realistic. Overall, this book admittedly isn’t likely to win any awards, yet as compelling or at minimum serviceable escapism for a few hours (clocking in at just under 300 pages), this is absolutely a book that will transport you away from the “real” world and into one with a bit of everything for everyone, including even doses of humor and romance. Very much recommended.

This review of The Vanishing Hour by Seraphina Nova Glass was originally written on May 19, 2023.

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#BookReview: The Seaside Library by Brenda Novak

More Mystery Than Romance. This is apparently Novak’s 75 book, and while I’ve only read a handful of those prior books – mostly a few of her most recent ones – this seems to be a bit of a departure from her usual style. At least in my own experience with her, she tends to write more women’s fiction/ romance blends… and this is pretty far from that. This is more of a Catherine McKenzie / Kimberly Belle / Leah Mercer style mystery that also includes a romance than the more usual Novak style, though still set in an idyllic small town island. It is specifically because the title and cover don’t really match the overall tone and substance of the tale told here that it lost a star for me, and admittedly this is something that can easily be corrected in the nearly five months between when I write this review and the book’s actual publication date.

For what it actually is, this story is pretty solid and well told – if you like your mysteries to also include a romance, you’re going to love this book. If you enjoy a tale that meets all known RWA criteria for being a “romance book” but the story is more about the mystery than the romance, you’re going to enjoy this book. But if you’re looking for more of a “classic Novak” women’s fiction/ drama on an island… eh, read this book and see what you think. I personally think it is a bit darker than her usual and thus is a fairly significant departure, but again, I’ve only read her last few books. For all I know this is where she built her fan base and is *returning* to this rather than this being an entirely new thing for her. Again, what she does do here, she does in fact do quite well indeed, so there is that at least.

Overall this was an excellent tale that was told well – it just doesn’t match its title (which has only the most tangential of connections to the tale) or cover imagery. Very much recommended.

This review of The Seaside Library by Brenda Novak was originally written on December 18, 2022.

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#BookReview: Never Back Down by Christopher Swann

Comic Book Justice. In this epic conclusion (?) to Suzie Falkner’s story, Swann manages to keep the tension tight even when filling in backstory – and showing that the characters have lived through the year ish since the publication of Never Go Home in near real-time with the rest of us. Except that for Suzie, that year has been spent being tormented by the fallout from Never Go Home. (In other words, read that book first in this particular case.) We spend most of the book with the Big Bad more a menacing presence in the shadows (ala the opening sequence) or the general background (most of the book) while showing off Suzie’s own skills ever more prominently, including several other tie-ins to Never Go Home. (Seriously, read that book first.) And then, in the last third of the book or so, Swann gets into Suzie’s toughest tests yet – and into some of the most creepy and traumatizing events of these books. Getting into the specifics would be spoilery, but one does need to be generally referenced in case the reader is particularly sensitive to this issue: there *is* a school shooting in this book, and yes, people die in it. Given the realities of the world today, that caution needed to be mentioned. Along those lines, Swann has a line or two where his personal politics tinge the page – but they tend to be throwaway lines that are not pervasive and are quickly moved past, and therefore don’t warrant a star deduction so much as a mention of their presence. Overall truly a breathtaking book that you won’t want to put down for even a second. Very much recommended.

This review of Never Back Down by Christopher Swann was originally written on December 2, 2022.

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#BookReview: A Light In The Forest by Melissa Payne

Strong Story Well Told – Yet Very Preachy As Well. I’ve been reading Melissa Payne’s books since the very first one, and I can assure long time fans that while this book is in fact quite preachy on a couple of subjects in particular (more on that momentarily), it is also her usual quite strong storytelling here. For people that haven’t read Payne yet, this is a good one to start with *if you don’t have issues with the topics she is preachy about here*. (Otherwise go with literally any of her other books – The Secrets of Lost Stones, Memories In The Drift, or The Night Of Many Endings.)

The preachiness here is *mostly* around trans/ LGBT issues, though there is also a fair amount of “country men who don’t agree with my opinion on these issues are all backwards a**h***s”. (I’m not going to say outright misandry, because there *are* a few male characters who are both country and shown in quite positive lights – so long as they agree with particular views on the above issues.)

Beyond the preachiness though, there *is* a genuinely strong story here. Perhaps not quite as strong as the prior works by the author, all of which created strong dust storms no matter where they are read, as this reader’s eyes got watery no matter what environment he was reading them in – and *that* never actually happened with this book. Still, as a story of finding oneself even in tragedy – a few times over – and how traumas can last to new generations, this really was quite a strong tale. And heck, there are even elements of the tale that the most hyper militant pro-LGBT types probably aren’t going to like much either, but discussing those gets *way* too far into spoiler territory to mention beyond the simple fact that they exist.

Overall truly a strong tale well told, and one that while preachy, is still readable and enjoyable by most anyone – one that even if you would normally be put off by the preachiness, it is still a tale strong enough to push through those feelings and read anyway. Just please, if you do that, don’t lower your rating because of the preachiness. Do what I did here, and put your thoughts on that subject in the text of the review. 🙂
Very much recommended.

This review of A Light In The Forest by Melissa Payne was originally written on November 2, 2022.

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#BookReview: The Personal Assistant by Kimberly Belle

Meganets And Pre-Networks. Ok, I know what you’re thinking – what does computer networking and the Internet have to do with this book? Well, on some level, it is somewhat obvious – one of our main characters is a social media “influencer” with a million followers. But on another level… Belle actually manages here to show the pitfalls and advantages of two different eras of human history, perhaps without even being cognizant of doing this, just seeking timelines that worked for the story she was telling and making the other details work around that. Yet speaking of details, there are some wrong ones here, particularly around guns – which anyone who follows Belle’s own social media knows that the anti-gun paranoia expressed by one main character is at least somewhat close to Belle’s own real life feelings (though, to be clear, I am not saying the character’s specific motivations for these feelings are anywhere near Belle’s, as I have never seen any public comments from her anywhere near those specific actions). Specifically, guns are not “registered” anywhere in Georgia, not even in Fulton County (home of Atlanta and generally heavily left-of-center of American politics, much less non-Atlanta Georgia politics). Still, going back to the main thrust of this review, Belle truly does do a remarkable job of showing just how easily today’s meganets can be used for harm… while also showing that the pre-meganet era was still pretty dang bad itself. All told this is a remarkable tale that manages to bring elements to the general setup not often seen anywhere else – and never seen before in my own reading within the genre – and thus this alone is quite commendable. Very much recommended.

This review of The Personal Assistant by Kimberly Belle was originally written on October 30, 2022.

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#BookReview: Snatched by James Beltz

Chilling Combination Of Police Procedural And Paranormal. Beltz apparently wrote this entire trilogy at once, before releasing each book a month after the previous entry, and here we find the two cops at the center of Book 1 – Twisted – involved in yet another paranormal mystery where the only connective tissue between the books is the cops themselves. Here, rather than the tele-muchness of Twisted, we get a different type of paranormal ability, and yet Beltz still manages to use these abilities in surprising ways to fight a particularly cunning and chilling bad guy. This is one of those books that will absolutely make you rethink some of the things you allow your children to do/ you allow to be done to your children – and yet Beltz does this perfectly within the story he is telling here, without ever being preachy about any real-world topic. Very much recommended.

This review of Snatched by James Beltz was originally written on September 29, 2022.

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#BlogTour: Taken Before Dawn by B.R. Spangler

For this blog tour we’re looking at the most intense Casey White series book yet. For this blog tour we’re looking at Taken Before Dawn by B.R. Spangler.

You Probably Won’t Want To Read This Right Before Bed. In this next chilling installment of this series, we get what is quite possibly Spangler’s most chilling villains to date – and the most direct threat to Detective Casey White since I picked up this series around book 4 or so. One sequence in particular, taking up somewhere around a quarter of the book or so, is so truly chilling that the title of this review was warranted – you’re not going to want to try to go to sleep while reading/ soon after reading this particular section. I don’t want to give anything away, so I’ll be a bit oblique and note that there is a popular horror franchise that is actually *less* chilling, though around the same type of idea, as what is going on here. Before and after this section, the book is actually more of a “standard” Casey White series police procedural. We get to see the team doing its thing both professionally and personally, including how later developments in the series (again, being vague to avoid giving anything away) continue to play out. Certainly one of the better books in this series, which is saying quite a bit itself, and arguably the best to date – which is saying *quite* a bit. I know this thing releases almost a full month after I’m writing this review, but BR… Imma need number 8 like, *now*. Very much recommended.

After the jump, the “publisher details” – book description, author bio, and social media and buy links.
Continue reading “#BlogTour: Taken Before Dawn by B.R. Spangler”

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#BookReview: Things We Do In The Dark by Jennifer Hillier

I Refuse To Be My [Parent]. Yes, a version of the title line of this review is said in the book. And that was the moment the book hit particularly hard for me. Because I’ve lived it. Not directly, but as the child of a person that did. To be clear, it was not the same kind of abuse that my parent endured, but it *was* abuse and it *did* shape that parent in ways that have played out over the course of my own life. So at that moment, this book became very, very real for me and I could see that character’s actions as clear as day and understand them on levels I don’t often get to even in fiction.

The rest of the book, with a present day murder and blackmailing, a secret identity, a true crime podcast looking at a murder years ago and how it all ties together… was all excellently done. Other reviews complain about the backstory, but for me that was the actual story – because it shows everything that caused the person to utter the line I titled the review with. Overall a strong tale that survivors of domestic abuse may struggle with, but which ultimately should prove cathartic indeed even for them. Very much recommended.

This review of Things We Do In The Dark by Jennifer Hillier was originally written on July 10, 2022.