Killer by Jonathan Kellerman

 

Blurb:

The City of Angels has more than its share of psychopaths, and no one recognizes that more acutely than the brilliant psychologist and police consultant, Dr. Alex Delaware. Despite that, Constance Sykes, a sophisticated, successful physician, hardly seems like someone Alex needs to fear. Then, at the behest of the court, he becomes embroiled in a bizarre child-custody dispute initiated by Connie against her sister and begins to realize that there is much about the siblings he has failed to comprehend. And when the court battle between the Sykes sisters erupts into cold, calculating murder and a rapidly growing number of victims, Alex knows he’s been snared in a toxic web of pathology.

Nothing would please Alex more than to be free of the ugly spectacle known as Sykes v. Sykes. But then the little girl at the center of the vicious dispute disappears, and Alex knows he must work with longtime-friend Detective Milo Sturgis, braving an obstacle course of Hollywood washouts, gangbangers, and self-serving jurists in order to save an innocent life.

Review:

I normally don’t review best-sellers like Killer, because they don’t need a boost in sales from reviewers like me, but when you pull a book off the Net Galley website, you’re required to review it. Jonathan Kellerman’s Alex Delaware books are among the books I would recommend to new authors who want to write series. I believe I first picked up a book somewhere in the middle and then went back to the beginning—not because I felt I’d missed anything, but because I liked it. I read every book in the series and then waited for each book to come out until I got too busy with my own books, editing jobs, my review site, and the Marketing for Romance Writers Newsletter to read much for pleasure. I’m not sure how many Delaware books I’ve missed, but when I picked up Killer, it didn’t matter. Each book stands on its own as books in a series should.

What can I say about a master storyteller who just gets better with each book he writes? Mr. Kellerman drew me back into Dr. Delaware’s life on the first page of Killer, and kept me on the edge of my seat through the whole book. It was so nice to revisit Alex, Milo, Alex’s girlfriend Robin, and their French bulldog, Blanche. And I can’t believe I’m saying this two weeks in a row, but I didn’t know who did it until Mr. Kellerman revealed it. I usually figure these things out at least half way through, but he threw in enough red-herrings that I truly did not know who the Killer was.

Length:  353 Pages

Prices:

Print (Hardcover):  $28.00

Print (Paperback Lg. Print):  $28.00

Kindle:  $12.99

Audible (Unabridged):  $26.95

Buy Link:  http://www.amazon.com/Killer-Delaware-Novel-Jonathan-Kellerman-ebook/dp/B00EMX9QQA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1393703709&sr=1-1&keywords=killer+jonathan+kellerman

Thanks for visiting. RIW

Awakening & Possession by Catrina Burgess

  

 Awakening Blurb:

At seventeen Colina began her training to be a healer, and now she is expected to start wielding the magic that goes along with her calling. But then tragedy hits and the young healer finds herself on the run for her life. Her only hope of survival is to convince one of the members of the death dealer guild to take her in and to train her in the dark arts, but to become one of the dark wizards she must survive three trials. The trials are difficult and dangerous—she will have to court death itself, suffer the possession of another, and if she makes it to the third ritual, she'll have to do the unthinkable. Can she survive the horrific trials long enough to gain the dark power? And if she does, what will she become?

To get this dark power she must first convince Luke, a boy about her own age, to take her through the trials. He's only a novice himself in the dark arts. He is reluctant to help the young healer, but he soon finds himself entangled in the same web of danger. The death dealers are on the very top of the magic food chain, their magic is the most powerful of all the clans and guilds—for they have the power to not only see and communicate with the dead, but they can bind the spirits to do their bidding. They wield banshees, tortured souls that can harm and even kill. Luke soon realizes he is not just risking his life—he is also risking his heart, for the young wizard is falling hard for a girl with too many secrets. Can he help Colina find her way to the dark powers?

Possession Blurb:

Seventeen year old Colina Campbell has betrayed her healer upbringing. In the name of survival and revenge, she had no choice but to seek the ways of the Death Dealers. She has gone through the Dark Rituals and the Awakening has taken place. There is no going back. She thought the worst was behind her, but she couldn’t have been more wrong. Now she must use her wits again to survive. She’s willing to risk her life and to do whatever it takes to bring back her lost love.

Review:

Awakening:  After witnessing the horrific deaths of her family, Colina a seventeen year-old girl who recently started her healer training, turns to a death dealer for help to find and punish the people who killed them.  Becoming a death dealer will make her a pariah among her own people, but she’s desperate.  Unfortunately, the only death dealers she finds are Luke, a boy her own age, and his younger sister, Darla.  Luke has been trained as a death dealer, but he’s not that experienced.  He’s not sure he’s strong enough yet to train someone on his own.  But the people who killed Darla’s family are still after her.  There’s no time to wait two weeks for their family to return from the retreat they’re attending.

Luke agrees to train Colina, and she undergoes the three trials, but her Awakening brings powers neither anticipated.  In fact, she manifests powers no one has seen before—something that leaves us with a cliff-hanger ending, which I hate.

Possession:  Colina awakens in a padded room with no memory of who she is, or how she got there.  She is in an insane asylum and has been given electric shock therapy. Eventually her memory returns and she realizes she’s there trying to save Luke, who is also there.  But there’s a murderer possessing someone in the asylum, and Colina doesn’t know who.  It could be someone she cares about.  It could even be Luke.  They plan to escape, but she has to find out who the murderer is possessing before they leave.  She couldn’t forgive herself if she turned him loose on the world.  Again, the book ends with a cliff-hanger, one of my pet peeves.

Colina is a strong young lady who overcomes a myriad of obstacles.  She’s not co-dependent on any sparkly vampires or overly-buff werewolves.  She’s really a good role model for modern young girls, and I would have liked to have given these books a higher rating.  But, again—even though they’re part of a series, I believe books should be written to stand alone.  Awakening is a bit better than Possession.  It hints that there’s another book at the end.  If you’re willing to accept the story as it is, you don’t necessarily have to read Possession.  But if you want a happily-ever-after ending, you do.  And you won’t find it at the end of Possession, either.  There’s at least one more book to be read, coming out sometime this year.  It’s because Colina is a strong character and these books are engaging and fast-paced that I’m giving them roses and not thorns.

If you don’t mind cliff-hangers, these books are quite good.

Awakening Length:  257 Pages

Awakening Price:  $0.99

Awakening Buy Link:  http://www.amazon.com/Awakening-The-Dark-Rituals-Book-ebook/dp/B00GZOEAQU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389831477&sr=8-1&keywords=Awakening+%2B+Catrina+Burgess

Possession Length:  287 Pages

Possession Price:  $2.99

Possession Buy Link:  http://www.amazon.com/Possession-The-Dark-Rituals-Book-ebook/dp/B00GZOE812/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389832463&sr=8-1&keywords=Possession+%2B+Catrina+Burgess

Thanks for visiting. RIW

Thy Kingdom Needs to Fall; Thy Kingdom Fall by Austin Dragon

Blurb:

It is the morning of September 11, 2125. The New York City police commissioner stands on the 170th floor of the Three Towers, clutching his chest in shock. The sky goes dark, filled with dozens of them—the opening attack of World War III. Not merely the planet’s third global war, but the first one of the Tek Age—a hell we have never seen before.

How did we ever get to this place?

In 2089, a former skin-runner-turned-star-reporter quietly investigates the Washington DC daylight murder of the most powerful political king-maker in the nation. It is just the tip of a wider conspiracy and the start of a chain of events leading to this world catastrophe.

The world is a very different place: Western Europe has fallen to the Islamic Caliphate, Israel is gone, Eastern Europe has merged with Russia and Beijing runs the anti-American Chinese-Indian Alliance. America is very different too. The US Constitution has been found unconstitutional and replaced, presidential term limits are gone, and the culture wars are over. The three-term American president is obsessed with keeping the nation safe at all costs—by ending religiosity. But the Resistance stands in his way.

Thy Kingdom Fall is Book One of the epic After Eden Series.

Review:

I realize I’ve said I would not review a book until I finished reading it, but I see no way this book can redeem itself in my eyes regardless how it ends.  The characters are well-fleshed out okay, and the plot could be engaging.  But Thy Kingdom Fall is full of political rants and repetition, as each event is told from the point of view of different characters.  This is a four-hundred-plus page book that could easily have been edited down to three-hundred pages or less.

The book is told in flashback, which would be okay if the author started at the beginning and told the story chronologically.  Instead, he hops back and forth between 2089 and 2076 in Part One.  He adds even earlier dates to Part Two.  A flashback is fine, but here the flashbacks have flashbacks, and the transitions are choppy. It’s dizzying.

The thing that really makes me want to throw my Kindle across the room, however, is Mr. Dragon’s vilifying a group of people who do not deserve it.  Do your homework, sir.  The villains in this book are the Pagans, whom Mr. Dragon paints as godless people trying to stamp out religion.  The Pagans are the ones in charge of the government who trash the Constitution, pass laws against owning the Bible, and declare religious language (even the word “amen”) to be “hate language.”

That is not what Pagans are about at all.  The word pagan is derived from the Latin word paganus, or country dweller.  Most people today who call themselves “Pagans” believe in some form of deity and follow one of the ancient polytheistic paradigms such as the Egyptian, Greco-Roman, Nordic, Celtic, or Native American/Shamanic gods and goddesses.  We honor the Earth, the sky, and all of nature’s works.  Most believe in reincarnation, coming back until you get it right and then dwelling in Summerland, or Nirvanna, or Valhalla, or whatever.  Pagans are also the most accepting people around.  We don’t proselytize; we respect other people’s beliefs.  When was the last time a Pagan knocked on your door and tried to convert you?

So, again, Mr. Dragon—do your homework before you vilify a group of people.  We Pagans are not the villains you seem to think we are.

Length:  436 Very Long Pages

Prices:

E-Book:  $2.99

Paperback:  $13.51

Hardcover:  $24.29

Buy Link:  http://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Fall-After-Eden-Series/product-reviews/0988723506/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_2?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addTwoStar&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

Thanks for visiting.  RIW