My  Instagram post about The Martian audiobook is:

If you listened to The Martian by Andy Weir, narrated by R.C. Bray and you didn't like it, WE CAN NO LONGER BE FRIENDS.

 I really should just leave it at that.

Fine, so here's more. Mark Watney is the only member of a crew who survived a devastating dust storm on Mars after being the first man to walk on the red planet. His commander and the rest of the crew "confirmed" he had died and without risking more lives to secure his body and bring him back, they make the heart-wrenching decision to leave him. The only problem is that Watney did survive, and somehow he's got to figure out how to stay alive until rescue comes. And in the meantime, he should probably figure out how to communicate with them also so that they know he actually did make it through the dust storm. When I write "meantime," I should clarify that I'm speaking in days.... as in hundreds of days. Somehow, in those hundreds of days, Mark Watney has to keep his air supply going, feed himself, keep his electronics up to par, maintain his humor, and generally just NOT DIE.

Through intelligence, training, dedication, and absolute extreme humor, Mark Watney is one of the most engaging characters to get to know. With his journal and video logs, combined with life on earth responses and characters who ranged from the tight-assed (but completely understandable) PR specialist and the brilliant but relaxed research scientists, the audiobook version was a winner in every way. While there were more than enough moments that had me cracking up, the successful balance of scenes that made me hold my breath wondering if Watney would make it out of this one continued and I refused every excuse to take a break from listening. I'm sure this has been written already somewhere by someone much smarter than me, but this was Apollo 13 on Mars, and DAMN IT WAS AWESOME.

It's going to be a movie and Matt Damon will play Mark Watney. I think he's a PERFECT choice, along with the rest of the cast. I just hope and pray they stay true to the book's humor and sincerity.

The story is fantastic, R.C. Bray as the audiobook narrator is incredible, and the author rocked it. Matt Damon, there's a lot riding on your shoulders, my man. I'm pulling for you.

As I mentioned earlier, if you read The Martian or listened to the audiobook, and didn't like it, we really, really have to reconsider our friendship. #truthhurts

FTC Disclosure: I downloaded this audiobook via my Audible.com membership.

About the Author (from his website)

ANDY WEIR was first hired as a programmer for a national laboratory at age fifteen and has been working as a software engineer ever since. He is also a lifelong space nerd and a devoted hobbyist of subjects like relativistic physics, orbital mechanics, and the history of manned spaceflight. The Martian is his first novel.

When Nate has to find a new apartment, he never thought one with such cheap rent in a great location with a view would fall into his lap. It's not a big deal that his apartment isn't perfect, but when he realizes that everyone else's also has an odd difference here and there, with quirks that just don't add up, Nate and his fellow building-mates decide to figure it all out. And what really is behind the door of apartment # 14? 

I loved this story. With recent selections for both audio and print missing the entertainment mark for me, 14 by Peter Clines was an absolute welcome relief. It completely knocked it out of the park. A combination of mystery, suspense, thriller, fantasy, and a whole heck of a lot of humor, I was completely whisked away into this sometimes creepy, but always interesting, fun ride into the mystery of why an entire apartment building has such cheap rent. With a thoroughly unique cast of characters who regularly referenced the Scooby gang, I adored them all, as they just wanted to figure out the mystery of their  building. Clines' story is a hit for any long road trip, and the narrator is INCREDIBLE. That's right, Internet. He's an ALL CAPS kind of awesome, and I seriously need to find everything Ray Porter has narrated and buy them all now. (He also narrated Haruki Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, and I loved that one as well.)

I could probably share more, but I'm worried I'd spill the beans inadvertently. Suffice it to say that this is the most fun I've had with a story in a long time and I loved it. With pop culture references including everything from the TV show "Lost" to which recent Hulk movie was better (duh, the Ed Norton one), there's a little bit for everyone who enjoys getting thrown into a mystery that has a slight edge of creepiness to it. I've heard Peter Clines is a horror writer, and although there were moments that were a little freaky, I don't know if I'd tag this as horror. Mostly, it's a suspenseful thriller as a vibrant cast of characters decides to spend their free time trying to figure out their building's odd layout, quirks, and vibe. It's well worth it. Click here for the audio sample.

FTC Disclosure: I purchased this book on the audiobook website, Audible.com

Publisher: Audible Studios

Release Date: 6/9/12

Audio Time: 12 hours, 38 minutes

Narrator: Ray Porter

About the Author

Peter Clines is the author of numerous short stories, Ex-Heroes, Ex-Patriots, –14–, The Eerie Adventures of the Lycanthrope Robinson Crusoe. For a more perfect bio to read, click here.

Visit the author:

• On his website
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About the Narrator

Ray Porter is an actor and casting director, known for Almost Famous (2000), Argo (2012) and The Runaways (2010).

Seasoned Search and Rescue volunteer and debut novelist M.L. Rowland takes on the subject she knows best and brings the first in a thriller series sure to maintain your edge-of-the-seat spot.

Gracie Kincaid is a professionally serious volunteer with the Timber Creek Search and Rescue team, the largest county in the country. And while she may be ordered and disciplined in her role, her youthful and feisty vigor can sometimes get just a little bit in the way of her personal life, if you can call failed relationships and a string of job-hopping as one. In this first installment in the Search and Rescue mystery series, Gracie's partnered up with Cashman, a rogue and reckless volunteer who is given the lead to search for the missing British actors of a movie being filmed locally and who have somehow gotten lost in Southern California's wilderness on Thanksgiving Day. When Gracie and Cashman finally find one of the missing persons, he's been a little bit knocked around and seems to slightly remember being attacked on the trail. As Cashman takes the radio and hike out to report their position, Gracie does her best to not worry that the only link to the rest of the team, and ultimate rescue, didn't just go with him. With a possible killer in the mountains to contend with, Gracie has to keep Rob Christian, world-famous actor, alive and well at all costs.

This isn't my typical reading choice, but I was in the mood for something different. Different, thrilling, and one I could learn from. So when I got the offer to read M.L. Rowland's debut, I was more than happy to accept it. With survival tactics weaved into the story, Gracie's cute and somewhat rebellious self (although never about her SAR volunteer work), was incredibly fun to read. It'll keep you distracted in a busy airport, and engaged throughout.

My only wish was that I found out earlier on the depths of Gracie's life and why she's built the way she is, especially why the defiant and personal wall set up with her family is so big. The work was incredibly interesting to learn, and I enjoyed the twists and turns and survival knowledge thrown in, but I wanted to understand more about Gracie and really get into her past. It wasn't until the last few chapters that I got that peek, which easily painted the full picture of why Gracie is the way she is.

M.L. Rowland is an author to keep on the watch list; as with any author, there is no doubt she's only going to just get even better, and more thrilling, with each step along the Search and Rescue mystery trail.

FTC Disclosure: I accepted this book from the publisher in order to provide an honest review.

Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)

Release Date: 01/07/14

Pages: 293

About the Author (from the website)

M.L. Rowland is an experienced Search and Rescue volunteer of twelve years, participating in hundreds of missions and trainings, including technical ropes rescues, helicopter insertions and evacuations, and searches for lost children, hikers, snowboarders, mountain bikers and criminal evidence, in alpine, desert and urban environments. She served as the team’s Training Officer and participated in community events and public speaking engagements. Trained in land navigation, and desert and winter survival, including avalanche awareness and self-arrest, she holds a certification in tracking from the State of California.

Rowland also served as a member and on the Board of a Colorado County Sheriff’s Department All-Hazards Incident Management Team (IMT) which manages local search and rescue operations, brush and wildfires, planned community events and other critical incidents.



Rowland is an avid political activist, naturalist and environmentalist. She is an accomplished painter and loves to snorkel. She has traveled to all fifty states in the US and also throughout the world. As often as possible, she hikes and explores the slot canyons of Utah.

​

Rowland lives with her husband, Mark, and their chocolate lab, Molly, at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in south-central Colorado.

Visit the author:

• On the website
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• On the blog

When Gillian Flynn recommends that The Next Time You See Me, by Holly Goddard Jones, is an "astoundingly good novel," I know I have to read it. Many of you know just how much I love the dark and twisted writings of Gillian Flynn, especially Gone Girl.

There are so many incredible things quietly and eerily happening through Holly Goddard Jones' debut novel. It's a story filled with the loneliest of people in a small town in Kentucky, and when hard-partying Ronnie goes missing, her sister, Susanna, is the only one who notices and cares. While the rest of the town struggles through their own deep secrets and insecurities, Susanna worries for her sister, her husband, daughter, and the feeling of missing out on life. As Tony Joyce, prior potential major league ballplayer and crush for Susanna, now detective, becomes involved in her missing sister's case, the intensity of the search builds and each person becomes crucial to the town itself and not just to the disturbing details of Ronnie and where she may be, or what may have happened to her. In fact, in truly dark and twisted fashion, the author depicts Roma, Kentucky as almost its own personality, a bruise on the state with its dismal factories and lost dreams.

The Next Time You See Me is incredibly well written. It is engaging in its sadness, the quiet tales of each character's misery or resentment or the feeling of missing out on life itself are all deeply felt by the reader. Probably the most disturbing sections were not just the complete dejection of Wyatt and lost love, but the teenagers in the middle school who Susanna teaches. Emily and Christopher, each on opposite sides of the spectrum of popularity,  simultaneously deal with their own internal tortures and confusion, but Christopher's bullying of Emily is disgusting, perhaps drawn out by the evil figurehead of popularity which can be its own evil beast. Christopher is almost incapable to believe his own confidence and choose to go the opposite way from his girlfriend and friends, and not hurt others. Peer pressure is a dirty thing, and Christopher is not just the leader of it, but a victim to it as well. With the many secrets Emily keeps however, one could almost understand why she is shunned by the larger part of society, which also peel back the layers of why it hurts so badly when she is tormented; the question a reader might ask themselves is "Would I think she was weird, too?" It's not fair, and it's a dark part of "humanity" that is questioned. Perhaps you won't like what you see of yourself.

A common theme throughout is bullying. While it's much more pronounced and currently relevant when represented in Emily's character, it's also portrayed in adulthood with Wyatt and Sam. The book could almost be a dire predicament of what could happen if bullying goes unchecked, no matter what age.

The Next Time You See Me is a quiet and brutally honest story, one that keeps you flipping the pages. If I could have sat uninterrupted for an afternoon, I easily could have finished it in one sitting. Needless to say, it was a book I always took with me on errands: in doctors' offices, nail appointments, waiting in the car to pick people up, and more. I highly recommend this to anyone, especially those who enjoy Gillian Flynn and Chevy Stevens.

Others said:

My Friend Amy

Publisher: Touchstone (a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.)

Release Date: 2/12/2013

Pages: 372

FTC Disclosure: I received a finished copy from the publisher for my honest review.

About the Author

Holly Goddard Jones is the author of the short story collection Girl Trouble. Her work has appeared in The Best American Mystery Stories, New Stories from the South, Tin House magazine, and elsewhere. She was a 2013 recipient of The Fellowship of Southern Writers' Hillsdale Award for Fiction and a 2007 recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award. She teaches in the creative writing program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and lives in Greensboro with her husband, Brandon, and two rowdy dogs. The Next Time You See Me is her first published novel.

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Prior to my blogging sabbatical, I eagerly accepted a book from Blue Rider Press, a member of Penguin Group (USA), simply because Uncle Stevie (Stephen King) blurbed it and pronounced it with "I've written some "secrets of a small New England town" books, and in The Burn Palace, it's as if Stephen Dobyns is saying--very gently--'Hey Steve…this is how you really do it.'"

Well, how could I turn that down?

Brewster, Rhode Island is a town where not much happens, until a newborn baby is kidnapped from the maternity ward of the hospital and replaced with a snake. The events unleashed are a whirlwind of confusion, murders (with a scalping!), allusions to something not quite right lending itself to rumors of Satanism, and the like, and Woody the cop with his partner, Bobby, are just two of the many characters that move through the chaos to find the answers of the kidnapping, subsequent murders, and rumors of shape-shifting wolves.

Make no mistake, there's a lot going on in this story. There are so many characters (a la The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling) that it takes a little while to recall exactly who everyone is, but once you do, they are all easily recognizable. Each character serves a purpose to the story, and it moves quickly with each scene and shocking moment. Stephen Dobyns is not nothing if not an expert on creating an unsettling atmosphere and depicting slowly-building tiny-town hysteria.

I've not read anything like this in a while. The description of the town is delivered as though you are reading a short intro to the stage play version of the story, and it then moves to perspectives of each character, whether primary or background players to the story. There is a casualness to the writing style that, while might not necessarily be my favorite way to deliver a tale, made for a quick read that certainly kept me interested in the end result.

Quick sample:

Now, like an airborne camera, we move back from the hospital, which is called Morgan Memorial here in the town of Brewster, Rhode Island. The sky is mostly clear, and the three-quarter moon lets us see the town under a milky light. A stiff wind out of the northwest energizes the few clouds, tugs the fall leaves and sends them swirling. Windows rattle, and bits of paper and dead leaves swirl down the streets. Already the temperature has dropped to freezing, and those folks who haven't covered their tomatoes are going to lose them. But isn't that often a relief? With the garden gone, except for the Swiss chard and winter squash, it's just one less thing to take care of. (p.4)

I do, however, humbly disagree with Uncle Stevie's blurb that "this is how you really do it," but I do maintain it was an interesting story that grabbed my interest. I may quibble with how two main characters fell in love, since it was a little bit stereotypical of a romance novel in that sense, but the author delivers with creativity and uniqueness and it's obvious this author has a strong fan base for a  very good reason.

Looking for some light, mystery-thriller reading at the beach this spring? This might be right up your alley.

Others said:
S. Krishna's Books

The Unabridged Chick

Publisher: Blue Rider Press, a member of Penguin House USA
Release Date: 2/7/13
Pages: 464

FTC Disclosure: I received a finished copy from the publisher for an honest review.

About the Author

Stephen Dobyns is an American poet and novelist with over twenty fiction novels published. He currently resides in Westerly, Rhode Island.

Finally. FINALLY! I have finally read Tana French and yes, I feel complete.

I might be a wee bit dramatic, but how lovely was it to read this psychological thriller with a narrator who tells you right off the bat that he's a liar, combined with a new homicide that pulls in a twenty-year-old cold case with no identifiable killer? Reading this confirmed what every reviewer said about it. Fantastic! It was a delightful trip to Florida last weekend as I was immediately consumed by this creepy story.

First in the series for the Dublin Murder Squad, Tana French has obviously knocked it out of the park on her debut published in 2007. Opening with a horrific event from 1984, three children set out into the woods near their home for an afternoon of fun in Knocknaree, Ireland. Only one boy returns. Rather, he is discovered after a fearful search, catatonic and against a tree in complete distress, his eyes seeing something no one else witnesses, unable to share what happened to his two friends.

Twenty years later, that young boy, Rob Ryan, has grown up into a police homicide detective. Still unable to recall any of the events of that fateful night, Rob is partnered with Cassie, a new homicide detective into the group, and their pairing brings them to the discovery of a missing child, found near the very same woods in Rob's hometown of Knocknaree. Could it be the same killer? As Rob and Cassie delve into the case even further, Rob dives deeper and deeper into the case, to the point of sleepless nights and too much alcohol. When he begins to see things, confused events that blend with past memories that are just now starting to come out, even his trusted partner Cassie begins to feel a trickle of doubt.

I don't think I can do this book justice and convey eloquently how incredibly caught up I was in this story. French's writing is what brings psychological thrillers to the next level, and each characters' story is delivered efficiently, yet with striking prose, and I know I would be remiss if I didn't pick up her next books immediately upon release date. The strength of this story is not just in the chilling plot itself, but more with French's characters, each of whom have a past to contend with. Partners Rob and Cassie are an incredible duo, and certain events they experience throughout this case simultaneously made me giddy with glee and heartbreakingly devastated. What a fearless and fierce debut!

There's no question I will collect Tana French's first edition hardcovers to put on my shelves for permanent safekeeping.  And as much as I love horror stories (I listened to the audiobook for The Exorcist, for cryin' out loud), there were several sections in this book that I actually found much creepier (which I loved, by the way).

Tana French delivers a powerful debut, a mystery mixed full with psychological conundrums and beautiful writing, with the final pages resulting in a combination of sadness for its end, and anticipation for the next in the series. With a brilliant story and characters, and a questionable ending which can only be served by following the series, this intelligently told tale will keep you engrossed in its pages long after closing the book.

Publisher: Penguin Group USA

Release Date: 5/27/08

Pages: 464

Others said (If I've missed your review, let me know so I can link to it here):

Avid Reader's Musings

Bitter Tea and Mystery

Book Addict Katie

The Book Lady's Blog

Bookworm Meets Bookworm

Carol's Notebook

Ivy Book Bindings

Just Book Reading

Literary Sluts

Reading in White Bear Lake

The Reclusive Reader

You've Gotta Read This

FTC Disclosure: I purchased the book two years ago.

About the Author (from her website)

Tana French is the Edgar Award winning author for In the Woods and the author of The Likeness, Faithful Place, and Broken Harbor. She grew up in Ireland, Italy, the US and Malawi, and has lived in Dublin since 1990. She trained as a professional actress at Trinity College, Dublin, and has worked in theatre, film and voiceover.

Visit the author:

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This is the second in The Passage trilogy.

In The Passage, told mostly through emails and journal entries, the world was destroyed by a virus created in a government lab, injected into twelve death row inmates. Breaking free from confinement, these "virals" possess increased strength, power, and infinity, living off human blood. Within months, the world once known is no more. One hundred years later, the Colony survives in a self-imposed compound, protected by the lights that shine throughout night, shielding them from virals. When the batteries keeping the lights on die, the Colony must find another way to survive.

The Twelve picks up where The Passage left off from the first section, immediately following the aftermath in Year Zero. Moving from that year and progressing with certain sections throughout the next 100 years, the original Colony residents (Peter, Michael, Alicia, and Amy) return and the remaining humans in America have created small factions of government and military. Members of the Colony have immersed into the world, several lost. Finding the original group, led by Amy, a young girl who, while her blood is merged with the virus injected into her by the government lab 100 years prior, doesn't live off blood at all. The only indication that she is different is that it has taken her a century to grow from an adolescent to a young woman, but she also possesses a powerful internal way to communicate with the original Twelve virals, and their "Many." Through a violent journey that encompasses a wide range of villains from the original twelve virals, their Many, and from corrupted humans enslaving their own, The Twelve is another fierce installment in the trilogy.

My Thoughts.

First, let me say I read The Passage and I loved it. I couldn't put it down and read it in a few days. The initial jump from events following the aftermath to 100 years later with the Colony was a little jarring at first, but then I settled into it. One note I had from that reading was that I didn't like how Cronin would lead you into a spectacular event and then the section would end. The next page would be the results of that spectacular event, but he never allowed you to dig your heels into what was actually happening as it occurred. That was frustrating, and it happened often enough that I made a note of it, but all in all, it was an incredible story and world, and I loved every page of it.

I picked up The Twelve the day it was released. It was ON. I was ready to pick the amazing story back up and for the first one hundred or so pages, I was enjoying it. I thought.

You know that feeling you have when you pick up a random book because it sounds amazing and right away, you feel unsure, brushing off the disjointed storytelling because you're confident it will clear up soon? There's this nagging suspicion that maybe, the book is part of a series and you might be right in the middle of it? Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.

The problem is that I obviously knew this was the 2nd in a trilogy. I read the first one and I loved it. I knew the characters, I knew the story.

While I didn't mind that Cronin jumped right into Year Zero and introduced new characters following the aftermath of the virals' exposure to humans, I was disappointed. The Passage concluded with such intensity that I was ready to pick up from there, keeping consistent pace with tension-building and fear. Once I realized that just wasn't going to happen, I settled in with the characters and spent 150 pages with them and it was...interesting. It was decidedly slow, and there was just not a lot of suspense, at least not the way Cronin was so magnificent with building in The Passage, and so I spent the majority of my time fighting this horrible guilt, aware that I wasn't enjoying it. I was confused with the jump in timelines and I had this eerie and remote sense of detachment. It is a clear-cut lesson for me that if the time between installments in a series is more than two years, I simply need to re-read the one that came right before it. Or, at the very least, I need to hop onto Wikipedia and read the Cliff Notes version of the book to remind myself of events and characters. (Which I didn't think of until later.)

Yet even re-reading The Passage, I still would have waffled in confusion. There were too many new characters, and events which jumped all over the place. I spent the majority of my time drifting aimlessly and I even rushed through events in the end. I can't believe I did that.

There were just too many confusing elements, events, new characters that came and went, and timeline switches to be engaging. I missed the mostly epistolary format Cronin used in The Passage. With increased melodrama and shocking soap-opera like moments (Wait, that's really her father? And then someone else found their daughter?!), it just missed the mark for me. Don't get me wrong, I'll still pick up the final installment, but this post serves as a reminder for me to be more on guard. I missed the original universe, the feeling of being swept away into a story, the scary setup of the story, and most especially the refined method of storytelling Cronin previously implemented. This was just a little too scattered for me to really get into. I'm so disappointed to share that.

But, I have no idea what I'm talking about.
As I always say (er, write) in my posts, please remember that there is a reader for every book, and my opinion is simply my own. There are more than enough readers who loved this book. A simple check on Goodreads should give you more insight. After all, it currently has a 4.18 starred review rating, coming from 1,786 readers.

Favorite Characters.

• Alicia. She rocked. Didn't understand the scenes where she was confined, or with Sod, though.
• Ah, the disgusting Guilder. There was a lot of depth to the early introductions of his character and the reasons that clouded his judgement. While the concluding pages of his deterioration were a bit insane, I will recall fondly how villainous and interesting he was in the first half of the book.
• Lila has gone cray-cray. Oh, Lila, you are nuts. But sheesh, you're funny even when it's horrifyingly sad and I think you're awesome.
• Danny. I just love this guy. The determined bus driver who tries to drive everyone to safety. I want to be your friend. If they do end up making the movies for this trilogy, you doggone better be in it.
• Peter and Michael. Equal parts goodness. Loved ya both.

Characters I didn't care about.

• Amy. Sorry, I just wasn't as interested in her tale. Although I did feel the sad points in her interactions with Wolgast. Broke my heart.
• Lore. I just thought she was a little over-sexed and it didn't seem genuine.

Comparisons to The Stand?

I felt bad for Cronin a couple years ago when readers began comparing The Passage trilogy to Stephen King's The Stand. When I first read The Passage in January 2011, I hadn't read King's epic tale, so I couldn't see it. This year, however, I did read The Stand, and yes, I can completely see why there were multiple comparisons. There really are a lot of similarities, and for a few excellent side-by-side references, head on over to Fizzy Thoughts' page. I would also add to her list that Lacey was essentially Mother Abagail from The Stand and that Farmstead in The Passage trilogy is Hemingford Home. If I were to continue to make comparisons, though, I would say that while Cronin has a gift for writing, I much prefer King's "plainspeak." There's just no fluffed up pretty way to spell out that it's a cold day, for example, so in King's world, it just is so damn cold it'll freeze your n1pples off. Know what I'm sayin'?

But, either way, The Twelve, while it didn't work for me, picked the story ball up and carried it for yet another game. I'm still committed to Justin Cronin's trilogy and I will eagerly await the final installment.

Publisher: Ballantine Books, an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group
Release Date: 10/16/12
Pages: 568

Others said:
A Bookish Way of Life
The Boston Bibliophile
Chrisbookarama
Fizzy Thoughts
The Guilded Earlobe (audio review)

FTC Disclosure: I purchased this book from my local bookstore in Virginia Beach.

About the Author
Born in New England, Justin Cronin is the author of Mary and O'Neil, which won the Pen/Hemingway Award and the Stephen Crane Prize, and The Summer Guest.  Having earned his MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop, Cronin is now a professor of English at Rice University and lives with his family in Houston, Texas.

Visit the author:

• On the official Passage site
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This is my final selection for Carl's RIP celebration. For other participants' reviews, please click here.

New York in 1845 was a powder-keg of unrest. With an influx of Irish immigrants escaping the tragic Great Potato Famine into an already packed city, the New York summer of 1845 was filled with riots, religious unrest, murder, and the eventual birth of the New York Police Department, known by New Yorkers as a "standing army." Timothy Wilde, once a bartender with an unfulfilled love for a charitable woman named Mercy Underhill, has accepted a position as a policeman after a horrible fire leaves him with no bar to tend and his face disfigured. Amidst racism, brothels, drugs and murder, Timothy learns there is much more darkness in the city than he ever imagined. When a young girl, Bird, runs into him one night during his rounds, her nightdress covered in blood, with unbelievable stories of a murdered child, his new career becomes even darker.

A strong dislike for his older and more politically-minded brother, Val, Timothy's got an ethical side that can't be undone. Even with Bird, he doesn't have the heart to deliver her to the House of Refuge for orphaned children and instead takes her back to his apartment building where the female proprietor cares for her. As he takes the case to uncover the child murders, which seem to point heavily to a blatant hatred for Irish Catholicism, Timothy's unsure of who to rely on. His brother is of questionable character and the locals don't take any issue with brothels, even if children are an option. It's a gritty underworld that he didn't expect to be immersed in.

The Gods of Gotham is superb with early 1800s elements of New York life and American history, from the combination of race and religious unrest to the Irish "assimilation" into New York and even to the seedy brothels. While Mercy Underhill maintains her own sense of willful independence that at times was shocking, she provides the clear contrast to the city's evil with her ministering of care to the orphans and uncared for children, all the while dreaming of her one-day voyage across the Atlantic to England to escape New York. Each piece of the story was brilliant.

However, I did take issue with the audiobook so let me first encourage you to visit the Audible.com reviews site because I definitely do not represent the majority of the listeners. While I loved the story, I struggled with the audio considerably. In 1845 New York, I anticipated a little more accented English and instead felt the narrator's voice was flat and non-regional, and a good portion of the audio was monotonous, even to the point that there wasn't any variation between the male voices. There was also a distinct lack of emotion for several of Timothy's truly painful moments and with such a vivid story, it's unfair to the characters to be so colorlessly represented. Usually, a narrator keeps a bad story going, but in this case, The Gods of Gotham was thankfully a captivating tale which was the sole reason I was motivated to continue. I do want to mention that there was one bright spot that I loved in audio, which occurred between the newsboys and Timothy when they spoke "flash," a slang dialect of the lower classes in New York. It was extremely unique and interestingly enough, "flash" is also the foundation of several slang words we use today. Other reviews point out that these conversations were a difficult part when reading in print, however I can say the audiobook makes it much, much easier to understand and visualize and I do feel the narrator did a good job here. (For a really cool interview with the author discussing "flash," click here.)

The story and historical elements are fascinating and while it was a bit wordy at the start of the book, it evened out and became an engaging tale which makes me now eagerly await the sequel. At that time, though, I will be reading the printed version versus listening to the audio.

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Audio Time: 12 hours, 9 minutes

Release Date: 3/5/12

Narrator: Steven Boyer

Others said:

Beachreader

Bermuda Onion

Book Addiction

Caribou's Mom

Devourer of Books

The Guilded Earlobe (Audio Review)

Linus's Blanket

The Literate Housewife

Must Read Faster

Raging Bibliomania

Random Jottings

FTC Disclaimer: I purchased this audio book at Audible.com

About the Author (from her website)

Lyndsay Faye is the author of Dust and Shadows: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson and the most recent bestseller The Gods of Gotham. Originally from the Pacific Northwest, she has adopted New York City as her second home, where she resides with her husband and too many cats and is at work on her next novel, a sequel to The Gods of Gotham.

Visit the author:

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Audio Notes: Steven Boyer is an established narrator and has an extensive portfolio available on Audible.com. For a sample of his work on The Gods of Gotham, click here.

This is my first selection for Carl's RIP VII event at Stainless Steel Droppings. Participants' reviews can be found here.

Milo Weaver is a "Tourist" for the "Company," an undercover agent for the CIA. And he's a good one. Known as the legendary Charles Alexander, Milo's time in service has exhausted him and suicide is contemplated daily. After an especially tough case in Venice that leaves him shot, Milo decides to say good-bye to his old world and take a desk in New York to start a new life with his new wife, Tina, and their daughter, Stephanie. When an old friend is labeled as a treasonous double agent, Milo has no choice but to clear his friend's name and his own by going back to the undercover life he left six years ago.

I was  looking for a good spy novel that would take me to the many corners of the world and simultaneously keep me on the edge of my seat. The Tourist certainly did that and more and I was pleasantly surprised by it. It's been a little while since I felt like reading a spy novel (you may recall, I was disappointed with Dr. No by Ian Fleming a few months back), so when I picked this one up at the library the other day, I held my breath. I needn't have worried. While I don't think it's a spy novel breaking new ground, it certainly is extremely effective in sweeping the reader up into exotic locales like Venice, France, and Switzerland and there is just the right amount of heart-pumping scenes where you wonder if people are who they really say they are.

My only gripe is (and I'm certain this will sound insensitive, so my apologies in advance) that I was less interested in Milo's family than I probably should have been and was much more content when the pages would move back to the edge-of-your-seats spy scenes. Don't get me wrong, Milo's family provided that needed contrast between the life Milo loves, with the one he is forced to move back into, in order to protect his name and his family, but his wife and daughter just weren't interesting enough for me to be swept away in their stories. I'm hoping that the later novels in the trilogy offer even more depth for them because they both were equally tough characters, and Stephanie was quite the funny, sarcastic child. Milo himself was a thoroughly unique character, and you can't not love a spy who has a slight obsession with French singers from the 1960s.

All in all, The Tourist is a satisfying and intelligent spy-thriller that won't disappoint as the whirlwind travel around the world brings you ultimately back to the United States where Milo must trust the very people that he never thought he would need to in order to clear his name. With family secrets and old Cold War events blending with the new threats of today, Olen Steinhauer's The Tourist is an excellent first in a series that will whet your appetite to get the second installment immediately.

The trilogy in order:

• The Tourist (2009)
• The Nearest Exit (2010)
• The American Spy (2012)

FTC Disclosure: I checked this book out from my local Virginia Beach Public Library.

Publisher: Minotaur Books

Release Date: 2009

Pages: 408

About the Author (from his website)

Olen Steinhauer grew up in Virginia and has lived throughout the US and Europe. He is the author of The Bridge of Sighs, which began a five-book sequence chronicling Cold War Eastern Europe. The Tourist is book one in a trilogy. Steinhauer lives in Hungary with his wife and daughter.

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A terrible fire consumes a private school and two people are hurt. Grace, and her seventeen-year-old daughter Jenny, suffer extreme injuries and are in the hospital, both in deep comas. The results of the fire leave a family broken, waiting to see if Grace and Jenny will survive, and Adam, Grace's eight-year-old son, is blamed for starting the fire.

Grace and Jenny hover in an in-between state. They are outside of their bodies and can communicate with each other, move around the hospital and follow others, completely unseen. They firmly believe Adam didn't cause the fire, and they investigate to find who did. Since Jenny can't remember events right before the fire, it's up to Grace to do the legwork, and unbeknownst to Sara, her sister-in-law who is also a police officer, Grace follows her throughout the investigation to exonerate her son. All the while, Grace keeps watch over her husband and children and feels the strong love which, when it comes to family, will never die.

Guys, I'm really sorry. I tried but I found this extremely difficult to enjoy. While the mystery was intriguing, Rosamund Lupton employs the second person point-of-view, which means that the primary character, Grace, is communicating in a "you" format. The "you" she is referencing is her husband, and while there were several tender moments that clearly expressed Grace's strong foundation of devotion to her husband and children, it just became tough to read the book with "you" instead of "he" in every moment with her husband. I unexpectedly realized that around page 250, I had started to skim to get a better idea of what was happening, and skipping over each "you" as much as I possibly could.

While I found it tough, I applaud the author for her creative attempt and I know that others will (and have) enjoyed this book so far. I do feel the opportunity to have the primary characters conduct the investigation through their out-of-body experience was really interesting, but at the end of the day, it didn't work for me. I even started to think that it might be more engaging if Grace's sister, Sara, the police officer, was the central character. Which means that it certainly would have been more difficult to insert the supernatural element into it, and ultimately would have destroyed the ambition to do something extremely unique, so I then ask myself, what the heck do I know? I'm no expert, but the second person POV just became so difficult to be comfortable with, that I started daydreaming and wondering what it would have been like if other characters led the perspective in first person.

As I mentioned earlier, the mystery itself is very interesting, and I definitely was surprised when certain twists popped up. I do wish it was a little shorter, but I think that feeling is only because the POV was challenging.

The bottom line is this: I'm no ultimate authority, and I am definitely in the minority with my thoughts. Anyone can jump onto Goodreads and other sites which reflect many more positive reviews than negative ones. I am certain something is wrong with me, so I encourage you to take a look at what other reviewers thought before making a final decision to read or not to read it. And, yes, I'm still going to read Sister.

Publisher: Crown Publishing Group

Release Date: April 24, 2012

Pages: 400

Giveaway

The publisher is kind enough to give one copy to a lucky winner (U.S. entries). Leave a comment with your email address. Entries accepted through Sunday, May 13, 2012.

About the Author

Rosamund Lupton is the best-selling author of Sister. She lives in London with her husband and two sons.

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Thanks to TLC Book Tours for inviting me to participate. The full list of reviews on this tour can be found here.

Oh, my gawd, Gillian Flynn can WRITE. I am not kidding. When Sharp Objects came out, I read it in a day on a business trip and was freaked out. How can a person write about the dark side of people so realistically and not be sitting in a mental institution? (I mean that in a very complimentary way, of course.)

This was undeniably one of the best books I've read in a while, and I usually get nervous to pronounce this, but not this time. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn is, without question, going to end up on my "Best Books Read in 2012" list.

Amy and Nick are the quintessential perfect couple, and while they've had their ups and downs, they're now at their five-year anniversary and it's time to celebrate. Every year, Amy creates a treasure hunt for Nick to track down each gift, and pick up another clue to the next stop, and this year will be like every other. What Nick doesn't realize is that before the day is over, his wife will disappear. Before a few days go by, he becomes the best suspect that the cops in his small town in Missouri can find for Amy's disappearance. The national news picks it up and Nick is vilified, tried and found guilty in the court of public opinion within a couple of weeks.

In a shocking and chilling tale of the insane way our society jumps on cases of pretty women gone missing, Gillian Flynn delivers the personal tale of Nick and Amy, the love they found with each other when they first met in New York and the decline of their relationship as they move back to Nick's home town to take care of his ailing parents, each chapter switching from Nick's current reflections to Amy's diary. But as with any Flynn novel, there are so many more layers to the story than what I just described above. This is an incredible story and I could NOT put this down. I dare you to try to read it and not get so swept up in the personalities for both Nick and Amy, Nick's twin sister Margo (known as 'Go'), Amy's back story of being the inspiration for her parents' successful children's book series called Amazing Amy. It will be a marathon attempt to determine which character you feel the most comfortable with, but at the same time try to swallow that not every person is innocent and instead accept that all are potentially very, very corrupted. You'll take a break from reading the book and realize that an entire evening has passed by.

Sharp Objects powerfully delivered Gillian Flynn's talent so shockingly, even Stephen King was wowed. While Stephen King might be best known for horror (in my recent studies, however, I've come to the realization that he is SO much more than that), it's important to be aware that he is instead more recognizable as a magnificent storyteller. So for King to laud Flynn might initially identify her as a horror writer, let me be clear: Gillian Flynn writes about the dark side of people, the sick and twisted sociopathic ways people control others. It is gritty and uncomfortable, but I think truthful and honest are much more accurate descriptions of how she brings her characters to life. She can tap into the miserable side of human beings, and in a really unnerving way, as a reader, you devour the story and enjoy every single page.

Gillian Flynn can build tension and clearly describe a scene so believably and effectively that you are left reeling; you can smell the stale smoke in a bar, you can taste each scene as though you are living it at that exact moment in time and Gone Girl is just another example of this brilliance in writing. It is every bit as absorbing and compelling, reminding the reader that there are some messed up people in the world. This is a knock out novel of the underside of human nature. The scary thing is that you're going to enjoy it. You want to read more about each of these characters and their tangled, desperate (or perhaps brilliant?) choices they make.

I LOVED this book. LOVED it. You should read it. Ooh, and if this was a book club pick? I would so want to be a fly on the wall for those discussions.

For those attending BEA, Gillian Flynn is scheduled to be there, so make sure you stop by to meet her.

Others said:
Red Headed Book Child

Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Release Date: 6/5/2012 (available for pre-order now)
Pages: 432

FTC Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher through Netgalley.

About the Author

Gillian Flynn started out as a Human Resources writer for a trade magazine, and then moved on to Entertainment Weekly in New York City for ten years, writing about movies and visiting film sets internationally, including New Zealand for The Lord of the Rings, and to Prague for The Brothers Grimm. Her 2006 debut novel Sharp Objects was an Edgar Awards finalist, and the winner of two of Britain's Dagger awards, the first book ever to win multiple Daggers in one year. It has been published in more than 20 countries. She is currently writing the screenplay adaptation. Her second novel is Dark Places, and her third novel, Gone Girl, will be released in June 2012.

Flynn lives in Chicago with her husband and a giant black cat named Roy.

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Christine has woken up and doesn't recognize her surroundings, the man sleeping next to her in bed, or the older and wrinkled face peering back at her in the bathroom mirror. The pictures around her show the same woman in the reflection, but Christine doesn't understand how she can look as though she's in her forties when she should be in her twenties.

Upon learning from her husband, Ben, that every morning starts out like this, Christine is devastated. She is halfway through her life but can't remember anything past her late twenties. An accident destroyed her memory and while she can remember everything throughout the day, going to sleep reboots her and she starts all over again the next morning. She wakes each day unable to recognize her husband, her house, or what happened to her mother and other family members and friends. Every morning starts out in this same way.

When she receives a phone call from a doctor, she learns that it's a call she gets from him each morning. He's directed her to a journal she's been keeping for the past few weeks, and it becomes her daily reminder and re-education on how she now lives her life. It's a ritual each day she has to re-learn, so the events her journal describes are emotions and moments she has to go through and experience as though new, again and again. When she reads her unsettling advice to keep the journal secret from her own husband, the frightening possibilities pile on. Religiously documenting each day's events forces her to question if its simply paranoia or if she truly is in danger. Christine's psychological thriller begins its emotional ride.

I was surprised by this book. Immediately, I was pulled in, hooked with each page I turned, and ultimately found it to be a satisfying suspense novel. Not knowing who to trust or what to believe, Christine's horrible nightmare of the same daily education of the loss of her life is heartbreaking. I was comfortable with its repetition since I was anticipating it, but I can't imagine listening to the audio book version. (A search through my trusty Google Reader confirmed that with Heather's and Sandy's thoughts, so I would maintain my recommendation that reading versus listening to it would be the best choice.) I understood and expected that each day's start would be the same, but the author was able to skip a little bit of each morning from the prior entry so it didn't feel tiresome for the reader, which can be challenging when dealing with a Groundhog Day flow. This disturbing and frightening novel kept me on the edge of my seat and all I could imagine was the horror of not knowing where you were every day when you woke up, or not recognizing your own husband sleeping in bed next to you, or wondering why you look like you're in your forties when you feel you haven't even reached thirty yet. Nightmare.

While I felt it was a bit too neat and tidy with its conclusion, it successfully kept my attention and I couldn't put it down. I'm not surprised to hear that this has been optioned for a film with Ridley Scott's production company; I think it would make an excellent film and may translate even better into that medium. I'm looking forward to it.

Others said:

As I Turn the Pages

Book Addiction

Dolce Bellezza

Mrs. Q: Book Addict

Nomad Reader

Prairie Horizons

Raging Bibliomania (audio)

Savidge Reads

You've GOTTA Read This! (audio)

Publisher: Harper Perennial

Release Date: 2/7/2012 (paperback)

Pages: 358

About the Author

S.J. Watson was born in the Midlands, lives in London and worked in the NHS for a number of years. In 2009, Watson was accepted into the first Faber Academy "Writing a Novel" course, a program that covers all aspects of the novel-writing process. Before I Go To Sleep is the result.

Before I Go To Sleep has become a phenomenal international success, sold in 42 territories around the world. It is a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller, and won both the Crime Writers' Association Award for Best Debut Novel and the Galaxy National Book Award for Crime Thriller of the Year. Before I Go To Sleep has also been acquired for a film by Ridley Scott's production company, Scott Free, with Rowan Joffe to direct.

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Many thanks to TLC Book Tours for including me in this tour which goes through the first week of March 2012. To read all of the reviews at each tour stop, click here.

My new love affair with early Stephen King begins, dear friends. I downloaded a version of 'Salem's Lot onto my Nook last week, and although it was long, never once did I wish the story would end. Not even in the scarier spots.

In traditional Stephen King fashion, a small town becomes a central character in a story of growing isolation and darkness, with a sinister presence becoming more malevolent and evil than town residents could ever imagine. It's this that becomes the springboard for 'Salem's Lot, a small town in Maine, known formally as Jerusalem's Lot, and where Ben Mears returns to his boyhood home to conquer his old nightmare of one particular house. The Marsten house, so named because of a murder/suicide that ocurred in the 1930s, hasn't been inhabited for decades until Straker and Barlow arrive one day to open an antique shop. While Straker is an odd man, tall and skinny with long fingers and white bald head, Barlow's absence is explained away with an antique buying trip in New York.

Ben Mears' return to 'Salem's Lot is simply to pursue his demons and exorcise a terrifying childhood event from his memory of the Marsten House. He's a young writer with a few small novels published, and his hope is to write away the awful moment he can never seem to rid his nightmares of. He certainly didn't anticipate what he was returning to, since after all, the world of evil is never really gone, only waiting for another chance to rise. I sort of think it trembles in a half-sleep.

And while the town begins to feel the breathing underbelly of terror, beginning with the disappearance of Ralphie Glick and the death of his brother, Danny, a cast of characters flesh out the novel that at its core include the newly returned Ben; Matt Burke, a soon-to-retire high school teacher; Jimmy Cody, the town doctor; Father Callahan, the Catholic priest struggling with his faith and the bottle; and Mark, the twelve-year-old boy whose combination of bookish intelligence and street smarts leads him to beat the bully on the blacktop at recess. The realization of what wakes up only at night in 'Salem's Lot bands this core team to roust out the evil to try to save the town from it, and sometimes, from themselves.

My childhood started in the early '70s but I was a product of the '80s so imagine my thoughts of the previous decade: The early 1970s America sees the coming end of the Vietnam conflict, the Manson murders, and is just now taking seriously that doors really do need to be locked. It seems to be a world primed for the acceptance of true horror in movies and books, not just gory slasher flicks. Stephen King, in his newly found fame with his only ever other published book to date at the time, Carrie, releases another horror story centered around a "what if." What if the villain of Bram Stoker's world came to modern day America? And with the help of his wife's suggestion of a vampire not arriving in a thriving metropolitan city, but rather in a sleepy little town in New England, Stephen King's imagination began to take over. And his vampire isn't charming Dracula, slowly sipping at a victim's veins, as he describes it in his Afterword; instead it is mindless and brutal, the stench announcing its presence far sooner than the literal image before you.

While this is an expertly refined horror story, it's one that must also be remembered for King's incredible writing. This version includes an excellent Introduction and Afterword by King, along with the inclusion of deleted passages, which I enjoyed. The story itself is a long one, and on my Nook it reached almost 500 pages (screens?), so I can imagine what actual printed pages might amount to but never once did I wish it would hurry along. Never once did I think towards the last fifty or so pages that "it's good but it feels like it's never going to end," as I can sometimes do with a chunkster of a book. There are newspaper clippings sprinkled at the beginning and at the end, along with diary entries and letters, but the meat of the story is its action and emotion with the core team and the rest of the townspeople. It's King's storytelling of the average and regular day of random residents that make this story tinge on the possibility of reality. Not only can he evoke the spine-tingling shiver of the image of darkness, but he can also make my heart heavy when reading of certain characters' passings. I gripped the pages with sadness towards the end for a character I would probably call a friend had I known him in real life, and as he boarded a bus to leave the town never to come back, I thought long and hard how he may have fared.

And yes, Stephen King draws on the fear that children will have. Often debated by experts that a child's fear is based on their imagination because they don't know any better yet, others hold firm to the belief that children have a fear of the things that go bump in the night because their innocence has not yet been tainted by the cynicism of adulthood. It's this naivete that makes them more aware of what could be real, more knowledgeable, of the very things that we as adults shrug off and explain away with what we think is more logical.

I would imagine that by now it's clear how much I recommend this book. But if it's not, below I leave you with some of my favorite passages, further evidence of King's magical pen. Horror he may be known for, but it is his writing that will truly be his legacy:

(Nook, location 193) Maybe they were peering out at you with yellow reptilian eyes. And maybe one night watching would not be enough; maybe some night that splintered, crazily hung door would be thrown open, and what you saw standing there would drive you to lunacy at one look. And you couldn't explain that to your mother and father, who were creatures of the light. No more than you could explain to them how, at the age of three, the spare blanket at the foot of the crib turned into a collection of snakes that lay staring at you with flat and lidless eyes. No child ever conquers those fears, he thought. If a fear cannot be articulated, it can't be conquered. And the fears locked in small brains are much too large to pass through the orifice of the mouth. Sooner or later you found someone to walk past all the deserted meetinghouses you had to pass between grinning babyhood and grunting senility. Until tonight. Until tonight when you found out that none of the old fears had been staked - only tucked away in their tiny, child-sized coffins with a wild rose on top.

(Nook, location 277) Before drifting away entirely, he found himself reflecting - not for the first time - on the peculiarity of adults. They took laxatives, liquor, or sleeping pills to drive away their terrors so that sleep would come, and their terrors were so tame and domestic: the job, the money, what the teacher will think if I can't get Jennie nicer clothes, does my wife still love me, who are my friends. They were pallid compared to the fears every child lies cheek and jowl with in his dark bed, with no one to confess to in hope of perfect understanding but another child. There is no group therapy or psychiatry or community social services for the child who must cope with the thing under the bed or in the cellar every night, the thing which leers and capers and threatens just beyond the point where vision will reach. The same lonely battle must be fought night after night and the only cure is the eventual ossification of the imaginary faculties, and this is called adulthood.

(Nook, location 339) At three in the morning the blood runs slow and thick, and slumber is heavy. The soul either sleeps in blessed ignorance of such an hour or gazes about itself in utter despair. There is no middle ground. At three in the morning the gaudy paint is off that old whore, the world, and she has no nose and a glass eye. Gaiety becomes hollow and brittle, as in Poe's castle surrounded by the Red Death. Horror is destroyed by boredom. Love is a dream.

About the Author

Stephen King is the author of more than fifty novels, including The Stand, The Dark Tower, It, The Shining, oh...what more can be written that one doesn't already know? So here you go, click here to visit this cool author's official website.

One more thing, ladies and gents: He has a new book coming out November 8, 2011. Click here to pre-order 11/22/63 from IndieBound. The lead off for the book is: "The day Kennedy was shot...the day that changed the world...what if you could change it?"

And this is my recent selection (my 8th choice?) for the RIP Challenge. You can read more RIP reviews from other participants by clicking here.