June 2015 Wrap Up

This month started out with me thinking I was going to finish one in May, but I didn't manage to. I got to within 3 hours (haha love Kindle's timer thing), but then don't read on Sunday mornings.

For the month of June, I read 4 books. Yeah this month was apparently not a good reading month. I got distracted with other things and just not sticking to my own reading procedures that I set out for myself. Way to not stick with something me....oh well.

Book #1: Odin's Child by Bruce MacBain

An old grudge erupts into violence as Odd Tangle-Hair refuses to back down from the men he believes shamed his father and betrayed their heritage by turning away from the old gods in favor of the White Christ. But when the violence escalates and Odd's family bears the brunt of it, he must leave his beloved Iceland behind and find his own way in the world.The golden age of Viking conquest is fading when he takes to the seas, buthis journey is full of adventures, and he meets priests and politicians as well as many unscrupulous men all too eager to take advantage of a young man abroad for the first time.Beautifully written, impeccably researched, and deeply rooted within the oral tradition of story telling, Bruce Macbain has woven an evocative saga that will sweep readers into the past and plant them firmly in Odd's rapidly changing world.

Got this book from NetGalley in return for an honest review. Odd Tangle-Hair is a young man who falls into a great deal of misfortune. He uses his wits to get himself and his friends out of the trouble they find themselves in.

Throughout the book he loses friends nearly as fast as he gains them. He doe0D1514sn't seem to mind much as he, much like his father before him, has sworn off actually having friends at all.

Book #2: The House Guest by Rosa Sophia

An envelope addressed to Katherine Maslin stood out among the pile of bills. It is her notice from an attorney… the rights to her grandparents’ farmhouse and adjacent property. She believes that a change will rid her of the strange dreams she’s been having, wherein an oddly familiar woman visits her, begging for her help. But when Kat realizes that the woman in her dream is her dead grandmother, she begins to have doubts about moving to the farm. Rumors and nightmarish tales fill her mind, stories of the five men who lost their lives in the late 1950s to a heartless murderer. A man had been convicted, but was he the one the police had been looking for, or had he been framed? Kat is thrown backwards through time on a journey to discover a terrible truth. The ghost of her grandmother is always one step ahead of her, leading the way. But will she find the killer before he finds her? 

This book was originally published in 2010 as Taking 1960. I received a copy from Ms. Sophia in return for an honest review, which I posted, so I'm not going to go into detail here what it was about. It was a great read that I would suggest to anybody and everybody!

Book #3: Bender by M. Stratton

Since high school everyone thought Jake Bender would end up behind bars; after all, he comes from a long line of bad boys. He spent years away from the place he called home. When he finally comes back, everyone thinks he's just a punk kid all grown up who’s now running a dive bar called The Night Club. What they don't know is he heads up a special task force, which cleans up neighborhoods and makes them safe again. Stormy Ryan has always felt more comfortable with her books than with people. She loves to spend her days within the pages of her books. When her second-hand bookstore is robbed for the third time in as many months, her employees quit leaving her to run the shop on her own. With the pressure of having to deal with her shop and people, not to mention the declining neighborhood, she is at the end of her rope. 

I got this book as part of a Facebook group I'm in. Every three weeks or so they have a poll to choose a book to read then 25 lucky winners will get a copy of that book to read and talk about in the group. I was one of the winners for the first book. Bender has always been the tough guy, the guy no one expected would live. I almost cheered (in a very public place) when some stuff happened. I rated this book a 5/5 stars because it was awesome!!

Book #4: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?

I tried. Really I did. I finished it, but as fast as I got information in....information slid right back out of my head. Apparently I just cannot listen to audio books. I found it on YouTube and thought it was a great idea. So I can work on other things and still get my books in for the day. I don't think I could tell you the plot of this if I wanted. I will have to re-read a real book copy.

Review: The House Guest by Rosa Sophia

I received a copy of this in return for an honest review. It's fantastic when you get more than one book by an author because they like your reviews. 

Originally this work was published under the title of Taking 1960 and featured the spiritual form of a small boy on the cover. It has since gotten a new cover and title (obviously).

An envelope addressed to Katherine Maslin stood out amongst the pile of bills. It is her notice from an attorney… the rights to her grandparents’ farmhouse and adjacent property.

She believes that a change will rid her of the strange dreams she’s been having, wherein an oddly familiar woman visits her, begging for her help. But when Kat realizes that the woman in her dream is her dead grandmother, she begins to have doubts about moving to the farm.

Rumors and nightmarish tales fill her mind, stories of the five men who lost their lives in the late 1950s to a heartless murderer. A man had been convicted, but was he the one the police had been looking for, or had he been framed?

Kat is thrown backwards through time on a journey to discover a terrible truth. The ghost of her grandmother is always one step ahead of her, leading the way. But will she find the killer before he finds her? - Goodreads.com

I wanted this book so much. I'm pretty sure my local library doesn't stock it, and the description was just so reminiscent of a combination of Murder, She Wrote and Mystery Woman from Hallmark Channel that I just had to read a copy. It was worth it. So very worth it.

I wasn't sure at first what woman she dreamed of meant, but to find out it was actually a vision of her grandmother was fantastic. Rosa perfected the way of explaining it that made me believe I was right there in the hallway or the kitchen with her. She was so frightened and I felt bad for her. The house was everything she'd ever wanted, and there were strings attached. 

When Phillip was first introduced, I knew there was something not right with him. I just couldn't place it. I knew he was up to something. I wish I didn't know what that something was now. It is simply unfathomable that a person could do what he did. (I also sort of wish I did not have so vivid an imagination. I know what it felt like to be Kat for a while.) 

I was a little put off by the fact Kat thought she could do everything herself, despite having no experience with law or forensics. How did she expect to convince everyone else that she knew what she was doing when she could hardly convince herself? Granted, it was kind of obvious that Jonathan had nothing to do with it because of the fact one of the deaths he was accused of...happened before he was even on the farmstead. Her determination brought back my love for the novel. She was sure she didn't stand a chance at finding it all out by herself, but that didn't stop her. She just plugged away at it, even risking her own life, until she found the last piece of the puzzle and put it all together.

I was shocked, embarrassed, terrified and I'll admit it, nauseated (who wouldn't be?) with parts of this book...but they brought it all together into one big satisfying end. Though I wish she would have expanded the ending a little more. All that work and *poof* cops find the stuff they haven't been able to for 45 years. Because that makes so much sense. A little more detail into the police procedure as they discovered these things would have wrapped it from a five-star review to a glowing why can't I have ten stars review. 

Review: A Date with the Devil by Kira Adams

This novel was published by Kira Adams in 2015 and I was given a copy in return for an honest review. 

I rated this book 5/5 stars. There was not a single moment that I could think of where I did not connect in some way with the characters. I almost felt everything they did right along with them.

Bryce has spent the last year of her life in hiding. Fearing that her ex-boyfriend will come back to finish the job he'd started, and kill her. She is terrified of even going to her front door.

With the help of a friend, she makes it outside for the first time. Bryce finds it easy now that she has actually started going out. No one has seen Robbie in the year she has spent hiding in her house, so she braves going out on her own. She gains more confidence as she spends more time out on her own.

Things go south when she sees Robbie in the restroom of a local bar on Halloween. All of her original fears come back and she tries to revert back to staying locked up in her room away from everything she thinks can hurt her. It doesn't help that when Robbie first hurt her, he'd burned her body to the point where she believes no one will ever love her again because of the way she looks.

When she hears of her friend Tyson, the boy who saved her from Robbie, being shot in the doorway of his own home, she goes to see him. After a quick visit, she goes to get him clothes and his iPod from his house. Robbie is waiting. He abducts her and takes her to the basement of their old house where he plans to keep her forever or kill her. If he can't have her, no one will. He goes so far as to kill the people who live in the house when he abducts her. In a fit of self-defense, Bryce kills him.

The entire book is told through first-person with Bryce as the story teller. I couldn't help but feel for her when she talked about the paralyzing fear that kept her inside. It wasn't that she didn't want to go outside. It was that she couldn't do it. She wanted to go outside and move on with her life more than anything else in the world, but post-traumatic stress was keeping her in.

I connected more with Tyson than with Bryce. I personally have never gone through anything that made me want to hide or think any less of myself. However, I do have a few friends who have anxiety disorders and it's difficult. I understand how he felt when he told Bryce he couldn't wait much longer. It's frustrating seeing that paralyzing anxiety happening to someone you love, and being absolutely powerless to stop it or help them.

I loved the way the book wrapped up. There was no way she was going to go through all of that and not come out on top. It was written well enough that I felt satisfied with how it ended, but that might just be my love of crime dramas coming though.

I didn't read the last part of the book, which was (I think) and entire short story from another author based on another series that I'd never heard of in the first place. So, there was that. They should warn you that stuff like that will be in the book. Overall, I loved it and am probably going to read it again later.