A Madness of Sunshine. By Nalini Singh, Narrator: Saskia Maarleveld.

A Madness of Sunshine. By Nalini Singh, Narrator: Saskia Maarleveld. 2019. Penquin Random House Audio Publishing Group. ISBN-14: 9780593153512 (Unabridged audiobook, 10 hrs, 59 mins).

Singh is unquestioningly a talented writer. I enjoy reading her Psy-Changeling series and I find her hybrid urban fantasy/paranormal romance series, Guild Hunters, to be downright awesome; so I was naturally curious about her sojourn into the mystery genre. A Madness of Sunshine is a pretty strong showing. This atmospheric thriller in a rugged coastal New Zealand town is full of shadowed pasts and captivating characters. Topped off with excellent narration.

352 pages

ALL THE THINGS #2: Set of 12 Books

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women
by Kate Moore

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

So I have been crying intermittently for about the past 2 hours now, because this book is 1 part fascinating, 1 part informative, 1 part heartfelt, and 7 parts horrifying. This level of suffering is unimaginable. I am so saddened by what occurred, but I’m glad that I read this book to learn more about these bold and determined women.

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Let Me Hear a Rhyme by Tiffany D. Jackson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really wanted to like this far more than I actually did. On the plus side, we had the characters and setting, but the pacing was just all off for me. It felt like the novel really drug, and I found myself getting bored a lot. I think having read ON THE COME UP recently, it was hard not to draw some comparisons and find this one to be lacking.

But it’s definitely okay, just not brilliant or earth-shattering, which is what I’m always hoping for.

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Renegades by Marissa Meyer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is my 3rd time though, in preparation for reading the final book. And this is still glorious. I really have enjoyed revisiting these characters and this world.

PREVIOUS REVIEW:
#BecRereads2019

Superb! This one gets 5 Super stars, with bonus magical powers.

I’m so happy to be rereading this one, in preparation for reading book 2 for the first time.

I adore how this explores the same situation from different perspectives. It walks that fine line between what is right and what is wrong, as well as who is good and who is bad. It’s a reminder that most of the world and life exists in the gray areas, not in the black and white areas.

Book 45 read in 2019

Pages: 552

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Crazy Rich Asians
by Kevin Kwan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It’s a standard, decent read, that let me see the world through some different eyes and mindsets, which is good. But it wasn’t really as exciting and compelling as I hoped it would be. The overall plot is a bit meh, so I was there for the characters and culture.

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You by Caroline Kepnes

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I confess that it first, I found this book a bit tedious, but then it really started getting into the inner-workings of the characters and it became much more compelling as the story progressed.

I listened to this on audiobook and really enjoyed the narration.

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The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was absolutely adorable and had such a great premise with some unexpected depth. I really just wanted a tiny bit more oomph and a bit more development in the side characters. I guess I expected just a few more truly funny moments, and it went the sweet but serious route instead. That’s fine, too, but I was craving just a bit more lighthearted fun. Otherwise, I really enjoyed it.

I listened to the audiobook, which had 2 unique narrators that I thoroughly enjoyed.

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The Gentleman’s Guide to Getting Lucky
by Mackenzi Lee

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amusing and so darned sweet.

This is a great little novella, and anyone who loves the series will want to pick this up and give it a read.

The Kill Club by Wendy Heard

The Kill Club by Wendy Heard
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I should start this off by saying about 32.7% of me wants to actually be in the kill club, 56.3% of me is absolutely horrified by it, and 11% of me seriously wonders if someone is going to go out and try to start their own kill club after reading this. I mean, it’s practically a user’s guide for how to kill and/or fail to kill bad humans, which makes it a total breeding ground for future serial killers to converge around. Good lord, I hope that doesn’t happen, but this book does provide some sort of deranged education that could be useful to the wrong crowd.

If you’re the wrong crowd, then move along, there is nothing to see here. Also, I am not available for killing, as my calendar is quite full.

Anyway, let’s get back to the point, which is that this book is thrilling right up until the very last page. It’s dark, intense, and seriously emotional (or maybe that was just me, as I think I emotionally flailed through the whole book). Maybe we should just ignore the fact that I dropped the book quickly around page 311 and glared at it intensely for 2 days, while chewing all my fingernails to stubs, before I was able to pick it back up again and finish reading.

I am convinced that I need to be best friends with Jazz, the main character, even though she’s not really the warm, snuggly bestie type of person. In fact, I think she’d probably hate me if we met in real life. Sigh. I have to up my street cred. My Midwestern upbringing seems to be harmful to forming real and lasting literary friendships with fictional characters.

Back to the point, I absolutely love this book. I mean, this is how you follow up a stellar debut—with a second offering that left me guessing and stressing the whole way through. There were so many twists and turns that I just never saw coming. My adrenaline level has been so high that I haven’t slept well since I picked this book up (3 days ago). And now, it ended, and I’m still intensely anxious (thanks a lot, Wendy Heard).

It’s well-written, brilliantly plotted, and the character development is top notch. I enjoyed so many of the characters, as even the really awful people are absolutely fascinating. This book puts the characters in situations where they have to make a lot of hard decisions, and I think that’s part of why this is so phenomenal. Nobody gets an easy ride, and not knowing what will happen next or how someone will react to a situation is half the charm of the story (assuming I can call it charm, considering the story is full of brutal murder scenarios---I’m not sure what the appropriate review etiquette is for this sort of situation).

I suspect an audiobook version of this would be phenomenal (and/or emotionally debilitating), which means I have to go now, as I want to hop on over to Audible and see if I can preorder a copy.

THIS BOOK RELEASES ON DECEMBER 17, 2019. 

The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens

The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Overall, I found this adult mystery/thriller fascinating, and it went in all sorts of unexpected directions. I was able to predict a lot of the outcomes ahead of time, but there was one thing that caught me off guard and surprised me.

There are some things that happen at the end that are a bit ridiculous, though they definitely make the story more dramatic and intense. I just occasionally wanted to shake a few characters for making such poor choices in such a serious situation, but such is humanity.

Overall, this is a captivating read, and I'm glad I picked it up on Audible, as the audiobook narration is excellent.

Pages: 303

Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart

Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What an interesting, non-linear YA story about a con artist. It is full of suspense, and written in Lockhart’s classic, sparse but extremely effective and gorgeous prose.

This is a classic anti-hero story with a female protagonist who, if you’re a sane person, you should consider her extremely unlikable. I consider her all kinds of twisted, but also really enjoyed her and the story. It reminds me a bit of The Talented Mr. Ripley.

The layers of this story are peeled away bit by bit and each new layer is a creepier and more complicated than the last. This is clever, and I love the way the story unfolded. There were also several things that caught me by surprise along the way and kept me on my toes, plus a good twist at the end.

Book 9 read in 2019

Pages: 264

The King's Deception (Cotton Malone, Book 8) by Steve Berry

Cotton Malone and his fifteen-year-old son, Gary, are headed to Europe. As a favor to his former boss at the Justice Department, Malone agrees to escort a teenage fugitive back to England. But after he is greeted at gunpoint in London, both the fugitive and Gary disappear, and Malone learns that he’s stumbled into a high-stakes diplomatic showdown—an international incident fueled by geopolitical gamesmanship and shocking Tudor secrets.

At its heart is the Libyan terrorist convicted of bombing Pan Am Flight 103, who is set to be released by Scottish authorities for “humanitarian reasons.” An outraged American government objects, but nothing can persuade the British to intervene.

Except, perhaps, Operation King’s Deception.

Run by the CIA, the operation aims to solve a centuries-old mystery, one that could rock Great Britain to its royal foundations.

Blake Antrim, the CIA operative in charge of King’s Deception, is hunting for the spark that could rekindle a most dangerous fire, the one thing that every Irish national has sought for generations: a legal reason why the English must leave Northern Ireland. The answer is a long-buried secret that calls into question the legitimacy of the entire forty-five-year reign of Elizabeth I, the last Tudor monarch, who completed the conquest of Ireland and seized much of its land. But Antrim also has a more personal agenda, a twisted game of revenge in which Gary is a pawn. With assassins, traitors, spies, and dangerous disciples of a secret society closing in, Malone is caught in a lethal bind. To save Gary he must play one treacherous player against another—and only by uncovering the incredible truth can he hope to prevent the shattering consequences of the King’s Deception.

Historical/government conspiracy novels are my guilty pleasure, and I have extremely positive memories of the early Cotton Malone books.  They are well-written, suspenseful, and have just enough historical information thrown in to give context.  But - I never finished the series.  I stopped in the middle, years ago, with this book.  So, I thought I'd give it another go and thus could move on in the series again.  

This is not good.  There are SO MANY opportunities for it to be amazing.  But no dice.  It feels forced, the historical elements are overdone and throw you out of the story rather than enhance it.  I found the characters flat, the suspense weak, and worst of all, the plot completely unengaging.  I just didn't really care what happened.  

So - please pick up some of Steve Berry's early works featuring Cotton Malone.  The Alexandria Link is great, as is The Venetian Betrayal.  When you hit this one - read the summary.  I'll be moving along with book 9, and hopefully he can pull it back together.  I rooting for you Steve!

2/5

640 pages

Flashmob by Christopher Farnsworth

As a fixer for America’s one percent, John Smith cleans up the messes of those rich enough to afford him. But he’s no ordinary gun for hire. Smith is a man of rare gifts, including the ability to read minds. Arriving at the wedding of Kira Sadeghi, a reality television celebrity he recently saved from kidnappers, Smith witnesses a group of gunmen open fire, hitting the bride and others. Though he’s unarmed, Smith cripples one of the killers and is able to pry one word from his mind: "Downvote."

Eager to learn more, Smith hacks into the brain of an FBI agent investigating the attack to discover the Bureau has been investigating a nefarious new threat called "Downvote," an encrypted site on the "dark net" that lists the names of celebrities and offers a hefty bounty for anyone who can kill them—unleashing an anonymous and deadly flashmob with a keystroke.

Finding a mastermind on the internet is like trying to catch air—unless you’re John Smith. Motivated by money and revenge, he traces a series of electronic signatures to a reclusive billionaire living at sea, accompanied by a scary-smart female bodyguard who becomes Smith’s partner in his quest. The hunt for their prey will lead from Hong Kong to Reykjavik to a luxury gambling resort deep in the Laotian jungle. Yet always this criminal mastermind remains one step ahead.

The only way Downvote’s creator can stop Smith is to kill him . . . because while this diabolical genius can run, there’s no hiding from a man who can read minds.

While I did enjoy and finish this series from Mr. Farnsworth, his President's Vampire Series is much better (imo).  This book would be exactly what someone who enjoys tech sci-fi and thriller action would love.  The characters are interesting, the stakes high, and the plot swift, I'm just not as impressed with the villain or the overall story arc in this series like I am with his other works.

3/5

368 pages

Killfile by Christopher Farnsworth

John Smith has a special gift that seems more like a curse: he can access other peoples thoughts. He hears the the songs stuck in their heads, their most private traumas and fears, the painful memories they can’t let go. The CIA honed his skills until he was one of their most powerful operatives, but Smith fled the Agency and now works as a private consultant, trying to keep the dark potentials of his gift in check—and himself out of trouble.

But now Smith is unexpectedly plunged into dangerous waters when his latest client, billionaire software genius Everett Sloan, hires him to investigate a former employee—a tech whiz kid named Eli Preston—and search his thoughts for some very valuable intellectual property he’s stolen. Before John can probe Preston’s mind, his identity is compromised and he’s on a run for his life with Sloan’s young associate, Kelsey.

Hunted by shadowy enemies with deep resources and unknown motives, John and Kelsey must go off the grid. John knows their only hope for survival is using his powers to their fullest—even if means putting his own sanity at risk.

4/5

416 pages

The Perfect Husband by Lisa Gardner

Jim Beckett was everything she'd ever dreamed of...But two years after Tess married the decorated cop and bore his child, she helped put him behind bars for savagely murdering ten women. Even locked up in a maximum security prison, he vowed he would come after her and make her pay. Now the cunning killer has escaped--and the most dangerous game of all begins.... 
After a lifetime of fear, Tess will do something she's never done before. She's going to learn to protect her daughter and fight back, with the help of a burned-out ex-marine. As the largest manhunt four states have ever seen mobilizes to catch Beckett, the clock winds down to the terrifying reunion between husband and wife. And Tess knows that this time, her only choices are to kill--or be killed.


I was not a fan of this one. There's unnecessary romance between Tess and J.T. which I didn't believe and thought would be really bad for Tess's character, and the suspense just wasn't there for me. 

Rating: 2 out of 5

Pages: 432