Book Reviews | Stacy Alesi's BookBitch.com™

SOMETHING ABOUT YOU by Julie James

June 13, 2015

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So as regular readers know, for some reason I rarely start a romance series at the beginning. And Julie James’ FBI/US Attorney series was no exception. I read book 3, About that Night, and loved it. Here’s my review.

Now I’m going back to the beginning and read book 1, Something About You. Actually, I listened to the audiobook, couldn’t find the printed book. Karen White is the reader and she did a great job and I really enjoyed it.

U.S. Attorney Cameron Lynde lives in a big old house that she inherited. The floors need to be redone, so she gives herself a little mini-staycation and checks into a swanky hotel. Much to her surprise, the paper thin walls brings amorous sounds into her bedroom for most of the night, keeping her awake and making her cranky. Things finally calm down, she falls asleep and then it starts over again. Exhausted, she complains to the front desk then watches out the peephole to see what happens.

What she doesn’t expect is that the woman next door has been murdered, and she saw the murderer, or at least his back, as he left the room before the hotel staff arrives – quickly followed by Chicago’s finest and then the FBI. And sadly, the one FBI agent with whom she has history – he thinks she dumped years of his hard work when she wouldn’t take a crime lord to trial, and that she got him transferred out of state for a few years. She thinks he’s an arrogant jerk, albeit a really good looking man. They are not on the best of terms but they are about to become very close – as the only witness, her life is in danger and it is his job to protect her.

This is a great romantic suspense novel. Frankly, the murder mystery is quite secondary to the romance, but it all works brilliantly. A fun and sexy read by one of my new favorite authors.

6/15 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

SOMETHING ABOUT YOU by Julie James. Berkley; First Printing edition (March 2, 2010). ISBN 978-0425233382. 336p.
Audible Audio Edition. Listening Length: 10 hours and 3 minutes. Tantor Audio. Audible.com Release Date: June 29, 2012

3 Comments | Book Reviews, Fiction, Romance | Tagged: Romantic Suspense | Permalink
Posted by Stacy Alesi

CONSTANT FEAR by Daniel Palmer

June 12, 2015

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Jake Dent was a hot prospect for major league baseball when his dream fell apart due to a drunken driving accident. His baseball days were over, and to top off the matter his wife left him and his son Andy to go and find herself. Jake finds some relief in the annals of a popular survival blog and raises Andy also to prepare for the doomsday he foresees is coming. He also obtains employment as a custodian in the prestige private school “Pepperell Academy and manages to enroll Andy in that school and maintain him there due to the employment he has with them.

Andy becomes friendly with a group of four other students that have picked up the practice of pirating small sums of money from very rich people via computer hacking. They then disburse the funds taken to people they deem needy of such charity. Generally the money taken is not missed by the wealthy people they take from, but one such robbery results in getting the huge amount of several hundred million dollars held in the form of bit coins. Unfortunately the amount belongs to a Mexican drug cartel that sends a hit squad to get their money back. These people trace the theft to students at Pepperell and stage a chemical truck spill as a ruse to get to the students that stole the money – the group of five that Andy belongs to.

Jake’s survival training and the cache of weapons and equipment he has stored in tunnels under the school are brought to bear when Andy’s group are taken hostage by the cartel soldiers. It appears likely that the computer group will be killed if they either do or don’t give up the bit coins which are held solely as online deposits.

The novel is fast, engrossing and keeps the reader glued to the book. Palmer presents various twists and turns to arrive at a logical conclusion. A good read and one guaranteed to bring the reader back again and again for books by Daniel Palmer.

6/14 Paul Lane

CONSTANT FEAR by Daniel Palmer. Kensington (May 26, 2015). ISBN: 978-0758293459. 416p.

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LET ME DIE IN HIS FOOTSTEPS by Lori Roy

June 10, 2015

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If a girl looks into a well at midnight on the night of the half birthday between her fifteenth and sixteenth years, she’ll see the face of her intended.

Annie Holleran has always claimed she doesn’t put much stock in the ascension-day tradition, but that doesn’t mean she’s not going to try. Typically a girl would have her friends and family beside her as she looks into the well, and the well she’d be looking into is the one on Sherriff Fulkerson’s land. But Annie isn’t typical. No, Annie has long planned to sneak onto the nearby Baine property to peer into their well all by her lonesome. This in spite of the fact that Annie’s family has a longstanding hatred for anything and anyone Baine.

Unfortunately for Annie her intended is not the one she sees at all. Instead, Annie sees Cora Baine, dead in her garden. And Cora Baine’s death surely means the return of Annie’s Aunt Juna, the one who started all of the Baine trouble. The one who caused a Baine boy to hang for crimes some wonder if he even committed.

Let Me Die In His Footsteps is a dual narrative that alternates between 1952 and 1936. Annie, in 1952, lives with the knowledge that her birth mother is none other than the notorious Juna Crowley. It’s not something she’s ever been officially told, but it’s something she knows nonetheless. Annie’s mother, Sarah, narrates the story two decades prior, telling the terrible tale that led to Annie’s birth and the hanging of one of the town’s own.

At heart, Let Me Die In His Foosteps is a mystery – what happened to Juna, was the Baine boy really responsible, and why is everyone so scared of Juna’s return – but the book as a whole is so much more. It’s a story of secrets and tragedy, folklore and magic, community and – ultimately – family.

6/15 Becky LeJeune

LET ME DIE IN HIS FOOTSTEPS by Lori Roy. Dutton (June 2, 2015). ISBN 978-0525955078. 336p.

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MEMORY MAN by David Baldacci

June 9, 2015

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Amos Decker series
David Baldacci introduces another protagonist into his very wide field of principal characters. Meet Amos Decker, a man who has had his taste of personal glory and lost it.

He began as an athlete with a promising career in football. Unfortunately, on the very first play in the first pro game he played he was knocked out by a vicious block from a member of the opposing team. As a result, he was no longer physically able to continue in pro football, but as recompense he found that he strangely remembers everything that happens to him; what is termed an eidetic or photographic memory.

Amos becomes a police officer and then a detective, using his talent as a means of solving cases. Unfortunately, a second incident occurs about two decades after his football injury, which changes his life forever.

Returning home one evening, he comes upon the horror of finding his wife, daughter and brother-in-law brutally murdered. Decker’s world collapses; he leaves the police force, loses his house and ends up living on the street, taking private detective jobs when he can to keep his head above water. His eidetic memory continues to keep the discovery of his slaughtered family fresh on his mind, living with the knowledge that after a year no clues have been found.

A year after the killing, a man comes into the police station and confesses to the crime. At the same time the city where he lives experiences a horrific crime. Amos is called in to help with both incidents by the police department he had worked for.

At this point, the reader will be treated to an Arthur Conan Doyle/Sherlock Holmes type scenario where Amos builds up to solving the cases by logic. One bit of accrued knowledge after another builds towards the solutions and allows Amos to work out the details which will solve the mysteries.

Baldacci has created another interesting protagonist to utilize to full effect in his books.

6/14 Paul Lane

MEMORY MAN by David Baldacci. Grand Central Publishing; First Edition / First Printing edition (April 21, 2015). ISBN: 978-1455559824. 416p.

1 Comment | Book Reviews, Crime Fiction, Fiction | Tagged: Civil War, Historical | Permalink
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WHEN WE WERE ANIMALS by Joshua Gaylord

June 7, 2015

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Lumen Fowler led a fairly normal life as a child. At least that’s what she’d like everyone to believe now that she’s an adult. Now that she’s left that tiny town she grew up in, and the name she was born with, behind.

Her mother died early on, leaving Lumen and her father alone together. Theirs was a loving relationship until the winter of Lumen’s fifteenth year when she went breach. All of the teens in Lumen’s town did it – breached that is – usually around the time they hit puberty. Lumen’s dad did it, but her mom was different and Lumen always thought she would be as well. Now, as an adult looking back on that time of her life, Lumen still feels like part of her will be forever different from everyone around her. Like she’ll never be able to truly escape the past she’s tried so hard to outgrow.

Gaylord, who also writes as Arden Bell, delivers a bizarre and eerie tale in When We Were Animals. The story explores the various hormonal confusions of puberty – with an extra animalistic twist – and the messy emotions of teenage life, as well as the lingering questions of identity and fitting in that follow undoubtedly everyone into adulthood.

There are a lot of questions that are never answered in the book, the most maddening being the reason behind the town’s teens going breach in the first place. Lumen and her journey/experiences are the focus of the tale but even she spends a good amount of the story trying to discover the truth behind the trend.

Unresolved issues aside, Gaylord’s latest is an engaging, almost hypnotic, read and one that will appeal to fans of fiction that’s goes a bit beyond the boundaries of easily categorized genre fiction.

6/15 Becky LeJeune

WHEN WE WERE ANIMALS by Joshua Gaylord. Mulholland Books (April 21, 2015). ISBN 978-0316297936. 336p.

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THE FATEFUL LIGHTNING by Jeff Shaara

June 6, 2015

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A Novel of the Civil War

With the writing of The Fateful Lightning, Jeff Shaara brings to a conclusion his monumental work about the Civil War in the West.

The book follows the style of the preceding presentations in the series. It is painstakingly researched and documented. Studied examinations via writings, written accounts and third person descriptions of a select group of participants bring them to life for the reader. Using literary license based on careful study, thoughts, conversations and opinions read, conversations and remarks of the characters involved allow supposed dialogs to be attributed to the leading protagonists presented as pivotal to the story told.

The book opens as the city of Atlanta is captured by union forces, burned and creates a departure point for General William T. Sherman’s famous march to the sea. In the eight months covered by the book there are no major battles fought, but a long series of skirmishes between the opposing forces that push the Confederacy back and lead to their ultimate surrender.

Leading characters involved and followed in the narrative go from General Sherman, who was second to Ulysses S. Grant commanding the Union armies, to General Joseph Johnston, Confederate general who agonized over the need to surrender to Sherman in order to avoid further unnecessary bloodshed. The adventures of a slave freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, named only Franklin, are included, indicating his need to follow Sherman’s army in order to eat and find protection.

Franklin’s adventures are chronicled in later reports about him, indicating that this man actually lived and experienced the trauma of becoming a free man and finding a place in society for himself and his wife.

Shaara’s disdain for the Southern president Jefferson Davis and his inability to recognize talent is evident in the blame placed on him for his major contribution to the defeat of the Confederacy. The normally accepted surrender by Robert E. Lee to Ulysses Grant is shown to be just the first surrender of a southern army. Sherman and Johnston’s later dialogs and decisions regarding surrender are considered by Shaara to be of greater import than the short meeting between Grant and Lee.

The attempt by the Union’s Secretary of War to impose harsher sanctions on the south and Sherman’s fight to retain the original conditions met in the surrender at Appomattox courthouse are an obstacle not covered by most historians.

A brilliantly conceived and written series of historical works delineating the agonizing conflict of Americans against Americans is brought to a satisfying conclusion by The Fateful Lightning. One wonders if Shaara can find the proper field to bring forth his next book. I hope that his energy level will permit this to be done in the near future.

6/14 Paul Lane

THE FATEFUL LIGHTNING by Jeff Shaara. Ballantine Books (June 2, 2015). ISBN: 978-0345549198. 640p.

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NIGHT TREMORS by Matt Coyle

June 4, 2015

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Matt Coyle introduced Rick Cahill in a previous book (the Anthony Award-winning Yesterday’s Echo.) Rick was a police detective when he was hit with the double whammy of the murder of his wife, and the accusation of his own guilt and arrest for the crime. He was released without explanation but due to the adverse publicity surrounding the murder and the suspicion of his guilt had to leave the area and relocate to another city.

Night Tremors takes up Rick’s life two years later at which time he is working for a firm of private detectives and devoting his time to providing proof of infidelity about a wife or husband for the other partner in a marriage. He is good at locating the evidence, but it is not the police work that he loved prior to the stain of suspicion in his wife’s murder that prevents returning to that career.

He is approached by an old nemesis of his to look into the case of an individual currently in prison for murder, to help exonerate that man for the crime. Rick jumps at the chance to do some real police work and takes a vacation from the firm he is working for in order to handle the investigation.

His inquiries take him from the wealthy enclaves of La Jolla to the dangerous areas of San Diego. He draws the ire of the police chief who tried to put him away for the murder of his wife, endangers his job, and causes a biker gang to try and stop him from investigating the murder committed by the imprisoned man.

The reader is pulled along by a writing style that is fast and crisp throughout the actual investigation. A logical, but not telegraphed ending, is the reward for enjoying the book and does set up additional novels about Rick Cahill. Very well done and and a novel that will keep the reader glued to the pages.

6/14 Paul Lane

NIGHT TREMORS by Matt Coyle. Oceanview Publishing (June 2, 2015). ISBN: 978-1608091492. 330p.

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CASH LANDING by James Grippando

June 3, 2015

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According to the FBI, in 2005 three masked men stole over 7 million dollars that was headed for the Federal Reserve from the Miami International Airport. Grippando took that idea and ran with it.

Ruban, half Russian, half Cuban, has lost his home and his business, so when the opportunity comes up to settle the score, so to speak, with the banking industry, he is on board. Unfortunately, his co-conspirators are a motley crew; his brother-in-law, Jeffrey, is a cocaine addict, his wife’s uncle Pinky is a career criminal with a penchant for violence, and Marco, their inside man at airport security, seems to have vanished.

The heist goes off without a hitch but before the dust settles, everyone is after the money, from local criminals to the FBI. Ruban manages to keep one step ahead but his wife is suspicious, his cohorts are seriously hampering his efforts, dropping thousands of dollars all over Miami, and then the kidnappings start; following the money is the only way to go.

Grippando brings back the caper in this fast paced and violent tale with a cameo by his series hero, Jack Swyteck.

6/15 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

Another review:

Grippando sets up what is really a prequel to his books about Jack Swyteck an attorney working in Miami. Andie Henning, who will become Swyteck’s girlfriend and later his fiancee and eventually his wife is transferred to Miami from Seattle. She is a new member of the FBI and has evolved a liking for undercover work. Her first major assignment is to work on a theft of several million dollars in cash. The cash is part of a weekly shipment from Germany that is sent to the Federal Reserve bank. Ruban Betancourt, happily married, and apparently not mixed up in shady business, has his home and his restaurant business seized by his bank to satisfy past due debts. While Ruban has generally played by the rules he comes up with a scheme to get back at the banks, and make a lot of money doing it. He sets up a well planned theft of a part of the cash that has been shipped in from Germany. With the help of his brother-in-law and two ex cons he executes the theft getting away with about 7.4 million dollars. The four begin by agreeing to bury the money for a period allowing the heat from the robbery to die down.

Grippando is a master of following the parties involved in the heist, from the thieves and Andie Henning who gets on their trail and also the mob learning about the theft and wanting to get their hands on the money. Cause follows effect and each of the three parts involved are followed and logically contribute to the plot, it’s resolution. Obviously not all of the four involved with the job is satisfied with keeping their hands off the money while immediate desires are unfulfilled. And Andie understands that in order to get the robbers the best way to act is to follow the trail of the money.

Satisfying read with good plot and explanations of how all parties react to what is going on. The ending is logical, following the details outlined in the novel, and without divulging something totally unexpected it ends with Andie about to meet Jack Swyteck.

06/15 Paul Lane

CASH LANDING by James Grippando. Harper (June 2, 2015). ISBN 978-0062295453. 384p.

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FOOD52 GENIUS RECIPES by Kristen Miglore

May 31, 2015

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100 Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook

Food52 is one of the great foodie blogs out there. The pictures are gorgeous, they offer columns with lots of really useful info, tons of recipes, a hotline where you can post any kind of cooking/kitchen question, and lots more. That said, they recently added a store where they sell lots of beautiful, pricey kitchen items and frankly, l wish they would dial that back a bit. But I digress. I subscribe to their weekly updates so when I heard they were putting out a cookbook, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it.

This cookbook is a collection of recipes from many chefs, all tops in their fields like Julia Child, Dorie Greenspan, Marcella Hazan, Dan Barber, James Beard, & Tom Colicchio, plus the creators of truly unique and fantastic recipes that have become classics, like Jim Lahey’s No-Knead Bread, Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Fresh Blueberry Pie or Barbara Kafka’s Simplest Roast Chicken.

The book is divided into Breakfast; Snacks & Drinks; Soups & Salads; Meaty Mains; Meatless Mains; Vegetables; and Desserts. So truly there is something for everyone. In addition to all the amazing celebrity chefs you know, there are recipes from terrific food writers like Mark Bittman and Molly Wizenberg, and from restaurants – the delectable grilled pizza from Al Forno (Providence, Rhode Island,) Crispy-Skinned Fish from Le Bernardin (New York,) Romaine Hearts with Caesar Salad Dressing from Frankies Spuntino (Brooklyn,) and Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Fish Sauce Vinaigrette from Momofuku (New York.)

Fried Eggs with Wine Vinegar

I’ve made Lahey’s bread and it is truly delicious and better yet, super easy and accessible, not intimidating in the least. I made the “Fried Eggs with Wine Vinegar” from Roger Vergé, and my husband pronounced it “okay,” and it wasn’t especially pretty either so I probably won’t be making that again. We loved the “Broccoli Cooked Forever” from Roy Finamore, which surprised us – we usually prefer a quickly roasted, still slightly crunchy broccoli, but this was a nice change and really delicious, flavored with anchovies, garlic, chiles and lots of olive oil.

Having all these amazing recipes in one book means that this is a book I will keep on my kitchen counter and draw from again and again. I have a fairly large cookbook collection (I’m not counting or I’d never be able to buy another cookbook!) and frankly, I find I mostly use two or three recipes from each book. Genius Recipes is the exception to the rule for me; I know I will use most of these recipes time and time again.

5/15 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

FOOD52 GENIUS RECIPES by Kristen Miglore. Ten Speed Press (April 7, 2015). ISBN 978-1607747970. 272p.

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DAUGHTER OF DEEP SILENCE by Carrie Ryan

May 30, 2015

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The official story behind the loss of the Persephone claims a rogue wave was responsible for the sinking of the ship; a natural, freak accident that claimed the lives of three hundred and twenty-three people. But Frances knows the official story is a lie, a cover up spun and spread by Senator Alastair Wells and his son after they were rescued.

Frances was on Persephone and managed to escape only after she witnessed the murders of her parents and her friend’s mother. She and Libby – Elizabeth O’Martin – fled the ship and lasted seven days on the open sea, but in the end only Frances lived long enough to be rescued.

Frances doesn’t know why the senator lied about Persephone. She can only assume that by telling the tale of the rogue wave he was somehow complicit in the attack and thereby responsible for the deaths of everyone she loved. And now, four years later, she’s decided it’s time to get revenge.

Ryan’s latest is a definite step away from the zombie apocalypse world of the Forest of Hands and Teeth series. Daughter of Deep Silence features a contemporary setting and a plot akin to the show Revenge.

While the story could have fallen prey to a serious lack of believability – convincing the reader that Frances could become Libby and trick even the person closest to her (aside from her father, he’s the inside man in the identity theft) was no small task. At first I thought Ryan wouldn’t pull it off at all, but she got me. She made me believe, for the most part, in Frances as Libby and in Frances’s plan.

Daughter of Deep Silence was great fun. My one and only real complaint was that it ended too soon.

5/15 Becky LeJeune

DAUGHTER OF DEEP SILENCE by Carrie Ryan. Dutton Books for Young Readers (May 26, 2015). ISBN 978-0525426509. 384p.

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