Win the April ’18 bookshelf of signed thrillers!

April 1, 2018

Welcome to the April bookshelf of signed thrillers! We got off to a slow start this month, but things will be picking up from here on out. Feel free to enter at any time, and I will add titles as they become available. Thanks to Jeffery Deaver and Lee Goldberg  for kicking things off! More books will be added throughout the month, so check back often.

To enter, go to the Win Books page.

Best of luck!

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THE CUTTING EDGE by Jeffery Deaver: Returning to New York City from their honeymoon to learn that a serial killer has been targeting couples in the process of buying engagement rings, Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs discover that their target has a larger agenda than originally realized and that there is something unusual about the ring that Rhyme gave Sachs.

TRUE FICTION by Lee Goldberg: When a passenger jet crashes onto the beaches of Waikiki, best-selling thriller writer Ian Ludlow knows the horrific tragedy wasnt an accident, forcing Ian to go on the run, pursued by assassins and a global intelligence network that wants him dead.

THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF SAM HELL by Robert Dugoni: Born with ocular albinism, small-town eye doctor Sam Hill, who was called “Devil Boy” in his youth, must finally face a past tragedy that caused him to turn his back on his friends, his hometown and the life he’d always known—a journey that makes him realize what truly matters.

THE SAINT OF WOLVES AND BUTCHERS by Alex Grecian: An enigmatic hunter and his highly skilled dog track a Nazi concentration-camp administrator who has been hiding in the United States, a case that is complicated by the man’s secret ongoing work and his band of fanatical followers, who reveal a violent willingness to go to any length to protect him.

ALL THE BEAUTIFUL LIES by Peter Swanson: Devastated when his father commits suicide days before his college graduation, Harry returns to his home in Maine, where he is baffled by the increasingly sensual attentions of a mysterious woman and his own alluring stepmother, who he comes to realize are hiding dangerous secrets.

HOLD BACK THE DARK by Kay Hooper: Called in to the small North Carolina mountain town of Prosperity, where residents are acting out their nightmares and waking up the next day with no memory of their horrific acts, the Special Crimes Unit uncovers a sinister pattern that pits their most advanced skills against an unprecedented darkness.

You can win autographed copies of these books! If you are new to the site, each month I run a contest in conjunction with the International Thriller Writers organization. We put together a list of books from debut authors to bestsellers, so you can win some of your favorites and find some new favorites.

What makes this contest really special is that all of the books (except eBooks) are signed by the author! Books with multiple authors will be signed by at least one of the authors.

Penguin Random House books for giveaway were provided by the publisher. #PRHpartner

Don’t forget, if you subscribe to the newsletter or follow this blog, you get an extra entry into every contest you enter. Check out the Win Books page for more information on all these books and how to enter this month’s contest.

Thanks for reading, and good luck!

 

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Posted by Stacy Alesi

THE SECRET OF FLIRTING by Sabrina Jeffries

March 31, 2018

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The Sinful Suitors, Book 5

Monique Servais is an actress performing in London.  Baron Fulkham is a political spy, working in the government but earning his way to the top by knowing as much as possible about everyone. A friend takes him to the theater and insists they must meet the actress in the lead role. Fulkham goes along and is quite taken with her, but basically insults her. She is also attracted to him but fights it, she takes care of her ailing grandmother and has no time for romance.

A few years later, Belgium is set to become a country and there is to be a meeting in London of all the interested parties to select a ruler. Princess Aurore of Chanay is in the running but right before the historic meeting, falls deathly ill. Monique is approached by her uncle to impersonate her cousin, Aurore, they look very much alike, until she can hopefully ascend the throne.

When Fulkham sees her, he instantly knows her as Monique but she is denying it. They spend quite a bit of time together, especially after an attempt is made on her life, and they both realize they have feelings for one another but for various reasons, cannot act upon them.

This was an interesting story, but I wish it had held more closely to the truth about the beginnings of Belgium. But then it wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun.

3/18 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

THE SECRET OF FLIRTING by Sabrina Jeffries. Pocket Books (March 27, 2018). ISBN 978-1501144486.  416p.

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UNDONE BY YOU by Kate Meador

March 30, 2018

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The Chicago Rebels Series, Book 3

I am really enjoying this series – ice hockey, hot sex and terrific romance all work for me. This book, the third in the series, is actually a novella, not as long as the other books. And it sort of runs side by side with book 2, it doesn’t move the time line any further along.

The other big change is this book is a gay romance. The team manager, the very hot Dante Morelli, is the first NHL manager to come out as gay. The team is fine with it, except for one player – there always has to be a jerk on any team. I once had a manager at Borders who kept on this really awful employee for way longer than he should have, he called him our”Germany'” – that bad employee let everyone else on staff band together and form a more cohesive team in the face of a common enemy, so to speak. There is a character here that performs that purpose as well. He is always mouthing off about the gay manager, the Russian player, the women owners of the team, etc. Needless to say, he is not the most popular player on the team.

Dante is new in town, and ends up at a very private, invitation only gay club. To his shock, he sees one of his players there, Cade, the player that he has been crushing on since he moved to Chicago. Nonplussed by seeing Cade, Dante drags him out of the club and Cade is quite happy to go along. He has had a crush on Dante since he was a teenager and Dante was a professional hockey player – he even had his poster hung up in his room. In fact the only reason he was at that club was because he had heard Dante might show up.

Dante realizes that anyone could out Cade, and he wants to have a plan ready for that to minimize any kind of public relations nightmare that could evolve. Meanwhile, there is so much heat between these two that it is apparent where they will end up. But Dante is concerned about the power relationship, he is Cade’s boss after all, not to mention the twelve year age difference.

Dante also had been in a long term relationship with a man who hadn’t come out, and he didn’t want to be in that position again. I have to say I really empathized with Dante. I have a very good friend who, years ago, was in a similar relationship, with a partner that wasn’t out, and it was painful at times. I am very happy to report that he has found love and happiness since.

With all these hurdles, this relationship seems doomed but we all know that true love will always win out and it certainly does here. There is a lot of graphic sex, as there is in all the Meador books I’ve read, and I learned a few things.

Dare I say this is another Meador romance that is so hot the ice can’t cool it off? It really is!

Just a note about the NHL – I know as sure as I’m typing here that there are gay men playing for and managing hockey teams. As far as I know, none of them have been open about it. It just seems silly to me, like Adam Rippon being the first openly gay Olympic skater. Why on earth did it take so long? But what do I know.

3/18  Stacy Alesi AKA the BookBitch™

UNDONE BY YOU by Kate Meador. Pocket Star (March 5, 2018). ASIN: B074ZRHPGC. 147p.

 

 

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THE LAST BATTLE by Peter Hart

March 29, 2018

Victory, Defeat, and the End of World War I

Hart is a renowned historian whose particular interest is World War I, its battles, politics, and results. The Last Battle deals with the final year of the war to end all wars.

The continuation of massed charges through no man’s land existing between the two sides setting men against all the mechanized killing machines that were developed to kill as many of them as possible. The book is scheduled for publication at a time that roughly coincides with the hundredth anniversary of the armistice that ended hostilities on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of the year 1918 and provided for a short period awaiting the more definitive Treaty of Versailles that set out the formal terms of the surrender of Germany to the allies – England, France, and the United States.

Battles during the months prior to the armistice included the fifth battle of Ypres, the Sambre, the Selle and the scene of the United States’ greatest contribution to the war effort: the Meuse- Argonne. Hart utilizes a method he has perfected in his other books  dealing with the war which is to find written pieces by men fighting in the battles, that describe what they felt and experienced and incorporate those pieces into their proper places allowing the reader to get more of a feel for what happened.

There are , in effect, three sections of the book. The first is a description of the battles with the horrendous slaughters that are part and parcel of massed charges across a short stretch of land between two sets of trenches separating the two sides. The next segment concerns the participation by men with the feeling that the war will shortly be over and wanting to live and return to normal life. The final section brings into play the somewhat reluctant feeling of many soldiers about leaving the comradeship of being part of a band of brothers and having to go it alone in civilian life. They have had decisions made for them for the years spent in the trenches and now will go it alone.

The world is different after the conflict: attitudes and mores have been shaped by a global conflict that killed and wounded millions, a flu epidemic that strikes and causes probably more casualties than the war did. The conditions of the participants are radically changed with the U.S. emerging as a great power, Germany bankrupt after funding their war and having to pay reparations assessed against them by the allies that placed the blame for the conflict on them. England and France drained of young men and with their own enormous war debts. Worse, another world war less than 20 years after WWI ends looking like a continuation of the first and merely waiting for another generation of men to be readied to rush into combat.

Woodrow Wilson, the U.S. president, presented Germany with a 14 point program to accept in order to reach an agreement to end the conflict. This was basically accepted. Wilson was in a unique position to place himself into the group that handled the details to end the conflict. He had won the presidential election in 1916, taking office in 1917 with the slogan, “He Kept us out of War.” Then several months after the election he found cause to enter the war on the ally’s side. With neither side having sufficient strength to make war on the U.S. it may have been a carrot handed to Wilson to entice him to enter the war on the ally’s side in order to have a strong voice in setting the terms of any peace treaty.

Peter Hart has the gift of being able to present nonfiction as an interesting read with his audience coming to an understanding of what it really meant to be subjected to the horrors of war and the battlefield. Very well done.

3/18 Paul Lane

THE LAST BATTLE by Peter Hart. Oxford University Press; 1 edition (March 1, 2018).  ISBN 978-0190872984. 464p.

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FLASH POINTS by David Hagberg

March 28, 2018

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A Kirk McGarvey Novel, Book 22

The principal character in this novel is Kirk McGarvey, a man who was previously an assassin for the CIA. In addition, he was the head of the CIA for a short time. The story opens as Kirk is getting ready to enjoy a vacation with his girl friend but walks out to his car and suffers a grave accident. One of McGarvey’s enemies has had a bomb placed in the vehicle in order to do away with him.

McGarvey’s sixth sense jumps into play and he exits the car moving off to the rear. This action saves his life but causes a whole host of internal and external injuries including the loss of his leg just below the knee. None of this stops Kirk from puzzling out why he was singled out for assassination and leads to the inescapable conclusion that he knows something and must be silenced because of that.

A new president has just been elected and members of his military senior staff deem him a danger to the country because of his policies. They set up a series of attacks at several points in the country with the object of embarrassing the new president. It is assumed that the president will not be able to handle the three emergencies at once causing the American public to demand his impeachment. But before this action occurs it is necessary to eliminate McGarvey who is the one person to be able to figure out what is happening and intercede with the plot against the president.

In spite of his many wounds and the loss of most of one leg, Kirk soldiers on to foil the plotters and save the day. He is admirably helped by his girlfriend, who incidentally is a member of the CIA and does want the vacation promised.

The story is the pure adventure that David Hagberg always delivers in his novels. It is a fast read, keeps the reader glued to the book and following the continually developing plot. Future novels featuring McGarvey are a given and surely to be looked for.

3/18 Paul Lane

FLASH POINTS by David Hagberg. Forge Books (March 27, 2018).  ISBN 978-0765384881. 320p.

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SOCIABLE by Rebecca Harrington

March 27, 2018

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The premise of this sophomore novel by Harrington (Penelope) is that journalism is dying and millennials will save it. To do that they will have to fit some work in between parties, fighting with friends, romance, and in this case, surviving a bad breakup.

Our heroine is Elinor Tomlinson, a vapid, immature twenty-something working as a nanny. Her boyfriend’s mother, a well respected journalist, recommends her for an opening at a second tier online news magazine. Elinor stumbles through the interview spouting generic nonsense and gets the job, creating viral content for the web. She is probably better at her job than the two men who want to mentor her, yet she doesn’t seem to like her job very much. Her boyfriend dumps her, and she just wallows in self pity.

Readers may be able to empathize with the breakup if they can slog through the changeable points of view, the too-brief attempts at humor, hash tags and even comments addressed directly to the reader. ©Library Journal, 2018

This book sounded so good from the publisher:

The Assistants meets The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. in this exuberant comedy of manners set in the world of Internet media, a brilliantly irreverent novel about what it means to be young, broke, dumped, and scarily good at creating viral content.

Um…not so much. Very disappointing read.

3/18 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

SOCIABLE by Rebecca Harrington. Doubleday (March 27, 2018). ISBN 978-0385542821. 256p.

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Spare Me the Sneak Peaks

March 26, 2018

Can I just tell you all how much I hate “sneak peaks” of books? It wasn’t really an issue when I was mostly reading crime fiction or literary fiction and before there were digital galleys. But once I started reading romance, it became a problem; the same with digital galleys.

If you’re not familiar, and really unless you are a reviewer why would you be, digital galleys are the e-book version of advance reader copies. ARCs are the paperback pre-published books that publishers mail out to reviewers usually months before the book actually hits store shelves. I still get a lot of print galleys, but no where near what I used to get prior to the end of the world as we know it, AKA e-books.

Now I am like a kid in a candy store. There are two main websites that distribute digital galleys and they are constantly updating them. Between the two, I can choose between literally thousands of pre-published books, most of which are mine for the taking. Some I have to send a request to the publisher, but they almost always approve it.

So when I saw Gayle Forman has a new book coming out, I clicked on “read now” before I read the fine print. She writes both “young adult” and “women’s fiction” books and while I don’t read many young adult books, I make exceptions for certain authors like Rainbow Rowell and Gayle Forman. The upcoming book is called “I Have Lost My Way” and I was still excited after I realized it was a young adult book. But then when I looked a little closer, I saw the dreaded “Sneak Peak” on the picture of the book cover. Luckily, the other website had the full galley available so I was spared.

Romance readers are undoubtedly used to this. You read a romance, get your happily ever after, then you turn the page and there is chapter one of the next book in the series or the first book of a new series or whatever. But just the first chapter, or sometimes the first few chapters.

With the advent of digital galleys, there are occasionally “buzz books” put together, a compilation of sneak peaks of several upcoming books. There are monthly versions and usually after a big conference, like Book Expo or the American Library Association annual conference, there will be digital “books” of sneak peaks of the upcoming books heralded at the conference. I still like the buzz books because they also include a roundup of upcoming titles, but I mostly ignore the excerpts now.

I used to eagerly read them, but then I noticed something, and maybe I’m the only one with this issue. When the book finally did become available in its entirety, I would start reading it and realize it was way too familiar – oh wait, I must have read this already. Then put the book down and move on to the next one. Occasionally, if a book becomes really popular or I keep hearing about it for whatever reason, I will look at it more closely, and once or twice I realized I hadn’t actually read the book, just a sneak peak!

So my solution now is to just ignore them. I don’t turn the page at the end of a romance, if I download buzz books to my e-reader I just read the roundups, and if I accidentally get a “sneak peak,” I’m not going to read it. I got an email from the marketing department at Grand Central letting me know that David Baldacci’s  next Amos Decker thriller, The Fallen, will be available on April 17. They included a link to a digital excerpt. I will not be clicking that link. I will wait, however impatiently, for the entire book.

Maybe its symptomatic of reading 4-6 books a week that I can’t remember that I read only the beginning of whatever book feels familiar. And I’m certainly not going to start scanning through the thousands of titles on my Kindle and iPad to see if it was in another book somewhere. If it took me weeks to read a book then I may not have this problem, but it doesn’t. I read most books in a day or two and almost immediately start the next one.

That is the beauty of the e-book, by the way, to have hundreds of books just waiting for me to read them. Just not the sneak peaks.

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Posted by Stacy Alesi

THE OCTOBER MEN by David Impey

March 25, 2018

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Hindsight Can Be Deadly

Impey begins an intricate and mesmerizing story during the early days of WWI with a company of soldiers moving up to the front lines. He than goes forward describing other seemingly non-related events, including the later attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. A series of color photos which appear to be beyond the range of photography during the periods covered by these photos calls attention to what is going on.

The novel goes on describing other events and bringing into the picture a young Oxford physicist, Otto Parsons, who has been conducting experiments in quantum physics, attempting to create zero gravity without going into outer space. His work yields totally unexpected results which serve to tie together the various events described in the story.

A group of scientists attempt to tie Parson’s experiment together by producing a historical TV series that attempts to uncover the truth behind such isolated instances as the Roswell incident and the assassination of president John F. Kennedy. The show unfortunately attracts the attention of a group of international criminals who use the equipment developed by Parsons to take advantage of both the financial and art markets.

A very interesting plot and a narrative that will definitely capture and keep the reader’s attention.

3/18 Paul Lane

THE OCTOBER MEN by David Impey.  BigBear Communications Ltd (March 20, 2018).  ISBN 978-1912145799. 340p.

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THE TERMINAL LIST by Jack Carr

March 24, 2018

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The phrase,”revenge is a dish best served cold,” is a piece of advice with roots in literature possibly stemming from the time of William Shakespeare. Carr’s powerful novel resoundingly takes a different track.

Lt. Commander James Reece is in charge of a group of Navy Seals and certainly a warrior’s warrior. He is sent on a mission to Afghanistan and his entire team is killed and then the group of rangers sent to extract his squad also lose their lives in the attempt.

Sent back to the states, Reece is astonished to learn that another member of the team has committed suicide. With these deaths weighing heavily, a medical exam ordered for him due to unexplained headaches finds that there is a tumor on his brain. The only thing now buoying him up is the expectation that he is going home to his wife and daughter. The final horror hitting him is the discovery that both his wife and daughter were killed in an attack on his house.

Reece must hold himself together in order to avenge the deaths of his men and wife and daughter which he soon finds are related. The action to find and kill those that were responsible comprises most of the novel. He is livid and not knowing if the brain tumor that he has will kill him shortly, moves as quickly as possible with the help of a few friends. One is a young reporter who is aware that there is definitely malfeasance involved in the actions of the upper level military command, a pilot whose life he once saved, and the boss of a Mexican Mafia group.

There is nothing cold involved in Commander Reece’s actions. He is livid, he just wants revenge and expects to die when it is exacted in order to join his wife and family. The descriptions of the manner Reece handles the actions against those on his list of persons to be punished is, to say the least, gruesome and certainly done in hot blood.

One of the obvious opinions Carr brought out in the book is the low opinion he has of the juggernaut of our Federal government. He obviously feels that it has grown too large and become too cumbersome to properly provide good government, and the system of rules and regulations obstruct rather than help the growth of the economy. People are hindered by regulations which serve to basically interfere with their every day lives. Whether or not the novel was written to postulate Carr’s opinions or not it still is an extremely well written and captivating book about the professional military. It is one that the reader will not be able to easily put down until finished.

3/18 Paul Lane

THE TERMINAL LIST by Jack Carr. Atria/Emily Bestler Books (March 6, 2018).  ISBN 978-1501180811. 416p.

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STILL ME by Jojo Moyes

March 23, 2018

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This is the third book in what I guess is the Louisa Clark series, although not advertised as such. But if you haven’t read Me Before You and After You, don’t start here.

Louisa Clark is back and this time she’s heading for New York City. She’s gotten a job as the personal assistant to a very wealthy second/trophy wife, Agnes Gopnik. They live on the upper East side and while Louisa’s room is tiny, it’s all hers. Agnes is an interesting woman, and they get along pretty well other than the  lack of free time for Louisa. Her boyfriend, Ambulance Sam, is still back in the UK, and they are trying to make the long distance thing work.

Then Louisa meets Joshua Ryan, who bears a startling resemblance to Will Traynor. (This is why you need to have read the first two books, none of this will make sense otherwise.) She also finds a vintage clothing store where she feels right at home.

The long distance thing is working, sort of, and the Josh Ryan thing is also sort of working – without giving anything away, Louisa is somewhat torn between the two, and then the fates conspire to make things even more complicated.

This is another terrific read, full of charm, humor and just enough pathos to make it all worthwhile. Moyes’ fans will be thrilled to spend more time with Louisa – I certainly was.

3/18 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

STILL ME by Jojo Moyes.  Pamela Dorman Books (January 30, 2018). ISBN:  978-0399562457. 400p.

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