Stacy Alesi's BookBitch.com™

THE ONE by John Marrs

February 22, 2018

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Our society is filled with formal and informal methods and systems set to introduce two people looking for someone to love and spend their lives with. These include special interest clubs, on line setups via filling out a background form, family groups and matchmakers.

John Marrs postulates a near term future when DNA testing will find one’s perfect mate including all permutations and combinations of individuals. One company, whose founder developed the system of a quick swab in the mouth, will become one of the largest businesses in the world when they corner the market on this method.

Five couples are followed when the swab indicates that they are destined for each other. In addition, Marrs points out the very probable human reactions to the testing when couples married or together for many years begin to doubt their union when each of the two involved take the test and find that they are compatible with someone else.

Presented are a couple who are thousands of miles apart, another where after the test one partner dies, still another where a female police officer is matched with a serial killer who continues his murders while professing love for the cop. In addition, the question of a couple taking the test and finding that the male member has another male as his perfect love, and finally when the founder of the company that perfected the test finds a match via the system.

The author uses a method of going from one set of partners to another throughout the book allowing the reader to relate to the situations faced in this new world. What type of world would such a system create? Can matches crossing international boundaries bring the earth to a point where intentional conflict is passe? Would there be mass divorces due to being found by the test for the couple to be incompatible?

My reaction to this novel was simply that I couldn’t put it down getting totally immersed from the git go. I do believe that most readers will have the same reaction and finish knowing that they have just read something completely different and completely well handled.

2/18 Paul Lane

THE ONE by John Marrs. Hanover Square Press (February 20, 2018). ISBN 978-1335005106. 416p.

1 Comment | Book Reviews, Sci-Fi/Fantasy | Permalink
Posted by Stacy Alesi

THE IMMORTALISTS by Chloe Benjamin

February 21, 2018

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As regular readers probably know, in December I started having some trouble with my eyes. Reading becams difficult, but I perservered as long as I could. This forced me to become extremely discriminating in what I read until it became just impossible to read either print, on my iPad or the last to go, my Kindle. This is the last book I chose to start. I only got about a third of the way through it and I was so involved I even tried having my Kindle read it to me but I just couldn’t cope with that. So I set it aside. I had surgery, and week of horrendous recovery, and a few more weeks of tolerable recovery and my eyesight seemed to improve daily. It’s still not great, and computers are the most difficult for me to manage, but I have managed to read on my Kindle again. At first, I could only read for about ten minutes at a time, then my eyes would tire. So it took me an extraordinarily long time to finish this book, but I am so glad I did.

The story starts out in the late 1960’s on the Lower East side of New York. The Gold family, four siblings, have heard about a fortune teller who has recently come to their neighborhood. Apparently, she can predict the date of each client’s death. Intrigued, the children find her, and one at a time, she tells them their death dates. They are freaked out, as they should be, and take off without even paying her. But their lives are never really the same after that.

They don’t all share their dates, but hints are dropped. As they get older, this information steers how they live their lives. The youngest, Simon, realizes as a teen that he is gay and his sister Klara encourages him to move to San Francisco, and she lives with him. This is in the 1980’s at the beginning of the AIDS crisis and Harvey Milk and more. Klara becomes a magician and eventually moves to Las Vegas. The oldest son, Daniel, becomes a doctor and works for the armed services, determining who is fit to become a soldier and Vanya, the oldest daughter, becomes a research scientist studying, not ironically, longevity.

The book follows each of the lives until their deaths. It obviously poses the philosophical question if you knew when you were going to die, would you live your life differently? But it delves even further than that into relationships, both familial and others. It is beautifully written and each character drives their own story. Worthy of all the praise it has received, and certainly worthy of discussion. It is not a stretch to say that I’m sure it will be on my best books of the year list.

2/18 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

THE IMMORTALISTS by Chloe Benjamin. G.P. Putnam’s Sons; First Edition edition (January 9, 2018). ISBN 978-0735213180. 352p.

4 Comments | Book Reviews, Fiction | Tagged: Book Discussion | Permalink
Posted by Stacy Alesi

SUNBURN by Laura Lippman

February 20, 2018

It’s been about two years since Lippman’s last book, the excellent Wilde Lake, and all I can say is that it was worth the wait. This is a standalone novel and Lippman’s turn at the unreliable narrator genre that has permeated the best seller lists. And she does an excellent job of it.

Polly has left her second husband and their daughter and is basically on the lam. She ends up in the small town of Belleville, Delaware. Unbeknownst to her, Adam, the good looking man she meets at the local tavern, is actually a private detective who’s been hired to befriend her and find out where she has stashed quite a bit of money. Instead, they fall for each other and have a steamy affair.

Polly is very close mouthed, but slowly begins to reveal herself to Adam. She admits to murdering her first husband, which she was imprisoned for but got on on a sweeping governor pardon of abused wives. But Adam is not quite as forthcoming.

There are a lot of lies, more deaths and several unexpected twists to this story, not to mention quite the shocking ending. This was a one night read for me, albeit a very late night, but I couldn’t put it down. Sunburn is sure to be one of the best books of 2018 – don’t miss it.

As my regular readers know, I was not a fan of Gone Girl and Girl on the Train, two of the most popular books in this unreliable narrator/Girl subgenre. But if you were fans of those books, this is a sure bet.

Note to the author: As much as I enjoyed Sunburn, I wouldn’t mind another Tess Monaghan book!

2/18 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™

SUNBURN by Laura Lippman. William Morrow (February 20, 2018). ISBN: 978-0062389923. 304p.

Kindle

4 Comments | Book Reviews, Crime Fiction | Permalink
Posted by Stacy Alesi

Author Spotlight: Chanel Cleeton

February 19, 2018

After the death of her beloved grandmother, a Cuban-American woman travels to Havana, where she discovers the roots of her identity–and unearths a family secret hidden since the revolution…

Havana, 1958. The daughter of a sugar baron, nineteen-year-old Elisa Perez is part of Cuba’s high society, where she is largely sheltered from the country’s growing political unrest–until she embarks on a clandestine affair with a passionate revolutionary…

Miami, 2017. Freelance writer Marisol Ferrera grew up hearing romantic stories of Cuba from her late grandmother Elisa, who was forced to flee with her family during the revolution. Elisa’s last wish was for Marisol to scatter her ashes in the country of her birth.

Arriving in Havana, Marisol comes face-to-face with the contrast of Cuba’s tropical, timeless beauty and its perilous political climate. When more family history comes to light and Marisol finds herself attracted to a man with secrets of his own, she’ll need the lessons of her grandmother’s past to help her understand the true meaning of courage.

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360 Video: Inside the Penguin Random House book distribution warehouse

February 17, 2018

This is very cool!

Take a 360 tour of Penguin Random House’s distribution center in Crawfordsvile, Indiana, from the books’ point of view.

2 Comments | Ramblings | Permalink
Posted by Stacy Alesi

Happy Valentine’s Day!

February 14, 2018

thank you, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library

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ULTIMATE POWER by Stephen Frey

February 13, 2018

Stephen Frey’s creation of Red Cell 7 is combined with a young newly elected partner in the largest financial company in the U.S. and probably the world. Red Cell 7 is a group of individuals that tackle the mission impossible type of tasks that the regular groups of agents and the military cannot handle. If you know about them or to whom they report they have to kill you. So there, be warned.

Andrew Falcon Jr. (A.J.) is the youngest hedge fund manager ever elected to partner at a huge Wall Street investment firm. His financial future is secured and all he has to do is continue making money for the company which of course will also mean for himself.

Suddenly his niece, Claire, is kidnapped and A.J. drops everything to rescue her. Now we find that the kidnapping is tied to national politics at the very top and a task that the kidnappers want A.J. to do for them in order to get his niece back alive.

The first woman president of the United States has come out with a policy that she feels will remake the country into a better place. She lowers the amounts given to the military to operate and vows to begin taking down the evil people that operate with impunity via Wall Street to prevent the lower and middle class from assuming their proper place in the scheme of things. Obviously there is opposition to her plans with both the bad people in command positions of the military and heads of the the huge financial companies take part in.

The plot thickens and action follows action with the completely militarily untrained A.J. being allowed to participate with Red Cell personnel on raids to right the wrongs being perpetrated. Hmmm, will he survive? A minor detail is brought up when A.J. is talking to his mentor after being made partner. He is not married and needs to get a wife in order to more fully fit in to the image he needs to really succeed. So much to do – so little time to do it. What price glory? Stay tuned to find out how everything is worked out.

If the reader accepts every premise laid out in the novel it will become a quickly read adventure story. If not tune into the next book by Frey to see who is around and what their positions are.

2/18 Paul Lane

ULTIMATE POWER by Stephen Frey. Thomas & Mercer (February 13, 2018). ISBN 978-1503954083. 304p.

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Meet Wade Watts from READY PLAYER ONE by Ernest Cline |

February 12, 2018

Official trailer!

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ALL SYSTEMS DOWN by Sam Boush

February 11, 2018

Cyber War, Book 1

Boush brings us the first book in what he indicates will be a series about a war between the US and it’s enemies North Korea, China, and Russia. If volume I is at all indicative of what is to follow we are in for a treat.

The book opens with the sudden advent of the loss of the electrical grid throughout the U.S. New cars stop suddenly, planes fall from the sky, all lights go out, traffic is a disaster and satellites begin falling down from their orbits above us. Boush indicates that in his personal opinion our electrical grid installations would be simplicity itself to hack into and control. This is what happens with a technician working for North Korea who the author utilizes to illustrate what is going on with the forces allied against America and how this war is being fought.

With Armageddon occurring, the author uses nine people from different areas experiencing the disaster and moving to Portland, Oregon as a possibility to regain some semblance of the now lost civilization. Two of those nine are depicted taking off from an aircraft carrier in the Pacific, losing control and ejecting from the plane before it crashes into the sea.

Another is Brendan Chogan, an out of work Parking enforcement officer who is introduced as he takes a job interview and told that he has not been successful in getting hired. He is a huge man, formerly a heavy weight boxer whose only desire is providing for his wife and two daughters as best as he can.

The adventures of the nine strangers in safely moving through the disasters around them provide a well orchestrated read about ordinary people suddenly thrust into a situation in which every facet of the civilization they formerly counted on sustaining their lives is gone. Boush is successful in showing these people in moving towards a situation where they are forced to and do adapt to the circumstances they are surrounded with. The novel can easily be read on a stand alone basis, but we are shown enough background to understand that more will come shortly. These books will surely be well received and looked forward to.

2/18 Paul Lane

ALL SYSTEMS DOWN by Sam Boush. Lakewater Press (February 8, 2018). ISBN 978-0994451279.

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