Book Review: Zero Day (Ezekiel Boone) @AtriaMysteryBus @ezekiel_boone @SimonSchusterCA

YES! YES! YES! I had been eagerly awaiting the third instalment of The Hatching series since last year when I read Skitter last year.  Seeing the spiders hatch, take over and seeing the apocalypse on the horizon, I couldn’t wait to watch the United States go to war against the queen spiders; Zero Day by Ezekiel Boone had arrived!! Truthfully, if anyone had told me that I would be anticipating a book about killer spiders, I would have looked at them like they were crazy. But, alas, here we are!

One of my favourite things about the writing style of Boone is his ability to take tons of characters, both major and minor, and blend them effortlessly together.   All characters are fully developed and each with their own POV. This could end up being confusing the Boone’s execution is brilliant and it ends up adding continuous layers to the plot.

Another fast paced, action packed novel that had me up late into the night and my eyes glued to the pages, but, I have to say, I feel like the ending was a little lacklustre for me. I think I wanted a big SHABANG at the end and it turned out to be a little bit meh. Mind you, this was a trilogy, so I knew it had to come to an end but I wish there would have been a bit more development so the ending could have been drawn out a little more.

I know I will read anything that Boone publishes in the future and cannot wait to see what he will come up with next!

4.5 stars.

Thanks to the author, the publisher and Netgalley for a copy of this novel; it was my pleasure to provide an honest review.

Of course, Chandra and Jessica gave this one a read with me!  In fact, the first book in this series, The Hatching, was one of the first books that Chandra and I read together!

Keep reading to see what Chandra and Jessica thought of this one!

Book Review: Descent (Tim Johnston)

Way back in November, The Suspenseful Clues and Thrilling Reviews book club decided to read Descent by Tim Johnston. I was really excited about this pick since it had been on my TBR pile for quite some time and I had been looking for an excuse to read it. However, now that I have finished this book, I have some seriously mixed feelings.
This review is already feeling like a tough one to write; bear with me!

Initially, the plot intrigued me. The story surrounds a family who takes a final family trip to the Rocky Mountains before their daughter goes off to college and end up suffering a great loss. As the family patriarch and matriarch make final attempts to save their relationship, their children go missing and, hours later, their son is found injured and their daughter never returns. The family is left in shambles. The story that follows attempts to discuss what happened to Caitlin, how the family moves on and what happens when families suffer great loss.

Sounds intriguing enough, right?

I think maybe if the book was stripped down to the bare bones, I may have enjoyed it more; I am not sure if this is typical of Johnston’s writing style but I felt like there was a lot of plot points that were not completely relevant. I felt confused by the number of extra characters and scenes that felt like they had nothing to do with the actual plot of the book; there were some confusing relationships and trips. I feel like due to the amount of “fluff” and a bit of mismarketing, it didn’t feel much like a thriller. To me, it felt more like contemporary fiction.

I feel like for the reasons above, the pacing was off for me. It felt too slow and I didn’t find myself completely hooked. This one didn’t make me feel compelled to turn the pages, I felt like was reading it purely to finish what I started instead of enjoying the book.

Obviously, I was not the right reader for this book, especially since I am known to be a fan of fast-paced, on the edge of your seat style thrillers.

Did anyone else read this one?  Am I the only one who felt like it was lacking?? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Book Review: Night Film (Marisha Pessl)

Night Film, by Marisha Pessl, has been on my shelf for several years; I purchased it the year it came out and completely forgot about it until I started talking with Chelsea (my friend from The Suspense Is Thrilling Me) and she demanded I read it. As one of her favourite books of all time, I knew that I had to add this one to the top of my TBR pile. Chelsea has some fantastic choices in novels and we are usually in sync when it comes to our feelings about books.

We also decided to give this book a read as part of our Suspenseful Clues and Thrilling Reviews book club for October.

Now that I have finished reading it, I am kicking myself for waiting for so long. What in the world was I thinking??!!! This book was a completely engaging wild ride that had me holding on tight and binge reading late into the night. Once I started this book, I could not put it down. Pessl brings a completely original voice to the mystery/thriller/horror genre and will have you holding your breath as she weaves her narrative.

Ah! The twists, the turns, the non-stop action; without providing any spoilers, it will be hard to discuss the book fully, but I will do my best!

Sept/Oct Book Club Announced!

I am thrilled today for so many reasons!

Not only is it Friday, but is also the first of September AND, to top it all off, today Chelsea and I are pleased to announce that we have decided on our choices for book club picks concerning September and October; we’re hoping that by announcing both right now it will give you all plenty of time to secure them from the library, or purchase if you’d rather, and will also give you plenty of time to read them.and I have envisioned alternating genres each month to keep things

Chelsea and I have been in deep discussion talking about how we want this book club to look; one of the things we envisioned was to alternate genres each month to keep things fresh, and were also wanting to pick some older books that are easier (and cheaper!) to acquire, so if you’ve already read them you can certainly join in the discussion we’re having as well. We weren’t really thrilled with folks having to come to two separate blogs in order to participate in the discussion, so this month we are going to try out a live Twitter convo! Don’t worry, we’ll be posting the questions ahead of time on our blog so that you can be prepared, but we wanted to generate more of an old fashioned book club feel with the convenience of modern technology connecting us from all over the world. We’ll be posting the exact date/time at a later moment, but our September convo will take place toward the end of the month, so feel free to start reading book 1 at any time!

Woo Hoo! The book selections! For the month of September, we decided to pick a historical fiction novel that was immensely popular, but neither of us had read yet. For October, we wanted to pick something that was a bit spooky (but not too scary!) so we went with one that I have not read yet, but is an absolute favorite of Chelsea’s.  She loved it so much she wanted me to read and she wanted to re-read it!

DRUM ROLL PLEASE…..

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#ThrowbackThursday After I Do (Taylor Jenkins Reid)

Throwback Thursday is a weekly meme created by book blogger extraordinaire, Renee at It’s Book Talk. She started this weekly feature as a way to highlight old favourites and read books that have already been published.

I have mentioned before that I belong to a book club that contains a group of teachers I have known since teacher’s college. We meet once a month, we discuss the book and we eat snacks.   What more is there to want, ya know? This past month, after some careful deliberation, we decided to turn our attention to After I Do, by Taylor Jenkins Reid, since three of our book club members (including myself) are getting married this fall. What better way to prepare for marriage than to read a book about a marriage falling apart? We had some mixed feelings during our book club discussion and it became quite clear that this was either a “love it or hate it book”. Personally, I loved the book.

Book Discussion Part II: Bring Her Home (David Bell) @DavidBellNovels @suspensethrill

Welcome to the second day of the Suspenseful Clues and Thrilling Reviews book club discussion! If you’re new to Clues and Reviews, I’d like to welcome you!  I am so glad you are here.

This month’s pick was Bring Her Home by David Bell, a suspenseful mystery surrounding the disappearance of two teenage girls and the havoc it wreaks on one widower in particular.  I mentioned yesterday that we’ve chosen to use the official book club questions provided via the publisher for this book, and I’m going to lay out what to expect below.

So, a little run down before we continue: First, if you haven’t read the book yet, go ahead and stop here. There will be spoilers below and you can always join in at a later date once you’ve completed the novel. We won’t be closing these threads and would love to have you join in anytime you feel ready. With this being our very first month, we aren’t set on a format or formula for these discussions yet, so please bare with us as we try a few different ways of doing this. For the first month, we’ve decided to spread this out over two days; we will each host a post with 6 different questions as to not take up too much time for each reader and allow you the chance to visit both our blogs. We’ll answer a handful of questions and also be posting some blank as well; you are welcome to answer any of the questions you see in the comments below (dictating which number in your answer if possible) or feel free to post your own inspired comments and questions!

Chelsea hosted the first part of the discussion yesterday over on The Suspense Is Thrilling Me, so, if you missed it, be sure to check that out HERE!

Finally, David has generously offered up a copy of his successful previous novel Cemetery Girl to one lucky winner! To be considered for the giveaway, you must participate in the discussion via both blog posts, whether it be a thought you had on the book, an answer to a discussion question, etc. We have to keep it to US entrants only, but the discussion is open to everyone worldwide! We’ll be closing the giveaway Friday, August 18 at midnight, so make sure and leave your comments by then.

Let’s continue discussing the book!

Discussion: Bring Her Home @DavidBellNovels @suspensethrill

Yay! It’s our very first Suspenseful Clues and Thrilling Reviews book club discussion! This month’s pick was Bring Her Home by David Bell, a suspenseful mystery surrounding the disappearance of two teenage girls and the havoc it wreaks on one widower in particular.  If you missed, check out my review HERE.

We’ve chosen to use the official book club questions provided via the publisher for this book, and I’m going to lay out what to expect below.

With this being our very first month, we aren’t set on a format or formula for these discussions yet, so please bare with us as we try a few different ways of doing this. For the first month, we’ve decided to spread this out over two days; we will each host a post with 6 different questions as to not take up too much time for each reader and allow you the chance to visit both our blogs. We’ll answer a handful of questions and also be posting some blank as well; you are welcome to answer any of the questions you see in the comments below (dictating which number in your answer if possible) or feel free to post your own inspired comments and questions!

Finally, David has generously offered up a copy of his successful previous novel Cemetery Girl to one lucky winner! To be considered for the giveaway, you must participate in the discussion via both blog posts, whether it be a thought you had on the book, an answer to a discussion question, etc. We have to keep it to US entrants only, but the discussion is open to everyone worldwide! We’ll be closing the giveaway Friday, August 18 at midnight, so make sure and leave your comments by then.

Enough blabbing from me; let’s talk about the book!

The first part of the discussion will be happening over on Chelsea’s blog, The Suspense Is Thrilling Me!  Head on over there to participate and be sure to check back in here tomorrow for the second half!!

Can’t wait to chat with all of you about Bring Her Home!

Exciting Announcement! @suspensethrill

Coming at you today with an exciting announcement!

Chelsea from The Suspense Is Thrilling Me and I have decided to collaborate and start a sort of online book club called Suspenseful Clues and Thrilling Reviews!

If you follow us both, our blogs and taste in books are very similar, so we felt it was only natural to form a feature where we could come together and work on initiating the dialogue that we felt was lacking in many of our posts these days.

Our hope is to pick one book per month to feature as our book club’s choice; the idea is to announce it a couple of weeks before we start. Ex. We are announcing our pick for August in mid-July to give folks enough time to secure and read the book. We will then post our discussion questions in August, Chelsea and I will ramble on with our thoughts and we will leave the discussion open for anyone to join in once they have read the book. 

We are still working out the details but are also hoping to offer some sort of giveaway each month for those who participate as well!

Without further ado, here’s our choice for AUGUST:

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Book Outside My Genre: Book Review- All Our Wrong Todays (@elanmastai @DuttonBooks)

The future that people figured in the 1950s that we’d have? It happened. In Tom Barren’s 2016, people ride around in flying cars and walk on moving sidewalks. Everyone works in laboratories and food never goes bad. Even though Tom lives in a utopia, he feels as if he cannot find his way. Through a hasty decision, Tom ends up in a time travel mishap and ends up in our 2016: the world that we know. Here, his career is different, his family is different and from his utopian background, this new reality feels like a dystopian wasteland. Torn between his desire to forge a new life in this new reality and fixing the flow of history, Tom finds himself on a search for answers to figure out what the future is truly supposed to be….