A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas follows the life of a 19-year-old huntress, Feyre Acheron, who was brought into an unfamiliar magical realm after killing a faerie in the forest. Upon entering the world of the faeries, she was forced to adapt and live in a world where humans don’t belong. As Feyre becomes more involved with the people around her, she becomes aware of the looming catastrophe she must face to save everyone.
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Book Review
From the description alone, most people, like writer Anjitha M, will say that it’s a simple retelling of the classic Disney movie Beauty and the Beast. However, despite the obvious reference to the Disney classic, Maas was able to craft something different on her own that makes the book unique from the movie.
A Court of Thorns and Roses is the first book in the series of the same name. The author’s strong worldbuilding immerses readers in a setting that offers both excitement and uncertainty as we, the readers, set foot in the world of Fae through the eyes of Feyre. In A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR to its legions of fans), we get to meet various characters who all have different backgrounds and perspectives, and we get to journey with a female protagonist who can stand on her own and shoot arrows with her bow.
The story starts with Feyre’s life-changing encounter with a faerie in the woods, which obliged her to leave her family in the human world for a place she had only heard of in stories. Even though Feyre is human, the story revolves around her journey as she interacts and connects with the fantastical creatures of the Fae. As readers, we get to acquaint ourselves and learn about the world’s culture along with her. Feyre’s determination to remain strong despite being thrown in an unfamiliar place with no allies is something worth admiring about her.
Although the first part was a bit slow-paced, the latter half brings so much action and drama. It makes it impossible to not pick up the second book and read what happens next. Reading ACOTAR on its own isn’t enough to fully understand and appreciate the world that the author has created for us. If you plan to read the following book, A Court of Mist and Fury, you can expect more gripping drama, intense romance, and exceptional worldbuilding from Sarah J. Maas.
ACOTAR is a page-turner if high fantasy, adventure, and romance suit your preferences. Once you finish you will want to check out the entire series since the beginning only gives you a glimpse of what’s to come.
Now may just be the best time to read it too as Deadline announced that producers plan to release an ACOTAR TV adaptation on premium cable and streaming networks. If you want to delve into the world of the Fae with vibrant visuals, you can check out the TV adaptation soon. However, if you’re interested in more action-packed adventures and romance books than fantasy, you should add Guild Boss by Jayne Castle to your to-read list. Accompanied by Lucy and Gabriel, you can discover the lawlessness of Illusion Town.
After a harrowing attempt on a judge’s life at the courthouse, Deputy US Marshals Madison James and Jonas Quinn are tasked with finding a missing woman and an endangered child in connection to the murder of the judge’s wife. What seems like a fairly straightforward case becomes hopelessly tangled when the marshals discover that the woman they are searching for is in witness protection and the Amber Alert put out for the missing child has put two lives in danger.
Madison and Jonas are forced into a race to find the woman and the child before the men who want her dead discover her location. And in a final showdown that could cost her everything, Madison will come face-to-face with the person who murdered her husband.
USA Today bestselling author Lisa Harris concludes her thrilling US Marshals series with this breathless tale of secrets kept, lies exposed, and ultimately, justice prevailing.
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Elise’s Thoughts
The Catch by Lisa Harris is an intense mystery. In the final book of the series the plot brings to close all the extending arcs.
This story is multilayered. These sub-plots had Madison searching for the person who killed her husband Luke, a search for the murderer of a judge’s wife, and a kidnapped child. The suspense ratches up after the child’s babysitter is found to be in the witness protection program and having an amber alert put out on her and the child put both lives in danger. As these three plots are weaved together readers realize nothing is as it seems.
Book three of the series gave readers a thrilling and captivating ride. All the loose threads tie together in a surprising yet inspiring ending. Readers will get their fill of suspense, action, and twists.
There is also a novella, Point Blank,part of a compilation with three other authors titled, Heroes in the Crossfire. In Point Blank, the last two series Lisa Harris has written, “The Nikki Boyd Files,” and “US Marshals,” are combined. It is interesting how she was able to compare the lead characters, Madison James, and Nikki Boyd. Both had feelings of “what if” and struggled with out-of-control feelings while attempting to let go of their guilt.
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Author Interview
Elise Cooper: Why include Nikki Boyd in Point Blank, the prequel to the Madison series?
Lisa Harris: I was asked to write something for a compilation so I decided this novella would be perfect for it. In the US Marshal series book 1 there is a little bit about the loss of Madison’s husband, and with Nikki Boyd books, they take place over 48 hours. They both want to make a difference in the world. Both had different careers: Nikki was a teacher and ended up in the missing person task force while Madison was a policeperson and ended up as a US Marshal. They lost someone close with neither of them having closure. At the end of the series, they do find the answers they are looking for.
EC: The scene of the silo, wow?
LH: I did a lot of research. There are a lot of accidents that happen in the silos where people can drown in the grain. I knew I had to put this in the novella. It is hard to write action scenes and I am always looking to find something different to write about.
EC: The idea for the story, The Catch?
LH: The first book had a fugitive chase. I wanted each book to highlight a different skill used by the US Marshals. This third book had a combination of witness protection and a task force looking for a child endangered. I weaved together these two elements in the story along with the Washington state setting that has beaches and a rain forest. The arcs between Jonas and Madison’s romance as well as the arc of who killed Madison’s husband gets resolved in this book.
EC: Did you know anyone who had a child who disappeared?
LH: No, I did not, thankfully. The Nikki Boyd series was all about missing children. I learned through my research. I thought about those parents who had the drama in real life versus writing fiction. It would be one of the worst things that ever happened in life, the threat of losing a child. Because there is so much darkness around us, thankfully I could have happy endings in my book, a bit of light.
EC: Do you have a crystal ball because one of the stories has a judge threatened?
LH: Sometimes it is scary how some of the things I have written about have come true. I should get my ideas from the newspaper and not the other way around. This plot includes drug trafficking, extortion, kidnappings, and revenge.
EC: How would you describe Becca?
LH: She got in way over head. She was missing something in her life and lost her heart. She smudged the line between right and wrong. She is vulnerable, troubled, frustrated, and desperate.
EC: How would you describe the relationship between Jonas and Madison?
LH: I like that it was resolved over the course of books. For example, each Nikki Boyd book took place over 48 hours. A romance cannot be resolved over that short period of time. The relationship went from admiration and respect when they first met to trying to keep at arm’s length while US Marshal partners to Madison bowing to her fears that something would happen to Jonas like her husband to a happy ending.
EC: Next books?
LH: A prequel to this series will be out June 1st, an e-book novella, Point Blank. It covers when they first met while training. Jonas was training a group of officers that were not US Marshals yet, which included Madison. Nikki Boyd is also in the novella.
I am also self-publishing. It is a series where the town is off the grid without technology. It is Longmire meets Jericho. It is a modern western, solving crimes without technology, titled “The Fallout Series.” The third book just came out which is titled Frequency. There is also a novella to this series.
THANK YOU!!
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BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.
Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for SHADOW OF THEGYPSY by Shelly Frome on this Virtual Author Book Tour.
Below you will find a book description, my book review
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Book Description
A nemesis out of the past suddenly returns, forcing Josh Bartlett to come to terms with his true identity.
Josh Bartlett had figured all the angles, changed his name, holed up as a small-town features writer in the seclusion of the Blue Ridge. Only a few weeks more and he’d begin anew, return to the Litchfield Hills of Connecticut and Molly (if she’d have him) and, at long last, live a normal life. After all, it was a matter of record that Zharko had been deported well over a year ago. The shadowy form Josh had glimpsed yesterday at the lake was only that—a hazy shadow under the eaves of the activities building. It stood to reason his old nemesis was still ensconced overseas in Bucharest or thereabouts well out of the way. And no matter where he was, he wouldn’t travel thousands of miles to track Josh down. Surely that couldn’t be, not now, not after all this.
SHADOW OF THE GYPSY by Shelly Frome is a suspenseful crime mystery with family drama and a little romance all thrown into the mix of an intriguing read.
Josh is hiding from his past working on a small-town weekly paper. In the mysterious beginning of this story, the reader learns of his dysfunctional upbringing and the blonde girl he dreams about that he hopes to return to soon. But his past catches up to him, even though he has changed his name. He learns he was tricked into a debt to the man he is hiding from, the gypsy, Zharko.
I felt the first few chapters were confusing, but once the pieces of Josh’s past begin to unfold, the story began to pull me in. Josh and all the other characters are all fully fleshed and interesting. They are on a good vs. evil spectrum that has very few shades of gray. Just like his nefarious characters, the author also gives the landscape an atmospheric feel of foreboding. The story moves at an ever-increasing pace and yet I never felt as if I knew what would be reveled or what was about to happen right up to the climax. Mr. Frome has a unique style which in this novel gives the story a noir feeling to this crime mystery and so much more.
I recommend this unique mash-up crime mystery.
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Excerpt
Slipping away from the patio, keeping low like he did as a kid in the Connecticut hills playing Indian scout, Josh skirted the bushes, circled behind the low-lying activities building, and hunkered down by the near side of the visitors’ parking lot. He got behind the tailgate of a red Chevy pickup and glanced around the edge of the truck bed. Then, in practically no time, he spotted him.
At first, he wasn’t absolutely sure. After all, the figure was still almost a hundred yards away blurred by the shimmering sunlight. The guy could be on the grounds crew. He could be the driver of the pickup. After all, there were countless wiry workmen in denim for hire in these parts, especially now that spring had arrived.
With his mind revving like crazy, he reminded himself that his old nemesis had been booted out of the country. Josh had, in fact, recently flown back to New England once or twice to make sure, to touch base with his estranged mother and, most of all, to see Molly, his erstwhile childhood sweetheart. He’d been harboring thoughts of dropping his cover, starting over and living a normal life. That is, if he still had a chance with her and their relationship wasn’t a lingering fantasy. If he could hold out a bit longer to make sure.
Yet, as the figure pivoted and headed back in Josh’s direction, it was no use. He noted the black denim, shiny cowboy boots, and red blouse protruding from an open Levi jacket. If nothing else, the twisted, sparkling earring gave him away. That and the furtive way he scurried around, trying to get a bead on the whereabouts of his quarry. His thin, chiseled face and high cheekbones were also a dead giveaway, though it had been a few years since Josh had actually laid eyes on him.
As a youngster, gazing out the window of his mother’s cabin in the woods, he’d frequently caught sight of the gypsy van and that thickset, baldheaded companion called Vlad. And once, surreptitiously catching snatches of dialogue as he berated his mother in that awkward speech pattern of his: “Your boy still tractable for sure, tell me true? He is like well-behaved dog? . . . Day is coming when he will be useful. Not now but maybe soon because feds hounding me worse than ever ”
But Josh had it on the highest authority that Zharko had been deported. Threats of Zharko finding him useful had abated over the years, except in nightmares now and then, and hopes and daydreams of becoming free and clear had taken their place.
But now, Zharko Vadja was close by and Ackerman was waiting impatiently.
He remained hunkered down and, though he needed to get a move on, again found himself sifting through his memory bank, desperately trying to put this in some perspective. It was during that foray to touch base– to see how Molly was doing and learning she was teaching second grade at that very same elementary school they’d both attended before he’d been shipped off. But underneath Molly Hunter’s ingenuous veneer, trying not to dwell on his shortcomings, there was that same dubious background; the way his mother had treated her over a Christmas present, plus his mother Irina’s animosity toward Molly and her ilk.
There was also his name change leading to his affable mask as good ol’ Josh Bartlet. Which led to that troublesome exchange as she revealed she’d had another offer of marriage.
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About Shelly Frome
Award winning author, Shelly Frome is a member of Mystery Writers of America, a professor of dramatic arts emeritus at the University of Connecticut, a former professional actor, a writer of crime novels, cozy mystery novels, and books on theater and film. He is also a features writer for Gannett Media’s Black Mountain News. His fiction includes Sun Dance for Andy Horn, Lilac Moon, Twilight of theDrifter, Tinseltown Riff, Murder Run, Moon Games and The Secluded Village Murders.
Among his works of non-fiction are The Actors Studio and texts on the art and craft of screenwriting and writing for the stage. Miranda and the D-Day Caper was his last foray into the world of crime and the amateur sleuth, until now. He lives in Black Mountain, North Carolina.
A disgraced former CIA operative must go back in the field with only his ex-wife as his handler in this electrifying thriller from a former intelligence officer.
Meredith Morris-Dale is a CIA agent and a damn good one…even if this last mission did go terribly wrong. Now she has been summoned back to Langley where she expects to be fired. Instead, she is met by the Deputy Director with stunning news.
A single well-placed CIA mole in Iran’s uranium enrichment program has kept the terrorist nation from building a bomb by sabotaging their centrifuge’s performance. But after losing his daughter in an airliner shootdown, the mole wants out–leaving the world on the brink. His one demand: a reunion with the only handler he ever trusted, John Dale–Meredith’s disgraced, fired, wayward ex-husband. As Meredith and John struggle through their fraught relationship, a craven CIA political hierarchy, Russian interference, and the rogue spy’s manipulation, they must reach deep within their shared connection to maintain, recover, or kill the asset.
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Elise’s Thoughts
The Handler by M. P. Woodward allows readers to gain knowledge of the intelligence world with a story all too real, delving into the return of the Cold War days. If readers are looking for a Vince Flynn like author that has the same action, characters to root for, and national security concerns, Woodward is the author to read.
In this debut story disgraced CIA operative John Dale is coaxed out of retirement by his ex-wife Meredith, the head of the CIA’s Counterproliferation Division. John is asked to extract Iranian asset Cerberus, a scientist working on the Iranian nuclear program. The CIA mole has kept this terrorist nation from building a bomb through sabotage. But now the mole wants out and will only deal with his trusted former handler, Dale.
Both John, and his handler, Meredith, must work together to bring the scientist to safety. Together they face very dangerous obstacles including the CIA’s political hierarchy, Iran’s military, and Russian spies. There are Russian agents leading an SVR team anxious to take out John and Meredith, a lieutenant colonel with the Quds branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard who wants Cerberus just as badly as the CIA, and Meredith’s corrupt supervisor, Rance.
Woodward, a former naval intelligence officer, uses his experience to write a very believable story full of suspense and twists. There is plenty of drama, tension, and conflict. Readers will not want to put this book down.
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Author Interview
Elise Cooper: The idea for the story?
M. P. Woodward: I have been a naval intelligence officer and like to keep up with what is happening in the world. In January 2020 on the airport TV was the coverage of a civilian Ukrainian airliner shot down by Iran. I started to think about how and why it happened. The people on that plane were largely Iranian students going back to school in Canada. I thought it could be a plot for a novel. I wanted to write a story with authenticity and realism.
EC: How did your professional experience help in writing the book?
MPW: I divide it into two halves. The first is being in the military for several years. The other is working at Amazon doing distribution deals. With the former, I used to write war game scenarios. I knew a lot about how various agencies on both sides would react to certain escalations. This helped with some character development, setting, and timing. The business side helped me to capture working at a bureaucracy that has inertia and people with political motivations.
EC: You talk about the countries of evil toward the US which seems to be the same ones as of today?
MPW: We were in a period of history, post-Cold War that had a rule based on international order. Now we are in Cold War 2.0 with three imperialist powers who challenge the status quo to expand their sphere of influence. As I discuss in the book, China is the senior partner with Russia and Iran the junior partners, all working together. Russia is helping the Iranians with a nuclear reactor in exchange for oil drilling rights. The Chinese try to build client satellite states. Whereas the western democracies are a little slow to this threat. I am worried because they have failed to deter.
EC: The Iran nuclear threat?
MPW: Many countries in that area have nuclear weapons. A lot of them are modern societies, while Iran has different ideas. There are those in Iran who believe that the 12th Iman will come back once Armageddon is achieved. A facility was built, spending 500 million dollars, to welcome back the 12th Iman. These are the people in power. The idea they will have nuclear weapons is very scary. The Iranians are hiding their secret nuclear facilities which for me shows they do not want a deal with the US.
EC: Besides writing about the geo-political threat, you have well developed characters. How would you describe John?
MPW: He believes in honor, duty, and commitment, but lacks the patience of working within large organizations. He would rather work alone to get the mission accomplished. His heart is in the right place. He is frustrated with working within the system. He and I are landscape painters, a loner profession. The cabin he lives in is like the one I have, up on a mountain. He can be charming and unpredictable.
EC: How would you describe Meredith?
MPW: She is the opposite of John. She accepts the rules and works within the organization. She also has a sense of honor, duty, and mission. She goes about doing things in different ways than John and becomes frustrated with him. She can read people and at times is intense. Meredith is attracted to someone like John but has a hard time in making peace with his actions. She and John have a bond.
EC: You show how intelligence works?
MPW: Yes. I wanted to show how a lot of times the handler and the operative sometimes have incomplete information. Since they were married with an adult child, she feels her first duty is to John. Meredith is an advocate for him. I put in this quote, “Good assets are in it for ideology, or even better, their vision of morality.” They want to do the right thing because they want change.
EC: How would you describe Rance, Meredith’s CIA boss who is a political animal?
MPW: He is fallible and cautious. He is not decisive versus Meredith who thinks quickly. He does put his career first. He is arrogant, selfish, calculating, uncaring, and tries to throw Meredith and John under the bus. He thinks he can get away with things, which is his undoing.
EC: Please explain this book quote, “Intelligence failures were infamous for overlooked, seemingly innocuous assumptions.”
MPW: I worked with Special Forces who must know the smallest details. Remember during the raid on OBL when the helicopter crashed. It did so because the rehearsals during the mission had a chain linked fence. But the actual fence was a masonry wall. People like John in this story must know does the door open in or out, are the hinges on the left or right side of the door.
EC: The next book?
MPW: It will come out this time next year, titled Scorched Earth. The plot is the shadow war between Israel and Iran. The question should the Americans appease Iran and get a deal done, angering Israel. The overriding arguments, containment versus appeasement of Iran? Meredith and John are on Israel’s side. I used many real-world references. I wanted to portray the existential threat to Israel if Iran gets a nuclear weapon and highlight Israel’s military.
THANK YOU!!
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BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.
Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for TOXIC SOUP by R.R. Rowley on this Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tour.
Below you will find a book description, my book review, and excerpt from the book, the author’s bio and social media links and a Rafflecopter giveaway. Enjoy and good luck on the giveaway!
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Book Description
The Poisoning Must End
Toxic waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation has been poisoning the environment, human beings, and wildlife for more than six decades. When her brother dies a horrible death at Hanford, Casey Long, a kayaker and windsurfer by day and bartender by night in the Columbia River Gorge, Oregon/Washington, swears to put an end to the upriver contamination. But, how can she possibly take on the entrenched fortress of a facility?
After she confides in Little Bear, a bitter Native American fisherman, they contrive a dangerous plan. Joined by a peculiar mishmash of collaborators, they risk everything to save the environment and achieve justice for all injured parties, past and present.
Genre: Environmental Thriller Published by: The Wild Rose Press Publication Date: April 11, 2022 Number of Pages: 272 ISBN: 1509241167 (ISBN-13: 978-1509241163)
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My Book Review
RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars
TOXIC SOUP by R.R. Rowley is an environmental thriller set in the area around the Columbia River Gorge with a protagonist on the path of revenge for the death of her brother.
The Hanford Nuclear Reservation has been slowly poisoning the environment in the Pacific Northwest for over six decades. The government has the facility locked down, but the volatile waste is unstable and continually escapes in the air and water. Casey Long receives a life-changing call that her brother and only sibling has died in a terrible accident while he is working on the nuclear waste site on the border between Oregon and Washington. Casey is devastated and after seeing her brother’s remains and the treatment of the men in charge she must deal with at Hanford, she decides she will not rest until she has revenge for her brother.
The once easy going and friendly bartender devises a plan for revenge. She cannot get into Hanford, but she can get to the men in charge. With the help of one of her roommates, her lover, an ex-con bar regular and Little Bear, a Native American fisherman who also hates the facility and its poison, she looks for justice for her brother and hopes to bring to light the environmental nightmare that the facility is to the area.
I enjoyed the scenic descriptions of the area and the watersport scenes that Casey and her roommates enjoyed in the beginning of the story. I felt the author did a lot of research and was able to intertwine it seamlessly throughout the story to get the ominous human and wildlife environmental foreboding into the story without being just an info dump. The plot moves at a steady pace throughout much of the story with the predicted climax, but with a tragic twist ending. As much as this thriller is an environmental wake-up call, it is also a tragic story of revenge. Casey changes into a person that you can feel sadness and sympathy for, but I lost my empathy for her. The secondary characters are interesting and unique, but none are able to or attempt to change Casey’s path of revenge.
I found this environmental thriller intriguing and sad, but well worth the read.
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Excerpt
When the abandoned reactor sites came into view, they swung their kayaks into a backwater eddy. Spooked ducks sprang into flight in front of them. Boats gliding, they studied the depth of the water, avoiding the chance of running aground. Before them, some sickly grasses appeared at the edge of the river. Was this it? Casey paddled closer, excitement rising. Pointing to a spot upon the bank, she called to Rex, “See that? See that? Is water trickling out of the ground over there?”
He removed his sunglasses and squinted. “You’re right. There is a wet spot over there.”
Straggly, yellowed grasses drooped away from the seeping water. They moved even closer to get a better view. A foam rose from the trickle of liquid and spread to a nasty orange and pink gunk smeared over exposed rocks. “I see it!” Rex cried out, a jolt of fear zapping through him. “Radioactivity!” he screamed, quickly backstroking. “You’ve got your evidence. Let’s get out of here! I don’t want to be anywhere near that stuff.”
She had her proof. Toxicity flowed into the river. How many other places existed? Perhaps beneath the water, the contamination was much worse. Untouchable Hanford is getting away with whatever they want. Something needed to be done, but what? Something not only for Charley but for the birds, the fish, and all the little creatures suffering at the hand of man’s dereliction of duty. She knew what she had to do.
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Author Bio
R R Rowley has lived coast to coast in the USA, in London, UK, and has spent many years on his farm in Grenada, West Indies. He has owned and operated several companies and was involved in start-ups. Currently, he resides in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State.
Today I am sharing by Feature Post and Book Review on the Blackthorn Book Tour for RIEBECKITE by O.R. Lea.
Below you will find book description, my book review and the author’s bio and social media links. Enjoy!
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Book Description
Dangerous spores gather on Earth after an asteroid strikes the moon. Humanity watches the skies…but the real danger is at their feet.
After an asteroid strike on the moon, a strange blue dust began to flow down through Earth’s atmosphere. It’s harmful to breathe, but at least the microscopic creatures within the dust are dormant. Or so we thought.
Tahira made a childhood promise to a friend that the crisis would bring their people together… before a violent riot tore their lives apart. Now, as an adult, Tahira works as a biologist for a corporation constructing experimental towers to force the spores—known as riebeckites—to germinate into harmless colonies.
Except they’re about to learn everything they think they know about the dust is wrong. The real threat isn’t the asteroid that struck the moon and by the time humanity figures it out, it might be too late.
Riebeckite combines suspense and conspiracy with heart-in-mouth action sequences and nightmarish encounters, all in an immersive near-future setting and, at its core, a heartwarming story of friendship against the odds.
RIEBECKITE (Bruised Moon Sequence Book #1) by O.R. Lea is an engrossing mix of speculative fiction, sci-fi and horror that comes together in a story that is impossible to put down. It is also a story of friendship that spans not only years but cultural prejudice and politics.
We meet best friends Tahira who is Azerbaijani and Zareen who is Iranian when they are eight years old. They are separated as children when the Iranians are annexed and held behind an electrified cable wall.
Decades later, the two may be separated by a wall, but they are in touch and friends once again. Tahira studies the biology of the riebeckites that large turbines clean out of the air and deposit in the seas. They are from the moon dust and may not be as benign as the population has been led to believe. She discovers the monsters Zareen has been telling her about in the Annex, that the Azerbaijanis believe are urban legends, are real monsters. The riebeckites are a bigger threat than anyone believed. Will humanity survive?
I loved this novel! It was in a genre I usually do not gravitate toward, but I could not stop reading it. Not only is it in a different genre, but it is set in the Persian Gulf, which is unusual too. Tahira and Zareen are both strong female characters, but in differing ways. It is partially due to their circumstances, but their personalities are very different even as young girls. The riebeckites are such an interesting new biological species that are equal parts believable and disgusting. The author’s descriptive writing at times sent shivers up my spine as well as turned my stomach. The plot moves at an ever-increasing pace with plenty of action scenes especially in the second half of the story. There is a satisfying climax and conclusion to tie up many plot threads, but there is an opening for more.
I highly recommend this unique book and I am excited to read future books in this series.
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Author Bio
Raised and educated in North Wales, Oliver spent his early 20s working for a theatre-in-education music troupe for as long as it took to feel like his GCSE in Welsh language had provided its money’s worth. Since then, he’s lived in Portsmouth and currently works as a laboratory analyst. His biggest failure as a writer has been in his attempts to settle on a genre, having written about Middle Eastern vampires, African mercenaries and supernatural Welsh murderers. His first ‘properly’ published novel, “Riebeckite”, is a near-future speculative fiction story set in the Persian Gulf.
