The Mill River Redemption by Darcie Chan

The Mill River Redemption by Darcie Chan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I received a free copy of this book from Brown Book Group in exchange for an honest review, thank you! I also want to thank Brown Book Group for letting me participate in the "The Mill River Redemption blog tour"! 

Josie DiSanti moves after losing her husband in a fire that burned down the house to the little town of Mill River with her two small children, Rose, and Emily, to live with her aunt Ivy. As they grown up the girls are inseparable but a terrible accident tears them apart. Years later they return to the town for the reading of their mother’s testament. They learn that Josie will do anything to reconcile her two daughters. The sisters must move into neighboring houses during the summer and work together to find Josie’s safe deposit box which contains their inheritance...

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I got a chance to read Darcie Chan's “The Mill River Redemption”, her second book after “The Mill River Recluse”. I have not read the first book, but I don’t feel that you need to, even though I must say I am a bit tempted.

This is not the usual book I go for. But I felt intrigued when I read what the book was about. About a small little town, a town where everyone knows everyone and two sisters that have to return to fulfill their mother's last will to be able to inherit. But nothing is easy; they haven’t spoken to each other for years and something putting two people together that are angry with each other can cause blowups.

In the book, we follow Josie in the 1980-90s building a life for herself and her children parallel with her children as grownups coming back to town and trying to find the key to the safe deposit box. I liked it at the same time you get to know the people in the past you also get to know them as grownups and in the end, the past story reveals why they are estranged.

Rose and Emily are very different, Rose is superficial and Emily is down to earth. And there we have my biggest problem with the book. Emily is the good and Rose the bad daughter. The story is written so you will feel for Emily always, it is she who got hurt, and it is she who always does the right thing. After a while it feels like everything Rose does is to hurt everyone around here. Of course, it could be the alcohol talking, she is an alcoholic, but I don’t buy it all the way. By always making it Rose’s fault then the book loses a bit of credibility because not everyone is perfect and not everyone is bad. And I feel that the book had been better if they both had been portrayed with flaws instead of just Rose.

But besides that, I mostly enjoyed the book. It was a bit weird reading about Claudia and Kyle in the book, at first I didn’t understand why there were chapters about their life in the middle of the story about Emily and Rose but I figured that their story had something to do with the first book and I was right.

#BookReview Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

In May 1980, fifteen-year-old Oscar Drai suddenly vanishes from his boarding school in the old quarter of Barcelona. For seven days and nights no one knows his whereabouts. . . .

His story begins in the heart of old Barcelona, when he meets Marina and her father Germán Blau, a portrait painter. Marina takes Oscar to a cemetery to watch a macabre ritual that occurs on the fourth Sunday of each month. At 10 a.m. precisely a coach pulled by black horses appears. From it descends a woman dressed in black, her face shrouded, wearing gloves, holding a single rose. She walks over to a gravestone that bears no name, only the mysterious emblem of a black butterfly with open wings.

When Oscar and Marina decide to follow her they begin a journey that will take them to the heights of a forgotten, post-war Barcelona, a world of aristocrats and actresses, inventors and tycoons; and a dark secret that lies waiting in the mysterious labyrinth beneath the city streets.

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Marina is the fourth book I have read by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (not counting The Rose of Fire since it’s a short story) and I think it’s probably the best I have read by him. This book has nothing to do with The Cemetery of Forgotten Books series. But I don’t mind that, it's refreshing to read something different. The story takes place in Barcelona just like The Cemetery of Forgotten Books does but this is years later and the story has nothing to do with forgotten books instead this is a love story. Or love stories, one in the present 1980’s Barcelona and one in the past, both tragic.

This is one hell of a well-written book with a story that really spoke to me; tragic love stories, revenge, scary dolls, experiments, murder and a mystery woman in black with a tragic past. I just wish I could find more books like this.

Red Blooded by Amanda Carlson

Red Blooded by Amanda Carlson
My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

Jessica is going to Hell.

After settling a fragile truce between the vampires, werewolves and witches, the last thing Jessica wants to do is face the demons head on. But when the Prince of Hell kidnapped her brother, he set into motion a chain of events that even Jessica doesn't have the power to stop.

Now, Jessica must go into battle again. But Hell is a whole new beast—new rules, more dangerous demons, and an entirely foreign realm. And when Jessica is dropped into the Underworld too soon, without protection or the help of her friends, she must figure out just how powerful she can be... or she will never make it out alive.

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The book starts with Jessica trying to prepare herself with some training in magic (with the help from some witches) before she descends into hell to find her brother who has been captured by the Prince of Hell. And of course, nothing goes as it is planned and by sheer luck/mistake does she descends to hell a bit earlier than the witches and she had expected.

Red Blooded is the fourth book about Jessica McClain, the only female in a male race of werewolves. This is the first book in the series that I read so I have a bit of disadvantage in that everything is new to me and it doesn’t get easier that so little is explained. During my reading of this book, I had to gather information about the characters and past experience to make sense of the story in this book.

I can see the appeal of the book, but I think you should start with book one and not like me jump in and read book four. I usually don’t read books in the middle of a series. But Red Blooded arrived home to me as a bit of a surprise and I thought what the heck, it looks like a book that will not take forever to read and it's a paranormal.

Overall the book wasn’t bad, I just got a bit impatient towards to end, but I think it had very much to do with the feeling of frustration that there is so much back history that I didn’t know that mattered to the story on this book. People that popped into the story and you get some info about them but not enough.

Would I read the previous books? Yes, I would, even though that whole heroine, the one in the kind, prophesied to greatness, is something I feel can be a bit annoying. One thing for sure I would rather read the previous books in the series before I would read the next one.

I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a free copy through NetGalley for an honest review!

A.D. 30 by Ted Dekker

A.D. 30 by Ted Dekker
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A sweeping epic set in the harsh deserts of Arabia and ancient Palestine
A war that rages between kingdoms on the earth and in the heart.

The harrowing journey of the woman at the center of it all.

Step back in time to the year of our Lord...A.D. 30.

The outcast daughter of one of the most powerful Bedouin sheikhs in Arabia, Maviah is called on to protect the very people who rejected her. When their enemies launch a sudden attack with devastating consequences, Maviah escapes with the help of two of her father's warriors--Saba who speaks more with is sword than his voice and Judah, a Jew who comes from a tribe that can read the stars. Their journey will be fraught with terrible danger. If they can survive the vast forbidding sands of a desert that is deadly to most, they will reach a brutal world subjugated by kings and emperors. There Maviah must secure an unlikely alliance with King Herod of the Jews.

But Maviah's path leads her unexpectedly to another man. An enigmatic teacher who speaks of a way in this life which offers greater power than any kingdom. His name is Yeshua, and his words turn everything known on its head. Though following him may present even greater danger, his may be the only way for Maviah to save her people--and herself.

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I was intrigued about reading a fiction about a woman that lived at the same time as Jesus did. But I just couldn't really find myself enjoying the story. It started off good, but then it suddenly turned into a historical romance and then I lost some interest in the book. But I did enjoy part of it. But I think I wasn’t really in the mood for a historical fiction/Christian fiction with a dash of romance in it when I read the book and that made the book a bit hard to read. Also, I read the book at a time in my life when I had read a lot of theology book since I was studying it, and I think that affected my mood. And, my main subject of reading material during the year when I read this book had been the years before and after Jesus was born. And, that probably made me a bit over critical at the time.

But, if you enjoy historical fiction/Christian fiction then you will probably enjoy this book. It’s well written, more dramatic than I expected and not as cheesy as I was afraid the book would be.

I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a free copy through NetGalley for an honest review!

Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets by David Thomas Moore

Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets: An Anthology of Holmesian Tales Across Time and Space by David Thomas Moore
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The world's most famous detective, as you’ve never seen him before! This is a collection of orginal short stories finding Holmes and Watson in times and places you would never have expected!

A dozen established and up-and-coming authors invite you to view Doyle’s greatest creation through a decidedly cracked lens.

Read about Holmes and Watson through time and space, as they tackle a witch-trial in seventeenth century Scotland, bandy words with Andy Warhol in 1970s New York, travel the Wild Frontier in the Old West, solve future crimes in a world of robots and even cross paths with a young Elvis Presley...

Set to include stories by Kasey Lansdale, Guy Adams, Jamie Wyman, J E Cohen, Gini Koch, Glen Mehn, Kelly Hale, Kaaron Warren, Emma Newman and more.

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This collection of Sherlock Holmes stories just didn't work out for me. As a long-time Sherlock Holmes fan did I look forward reading a collection of stories that places the detective in situations one usually doesn't find him in. I love science fiction and the idea of the famous detective tackling more supernatural crimes sounded very interesting.

However, I just didn't find the stories in the collection to be especially memorable or interesting to read. too many of them were just frankly boring to read, with very few of them catching my interest.

So, in the end, this was just not a collection that suited me, there were some stories that were a bit better than the rest, but not really any fantastic stories.

I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a free copy through NetGalley for an honest review!

The Bookman's Tale by Charlie Lovett

The Bookman's Tale: A Novel of Obsession by Charlie Lovett
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A mysterious portrait ignites an antiquarian bookseller’s search through time and the works of Shakespeare for his lost love

Guaranteed to capture the hearts of everyone who truly loves books, The Bookman’s Tale is a former bookseller’s sparkling novel and a delightful exploration of one of literature’s most tantalizing mysteries with echoes of Shadow of the Wind and A.S. Byatt's Possession.

Nine months after the death of his beloved wife Amanda left him shattered, Peter Byerly, a young antiquarian bookseller, relocates from North Carolina to the English countryside, hoping to outrun his grief and rediscover the joy he once took in collecting and restoring rare books. But upon opening an eighteenth-century study of Shakespeare forgeries, he discovers a Victorian watercolor of a woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to Amanda.

Peter becomes obsessed with learning the picture’s origins and braves a host of dangers to follow a trail of clues back across the centuries—all the way to Shakespeare’s time and a priceless literary artifact that could prove, once and for all, the truth about the Bard’s real identity.

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I saw on Goodreads that this book was compared to Possession by A.S. Byatt and that really made me want to read this book. Alas, this book was like a pale version of possession. It had elements of Possession. But, it was never as engrossing to read as Possession was for me.

The problem was that the characters were very flat and honestly boring. Peter meets Amanda and they fall in love, he discovers that she is a rich heiress (No way, I didn’t see that coming) she dies and he finds a watercolor painting that looks just like Amanda in England and he just has to find out who painted it and the identity of the woman.

Another problem is that everything is so damn convenient, he finds the painting and after that everything just falls into place. He meets the right people; everything he does leads him on towards the big discovery in the end. But it doesn’t feel genuine. Trust me I read adventures book, I can take it that clues just falls in the laps on people, but in this book, no! It’s too freaking easy for him. Also, he sees visions of his dead wife! Com on Charlie Lovett, could you not have left that out at least.

And then in the middle of his sorrow he meets a woman that helps him with the clues and one just knows that either she is evil or he will fall in love with her since why the heck not, his wife has just been dead for 9 months and lives moves on...don't matter that he just before he found the painting  hardly was functional, she's a woman, he is man...it's love!

As if that wasn’t annoying, the book also turned into a murder mystery since he was not the only one after the “treasure”. I didn’t want to read a murder mystery I wanted a historical novel with a tragic love, where the answers are in the past. Meh!

#BookReview The Man He Became: How FDR Defied Polio to Win the Presidency by James Tobin

The Man He Became: How FDR Defied Polio to Win the Presidency by James Tobin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

With a searching new analysis of primary sources, NBCC award winner James Tobin reveals how FDR’s fight against polio transformed him from a callow aristocrat into the energetic, determined statesman who would rally the nation in the Great Depression and lead it through World War II.

Here, from James Tobin, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in biography, is the story of the greatest comeback in American political history, a saga long buried in half-truth, distortion and myth— Franklin Roosevelt’s ten-year climb from paralysis to the White House.

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Franklin D. Roosevelt was 39 years old when he was stricken with infantile paralysis (polio). Just one day he couldn’t stand up anymore and the hope for a fast recovery faded fast when he just got worse and the doctor had no clue to what had stricken him and in the end misdiagnosed him.

Precious time was wasted before another doctor recognized what ailed him and by then it was too late for Roosevelt to ever walk again properly. He would have to rely on other people to support himself to stand, or a cane, leg braces or a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

Still, he became, in the end, the president of the United States.

I find Franklin D. Roosevelt's life fascinating and this book was a very interesting and well-written account of his life just before he was stricken with infantile paralysis, his period of illness and his struggle to walk again and reclaim his life and career again. I found the best part of the book was 2/3 of the book that focused on Roosevelt and how infantile paralysis struck him and how his life was forever changed because of it. The ending of the book was not bad; it was just a bit too much about politics for me. Besides learning more about Roosevelt was it interesting to learn more about infantile paralysis what a devastating illness it was.

Dead Water by Ann Cleeves

Dead Water by Ann Cleeves
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ann Cleeves returns to her critically acclaimed Shetland Island series with this stunning mystery featuring Inspector Jimmy Perez, who readers will remember from Raven Black, White Nights, Red Bones, and Blue Lightning. When the body of a journalist is found, Detective Inspector Willow Reeves is drafted from outside to head up the investigation. Inspector Jimmy Perez has been out of the loop, but his local knowledge is needed in this case, and he decides to help Willow. The dead journalist had left the islands years before to pursue his writing career. In his wake, he left a scandal involving a young girl. When Willow and Jimmy dig deeper, they realize that the journalist was chasing a story that many Shetlanders didn't want to come to the surface. 

In Dead Water, a triumphant continuation to her Shetland series, Ann Cleeves cements her place as one of Britain's most successful crime writers.

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A journalist gets murdered and Detective Inspector Willow Reeves gets recruited from outside to lead the investigation since inspector Jimmy Perez haven't been himself since his loss in the last book. But it doesn't take a long time before Jimmy joins the investigation...

Ann Cleeves Shetland Island series has oddly become one of my favorite series. Oddly because the first three books were quite ordinary crime/mystery books. But the last book was really good and I have been looking forward to reading this book for some time. And I wasn't disappointed, a good mystery story, Jimmy, and Sandy are back and a new character, Willow Reeves that I came to like quite good. Now I just want to read the next book...