To Kill A Kingdom by Alexandra Christo

          The first thing that strikes you about this book is the beautifully realised world created as the setting of this book.  It all takes place in a world similar to ours but one where not all countries are landbound, the largest being the oceans ruled over by the Sea Queen who governs all territories.  Every country has it's royalty and their own specialities.  Midas is a land of gold and wealth, Pagos is a land of ice and snow, Keleftis is a land of cold blooded murderers - you get the idea.  The strokes I have painted them with her are broad but even if they only exist on the page for a chapter (or less) you get a strong impression of a fully realised world - I am guessing there are copious notes at the authors desk describing the lands and their peoples.

The basis of the world borrows much from all different mythologies - from the Greek to medieval folk tales.  Mermaids there might be but they are not the seductive half woman/half fish creatures beloved of Hans Christian Andersen and the Sirens are as beautiful and deadly as Greek myth would have us believe but these don't turn in to ugly hags once the sailor is captured.  Pirates get an outing too and these are more Jack Sparrow than Edward Teach.

On top of the richly tapestried world you also get a wonderfully crafted tale of adventure and romance.  This is a world of, mostly, courtly love and chivalry and just because you are warring families doesn't mean that Romeo can't get and keep his Juliet this time.  With interspersed themes of family duty and internal strife and a light dusting of peer pressure it juggles modern mores in to the fantasy setting seamlessly and with joy and verve.

The characterisation is drawn well, with the main players (Elian and Lira) being multifaceted people with opinions often shaped by their own world experience but who aren't afraid to change.  You do get brief insights in to others in the book but they are often a little flat and never step beyond the page in the same way Elian and Lira do.

This book may be targeted at the Teen & Young Adult bracket but it is a compelling read for those who long left that categorisation far behind us. 

I RECEIVED A FREE COPY OF THIS BOOK FROM READERS FIRST IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW.
       

Secrets Of The Dead by Carol Wyer

I found this to be a wonderfully crafted Crime Thriller and one that is managing to step away from the so familiar tropes prevalent in the genre.  Rather than being all about a maverick detective, in this case Robyn Carter, it is about the team work of Robyn, Mitz and Anna in trying to join the dots between a series of murders and narrow in on the culprit.  There are the usual red herrings but these are laid in such a way that they seem entirely plausible and based off leads given by the public rather than an interior hunch.  To be honest it was a refreshingly straight forward police procedural where the reader gets the information at the same time as the police.

We do follow the standard of having segments told by the killer.  Whilst they give us the understanding of who he is targeting and why the author has managed to steer clear of giving us so much information that we know who the killer is.  We know some of his family situation and that he works but not where; we know his sister and that he lives alone.  Beyond this his identity only becomes clear to us about 3 pages before Anna figures it out.  Thats right, the real discovery that leads to his naming and capture is not the detective but her subordinate.

I will admit to being hesitant about purchasing any further books in the Robyn Carter series as the first one I found a bit too patchy in its telling.  I am very glad that I decided to persevere as I thoroughly enjoyed this second book.  You don't need to read the first to engage with the characters and no mention is made of the first crime so my recommendation would be skip Little Girl Lost and jump straight to this one as Carol Wyer has honed her talent for telling a story and weaving a believable plot.

Miss Match by Lindzee Armstrong

I found this book to be very hit and miss, some segments I loved and others left me wanting to just tear my hair out in frustration.  The whole "love triangle" thing left me completely cold as I found it to be lacking in any real warmth or believability.  Brooke is a not very sympathetic character and I found her to be written as pretty shallow and naive, I certainly didn't care about whether she would realise that her Billionaire Best Friend, Luke, was the love of her life over arty and faithless Antonio.  In fact her relationship with Antonio is actually appalling in the way he seeks to control her every move, so toxic.

However, I really enjoyed the matchmaking sections at Toujour and Luke's disastrous first dates.  In fact he is the only character that was able to drive any sort of empathy from me.  I could certainly have done with more tales of his dating disasters over Brooke's endless whining over her love life.

Sorry this was definitely not one for me.

The Source by J.D. Horn

The second book in the series did not disappoint at all.  We join Mercy as her pregnancy progresses and she hunts for her sister, Maisie, in the strange netherworld that The Line has banished her too.  With her power restricted by the families she can do so little with what she has left but she is determined to make it count, even if that means ignoring her tuition with the former golem, Emmet, and spending more time with Mother Jilo.

The characters are just as richly drawn in this second outing and the setting is completely submersive. I normally have a tendency to race through books but I found myself once again savouring this book and rationing myself to a few chapters a day to draw out the pleasure of joining this richly tapestried world.

There are genuine moments of peril and you do feel connected to the Taylors and the Tierneys throughout the book.  The characters feel so real and often make quite serious mistakes in judgement due to following their heart into a situation rather than their head.  This makes you believe this could be a real world and one you would love to inhabit - dangerous demons and all.  The relationship between Oliver and Adam is beautifully drawn, their yearning for each other is wonderful and it is just casually dropped in that Adam is a man of colour, making inter-racial homosexuality seem no big deal in a Southern State without smacking of the author having a political agenda.

Definitely a series that needs to be read in order as there is no real introduction to the characters and you just dive right in where book one finished.  There is a little explanation of the back story but it does presume you have read The Line (and is all the better for that in my opinion).

Villa Of Secrets by Patricia Wilson

          I never take the Publisher's blurb too seriously and just use it to get an idea of the subject matter of the book.  In this case I clearly mis-read it because this book is nothing like I thought it would be.  The opening chapters tell of two orphaned sisters - Rebecca and Naomi - who have been raised by their Bubba and are now grown women forging their own way in the world.  Estranged from each other by Rebecca's choice of husband we learn of their parallel lives.  This is what I thought the book would be about - how they came to be estranged and how they came back together.

Instead this is a powerful book about a tough woman, Pandora Cohen, feisty and fearless she avoided the Nazi cleansing of her people from the Island of Rhodes and strove to protect the island from the invaders; despite it's populace not wanting "her kind", the Jewish "kind".  It did open up an area of history that I had never thought of before - I always associated the Nazi atrocities with Holland, France, Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia but never even stopped to think about other European countries.  I didn't even know that Rhodes used to be Italian territory, thinking of it always as the Greek holiday destination of now.

Told through the pages of Bubba's diaries we learn of the Andartes and their push to free the Dodecanese from German occupation.  The telling is full of life and is so fresh and human it feels, ultimately, real.  There is everything between those flimsy exercise book pages about Bubba's resistance life, her loves, her fears and her desire to "be brave".  You immediately connect with this fictional person and suffer and laugh and love with her, wishing for just an ounce of her spirit.

The juxtaposition with the modern tales of Naomi and Rebecca works well.  Particularly Rebecca's trials in her quest for children which is told with compassion and a straightforwardness that leaves you breathless.  The only character I could not really connect with is Naomi.  Maybe because she is the peacekeeper, the one with the family, the one who just does what is expected without complaint.  She is not a Cohen woman.

Set time aside to read this book because you will become sucked into this dangerous world and before you know it bedtime has come and gone, the lights are burning the small hours of the morning away and you just have to read one more diary entry.

I RECEIVED A FREE COPY OF THIS BOOK FROM READERS FIRST IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW.
       

From Italy With Love by Jules Wake

Uncle Miles has died and now Laurie has been left his classic Ferrari, there's just one proviso - she has to travel across Europe to take the car back to it's birthplace in Maranello.  Not only that but Miles has preset the meandering route through France and Switzerland in to Italy and designated certain locations that Laurie has to send postcards from in order to receive her vehicular legacy.

This was such a fun book and dealt more with the awakening of Laurie's character in to the person she should have been all along than anything else.  There is romance with the, rather disgusting, Robert who proposes once he can see wealth on the horizon and the enigmatic Cameron.  The plot moves swiftly and doesn't become stagnated by "they went here and then here" type scenarios.  Instead Ms Wake has picked over the journey and selected only the jewels from the road trip.  Laurie's blossoming into the person she was before her parent's divorce and her father's death several years later is wonderful to read and you internally cheer as she decides how she wants to be rather than how others want her to be.

This may not be great literature but it does the most important thing of any book - it entertained me, it made the characters and places come alive in my imagination and it made me happy.  Surely that is the greatest testament of any author's work - no matter what the genre, it makes the reader feel sated when reading.

Nightmare House by Douglas Clegg

Whilst the subject matter is well crafted and there are some genuine chills it was the writing style that spoilt this book for me.  It is written in what I call "late Victorian" style whereby it switches between first and third person and becomes almost impenetrable as a result.  The plot and characterisations are clouded in language and nothing does more than sit on the surface of the page to be read rather than inhabited.  Sadly, this means that you never really get chilled by the revelations in the book.

Nobody here is what they seem with everyone, even our narrator, having either major secrets or at least two names.  The idea of a house within a house is a strong one and the descriptions of the mysterious Madame Isis and her rituals taking place in a subterranean Egyptian tomb could have been so evocative and enthralling.  Unfortunately, because I could not connect with the writing style at all I just didn't feel like I was wandering those dusty paths full of awe and terror at what I would find.  The themes of possession and cursed places was strong but I do not feel they were explored adequately - merely touched upon for the reader to make their own leaps to connect the dots

Normally when I have an issue with writing style it all settles down after 3 or 4 chapters and I get used to the timbre of the author's "voice".  For me this just didn't happen here and I can do no more than disagree with numerous 4 and 5 star reviews praising this very thing.  As a result I am sure I missed some nuances of plot as I will admit I started to almost scan read the book just to get it finished.