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B J R. (bjr711) - Reviews

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After All (Cape Harbor, Bk 1)
After All (Cape Harbor, Bk 1)
Author: Heidi McLaughlin
Book Type: Paperback
  • Currently 2.2/5 Stars.
 3
Review Date: 11/16/2020


While the story is interesting, a woman torn between two lovers, in a small town in the North West, it gets to the point when you want to just say TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED. I read the entire book, but was many times tempted to put it down.

Heidi McLaughlin's writing is very descriptive. her storyline one that encourages you to find out what is happening, but the way she goes about it borders on boring and as if she's nearly filling pages.


Ashes (Ashes, Bk 1)
Ashes (Ashes, Bk 1)
Author: Ilsa J. Bick
Book Type: Hardcover
  • Currently 4.1/5 Stars.
 15
Review Date: 1/10/2012


I despise zombie books because we all know once you're dead you're dead. So I wouldn't call the changed ones in this book zombies because they didn't actually die.

Ashes by Ilsa J. Bick is an excellent read. Fast paced and full of action it keeps you wanting to turn the pages and find out what is happening next.

The story is of Alex a young lady of 16 who has an inoperable and terminal brain tumor. She has left her home with her aunt to honor the final wishes of her parents when the world is zapped with an EMP attack.

Everything changes and the story line moves into a vast array of characters and situations that will keep you reading late into the night.

The only bad part of this book is that it's a trilogy and the second and third books are forthcoming--I hate waiting almost as much as I hate zombies.


Blood Quest  (Survival 2000, Bk 1)
Blood Quest (Survival 2000, Bk 1)
Author: James McPhee
Book Type: Paperback
  • Currently 3.9/5 Stars.
 5
Review Date: 3/21/2009


"Blood Quest" part one of a trilogy by James McPhee pits Dave Rand a mild mannered accountant in his past life against nature and a band of renegades to survive. This post-apocaloptical trilogy is packed with adventure, survival skills, and romance all in a effort or Dave to assist his family in surviving the aftermath of an asteroid strike that has left earth in the grip of perpetural cold. A good read with lots of action.
The other books in the trilogy are "Renegade War" and "Frozen Fire" While each book can stand on its own the trilogy is most entertaining. I highly recommend it.


Camino Winds (Camino Island, Bk 2)
Camino Winds (Camino Island, Bk 2)
Author: John Grisham
Book Type: Hardcover
  • Currently 3.3/5 Stars.
 45
Review Date: 10/4/2020
Helpful Score: 1


Not one of Grisham's best works. The characters were undeveloped and none were people you could really care about. The plot was linear and predictable and I felt he used a lot of caricatures and stereotypes when he talked about the investigators. In fact, all of the law enforcement people were made out to be uncaring and bumbling.


Cari Mora
Cari Mora
Author: Thomas Harris
Book Type: Hardcover
  • Currently 2/5 Stars.
 11
Review Date: 1/13/2020
Helpful Score: 1


Thomas Harris after several years of not writing has returned to the world of Fiction. Cari Mori is a book of factions fighting each other and several governments to get a treasure left by Pablo Escobar. Cari Mori is the name of the protagonist of the book. Her life has not been easy from her enforced inscription as a Colombian rebel to living in Miami with shaky immigration status.
Cari's survival instincts and her ability to adapt to any situation keep the reader interested and not wanting to stop reading. The book isn't as intense as "RED DRAGON" or "The Silence of the Lambs" series, but it's a true Thomas Harris thriller.


Christmas in Paris
Christmas in Paris
Author: Anita Hughes
Book Type: Paperback
  • Currently 3.1/5 Stars.
 8
Review Date: 6/5/2020


A quick read that has a lot of information about Paris and its sights. Not really a Christmas Story, but a love story.


Clay's Ark
Clay's Ark
Author: Octavia E. Butler
Book Type: Paperback
  • Currently 3.9/5 Stars.
 15
Review Date: 8/25/2009


Clay's Ark begins in the past with the crash of a returning space ship. The lone survivor is infected with a plague he has picked up on a distant planet. The infected crew mamber was supposed to die with the other three survivors, but the organism he is infected with will not let him kill himself.
After escaping from the crash site he makes his way to an isolated farm. There he infects all of the others at the residence. Only the women survive. The organizm requires several things, food, water, and replication/reproduction in new victims.

Move to the present,the USA is a barren, dangerous place divided into sewers, and onclaves where people are safe from the human predators. Dr. Blake Maslin and daughters Rane and Keria are traveling across the barren desert in Arizona. The are driving to the girls grandparents as Keria is dying of leukemia and wants to see them one last time. During the drive they are stopped by a sand storm where they become new unsullied hosts for the virus.

The book describes the protagionists struggle to control his diease's demands with his own struggle to remain somewhat human and to keep the organism from spreading to the general population of the earth. It also describes Dr. Blake's struggle to protect his family and remain true to his profession and find a cure for the virus. The story moves back and forth between past and present giving the reader small glimpses into the story line and the lives of the characters both before and after they have the virus.

An interesting read, but sometimes the story is hard to follow and seems redundant in places. If you like plague and apocalyptic fiction this is a good read.


Colter
Colter
Author: Rick Bass
Book Type: Paperback
  • Currently 3.5/5 Stars.
 1
Review Date: 2/21/2011


Rick Bass writes another beautifully descriptive book about life in Montana. This time he delves into his passion for bird hunting and pointer dogs. He finds Coulter the runt of the litter one early spring day when his neighbor drives up to his home with 2 young puppies. The other dog is spoken for and Rick decides to take the runt. Coulter in Rick's opinion turns out to be the "best" bird dog he's ever had both for hunting and for loving.
Beautifully written this book is a love story to Coulter and a celebration of his love of the hunt.


The Defiant: Grid Down (Volume 1)
The Defiant: Grid Down (Volume 1)
Author: John W Vance
Book Type: Paperback
  • Currently 3.8/5 Stars.
 2
Review Date: 4/19/2022


Reading this book was like reading 100 other EMP attack books. The same scenarios. The struggle to survive by fighting the rioters, no information about what happened, no one is prepared except the protagonist, the bad HOA, and the mean neighbor. The author needed to develop his characters a little better and give them more depth and used fewer stereotypes.

If you are new to this genre there are better representations of it out there, but I guess it's a good beginners book.


Forbidden Places
Forbidden Places
Author: Penny Vincenzi
Book Type: Paperback
  • Currently 5/5 Stars.
 1
Review Date: 7/26/2009


Forbidden Places is about Love, marriage and families. It's about secrets, wartime and what it does to every accepted social value. The story is of 3 Women and 1 family. The first womand is married and widowed within 5 years. She is free to start again. Or is she? The second has a perfect husband she thinks she loves. He becomes a grotesque parody of what he once was. Is that love real? The third becomes trapped in a nightmare of a marriage. Can the war free her?
All three women. All with dangers, forbidden places in there lives. Penny Vincenzi at her best!


Frozen Fire (Survival 2000) (Survival 2000, No 3)
Frozen Fire (Survival 2000) (Survival 2000, No 3)
Author: Mccphee
Book Type: Paperback
  • Currently 4/5 Stars.
 3
Review Date: 3/21/2009


"Frozne Fire" part three of a trilogy by James McPhee pits Dave Rand a mild mannered accountant in his past life against nature and a band of renegades to survive. This post-apocaloptical trilogy is packed with adventure, survival skills, and romance all in a effort or Dave to assist his family in surviving the aftermath of an asteroid strike that has left earth in the grip of perpetural cold. A good read with lots of action.
The other books in the trilogy are "Blood Quest" and "Frozen Fire" While each book can stand on its own the trilogy is most entertaining. I highly recommend it.


Here and Now
Here and Now
Author: Santa Montefiore
Book Type: Paperback
  • Currently 5/5 Stars.
 1
Review Date: 3/21/2023


Santa Montefiore is one of my favorite writers. I've read almost all of her books and this one is very good, but different than most of her stories. It follows an older woman and her family after she is diagnosed with dementia.
Her characters are well-developed, interesting, and believable.
The book has several love interests, but it mainly centers on the Fane family. Well written and well told.


Last Light (Last Light, Bk 1)
Last Light (Last Light, Bk 1)
Author: Alex Scarrow
Book Type: Paperback
  • Currently 4/5 Stars.
 2
Review Date: 9/14/2009
Helpful Score: 1


The book begins in New York City, Christmas time 1999, Andy Sutherland and his wife and daughter are enjoying a business pleasure trip. Dr. Sutherland has written a report on Oil for a mysterious conglomerate and is in New York to deliver it. His daughter a young girl of 11 or 12 accidentally opens the door to the room next to her father's and sees four men. The men decide to let her go thinking she will not remember the incident due to her young age.

Shift to the present 8 years later. Jenny Sutherland is preparing for a job interview in Manchester, England, Andy is in Iraq, Lenora is away at college and Jake the son who was born after the New York trip is 7 and away at prep school. The family since the New York trip has slowly broken apart, mostly due to Andy's obsession with Peak Oil and what the loss of oil will do to the world if we run out.

The same day an attack is orchestrated on the oil fields of the Middle East, Venezuela, the straits of Harmouse, and Africa. At the same time Lenora has e-mailed her father saying as an afterthought that she has seen one of the men who was in the room that day. A contract is taken out on her and the horror begins.

As the whole of England is shut down and riots and civil war breaks out in the Middle East we see Jenny and Andy trying to return home to the children, the children trying to get home from school and survive and the killer, trying to find them all.

The book has a large cast of characters, good guys and bad guys, the story line examines the family bonds and what is really valuable and how far any of us will go to survive.
The book has lots of action (the entire book with the exception of the first chapter takes place in a 7 day period) and struggles to survive.

The book is written in England with an English author and as such English laws and mores apply. In England no one except the police and army usually have guns. It drives home that without something to protect yourself with you are at the mercy of a mob. The book describes what could happen if some group decided to cut off oil to the world and its consequences. How prepared are we to survive without the basics.

This is an exciting well written book


Lost
Lost
Author: Gregory Maguire
Book Type: Hardcover
  • Currently 3.2/5 Stars.
 22
Review Date: 3/28/2021


I finished the book, but it was a painful experience and I didn't like the main character any better at the end. A disservice to Dickens.


One Good Thing (Ten Beach Road, Bk 5)
One Good Thing (Ten Beach Road, Bk 5)
Author: Wendy Wax
Book Type: Paperback
  • Currently 3.9/5 Stars.
 13
Review Date: 11/11/2021


Not the best book in the series but at least no one died. The gang is back together at Bella Flora with many of the same problems. The storyline was good, but the constant whining and overthinking were starting to get on my nerves.

I've got one more (the last one) to read and I hope they all straighten out their messes before the series ends.


One Second After (John Matherson, Bk 1)
One Second After (John Matherson, Bk 1)
Author: William R. Forstchen
Book Type: Hardcover
  • Currently 3.9/5 Stars.
 79
Review Date: 5/30/2009


Excellent read and description of what could happen if someone terrorist or another nation were to detonate an EMP (Electric Magnetic Pulse) weapon over the United States of America. The book describes what would happen and just how unprepared the country is in addressing this real possibility.

While much of the country is prepared for earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, etc much of that preparedness relies on other parts of the country coming in to aid the affected area. With an EMP none of these resources would be available nor would the normal resources police, fire, medical, or the pharmaceuticals so many of us depend on in an emergency.

The characters are a little on the sketchy sidethere could be a lot more character development. Most of the characters are superficial at best, but the book outlines many of the scenarios survivors would have to endure during this kind of an attack.
A fast read that leaves you wondering if you would want to survive.


The Paris Seamstress
The Paris Seamstress
Author: Natasha Lester
Book Type: Paperback
  • Currently 4/5 Stars.
 33
Review Date: 9/22/2021
Helpful Score: 2


Natasha Lester is beginning to become one of my favorite authors. The French Seamstress is a story that keeps you not wanting to put the book down.

Lester's character development, her storyline, and the intertwining of both the past and the future are excellent. The two protagonists Estella and her granddaughter Fabienne both unravel secrets that involve the War, the Fashion Industry, and what really is important.

A book that will keep you reading and hating when the end comes much too quickly.


The Plague
The Plague
Author: Albert Camus, Stuart Gilbert (Translator)
Book Type: Paperback
  • Currently 3.7/5 Stars.
 8
Review Date: 9/12/2009


The Plague by Albert Camus opens in the town of Oran in Algeria. As the novel progresses it details the start and the progression of the plague in that town. The characters a doctor, a journalist, a priest, various bureaucrats, and citizens of the town are well developed and interesting. The story details the effect of the plague, its quarantine of the town and the lives of the town's people. An interesting read about the psychological effects of illness and confinement on people.


a questionable life: A Novel
a questionable life: A Novel
Author: Luke Lively
Book Type: Hardcover
  • Currently 3/5 Stars.
 1
Review Date: 7/16/2021


Written in first person this book reads more like a self-help book with a story than a novel. Jack Oliver is a successful banker but is he really? In mid-life he finds himself at a crossroads. He must look at his life and decide if he should continue on with his successful banking career which has left his life devoid of anything else or change. An interesting read, sometimes slow, sometimes repetitive, but eventually the story comes full circle. This book reminded me of some of the business books of the '90s.


Renegade War  (Survival 2000, No 2)
Renegade War (Survival 2000, No 2)
Author: Mcphee
Book Type: Paperback
  • Currently 3.6/5 Stars.
 4
Review Date: 3/21/2009


"Frozen Fire" part two of a trilogy by James McPhee pits Dave Rand a mild mannered accountant in his past life against nature and a band of renegades to survive. This post-apocaloptical trilogy is packed with adventure, survival skills, and romance all in a effort or Dave to assist his family in surviving the aftermath of an asteroid strike that has left earth in the grip of perpetural cold. A good read with lots of action.
The other books in the trilogy are "Renegade War" and "Blood Quest" While each book can stand on its own the trilogy is most entertaining. I highly recommend it.


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