Hard Eight ~ Janet Evanovich

by Onzelle

he(From Evanovich.com)

Fugitive Apprehension Agent Stephanie Plum has a big problem on her hands: Seven-year-old Annie Soder and her mother, Evelyn, have disappeared.

Evelyn’s estranged husband, Steven, a shady owner of a seedy bar, is not at all happy. During the divorce proceedings, he and Evelyn signed a child custody bond, and Steven is demanding the money guaranteed by the bond to find Annie. The money was secured by a mortgage on Evelyn’s grandmother’s house, and the True Blue Bonds Bail Agency wants to take possession of the house.

Finding a kidnapped child is not an assignment for a bounty hunter. But Evelyn’s grandmother lives next door to Stephanie’s parents, and Stephanie’s mother and grandmother are not about to see their neighbor lose her house because of abduction.

Even though Stephanie’s plate is full with miscreants who missed their court dates, including old nemesis and violent drunk Andy Bender and an elusive little old lady accused of grand theft auto, she can’t disappoint Grandma Mazur! So she follows the trail left by Annie and Evelyn– and finds a lot more than she bargained for. Steven is somehow linked with a very scary Eddie Abruzzi. Trenton cop and on-again, off-again fiance Joe Morelli and Stephanie’s mentor and tormentor, Ranger, warn Stephanie about Abruzzi, but it’s Abruzzi’s eyes and mannerisms that frighten Stephanie the most. Stephanie needs Ranger’s savvy and expertise, and she’s willing to accept his help to find Annie even though it might mean becoming too involved with Ranger.

Stephanie, Ranger, Lula (who’s not going to miss riding with Ranger), and Evelyn’s lawyer/laundromat manager set out to find Annie. The search turns out to be a race among Stephanie’s posse, the True Blue Bonds’ agent, a Rangerette known as Jeanne Ellen Burrows, and the Abruzzi crew. Not to mention the fact that there’s a killer rabbit on the loose!

Strap on your helmet and get ready for the ride of your life. Hard Eight. The world of Plum has never been wilder.

Originally published in hardback June 2002, St. Martin’s Press

 

My Take:

The Stephanie Plum series is like the little engine that just kept on chugging. The past couple of books leaned more toward the funny and less towards the dark. This book veers us back into the dark side of the job, without losing the funny that Plum readers know and love.

Stephanie gets tied up with Eddie Abruzzi while trying to help out a neighbor whose daughter and granddaughter are missing. Abruzzi turns out to be a twisted sociopath war gamer who likes to play with his prey before he squashes it. He tells Stephanie to call off her search for the missing woman and child, but, of course, Stephanie refuses to back down.

We have the introduction of a lawyer who works out of a laundromat. Honestly, I didn’t think much of him, just another puppy dog to follow Stephanie around. But it turns out that the lawyer without offices needs office help, so Stephanie sets her sister up with the job. Just in time, too, because sister Valerie was beginning to languish in her indecision as to what to do next as she tries to pick up the pieces of her broken life.

Stephanie’s relationship with Joe is back on the back-burner. So, she’s free to go ahead and pay Ranger what she owes him, one night in bed. Finally! – And it only took eight books. – But the aftermath of sharing a night with Ranger isn’t quite what Stephanie was looking for. Ranger doesn’t want a girlfriend, he just wants someone to play Romper Room with him from time to time. No one can pin Ranger down, that’s just not his style.

Now Stephanie is fully caught between two men who want the complete opposite of what the other wants. One wants a commitment, the other doesn’t. One wants her to give up her job, the other gets a kick from watching try to do it. And Stephanie… she still doesn’t know what she wants.

Her personal mess is getting to her, too. On top of her bad luck with vehicles, she now keeps loosing handcuffs left and right, she can’t bring in an apprehension to save her life, and now there’s a rabbit following her around everywhere she goes.

But the worst is still to come. Things get incredibly dangerous for Stephanie and for those associated with her. Her mom runs down a bear that’s chasing Stephanie down the street, and then Valerie is taken hostage.

The kidnappers don’t want Valerie though, they trade Valerie for Stephanie. And when Stephanie finds herself trapped in a cabin in Pennsylvania, she doesn’t walk away unscathed. That’s a scar that stays with you for life. But Valerie comes back after her sister, and we learn that you just can’t keep any Plum woman down.

I have to say, the series is starting to feel a little slumpy to me, a little too formulaic. But really, what long-running series doesn’t? Readers come back for the funny, and we come back for the little thrill we get when the bad guys finally do come crashing down.

We come back to see if Stephanie will ever decide if she’s a ‘cupcake’ or a ‘babe’ before Morelli or Ranger end up deciding for her. We come back, because we just can’t help ourselves.

 

Four out of five pairs of handcuffs.

Seven Up ~ Janet Evanovich

by Onzelle

(From Evanovich.comsu

Semi-retired mob guy, Eddie DeChooch, is caught trafficking contraband cigarettes through Trenton, New Jersey. When DeChooch fails to show for a court appearance, bond enforcement agent Stephanie Plum is assigned the task of finding DeChooch and dragging his decrepit ass back to jail. Not such an easy job, it turns out, since DeChooch has learned a lot of tricks over the years and isn’t afraid to use his gun. He’s already shot Loretta Ricci and left her for worm food in his shed. He wouldn’t mind shooting Stephanie next.

Especially since Steph has discovered that likeable losers (and former high school classmates) Mooner and Dougie have inadvertently become involved with DeChooch. They’ve gotten sucked into an operation which is much more than simple cigarette smuggling and holds risks far greater than anyone could have imagined.

When Dougie disappears, Steph goes into search mode. When Mooner disappears, she calls in the heavy artillery and asks master bounty hunter Ranger for help. His price for the job? One night with Stephanie, dusk to dawn. Not information she’d want to share with her some-time live in roommate, vice cop Joe Morelli.

A typical dilemma in the world of Plum.

And on the homefront, Stephanie’s “perfect” sister Valerie has decided to move back to Trenton, bringing her two kids from hell. Grandma Mazur is asking questions about being a lesbian, and Bob, the bulimic dog, is eating everything in sight — including the furniture.

Mud wrestling, motorcycles, fast cars, fast food, and fast men. It’s SEVEN UP. Absolutely Janet Evanovich at her very best.

Originally published in hardback June 2001, St. Martin’s Press

 

My Take:

Stephanie is at it again. The girl is still having trouble with keeping a car in decent working condition, can’t get her love life in order, her apartment’s door locks aren’t working, and people keep disappearing. Her life is just going to hell in a hand basket. All she needed to do was apprehend an old man and bring him into court for running cigarettes across state lines. But who can focus on that when someone has stolen a roast out of a freezer?

It’s beginning to feel like the only person who isn’t capable of breaking into her apartment is Stephanie. Ranger and Morelli break in, of course. But then, the two goons who are following her around, waiting for her to lead them to their assigned prey, break in as well. Even Mooner, a neighborhood stoner, manages to break into her apartment. Stephanie never knows who or what will be waiting for her when she gets home.

She’s sorta, kinda, but not really, engaged to Morelli. The family is planning a wedding that Stephanie doesn’t want. They have her trying on wedding gowns that she thinks are pretty, but she doesn’t want to wear. And at the end of the day, Morelli might love her, but he hates her job. He makes it clear that while he wouldn’t mind being married to her, he doesn’t want to marry a bounty hunter.

Ranger on the other hand, he sees the rift growing between Stephanie and Morelli, and he makes an offer to make of his own. He now will be exacting a price for helping Stephanie bring in her geriatric apprehension. Ranger wants one night with her in exchange for his help. Stephanie doesn’t know for sure whether Ranger is serious or not. She isn’t really sure whether or not she wants him to be, either. But of course, Stephanie being Stephanie, she calls on Ranger to help repeatedly. And readers are left to wonder whether or not Stephanie is ever required to pay up.

The elderly criminal on the run this time is a hoot. Eddie is half blind, can’t get it up anymore, doesn’t want to accept that his criminal days should be behind him, and knows perfectly well why someone stole a roast out of the freezer. He’s bungled his latest job up, but good. And wouldn’t you know it, Grandma Mazur has her hot little sights set on him.

Another winner as far as this reader is concerned. Grandma Mazur gets kidnapped, and I have to tell you, I didn’t worry about her, that old bird can hold her own. Stephanie’s perfect sister comes home as a single mother with her life in ruins. All the dynamics of people in Stephanie’s personal life keep changing and adjusting as their lives continue creeping along.

That’s something that I feel is helping Janet Evanovich’s tales of Stephanie’s haphazard luck as a bounty hunter to not become boring or monotonous. We get to see the cast of characters grow and change in relation to their experiences. We’ve seen Grandma Mazur really embrace her eccentric side and have come to realize that she isn’t eccentric, she just grew up in a time and place when certain things were expected from a woman and now she’s rebelling. The truth is, Stephanie got a lot of her personality from her grandmother, and it isn’t until now that Grandma feels comfortable enough in displaying her true nature.

We see that Morelli, too, is evolving with his experience. He’s found someone he could grow old with. But with that kind of love, comes a true fear that with the way Steph’s life is going, she won’t live long enough to become old. Being a widower is not on Morelli’s agenda. Finally, there’s something that Joe Morelli values more that a roll around the mattress.

Even Stephanie is not the same, either. She started out just trying to do the whole bounty hunter thing temporarily. It was just something to get her bank account back in the black until she managed to find a new job. But really, how could you picture Stephanie in some menial job now? No, she isn’t very good at what she’s doing, but she never backs down, and she doesn’t quit. She’s finally beginning to find herself, and that’s what keeps this series from going stale.

 

Four out of five pairs of handcuffs.

Hot Six ~ Janet Evanovich

by Onzelle

(From Evanovich.com)hs

Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum and Trenton vice cop Joe Morelli join forces to find the madman killer who shot and barbecued the youngest son of international black-market arms dealer Alexander Ramos.

Carlos Manoso, street name Ranger, is caught on video just minutes before the crime occurs. He’s at the scene, he’s with the victim, and he’s the number one suspect. Manoso is former Special Forces turned soldier of fortune. He has a blue-chip stock portfolio and no known address. He moves in mysterious circles. He’s Stephanie’s mentor– the man who taught her everything she knows about fugitive apprehension. And he’s more than her friend.

Now he’s the hunted and Stephanie’s the hunter, and it’s time for Stephanie to test her skills against the master. But if she does catch him… what then? Can she bring herself to turn him in?

Plus there are other things keeping Stephanie awake at night. Her maternal grandmother has set up housekeeping in Stephanie’s apartment, a homicidal maniac has selected Stephanie as his next victim, her love life is in the toilet, she’s adopted a dog with an eating disorder, and she can’t button the top snap on her Levis.

Experience the world of Plum– in Janet Evanovich’s new thriller. It’s surreal, it’s frenetic, it’s incendiary. HOT SIX. It’s the best yet.

Originally published in hardback June 2000, St. Martin’s Press

 

My Take:

We’re into book six of the series now. Not a ton of authors can take a series this far and have it continue to be a success. Die hard readers have seen it before. The author has told the same type of story in as many new ways as they can think of, and he or she has run out of new spins to put on the same people. But, Janet Evanovich has not hit that slump yet.

I was a little worried at the beginning though. I mean, in the first book, Stephanie was after Morelli. She spent the whole of the book trying to bring him in. In this sixth book, she’s supposed to be after Ranger. I was afraid that my new found love of all things Stephanie Plum was about to become DOA.

Turns out, I had nothing to fear. Not believing that Ranger killed a guy in cold blood without the guy deserving to die, Stephanie rides a fine line between trying to help Ranger prove his innocence, and trying to attempt to bring him in.

Let me say, if Stephanie had actually been able to bring Ranger into custody, I would have been hugely let down by Ranger. But I gotta give Stephanie all kinds of credit for trying.

Ranger takes to dropping in on Stephanie, hoping that she has found out some helpful information as she goes around town, appearing to be trying to track Ranger down. These impromptu visitations also tend to be nocturnal. We already know from the last book that Ranger has a physical interest in Stephanie -and that he has the ability to stir her libido as well.

Now, admittedly, my first literary love is a good historical romance. At this point, I’m looking for Stephanie to ‘get some’. A number of the characters in the book are looking for these two to get on with it, too. But, alas, we were all disappointed, and no more so than Connie and Lula.

I thought, I really did, that once Stephanie was on her back and Ranger had climbed up on top of her in the dead of the night that these two were going to do some grinding. But then in walked Grandma Mazur, like a cold bucket of ice water.

Stephanie has houseguests this time around. Grandma Mazur moves into the apartment while she begins to look for a place of her own and attempts to get her driver’s license. A police officer tricks her into watching his dog for a week, but then the owner never takes the dog back. And then you have Stephanie’s confusing feelings for Morelli churning away in the back of Stephanie’s mind.

This was yet another hilarious romp. My husband has the ability to lay his head down on the pillow and drift off asleep. I don’t, so I read at night until my eyelids get heavy. This book in particular had me laughing so hard, that I was shaking the bed in my effort to laugh silently. I fully blame Janet Evanovich, and her flair for funny, for waking my husband up two nights in a row.

 

Five out of five pairs of handcuffs.

Halfway to the Grave – Jeaniene Frost

by Jess

Book cover - Halfway to the GravePlot Summary (from Amazon):  Half-vampire Catherine Crawfield is going after the undead with a vengeance, hoping that one of these deadbeats is her father—the one responsible for ruining her mother’s life. Then she’s captured by Bones, a vampire bounty hunter, and is forced into an unholy partnership.

In exchange for finding her father, Cat agrees to train with the sexy night stalker until her battle reflexes are as sharp as his fangs. She’s amazed she doesn’t end up as his dinner—are there actually good vampires? Pretty soon Bones will have her convinced that being half-dead doesn’t have to be all bad. But before she can enjoy her newfound status as kick-ass demon hunter, Cat and Bones are pursued by a group of killers. Now Cat will have to choose a side . . . and Bones is turning out to be as tempting as any man with a heartbeat.

My search continues for a vampire book that will help me understand the genre’s appeal!  I’ve had Halfway to the Grave in my e-book library for quite some time, and I finally decided that it was time to read it.  While I thought it was going to be a fairly standard paranormal romance, it turned out to be more of an urban fantasy, with no resolution for the main couple’s relationship.  (So, Be Ye Warned:  this is not really a stand-alone book.  It’s the beginning of a series.)

Halfway to the Grave is narrated in the first person by Catherine “Cat” Crawfield, who is your typical girl-next-door:  she’s a college student, has a close-knit family, and her hobbies include being a half-vampire vengeance machine.  What…you mean your neighbors aren’t like that?  That’s so weird.  What kind of neighborhood do you live in, anyway?  Cat’s largely self-taught battle moves, however, are no match for Bones, who has a couple hundred years’ experience and superior vampire reflexes in his favor.  When Bones captures Cat and discovers who she is, he offers to train her properly in return for her cooperation:  Bones is on the trail of some unsavory vampires who are responsible for a good many murders and disappearances, and he thinks Cat would make the perfect bait to lure the bad guys out of the shadows.  Left without much choice, Cat agrees.

I thoughtHalfway to the Grave was a campy, fun read.  The “shadowy conspiracy that includes prominent figures in the community” premise isn’t new, and the vampires’ characteristics are largely in line with what I expected, but the plot moved along quickly and I ended up liking Cat quite a bit.  She’s sarcastic, ruthless, and bitter, but also loyal, determined, and scared–a well-rounded character, and she contrasted nicely with Bones, the world-weary, focused hero who turns her prejudice on its head.  While I was disappointed that this book wasn’t a typical paranormal romance (disappointed, that is, only in the sense that that’s what I was intending to read), I thought it introduced the series well, providing enough background information that I didn’t feel lost, but not so much that the story dragged.

I will say, however, that if you’re opposed to violence and gore, this book is not for you.  Halfway to the Grave has a significant body count, and many of the fights are described in detail.  The climax of the book, featuring a battle scene where our heroes are (of course) significantly outmatched, sounded to me like a narration of a Bruce Willis movie.  Which may be fine for some people, but I was pretty much done with it about halfway through.  I really did not need that much information, especially when it altered the flow of the plot (it felt like time slowed down in order to give the author enough time to describe the play-by-play), so I confess I skimmed quite a bit of it.  Also, as much as I liked Cat, I had a hard time believing her relationship with Bones.  For a guy who’s been around a very long time and seen what he’s seen, Bones seemed much less jaded and cynical, romantically, than I would have expected, especially considering the vast age difference that didn’t seem to be much of a concern to either party.  Cat, too, had learned to be suspicious and guarded in order to stay alive, but she manages to both put that aside, and discard a lifelong prejudice against vampires, in the space of one book. Even though this wasn’t a typical romance novel, I thought the relationship needed more exploration than was provided.

Oh, and also:  Ohio as a hotbed of vampiric activity?  Seriously?  Ohio?

The Verdict:  Halfway to the Grave is an entertaining, but graphic and violent, urban fantasy.  There’s not much resolution in this book; in typical fashion, the initial conflict turns into a much bigger deal, paving the way for future books in the series.  I enjoyed reading it, though I confess I still don’t understand what all the fuss about vampires is about.  My rating:  three out of five silver throwing knives.

High Five ~ Janet Evanovich

by Onzelle

(From Evanovich.com)

What’s Stephanie up to now?high five

  • Her Uncle Fred has disappeared.
  • A body turns up in a garbage bag.
  • She’s got a nasty bookie following her around town.
  • Grandma Mazur has her hands on the stun gun.
  • Stephanie can’t keep a car for more than forty-eight hours.
  • Two men are trying to get her into bed.
  • She has nothing to wear to the Mafia wedding.
  • And there’s an angry little man (don’t call him a dwarf!) who won’t leave her apartment.

Bail jumping in Trenton is down to small potatoes. Stephanie’s only open case is a small bond for a small violation, committed by a small person who raises Stephanie’s frustration level in big ways. So short of money and long on bills, Stephanie comes up with a plan –diversify! Signing on as an intern with entrepreneurial Super Bounty Hunter Ranger, Stephanie ventures into Ranger’s mostly morally correct and marginally legal operations.

None of this makes vice cop Joe Morelli a happy man. The cop in him can’t help but wonder as to the source of Stephanie’s expensive new cars. And the rest of him, the man who’s been friend and lover to Stephanie, can’t help but wonder if there’s more to the partnership than meets the eye.

The internship is downgraded to second priority when Uncle Fred goes missing. Even though Grandma Mazur is sure he was abducted by aliens, Stephanie sets out to look for Fred. He’s a perfectly average senior citizen, and he’s disappeared without a trace while running errands. He’s left his ten-year-old Pontiac station wagon locked up nice and neat in the Grand Union parking lot, the cleaning is carefully arranged on the back seat, and his wife is at home, waiting for him to return with the bread and the milk and the olive loaf bologna. Locked in the top drawer of his desk are photos of a body, dismembered and stuffed into a garbage bag. And locked away in the computer files of a another average citizen are the clues that will lead Stephanie to Fred.

 

My take:

Evanovich hits her stride with High Five! The main cast of characters have been very well established in the previous novels in this series. This fifth book takes a few of the characters and delves deeper into their lives and thought processes.

Morelli might just want a family. He’s not just hot and horny anymore. The man has a house, and doesn’t run from the words love, marriage, or babies. But he can tell these words bring a nervous tremor or two from Stephanie, and he grows a little distant.

Enter Ranger. In the past, Ranger seemed to be more of a mentor who appeared out of the nether whenever Stephanie cried for help. To me, he’s been the quintessential back-burner character. The one that draws readers to question what’s going on with him beyond the stage curtains, but yet one that the author hasn’t quite been ready to fully grasp hold of yet. It was almost as though Ranger has been eluding the author a bit.

Well Ranger eludes no more. Ms. Evanovich has masterfully walked that fine line between developing the character more deeply, but yet doesn’t give too much away. Ranger’s life still eludes Stephanie and the readers, but we’re let into his life enough to make us feel comfortable climbing into the vehicle with him and trusting him to keep us safe.

For the first time, we begin to find out what other activities are on Ranger’s roster of business dealings. We also realize that the reason Ranger bothers to help out Stephanie is that he’s attracted to her. Once Morelli backs off, Ranger steps forward, and thus we begin a bit of a love triangle. While Janet Evanovich doesn’t dive head-first into it, she does lay the groundwork for the triangle to be explored in a later novel or two.

And even Stephanie herself, our beloved adventurer can’t help but to keep going after the bad guys instead of getting another boring job, shows us even more of her true colors. A costly and surprising habit of Stephanie’s is brought to the forefront in this novel. She has horrible luck with cars. They tend to either be lemons, or they get blown up, or smashed, or crunched. She doesn’t have to be the purchaser for this to be true either, she just has to drive it around for awhile.

As always, comedy is a big draw to this series of books. Not only did I laugh at the mess that Stephanie finds her personal life in, but I laughed at her day-to-day work life as well. Her uncle has gone missing, yet her aunt is planning a cruise and buying a new car. One of the people that Stephanie is called on to apprehend is a dwarf who refuses to go down easy. And once Stephanie does manage to take him in, her good deed doesn’t go unpunished.

Speaking of apprehensions, there aren’t enough bail jumpers to go around, and Stephanie has to be able to pay her rent. This creates the opportunity for Ranger to come to her rescue in the form of training her to work for him. It seems Ranger employs a band of merry men who read like they would have the ability to give naughty little children nightmares. Their idea of evicting a tenant who doesn’t want to leave, is to pick them up and evict the person out the window.

Let us not forget about Ramirez. This is where the true danger factor comes in. Ramirez, the evil-doer from book one is out of jail, and his sights are set on Stephanie. Here again, the author helps us ride that fine line of being scared on Stephanie’s behalf, and being able to find the humor within her horrific situation. It’s that same sense of humor though, that keeps Stephanie so stubbornly set on staying in her apartment alone, despite the killer on the loose.

I know that as a reader, I’m starting to read this series about fifteen years after the fact. (Makes me remember a time when I had the ability to spend an entire day without some sort of electronic device touching my hand.) I know that there are almost twenty-five Stephanie Plum books out now, but this is the first book that reads like the author is trying to set up storylines that will be in this for the long-haul.

I’m not sure what Janet Evanovich’s original plans for Stephanie were, but here I feel a sense of evolution for the illustrious crew of Trenton’s bad-guy hunters. The long-haul requires more in-depth characters that have an identity of their own that pushes past the stereotype that they are fulfilling. Longer, drawn out relationships with complications that take time to be worked out are being established. We even see a little cliffhanger at the end, something that gives the reader a little extra push to pick up the next book is given here. I’m looking forward to number six.

 

Four and a half out of five pairs of handcuffs.

Blood Money ~ Erika Mitchell

by Brooke

Plot Teaser (From Erika’s website):Blood Money cover

Blood Money, published by Champagne Books, tells the story of Azzam Abdullah, an Iraqi-born accountant living and working in London for Sun Corp.

Sun Corp has a squeaky-clean image, but only a handful of trusted employees know its true purpose: a front for global Islamic extremist terrorism.

When Azzam’s employer finds out Azzam’s been informing on him to the CIA, he kidnaps a woman from Azzam’s past to ensure his surrender.

A stranger in a foreign land, Azzam has the dubious honor of deciding between the life of one woman and the safety of millions.

I have to admit, nothing would make me come out of writing-hibernation faster than a request from Erika Mitchell to do a review of her newest thriller! I couldn’t have been more excited when her name popped up in my inbox the other week, asking if I’d be interested in reading her second book, “Blood Money.” From following her blog, I knew that it was going to be a doozy, and that she was very excited about it, so naturally I was as well.

Erika was gracious enough to stop by my personal blog to talk about her first novel, PWNED. If you need a refresher, it’s about a gamer-turned-fugitive who overcomes the nefarious plotting of his rival with the help of his gaming friends. One of whom happens to be wicked hot. Throw in some possibly-illegal international travel and some edge-of-your-seat tournament action (something I never thought I’d be typing!), and you’ve got a refreshing, witty thriller for a new generation of readers.

Most notable about the plot of PWNED was how (for me) it turned “Gamer” stereotypes on their head. That seems to be a general theme in Erika’s work, because she’s gone and done it again with Blood Money. If you’ve followed this book from the beginning (*ahem,* like me), you’ll know that the working title was “Enemy Accountant.” Which, wha?!? Because  typically the word “accountant” does not exactly bring exciting things to mind. That, my friends, is where you’d be dead wrong.

As mentioned in the teaser above, Azzam is an accountant for a London-based corporation that is actually a front for an Islamic terrorist group. What we learn quickly, however, is that Azzam isn’t really down with the whole “murdering innocent people in the name of religion” thing, and has been working with the CIA for years to attempt to bring down Sun Corp. By knowing where the money goes and what it’s being spent on, he’s able to tip off his contact and keep the CIA one step ahead of his boss’s plans.

Unfortunately for Azzam, his boss didn’t become the head of a multi-billion dollar corporation without having some brains, and begins to be suspicious when his latest scheme goes awry. He has one of his “guns for hire” start looking into who could be leaking information, and that’s when things start to get REALLY interesting. What nobody counts on is an “Enemy Accountant” with honor and courage in addition to brains.

This book, even more than PWNED, had me absolutely hooked from the very beginning. It was a treat to escape from our recent blah winter weather into the intrigue and excitement of Azzam’s life, and a sweaty-palmed rush to see how Erika was going to bring the threads of her plot together. I was also blown away by what a departure this book was from her first novel- we got to spend a lot of time with Sean and Norman in PWNED, but they were our main points of view. We met other characters, but none with the depth and vitality of the people that chose to take up residence in Blood Money. They each had their own strengths and weaknesses, and watching those unfold throughout the pages was a delight. It was a great step in the evolution of Erika Mitchell as a writer, and guarantees that I will keep coming back for more of her stories.

(And if you’ve followed my reviews, you know that I’m typically NOT a ‘thriller’ person.)

Five out of five sudoku puzzles!

**LINK TIME!!** Blood Money is available TODAY to download via Amazon, OmniLit (in a variety of formats), Kobo and directly from the publisher, Champagne Books.**

Erika has agreed to do an interview with me over at my personal blog- Please feel free to click over on Wednesday and see what she has to say!

The Stepsister Scheme – Jim C. Hines

by Jess
Picture of book cover, The Stepsister Scheme

Plot Summary (from the author’s website):  Cinderella–whose real name is Danielle Whiteshore (nee Danielle de Glas)–does marry Prince Armand.  And if you can ignore the pigeon incident, their wedding is a dream come true.

But not long after the “happily ever after,” Danielle is attacked by her stepsister Charlotte, who suddenly has all sorts of magic to call upon.  And though Talia–otherwise known as Sleeping Beauty–comes to the rescue (she’s a martial arts master, and all those fairy blessings make her almost unbeatable), Charlotte gets away.

That’s when Danielle discovers a number of disturbing facts: Armand has been kidnapped and taken to the realm of the Fairies; Danielle is pregnant with his child; and the Queen has her own very secret service that consists of Talia and Snow (White, of course).  Snow is an expert at mirror magic and heavy duty flirting.

Can the three princesses track down Armand and extract both the prince and themselves from the clutches of some of fantasyland’s most nefarious villains?

The Stepsister Scheme is easily one of the more entertaining books I’ve read recently.  The glut of dystopia was starting to wear on me a little, so the change of pace was a breath of fresh air.  Also, a) I loved the richness of Hines’s storytelling, and b) his princesses are paragons of badassery and awesomeness.  I mean, come on:  Sleeping Beauty, the martial-arts master?  (Take that, Anne Rice.)  Snow White, the accomplished sorceress?  Cinderella, rescuing her prince?  And pulling character details from both contemporary retellings and the original, not-at-all-Disneyfied fairy tales to provide backstory and motive and personality?  Yes, please!

The story in The Stepsister Scheme  moves along quickly; there’s a lot of action in this book.  Fighting, traveling, training…these women are always doing something.  They respect each other as equals, and they each own their strengths while recognizing and appreciating their cohorts.  The emphasis here is not “oh look at these pampered princesses, rising up and taking on this challenge.”  Instead, it’s “here are some strong-ass women with a lot of talent and guts and smarts, and yeah they happen to be royal too.”  I loved their dialogue, their problem-solving and collaboration, and the way each character has her own voice, mannerisms, and style.

Along with the main characters, I liked the residents of Fairytown, with their cheeky trickery, and even the villains, who were an interesting mix of troubled, clever, and evil.  In addition, Hines offers vivid settings, a complex plot, and a wealth of diversity as part of the story, all of which contribute to make The Stepsister Scheme an enjoyable read.  I had a great time reading this book, and I’m looking forward to the next in the series!

The Verdict:  A lighter YA fantasy novel packed full of plot and women kicking ass.  Yes, it’s Part 1 of a series, but in this case….that’s a good thing.  Four out of five farting aviars.

Four to Score – Janet Evanovich

by Onzelle

4ts(From evanovich.com/novels)

Working for her bail bondsman cousin, Vinnie, Stephanie is hot on the trail of revenge-seeking waitress Maxine Nowicki, whose crimes include bail jumping, theft, and extortion. Someone is terrifying Maxine’s friends, and those who have seen her are turning up dead. Also on the hunt for Maxine is Joyce Barnhardt, Stephanie’s archenemy and rival bounty hunter. Stephanie’s attitude never wavers – even when aided by Grandma Mazur, ex-hooker and wannabe bounty hunter Lula, and transvestite rock musician Sally Sweet – and even when Stephanie makes an enemy whose deadly tactics escalate from threatening messages to firebombs. All of this pales in comparison, though, with an even greater danger Stephanie faces, when, homeless and broke, she and her hamster Rex move in with vice cop Joe Morelli.

RATED PG35 for licentious wit and libidinous cohabitation.

Best Selling Author Janet Evanovich is the recipient of the Crime Writers Association’s John Creasey Memorial, Last Laugh and Silver Dagger awards, Left Coast Crime’s Lefty award and is a two time winner of The Independent Booksellers Association’s Dilys award. She Lives in New Hampshire, where she is at work on her next Stephanie Plum adventure.

Originally published in hardback June 1998, St. Martin’s Press

 

Ms. Evanovich delivers another winner. This fourth installment in her Stephanie Plum series is just as good and just as funny as the first three.

This time the criminal at large is a woman who stole her boyfriend’s car to run away from him. The boyfriend seems less interested in getting his car returned than in getting his love letters back. Not only will Stephanie get paid a finder’s fee if she finds the girlfriend, the ex boyfriend wants to sweeten the deal for finding the love letters. -An excellent setup for making the reader feel sorry for the girl who gets arrested because, as a victim, she stole her villian’s car to seek safety from him. *Insert surprising plot-twist soon after.*

We get to leave Trenton, for a bit in this book, and visit the Jersey Shore as Stephanie goes on the hunt. Ex hooker Lula is still tagging along for the ride, and now so is a very tall drag queen with a knack for cracking codes. Grandma Mazur has no problem asking the drag queen what he does with his “ding-dong” when he’s wearing dresses. You have to love Grandma Mazur, she’s never offended by anything, she’s always fascinated. -All three of these secondary characters are hilarious. Lula and Grandma Mazur are now fully-embedded in their characterizations, and just as much a trademark to the series as Stephanie is.

Ranger is still around, keeping a protective eye out for Stephanie as always. -Here’s a character in limbo. He started out as this man of mystery. Now he’s just this presence that you aren’t quite sure what to make of.

Stephanie’s car blows up, as does her apartment, leaving Stephanie needing a place to stay. She considers staying at her parents’ house, but things are just too dangerous. What’s a girl to do? Go and move in with officer Joe Morelli of course! -Thank goodness, he personal life needed to move forward in some way. Otherwise, it seems like she’s just stuck in some current state of limbo.

This is where all the sexual tension between these two characters, that has been building up for three novels, finally comes to a head. I’ve said before that I am a fan of romance novels. Finally, we see a little romance, even as you laugh about the rumors that start to spread throughout their two families as a result of Stephanie temporarily staying with Joe.

Round four is a hit with me. The central mystery was entertaining, and kept my fingers clicking the button on my Kindle to keep turning the pages. Full of humor and wit, you won’t be sorry for picking up this book. A great escape from the monotony of life that so many of us fall into.

Four out of five pairs of handcuffs.

 

Feed~ Mira Grant

by Brooke
Book cover photo, Feed by Mira Grant

Plot Summary (from Amazon) : The year was 2014. We had cured cancer. We had beat the common cold. But in doing so we created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one, unstoppable command: FEED.
 
NOW, twenty years after the Rising, Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives-the dark conspiracy behind the infected. The truth will out, even if it kills them

After reading the end of this book, I had to come in and share the whole thing with Army Boy, because I was having trouble wrapping my head around it. It was that powerful. Mira Grant proves that you can achieve a true horror novel with subtlety, and having some of the worst scenes happening “off-screen.”

Shaun and Georgia Mason are given the chance of a lifetime when they’re picked to be the media coverage inside the Presidential Campaign of Senator Peter Ryman. There are a few differences to our current political climate, however.

One: The country is overrun with Zombies. Scientists simultaneously developed a cure for the common cold, and one for Cancer. When introduced, those beasties mutated to bring about the apocalypse in the form of Kellis-Amberlee, a virus that causes the dead to reanimate.

Two: Due to number one, everything is done completely differently in the United States. Blogging has exploded as a viable form of news, because it’s frequently the quickest to pick up a potential story and run with it. No filters or network affiliations, just the truth. In a harrowing time, that’s exactly what people want most.

Sean and Georgia are two thirds of a blogging team (the third being their friend Buffy, fictional writer and tech-guru extraordinaire) who are chosen to present the inside scoop on Senator Ryman’s campaign. Little do they know, they’re entering dangerous territory even by daredevil Shaun’s standards.

I don’t feel like it’s too much of a stretch to compare this book to one of my post-apocalyptic favorites, “The Passage” by Justin Cronin. Mira Grant’s world is realized just as fully, and I found myself wondering what the characters were up to each time I had to put the book down. And oh the characters- Georgia is steely and super-saavy, even when diving into the shark-tank of politics. She’s my new favorite to join my zombie apocalypse Justice League of Awesome and Not Dying. (I so did not just make that up off the top of my head.)(Yes I did.)  Shaun wouldn’t be out of place on an episode of Jack-Ass, and the other staff of After The End Times are brought to life just as vividly.

Through the course of the political campaign, you get a real feel for the changes that have taken place across the country. There are nods of humor (Georgia and Buffy [real name Georgette] are both named after George Romero, considered one of mankind’s heroes for preparing them for the apocalypse via his cinematic work. Apparently “George” was the new “Katie” after the dead started rising), some truly harrowing scenes with the infected and some intriguing descriptions of the various necessary technical advances. Grant also doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to picking off her characters, something that when done well can be incredibly effective.

If you’re looking to start a new post-apocalyptic series, and in the mood for some zombie mayhem, this would definitely be the choice for you.

Four and a half super savvy bloggers.

Three to Get Deadly – Janet Evanovich

by Onzelle

3tgdFrom Amazon:

Stephanie Plum, the brassy babe in the powder blue Buick is back and she’s having a bad hair day — for the whole month of January.She’s been given the unpopular task of finding Mo Bedemier, Trenton’s most beloved citizen, arrested for carrying concealed, gone no-show for his court appearance.And to make matters worse, she’s got Lula, a former hooker turned file clerk — now a wannabe bounty hunter — at her side, sticking like glue. Lula’s big and blonde and black and itching to get the chance to lock up a crook in the trunk of her car.Morelli, the New Jersey vice cop with the slow-burning smile that undermines a girl’s strongest resolve is being polite. So what does this mean? Has he found a new love? Or is he manipulating Steph, using her in his police investigation, counting on her unmanageable curiosity and competitive Jersey attitude?Once again, the entire One for the Moneycrew is in action, including Ranger and Grandma Mazur, searching for Mo, tripping down a trail littered with dead drug dealers, leading Stephanie to suspect Mo has traded his ice-cream scoop for a vigilante gun.Cursed with a disastrous new hair color and an increasing sense that it’s really time to get a new job, Stephanie spirals and tumbles through Three to Get Deadly with all the wisecracks and pace her fans have come to expect.

 

My Take:

Back for round three, and just as good.

This time the friendly and beloved neighborhood candy store owner, affectionately known as “Uncle Mo”, has failed to appear at his court date. He was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon, which apparently is so common in the area that it is a law most everybody ignores. And the people in the neighborhood are not about to help Stephanie bring in Uncle Mo in any way, shape, or form. -This rings true to real life. Some people are so loved by the local masses, that they are forgiven everything. And the locals are frustrating, yet funny in their attempts to preserve Uncle Mo’s freedom.

Stephanie keeps coming across dead bodies, one right after another. It becomes a running joke amongst the cops in town that if there’s a discarded body lying around somewhere, Stephanie will find it. -It’s creepy. It’s like she’s got some sort of dead body radar. If it hadn’t have become a running joke, it would have been annoyingly overdone. As it was, by the end I was rolling my eyes when she discovered yet another one.

It just so happens that the previous owners of those dead bodies all seem to have crime in common. It begins to look like Uncle Mo might be part of a vigilante group who are out to rid the area of drug dealers by taking matters into their own hands. This idea just seems to endear Uncle Mo to the citizens even more. -When this twist came into view, I started to cheer for Mo myself, but that feeling quickly passed. There’s something more sinister afoot. Thank goodness, because this kept my attention grounded in the mystery between my eyerolls concerning the number of dead bodies there were.

Grandma Mazur, while still as feisty as ever, plays a much smaller role this time around. Enter Lula, an overweight ex hooker turned file clerk in Stephanie’s cousin Vinnie’s bail bonds office. She talks all the talk of wanting to be a bounty hunter, but doesn’t quite walk the walk. -But instead of the reader feeling frustrated with the character of Lula, this reader found her hilarious and likeable. I didn’t see the incorporation of this character coming, yet she fits in beautifully.

Morelli has backed off hanging with Stephanie nearly altogether. Stephanie is bothered by this revelation. She doesn’t want a relationship with Morelli… or does she? She finds herself getting jealous when she suspects that Morelli has a girlfriend, and it bothers her that she’s jealous. Stephanie doesn’t know what she wants, but she knows she doesn’t want Morelli involved with somebody else. -Ah, yes, the personal love-life crises.

Ranger is still in the picture as a mentor. Stephanie turns to him for help when she decides that she needs to get her bounty hunter act together and get in shape. -This is funny. We get to see a whole new side of Ranger, and he’s a health-nut. But there’s something so… hot about him, I can forgive his lack of an ability to eat a doughnut.

You can feel Evanovich begin to really settle into the series. She’s getting to know certain characters on a deeper level, she’s unraveling Stephanie’s personal life a bit, and Stephanie’s quirks are beginning to show themselves more.

This was another fun romp with Stephanie Plum. Twists and turns and hilarity and dead drug dealers. She doesn’t walk through everything completely unscathed in this one, but Stephanie is tougher than she looks and doesn’t back down until the mystery is solved. She’s full of Jersey attitude. An enjoyable read!

Four out of five pairs of handcuffs.