Book Reviews
Book-Review_More-Twisted:Collected-Stories-Vol-II
More Twisted:
Collected Stories Vol. II
by
Jeffery Deaver
Author Jeffery Deaver’s More Twisted (Volume II) is another collection of crime-related stories. I generally don’t read short stories simply because they just have me intrigued, I turn a page and that’s it. The story ends in a similar fashion to a television crime show. Perry Mason was/is a classic example.
The only thing short stories are good for is a break from novel reading. I’m not a fast reader and short stories give me a sense of achievement. Beginning, middle and end.
As stated previously, I’m not a fan of short stories and therefore have rated
More Twisted: Collected Stories Vol. II
as a
Three Star
read; this is
my highest rating,
for a book of short stories.
*****
At the time of writing my review
other Goodreads readers have rated
More Twisted: Collected Stories Vol. II
an average of 3.86 Stars,
from 2,466 ratings
and 182 reviews.
*****
More Twisted
is available online
at
Fishpond, Booktopia and Amazon
Book-Review-Colours-Of-Gold
Colours of Gold
by
Kaye Dobbie
Colours Of Gold flows/reads a lot better than The Lighthouse Keepers which was my previous read by this author. Again Ms. Dobbie has chosen to write in aMsen and now format.
A very young Alice is saved from drowning in a barrel, in the Murray River by River Boat Captain Potter.
Allice has a gift in that she can see an aura of colours around people, all people and the darker they are the more likely there is darkness in that person’s immediate future.
While Alice works at Echuca’s Red Petticoat Hotel, Rosy befriended her. Rosy is one of the girls who ‘entertains’ the local gentleman whenever they call on her.
Rosy and Alice decide to leave Echuca one day planning to head for the gold fields, where Alice hopes to make her fortune digging for gold.
Present-day Annie is an art restorer. She has been asked to restore a painting called Trompe L’oeil which features Alice, Rosy and several other characters from the past. Why is Annie drawn to this painting of the Victorian goldfields? But why does she find it so important to track down the names of people from a hundred years prior?
I found this an entertaining story. I liked the flow of the story and the fact that we had holidayed in Echuca and I had spent ten of my working years with Echuca being my halfway-to-work lunch stop.
I thought
Colours Of Gold
was a
four-star read.
*****
At the time of writing my review
Goodreads readers have rated
Colours Of Gold
an average of 4.24 stars,
from 170 ratings and 20 reviews.
*****
Colours Of Gold
can be purchased online at
Booktopia, Fishpond and Amazon
*****
Book Review-The-Escape
The Escape
(John Puller #3)
by
David Baldacci
According to my Goodreads page, The Escape was the twenty-first of David Baldacci’s books I have rated.
The Escape features John and (older brother) Robert Puller along with Veronica Knox as they investigate the circumstances surrounding the conviction and incarceration, in a Military prison, of Robert Puller for treason. It’s a prison from which no prisoner has dreamed of escaping until now. Robert Puller’s escape made him top the most wanted criminal in the country. Some even believe that Robert Puller is innocent and was wrongly convicted and that John Puller may be the best person to capture Robert alive. However, it is not long before Puller realises that others only see Robert as a convicted traitor and are unconcerned if he is captured dead or alive.
Soon Agent Veonica Knox joins forces with Puller in his serch for brother Robert. The main concern Puller has is whether Knox be trusted, because the further the investigation goes the more unclear Knox’s allegiances become.
The Escape is another of Baldaci’s page-turners, that keeps night readers, reading into the wee small hours of the night.
As usual Baldacci’s The Escape moves along at a fast pace with enough twists and turns to keep readers guessing.
***
I rated
The Escape
is a solid
four-star read.
At the time of writing my review,
other Goodreads readers have rated
The Escape
an average of 4.20 stars
from 52,798 ratings
and 4,230 reviews
The Escape can be purchased online at
Booktopia, Fishpond and Amazon
Book-Review-The-Keepers-Of-The-Lighthouse
The Keepers Of The Lighthouse
by
Kaye Dobbie
Kaye Dobbie’s Keepers of The Lighthouse was my second of her books. This book was written in two parts. The first part was set on a fictitious Benevolence Island in 1882 while the second part was set on the same island in 2020. Laura was the Heroine of the 1800s while Nina was the lead character in 2020, with mostly, alternating chapters.
Laura, her father Leo and step-mother Miriam are lighthouse keepers on Benevolence Island, while in 2020 this lighthouse has been closed for some time and the characters are mainly volunteers working for Island Heritage which is intent on preserving the lighthouse, cottages and other buildings.
In 1882, during a Bass Strait storm, a ship is wrecked on Benevolence with only several people having their lives spared. However, both storylines contain romance, villains and twists and turns. The only downside to the story was the abruptness with which both storylines ended. It felt as if I had just read a television movie script.
Stories set close to my childhood home have always intrigued me and although I have never been to any of the Bass Strait Islands, I doubt if I ever want to experience Bass Strait’s infamous weather patterns. Especially, not as depicted in The Keepers of The Lighthouse.
I thought
The Keepers Of The Lighthouse
was a
four-star read.
*****
At the time of writing my review
Goodreads readers have rated
The Keepers Of The Lighthouse
an average of 3.39 stars,
from 153 ratings and 41 reviews.
*****
The Keepers Of The Lighthouse
can be purchased online at
Booktopia, Fishpond and Amazon
*****
Book Review-Birds-Of-A-Feather
Birds Of A Feather
by
Tricia Stringer
Birds of a Feather is the story of three strong women from the fictitious town of Wallaby Bay, supposedly located on Spencer’s Gulf in South Australia.
The eldest is Eve, a partner in the Wallaby Bay fishing fleet forever and a day. She is an independent woman who has lived alone since her husband’s death.
It is only since she had surgery on her injured shoulder that she has had guests in the form of a home help nurse and then her God Daughter, Julia, who has a troubled past.
Nurse Lucy has two children and a fly-in, fly-out (FIFO) husband who is a mine worker in Western Australia. I note with surprise that Lucy is described as abrasive. Personally, I thought god-daughter Julia as the abrasive character of the threesome. True, Lucy was stubborn particularly about her job, as any good nurse should be; whereas Julia spoke abrasively about any and everything she felt like.
Narrator, Casey Withoos does a wonderful job of narrating Birds Of A Feather. There were clearly identifiable voices for each character in the story, which in my opinion makes the whole experience more pleasant.
As my home town is a much smaller country town than Wallaby Bay, I find Ms Stringer’s books very relatable. Birds Of A Feather is the author’s fourteenth book and my second of her works.
I rated
Birds Of A Feather
as a
five-star
audiobook
*****
At the time of writing my review
Goodreads readers have rated
Birds Of A Feather
an average of 3.97 stars,
from 784 ratings and 103 reviews.
*****
Birds Of A Feather
can be purchased online at
Booktopia, Fishpond and Amazon
Book-Review-Pulse
Pulse
by
Felix Francis
A nameless, unconscious man is presented by paramedics to the emergency department where Doctor Chris Rankin is the senior physician on duty.
After a while, Rankin has to leave to treat another patient and the unconscious man is left in the care of another doctor. However, while Rankin is treating patient two, the first man dies without regaining consciousness.
Rankin is suspended from her duties pending the outcome of an inquiry into the nameless man’s death.
Her state of mind is called into question as well.
Although it takes a while, as usual with Felix Francis’ books, the British Horse Racing industry is heavily involved with this mystery. The industries involvement seems to kick start the story or perhaps it was me expecting horse racing to be involved and wondering why it wasn’t.
I rated Pulse as a solid three star story.
***
I rated
Pulse
as a solid
three-star read.
***
At the time of writing my review
other Goodreads readers had awarded
Pulse
an average of 3.66 stars
from 1,995 ratings
and 298 reviews.
***
Pulse
can be purchased online at
Booktopia, Fishpond and Amazon
Book Review-The-Fallout
The Fallout
by
Rebecca Thornton
*****
The Fallout lost me with the opening, longwinded, WhatsApp conversation between a self-entitled group of women who all belong to the same health club.
In hindsight, it gave the narrator no time whatsoever to establish character voices, not that I think this would have helped as there were other WhatsApp conversations that were read in an identical manner.
That is the narrator read the speaker’s name each and every time she wrote in WhatsApp as in the example below.
Sarah. How are you, Lisa?
Lisa. I’m good. How are you?
Sarah and Lisa are good friends and Sarah offers to watch Lisa’s young boy Jack. Only she doesn’t really. Jack falls from a pole he should not have been climbing and ends up in hospital. After the accident Sarah tells everyone that Jack was okay when she saw him last. However, she does not exactly say when ‘the last time’ was. And there begins the story. Did Sarah lie to her friend…and everyone else?
I’m afraid that was the end for this reader, especially when their menfolk were interviewed and each shoulder shrug and guffaw was read as part of the text. In fact male characters appeared to be more self-entitled than their female counterparts.
It was most definitely goodbye from me at this stage I could not put up with another 34 tracks of this rubbish. If a book does not grab my attention in the first page, it must be the second page. After listening to 25 percent it has had a good chance and not worthy of pursuing.
Although, I must add that the story itself was not as off-putting as the narrators and characters. Perhaps this is one of those books a read/reviewer should actually read.
I rated
The Fallout
as a
one-star audiobook.
One star is a did not finish rating.
***
At the time of writing my review,
other Goodreads readers
have rated
The Fallout
an average of 3.11 stars
from 920 ratings
and 228 reviews
***
The Fallout
can be purchased online at
Booktopia, Fishpond and Amazon
****
Book Review-The-Jester
The Jester
by
James Patterson
*****
Although The Jester was published 20 years ago, in 2003, it is one of the best works attributed to James Patterson that I have read.
Set in eleventh-century France, at the time of the crusades, inn-keeper Hugh de Luc arrives home from the crusades only to find his village has been raided by unknown riders who came in the dead of night, the son he never knew killed and his wife abducted. So begins the crusade to find and free his wife and gain his freedom.
Hugh’s freedom crusade nearly ends far too quickly at the end of a wild boar’s tusks. Luckily he is given a helping hand by Lady Emilie. It is Emilie who suggests he becomes a court jester as a means of infiltrating his enemy’s castle where he believes his wife, Sophie, is being held captive. With some help, Hugh becomes an excellent jester and eventually discovers that Sophie is still alive. He is also overwhelmed by the number of supporters he has gathered around him.
With Andrew Gross co-authoring The Jester it has a much different feel about the storyline and reads like a Patterson book of old…which it is, of course.
I rated
The Jester
as a 
five-star read
***
At the time of writing my review
other Goodreads readers had awarded
***
The Jester
an average of 3.81 stars
from 19,735 ratings
and 1,124 reviews.
***
The Jester
can be purchased online at
Booktopia, Fishpond and Amazon
Book-Review-Shadows-of-Power:Indecent-Ambition
~~~~~~~
Shadows of Power
a.k.a
Indecent Ambition
by
Jennifer Bacia
February 2023
Time for another Jennifer Bacia book I thought. Shadows of Power sounded interesting. However, around halfway through Chapter 1, bells began to ring which was a change from persistent tinnitus.
After a bit of research and I discovered that Shadows of Power was, in fact, the original title of Indecent Ambition, which I had completed around July 2022. For unknown reasons, several of Bacia’s novels have been republished under another title.
Whether Shadows of Power or Indecent Ambition both are worthy of a five-star rating
I rated
Shadows of Power
as a solid
five-star
audiobook
****
As of February 28, 2023,
the overall ratings for
Shadows of Power
are identical to
Indecent Ambition.
***
At the time of writing my review
other Goodreads readers had awarded
Shadows of Power
an average of 3.15 stars
from 27 ratings
and 5 reviews
****
Shadows of Power
can be purchased online at
Booktopia, Fishpond and Amazon
*******
July 2022
Indecent Ambition is my third of Jennifer Bacia’s novels and tells Lenore’s story.
After her (sexually) abusive father’s death, fourteen-year-old Lenore was taken in by ‘Nan’ who lived a few doors away. Lenore soon realises she is pregnant with her father’s child and Nan organises an abortion for Lenore.
Sometime later Lenore gives herself to someone a little older than herself, again falling pregnant. When she discovers the boy has left Australia and returned to his mother in the U.S.A. and she has another bad experience with a newborn Lenore swears that never again will she allow men to put her in that position.
Twenty years on Lenore, now known as Anthea, while at a preselection meeting for a safe party seat in the Australian Federal Parliament, meets her old flame again. It takes a while before she accepts a job offer from David and still longer before they get back together. In the midst of all this is Oscar’s (David’s friend) 20-year-old daughter Kelly who has a huge crush on David.
Will Kelly get her way with David? Or will David and Anthea hold fast?
There is a reasonably large part of Indecent Ambition I have not mentioned in my review simply because to do so would contain many spoilers. I am fairly certain that fans of Jennifer Bacia, will rate Indecent Ambition highly and if you haven’t read any of her works as yet, I highly recommend Indecent Ambition and Never Forget me as starting points.
I rated
Indecent Ambition
as a solid
five-star read
****
At the time of writing my review
other Goodreads readers had awarded
Indecent Ambition
an average of 3.12 stars
from 26 ratings
and 4 reviews
****
Indecent Ambition
can be purchased online at
Booktopia, Fishpond and Amazon
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