More Good Reads

Hello, Fire Enthusiasts. How is everybody? It’s good to see you. I thank you so much for stopping by. I realize everyone is so incredibly busy. Lord knows I am. I’ve been trying to visit everyone periodically. If you haven’t seen me for a while, please say hello and leave your link. I’ll be right over.

Lately, it seems that there has only been time for blogging and reading, so that’s what I continue to be up to. Soon, however, that will change as I transition over to writing once again. I haven’t written anything new since last year’s project which was Seeing Ghosts. More on that later…

I have a few more books to tell you about.

An Illusion of Trust by Linda Cassidy Lewis

In this sequel to The Brevity of Roses, Renee Vaziri discovers that even when your dreams come true your nightmares remain. When Renee Marshall locked the door on her dark past and married Jalal Vaziri, she hoped for a quiet life in a California coastal town. Now, with a sexy, adoring, wealthy husband, one beautiful child and another on the way, she dares to believe happily ever after could be her future. But doors don’t always stay locked. As the stress of living in Jalal’s high-society world increases, the traumas of Renee’s past begin to poison the present and threaten to destroy everything she treasures. Is it her imagination or is Jalal keeping a secret that will end their marriage and rip her children from her life? And could it involve Diane, the woman who reminds Renee too much of Jalal’s beloved first wife?

It’s not exactly horror, is it? No, but you may recall me telling you before that I like to mix things up that way. Lewis is a dear friend of mine. We’re practically neighbors, too, and I can’t wait to sit down with her and chat about writing. In any event, it was not difficult at all to get me to grab my copy of this book. Lewis’ writing is top notch and I really enjoyed this book. I wanted to strangle Lewis’ character Renee a few times, but her struggles are integral to the story and make perfect sense once you’ve taken this continued journey with her. Lewis spins a fine tale and I hope she continues to pick up her mighty pen and blaze trails like this one. I fear Lewis is uncertain of the talent she has, but she shouldn’t. Her writing is as good as anything out there in the market place. If this sounds up your alley, I hope you’ll give it a try.

Immaterial Evidence by Milo James Fowler

The vault door never opened. The bank went into lock down in less than a minute. Yet the security footage was unmistakable: a hundred silver bars had simply vanished. Ever since the city’s most dangerous crime boss put a price on his head, private investigator Charlie Madison has lived as an exile in Little Tokyo. But now an old friend and police sergeant has lured Madison back into the city to hunt down an invisible criminal—if he can. As Madison makes his clandestine return, high-profile people start disappearing. And when federal agents swoop onto the scene to take matters into their own hands, they offer Madison a deal he can't refuse—as long as he agrees to work with them. With Japanese freedom fighters and refurbished killing machines threatening to take the world to the brink of nuclear holocaust, the United World government needs all the help it can get. Embroiled in an unimaginable mystery, one private eye must rely on his wits to solve a case where the evidence is immaterial, and the odds are stacked high against him at every turn.

I really liked this story. It was a bit of crossover fun; a cross between Mickey Spillane and iRobot. Fowler really painted the classic noir/gumshoe world well with the typical seedy areas of town – warehouses, dark alleys, cultural inner city sections – as well as the great dialogue and narration/detective’s inner voice. The science fiction part of the story was a new twist I had yet to see, but why not? Why does everything in this genre have to be Maltese Falcon-ish?

The story was fairly short which I’m curious about. All in all, I had no complaints. It was different, well-written and completed submerged me in Madison’s world. It wasn’t a world I was expecting, but that simply made it one of those pleasant reading discoveries which is why we pick up a book in the first place.    

Before I go I want to thank everyone for allowing me to spend a good chunk of the year promoting Seeing Ghosts. It’s been a long year from teasers to cover reveals to event day to book tour, and I appreciate you allowing me to do that. I will attempt to back off from that now and talk about other things. Of course I’m still trying to sell it. I just don’t want to inundate you with all of that ad nauseum! I thank those of you who have picked up a copy, those who’ve added it to their GoodReads TBR piles, those who’ve reviewed it, and even those among you who have not yet decided. Everything’s appreciated.

Take care and have a great week.

We’ll talk soon.