Book Review ~ Deadly Obsession by Maggie Shayne

Finished ~ Deadly Obsession (De Luca & Brown 04) by Maggie Shayne
Completed 11/28
4.5 of 5 stars
400 pages


I received this book from NetGalley for my honest review.

Rachel De Luca is a self help author and her boyfriend Mason Brown is a homicide detective. Rachel spent most of her life blind, before having a procedure that gave her her sight back, which happens in the first book. Since then, everything has still been a wonder for her. With her new eyes, she also received a new "gift" which are ESP type feelings about certain things. She's used her feelings to help out Mason with cases before.

After Mason runs into a burning house and saves two children, he has a in-home nurse that comes to help take care of his injuries, and Rachel is feeling more than just the green eyed monster about her, but she doesn't get the time to really put thoughts to it. She also believes that the police are wrong about who set the fire that Mason ran into.


This series is best read in it's entirety and in order, as you really get to know and understand Rachel and Mason. This series is FANTASTIC and this might have been my favorite book of the series so far. There is a ton going on in this book and it's great from start to finish. I LOVE Rachel. She's sassy and quirky and completely a bad-ass with a heart of gold. Her only fault is that she is so worried about messing things up with Mason that she almost messed things up with Mason because she wouldn't share her true feelings. I was glad when she finally did. Mason is awesome. Kind and loving with a big heart.

I love this series and this book was definitely golden. I definitely recommend this series for fans of romantic suspense. This series is mainly about the suspense, but there's enough of the ongoing romance to keep the attention of those who prefer more romance than suspense. The cast of characters of the book/series are fantastic. It's a wonderful series, and I highly recommend it!


Setting = A
Plot = A
Conflict = A
Characters = A+
Theme = A

TBR List ~ Nov Review ~ Butterman's (Time) Travel, Inc

The To Be Read Meme is hosted by Because Reading is Better Than Real Life. Click for more info!


At the beginning of November, I posted 3 books I was interested in reading, for you all to pick ONE for me to read and review. Like with last month, there was a TIE between two of the books. Unlike last month, I did NOT enjoy them both, sadly.

The books chosen for me were ~

As much as I wanted to like it, The Advent Killer was NOT for me. It was soooooo dull and boring. I only got through 27% of it on my Kindle, and that was trying to read it 4 or 5 different times. I still only know that some women were killed, I have no idea why, or anything else. It was just a bunch of standing around talking and stuff that didn't mean anything. I didn't get it at all. I kept going back to it, kept trying to see if it would get better and I finally admitted defeat, as nothing ever happened with it. It was a DNF at 27% and I don't recommend it, if you are looking for a serial killer book. It definitely did not deliver.

Thankfully I DID enjoy my other book, though it was weird and there were parts about it I didn't like, I did really like it for the most part.

Butterman (Time) Travel, Inc is about Bianca, a female time traveler. Her family owns and operates one of the few pleasure oriented travel companies. Bianca has been raised her whole life Time Traveling and helping out the business.

The book starts with star Tristan coming into the agency. He wants to time travel and will pay whatever it takes to do it right then. He wants Bianca to go along with him, but what is supposed to be a quick easy jump, turns out not so easy.


Overall, I really liked this book. It kept my interest throughout, and it was a different type of time traveling than what I have read before. There were definite parts that I did not like. Tristan is a recovering drug addict, and drugs played a part throughout the whole book, though it was an undercurrent of the book, but one that I didn't care for. Tristan is actually a bit of a jerk, but Bianca looks past that, of course. I do like Bianca. She's strong and smart though she does make some dumb decisions.

What I liked best about it was that there was actually something that was against them and what they were doing. When a mishap causes them to be found out in the past, they jumped to another time and that was all pretty neat, but all the undercurrent of something else going on that they don't know about for a while and don't understand when they do is pretty neat.

The book was overall pretty enjoyable and it really kept me wanting to know more and keep with it. Since I read the first book I have read the prequel which is Bianca's journals and that was pretty neat. I also read the next book in the series ~ Induction Day and did not enjoy it nearly as much. The time traveling part of the book was interesting, but all the stuff with Tristan got on my nerves. Instead of being a bit of a jerk like the first book, he was more of an ass, and Bianca just kept giving him chance after chance. Plus, there was just some other stuff that I didn't like about it, but I can't talk about it, without giving away details. I will probably try the next in the series, to see what all happens.


Thanks to everyone who voted for books in November TBR List Poll. Come back next week to vote for books for December!

Beat Your Best Read-a-Thon ~ Wrap-Up

The "Beat Your Best" Read-a-Thon is hosted here at KaKiJoKoJa.


I know only a few people joined me in this RaT, but I wanna say I'm SOOOOOOOOO sorry that I didn't do what I wanted to with it. I had planned on doing some challenges and having some questions and just having interaction, which is what I enjoy a ton from Read-a-Thons. Unfortunately, none of that happened. I've had a cold for 5 weeks straight now. It's not awful, but it has drained me and I've done very little these past weeks because of it. Normally I have a hard time falling asleep at night, not only have I been falling asleep well, I've also been taking random naps here and there. So NOT me and I hate that it affected this RaT. I'm so sorry for that, and I plan to run it again and hopefully I'll be better next time!

As for my own read-a-thon, I just met my own goals. Normally I surpass my goals by a ton, and this one one time where I had to actually work on meeting my goals, which I was able to do, so yay. Here's what my goals were ~

GOALS

My goals for the RaT ~

• Read at least SIX (6) books ~ completed
• Read 3 from first two sections (to get current) ~ Completed
• Read 3 from last two sections (to make headway on ones 2+ behind) ~ Completed
• Read at least NINE (9) comics ~ Completed
• Read at least the next 3 Oz & next 6 Arkham Unhinged ~ Completed

Here are the books, and the comics, that I read this past week ~

Books I chose from

One Book to Finish



One Book to get Current with Ongoing



Two Books to Finish



Series with Three or more books to get Current/Finish
(These are just the first book of the 3+)

Book Review ~ Five by Ursula Archer

Finished ~ Five by Ursula Archer
Completed 11/20
2 of 5 stars
336 pages


I received this book from NetGalley for my honest review.


Five is story that is more difficult to explain, so I'm going to let the GoodReads description tell you about it for me.

"A woman’s corpse is discovered in a meadow. A strange combination of letters and numbers has been tattooed on the soles of her feet. Detective inspector Beatrice Kaspary from the local murder squad quickly identifies the digits as map coordinates. These lead to a series of gruesome discoveries as she and her colleague Florin Wenninger embark on a bloody trail – a modern-day scavenger hunt using GPS navigation devices to locate hidden caches. The "owner" of these unofficial, unpublished geocaches is a highly calculating and elusive fiend who leaves his victims’ body-parts sealed in plastic bags, complete with riddles that culminate in a five-stage plot. Kaspary herself becomes an unwilling pawn in the perpetrator’s game of cat and mouse as she risks all to uncover the motives behind the murderer’s actions. Five is definitely not a book for the faint-hearted, but it delivers great suspense, unexpected plot twists, and multi-dimensional characters."


Ok, now that you know about the book, here's the deal ~ this book was SOOOOOOOO dull. It had a chance to be so good, and it just fell short on many levels. It took me forever (for me) to read this book (over 2 weeks) because I kept forcing myself to go back to it, but I could only take it at small chunks.

Let's start with the good ~

The Geocaching aspect was great. I've never seen that before, that with the riddles made for an interesting chase. It was really neat and it peaked my own curiosity in geocaching. Also really great was the end, the big reveal of WHY the killer was killing these people. That was all really neat and if I rated on the ending alone, it easily would have been 4 stars. The end was great, the geocaching parts were great, the riddles were great.

Now for the not so good ~

Everything else about this book STUNK. For me, when I read mystery, I want to be stumped. I want to read about the mystery, that's what the pull of the story is for me, and this book fell short with that. In this book, she spent just as much time, if not more, telling me about Beatrice's awful ex-husband and her bratty kids as she did the murder mystery. I DON'T care about Beatrice's personal life. It completely distracted from the actual story. There were these good moments of finding the geocaching spots, working on the clues and then these long drawn out times of her ex giving her a bad time, or her jealousy of her partner's relationship with his girlfriend. I'd read the parts with the mystery then as soon as the whining started, I'd put the book down and had to come back for it later.

If this book had been all about the mystery, and the chase, this book would have been a 4 star and could have even been a 5 star read. But it's about their personal lives just as much as the cases and they were not interesting good people. Bea is a mess, he ex a dick, her children are bratty and she's secret in love (or lust) with her partner and is jealous he has a girlfriend. The partner gives off mixed signals but seems to have some more redeeming qualities. The only character I half way liked was the officer that knew about geocaching and helped them out, he kept to himself and went about his business and just worked on the mystery. If that's how they all had been, this book would have been much better.

The mystery was great, the characters ruined the book for me. It's a shame, it could have been fantastic. As for the GoodReads description part ~ "Five is definitely not a book for the faint-hearted, but it delivers great suspense, unexpected plot twists, and multi-dimensional characters." ~ it fell short on every single point. Nope, not at all!!

Setting = B
Plot = A
Conflict = B
Characters = D-
Theme = A