Author: F. Paul Wilson

Publisher: Tor

Rating: 4 1/2 Stars

Release Date: July 5, 2016

Reviewer: Jessica Higgins

Panacea is a thrilling and captivating tale that is not to be missed!

I received a complimentary copy of this book through St. Martin’s Press for an honest and fair review. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Laura Hanning is used to being called out when a body is found to perform an autopsy with no questions asked. That is until she has two charred corpses that generate more questions than answers.  However, she knows they are connected.  Each victim has a tattoo on their backs lead her to their involvement in so called miracles.  The more she investigates, the more things lead her to the mythic panacea, a substance that is supposed to cure anything.  Even though this isn’t something she believes in, she can’t help continuing to search for more answers to these mysterious deaths.  But she isn’t the only one searching for answers.  There is a secret group of the panacea and another group bent on keeping this cure out of the hands of the public.  The 536 brotherhood believes that God never intended such a cure to exist and mankind is meant to suffer.  They believe Laura is in their way and she becomes a target.  Her unbelief is pushed to the limit when a terminally ill billionaire hires her to research the possibility of the panacea.  She is offered an extremely large sum of money, to be used to help her sick daughter, to look for this cure.  His body guard, Rick Hayden is set on keeping her alive and helping her on her quest.  Together they race against the Brotherhood to find this cure, if it really does exist.

At the beginning, I thought I might not really enjoy this book, but that quickly proved not to be the case. The story took twists and turns that didn’t get me dizzy but kept me turning the page as fast as I could.  There was an excellent emotional attachment to each character that made their quest and desires come to life.  Laura and Rick took the brunt of this in very different forms.  Neither was pushed too hard or too little to make everything they did believable.  The entire concept is sort of Da Vinci Code with more of a medical twists.  The writing was sharp and very concise.  The story crisscrossed from one continent to another seemingly effortless which is something very difficult to do.  The story was tied up nicely but I think (and hope) this is the start of a new series and I can’t wait to see where the story goes next.  My only complaint is the language, at times it got above a PG-13 rating which makes me bring it down a little.  The story could have been just as good, if not better without the harsh words.

Author: Kellie Coates Gilbert

Series: Texas Gold #4

Publisher: Revell

Release Date: July 5, 2016

Rating: 4.5 Stars

Reviewer: Jessica Higgins

A new story, a new city, same great writing!

I received a complimentary copy of this book through Baker Publishing Group for an honest and fair review. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Leta Breckenridge is looking for a break in life. After three years of undergraduate work at the University of Texas, she was forced to drop out to help care for her mom who developed an early case of dementia.  Always one to do careful research, Leta found a good assisted living facility for her mom close by to their Austin home.  Now she works two jobs at Central Market and Hole in the Wall bar just to make ends meet to keep her mom in the facility and barely scrapes by anything else.  She has recently had some accidental encounters with a local state senator who also happens to be a founding member for an institute dedicated to aging mental illnesses.  He’s cute, but he has a serious girlfriend that he has been seeing for several years, so she knows he is out of his league.  Then one day, Leta sees an ad for a job in the paper for a public relations firm.  She applies, is interviewed, and gets the job with a nice salary even without a college degree.  But the longer she works there, she finds out that this is really a political dirt digging corporation and their crosshairs are on her senator friend.

Senator Nathan Emerson is getting pressure to run for governor. His mother has set up a political action committee to get his grassroots campaign going, but Nathan still hasn’t made up his mind.  Then he meets Leta Breckenridge and is actually able to open up to her and be himself instead of his image.  He quickly realizes that Texas needs a change and he needs to run for governor to help people like Leta.  But as he realizes that he is getting feelings for Leta, he knows that that a relationship with her will drop him in the polls and could hurt her life.  When he finds out she has been working for the opposition, would she really betray his trust?  Was it all an act?

hank you to Kellie Coates Gilbert for another great story. The Texas Gold Series have been some phenomenal reads and this is no exception.  The characters she writes always take a life of their own and soon you find yourself emphasizing with them.  But what really gets you is the settings she creates.  Gilbert researches her settings very well to do a great job of taking you to where the story actually is.  And I have a confession to make.  One of my favorite things about her books are the settings.  Especially Austin.  I’m very familiar with Austin as I also live in Texas and have had the opportunity to frequent it.  So when she says that Leta turned onto Burnet just south of 45^th, I know exactly where she is.  And I love to see what restaurants are going to appear in the book.  Glad to know the Roaring Fork made an appearance (and the food is so good)!

However, Gilbert takes a bit of a different approach than the last two books. Previously, the main female characters were very career driven with college degrees; however, What Matters Most introduces a young woman who wasn’t able to complete college and has to help her mother with an illness.  In any of the books, it is very easy to relate to the main character, but I think this one is special.  She really needs help and support in different areas than the other characters.  I’m going to be interested in the next book to see what changes.

Instead of a parting thought, I have a parting plea for the author. Please write a future Texas Gold novel based in Lubbock, which is my current city.  I would like to how this west Texas town get some press.  And I would love to help you out on any research needs you may have.

Author: Lisa Harris

Series: Nikki Boyd Files #2

Publisher: Revell

Rating: 4 Stars

Reviewer: Jessica Higgins

Nikki Boyd is back and tackling a tough case that hits closer to home than she could have ever imagined.

I received a complimentary copy of this book through Baker Publishing Group for an honest and fair review. The opinions expressed in this review are my own

Nikki Boyd is working hard on solving missing person cases, so when she gets a call to work a homicide, she knows there has to be more to the case than meets the eye. She and her partner Jack investigate two missing homeowners, Mac and Lucy Hudson by following the trail of bodies.  The bodies lead them to the boat of her friend Tyler Grant.  Nikki has to figure out how Tyler is involved and what it all means while continuing to track down the missing family.  The trail leads them deeper into murder combined with the world of counterfeit drugs and those responsible who will stop at nothing to keep their business going and their secrets buried.

Lisa Harris is finding her way into my favorite reads. She has a way of telling the story in a nice clean way all while keeping the suspense till the end.  While her books might not be the most edge of your seat page-turners, they are definitely good reads.  With this being the second installment in the Nikki Boyd files, I was anxious to see where this case would lead.  I enjoyed the fact that the romance aspect didn’t overshadow the suspense part of the story.  The story starts off with a bang and kept the pace going throughout.  I didn’t have a hard time finishing this in only a few days.  If I had to bet, I would say Harris enjoys shows such as NCIS or Criminal Minds and modeled a few characters from some on the show.  (I could see some of Abby or Garcia, the tech gurus in the character of Gwen, but that could just be me.)

The only portion I thought could have been written better was towards the end. I don’t want to give too much away but there was a very intense scene toward the very end of the book that I felt could have played out a little longer and better, instead it just petered out and the suspense fizzled.  It all tied up too easily to be believable for me.  It was a tense situation and I was at an edge-of-my-seat moment and then it felt like the chair was pulled out from under me and the action was gone.  Overall it was still an enjoyable read! I would have preferred a little better ending but still foresee myself diving into the next in the series eagerly.

Author: Bill Higgs

Publisher: Tyndale House

Release Date: July 1, 2016

Rating: 5 Stars

Reviewer: Jessica Higgins

Interesting, insightful, and nostalgic. Bill Higg’s debut novel Eden Hill is a refreshing story!

I received a complimentary copy of this book through Tyndale Publishing House for an honest and fair review. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Set in 1963, the town of Eden Hill is just another small town in America. All businesses are locally owned and include a grocery store, farm store, and service station.  There are three churches that people attend throughout the town and everything seems to be normal, or at least Virgil Osgood believes so.  As the owner of Osgoods, the local service station that he built with his father after World War II, Virgil has been blessed to never miss a meal and has a loving wife and son.  Then one day his church decides to sell the vacant lot across from his store.  Before he knows it, a new sign pops up in the vacant lot advertising that a new Zipco service station will be built to serve the residents of Eden Hill.  Now Virgil must decide how to handle this situation.  Can he survive completion?  And how will the choices he makes affect others?

Cornelius Alexander has been looking for a way to find success. His father and grandfather both run successful businesses and he is out to prove himself.  After flunking out of a university and then going to a smaller business school, he was approached by a recruiter from Zipco about opening a new service station.  All he has to do is find the right place.  After getting lost in Eden Hill, he stumbled upon a run-down service station with a vacant lot across the street that was for sale.  What luck!  Now Cornelius and his pregnant wife JoAnn have an opportunity to start up this new service station and who wouldn’t want to use his over the one across the street?  But it takes a lot of money to get started and he is in serious debt before he knows it.  Can he actually make a living at this?  Especially if Osgood’s decides to compete?

This is one of those books you read that is just a great story. It doesn’t need a huge plot or some type of event that turns the tide.  Granted it has both of those, but it is really just a story about everyday people doing everyday things.  Maybe that is why it was so refreshing.  I didn’t have to look for anything particular.  I just got to be one of the townsfolk.

The story primarily centers around two couples, Virgil and Mavine Osgood as well as Cornelius and JoAnn Alexander. Both couples are at different points in their life and are met with challenges that are similar and yet different.  Each has a marital issue.  Virgil and Mavine’s centers around the mid-life issues of is the marriage getting worn out?  Do they really still love each other?  Cornelius and JoAnn’s is the newlywed issue of getting started and the fear of the unknown of if they will have enough money to live.  They also end up working against each other because of the completion for business.

The third main character is Reverend Eugene Caudill. This may have been the most interesting character of the book.  We often think of pastors as people who don’t have struggles and are often without any type of issues, but more than willing to assist their parishioners with their troubles.  However, they struggle just as much, if not more, then what we typically do.  I felt like Reverend Caudill was the rawest character in that we really got to see what his life was like.  How he felt about some of his congregation.  The struggles of his own faith.  Everything was laid bare for the reader to see.  It really puts a perspective on his character.

I loved the setting of the book. Small town America would have been interesting to see at that time.  With the new urbanization times are just different.  So having the opportunity to go back and live during this time in this small time was just want I needed at this time.

Author: Chris Fabry

Publisher: Tyndale House

Release Date: July 1, 2016

Rating: 5 Stars

Reviewer: Jessica Higgins

Wonderfully written story about finding the truth in your life and letting go and letting God take control.

I received a complimentary copy of this book through Tyndale Publishing House for an honest and fair review. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

It’s 1972 and as far as Matt Plumley’s is concerned, his life has taken a turn for the worse. An avid Pittsburg Pirates fan, his family has just moved from Pittsburg to the small town of Dogwood, West Virginia where his father grew up.  Now just miles away from Cincinnati and surrounding by Reds fans, his father has taken a new pastorship as his boyhood church.  Matt has always been on the heavy side of the scale and not made many friends, but he goes out and rides his bike.  He stumbles upon a horse that is caught in a fence and tries to find help to rescue it.  The first person he meets is Jesse Woods, a girl that lives across the road from where the horse is caught.  They work together with another kid named Dickie to free the horse and a bond of friendship ensues.  However, the community shuns both Jesse and Dickie as she is considered white trash and he is a colored boy.  Multiple trouble ensues on many levels for the three friends over the summer that leaves Matt and Dickie at odds and Jesse and her sister Daisy in a poor state.

Fast forward twelve years to 1984, Matt learns that Jesse is about to get married to one of the boys who was very cruel to her. Always one to play the white knight, Matt decides to leave Chicago and return to Dogwood to save Jesse from distress.  However, he discovers that not everything is as he remembers.  As he remembers the summer of 1972, several random events start to click into place and he may understand why Jesse Woods broke her ultimate promise to him all those years ago.

This was a really good read. I haven’t read anything by Chris Fabry before, but I understand why people talk about his books now.  He was able to make the reader become Matt Plumley and really connect with him.  The mind of a teenage boy is a very interesting place to be and Fabry did a great job of constructing it.  He also did a great job of the conjuring up the other characters as though I had the same relationships with them as Matt.  He also does a great job of setting up the scene of 1972.  I especially like the reference to Jerry Reed’s music as well as a few others.  Subtle, yet satisfying.

Coming-of-age fiction is a difficult arena to write in because it really requires the author and reader to be vulnerable. As a reader, this story will make you vulnerable and remember your first love and how you felt.  Also, you will remember the loss.  The story played out well.  Never a dull moment in either 1972 or 1984.  Can’t wait to see what Fabry has in store next.

 

 

Author: Wendy Gordon

Publisher: Shepherdess Books

Release Date: June 15, 2016

Rating: 4 Stars

Reviewer: Jessica Higgins

Set in 1980’s Long Island, Wrong Highway gives new meaning to the term, “dysfunctional family.”

I received a complimentary copy of this book through TLC book tours for an honest and fair review. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

 Wrong Highway follows Erica Richards and her family who live in West Meadow, Long Island in the mid-1980s.  She has three boys and a new baby girl.  She stays home with the kids while her husband works on Wall Street.  Her relationship with her sister, Debbie is strained on many levels.  Debbie has one son, Jared, who has many problems, the least of which is his lack of respect and concern for her.  Ron, Debbie’s husband is hard on Jared who ends up turning to his aunt for support.  This leads him and Erica down a highway to drugs and other problems.  One turns leads to another and before long Erica finds herself on a highway she never intended to be on with little idea how to turn around and find the right road.

This was a very interesting and quick read. While I didn’t agree with the actions of the characters, a mom with a newborn doing drugs, the way they were written made them seem as if all this was their natural course of action.  Every family has problems, but here we see those problems brought out and exaggerated to an extreme level.  It was easy to find certain characters dislikable and others I found myself agreeing with their course of action.  Having grown up in the 80’s, I enjoyed going back to that decade for the duration of the story.  Everything was well placed and correlated with the time period written.  The plot was nothing big but the best thing the author did was really develop the characters so that when they were speaking or doing something, their actions seemed right for them at that time.  I’m trying to come up with other negatives for the writing but not much comes to mind.  The writing itself was well done but there were parts I didn’t particularly enjoy, a little bit of language and the drug use, but it was an overall enjoyable read and the end seemed to just end in not the best way  I felt a little more effort could have been applied to tie up the end a little neater .

I would recommend this book for mature readers.

Author: Marta Perry

Publisher: HQN Books

Release Date: June 28, 2016

Rating: 4 1/2 Stars

Reviewer: Jessica Higgins

A tale of sorrow, love, betrayal, and secrets worth more than some are willing to pay

Kate Beaumont wants nothing more than to find out the circumstances behind what caused her brother to kill himself. She travels to Laurel Ridge, the town he had been living in and where he was found dead of a drug overdose in the cemetery.  She wants answers!  She owes him justice and needs peace of mind that her recent lack of involvement in his life didn’t lead him to take such drastic measures.  As she makes her way through the town, she meets the one person she knows can help get her answers, but he is also on her bad side since he is the sheriff and didn’t do much investigating into what happened to determine if it really was a suicide.  Mac Whitling wants to protect his town.  When Kate shows up, he is afraid of what might happen.  As soon as she arrives, trouble starts following her every step she takes.  Regardless of whether or not they want it, they are drawn together by the secrets they are both trying to uncover and those that want to keep them buried.

How Secrets Die was a very enjoyable and easy read.  The characters had a natural balance to how they acted and interacted with each other, which is nice.  Kate’s search for answers to what happened to her brother was done well.  It gave her a good emotional response to what happened and how she reacted to each individual she came into contact with.  It was obvious she and Mac were going to be attracted to each other but I liked the way it was played out.  Yes they had feelings for each other but they didn’t act on any of those feelings until her questions about her brother were answered.  A lot of romantic suspense books lean so heavy on the romance that it takes away from the suspense and causes the characters act in a way that isn’t believable to what they should be doing in their situations.  Perry did a great job of shaping the characters to carry the suspense and add the romance secondary.  A job well done and I will be recommending this book for sure!

Author: Corran Harrington

Publisher: Arbor Farm Press

Release Date: April 14, 2016

Reviewer: Jessica Higgins

Great use of prose throughout the book. Definitely a little unorthodox on the writing, but interesting all the same.

I received a complimentary copy of this book through TLC book tours for an honest and fair review. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Daniel Arroyo questions many things throughout his life. Was the death of his baby sister his fault?  Is the PTSD he suffers from Vietnam real or a figment of his imagination?  Did he follow the correct course of his life by marrying his high school sweetheart Laura?  The list goes on and on.  One thing that Daniel does not question is his work with the Rio Grande River.  He has always been close to the river.  Growing up he lived in front of an irrigation ditch that branched off the river.  Now he works taking river samples and analyzing the river.  As he questions much of his life, he finds his way back home working along the Rio Grande.

There is a lot that is going on in this book and it is a little difficult to follow at times. The first part of the book is focused on the character of Daniel Arroyo and his struggles with life beginning with the death of his sister Carmen, followed by PTSD from Vietnam, and his now struggles with possibly becoming gay.  It jumps back and forth between past and present quite a bit, but this part is pretty easy to follow along for the most part.  At the end of the part, you get a large part of the backstory to the sister’s death, which I was hoping to get to at the beginning of each chapter.

Then comes part two. This part covers major events and milestones that occur in part one, but from a different perspective or viewpoint.  Part of this is from supporting characters (some you didn’t know existed until you read it). Some of it is even from furniture.  Actually, the furniture part was very interesting because it began when the furniture was created before Daniel’s family even acquired it.  As I said earlier, really unorthodox, but interesting.

The author really understood the use of literary prose the make the story flow. The descriptions provided throughout the book were amazingly detailed and managed to keep the story light and not turn it away.  Tension was applied where it was needed and I really enjoyed getting some of the “rest of the story” from the events that happened in part one that more or less left the reader hanging.

There is some frequent strong foul language as well as the insinuation of male homosexual activity. This book is recommended for mature audiences.

Author: David Rosenfelt

Series: Andy Carpenter Mystery

Publisher: Minotaur Books

Release Date: July 21, 2015

Reviewer: Jessica Higgins

Andy Carpenter stumbles upon a new client and a new case that goes down a road no one would have ever imagined.

Andy Carpenter is spending less time in the courtroom these days and more time working on his dog rescue organization with his friend Willie Miller. When Willie calls him saying the alarm in the foundation has gone off and a dog has been stolen, they work urgently to retrieve their four-legged friend.  Fortunately, all of their dogs are equipped with GPS trackers.  Following the GPS, they arrive at a house in downtown Paterson, New Jersey and find their dog next to a dead body.  It is obvious the murder has just occurred.  Now they question if it is a coincidence or if the dog theft could be connected to the killing.  All this leads Andy to his newest client, the man accused of the murder.  Andy doesn’t intend on representing him but he wants to know why the dog was stolen and hopes he can get some answers.  The more he looks at things the less he believes his client is guilty and the more terrified he becomes.  The murder might be one small piece in the puzzle but unless Andy can uncover the truth in time, many more lives could be in danger.

I have had this sitting on the shelf for a few months and finally decided to pick it up and now I wish I would have picked it up sooner. This is the 13^th Andy Carpenter novel, I haven’t read them all, only a few, but this isn’t the type of series you have to read all to enjoy each individual story.  I really enjoyed this.  The story was fun with bits of humor sprinkled throughout at just the right moments.  I’m not sure how much of a part the dogs played in the other novels but here their role was small.  It was enough to tie the events together to get the mystery going and the suspense up a notch.  Andy is a good lawyer but an even better person.  His drive to help rescue dogs leads him to his newest client but he eventually helps so many more, and all because a dog he cared about was taken.  If more people took better care of their animals and cared for them and others in this way the world would be a better place.  In this story there is the addition of Ricky, Andy’s new adopted son.  I think that takes away from his time with Tara, his dog that has been more prevalent in previous stories, but it does give a side to him that we need to see as his character develops more.  David Rosenfelt has built a good thing with his Andy Carpenter series and I can see it going for a long time.

There are moments of harsh language that would not be appropriate for young readers.

Author: Steve Alten

Series: Meg

Publisher: Tor/Forge

Release Date: June 14, 2016

Reviewer: Jessica Higgins

Giant Prehistoric creatures have escaped captivity and are now being hunted while hunting to survive.

The fifth installment of the MEG series follows Bela and Lizzy, siblings who have escaped the institute they were being held in British Columbia. Jonas Taylor is trying to recapture or even kill them but others have different plans.  Jonas’s son David is after them for his own reasons, revenge.  After losing the love of his life to them he has come together with a Dubai Prince to track the 120-foot, hundred-ton Liopleurodon that escaped form the Panthalassa Sea. David is having a hard time letting go of his loss and has nightmares regularly.  He doesn’t consider himself suicidal but he is willing to risk his life multiple times to pursue his cause.  While father and son go on this adventure from different angles, the sisters are causing all kinds of trouble everywhere they go.

The first thing I have to say about this is I read this without having read any others in the series. I think that hurt my overall enjoyment and understanding of the book.  However, one of the best aspects of the novel and Alten’s writing is the tension.  He knows how to ratchet it up at just the right moments and keep it up.  There were a lot of characters and at times it became tough to follow the storyline.  Had I read the previous installments, I think this would have been less of an issue for me.  For those that enjoy Sci/Fi thrillers this is one to add to the list to read.  There were a few semi-graphic sex scenes, (nothing very bad by any means), and also some harsh language that would make this unsuitable for young readers.  While this isn’t my favorite of the year I know many people will enjoy this story and will be recommending it to those that enjoy a book from this genre.