This is book two of a series. Feel free to go through the backlist, but no book one never arrived. I hate it when publishers do that. But I bit the bullet and downloaded a copy of Delirium to my ereader, and hated it. So I left this book for a few days, dreading the fact that it had to be read. But surprisingly, it is much better than the first in the series.

At the end of Delirium Lena escaped to the wilds leaving her one true love on the wrong side of the fence seriously wounded. Running for her life, she assumes Alex is dead and now she is alone in the Wilds looking for a way to survive. Days and weeks later she literally stumbles into a small group surviving in caves and underground buildings. Much of this book is about her welcome into the tribe and her eventual joining of the resistance movement. The chapters entitled Now, however, show Lena as an active resistance fighter working undercover in New York City. She is assigned to keep track of the young son of the DFA leader, a young man destined to lead in his own right, after his ‘cure’ of course. During a rally the Scavengers attack and suddenly Lena and Julian are imprisoned in the subway together.

I will happily admit that this book is far better than the first one in the series. The preachy is mostly gone, the stupid core concept is swept aside as almost all the characters are still diseased and there is enough action to keep the pages turning. Can this be read without suffering the first? I don’t know, but I hope so.

However, the ending seems just a mite too contrived for my taste. The publishers are promoting this as a book for young and old, but I really suspect that it is more for the 12-15 age than anybody else. I don’t know of many older readers who will accept the convenience of the resolution.

Hachette’s YA department usually has better taste than this.

CS Sutton

In the past few weeks I have read so much dystopian fiction for YAs that I am having trouble telling them apart. Somehow it seems like everything I pick up is about the end of society or existence in the new society that replaces it. All of them focus on teens and their unique ‘coming of age’ challenge.

Malley is already well known for her Declaration series, more very popular dystopian books for the YA market. The Killables creates a new world and a new set of challenges for those who survive. Everyone is watched. Everyone is rated, and your rating determines your future. The System know everything. Evil is banished beyond the city and those who rate K are sent to join the Evils. Evie is employed in the ratings office and it is her job to maintain accurate records as people are moved through various rankings. Her problem is that she is in love with the troublemaker Raffy, but paired with his brother Lucas. When Raffy discovers a fault in the System’s programming, suddenly life becomes very difficult for Evie and Raffy. But then is Lucas all that he seems?

It took me some time to get into this book. I started it weeks ago, read a few pages, and then set it aside for a very long time. But then once I got into the story, the strength of Evie’s character and her relationship with Raffy led me into the adventure and suddenly the book was over. Malley also has an excellent baddie in the Brother, he seems just so logical and ‘nice’.

Although this book had a satisfying ending, I suspect this is the start of another series. So with the Killables released in March, fans have years of waiting ahead.

CS Sutton

Being a parent is among the hardest things most people will ever do. No matter how hard you try, sometimes things just don’t work out the way you expect. Regardless, the parent will remain loyal and fight for the child’s future. Even if that child is suspected of murder.

Andy is an assistant DA, and he always prosecutes the murder cases. When a classmate of his son is killed on the way to school, Andy gets involved in the investigation against the advice of the police. But when suspicion turns towards his son, he is suspended from duty. Convinced of his son’s innocence he puts together a defence team and goes to work to discredit the evidence. No mention is made of the knife found in his son’s possession and disposed of immediately.

Landay has a beautiful way of just dropping in clues that make you doubt your conclusions. Not red herrings exactly, more like uncomfortable details that just don’t fit with the story. And these details are very important when explaining the final chapter of the book. That last twist is good, but as a result of the clues, not totally unexpected.

I will warn you that the middle section of the book does slow down. Chapter after chapter, page after page of trial narration. Personally I found it hard going, but then law is not my passion. Make up your own mind.

On the other hand, this is a book that will make you think about right and wrong. Is the legal system trustworthy? Sometimes is it right to take the law into your own hands?

Can you tell I really don’t know what to think about this book?

CS Sutton

I have read a lot of adventure thrillers over the years. Many are also mysteries with private detectives, police inspectors, medical examiners or even forensic anthropologists. But I don’t think I have ever read a book where the lead investigator is a forensic accountant. Somehow accounting doesn’t conjure up images of adventure. Hamilton has certainly changed that around.

Ava Lee is in the very exclusive business of recovering stolen money. This time 5 million dollars has been borrowed, but never paid back and the borrowers seem to have disappeared. For that amount of money, the holder is willing to do anything including kidnapping, murder or anything else. Ava quickly finds the money, but getting it is harder than she would originally think.

The blurb compares Ava to Lisbeth Salander, and for once I agree. Ava is smart, courageous and able to look after herself. She works for a firm based in Hong Kong, and many of the baddies she encounters just assume that she is linked to Chinese triads. Surely that saves her some trouble, but not always enough. The book also resembles the other series in that it is full of exotic settings and individuals.

I found this book very difficult to put down. Although not read in one sitting, it was certainly close. I think that was the most surprising thing. How can anyone make the story of an accountant just that exciting?

CS Sutton

For once, I applaud the publishers for their wisdom in this publication. Imagine, the common sense of publishing the first two volumes of a trilogy in the same omnibus edition as the first release of the third volume. That way the reader doesn’t have to hunt around for copies of books one and two, or even hunt up plot summaries of them. All you need to do is start at the beginning and enjoy the whole story. Thank goodness.

A plot summary is a little tricky. This is a fantasy adventure, kind of set in modern Brisbane. Our hero is lazy, drunk and has no ambition. But once the war begins, somehow he survives right to the very end, as much through good luck and the help of a friendly ghost as anything else. OK, so book one explains how he got to the top of his local heap. Then book two, with a similar plot, explains how he got to the top of the world wide heap. But he knows something bigger is coming, and is he really, really ready. That is the question…

The interesting difference in this series is the context. Steven, our hero, is in the business of ensuring that souls of the recently departed actually move on to where they are going rather than hanging around cluttering up this spiritual plane. At the same time, he ensures that the vacant body cannot be taken over by another soul and become a zombie. This is important work! And Death, the old master from medieval times, has made it into a profitable business as well.

Like with all fantasy, you do need to lock your logic and practicality away when you read this. And I would strongly suggest a decent chunk of time for the first reading because it will take awhile to work out the whole world view. The other warning is that you won’t finish this in a hurry. It took me over a week, and that is a rarity. But then again, it is really three books in one.

This is a book for those with a taste for quirky adventure.

CS Sutton

Once again I have dipped into the backlog of old titles waiting for review. This was the first out of the box, and from the cover I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Chick lit, murder mystery, or historical? Did the publishers know or were they trying to grab all three readers.

Most of the book is set in 1911 and centres around the life of Cat Morley, a young servant who has been drawn into the suffragette movement, and been imprisoned for her efforts. Once released she is sent to serve as housemaid in a country vicarage. Enter a budding theosophist, and suddenly Cat is caught up in circumstances far beyond her control. But she is an intelligent girl and determined to find her way through the mess. That is until the mess ends in murder.

The second story, set in modern times, centres on a young journalist trying to identify the remains of a WWI soldier recently found in Belgium. Her search leads her to the same English village, where she meets the sole remaining descendent of the individuals involved in the 1911 scandal. But how is that going to help her put a name to the body?

These two stories were not at all balanced. It appears that the modern story was simply a plot device designed to drop clues about the eventual crime, or crimes, hundreds of pages before they were relevant. Certainly Webb gave her readers very little opportunity to get to know, or like, Leah and so the hint of romance at the end was really wasted. However, is was important to the modern mind to know that the truth would eventually be told. Somehow it makes all the lies and cover-ups that happened at the time more tolerable.

This is a book that was made for the ‘book club’ market. I can just imagine groups of mature women debating the ethics, the philosophy, and even a good dash of ‘was he or wasn’t he’. Fuelled with a bottle of wine and a good cheese, this book could easily provide hours of enjoyment long after the last page is turned.

CS Sutton

Regular readers will know that although I am a fan of Kellerman, recently his books have been very much written to formula. He has a formula that works, and both he and his publishers know it. If you think about it hard enough, all crime writing is essentially written to formula. In his early books, though, Kellerman used his understanding of child psychology to anchor his novels in a scary twisted subconscious mind. Well, the old Kellerman is back!

The murder is horrific, and somehow it just keeps going. But are Milo and Alex chasing one killer, or two, because not all have the same MO. And what on earth do the victims have in common? Apparently nothing. Is Milo finally stumped? The final explanation is so dark, so twisted, and yet so logical I am not going to spoil it here.

I do have one objection however. I am very uncomfortable with the new promotion for the Alex Delaware novels. Really, Alex Delaware is the Crime Reader! No the fans are the crime readers. Alex just brings an understanding of psychology to a police force too cheap to pay for consultants. Reading the scene of the crime is far more like CSI, and that is a long way from what these books are about.

Anyway, good to see a much loved author return to form.

CS Sutton

It is a rare thing for me to actually receive a book before its publication date and even rarer for me to read it before it is published. However, this year I am trying to prioritise YA reading and over the summer I had cleaned out the backlog. Then when this arrived (official publication was yesterday) it immediately jumped to the top of the list. I have already done a booktalk on the book and from the response, I think it will find a good audience.

This is the opening book of a trilogy set in a future where mankind has destroyed the world as we know it with nuclear weapons. The bombs were seeded with nanobots programmed to help put everything back together. Unfortunately the programming was faulty and as a result humanity was ‘put back together’ with whatever was closest at the time. For example Pressia, our heroine, was 7 years old and holding her favourite doll at the time. Now instead of her hand she has the doll’s head permanently attached. Of course some humans were protected by the Dome, a vast indoor city. Here humanity is pure, and unchanged – well maybe. After years of this stability, life starts to change when one brave young man leaves the safety of the Dome in search of his mother who was caught outside when the Detonations happened.

This is a very visual book. The publicity indicated that the film rights hand been sold even before publication, and it is very easy to imagine this story transformed into one of those modern scifi/horror flicks. But I think that the visual impact could actually make it harder to tell the story.

To my mind the story is actually about humans finding a way to work together in spite of their differences. It is about looking beyond any strangeness into the mind of the person within. It is also a story about holding fast to your beliefs and the power of faith. Not necessarily religious faith, more about being true to yourself and your past.

Regular readers will know that I often comment about book covers. The copy I received is white with pale blue lettering. In a bookshop I saw the edition with a pure black cover using a reflective ink to highlight the letters. Personally, I prefer the white edition. The black just doesn’t feel right for the story.

CS Sutton

First book from an author, always an adventure. The reader can’t really be sure about the journey they commence, but that is half the fun. Fredericks is certainly taking the reader for a ride, but the question is whether or not the trip is for real, or just theme park imitation.

Paul has survived WWI, physically at least. But the emotional scars are deep and very resistant to healing. Estranged from his Boston family, he spends his time in Europe, trying to write but in reality doing what he can to survive. While trying to make a go of it in London, an old friend asks him to help his famous relative write his memoirs. He lives on an idyllic country estate and Paul is welcome to join the household. However, strange things happen in the British countryside, and soon Paul is encountering ghosts, murders and a search for missing treasure.

I expected this to be a work of literature, rather than the reading for entertainment that I normally get to review. It certainly started out that way. This book could have been about the importance of friendship and acceptance in life. About how we all need others to help us deal with the painful experiences that everyone encounters. Instead it was more like a paranormal fantasy. There was a book that ‘spoke to the soul’, literally. Almost everyone in the family practiced astral-projection. In fact, the ghost seemed the most normal character in the book. And when Sylvie enters the scene? Well Fredericks totally lost the plot.

My advice for next time, decide from the start whether the book is going to be a drama, erotic romance, or fantasy. Then stick to one genre.

CS Sutton

Before I begin, I will remind everyone that I am a fan of the House of Night series. Maybe that is why I found my first experience of the novella spin-offs so disappointing. Really, it was childish and totally and completely unnecessary to the story arc. Now that I have that off my chest…

I suspect these novellas are meant to provide fans with background on each of the main adult vampires in House of Night. Certainly this one opened with Lenobia as a young girl in France months before she was marked. She escapes a certain future in service by pretending to be a noblewoman and heads off for New Orleans to marry a wealthy landowner. On the way she meets a couple of horses, we all know Lenobia, and eventually falls in love, but not with her intended. When she is caught, and disgraced, it all begins to look like her life is firmly on the road to happiness, until the final twist.

My real concern is about the target audience. The House of Night books are targeted for confident 14+ readers and of most interest to the 15+ crowd. These silly little books full of pictures and large text, excellent for the tweens. Great if the Casts are trying to attract a new audience. But the two series are simply too different. The craftsmanship, the linking of philosophical concepts, the whole cultural connection is missing. And worst of all, the language is so simple. It is almost as though the first word they thought of was written down and it would do.

I will admit that it only took a couple hours to read, but the time was well and truly wasted.

CS Sutton