Rachel Caine – The Dead Girls' Dance

There are no spoilers for the book being reviewed but there may be spoilers for previous books in the series.

Book two of the Morganville Vampires series. This book picks up immediately after the events of the first book Glass Houses. Shane’s Dad and his vampire hunting gang have arrived in town. They are determined to kill as many vampires as possible which causes a great deal of trouble for Claire and her friends.

I enjoyed this book as much as the first one and am looking forward to seeing where the series is going to go. This book had a bit more action than the first one as we know the characters now and are just thrown straight into the story without the need for introductions. The book remained fast paced throughout.

I found it interesting to find out more about Shane and his past. His relationship with Claire really starts to take shape in this book so it’s nice to know a bit more about him. We also have the introduction of Eve’s unstable brother Jason. I’m hoping this is something that will be expanded on in future books as we are given bits and pieces about Eve’s history and it would be nice to learn more.

Not such a cliff-hanger ending on this one but still plenty of questions and suspense to carry over to book three! Looking forward to reading it.

Rachel Caine – Glass Houses

Book one of the Morganville Vampires series. Claire Danvers is a sixteen year old girl genius on and early intake into college having aces all of her high school exams. She was hoping to go to one of the big well known colleges but her parents decided that it would be best if she started off at TPU, a smaller more local college in Morganville, Texas before transferring to a better college further from home when she turns eighteen. What Claire and her parents didn’t know was that Morganville is not like other towns, it is run by vampires and can be a very dangerous place. Bullied by a girl in the dorm Claire moves out of the campus accommodation and into a house with Eve, Michael and Shane, three friends who grew up in the town. Claire soon begins to learn Morganville’s secrets and finds out that it can be a very dangerous place.

I wasn’t sure about this book to begin with. It’s clearly aimed at people half my age which was a little off putting. However, I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and I’m glad I did. If you’re looking for something deep and meaningful or literary genius you won’t find it in Glass Houses, but I read for entertainment and that is exactly what I got.

The characters are interesting. Claire is a small, quiet girl of high intelligence and slightly geeky who seems to have lead a fairly sheltered life. She also seems fairly mature for her age in many respects. Eve is an outspoken goth girl who works in the local coffee shop. Michael is a slightly mysterious musician who only seems to come out at night despite not being a vampire and Shane is a bit of a tough guy who is unemployed. There is also a fairly large cast of supporting characters, many of whom as interesting and I hope we’ll find out more about them throughout the series.

There’s not a huge amount of action in this book, a lot of it is getting to know the characters and the town but it still feels fairly fast paced throughout a lot of the book and that picks up more and more as the book goes on. I was quickly drawn into the story and when it ended I was keen to start on book two.

This was a quick read for me. It’s around 350 pages of fairly large text and I read it in a day. Looking forward to reading the rest of the series.

John Rector - Cold Kiss

Nate and Sara are moving away, their few belongings packed into their beat up old car. When a hitchhiker offers them money for a ride they feel unable to turn it down but they soon start to regret the decision, especially when a heavy snowstorm forces them to make a stop at an isolated motel.

This story gets going quickly and remains at a pretty fast pace throughout. There were several twists and turns to the plot which kept in fresh and interesting. I did work out who the baddie was (it’s really obvious once you are given a few small details) but that didn’t have any detrimental effect for me.

It was a quick read with large text and under 300 pages so I finished it in a day. The characters were all pretty interesting, I’d have liked to have found out a bit more about some of them. I liked the setting in the snowed in motel, it added atmosphere and helped the creepiness of the story.

I enjoyed the book and will read more by John Rector in the future.

Neil Cross – Burial

Can your guiltiest secret ever be buried? Nathan has never been able to forget the worst night of his life: the party that led to the sudden, shocking death of a young woman. Only he and Bob, an untrustworthy old acquaintance, know what really happened and they have resolved to keep it that way. But one rainy night, years later, Bob appears at Nathan's door with terrifying news, and old wounds are suddenly reopened, threatening to tear Nathan's whole world apart. Because Nathan has his own secrets now. Secrets that could destroy everything he has fought to build. And maybe Bob doesn't realise just how far Nathan will go to protect them... (synopsis from amazon.co.uk).

Burial is the first Neil Cross book that I have read but it won’t be the last. The premise is nothing new: Old secret rears its head, threatens to destroy current life, something must be done to keep the secret buried. I liked the way that it was done though. There were some interesting plot twists throughout which helped to keep the story fresh and interesting and the pacing was just right. I liked the writing style and found the characters interesting. I even found myself feeling sorry for Nathan at times although never for long as any trouble that comes his way is pretty much down to his own actions / inactions and he did seem to have a habit of being rather stupid sometimes!

The book was quite short coming in at around 300 pages of fairly big text so I read it in under a day.

When I bought Burial I also liked the sound of several other Neil Cross books but only bought this one in case I didn’t like it. As I enjoyed it I will definitely be picking up some more of his books in the near future to add to my (ever increasing) to read pile.

Harlan Coben – Tell No One

Eight years ago David Beck’s wife Elizabeth was kidnapped and murdered and he has been grieving for her ever since. The he receives a strange email with a link that appears to show Elizabeth alive. As he tries to unravel the mystery he finds that he is now in danger and that there is a lot more behind Elizabeth’s murder then he had previously believed.

Tell No One is the second book by Harlan Coben that I have read. I had previously read Darkest Fear and whilst I had enjoyed the story I really didn’t like the main character, Myron Bolitar so this time I made sure I picked a book that wasn’t from the Myron Bolitar series. To begin with I was worried that the same thing was going to happen again as I took a dislike to David Beck to begin with although luckily he did grow on me and by the end of the book I decided that he was alright. The other characters in the book were pretty good although they were often a little too perfect at times and somewhat stereotypical as well.

The story itself was good, it was well paced and kept me interested throughout. The ending was a little unbelievable but I didn’t feel that it spoilt the book at all. There were two other things that annoyed me but I can’t say what they were without spoilers!

Overall I’m still not entirely convinced by Harlan Coben. I like his writing style and I like his storylines. However, I am still not all that keen on his characters although I can’t quite figure out why. I will read another of his books as the plot summaries on the back always interest me but he’s still not an author that I will be rushing out to buy as soon as the book is released.

Dean Koontz – What the Night Knows (with bonus story Darkness Under the Sun)

Detective John Calvino’s family were brutally murdered by a serial killer when he was a teenager. John survived and managed to kill the killer. Now, twenty years on he has a family of his own and is leading a very happy life. Then a family is murdered in circumstances very similar to those of the killer twenty years ago. John is convinced that his family are in danger but how can he explain it to people when the killer is long dead.

To me this book seemed a little more like classic Koontz compared to his other recent work. I think this is a good thing. I read this book quite slowly but that was more to do with life getting in the way of reading than any fault of the book.

I liked the characters, they were all a little too perfect but I can live with that. The story was entertaining and well paced although it did require a little suspension of disbelief at times (which is not a problem for me, it is fiction after all).

I remain convinced that I would easily be able to detect Dean Koontz’s writing in a “blind” reading, he has a very distinctive style of writing and often incorporates regular themes into his books many of which were present in this book.

The bonus story, Darkness Under the Sun is a prequel to the events of What the Night Knows. I really enjoyed the story and thought it added a lot to the book. If you are going to buy this book then I would strongly recommend finding one of the editions with the story included.

Stacia Kane – Unholy Magic

Unholy Magic is book two in the Downside Ghosts series. It picks up shortly after the events of Unholy Ghosts. Chess is assigned a new task from the church looking into a reported haunting in a celebrity’s house. At the same time local drug dealer and pimp Bump wants her to investigate the deaths of several prostitutes from the area who seem to have been killed by a ghost.

I think I enjoyed this book more than the first one. In this book we get to know a little more about the characters which I found interesting. Chess is managing to mess her life up even more than she was before and her drug dependence seems to be worsening. I did have one small issue and that is if her drug addiction is as bad as it’s supposed to be then I’m sure someone from the church would have noticed by now.

The storyline in this book was a good mix of the ghosts / murdering plot and the personal lives of the main characters. I thought it was well paced and it kept me thoroughly entertained throughout. It has left me really looking forward to reading the third book.