The Lost Years, Mary Higgins Clark

OMG. So. Bad!

This is the first Clark I've ready, but I've heard her name more than once. She's supposed to be a great mystery writer, so I thought I'd  try her out.

What could go wrong?

I could not dislike this more.

Ok, in all fairness, there are elements of this I did like. It kept me guessing, for one thing. One big thing. Gotta like that.

It's just not enough.

Ok, so Mariah's father is killed over a parchment he believes, and is, a letter written by Jesus. We're not talking about Jesus' words written by his disciples. We're talking in his own hand.

Mariah's mother has alzheimers and the police think she killed her husband because he was having an affair. He was, but she definitely didn't kill him.

He'd gone to his friends for authentication of the letter and one of them wanted it for themselves.

And there's always the horrible mistress, she could have done it. And she is horrible.

I had a strange sense of deja vu with this one. Again.

Criminal, Karin Slaughter

O. M. G!!

This was fantastic!

We finally get to learn more about Will's past.

So, Will and Sara are still going strong. Unfortunately, he spirals into despair when he finds out his father was released from prison.

We know is father killed his mother, but not much else.

Actually, there's another reason this is an awesome book: not only do we learn more about Will's past, we learn more about Amanda's.

Now, in Fallen, Faith's mom tells Will that Amanda is more like his mom that he thinks. As soon as she said that, I figured Amanda had found him when he was a baby. Still, now we get to see the whole story play out.

So, as much as I love that we learn about Will's origins, I love that we get to see young an naive Amanda.

Yes, Amanda was naive. Sheltered even.

Faithless, Karin Slaughter

Well, the Lena break was short lived.

And the Sara/Jeffery peace was short lived, too.

They've decided to move in together, so that's a step forward. But just as all seems right in the world, something else comes down on them. What was it I said in the Indelible review? They keep getting things thrown at them, testing them, but they keep making it work. Well, this time it's hepatitis. (Read the review for Indelible, and others, on my blog.)

Yeah, you read that right, hepatitis, as in the STD. Remember that little...*ahem* indiscretion, that ended his marriage with Sara the first time around? Yeah, the other woman called to tell him she had Hepatitis and he needs to get tested. Jeffery waits almost a week before telling Sara, making any excuse he can to stay away from her, and out of her bed. Her assumption, of course is that he's having another affair.

While chasing after a pissed off Sara, they stumble, literally, over a pipe jutting out of the ground. A pipe that leads to a coffin with the body of a young girl in it.

And the games begin.

They trace the body back to a farm and church out in the boonies. It gives off the cult vibe like no body's business. A big family, where the women folk do women things, and the men folk are in control. They take in at risk people: addicts, homeless, runways. The kind of people cults love.

Now, one of the family is found in a box.

Can you say "suspicious"?

The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova

"...The Historian is the story of a young woman plunged into a labyrinth where the secrets of her family's past connect to an inconceivable evil: the dark fifteenth-century reign of Vlad the Impaler and a time-defying pact that may have kept his awful work alive through the ages. The search for the truth becomes an adventure of monumental proportions, taking us from monasteries and dusty libraries to the capitals of Eastern Europe..."

Nothing in that said "vampires" and "Dracula" to me.

I mean, yes, I know Vlad the Impaler is the...inspiration, let's say, for Dracula, but nothing there indicated that's the route she was going. To me. Now, had I read the quoted blurbs, I wouldn't have been surprised when vampires made their appearance, but I never do. It's not like they're going to put ones that say the book sucks, or could be written better. So, I don't bother.

So, yeah, vampires.

The Last Testament, A Memoir by God

So....God is a psychopath. And a narcissist. And a sadist. And, well, just an all around asshole.

That's my takeaway from this book.

At this point, I should probably give my disclaimer, but I'm not going to. I feel like you've got the idea from the first line. And the book's title.

Look. The book has it's funny bits, but frankly, it's just too long to stay funny. The last 75 pages is just the original Revelations next to the "revised" version. It was definitely funnier to start, though it did tend to be a bit cynical at times. Maybe even mean spirited.

An example of a good part is when "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind," is explained to mean that you shouldn't cut off a man's genitals, use a knife to carve a slit where they were, and insert your penis so you can "lie" with him as a woman.

Oh, and God did create Adam and Steve, he just changed his name to Eve post-op.

But the only thing I can say I really loved for it's value, and not it's sarcasm or humor, was almost at the end, where it says, "Blessed are they that make a reasonable attempt at abiding by as many of my (Jesus') teachings as possible, whether or not they believe in my divinity..."

And I'm going to stop there. I can quote things, or give chapters (the ones on America are pretty good), but that's about it. There aren't any characters or plot to dissect. So, final verdict: Not bad, but too long.

The Last Testament, A Memoir by God

Stormlord's Exile, Glenda Larke

I feel like I should really title this "Ode to Fantasy Fiction." I think I'm a fairly eclectic reader,  generally speaking. Maybe, with the common thread of something different, something not easy to figure out. I like to be surprised. I mean, it's fine to know that everything is going to work out in the end, but that's just common sense. I feel like this book is a really good example about what fantasy fiction can really bring to the table.

It's kind of...coincidental that I picked this book after finishing Unholy Night. In that review, I tried to focus more on matters of faith than religion. That's not going to be possible in this one. So, I'll repeat my disclaimers: 

1)      If you are hyper religious, and find any negative portrayal of religion bad or blasphemous, don't bother with this book or review. You'll probably just be unhappy.

2)      If you are hyper non-religious, and don't see the point in discussing religion you may want to stop reading this review here. I'm going to go into the thoughts religion, which you may not enjoy.

See, one of my favorite things about the fantasy genre is it's ability to criticize society without pissing anyone off because the people/places/things they criticize aren't real. How can you get pissed they're criticizing a religion/politics that don't exist? This book does that and more.

OK, confession time: I don't really remember the first 2 books in the Watergivers trilogy. I vaguely remember them, broad strokes, but the details? Nope. Not really. But I've got enough to sketch out the world for you.

Unholy Night, Seth Grahame-Smith

This book is the tale of the three wise men, as imagined by the author of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (which was excellent, BTW - way better than the movie.).

As this book involves some religious figures, and that can be a touchy subject, I should start with 2 disclaimers:

1)      If you are hyper religious, and find any fictional portrayal of Christian figures as bad or blasphemous, don't bother with this book or review. You'll just be unhappy.

2)      If you are hyper non-religious, and don't see the point in discussing religion you may want to stop reading this review here. You may enjoy the book as a straight work of fiction, but I am going to go into thoughts on the religion it touches on, which you may not enjoy.

OK, so, the book is not about Jesus. Or Mary and Joseph. Well, maybe the holy couple a little. Sure, the holy family is in it, but it's not about them. The main character is a thief named Balthazar. He's more the kind of guy who might follow disclaimer number 2. He's murdered, he's stolen, he has no remorse, and certainly no faith. We meet him as he's riding across the desert attempting to evade the Judean soldiers chasing him. He's stolen from the governor of a nearby town.

He doesn't make it.