Friday, 31 May 2013

Review: HIGH FIVE

High Five by Janet Evanovich
Book 5 of the Stephanie Plum series
Narrated by CJ Critt
Format: audiobook
Genre: crime fiction chicklit

About High Five:
"Uncle Fred was someone I saw at weddings and funerals and once in a while at Giovichinni's Meat Market, ordering a quarter pound of olive loaf. Eddie Such, the butcher, would have the olive loaf on the scale and Uncle Fred would say, 'You've got the olive loaf on a piece of waxed paper. How much does that piece of waxed paper weigh? You're not gonna charge me for that waxed paper, are you? I want some money off for the waxed paper.'"

The speaker is Stephanie Plum, the glamorous if slightly ditzy bounty hunter from Trenton, New Jersey, and one of the most original creations in recent mystery fiction.

In this fifth entry in Janet Evanovich's increasingly popular series, Stephanie's problems are many and varied. She's not making enough money picking up FTAs (Failures to Appear) for her cousin Vinnie, of Vincent Plum Bail Bonds; her red-hot love affair with Detective Joe Morelli has cooled off; and her giant extended family is no help at all. For instance, Uncle Fred the cheapskate has disappeared, leaving behind some suspicious photographs of body parts in garbage bags and links to some really dangerous people.

When Stephanie turns to her friend and mentor, Ranger, for financial advice, he gets her involved in a gang of toughs doing instant evictions for landlords. (She complains to Ranger about the job and its dangers, prompting one of the hired thug to say, "Man, you don't like to get shot. You don't like to get arrested. You don't know how to have fun at all.")

Most of Stephanie's charm, of course, comes from her attitude--a combination of the brazen bravado that turns a failed lingerie buyer into a bounty hunter in the first place and the normal fears of a person in over her head.
Source: Info in the About High Five was taken from at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6423.High_Five on 24/09/2012.

Review:
I know that Stephanie's being too stupid to live (TSTL) is part of her character and her charm but it is still annoying. So you have a known crazy stalker recently released from the prison you helped put him in to and you don't tell the police and go into major denial, with the misguided notion that it will all go away if you work hard enough at denial. Then you proceed to ignore sensible security precautions. And when that crazy, sadistic stalker finally catches up with you, you get all surprised and ask "why me?!".... and that is our kick-ass heroine. You know, for some strange reason I find it hard to identify with this heroine... I wonder why... Oh yes, I know! Stephanie is also a doormat without a spine! An ex-FTA comes to her door insisting on rooming in at her apartment with or without her consent and she gets angry but buys him coffee in the morning. A total dumbshit TSTL is one thing. A spineless doormat to boot? Anybody can run roughshod over her... Can't be a real person. I'm sorry, but nobody is just this dumb and live to be 20-something. Drops the suspension of disbelief down to the boots! But, see... this is the thing, no matter how low the suspension of disbelief drops down to, this book made me laugh, I weed myself! I laughed so hard I can't breathe and it became painful. Now not a lot of books achieves that! And so for the humour alone, can't give this book a less than two rating! If nothing else, don't read this book for the story, read this book for the humour! Somebody wise said once that laughter is the best medicine... oh, whoever that person was, he/she must not have been too wise 'coz if I had a weak heart, I'd be dead by now. Literally! Yeah, it was that funny!!

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 3.5
Character development = 2
Story itself = 1.5
Ending = 3.5
World building = 2
Cover art = 1
Pace = N/A (9.75 hrs listening time)
Plot = 2
Narrator = 4

Overall Rating: 2 out of 5 cherries

Thursday, 30 May 2013

No Strings Attached Giveaway Hop winners!

Because the No Strings Attached Giveaway Hop was chuck full of mistakes, I've decided to draw more than one winner as a gesture of goodwill. Not to mention that it will also help reduce my current stack and find good homes for the books which I am trying to clear from my shelves which was the whole point of the giveaway to begin with.




And the additional winner is:
Sofija K.


Congratulations to our winners!!!

Wednesday, 29 May 2013

WW28: THE OTHER LIFE

WW28 book offering: The Other Life by Susanne Winnaker

It was just a damn recording telling us the same thing over and over again.

Murders which are twistier than a cyclone...

About The Other Life:
3 years, 1 month, 1 week and 6 days since I’d seen daylight. One-fifth of my life. 98,409,602 seconds since the heavy, steel door had fallen shut and sealed us off from the world.

Sherry has lived with her family in a sealed bunker since things went wrong up above. But when they run out of food, Sherry and her dad must venture outside. There they find a world of devastation, desolation...and the Weepers: savage, mutant killers.

When Sherry's dad is snatched, she joins forces with gorgeous but troubled Joshua - an Avenger, determined to destroy the Weepers.

But can Sherry keep her family and Joshua safe, when his desire for vengeance threatens them all?
Source: Info in the About The Other Life was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9554790-the-other-life on 27/12/2012.

WW28
A chance to showcase your favourite!
  • First you grab our Wicked Wednesday pic.
  • Then you grab a book. Turn to page 28. Take the first sentence. And then you post it in your site with a link back to WW28.
  • Come back to Cherry Mischievous - WW28 and give us the url of your post (in a comment at a WW28 post) so that other WW28 readers can find your WW28 offering.

Monday, 27 May 2013

Review: FIRST GRAVE ON THE RIGHT

First Grave On The Right by Darynda Jones
Read by Lorelei King
Book 1 of Charley Davidson series
Genre: urban fantasy
Format: paperback, audiobook

About First Grave On The Right:
A smashing, award-winning debut novel that introduces Charley Davidson: part-time private investigator and full-time Grim Reaper.

Charley sees dead people. That’s right, she sees dead people. And it’s her job to convince them to “go into the light.” But when these very dead people have died under less than ideal circumstances (i.e. murder), sometimes they want Charley to bring the bad guys to justice. Complicating matters are the intensely hot dreams she’s been having about an Entity who has been following her all her life...and it turns out he might not be dead after all. In fact, he might be something else entirely.
Source: Info in the About First Grave On The Right was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8788554-first-grave-on-the-right on 22/12/12.

My Thoughts:
I love this fan-made digital art of the character in the book, Reyes. The artist took a bit of artistic license, but still befitting! Speaking of Reyes.... I wondered in my review of Grave Witch by Kalayna Price, if reaper or Death is the new vampire? And again, I wondered in this book... It seems to me that the reaper idea is gaining momentum and popularity in the current market... what do you think?

When I first started reading/listening to this book I wondered that if Charley is a portal... no, THE portal... then where do the souls from the other countries go? Does that mean that China or Timbukto is chuck full of souls? So, she is so very bright that she is like a worldwide beacon, does that mean that souls stream towards her to cross to the other side every minute of every day? Because people die every day and if you count the dead all over the world that is a lot of dead people. I like the way Darynda Jones answered my questions as the plot unfolded and make things sound all reasonable. Kudos to the logical world building in this book! Plus, I do like the thought of a grim reaper helping the cops catch bad guys. I think that is why I like the Grimm TV series despite it's pitfalls. It's those fantasy elements which pulls at my interest and pulls hard!
Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 4.5
Character development = 4.5
Story itself = 4
Ending = 4
World building = 4
Cover art = 4.5
Pace = N/A (9.5 hours listening time)
Plot = 4

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 cherries


Other Books In Charley Davidson Series:

Saturday, 25 May 2013

Review: STREET MAGIC

Street Magic by Caitlin Kittredge
Book 1 of the Black London series
Read by Terry Donnelly
Genre: urban fantasy
Format: paperback & audiobook

About Street Magic:
Her name is Pete Caldecott. She was just sixteen when she met Jack Winter, a gorgeous, larger-than-life mage who thrilled her with his witchcraft. Then a spirit Jack summoned killed him before Pete’s eyes — or so she thought. Now a detective , Pete is investigating the case of a young girl kidnapped from the streets of London. A tipster’s chilling prediction has led police directly to the child…but when Pete meets the informant, she’s shocked to learn he is none other than Jack. Strung out on heroin, Jack a shadow of his former self. But he’s able to tell Pete exactly where Bridget’s kidnappers are hiding: in the supernatural shadow-world of the fey. Even though she’s spent years disavowing the supernatural, Pete follows Jack into the invisible fey underworld, where she hopes to discover the truth about what happened to Bridget — and what happened to Jack on that dark day so long ago…
Source: Info in the About Street Magic was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5989616-street-magic?ac=1 on 19/04/2013.

Review:
The first volley is a background history of Pete and Jack twelve years ago. It was a story of a sixteen year old girl and a 26-year-old man fooling around with magic which was not very interesting to me at all. I struggled to get through that short chapter in the hopes that something good is around the bend. Because I wanted to believe that there is something good around the corner. Because I like the premise of this story. I am a sucker for police and/or investigative supernaturals, i.e., Portland Homicide Detective Nick Burkhardt of the Grimm TV show, Harry Dresden of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, Peter Grant of the Peter Grant series by Ben Aaronovitch, etc. So I really wanted to like this book. And that is a very powerful foundation to start a series/book with, which gave this book an edge over the other books in my whishlist and TBR pile clammoring for my attention. Thus this book got read. But a very slow start.

It didn't have the humour between the pages which I liked in the Peter Grant series but it did have the investigative plot which I find to be a good thing. It also has the mesmerizing world building that the Dresden Files have which made the world of DI Pete Caldecott addictive. Plus the book having Jim Butcher's endorsement in the cover also contributed to my picking this book up.

The story is based on the British culture which is obviously written by somebody not British trying to infuse the story with British colloquials and slangs a bit too much to the point of being atrocious. Not to mention that it also has a disorienting effect. Now the Peter Grant series, that is British, without the overdose of "Britspeak". Then there is Pete. She is suppose to be a police officer right? So Pete and Jack is walking down this dark alley in pursuit of information. She hears a scuffling sound and she ignores it and purposefully trains her eyes to the back of Jack's head (page 103). What if that was a gun-toting mugger? ...Dead cop, is more like! And that is not the only stupid thing Pete gets up to. Repeatedly stupid. She is also a Denial Queen of a cop. Unfortunately Pete is not the only stupid character in this book. So we have: Inconsistent character development. Non-realistic scenes. Suspension of disbelief down to the boots.

This book has it's pros and cons and this might be a good read to a more patient reader but this book is not for me.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 2
Character development = 1
Story itself = 2
Ending = 2.5
World building = 4
Cover art = 1.5
Pace = 1.5 (paperback) / (audiobook: 11 hrs and 39 mins listening time)
Plot = 3
Narration = 2

Overall Rating: 1.5 out of 5 cherries


Books In The Black London Series: