Books Books and More Books

Today’s post is about books. Are you surprised I want to talk about books? I kind of am. You see, there for awhile, I lost my love of reading and writing. But I’m working on finding it again. I think what really happened was I lost the ability to lose myself in the story. Mainly because I was too busy trying to pick the story apart. So I’ve ended up spending some time away from fiction books. I’ve been reading a lot of “here’s what to expect with your baby at this age” books and before that “here’s what to expect at this stage of your pregnancy”, and many craft books. But over the last several months I’ve been reading again, or at least trying to.

I’ve actually picked up some fiction novels and read them. I started with some romantic suspense novels (my first love) and most recently finished a YA novel. I also have the Kindle for iPhone and have a few e-books stored there as well.

My original thought for this post was to tell you a little bit about some of these stories and my grade for each. However, due to timing, I’m going to have to break these posts out into multi posts. Perhaps a weekly book post. Yes, I think I like that idea. Every Friday will be book day - books I’m reading, books I want to read and other book related topics. That should make for some Friday fun discussions. It also ensures that I post somewhat regularly.

So for this Friday our first book featured post is Wicked Game by Lisa Jackson and Nancy Bush. I read this book while I was out on maternity leave. You can read an excerpt of the book here.

But here’s the blurb:

ONE BY ONE, THEY’LL DIE.

Twenty years ago, wild child Jessie Brentwood vanished from St. Elizabeth’s high school. Most in Jessie’s tight circle of friends believed she simply ran away. Few suspected that Jessie was hiding a shocking secret-one that brought her into the crosshairs of a vicious killer.

UNTIL THERE’S NO ONE LEFT.

Two decades pass before a body is unearthed on school grounds and Jessie’s old friends reunite to talk. Most are sure that the body is Jessie’s, that the mystery of what happened to her has finally been solved. But soon, Jessie’s friends each begin to die in horrible, freak accidents that defy explanation.

BUT HER.

Becca Sutcliff has been haunted for years by unsettling visions of Jessie, certain her friend met with a grisly end. Now the latest deaths have her rattled. Becca can sense that an evil force is shadowing her too, waiting for just the right moment to strike. She feels like she’s going crazy. Is it all a coincidence-or has Jessie’s killer finally returned to finish what was started all those years ago?

So let me start by saying that the blurb hooked me. I was looking for something different, and I thought this was it. The story started out all right and kept up an ok pace until about one-hundred or so pages in. Then it started slowing way down. I think because the plot got caught up in itself. There were a lot of characters, and they didn’t seem to act rationally. There were a lot of ‘clues’ that never really gave a clue as to what was happening and many of the character’s motivations just were not there. I could specifically site the Hero, Hudson, and the Heroine, Becca, who repeatedly claimed they wanted answers, but when it came right down to getting the answers were more interested in jumping each others bones than seeking the answers. Even after Hudson’s sister was killed. I could, maybe, forgive this if I felt an emotional tug but that too fell short of the mark.

The only thing that kept me reading was the dangling carrot. The Colony. This plot point did fascinate me, and I’d hoped for more on this. Ms. Jackson and Ms. Bush definitely knew how to work the line so as to keep it just out of reach. Almost too well, because it started to become a little frustrating. Especially at the end when there seemed to be a huge information dump where the authors told me a whole bunch of backstory instead of letting it unfold.

Overall, I ended up with mixed feelings about the book. On the one hand I was disappointed. However, on the other hand, I bought the next book, Unseen, in The Colony series by Nancy Bush. Which I would not have bought had I not still been very curious about the The Colony.

Still, even with that in mind, I have to rate the book a solid C. There were too many other issues for me to rate it higher.