Tuesday, May 19, 2015

I am a NetGalley Member!


I recently signed up with NetGalley as a Professional Reader.  I honestly didn't know that there was such a thing!  I'd come across NetGalley before when reading other customer reviews on Goodreads, Amazon, etc. but never really gave much thought to it.  I had no idea what it was and to be honest, I had no idea what an ARC was!  I just kept seeing NetGalley and ARC popping up under reviews and blog posts and decided to find out what the deal was.

I found out what ARC meant right away.  Advance Reading Copy.  Wait, what?  You mean I get to read a book before it gets released?!  Ok, I just died and went to book heaven.  So many books!  So little time!

Of course I signed up immediately.  I followed their recommendations and filled out my profile and tried to make myself sound good to the publishers because they are the ones who hold the keys to book nirvana.  After setting up my account, I started searching for books.  Once I found one that sounded interesting I simply clicked on a box to request a copy and it was shipped off to the publisher to give me a yes or no.

I was turned down quite a bit, especially by the bigger publishers.  They want reviewers with more book reviews under their belt I guess.  But I wasn't going to give up and I found a few that wanted to give this amateur reviewer a chance and I just posted my first review today!  Now to find more books...

Review for The Bones of You by Debbie Howells

NetGalley provided an ARC and my review is an honest opinion and nothing was promised in return for my review other than the ARC, all opinions are my own.

I was intrigued when I first read the synopsis for The Bones of You.  The perfect daughter from the perfect family is missing and later found brutally murdered.  A murder mystery, a family with a terrible dark side, an innocent bystander who gets drawn into the middle after extending the branch of friendship and ends up solving not only the murder but also exposing the horrible secret behind the "perfect family".

The plot was enough to get my attention.  Rosie Anderson, oldest daughter of the town's perfect family, is missing.  She is found murdered and it rocks the town to its core, especially Kate McKay.  She is a local gardener and horse woman who has a daughter the same age as Rosie.  She believes that these types of things just don't happen here.  Is there a stranger in their midst, preying on their children?  Are any of them safe?  Kate McKay asks herself this question as she thanks the heavens that her own daughter, Grace, is alive and well.  What can only be described as survivor's guilt, Kate befriends Rosie's mother, the beautiful and fragile Joanna Anderson.

Through this friendship, Kate begins to unravel a family secret, a darkness that hides behind the dazzling façade that the Anderson's have built for themselves.  The beautiful and graceful Jo, her husband and renowned journalist, Neil and their youngest daughter, Delphine.  As anonymous notes arrive, Kate slowly begins to unravel the web of lies and deceit that surround Rosie's life and death, not knowing where they will lead.  It will make her ask the question, is anyone really who they seem to be?

While I really did enjoy this book, I will admit that it did take awhile for me to warm up to the story and to the characters.  I put it down and took it up again several times before I was able to let the story suck me in.  Some of the characters were a little wooden and one dimensional.  In some aspects they were barely there, but for some of these characters I think it does fit the story perfectly.  There are some people who float through our lives and never seem more than just a ghostly image and I believe that is what the author has achieved here. 

While I did enjoy the backstory provided by Rosie's perspective, the change in perspective was a bit jumpy at times and I think this could be smoothed out to make it more cohesive and less jarring.  There were times that even though you knew it was told from Rosie's perspective, it was still hard to follow at points.  There are a couple entries where the perspective is Rosie's but it's someone else who is actually speaking and this can be a little confusing at times.  There were also a few shifts into Delphine's perspective and I think that these subtracted from the story instead of adding to it. 

Overall, I would give this novel a solid 3 stars.  It may take some time to grow on you, but I think it's worth a look if you like a book with a few twists and turns with a fairly satisfying resolution.

The Bones of You on Amazon

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Harry Bosch Series by Michael Connelly

As if I didn't have enough series to follow, I started another one a few weeks ago.  A co-worker recommended the new Amazon produced show Bosch and said it was based on a book series.  I can't bring myself to watch a movie or television show that's been based on a book without reading the books first.  So that led me to my local library and luckily the first 15 (yes fifteen!) books were available immediately!  I checked them out three at a time and am now up to Echo Park, book 12 in the series.  I found out later that I only needed to read as far as City of Bones, the 9th book, to not lose anything by watching the series.  But I was hooked and am now reading now only all of the Harry Bosch books, but I've been hooked into reading a couple of books by Michael Connelly that don't have Harry as the main character, but he's there.  I had to read The Poet before I could read The Narrows.

I'm not actually going to review all of the books, that would take too long!  But I am going to recommend them to anyone who likes a good mystery and a good detective novel.  In Detective Hieronymus (rhymes with anonymous) Bosch you have a character who is flawed but likable.  His mother named him after a 15th century painter who was famous for his portrayal of earthly sins and his visions of hell.  This sometimes parallels Det. Bosch and his own struggles.  He was orphaned at an early age, spent time in Vietnam as a tunnel rat and seems to be constantly at odds with those in charge.  But he has an undeniable need and desire to do good, to make everyone count.  Every case matters, every victim counts no matter who they are or where they came from.  It didn't matter if they were the homeless man on the sidewalk or a Beverly Hills millionaire.  To Detective Harry Bosch, they all count, they all matter and he will do everything in his power to bring justice.

Even after reading 11 books in the series, I keep going back for more and am more than willing to branch out and get involved in other series by Connelly just to keep up with Harry Bosch.  And now that Bosch has been picked up for another season on Amazon, I'll have even more to look forward to once I get the rest of the series finished!

I will list the Harry Bosch books in order, but I'm also going to include some of the "offshoots" because I did find that I was a little lost when I first started The Narrows because they were talking about people and events that started in another book called the Poet that starred some of the supporting characters from the Bosch books.  I'll put those books in italics and it's also the order that I'm reading the books.

Happy Reading!!

The Black Echo (1992)
The Black Ice (1993)
The Concrete Blonde (1994)
The Last Coyote (1995)
The Poet (1996) Does not feature Harry Bosch but is the prequel to The Narrows
Trunk Music (1997)
Angels Flight (1999)
A Darkness More Than Night (2001)
City of Bones (2002)
Lost Light (2003)
The Narrows (2004)
The Lincoln Lawyer (2005) Part of the Mickey Haller series
The Closers (2005)
Echo Park (2006)
The Overlook (2007)
The Brass Verdict (2008) Part of the Mickey Haller Series
9 Dragons (2009)
The Reversal (2010) Part of the Mickey Haller Series
The Drop (2011)
The Fifth Witness (2011) Part of the Mickey Haller Series
The Black Box (2012)
The Gods of Guilt (2013) Part of the Mickey Haller Series
The Burning Room (2014)
The Crossing (2015) will be released in November 2015