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Showing posts with label Alexandra Sokoloff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alexandra Sokoloff. Show all posts
One thing about blogging and reviewing for more than 10 years is that my body has gotten older and not quite able to deal with the results of a reader's life. As this little paw symbolizes, I'm holding on more as I walk and cutting back on sitting for long periods, reading or typing. My joints are presenting problems and I'm trying to do more walking in response. Having to use a cane quite often. But that doesn't stop me from reading...it just means that I'm trying to do more work around the house, standing, to get myself back hopefully to moving without pain... Here's some of the beautiful growth that is sprouting as I walk:
Use lots of River Rocks for Areas!
So I decided, because my need to review has stacked up, I would cut back on my normal overview and just try to give you a good feeling of my thoughts on each book, hoping you will read other reviews and the book description to learn what the book is about... As you know, I am no longer accepting new requests, but since they keep coming, sometimes I'll check it out! Let's see what I've been reading over past weeks in no order of listing! I'll be doing this type of review until I finish with backlog, unless, of course, I get inspired, to really get into a book, with music, got instance and...can't resist!
Dylan has become one of my favorite nonfiction authors. Here's the first words of this latest book I purchased. "The world system, both political and economic, has, yet again, descended into a state of confused chaos, like some old, creaky, runaway steam-train about to veer off its highly dysfunctional tracks. The common man, stunned...remains disillusioned with the leadership of all political cowboys, equipped with their six-shooters, honed egos, and unreformed, highly inflated expense accounts. The answer doesn't seem to lie there then!" What I value most about this author is his willingness to look at daily living, critique it as he has seen or faced it, and shares what he thinks, along with some potential path for his readers...You either choose to consider his brilliant thoughts, and maybe even not be sure what he's talking about some times, so you have to reread... For me, what he says makes sense and I have found I keep his books on my reader so that I can daily, when possible, spend time to receive what he's sharing with us. Any of his books, I would recommend. His topics. sometimes based on a quote from another writer, in this book speak much to me...Highly recommended.
This is the last book in the Moon series--a wonderful series that I've enjoyed from the beginning. Sokoloff does an excellent job in closing out the series, touching on all the characters, and what's been happening. I think the main villain character, Cara, is one I will never forget, perhaps there is even a touch of admiration, as she goes through life, after having all her family killed, and returning the favor to all who violate the innocent. Indeed even Roarke, the man who was been on her trail remembers: "It was where he lived now, in his mind, that windy night when he’d stood in the palm grove, calling out for Cara. Had he heard her say, 'Come'? Or was that his own, desperate imagining? The truth was, he had been half a breath away from following her out into the desert, never to return. We are all mad, here..." Perfect series, perfect ending...but don't start with anything but the first book is my recommendation. This intriguing series must be read from the start and is highly recommended...
Ok, even if it's a children's book, I love reading stories about cats...and this book about a misfit cat is a great tale for your children (and anybody else who loves cats like I do.) Rattles was a barn cat, but when he got older, he was different that the others...He liked humans--in fact, he preferred humans to staying in the barn... But there are also some life lessons to learn, of course, and the author and colorful illustrated book is an excellent way to help teach about being different... Enjoy!
When an individual closes herself off from the world via her church and home, it is often difficult to take in, absorb, and react to something extraordinary...Meet Senora Teresa Reina who has served her family and church all of her life. Now her husband has died and she is left with only her brother, already in the priesthood, and her son who is now a novice priest, and her daughter. Blessings that she clings to. Until the outside world comes. I've often heard that Satan chooses to attack devout families often. Perhaps that was the challenge. Or perhaps, it was just a biological fact of nature. I have often thought about God's love and in His creation of all of us. Did he really make a mistake? Or, was homosexuality a biological evolutional change throughout the years that, indeed, have affected so many. I don't have an answer, but the church has always been outspoken. This time, the most important men left in Teresa's life had allowed homosexuality to reign, if we are to believe that it is a sin... What Teresa knew was that she had lost the only two male family members... She and her daughter stood alone to face the choice of suicide that both of the men chose...But Teresa was not to be satisfied to continue her life as it had been... God's judgment or something else... Was it a dream or a true "shudder from Heaven...Make of it what you may, for Kemp has given us a provocative, unique, and memorable tale...is each of our paths known in advance by God? Highly recommended!
All I had to do was read the title and I figured this was going to be a fun book! Did I snicker throughout? You bet!To be Continued...
The psychiatrist sits behind an ugly desk in a long room lines with books. It is the all-purpose meeting room, for appointments with social workers, sessions with therapists. Dr. Everhardt begins the way they all begin. "How are you feeling today, Cara?" He is already looking at her neck and it is all she can do not to lunge across the desk and scratch out his eyes. "Eden," she says, without inflection. "Of course," he says. "Eden. I'll just start by asking a few questions, all right?" The questions are always the same: In the past week, did you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep? Did you feel depressed or sad? Were you afraid of things? Did you think or worry about bad things that you have seen or have happened to you? Did you have thoughts of harming yourself? Did you have thoughts of harming someone else? Her answers are carefully calculated. Of course she doesn't think about harming herself. Of course she doesn't think about harming anyone else. For some of the lesser questions, like Were you sad this week?--it's safe to answer yes or "once or twice" or "on a few days." That's Normal. Every answer she gives is designed to make her appear Normal, just as every question is designed to trick her into seeming Not Normal. And then come the crucial questions, the ones she must always answer with No. "Are you seeing anything that shouldn't be there?" You mean the shadows that are more than shadows? "No." "Are you hearing voices?" Just the moon talking, and the air, and the lizards... "No." "Any flashbacks?" Like the monster in my room? "No." "Nothing that scares you?" "No," she says. No matter how she answer these questions. They will give her medication anyway. All the group home kids are medicated. She wants the medication. She would like it to work. She sees things, of course she sees things, and hears things too, ever since The Night. According to Them, the things she sees aren't real. So they give her drugs to make them go away. The problem is, they don't. When she leaves the psychiatrist, she walks back to the bedroom wing, past the signs on the walls. Instead of pictures and posters, there are charts and lists of rules. She notes the doors. Every door. Front door, back door, side door. In her waistband is the pen she picked up from the psychiatrist's desk. The rules on pens vary from group home to group home. The wards here may be allowed pens, they may not. But a pen is as functional a weapon as a knife, and less likely to result in jail time, since the meaning of a pen is ambiguous. There is nothing ambiguous about a concealed knife.
~~~
Bitter Moon
By Alexandra Sokoloff
I've only been able to read two books from this great series... Check out my review of Huntress Moon, the Debut. Fortunately, Bitter Moon provides sufficient information on what has been missed to allow readers to move easily into this latest book. For instance, The Night is referred to by Cara, the main character, a number of times, but the explanation about this being the night when all her family was killed, except her, who was wounded and appeared to be dead, is explained. I hope to still fully catch up on books I've missed since I love the writing of the author and, in particular, this series.
In this book there is a unique character switch between Roarke, the FBI agent who has been involved in the case from the beginning. The switch to Cara, however, is to a time when she was only 14. She had arrived at Las Petras to move into a group home after she had been released from prison. This produced an intriguing, almost eerie time gap situation since Cara had conducted her own investigation during her short time in Las Petras, while Roarke, who had been on leave, gets a call which was curious enough that he took a trip to talk to the caller and find out more.
In essence, Roarke finds out what had happened in the little town of Las Piedras, during Cara's stay... and cannot leave it alone... As he works to find out what was going on he meets a nun who had known Cara and as he tells her more about what had happened, she offers for him to stay in the mission guest house and she works along with him as she was able... She had been involved and wanted to see it finally finished! Cara, after the deaths of her parents, had become more attuned to people, or perhaps it was a paranormal change to her after the trauma. And she had begun to see visions... Either way, Cara was now able to identify an individual who carried IT--Evil!
And so when she had started to school and had seen a young girl, bloody and hurt, walking toward her, she knew. IT was here in Las Piedras. She tried to talk to the girl, even following her into the restroom where they could talk, if she would. But the girl wouldn't share anything with Cara.
That wouldn't work for Cara. Where evil was, she was ready to do what she had come to know was her mission. To eliminate IT wherever IT was...
She started her own investigation and soon had met several men she was trying to learn more about. She also began to follow Laura and saw her one day entering a group of people, including students. She began to feel that this was where it was happening for Laura...
And then she followed her to a local mission and saw her enter and go to visit somebody who was in one of the rooms. Only to discover that there was another young girl, also 14, as Laura and Cara were. Except she could not speak, and her entire body was covered with burned skin...She had been raped and then burned and left to die. But she was strong enough to return and was given a home at this mission while the police were trying to find out who had done this terrible thing...
Nobody ever knew what Cara had discovered. Until we read of Roarke's investigation years later. Cara is now wanted for murder, older, and still following her mission. But Roarke has come to Las Piedras. And when he discovers what happened during Cara's short stay--that two girls the same age as Cara were dead, he began to dig further, asking members of his former FBI team to do some research. What he found was unbelievable... There was a trail of deaths going back years. And, it was still going on!
The evil in Las Piedras MUST be stopped! Cara started years ago; Roark finished it in a totally surprising climax that is exciting, but much more, totally satisfying! Good over evil! I love it! But what will happen to Cara as she is out there finding IT? Will she ever be captured to pay for the completion of her mission to destroy evil? Should she? Quite a provocative tale for us to consider! Don't you think?!
Readers, you know by now... check it out or not...This is a very graphic novel of what is even now being done to young children who are taken away from families by evil people. Personally I need to know that there are those speaking out to say Good does win...I highly recommend this thriller!
GABixlerReviews
"Some of the most original and freshly unnerving work in the genre." - The New York Times
ALEXANDRA SOKOLOFF is the Thriller Award-winning and Bram Stoker, Anthony, and Black Quill Award-nominated author of the Amazon bestselling Huntress/FBI series (HUNTRESS MOON, BLOOD MOON, COLD MOON, BITTER MOON, HUNGER MOON - now n development as a TV series), and the supernatural HAUNTED thrillers (THE HARROWING, THE PRICE, THE UNSEEN, BOOK OF SHADOWS, THE SHIFTERS, THE SPACE BETWEEN). The New York Times Book Review called her a "daughter of Mary Shelley," and her books "Some of the most original and freshly unnerving work in the genre."
As a screenwriter she has sold original horror and thriller scripts and adapted novels for numerous Hollywood studios. She has also written three non-fiction workbooks: SCREENWRITING TRICKS FOR AUTHORS, STEALING HOLLYWOOD, and WRITING LOVE, based on her internationally acclaimed workshops and blog (www.ScreenwritingTricks.com), and has served on the Board of Directors of the WGA, west and the Board of the Mystery Writers of America.
Alex is a California native and a graduate of U.C. Berkeley, where she majored in theater and minored in everything Berkeley has a reputation for. In her spare time (!) she performs with The Slice Girls and Heather Graham's all-author Slush Pile Players, and dances like a fiend. She is also very active on Facebook. But not an addict. Seriously, it's under control.
A Hunter's Moon doesn't create the illusion of two suns, isn't a miracle, occurs annually, and online images purporting to show this year's Hunter's Moon are actually much older.
Chosen Purely for Atmosphere...
...all morning Roarke had had a bad feeling. He'd woken from an old childhood dream of a lurking monster, and it was the damn dream that had him most spooked; it always came up in times of extreme stress or anxiety and it never boded well.
He didn't think of any of this as psychic or precognitive; he'd been an investigator for far too long not to know that the human brain processes information too fast for the brain's owner to be aware of exactly where those subtle signs and warnings are coming from. Something had been off about Greer's last reports and had triggered early warning bells in Roarke's head. Cops called in "Blue Sense" or "Spider Sense--"
A horn blasted in Roarke's ear, startling him back to the present. He'd almost stepped straight into traffic on the busy street.
He lifted a hand in apology to the car that had just missed him, then breathed in and waited five more seconds for the light, and sped through the crosswalk toward the appointed meeting place.
It was a Peet's Coffee, perched halfway down the block of a steep incline, one of those streets that give San Franciscans some of the most toned asses and thighs in the continental U.S. Roarke slowed his pace slightly to cushion the shin-jarring descent.
The Peet's had a fences in outside seating area with wrought-iron tables and chairs, set off from the curb with flowering planters. The meeting was arranged to look like a chance encounter, two random businessmen in suits, bumping elbows at the counter.
Roarke started to turn into the cafe, when something made him turn his head--and he saw Greer on the sidewalk across the street, about to cross mid-block. The men did not acknowledge each other in any way; that was not the plan. But Roarke felt a tidal wave of relief, seeing him.
Safe, he thought, and thanked whatever God was out there.
But Roarke didn't turn away, because that was when he saw her, standing on the sidewalk, just a bit behind Greet.
She was medium height, tall in boots, and slim, with long, lithe muscles like a cat. This Roarke could see because her arms were bare, even in the brisk air; she wore a form-fitting black top with a turtleneck. There was something fetishy in the combination of bare arms and high neck that was arresting, bt so was everything about her, her past-the-shoulder blond hair and black sunglasses, the way she stood in tight black pants and boots. The city was full of striking women, that was not what drew him. And for that weird second, he felt that he knew her, too.
He would remember every detail of that moment for a long, long time. The sun of her hair, The stretch black of her turtleneck and the taut muscles of her arms. The gleam of chrome on the truck. The violent purple irises in the flower stand behind Greet. The smell of exhaust and coffee.
Roarke was still looking at the street, at her, when the truck rumbled by, a huge semi-which momentarily obscured his view of the woman in black. And then there was the screeching of worn brakes straining against the downward plunge of the hill. and Roarke turned just in time to hear a sickening thud and see blood exploding over the truck's front grille and a man's body flying, and then there was screaming, one scream on top of another, and male shouting, a building wave of panic. And then the woman was gone and the sidewalk was crowded with people turning away or shrieking in horror... and through the chaos and the screaming Road realized he had just watched his agent obliterated by a seventeen-tone commercial truck.
~~~
huntress moon
By alexandra sokoloff
The back blurb for this novel is sufficient to provide the overview of the story. A haunted FBI agent...and a female serial killer... Rare, but they do exist, at least in the Debut of the series now out again after receiving awards in 2012 when it first came out. Only problem I had? I wanted to immediately go out and get the entire series, but my prior commitments stopped me. The unique angle that the author presents readers makes for great reading. I was drawn into the life of the killer just as FBI Special Agent Matthew Roarke was...
Roarke had earlier been a member of the Behavioral Analysis Unit but had transferred out when it began to affect him personally. Now, one of his men who had been undercover is dead...and he knows that he was murdered. As a senior agent, he is able to seek approval from his boss to find his agent's killer, and he's starting with the woman he had seen directly behind him when Greer had died by a seeming accident.
For me, the book was clearly driven by the characters...Roarke as a child was immediately drawn to the FBI and retained his desire to join through school and into adulthood. It did surprise him that he chose to move into a different department. But as he started "hunting," he met with a former mentor of his and was once again aware that he had a special knack for the work. He found he was getting excited as he started back out on his own, searching where to begin and then following the trail.
One of the first things he tried was to have a search made on other deaths that had certain key words highlighting what had happened. He discovered two previous deaths! The hunt had begun!
She sits in the rough-riding BART train, headed to San Francisco International Airport. No need for a rental car in this city; the public transportation is faster than any other vehicle and there is no parking to be found anywhere, anyway. Parking tickets are dangerous, to be avoided at all cost; they leave a time-stamped trail. So after disposing of the bleach-soaked bedding in a restaurant dumpster she'd descended one of the escalators on Market street, to a BART stop and bought an eight-dollar ticket to SFO.
She wears a tailored charcoal overcoat, her hair is tucked up on a black, short wig, and she carried nothing but a rolling carryon bag, which gives her the appearance of dozens of others on the train, just another business traveler on her way out of town.
She feels a profound calm; there is always that feeling of respite when an encounter goes so perfectly, to its highest and best conclusion.
Only one thing mars the feeling of peace. The man she saw across the street is law enforcement. Too observant to be anything else, too vigilant; it was in his clothes, his posture, his eyes. She thinks back over every moment, fixing each second in time, examining it. Not police; the cut of the suit said FBI. And he had seen her...but then, there had been nothing to see. The truck had been too big, too fast. Nothing too much to concern her.
Still, she will not stay another second in the city. She will find a car and take a circuitous route, go along some way where there are no people, just her and the car, no need for contact. Everything will be revealed, as it always is.
It is, after all, a whole week until the day.
As she sits, rocking slightly with the movement of the car, the train screeches metallically on its tracks, a surreal and disturbing sound. A weathered man is staring at her from several seats away, unkempt and on drugs at least, probably homeless, but he has the look that she knows so well.
She is more and more tense as he stares, her breath coming harsh in her throat. The sound of the train feels like screaming. Her hand goes to her coat pocket, slips inside to finger the straight razor concealed there.
As the train slows at the next stop, the man rises clumsily, smiling vacantly, his eyes burning, and walks straight for her.
As he reaches to touch her she slashes the razor across his fingers. It happens so fast she can barely hear the shriek as he realized his hand is dripping blood and fingers to the dirty car floor--
The man in the aisle veers away from her as if he knows what she is thinking and she rouses herself from the fantasy. Of course she has not cut him. This is a trap, part of the Game, put in front of her to taunt her, to trick her into making a mistake. There is no way to take care of him, not now, not here, there are too many people, and she must concentrate on getting clear, leaving with as few ripples as humanly possible. He staggers off the train and her heart quiets again. Her hand stays in her pocket, loosely gripping the razor.
~~~
I have to admit I felt sympathy for this serial killer. Even knowing what she had done...Her MO was using a straight razor on both sides of the neck, cutting the carotid arteries... Shall we say she had considered how she would do it, and came up with an excellent effective method? No, I wasn't excited by the killing. It was the reason. I wanted to know why... And so did Roarke... So I followed each step he made, each conclusion he reached...and I watched as he, too, became possessive about this woman...
As I read further, I began to think about an old movie, titled "Laura" where an investigator falls for the painting of a woman and becomes obsessed. Could Roarke have seen something in her as she stood on the street that day while he waited to meet his agent, Greer." Or is it just my imagination that attached a personal connection between the killer and her hunter...Is she, after all, the true huntress? The suspense is thick with emotion as we witness some of the actions of the mystery lady. But there is also something taunting us not to believe all that we learn about. Then with the surprising ending, there is no real satisfaction. There is a need, a desire to move on... into the next book!
Alexandra Sokoloff left me wanting, needing to know what happens in this series. I don't think any other series has affected me quite so much in this particular way. I don't want the murderer to be caught... Quite a dilemma for me, don't you think?! What?!!! There's no doubt for this one...Get the book and tell me what you think?!
GABixlerReviews
I'm the Thriller Award-winning and Bram Stoker and Anthony Award-nominated author of the Amazon bestselling crime and supernatural thrillers The Harrowing, The Price, Book of Shadows, The Unseen, The Space Between, and the new Thriller Award- nominated Huntress/FBI thriller series: Huntress Moon, Blood Moon, Cold Moon. Bitter Moon. The New York Times Book Review has called me "a daughter of Mary Shelley" and my novels "some of the most original and freshly unnerving work in the genre."
I'm a California native and a graduate of U.C. Berkeley, where I majored in theater and minored in everything that Berkeley has a reputation for. After college I moved to Los Angeles, where I've made an interesting living doing novel adaptations and selling original thriller scripts to various Hollywood studios.
In my stories I like to cross the possibility of the supernatural with very real life explanations for any strangeness going on, and base the action squarely in fact. THE UNSEEN is based on real paranormal research conducted at the Duke University parapsychology lab, and BOOK OF SHADOWS teams a Boston homicide detective and a practicing Salem witch in a race to solve what may be a Satanic killing. THE SPACE BETWEEN, is an edgy supernatural YA about a troubled high school girl who is having dreams of a terrible massacre at her school, and becomes convinced that she can prevent the shooting if she can unravel the dream.
I also have written paranormal romance (THE SHIFTERS, KEEPER OF THE SHADOWS) and the non-fiction workbooks SCREENWRITING TRICKS FOR AUTHORS and WRITING LOVE, based on my internationally acclaimed workshops and blog (http://screenwritingtricks.com)
I live in Los Angeles and in Scotland, with Scottish crime author Craig Robertson.
When I'm not writing I dance: jazz, ballet, salsa, Lindy, swing - I do it all, every chance I get.
