Joelle Charbonneau- "Skating Around the Law"

At my hometown in Colorado, we had a roller skating rink called skate castle. All the popular kids went there to use their roller blades. No one used the tan skates they had. Only nerds used them. I hated it there. It reeked of cheese and feet. Which smell like the same thing. When I started reading this book, it brought back a lot of middle school memories.

Rebecca Robbins has to travel back home to sell her mother's roller skating rink. While there, a man is murdered in the girls restroom. She can't sell the place until the murder is solved and the police do diddly squat, so she decides to investigate herself. As she does, she gets wrapped up in the towns secrets and puts herself in danger.

I loved this book. It was funny and cute. Not once did I loose interest. It paints a wonderful picture of an small town with old people. I have found that a lot of the WorldWide Mystery novels are really good and don't take a lot of time to read. I definitely recommend this book. I still hate roller skating though.

Karen Harper- "Finding Mercy"

You know there is this new show on NBC called Revolution where the power goes out around the world and people go batshit crazy. The problem with this is one thing, people live without electricity all the time. My example? Amish people.

Thus leads me to this book. Karen Harper has a line of books about a town called Home Valley. These amish are cray cray here. Seriously, they get into all kinds of crazy shit. In this story, a man named Alex goes into hiding while waiting to testify against his old employers. While there,he falls in love with a lavender farmer named Ella. The whole time he is harassed and is forced to go on the run with Ella and her grandmother Ruth.

This book was fast paced and kept my attention all the way up to the end. Then I lost interest. I felt that it was going on forever. There wasn't a lot of suspense because you know who the bad people are the whole time. She makes it so obvious.

What did I learn from this book? Amish people are crazy asses. Don't be fooled by their aprons and suspenders.

Brenda Novak-Taking The Heat

The time has come again for me to read my bundle of Harlequin books I got in the mail. These look promising. No over the top, steamy romances with corny covers which makes me optimistic.

In Taking The Heat, a falsely convicted murderer, Randall Tucker, is trapped in the desert after escaping while being transported. He is not alone though. Gabrielle Hadley, a female guard who was in the van, chases after him. They eventually find each other and fall in love in the desert. No joke, it happens.

I am honestly wiling to look past this aspect of the story. Love does weird things to people. Having said that, I am not happy with this book. It was not balanced out. The beginning and middle felt drawn out and the end was rushed because of it. I wanted more of an investigation on Randall's innocence. There are other aspects that I don't like, but it would ruin the book and I don't like to do that. In all it was just alright. If it wasn't so lopsided and rushed at the end, it would have done a lot better on the Becca book meter.

John Grisham- The Litigators

I have found that John Grisham is one of my all time favorite authors. I have yet to find a book that I have hated by him. The Litigators actually got some poor reviews by people I know, but I disagree with them.

In The Litigators, a trio of lawyers try and squeeze out a fortune from a big pharmaceutical company and get way in over their heads. The story includes a dog named ambulance chaser and an recovering alcoholic lawyer who is the lead accuser of the company.

I honestly loved this book. It didn't have the suspense that his other books had, but it was still enjoyable. I found it was better to judge this as if John Grisham hasn't written anything and this is his first book. If you don't then you just end up being disappointed because it is not as good as his earlier books.

Host Solomon- The Legend of Speed and Time (History in the Making)

A group of smart people build a fast magnetic car and a rich man, Brian Speed,wants it for his. The leader, Justin Time, refuses to make a deal and starts a battle between Speed and Time.

This book honestly had me at the fast car. The cover looked pretty cool as well. When I got it, however, I was surprised to see a 43 page piddly book. I wasn't really disappointed at that point because there are some good short stories out there. This is not one of them.

There were pointless parts thrown in the book that didn't have anything to do with the actual story. The dialogue actually made me laugh when it was supposed to be serious. I honestly did enjoy this book just not for the right reasons. It is the novel version of a Sci-Fi Saturday movie. I recommend it, but not because it is good. I recommend it because it will make you giggle. If you want to check it out (you totally do) you can do so here. 

I received a complimentary copy of The Legend of Speed and Time (History in the Making) as a member of the Dorrance Publishing Book Review Team. Visit dorrancebookstore.com
to learn how you can become a member of the Book Review Team.

David Mitchell- Cloud Atlas

I read this book because I saw the movie trailer and I am too damn impatient to wait for the movie to come out. It is my way of cheating the box office. Way to go me because now I want to watch the movie even more.

One setback of seeing the movie trailer before reading is I was expecting more from the book. It is not a good thing to try and predict a book with the movie because they are obviously going to be different.

A set of stories of people who are connected to each other. It isn't really as cool as the movie makes it out to be. The connections are really a backstory to the actual different stories themselves. You don't see the connections until the end of each story. I am saying this now because I read this book expecting it to be a big scifi conspiracy story. It is not, however it is so much better. Each person has to deal with the trials and tribulations of humanity in each of it's own time. Different locations, and different times in the past and future, but they all have to face the same problem which is what connects them. Obviously, there is more to this, but that would ruin things.

I am saying the things about the story because a lot of people I know have only heard about this book because of the movie. The movie uses the same actors for different characters and it makes it seem like there is a concrete plot going on in the background. There is not. Another thing is the different styles that each story is written can be extremely difficult to read at times and it takes a while to get the hang of it.It is worth it though.

This is one of the best novels I have read in a while and it challenges you to think beyond the pages.

James F. Campbell- "Shifters"

I have realized that when I am faced with a story that has such a relentless bad guy in it that seems to always get his or her way, I tend to get exhausted. This is what happened with this book. By the end of it I just was so tired.

In Shifters, Satan is disguised as the richest man in the world and is trying to start the apocalypse. He has help from these evil creatures who can shift into any form. The problem with this is that the title makes it seem like the shape shifters are the main characters when in fact Satan is. The shape shifters are just supporting roles.

Honestly, it was a good story. I was just bombarded with so much bad and evil that by the end I just was glad I was done reading it. Also the sex seemed forced to be in the book. Some of the words just made me roll my eyes. All in all I didn't really enjoy it.

If you want to read this book, which I do recommend giving it a chance, then you can go here to check it out.

    I received a complimentary copy of Shifters as a member of the    

    Dorrance Publishing Book Review Team.  Visit dorrancebookstore.com

    to learn how you can become a member of the Book Review Team.