Blood Memory is in many ways a book about the imperfections of life, although it is by no means an imperfect novel. In this story Iles takes the brave step of dealing with issues the avid reader might prefer to be swept under the rug while reading on the beach or in the lounge – for many readers read to escape realities as much as to explore them. Child abuse and the damage it inflicts on families and individuals, is moreover a subject not to be taken lightly by the novelists’ pen. It is a sore under the respectable and not so respectable surface of society at all levels
In Cat Ferry, a dental forensic expert, we have a flawed character, but one that is flawed for good reason. The fascination with this character however lies not in her flaws but in her strengths, for although on some levels she is not even likeable, on others she has deeply admirable qualities. A functioning alcoholic, sleeping with a married man, beset by panic attacks and blackouts, she nonetheless summons the courage and dignity to survive attempts on her life and to solve an old crime of which she herself was the victim.
Set this against a related subplot involving, curiously, the serial murder and mutilation of men, and several surprising kinks and twists in the story, and you are left with this novel set in the American deep south that is not perfect, but Blood Memory is certainly as interesting and as unforgiving as its subject matter demands.
Comments
Mayday review
I haven’t flown for over 20 years since I was a child, but am due to fly to Amsterdam in September, and was already feeling a bit nervous about flying when suddenly the terrorist plot to blow planes up is all over the news, hand luggage is banned, and innocent items such as drinks cans or perfume bottles could be bombs, planes are grounded and the airports are in chaos. So what better time to allay my fears by pulling an air disaster novel off the bookshelf 
Mayday by Nelson DeMille and Thomas Block was originally written and published in 1979 but was updated and released again in the mid 90′s. I haven’t read the original version but this version of the airborne thriller certainly had me rocking and rolling in my armchair with every twist and turn of Flight 52.
The premise of the book is very simple – 12 miles above the Pacific Ocean, a military missile strikes Trans-United flight 52, a supersonic passenger jet bound for Japan. Rather than destroying the plane, the net result is the complete decompression of the craft at a very high altitude. Many are killed instantly, but the nature of the disaster means that the intrepid survivors must not only deal with the dying aircraft, but also with a mob of brain-damaged and violent survivors who were not so lucky. And the dying plane and their unpleasant fellow passengers are just the beginning of their problems.
I picked up this brick of a book and read it in three sittings; it’s one of those edge of the seat thrillers that picks you up and sweeps you along with its momentum. I remember actually gasping at points!
An all action thriller, Mayday is not going to win prizes for its in depth characterisation, but the characters are believable, with the protagonists truly heroic and the bad guys truly antagonistic (and perhaps the scariest part is that the bad guys are not who we would expect, in fact they’re supposed to be the good guys)
I really enjoyed reading this classic American bestseller, it’s plot revolving not only around the doomed aircraft, but also the conflicts of interest that arise in powerful factions. Mayday shows the terrifying lengths those without conscience will go to promote and protect their interests; but ultimately it celebrates the triumph of human heart and determination in the face of incredible adversity.
John Berry, from my armchair I salute you!
Comments
I don’t know what your name is, but I know who you are – and on this principle Susan Jeffers may be said to speak to us all as she writes Dare to Connect. For despite the many surface differences we manifest as human beings, one would hope we all share a common humanity, (even if 99% of a person is bad, there is still the 1% to work with!), and thus Susan greets the light in all of us, and dares to connect.
For although the title of the book is an imperative, an exhortation, it also describes what Susan is doing in writing, for this is a very daring book. Not because it proposes a radical new concept, a controversial technique, or some drastic measures, but through the very fact that she addresses the part of us which is so often hidden, so often buried, so often disguised, so often ignored, and that is our humanity, and the simple spiritual side of our humanity. Before I go any further it should be emphasised that we are not talking religion, but the spirituality of the “Higher Self” the part of us that transcends our petty everyday drives and programming, the part that in some way ennobles us. Jeffers takes a risk because even in self help books there can be a tendency to ignore the spiritual in favour of practical and reliable psychology, and for good reason – modern markets can very easily turn against authors who begin to use words like spirituality in a book where the secular reader is perhaps looking for something more concrete, more immediately useful.
Thankfully, the value of Susan’s work lies in the fact that she does not offer quick fixes, but in plain and easy to follow language she gives us an understanding of how and why our relationships with other people are flawed and fraught with pain and misunderstanding. This applies not only to romantic relationships but also family situations, working life and friendships.
What I like about Susan’s writing is that she comes across with wisdom, respect for the reader, and weaves humour into the very serious business of human relations. Life is about connecting with each other, bearing our souls to each other, supporting each other, learning with each other, but it’s also very much about laughing with each other. And so we find that finding love on this strange planet is not about purchasing the correct deodorant, wearing the right dress size, and moulding ourselves into the correct specifications – it is first and foremost about finding out who we are, being comfortable with who we are, and learning simply to be who we are.
This wouldn’t be a self-help book without some practical tips and there are plenty of these, including advice on how to strike up conversations with strangers and how to connect with others in our lives – but this is mostly a long term journey. You have probably read at least one book that promises to change your life within minutes, but of course are more cautious in the face of such promises when such radical change doesn’t happen. I can’t promise that Dare to Connect will result in perfect relationships (apart from anything else there’s no such thing!) but it will give you the insights and the confidence to start making changes, beginning with yourself (don’t worry this is more about becoming the real you than making changes and compromises for the sake of a relationship!). And from those small changes in ourselves, it is amazing what an impact on the world can follow. Love has a place not just in our homes, but in the workplace, in the street, in faraway places too.
And I applaud Susan for using her book to dare to connect, to spread this word of love, and hope my review serves to help it spread just a little further
Comments
It’s quite often that i’ll pick up a book and read it without at first realising that I’m actually delving into a series at the wrong point in time. So sometime last year I read Laurel K Hamilton’s Circus of the Damned and have only just got around to acquiring the two novels that come before it in the series, as well as several in the sequence after it, I might add!
And so it was with Michael Marshall’s Blood of Angels, a truly haunting thriller which I discovered was in fact the last of a three volume series! Although the novel is in fact self contained, I can’t help thinking it would have added relish to have read The Straw Men first. Sometimes an author can make it hard for readers who haven’t read the previous in a loose series, but Marshall manages to keep reliance on previous events to a minimum, even though they have a strong causal connection to the story. I will definitely pick up a copy of The Straw Men and The Lonely Dead soon.
As for Blood of Angels, what a powerful and evocative thriller this is, fuelled by the ever present tensions and dangers of the post 9/11 World, but mixing together a number of plot lines – part detective story, part political thriller, part kidnap and chase drama, part love story, Blood of Angels fuses these elements with some fine writing.
In terms of plot, we have the following premise: Notorious serial killer The Upright Man has escaped from a supermax prison. The FBI have no idea how it happened , or where to start looking. Ex-CIA agent Ward Hopkins suspects The Straw Men, a shadowy conspiracy of killers with a macabre agenda. But apart from Ward’s girlfriend Nina, the only person who believes the Straw Men even exist is John Zandt, a homicide detective obsessed with tracking down his daughter’s killers – and who is now wanted for murder himself! The thing is, Ward is right – his brother has broken out for a reason; the Straw Men are planning something big!
Perhaps what struck me the most about the story was what happens with the mysterious Jim, also known as James, for his is the story of being unable to escape, ultimately, one’s own nature, and of the inevitability of the past catching up. In all I really enjoyed reading this book, but would advise reading the series in sequence so you don’t make the same mistake I did
Comments
About ten years ago I met Peter James in Dillons book store in central Manchester. I was wandering around and decided to head into the bookstore, and was looking around for the horror section, when in walked this jolly curly headed chap and asked an assistant if they had a horror section. Off he went upstairs, so I followed, and it turns out he was there to do a book signing – I bought a couple of his books and he signed them, and we had a chat about writing.
At the time I was in a real writer stuck in a garret situation and was working on a doomed horror novel (well, I now know it was doomed, but I had high hopes for it once), and we talked about the crowded markets and the competition, and he told me it was pretty hard to break in with a first novel. Things have changed quite a lot since then, and while self-publishing opportunities flourish, it’s probably harder than ever to break into the mainstream, and while some writers make it big, others flounder. It’s quite strange that in a world where a horror writer is the world’s bestselling writer, publishers don’t consider there to be a market for new horror writers, or even most of the existing ones (writers are losing their publishers all the time). The relevance of this? Well, Peter James has recently turned away from horror and has been adventuring with crime novels – a shame, since he has a knack for writing damn good horror novels, like The Truth.
When the bank pulls the plug, John and Susan Carter have thirty one days to find one and a half million pounds, or they will lose everything, their home, their business, everything they’ve worked for. Then out of the blue steps Mr Sarotzini, who offers to solve all their problems on just one condition: Susan must be the father of his child. But who is the mysterious Mr Sarotzini, and why does everyone who asks end up dead? How come he knows so much about the Carters? Why does Susan’s prgnancy hurt so much…
In a novel filled with questions, it is indeed a long time before we learn the truth, but in the meantime the story takes us on a rollercoaster of a ride with some well rounded characters, some subtle plotting, and action that carries the reader along through a chilling, unlikely, yet ultimately plausible nightmare that owes only a little of its chill to the supernatural. Most of the horror comes from very human evil, and I won’t be forgetting the inimitable Kundz for a while – a truly nasty character, capable of some very twisted love 
Comments
I’ve been reading a lot of books lately, and enjoying a variety of fiction and non fiction, but I must take you back to that fateful day referred to in my last post when everything went wrong and I had to do something to change it. As well as reading Susan Jeffer’s Feel The Fear and Do It Anyway I also stumbled upon a self help hypnotherapy recording, Glenn Harrold’s Building Your Motivation, which I thought I would give a try. So my rational mind was fed with some great positive ideas from Susan Jeffers, and later in the evening I lay down with my headphones on to start listing to this hypnotherapy CD. It was certainly an interesting experience – Glenn’s voice and accent were at first quite strange and not at all what I’d expected, but I soon got used to it and fell into the experience. The calming techniques, rhythmical breathing, and visualisation all helped me to go into a state that in fact did feel very different from normal waking consciousness. The CD took me through a motivational visualisation which left me feeling totally satisfied after completing a difficult journey, and then I was fed some layered affirmations. The calming music and sound effects on the CD were instrumental in helping me relax, and when I finally came out, I did feel a little different, but not astoundingly. The CD actually contains 2 tracks, and I listed to the second one straight away – it is a shorter version of the first, probably useful for booster sessions.
As a background, there were a number of things I wanted to do with my life, both personally and in my business, that I had kept putting off, and as mentioned in the previous post I had also been experiencing a lifelong feeling of lack of confidence. Although this CD was to help with my motivation, it would turn out to have several knock on effects. The next day, a Sunday, instead of dragging myself out of bed at 11 to be ready to visit a country park with my parents at 1, I was up at 9 and straight back into my self help books. I thought I might as well make use of an extra couple of hours! I detected an extra spring in my step and felt much more positive about things in general. At the park, my parents commented that I was much more lively than usual, and while before I suffered from mild social phobia and some small agoraphobia, I leapt at the opportunity to go into the cafe for our order (which I would normally leave to someone else). I really did feel more confident in myself, but also a lot more motivated to take on challenges, to do new things, to put a stop to my negative thinking and to do some of the things I’ve always wanted to do but had been afraid to try. I have since used a few more Glenn Harrold hypnotherapy recordings which I will review here, and will say in the main that they have been much more effective than I expected, and I am looking forward to trying others to work on different aspects of my life.
Of course hypnotherapy recordings don’t work for everyone, and sometimes it’s necessary to visit a professional therapist, but I can honestly say that Glenn Harrold’s Ultimate Guide to Building Your Motivation did a great job for me, and I still listen to it on a regular basis when I need a boost, or feel my motivation slipping!
And I do have to say that there are at least 2 major things I had been waiting over 5 years to do, and I finally got over my fears and procrastination and went ahead and did them
| Glen Harrold’s Ultimate Guide to Building Your Motivation is Available in the US from Itunes:
|
|
2 Comments
I’ve been dipping into some self help titles lately, and over the weeks I’ll be sharing my journey with you, if you don’t mind reading of course! I read a lot of novels, but for various reasons have not read much in the way of non fiction in recent times (could it be my propensity for escaping?!). Anyway, I will be open with you and tell you that although I am an intelligent, capable, resourceful and wise individual, these qualities have not until recently enabled me to be as relaxed and happy about my life as I should be. Listen to this – I am academically gifted (I have a first class honours degree and a Masters degree), I am a published writer and have performed my poetry on stage, I have had a number of successful jobs and am now making a living from an Internet business which I started from scratch. I also enjoy the friendship of some pretty amazing people. But for a long time there is one thing which has been totally lacking in my life.
CONFIDENCE.
I am being serious – in spite of all my achievements, my success and my abilities, I have spent a large amount of my life being held back because I did not have the confidence to do a certain thing (speak to that person, apply for that job, leave that job, do something different that day) and I think it’s fair to say I have long been the victim of a crippling shyness. Those who have seen me present to a room full of people would probably find this fascinating, but the truth is I have often done this through sheer will – they should have seen how I felt inside when a complete stranger talked to me, or when I was sitting around a table hearing the buzz of conversation, terrified of speaking myself unless I said the wrong thing or made a fool of myself (and how many opportunities have I lost because it was far safer to hang on to my pride and my security by not taking a risk, not going outside my comfort zone, just plodding on thinking I was doing the best thing for myself by protecting myself from rejection and trouble.)
And I repeat, I run a successful business and people like me! And I could hold those thoughts on a daily basis, and even find plenty of negativity in my situations – that person should have talked to me, it’s their fault, things didn’t happen quite right, it would have been better if, I should have done that. Even after working for 12 hours on my business I often berated myself for not doing enough, not putting enough effort in, and at the end of the day tried to find something extra I could do – because I felt that if I could only do a little more, everything would be all right, and then I meticulously planned the next day, then something happened to spoil my plans, and I experienced such a deep rage that all my plans had been wiped out. Even though not carrying my routine plans through that day would do me no significant harm (rationally I knew this), I felt enraged that my balance had been upset. I kicked things. I hit things. Yes, an educated and quiet, shy retiring person getting wound up in the privacy of my own home and office because the smallest things didn’t go as I needed them to go to feel secure in my routine…
Things came to a head recently, as I have been working through a number of issues through my friend and life coach, Louise, who helped me to quit smoking in December 2005 and has helped me with a number of other things. I knew I needed something additional, as no matter where I sought inside myself, for some things I couldn’t find the answers. I knew I wanted answers, knew I wanted something, but still found myself clinging to my routines for safety. One Saturday recently I had planned to get “enough” work done so I could spend the evening relaxing and have Sunday off. A web host decided they would ruin my plans by fooling around with a few of my sites and wiping out the last few days work. I would have to redo it all, upload everything again, links I had painstakingly submitted to other sites would have to all be resubmitted, now I would never be able to do enough to have that relaxing time, I would have to work all day. I started getting madder and madder, how could this host destroy my peace of mind like this, how could they ruin my plans. Damn them, didn’t they realise I had a business to run? Now they had ruined my entire weekend and made my entire state of mind miserable.
And what was the worst consequence of all this? I might lose a few pounds/dollars. I have enough in the bank for most things, and I have plenty of other sites earning me money.
Boy, was I lost at that point in time. Something snapped at that point and I knew if I carried on in this way it was never going to be satisfactory. I decided I would shut the computer off and get some books, as reading has always soothed me and helped me escape. I thought I could now use it to perhaps learn something. I got a pile of books, whose contents I will share with you, and also some audiobook self hypnosis recordings.
I had read such books and tried such recordings in the past, but I sensed one major difference in myself. This time, I wanted to change, and was willing to put in some effort. I think the major mistake some people make is that they think they will read the book or listen to the tape and there will be a magical transformation. There can be – but believe me it won’t work if you are thinking, “This is utter rubbish, it will never work…” Or “This is a con!” The last time I tried these were my thoughts, I thought I would give it a go, and if the book or tape changed me, fair enough. The difference this time was, I was determined that I would change myself, and needed help, which I think is a key difference.
In any case, I am glad I shut off the computer that day and started my real work, the work of self-development, for I am growing from being an inhibited, shy, controlling, restricted and frustrated person into something I still haven’t found words to describe. The few days I have thus far spent working on my own development is worth all the twelve hour days I have or ever will put into my business!
I began with Susan Jeffers’s Feel The Fear And Do it Anyway. The title rather appealed to me as I realized there things I wanted to do and ways I wanted to be, but was afraid of getting there. My biggest fears included: Spending the rest of my life alone, spending the rest of my life with someone (fearing both equally – get that!), fear of my business failing, fear of not putting in enough time, fear of putting in too much time, fear of letting go and relaxing, fear of, fear of, fear of – I probably couldn’t finish listing all the things I feared if I sat here and typed all night long! So that was the first title I read, I suspended my disbelief, told myself I should take off my “Yes, but that’s stupid, if it was that easy why doesn’t everyone do it” head, and read it through, and couldn’t stop reading.
The book is not perfect, it is not a cure all, it may not be for everyone. I personally disliked the references to a higher power, although admittedly Susan does not let her religious beliefs become intrusive. Even as something of an agnostic and a humanist, even a cynic, perhaps, I was able to get enough tips and insights out of the book to feel a change begin to take place, with the author’s maddeningly simple commonsense solutions received gratefully by my commonsense radar. I am now eagerly reading and working through the companion book, as well as other titles, and all I can suggest is that if you are struggling with something, if you have fears, insecurities, and are not living the life you want to live, reading Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway by Susan Jeffers will be of interest to you, and if you get even a quarter of what I got out of it, you will be amazed.
I honestly used to think pop psych books like this were utter rubbish. Humbly, I admit I was wrong, at least in this case, as I smilingly join the ranks of people whose lives Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway has helped to change
If you are in the US, the following iTunes link will enable you to purchase the anabridged audiobook of Feal The Fear and Do It Anyway:
or on iTunes Uk with 12,000 audiobooks available HERE
1 Comment
If I have four or five hours to spare and the latest James Patterson book available, I’ll usually avail myself of the opportunity to lie down and plough through the volume in a sitting or two, although I know some people don’t read quite as fast. With these books, I feel a need to reach the conclusion, to find out the proverbial whodunnit!
I know some literary purists deride James Patterson’s work for its quality and the fact that, along with the occasional co author, he has turned into something of a book factory, but I have to admit he’s good at what he does – as one critic remarks, almost sticking our finger in a lightsocket.
I do have to say that I prefer James Patterson’s earlier books to those he relentlessly releases these days, and I’m not quite as keen on the Women’s Murder Club as I am on the Alex Cross novels, but this series does nonetheless have a piquancy and intrigue of its own, and the Women’s Murder Club novels are still undeniably page turners.
The 5th Horseman weaves together threads from two different plots which borrow from a number of thriller subgenres, with medical murder mystery playing out against courtroom drama with a nasty pair of serial killers thrown into the mix for good measure. The novel is punchy and fast-paced, and written in Patterson’s usual style, what I have come to regard as cinematic prose, a style which is crisp, clean and efficient, and however stripped of embellishments it may be, however abrupt (most chapters are only a page and half) it certainly does its job of propelling the reader through the story and projecting a mind movie of the events within the book into the reader’s mind. It may not be Dickens, but in my view writing that’s exciting enough to tempt a person to read rather than simply watching a movie, however movie-like the prose is, is a worthwhile thing
You might also be interested in these other James Patterson Bestsellers and audio books:
Comments
Well, this will be the first Stephen King book I’ve reviewed on this book reviews blog, but it certainly isn’t the first one I’ve read. Ever since I first read Carrie when I was ten (and wondered what the hell, really, was going on in that opening segment!) I was pretty much hooked on Stephen King. I’ve heard him described as a sensual writer, and whatever he writes about, something in his style, his choice of words, the way he shapes language, makes me feel as if I’m right there in the story. King’s works do this more than any other, and it’s quite amazing, which is no doubt why I’ve probably spent a good few thousand hours over the last 25 years immersed in the Stephen King universe. For it is a universe, much more than simply a collection of characters or a single world (Go then, there are other worlds than this, as we hear Jake say in the Dark Tower series!).
One gets the sense that just around the corner, in any Stephen King novel, you could run into characters or events from any of his books (and sometimes you actually do!), and during the course of reading Cell, I was convinced we were going to run into Randall Flagg at some point, the walking dude, the midnight cowboy! Maybe the Raggedy Man was him, who knows? Anyway, although Flagg doesn’t raise his ugly world-murdering head, I’ve no doubt he has something to do with the horrible event that sets in motion the horrible aftermath which unfolds in this apocalyptic novel. And yes, King comprehensively examined the end of world theme in The Stand, but Shakespeare wrote about regicide more than once, Dickens wrote about poor orphaned children more than once, and I for one was happy to look over King’s shoulder as he visited another version of the end of the World in his mind’s eye
Like many King novels, the action is sudden, preposterous and bizarre, yet all too believable. And King’s quirky observations often carry an eerie sense of verisimilitude. The story opens normally enough with comic book artist Clayton Riddell on his way to a hotel, after closing a deal for his artwork. Like the world around him, Clayton is preoccupied with enjoying the present and anticipating the future, with a sense of potential walking along with him, when the world is suddenly, inexplicably, terrifyingly ended within the space of a few pages. It’s not a bomb, it’s not bullets, and it’s not airplanes flying into skyscrapers. It’s the humble cell phone, and the damage is done as some strange and mysterious signal unencodes the user’s mind and returns it to its most primal, insane vestiges. And that, as you might expect, is when people start to kill each other, and when those who have been untouched (those who either don’t own or have lost their cell phones) must band together to survive.
Clayton, meanwhile, is desperate to get home to see how his wife and child have fared amidst this chaos. Of course, he can’t use a cell phone, and the landlines are down. Much of the story revolves around this journey home, but as with many King novels, it is as much the characters, the humour, the interactions, the observations, as much as the plot that keep it going.
I read Stephen King’s Cell in 2 sittings, the first time I have just sat down and got through a book so quickly in a long time. I am definitely planning to spend some of this summer re-reading a few of the favourites in my collection
Comments
I enjoyed reading this novel, although I was distracted by some other issues at the time so probably didn’t get into it as much as it deserved 
The action takes place in Boulder, Colorado, where the murder of a district attorney is just the beginning of a terrifying trail of violence.
Indeed, the possibilities of terror within the book are very real and all too plausible, as is the human frailty we see in some of the major characters, particular the hero and part-time narrator Alan Gregory, the clinical pyschologist who has featured in a number of Stephen White novels, and homicide detective Lucy Tanner, a suspect in the first half and a victim in the second half of the novel, with some very human failings despite having some likeable features. The real villain of the piece is also ambiguous in that we cannot really blame his motivation even as we abhor his methods! This book is well worth a read as are other books by Stephen White!
Speaking of Stephens, I am currently half way through Stephen King’s Cell and I will be posting my review of it in the next few days!
Comments
« Previous Page — « Previous entries « Previous Page · Next Page » Next entries » — Next Page »