Commentary and reader review blog

As Jane mentioned on her blog the other day, there’s a new update of firmware that will allow third party apps to be used on the old iPhone (old?) along with the launch of the new 3G iPhone. I can’t wait for her review of this modified second generation iPhone. I have no plans to upgrade. Aside from that, I do apologize to those readers who could care less about the iPhone and all the hype it has created. However, it really is nice to extend the functionality of your iPhone to read ebooks along with everything else that it does. [click to continue…]

Karen Rose latest book “Scream For Me” is well written and suspenseful. It is a continuation of the unraveling of the Vartanian’s family secrets. In the small town of Dutton, Georgia, another killer is on the loose killing young women whose deaths are tied to the past. Thirteen years ago Alicia Tremaine was raped, murdered and dumped in a ditch in Dutton. Her killer was caught and is now serving time. When another corpse is found and then another, some of the residents of this small Georgia town are afraid.

Daniel Vartanian of the Georgia Bureau of Investigations just recently returned from leave following the death of his evil brother Simon and the burial of his parents who were murdered by Simon. He is thrown immediately into the investigation of a recent murder of a young woman whose body was found during a bicycle race. [click to continue…]

The Quickie [AUDIOBOOK] [UNABRIDGED] (Audio CD) by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge (Authors), Mary Stuart Masterson (Reader)- Hachette Audio (2007). Here is the synopsis:

When Lauren Stillwell discovers her husband leaving a hotel room with another woman, she decides to beat him at his own game. But while she’s sneaking around, her husband is hatching a plan of his own. After a torrid quickie with a co-worker, Lauren hears a struggle outside her window and looks out just in time to see her husband loading her lover’s limp body into the trunk of a car. When the body shows up in a pool of shallow water, she races to the scene of the crime. But Lauren Stillwell is no regular wronged woman. She’s a NYC cop — and she’s just been assigned to this case. Unable to tell anyone what she saw and unwilling to turn her husband in, Lauren is paralyzed by a secret that will tear her life apart. But as she attempts to point fingers away from her husband, she uncovers something shocking: her husband didn’t have an affair — what he did was far worse than she could have ever imagined. A gripping story of secrets and infidelities that begins where Adrian Lyne’s movie Unfaithful leaves off, THE QUICKIE will have readers’ hearts pounding to the very last page.

The Iron Hunt (2008) by Marjorie M. Liu is the first in a new series featuring demon hunter, Maxine Kiss. By day she has demonic spirits living on her body, making her immortal by providing their bodies for her armor and at night, they awake and peel away from her skin to be her bodyguards against her supernatural enemies.

Maxine Kiss is by nature, a loner. A woman without family or roots. A woman trying to outrun her future. However, Maxine does decide to settle down in Seattle, with an ex-priest and man of faith, Grant Cooperon. He’s a flute-player who can see people’s auras and has the ability to change them into something good. He runs a homeless shelter where demons have inhabited the bodies of many of the residents. He experiments with them, using his flute-playing to change their souls. [click to continue…]

I didn’t get a chance to read and review The Spiderwick Chronicles and will save that for another day. So, I have come up with another topic that I hope will spark discussion: Where are They Now? There are certain authors whose work I’ve enjoyed in the past who now seem to have disappeared into obscurity. Many of these authors hit their stride in the late 80’s and 90’s and then vanished from the publishing world. What gives? Are they writing under another pen name that I don’t know about? Or have they unofficially retired? I mean what’s the deal?

I’ve come up with a list of authors who I used to read but who have disappeared. If you have any info to share about their current status in the publishing field, do drop me a line as I am curious to know if they are still writing. Also, this post gives me a chance to spotlight the books I’ve read and enjoyed that maybe some of you have never heard of before. A trip down memory lane. I haven’t reread them so I don’t know if I would enjoy these stories today. You’ve been warned.

First up is Katherine Sutcliffe. Despite my half-hearted search on the ‘net for her status as an author, I have nothing to report. I personally thought she wrote excellent romantic suspense novels. Her heroines oft proved to be controversial but she wrote with plenty of verve and atmosphere. My first Sutcliffe novel was actually a historical romance called Dream Fever. It’s been years since I read it but I remember the hero was tortured. She wrote a lot of historicals and was just getting started with romantic suspense and then - nothing. Ms. Sutcliffe’s last published work was Bad Moon Rising. She had another book that was due to come but it never saw the light of day.

[click to continue…]