The Woman in the Water by Charles Finch

The Woman in the Water by Charles Finch

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This book had more drama than mystery. That said, I understand that this is a prequel and was probably written to establish the detective's backstory. However, for a first-time reader, I found the book not as enjoyable as I might have if I had dived right into the actual first book rather than this one.

I will persist!

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Everything You Are by Kerry Anne King

Everything You Are by Kerry Anne King

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Basically, a family drama with a dose of supernatural dropped into it in the form of a cello.

Not a fan of people who trash Alcoholics Anonymous, especially when taking its very concepts and distorting them for their own gain. This flies directly in the face of the principles of anonymity, on which Alcoholics Anonymous is based.

The book was somewhat interesting, despite the ill-informed AA references. But there wasn't enough supernatural to warrant the supernatural.

And there was too many unanswered questions: what happened to Evan? Why did the oaths and magic work? Does the father ever play again? Do what happened to the relationship between the father and the music store owner?

Not a fan.



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Dead and Gone (2009) by Charlaine Harris - from the series that spawned "True Blood"

The only reason I don't despise this book is because I only paid $1 for it at a garage sale.

One of the books that spawned HBO's "True Blood" series, Sookie Stackhouse lives and works in a small town outside of Lafayette, Louisiana.

At the risk of sounding like one of her more uptight and judgmental enemies, she consorts with vampires, werewolves and fairies--clearly another class of people.

One of the most basic flaws that rubbed me through the whole book was her spelling of the name "Tray". It is bad enough when it is spelled "Trey" but to purposefully misspell it "Tray" is unforgivable in my mind.

Then all the vampire mythology is twisted and bended to the author's needs--a similar issue that I had with the Twilight series.

How can authors transgress 100s of years of established vampire and werewolf mythology to write this junk? All of a sudden a werewolf transforms not into a wolf but a border collie because it would be easier for humans to accept? Come on!

And these books are really grizzly. Very grizzly. Crucifixions, torture, sex. Which is okay, but the cover is very misleading and makes it appear to be a young adult book. I wouldn't let my young adult read them!

As I said, I am really glad I only paid a $1.

The Girl Who Played with Fire - Steig Larsson

I just finished the second book in "The Girl" series by Steig Larsson, "The Girl Who Played with Fire."

Resurrecting the two main characters from the previous book, Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist, this suspense novel centers around the death of an investigative journalist and his partner.

He was writing about exposing high-ranking officials who were participating in white slavery while his partner was writing her Ph.D. dissertation on the same topic. Blomkvist's magazine, The Millenium, agrees to publish the book and has retained the journalist on staff.

Interestingly, and a sadly prophetic turn of events, Blomkvist comes to a point in the novel where he must decide whether he will continue to publish the novel despite the deaths of the researcher and author.

In the mean time, Lisbeth is making a new life for herself after Blomkvist broke her hard little heart. Turning 25 and wealthy after hacking into a corrupt corporate mogul's overseas bank accounts, she has stifled her sadistic court-appointed guaridan and has taken to traveling the world over the next year.

But when she returns to Sweden she finds that the court-appointed guardian seems to now be seeking revenge.

I found this book to be far superior to the first one.

First, the translation was better and not so stilted as the first one, making for a more fluid novel. Also, Lisbeth is far more sympathetic in this novel. In the previous novel, she comes off as a bit of an android. Which, is typical if you have Asperger's Syndrome, as she does. In this one, her character starts to losen up and Larsson seems to have found his inner female voice.

In this novel Larsson starts to dissect her personality and delve into her character, all which become pivotal to the mystery.

Brilliantly plotted, I did not have an inkling to the solution until about 3/4's of the way through and then I still was not quite sure how it was all going to end.

This is the second novel in a 6-series set. However, Larrson passed away after finishing the 3rd novel so that all that we have of the remaining 3 are plot outlines.

The remains of his estate and the profits from the novels do not got to his partner of over 10 years since they were not married and he did not leave a will. All of the proceeds from the award-winning novels and the ensuing movies are going to his father and brother, who have felt no compunction to give her anything.

Larrson was a political activist in Sweden, fighting the right-wing extremism and Nazi organizations. An expert in his field, he often lectured around Europe, including Scotland Yard. And avid writer, these books were his first foray into fiction.