Posts tagged with action-and-suspense
John Wick, with all the style removed
Maybe I spoke too soon on that "all the meh" title earlier: the trailer is out for the upcoming film adaptation of Vince Flynn's thriller American Assassin, and it looks resoundingly mediocre...
Silence Fallen, by Patricia Briggs
Silence Fallen is the tenth novel in Patricia Briggs's best-selling Mercy Thompson series. In this fast-paced, action-heavy installment, shape-shifting VW mechanic Mercy is abducted from her home territory in the Pacific Northwest and spirited away to Italy, where she finds herself a pawn in a chess game being played by an ancient and powerful vampire...
Assassin's Masque, by Sarah Zettel
Assassin's Masque, the third book in Sarah Zettel's Palace of Spies series, is a fun, smart read with an eye-catching cover, but I suspect it lacks that special something that makes teen books fly off shelves. (It might look inadequately dramatic?) I'm sorry about this, because I've found all of Zettel's books solidly entertaining...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Assassin's Masque, by Sarah Zettel
This week's Book Giveaway is Sarah Zettel's Assassin's Masque, the third book in her excellent Palace of Spies series. I'm not a fan of that title (which makes no sense and has almost nothing to do with the story, but I guess sounds cool?), but whatever: Zettel is a reliably great writer, so my expectations for this sucker are high...
Magic for Nothing, by Seanan McGuire
Seanan McGuire's Magic For Nothing is my favorite installment in the InCryptid series to date... and that's saying something, because I've liked all of these books. But this book gives me something I didn't realize I was missing: a plausibly screwed-up heroine, despite her distinctly implausible circumstances...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Magic For Nothing, by Seanan McGuire
This week's Book Giveaway is Seanan McGuire's Magic For Nothing, the first novel in McGuire's InCryptid series to feature Antimony Price, the prickly younger sister of previous protagonists Alex and Verity. A full review will follow shortly...
Heart of the Storm, by Michael Buckley
Heart of the Storm is the final volume in Michael Buckley's Undertow trilogy. All of the books in this series have been a mixed bag—at times wildly imaginative and exciting, at others just a overstuffed mess—and this last installment is no different...
Mass market
It's Mickey Spillane's birthday, and there's a great description of his career over on The Writer's Almanac. Spillane sounds like the James Patterson of his day: his books were written fast and critically panned, he apparently never featured a character who drank cognac or had a mustache (because he didn’t know how to spell those words), and...
Take the Key and Lock Her Up, by Ally Carter
Take The Key and Lock Her Up is the final installment in Ally Carter’s Embassy Row trilogy. Sadly, this series ends the way it began: fun, frenetic, and stylish, but ultimately a little empty...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Take the Key and Lock Her Up, by Ally Carter
This week's Book Giveaway is Ally Carter's Take the Key and Lock Her Up, the third book in Carter's Embassy Row series and the one that fully pushes this series into "Princess Diaries meets James Bond" territory. (If that's a mash-up you've been hoping for, congratulations!) A full review will follow shortly...
The Burning Page, by Genevieve Cogman
I recently reviewed the first two books in Genevieve Cogman's Invisible Library series, and was delighted when the third installment, The Burning Page, showed up on my doorstep. It's a fun read, but I don't see any evidence of a fourth book, and I much prefer The Burning Page as a series installment than a series conclusion...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Burning Page, by Genevieve Cogman
This week's Book Giveaway is The Burning Page, the third (but hopefully not final) book in Genevieve Cogman's Invisible Library series. We've enjoyed this series thus far, and our review of The Burning Page will be posted shortly...
The Dead Seekers, by Barb and J.C. Hendee
Barb and J.C. Hendee's new novel The Dead Seekers has a very specific target audience: people hoping for a serious take on movies like Van Helsing or Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. Set in the same world as the Hendees' best-selling Noble Dead series, The Dead Seekers features a vaguely Eastern European setting, loads of ghosts, and two gloomy protagonists—Tris, an uptight ghost-slayer for hire, and Mari, a young woman determined to avenge her murdered family...
Bad Blood, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Bad Blood is the fourth and final book in Jennifer Lynn Barnes's Naturals series. Once again, Barnes has delivered a briskly-paced thriller seemingly tailor-made for a CW adaptation. (Seriously, the fact that this series isn't already on my TV is bewildering to me.)
Weekly Book Giveaway: Bad Blood, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
I am in no mood for anything other than 100% undiluted entertainment, so this week's Book Giveaway is the latest book in Jennifer Lynn Barnes's Naturals series, Bad Blood. I'm not sure that even Ms. Barnes's book will be entertaining enough to distract me from my overwhelming election anxiety, but I figure it's got a better shot than most...
The Secret-Keepers, by Trenton Lee Stewart
Trenton Lee Stewart's The Secret-Keepers features loads of classic children's literature tropes: secret places, magical devices, traps, puzzles. I appreciate what Stewart was going for, but I'm way past the age of his target audience, and this is even more of a kid-specific effort than his previous series...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Secret Keepers, by Trenton Lee Stewart
This week's Book Giveaway is The Secret Keepers, the latest book by The Mysterious Benedict Society author Trenton Lee Stewart. A full review will follow shortly, but first I must inform you that this cover art is even cooler in person...
The Invisible Library and The Masked City, by Genevieve Cogman
The Invisible Library and The Masked City, the first two books in an ongoing series by Genevieve Cogman, read like a blend of Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series and Daniel O'Malley's Rook Files. Happily, Cogman takes these familiar ingredients—literary references, bureaucratic rivalries, pragmatic heroines—and...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Otherworld Chills, by Kelley Armstrong
It's October, and we've been in a very horror-lite mood lately, so this week's Book Giveaway is Kelley Armstrong's Otherworld Chills, a collection of "rare and never-before-published novellas and short stories" set in her "Women of the Otherworld" 'verse. A full review will follow shortly...
The House of Shattered Wings, by Aliette de Bodard
Aliette de Bodard's novel The House of Shattered Wings looks like a standard fantasy novel, but has more in common with The Godfather than your typical sword-and-sorcery adventure. In an alternative universe/post-apocalyptic version of 20th century Paris, fallen angels periodically drop from the sky, stricken with amnesia but chock-full of magic. Those who survive Paris's magic-hunting street gangs usually join one of the Great Houses, mafia-like organizations...
E.L. James, take note.
Stephenie Meyer has a new book coming out: The Chemist, to be released on November 15, 2016. I notice there's no mention of Twilight on the cover, although the artwork is thematically similar. Is this because Twilight is officially passé, or is...*
They'll get my $9.50
And in other trailer news, they're releasing yet another Bourne thriller, this one simply called Jason Bourne. Thankfully, they're back to Matt Damon in the title role. Apparently casting Jeremy Renner in a Bourne spin-off that felt like a slap-happy take on Flowers For Algernon didn't work out...
Arena, by Holly Jennings
Holly Jennings's novel Arena looks and sounds like a sci-fi novel, but it's really more of a near-future sports story. I'd like to think that the idea of virtual gaming tournaments watched by millions of rabid fans is pure fantasy, but apparently the future is now...
A Darker Shade of Magic, by V.E. Schwab
V.E. Schwab's A Darker Shade of Magic is plastered with encomiums that make it sound like the second coming of Dune—it's described as “compulsively readable”, “ingeniously clever”, and “an exhilarating adventure”. This breathless enthusiasm struck me as distinctly overblown, but Schwab's story is undeniably thoughtful, imaginative, and action-packed...
The Rook, by Daniel O'Malley
For a book that pretty much goes like this: infodump, infodump, action sequence, rinse, repeat, Daniel O'Malley's debut novel The Rook is astonishingly entertaining. It strongly reminds me of Seanan McGuire's InCryptid books, although I'm happy to report that I like The Rook even better...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Rook, by Daniel O'Malley
This week's Book Giveaway is Daniel O'Malley's 2012 novel The Rook, which we recently learned is being developed as a TV series by Twilight author Stephenie Meyer. Meyer clearly knows what she's doing, because it's evident from the first chapter that this book is going to make for some great TV...
Winter, by Marissa Meyer
I love Sailor Moon fanfiction and I love retold fairytales. You'd think combining the two would be an automatic win for me, but Marissa Meyer's best-selling Lunar Chronicles series proves that there's no such thing as a surefire bet...
The Hollow Boy, by Jonathan Stroud
I absolutely loved The Screaming Staircase and The Whispering Skull, the first two installments in Jonathan Stroud's horror/adventure series Lockwood & Co. The third book in the series is more problematic than the first two...
The Liar, by Nora Roberts
After her most recent—and truly terrible—series, I was ready to give up on Nora Roberts forever, but her latest standalone novel, The Liar, is the kind of satisfying, sturdy, girl-power effort that drags me right back in. Curse you, Nora Roberts, and your ability to wrest away my hard-earned spare cash...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Liar, by Nora Roberts
Okay, I'm giving Nora Roberts one more shot: this week our Book Giveaway is her recent standalone novel The Liar. We'll have to see where it ranks on her scale of shameless self-replication. My hopes aren't high, but Roberts has surprised me before...