Audible Original Fiction by Alexander C. Kane
Fiction by Mike Omer
This story opens with a little girl called Kathy walking barefoot and alone in the cold dark hours of the morning. She is clearly escaping from something terrible, but what?
As the story progresses we learn that Kathy has been missing for more than a year. He mother is in the depths of despair but trying to hope, and everyone in her small town believes she is dead. What happens when this little girl finally, miraculously, comes home? And what about her abductor, still at large?
This was a great thriller!
I also read recently (for free!) from Amazon Prime Kindle: Portals
Amazon Prime Kindle Fiction by Lucinda Berry
This short story is a sequel to A Perfect Child by this same author.
It's got a similar "Bad Seed" vibe, except the terrible child from the first book is all grown up and ready to terrorize again. It was pretty good.
I also read recently ((for free!) from Amazon Prime Kindle: The Child Between Us
Fiction by Kevin Wilson
Frankie Budge is an adult now; she’s a mother and wife and a professional writer. Still she can’t forget something that happened to her --or, more accurately, something she did-- as a teenager twenty years ago, a sort of cultural phenomenon that the whole country has heard about but that no one knows she started.
That explanation doesn’t really make sense but you have to read the book to understand it.
This was a strange story but I really liked it.
I also read recently by this author: Perfect Little World
Fiction by Walter Moseley
This is the first book in the Leonid McGill detective series. Leonid is a private investigator who has worked for criminals in the past but now wants to go straight. The crooks won’t leave him alone though. Also he doesn’t much like his wife but also doesn’t want to divorce her and be with his girlfriend. He does like his three kids but genetic testing has revealed that only one of them is actually his.
I didn’t really like Mr. McGill and I didn’t really like any of the cases he worked on in this book. I did read it all the way through, but …. Meh.
Audible Original Fiction by Christopher Nuttall
Elliot Richardson is a soldier in the modern USA, and then he somehow falls into another dimension or something and ends up in a world of magic. It’s not explained how or why this happens because that’s not the important part.
The important part is the idea the author is exploring: what would really happen to a regular modern person if they actually went back in time or into another world or whatever. And the answer is: that would actually be a really tough situation that the person might not even survive.
This is a common plot device in books—the going to another world thing— and I usually enjoy these stories a lot. But seriously, if you think about it, how could you possibly navigate a completely different world? Would you even understand the language? How would you get food and shelter? Wouldn’t people there (at best) avoid you or (at worst) kill you?
So this was an interesting story. It had some repetitive elements I didn’t love but in general it was a good book, and the narration was great.
I also listened to recently by audible originals: The Case of the Haunted Haunted House
Fiction by Kristin Harmel
I also read recently by this author: The Forest of Vanishing Stars
Nonfiction by Mindy Anderson
“I did the only thing I could: I took the next step. Every. Single. Time… Minute by minute and day by day, I did what came next. I tried not to think about what came after that. I just focused on the task before me.”
Wow. This is great advice type book and I can see why the author is a successful motivational speaker. It was not as much of a story as I usually like, but still a good book.
Fiction by Mariah Fredricks
In the 1930's Charles Lindbergh and his wife were like American royalty, and Betty Gow felt she was lucky to get a position as a nanny to their baby son Charlie. But when the baby was kidnapped she, along with all of the household, fell under a cloud of suspicion.
This was a good book based on the true story of the woman who looked after little Charlie Lindbergh for most of his short life.
Fiction by Dorothy Gilman
The Mrs. Pollifax series is about a retired lady who goes on adventures all over the world as a spy for the CIA. She is able to do this because nobody suspects a little old lady of being anything but an innocent tourist. In this book she goes on safari to try to catch an assassin!
I've read quite a few of the Mrs. Pollifax stories in the past, and I'm not sure which ones. This one seemed to be one I had not yet read; it was a fun and light mystery.
I also read by this author: The Clairvoyant Countess and Kaleidoscope
Fiction by Drew Hayes
"NPC" is a video-game term for non-playable-character, and it's used for all the background "extras" found in games that are there to move the story along. In this book, the NPC's in a knights and wizards style role-playing game suddenly become able to take part in the game by themselves.
This was a fun little fantasy story with a good voice performance. I liked it, although it does require some suspension of disbelief.
I also read recently by this author: The Case of the Haunted Haunted House
Fiction by Charmaine Wilkerson
This novel has recently been made into a TV series. The preview for the show looked interesting, so I wanted to read it.
The story begins with a 1965 wedding on a Caribbean island. (I think it's Jamaica, but the author never actually says so. She literally just says The Island.) The bride is missing, but her dress is found on the beach smeared with the eponymous black cake. It moves around in time from the present to various points in the past to unlock the story.
I really liked the characters and the plot; I could see how the story would make great TV. The book, however, told the story in such a strange way. Maybe it was because I've had a lot going on recently and I had to keep putting it down and picking it back up, but it was a little hard to follow. I think the TV show will be better. Still, it was a good book.
Fiction by Stephen King.
The title of this book refers to Holly Gibney, a character who has been featured in several Stephen King novels. (I read Finders Keepers, Mr. Mercedes, and The Outsider but there may be more.) I love Holly, so I was happy to see a book devoted to her come out.
But the story begins with Jorge Castro, English professor, out for a run one night in 2012 and then abducted by a pair of old people he actually knows. What could they possibly have kidnapped a grown man for? It will be up to Holly to eventually unravel this mystery when a case of hers intersects his in 2021.
This was a really great story but definitely not a lighthearted one!
