Black-Eyed Susans

Title:Black-Eyed Susans

Author: Julia Heaberlin

Rating: 4 stars

Genre: Thriller/ Mystery

Number of Pages: 349

Publisher: Penguin

Publication Date: 2015

Summary: Seventeen-year-old Tessa, dubbed a 'Black-Eyed Susan' by the media, became famous for being the only victim to survive the vicious attack of a serial killer. Her testimony helped put a dangerous criminal behind bars - or so she thought.

Now decades later, the case has been reopened and the black-eyed Susans planted outside Tessa's bedroom window seem to be a message from a killer who should be safely in prison.

Tessa agrees to help with the investigation, but she is haunted by fragmented memories of the night she was attacked and terrified for her own teenage daughter's safety, Can she unlock the truth about the killer before it is too late?

I really struggled to get into this book. The main reason for this was that I found that rather than saying what was happening, it just seemed to dance around events and teased you with information to the point where you wanted to pick the book up and throw it across the room. If you picked this book up without reading the summary first, I really think you would spend the first 70 or so pages of this book wondering what was going on. For people who love suspense and being kept guessing this is the book for you. Me, would have liked a bit more information to understand what was happening.

However, once I got through the first part of this book I really, really enjoyed it. The mystery begins to unfold in a way that allows you to follow and make your own assumptions, pushing and pulling you on the right track and sometimes leading you down dead ends. This book was filled with an amazing amount of little details, and the past and present are highly intertwined in a way that shows the amount of thought and detail that Heaberlin has put into this book,

This book alternates in perspective between Tessa or present day and a younger Tessie following the events of her attack. By telling the story in this perspective, Heaberlin doesn't really have Tessa talk about the events of her past so much as she focuses on the present and the results of what happened all those years ago. The story told from Tessa's point of view was definitely more enjoyable as this was what told the bulk of the story and was were ultimately the mystery and thriller aspect of the book were present. This meant that sometimes the other chapters told from a different perspective sometimes felt a little irrelevant to the overall story and were almost acting as a filler or breaker.

Zero at the Bone

Title: Zero at the Bone

Author: Jane Seville

Rating: 3.5 stars

Genre: Romance, Thriller

Number of Pages: 293

Publisher: Kindle

Publication Date: 2009

Summary: After witnessing a mob hit, surgeon Jack Francisco is put into protective custody to keep him safe until he can testify,

A hitman known only as D is blackmailed into killing Jack, but when he tracks him down, his weary conscience won't allow him to murder an innocent man.

Finding in each other an unlikely ally, Jack and D are soon on the run from shadowy enemies. Forced to work together to survive, the two men forge a bond that ripens into unexpected passion. Jack sees the wounded soul beneath D's cold, detached exterior, and D finds in Jack the person can help him reclaim the man he once was.

As the day of Jack's testimony approaches, he and D find themselves not only fighting for their lives...but also fighting for their future. A future together.

TBR Challenge: For March my TBR challenge was to read a book that was based on a characters emotional development.

Before I begin writing this review I think it would be first a good idea to start off by saying that I spent a good part of February in a reading slump, and as a result, said reading slump may affect my overall perspective and rating on this book.

I picked up this book for two reasons. First I wanted a book that wasn't particularly long, was probably action packed and it met the requirements of my TBR Challenge. When I find myself in a reading slump, I have found that a good way of getting out is to read a book that is fairly short and always has something happening. This book was, however, not quite what I was expecting.

For a book that was about hit men, witness protection and being on the run, this book was pretty lacking in the action. A good half of this book was simply waiting around for something to happen, and then waiting some more. Granted you can't have a book just filled with one fight straight after the other, you need to break them up, but this book was spread out for miles; and when you finally got a fight scene, it was over in a page or two. This would have been fine if something was happening in between but even the romance in the story was very slow due to the fact that D as a character is extraordinarily emotional dead inside.

I really didn't like the character of D. When I say he is emotional dead, I seriously mean it. D might have a moral compass that points north and does direct him in life, but he also lacks the most basic things that makes someone human. A character as emotional dead as D makes him difficult to relate and sympathise with him. This was all especially apparent when you compare him to Jack. Jack was full of life, wanted to know about everything and in comparison to D, Jack was the poster child of humanity.

D took a long time to develop as a character, and even at the end still came across as being quite emotionally dead. It is not until we are well into the second half of this book that we really begin to see him change and begin to live and the epilogue was a good indicator that he hasn't really grown so much as he has grown when it comes to Jack.

My second problem with D was his speech. D spoke like he was highly unintelligent and I really found this hard to accept when he was a man that ran on strategy as a survival mechanism. While I get that the way he talked was probably a way of bringing more depth to D, helping to show that there was more to him. I found myself thinking that Jane Saville was trying to write the worst character possible so she could more easily show that he will grow and develop. But that is just my opinion and based on the high reviews on goodreads I get the impression I stand alone in many of opinions of this book.

Despite the fact that I seem to have only written negative things about the book in this review, I did enjoy the book. The fact that I was in a reading slump and actually finished the book in a couple days shows this pretty well. 

Dangerous Lies

Title: Dangerous Lies

Author: Becca Fitzpatrick

Rating: 5 stars

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Thriller

Number of Pages: 384

Publication Date: November 2015

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Summary: Stella Gordon's life is a lie. 

She does not belong in Thunder Basin, Nebraska. As the key witness in a murder trial, Stella is under witness protection, living a life she doesn't want.

No on can know who she really is. Not even Chet Falconer, her hot, enigmatic neighbour. But against her better judgement, Stella finds herself falling under Chet's spell.

Becca Fitzpatrick is one of my favourite young adult authors. She writes fast paced books that you have to read, cover-to-cover, in one sitting. The characters and situations they find themselves in, suck you in from page one and don't spit you out until you are well after the last page.

One of the things that I loved the most about this book was the idea of who you are and what your identity is. Fitzpatrick created a believable and heart wrenching situation in which Stella is forced to come to terms with the fact that who she really is, is someone she can't be. The emotional strain of having to lie and be someone else when all you want to be is yourself.

I loved Stella as a character, especially because she is not your typical main character. Many authors write characters that are strong and unbreakable, great heroes and heroines. Fitzpatrick writes characters who could be anyone...you, your neighbour, the guy who walks his dog down your street every day. Rather than creating a character who is strong and guaranteed to come out on top because of all the special skills they pertain, Stella is an everyday average person, who when put in a difficult situation has to hope that she comes out the other side with the help of others and perhaps a little dumb luck. 

My only disappointment in this entire book was that I wanted more about the murder Stella witnessed. I wanted more of the thriller side of Dangerous Lies. (Spoiler ahead) I wanted to hear more about Reed and if the cartel caught up with him? Was Reed really involved or was Trigger just being Trigger?

Like with the rest of Becca Fitzpatrick's books Dangerous Lies is very focused on the romance of the characters. The thing that I love the most about the romances that Fitzpatrick creates is that the characters always have a strong connection. Their isn't just some smouldering romance with no real substance - Stella and Chet are good friends, they talk and listen to each other and support one another. So many authors write romances that are based almost entirely off attraction and have no mutual ground that make them cheesy and unbelievable. Stella and Chet contain flaws and are far from perfect characters but this just makes them believable and real.