The Kari AnnAlysis

Archive for the ‘Book Review’ Category

From Amazon.com:
On the same night that Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon, ten-year-old Charlie Olmstead jumped on his bike to see if there was some way he could get a better look. It was the last anyone ever saw of him. After Perry Hollow Police Chief Jim Campbell found Charlie’s bike caught in the water above Sunset Falls, he assumed the worst. Everyone did—except Charlie’s mother.

Years later, Eric Olmstead—now a famous author and Charlie’s younger brother—has come back to Perry Hollow to bury his mother and fulfill her last request: Find Charlie. To do so, he goes to the current police chief, his former sweetheart, Kat Campbell, who happens to be Jim Campbell’s daughter. Together they soon discover that Eric’s mother was convinced Charlie was kidnapped, and that finding him—whether he was dead or alive—was her secret obsession. While she never succeeded, she did uncover clues that suggested he wasn’t the only boy across Pennsylvania to vanish into thin air during that time.

The haunting story of a boy missing for forty years, and of a small town that found lies easier to believe than the truth, explodes into the present in Bad Moon, Todd Ritter’s excellent follow-up to his acclaimed debut.

Woo for the first book of 2012! I’m going to have to make a new tab now! I got this book from Dana Kaye at Kaye Publicity. It was a surprise book and it took me forever to get to it, but what a way to start a new year of reading. Just by reading the description, I wasn’t 100% sure I would like this book, or even be able to finish it. It just didn’t strike that “aha” cord with me. It sat on my bookshelf for a couple of  months and I finally got tired of seeing it, so I picked it up and couldn’t put it down.

There is such mystery in the disappearance of little Charlie and nothing like a mother’s intuition to know that he didn’t just fall into the water as believed. I imagine that as a mother myself, I would be in her same shoes and wouldn’t be able to give up until I died, as she did.

I try to think of myself as an awesome mystery solver. Not so much. The more I read books like this, and hope to write them someday, you would think that I would be able to get these figured out right off the bat. Nope, this one got me again. It wasn’t until it was spelled out in front of my face did the mystery come to light. Then it all made sense. The moon, the disappearance, the connection with all of the other boys disappearing and an ending that came from a beginning that should have never happened.

This is the second book for Kat Campbell and State Police Investigator Nick Donnelly. I like to read books in order, it’s a pet peeve of mine. This one was written well enough that I didn’t have to read the first one, but I still like to follow the order. I did learn some things in this book that I think will spoil it if I go back and read the first one, but I liked these characters enough that I may be able to close off the second one to get caught up.

Kat Campbell is a very strong female character. She is a cop, followed in her father’s footsteps. And for such a small town, it seems like a big feat. She has some issues though with trust and men. They are brought to light in this book and I hope that another will come out in this series and push forward in a relationship that was broken, then rekindled. There seems to be a fire burning beneath the surface (if you read this book already, then pun intended )

I give Bad Moon 4 bookmarks.

ISBN: 978-0312622817
Released: October 2011
Author Website
Kari got this book from Kaye Publicity

WAIT! Don’t click away just yet! Normally my posts end when I put who I got the book from… but not this time! I got an extra copy of Bad Moon and am going to do a giveaway. All you have to do it leave a comment and leave your email address, saying you want to read this book. Easy enough right?  This giveaway will end on Wednesday, January 18, so get in your comments and spread the word (unless you don’t want competition).

Famous Broadway star Natalie Raines is dead. What no one knows is that just before she is murdered, she comes face-to-face with the man who she believes murdered her best friend years ago.

Two years later, Natalie’s ex-husband is charged with her murder, a case that is held together with the testimony of a career criminal.

Emily Wallace is the prosecutor in the case. She is certain Jimmy’s testimony is true, but bit-by-bit the pieces start to unravel and Emily isn’t so sure the right man is behind bars and the subtle signs are pointing to someone with pretty high ties.

After falling in love with On The Street Where You Live, I knew I had to get another Mary Higgins Clark audio book. There were several to choose from, so I just snatched this one up and went with it. It was a little harder to get into that On The Street Where You Live, but once I did, I was hooked.

Just like the previous audio book I listened to, I hated to turn the radio off and pull into my final destination. I wanted to know what was happening next and there were a couple of times I just sat in my car to listen to a few extra paragraphs.

The thing that hit close to home in this book was high profile people being possible murder suspects. Obviously I don’t do much with celebrities, I live in West Virginia for goodness sakes, but being part of the media gives me a chance to see all kinds of high profile public figures on the opposite end of the law. As I was listening to this book, the grand jury was meeting in my town and indicting the sheriff, a deputy, a school board member and a jail official. None of the cases were as serious as murder, but it makes you sit back and think. Maybe I am putting a little too much thought into a fictional book, which I do way too often, but that’s what books do for me. They make me put the story lines into real life possibilities.

When I listened to On The Street Where You Live, I kind of knew early in the game who the bad guy was. In some books, the good guys are just too good to be true. In this book however, I was a little caught off guard. If you haven’t read this book, yes, I have spilt the beans that a high profile character is the one who committed the murder. Not a spoiler though. Lucky for you, nearly EVERYONE in this book is high profile! Good luck

I give Just Take My Heart 4 bookmarks.

ISBN: 978-1416570868
Published: April 2009
Author Website
Kari got this audio book from the library

Emily Graham is looking for some peace and quiet. She left Albany after a nasty divorce and a stalking incident that put a disgruntled man behind bars after Emily (an attorney) got a man off the hook for his mother’s murder.

She has a job set up in Manhattan, but is taking some time off to get settled in her new home. This home is in Spring Lake, New Jersey, and was her family home, before a family member went missing and it was sold in 1892.

As Emily is remodeling the house, and digging for the pool begins, bones are found. But these are the first of many bones to be dug up in the town and Emily is determined to track down the murder copycat who seems to be following the same steps as a murdered from the 1890s. The only thing Emily doesn’t know, there’s one more woman on the killer’s list and that woman is Emily.
I listened to this book in audio book and learned two very important things. One, I love Mary Higgins Clark books. Two, I love listening to murder-mystery audio books.

Let’s start with the  book itself. This was an awesome story. Throughout the book reincarnation is brought up time and time again.I am not telling you if that is behind the murders or not, but it is a reoccuring theme from the first murder to the last. And it made for a great, thought provoking read…or should I say listen. There were many options for the killer in this book, which I love, but there is more than one plot line to follow, which means all the drama in this book could be happening for several reasons.

Now to the second part, about listening to murder-mystery audio books. I have listened to quite a few audio books in the past year and I loved this one, for reasons unlike the ones that have made me love others. I loved this book because I got into it so much. When I read books, I am constantly playing out scenes in my head, imaging the characters and their mannerisms and working out the plot before it unfolds in the book. With this book however, I got a little vocal. During the book, from scene to scene, I would try to work out who the killer is and say what I would do next if I was in Emily’s shoes and what I would say to the characters. I always feel like I get involved in character’s lives. In this book though, I felt like I was really there. That may be unhealthy, but it made me fall in love with Mary Higgins Clark for it.

I just happened to pick up this audio book at a book sale. I thought the cover was intriguing and I was in the market for any and every audio book I could come across. The one I listened to before this was a Christmas book and I thought this one was too. Don’t ask why. I guess just because the door was red. We all know I had a hard time reading what the book is really about before I dive in. If you do not go to library book sales and use them to expand your reading circle, you, my friend, are missing out. There have been so many awesome books that I have just picked up at a library sale because it was cheap and I have fallen in love with them. I doubt I would have ever picked up a Mary Higgins Clark book. I rarely go pick out books by popular authors (sorry guys). I like to pick out books by unpopular authors and hope that I fall in love with their book and hope my review will help others want to read their books and make them popular. So if you see a book sale, pick up something you normally wouldn’t. These books are normally cheap, so if you don’t like it, you’re only out a couple of dollars, but at least you tried to expand your reading horizons, right?

Do you listen to audio books? Do you get as involved as I do?

Do you read Mary Higgins Clark? I have also listened to Just Take My Heart. Have any that I should read/listen to??

I give On the Street Where You Live 5 bookmarks.

ISBN: 978-0671004538
Released: April 2002
Author Website
Kari got this audio book from A library booksale

Someone is targeting newylweds before they even have a chance to get out of their dresses and tuxes. Four hard working women, including a homicide inspector, a medical examiner, an assistant DA and a crime desk reporter are doing their best to track this homicidal creep down, but the usual procedures aren’t working. So, they step outside the box and make the “Women’s Murder Club.” They sit around and toss back a drink and just lay it all out on the table, off the record of course, and hope that four heads will be better than one. They need all the help they can get to get this homicidal maniac off the streets and give soon-to-be married couples a sigh of relief before their big days.

I have heard wonderful things about this book for years and fell in love with James Patterson after reading a random book I picked up of his a couple of years ago for a reading challenge. He always writes in so many twists and turns and just when you think you have it all figured out, BAM, everything you thought you know is out the door. I picked this book up at a book sale at our local library last year, along with the second one in the series. They had them both in hardback and I had to get them. But it took me a while to actually get to the book.

But once I started it, I couldn’t put it down. I loved the mystery this book brought along with it. And I am admittedly creepily intrigued by the view point of a killer during books. Although I know it’s not a real killer, I always want to get inside their minds. I think that’s the part of me that wanted to be a psychologist in the prison system and figure out why people kill. Instead, I went into news to report on these people.

So, I guess I could still be part of the group right? And that leads me to the group. I am always a fan of strong female characters and this book not only had one, but four bad ass women. I wonder if there are groups that do this in real life? I know when there are major unsolved stories that we cover, we always speculate in the newsroom what could have possibly happened. I actually ran one of these by a local sheriff recently on an unsolved case and he laughed at my idea. I followed up with that I watch way too many Lifetime movies. He did not disagree

But I loved this book and can’t wait to see how this group continues to grow in the rest of this series. I give 1st to Die 5 bookmarks.

ISBN: 978-0446610032
Released: February 2002
Author Website
Kari got this book from a library sale

Keri Daniels left the east coast for a big life in the Sunshine State. She’d pretty much forgotten about her past, until her vulture of a boss at a big magazine finds out that growing up, Keri was friends with a now-famous and reclusive author. So she gives Keri an ultimatum…get an interview, or get a new job.

But Joe Kowalski isn’t going to make this easy for Keri. She did kind of break his heart and run to the other side of the country. He agrees to an interview, but there are rules. She has to go with his entire family, including his sister who used to be Keri’s best friend, but now hates her, on a two-week camping trip. She also has to take part in all the family’s activities. If she complies, she gets to ask him one question a night. But he also gets to ask her one.

Keri agrees, because she know she doesn’t have a choice if she wants to keep her job. But once she gets there, deciding whether this is worth keeping her job is the easiest decision she has to make. Sometimes a first love never fades away.

I will always be a fan of any book that has a character who is a journalist. I just feel like I can relate to them and instantly have a bond. And when the other leading character is an author….count me in!

This was such a creative love story.  While many of us would HATE to be thrust into a situation like this, awkward to say the least, it made for an amazing read. It was fun and very easily believable.

I also loved the conflict in this story. Some love stories you read, there’s a smidge of conflict, but the rest is rainbows and unicorns. That’s not life. It’s not believable. Although I know I am reading fiction, I like to picture myself in the scenario of the characters. This had so many layers of conflict from high school love, to high school hate, to horrible bosses, to making a decision that could change the rest of your life.

I am very happy that this is the beginning of a series and can’t wait to read more about the Kowalski family.

I give Exclusively Yours 5 bookmarks.

ISBN: 978-0373776788
Release Date: December 20, 2011
Author Website
Kari got this book from NetGalley