The Book Bit: August 2016 Ed.

  Instead of writing to #blogtunes today, I have "Friends" reruns going in the background.  Love that show; and I've been feeling pretty crummy lately, so it's been sort of couch potato material.  With the Olympics happening this month and varying doctors appointments, you know, all the stuff that comes with having kids, I was lucky to put away three books this month.  Three very good books.


"City Of Dark Magic"- Magnus Flyte

  This book was a little different, but it was also very interesting.  It has a nice little mystery built into it and is packed with art and music history.  If you have a fascination with Beethoven, this book is definitely for you.  The story follows Sarah Weston as she gets a prestigious summer job in Prague helping put together a museum, in which she offers her expertise in Beethoven artifacts.  Just before taking the job her mentor mysteriously dies, the police ruling it as a suicide, but she is skeptical.  Upon taking the job and arriving in Prague, Sarah begins to notice that not all things are as they seem.  She begins to hear rumors about her beloved mentor that unsettle her and when she gets romantically involved with the owner of the rare collection she is working with, she realizes maybe this job was not the best idea.  When she and her new partner start discovering some old artifacts, bodies of coworkers start showing up, looking like suicides, just like her mentor.  The mystery unfolds in a blur of sex, drugs, time travel and good old fashioned political scandals.  An interesting mix, I know, but not to be missed.  Oh, and it's part of series (go figure!).


"Shadowfever"- Karen Marie Moning

  This is book five in the "Fever" series, which is actually the last of the series; sort of.  So, it took five books to get through this adventure, then after this book she wrote a sort of 'sister series' to this one, using the same characters, but a different story line (it hasn't got good reviews, so I'm skeptical about reading it).

  So, I LOVED this series!  Actually, after book four, I didn't want to keep reading, because it ended on the absolute worst cliffhanger, ever!  I was so angry, I walked away from the series for almost six months and I finally decided to finish it and I'm so glad I did.  So, this series is like Harry Potter for adults, at least, that's what I'm calling it.  Instead of following a pre-teen boy through his years at school, we're following a young woman, MacKayla Lane, through her struggles after her sister turns up brutally murdered in Dublin.  With the police hitting dead ends, she packs up her things in search of justice for her sister's death.  Finding herself in Dublin, alone and grieving, she starts to see things that can't possibly be real.  And soon after her arrival she starts encountering people who are insistent that she is from Dublin and related to a long line of women who can see creatures from another realm.  Women who are meant to protect the human race against such creatures.  This series is seriously awesome, filled with magic, creatures that will seriously haunt your nightmares, sex, love, twists and turns that will keep you flipping the pages like mad.  It really is great.  Book one is "Darkfever", really you should check it out!


"Dominance"- Will Lavender

  I am so obsessed with Will Lavender.  He writes the most amazing thrillers, seriously, some of the best stuff I have read in a long time.  This book jumps between past and present when a group of nine students gather together for a special class from a brilliant man who is in prison for brutally murdering two of his students.  As we work our way through the past, the present, fifteen years later, is equally as messy when students from the night class start turning up dead.  The former teacher is immediately suspect when the deaths look too similar to the murders of his former students.  As we bounce between the two stories, we find out what happened all those years ago to the two murdered students and the nine from the night class as they work through the mystery that is the class they enrolled in; and the mystery behind the deaths of the students from the night class.  Lavender is brilliant at deception and keeping you intrigued all the way to the last page (oh, the last page!).  Lavender also wrote another book about a class based on deception and how the students work through the mystery their professor presented them with; check out "Obedience", very interesting.  The whole time you are reading Will Lavender's book you can't believe the game that is being played with people's life, a game between a professor and his students, but really it's a game between you and Lavender.  You won't regret reading this book or his other, it will keep you up at night wondering until you read every last word.

  I hope you enjoy these titles, I certainly did.  Let me know what you are reading or if you have any recommendations!  See you next time.