Snow White (Grimm Curse #3) -Don't bother

Take one of the most beloved fairy tales in the English language, add it to one of my favorite TV shows of the last several seasons and you get....a huge disappointment.  This could have been fun.  It could have been scary.  It could have been entertaining.  Instead it was predictable, flat and frankly, stupid.  Using her cell-phone as the mirror?  It texts her that she is the fairest?  Give me a break!  The take on the Evil queen felt like a sad, pathetic bid to be "relevant."  The writing was insipid.  Everything about this book screamed, "Let's make a buck while the show is still popular."  So disappointing.  If anything about the book could have had a spark of what makes the TV show good, I would have been a big fan.  The only thing I enjoyed about it was that it only took me an hour to read it.

• Would I pay money for it? No
• Would I read more by this author? Yes, just to see if everything is this bad.
• Would I recommend this to a friend? absolutely not

Purchased as a Kindle freebie May 8, 2013

Rusty Nail-A graphically violent Jack Daniels

GRAPHIC VIOLENCE WARNING. Ok, you have been warned.  I was warned by the author (thanks Mr. Konrath, I really do appreciate it!) that this book has the most graphic violence in the series.  Having been warned, I was able to blip over sections where that violence occurred.  It was pretty easy to see them coming.  So why would I even read a book with stuff I don’t like in it?  Well, I really wanted to know what happens to Jack.  I was starting to get fairly invested in her after the first two books,  Whiskey Sour and Bloody Mary, and having been told that the violence decreases after this book, I wanted to keep up with her storyline.  

The first book involved Jack’s investigation into the Gingerbread Man.  He pops up again here and let me say that he is not someone you want to deal with more than once.  Jack is once more being personally targeted by a serial killer.  Her partner is having to deal with some health issues, her mom’s in a coma, her ex-boyfriend has a new girlfriend, life is not fun. 

As with the first two, there are excellent descriptions of police work.  I like hearing about some of the nitty-gritty of an investigation, the leg-work involved.  I don’t like cases being solved purely by intuition or a sudden revelation.  We see plenty of good detective skills here.  As with the first two, there is plenty of humor.  Great one-liners, good relationships between the characters.  Jack and her partner have a real warmth to their relationship that I enjoy.  For all the things that are wrong in her life, Jack has a great group of people that like and help her.   

Bottom line-if you don’t want the violence, avoid this book.  If you can jump over it and are interested in following Jack’s story, you’ll find this quite satisfying.  

More about J.A. Konrath 

Author's suggested order of reading

• Would I pay money for it?  Maybe not this particular one because I skipped some parts but yes, the others in the serious I would
• Would I read more by this author?  yes 
• Would I recommend this to a friend? Not this particular one but I would recommend the others in the series to friends that like police procedurals

Purchased as a Kindle freebie March 30, 2013

 

Bloody Mary-Life is never easy for Jack Daniels

Life is never easy for Jack Daniels and in this second book in the series, it just gets a little weirder.

I like this series. It's hard to describe why. It's much bloodier than a cozy, which is what I usually read and yet, it's light. It is somewhat reminiscent of Stephanie Plum and yet quite different. It's a police procedural with humour. It's a bit of a whodunit but this particular book tells you whodunit about halfway through. Jack's personal life plays in very heavily. Even writing about it sounds like a jumble of discordant elements and yet, for me, it works really well. I should just stop trying to compartmentalize it.

Jack is once again on the track of a killer that seems to be taunting her personally.  When her handcuffs turn up on a victim, it's definitely personal.  But as in the first book, Whisky Sour, it's not just her professional life that's giving her fits.  Her personal life has taken a strange turn.  Jack finds out that her mother is sick and brings her to Chicago so she can keep an eye on her. Her mother's name happens to be Mary and she happens to be an ex-cop.   I think any time you put an adult character's mother into the mix, you're going to come out with something interesting.



Just two books in and I'm already feel like I know Jack well. Even though it's bloodier than I care for, I'll be starting the next one in the series right away.

More about J.A. Konrath 

Other Jack Daniels books reviewed 
Whisky Sour
Rusty Nail

Would I pay money for it?Yes

Would I read more by this author? Yes I will

Would I recommend this to a friend? Depends on their level of tolerance for graphic violence

Purchased as a Kindle freebie February 9, 2013

Whiskey Sour-And so we meet Jack Daniels

This is the first Jack Daniels novel I've read and my first by J.A. Konrath. The author says that you don't have to read them in order, they are each written to be stand-alone but if you want to read them in the author's recommended order, you can find it here. I'm one of those people that doesn't like to run willy-nilly through a series so I'll be reading them in order. 

Jack Daniels is a lieutenant with the Chicago PD. Her love interest has just left her so her personal life is a mess.  She's chasing down a serial killer called the Gingerbread Man who's  taunting the police and Jack so her professional life is rather messy also.  The story goes back and forth between her point of view and the killer's.  I'm not normally a fan of alternating view points but it didn't bother me too much in this book.

I very much enjoyed the style of writing, the humour, the mystery and the detective work, but it was more graphic than I normally like so consider that if you care about that kind of thing. It wasn't enough to put me off from the series which I will definitely continue to read.

I'm familiar with Chicago so I enjoyed the talk about the scenery and geography. I was able to see the action pretty clearly. I've already read the next one in the series and look forward to the rest of them.

More about J.A. Konrath 

Would I pay money for it?Yes

Would I read more by this author? I already have and plan on reading more

Would I recommend this to a friend? Depends on their level of tolerance for graphic violence

Purchased as a Kindle freebie February 28, 2013

Grayson Manor Haunting-Was there a horror story cliche that this book missed? I think not!

So Addison Lockhart's mom passes away and Addison inherits a very grand house in the country that she didn't even know existed but is where her mother grew up. When she arrives at the house she find that it comes with locked rooms, a hunky contractor willing to work on it, a ghost haunting it unable to move on because of unfinished business and...Wait a minute. Do these elements feel familiar? Is there any cliché for haunted house stories that this book has missed? I don't think so. The longer I read, the more it felt like every plotline I've ever seen used in a haunted house story was here in this book. The grandmother that she didn't know she had reappears. The blood stained dress found in the house. I found it so cliché that I had a hard time enjoying it.

There are many types of horror stories that I have no interest in but haunted house stories are one type I really enjoy. This looked like a slam dunk for me. Unfortunately, it felt like a retread of many other haunted house stories and a shallow one at that. I didn't feel like there was much depth to the story or to the characters. The one thing that I always need in my stories is atmosphere and that was sadly lacking here. It wasn't creepy and it didn't make me feel haunted. When we had “an eerie stillness” and “a deadly quiet” in the same paragraph, I felt like the author was just trying too hard. I would be willing to give this author another try because I know she has written other things that have been well received, but this one did left me very flat.

Would I pay money for it?   No

Would I read more by this author? Yes

Would I recommend this to a friend? No