This pandemic starts in the Scottish Highlands. A pheasant the bird that infects patent zero.
About 80% of the world’s population dies quickly.
Unlike Covid, a high percentage of the survivors have some kinds of magical abilities.
This trilogy is an easy read. I’d call it Young Adult.
Plenty of romance, as expected of Nora Roberts.
Good vs Evil.
The One is a young woman trained for this epic battle. A child born to a special destiny. A teacher who had been waiting over 1000 years for her birth.
Fast paced. Easy to follow as Roberts does not make the typical mistake of including too many characters.
YES it’s predictable and sentimental.
Still, I enjoyed all 3 predictable and sentimental books. I wished there were more in the series.
Once again, I have to point out that Nora Roberts does not get the respect she deserves.
She publishes so frequently. And sells so many books, that very few bother writing reviews.
Divine Evil (2010) is another entertaining story, well told.
Not her best book of the 270+. But well worth reading.
Clare Kimball, an accomplished sculptor, is troubled by depression and the return of childhood nightmares. So she takes a break from New York City and heads for her sleepy hometown in Maryland, despite its association with her beloved father’s violent but apparently accidental death.
Cameron Rafferty, formerly the town hellion, is now the sheriff and faced with a puzzle: the century-old grave of an infant has been dug up. In fact, the grave was robbed by Satan worshipers; Clare’s dreams date from the night in her childhood when she saw them performing a coven ceremony–and they know she saw them.
Cam’s problems are compounded when the mutilated corpse of his hated stepfather is discovered in a field after the two have a public fistfight. …
The 2023 book by Barclay is as terrific as the rest.
Jack Givins’ father was a killer for hire — whisked away by witness protection, leaving Jack and his mother to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives as best they could.
Years later, Jack is a grown man with problems of his own.
He’s a talented but struggling author, barely scraping by on the royalties from his moderately successful first book.
So when the U.S. Marshals approach him with a lucrative opportunity, he’s in no position to turn them down. They’re recruiting writers like Jack to create false histories for people in witness protection—people like Jack’s father.
The coincidence is astonishing to Jack at first, but he soon realizes this may be a chance to find his dad. Only there’s one problem—Jack’s father hasn’t made contact with his handlers recently, and they have no idea where he is. He could be in serious danger, and Jack may be the only one who can find him.
But how will he find a man he’s never truly known? A man who has done terrible things in his lifetime and made some deadly enemies in the process—enemies who wouldn’t think twice about using his own son against him.
The Passage focuses on Project Noah, a secret medical facility where scientists are experimenting with a dangerous virus that could lead to the cure for all disease, but also carries the potential to wipe out the human race.
… begins in 2016 and spans more than ninety years, as colonies of humans attempt to live in a world filled with superhuman creatures who are continually on the hunt for fresh blood. …
… two sections: the first and shorter section covers the origins of the virus and its outbreak, while the second is set 93 years after the infections, primarily following a colony of survivors living in California. …
I quite enjoyed the long book and was keen to press on.
Good characters. I was never lost.
It’s said the middle book of a trilogy is typically worst.
Too much confusing jumping forward and backward in time.
I didn’t like the characters and their stories nearly as much as in the first book.
The ending was probably the best part. It did tie up some of the many, many loose threads. Of course it made no sense. How does an explosion kill super beings and yet leave mere mortals alive?
The start of this book sees an experienced hiker somehow fall to her death at the bottom of a ravine in a Columbus, Ohio park.
Suspicious.
Her daughter, Maggie, doesn’t believe it was an accident, and Rebecca’s ex-husband is her prime suspect. But he’s a well-connected ex-cop and Maggie is certain that’s the reason no one will listen to her.
PI Roxane Weary quickly uncovers that the dead woman’s ex is definitely a jerk, but is he a murderer? …
The lead character is a treat. Victoria Jones, a penniless but astonishingly audacious young Brit with no actual life skills, finds her way to Baghdad in an attempt to woo a young man she’d only met briefly.
A stranger dies in her room.
Robert Barnard: “Fairly preposterous example of thriller-type Christie, but livelier than some. Engaging heroine and unusually good minor characters – archeologists, hotelkeeper, etc. The plot concerns attempts to prevent The Big Three (Britain was one of them then) from coming together and making peace. …
In her third thriller (“The Guest List” and “The Hunting Party”) Lucy Foley keeps you guessing with multiple first person narrators and short chapters designed to leave you hanging.
The star of this twisted tale is Jess, arriving in Paris from London to visit her half-brother, Ben. …
Turns out Ben is missing and Jess can’t get any answers from the denizens of number 12, rue des Amants. …
Mickey Gibson, single mother and former detective, leads a hectic life similar to that of many moms: juggling the demands of her two small children with the tasks of her job working remotely for ProEye, a global investigation company that hunts down wealthy tax and credit cheats.
When Mickey gets a call from a colleague named Arlene Robinson, she thinks nothing of Arlene’s unusual request for her to go inventory the vacant home of an arms dealer who cheated ProEye’s clients and fled. That is, until she arrives at the mansion to discover a dead body in a secret room—and that nothing is as it seems. …
In the blink of an eye, Gibson has become a prime suspect in a murder investigation—and now her job is also on the line until she proves that she was set up.
Before long, Gibson is locked in a battle of wits with a brilliant woman with no name, a hidden past, and unknown motives—whose end game is as mysterious as it is deadly.
This may have been the first Agatha Christie I ever read.
As a Reader’s Digest Condensed Book back when I was a kid.
Quite groundbreaking as one of the first serial killer stories.
10 people on an island. No way to leave.
One by one they are murdered in this spooky house.
Like most upper middle class Brits of her age, Agatha was somewhat racist. And even more antisemitic.
She got better over the decades, eventually casting homosexuals in positive roles. Surprisingly, the famously conservative old lady even voted to join the EU.
It was first published in the United Kingdom in 1939, as Ten Little Niggers,[3] after an 1869 minstrel song which serves as a major plot element. The US edition was released i 1940 with the title And Then There Were None, taken from the last five words of the song.
The book is the world’s best-selling mystery, and with over 100 million copies sold is one of the best-selling books of all time.
My theory is that Nora is increasingly moving away from romance. In this book no bodice is ripped until well into the second half of a long book.
This one is about identity theft. The conman not only takes the identity and steals the money — but also murders the victim.
Morgan Albright … bought a small house in the perfect neighbourhood outside of Baltimore, living with a friend and working two jobs to make ends meet.
Morgan’s life is happy and fulfilling, and she is making progress on her financial and career goals.
Her perfect world is shattered when someone breaks into her home and murders her roommate.
At first, the police assume it was a random act of violence, but after discovering the killer stole Morgan’s identity and her entire savings, they realize the crime fits the profile of a serial killer named Gavin Rozwell. …
l learned a lot from this book. Roberts does a lot of research into the back stories of her characters. In this case, Morgan has to move home with her Mom and Grandmother and reinvent her life working in a small town.
Yes the plot is a bit cheesy. And the characters a bit cliche.
Rick McCharles 