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. …

Publishers Weekly

Excellent.

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.

Amazon

1. The Passage, 
2. The Twelve 
3. City of Mirrors

White heroic action guy transports and protects a girl who is somehow immune to the plague.

… Sound familiar? 😀

One season of a TV adaptation was made. Audience 85% on Rotten Tomatoes.

But critics didn’t like it. Not renewed.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Justin Cronin is a graduate of Harvard and former professor of English at Rice.

He’s competent.

But I don’t buy this bloated, confusing trilogy.

It should be 8-9 books in logical sequence rather than 3 massive volumes in seemingly random order.

It’s sometimes compared with King’s The Stand (1978) — but that’s being very generous. The Stand is much better.

Nora Roberts’ Year One is much better.

King said he liked the Passage series, however.

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.

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It’s said the middle book of a trilogy is typically worst.

The Twelve is worse.

Four plot lines. Too many characters.

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?

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The City of Mirrors (2016) is the final book in the trilogy.

The back story of patient zero, Tim Fanning, is pretty much a novella embedded in the 3rd book. It is interesting, however.

Ending of the trilogy?

Doesn’t make much sense to me.

This could have been 3 excellent books rather than a hodge hodge of 8.5 rambling books.

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? …

kristenlepionka.com

Not a bad book. Slow to come together, however.

I was 2/3rds finished before Roxane starts to get anywhere.

It’s got something to do with that secretive church group.

Recommended.

They Came to Baghdad is an adventure novel by Agatha Christie, first published in the 1951. …

The book was inspired by Christie’s own trips to Baghdad with her second husband, archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, and is also one of few Christie novels belonging to the action and spy fiction genres, rather than to mysteries and whodunnits. …

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. …