Frozen by Jay Boninsanga

Anyone who has been reading my blog for any length of time has probably noticed that my two favorite genres currently are paranormal romance(vampires and werewolves and witches, oh, my!) and action-adventure historic mystery(think Dan Brown-esque, but better!). Paranormal romance is so popular right now that it's not hard to find new authors to read. The action-adventure historic mystery isn't quite as popular, so I have to do more hunting to find the kind of books that fall into this category. Of course, Dan Brown and James Rollins are always a good bet, and I've discovered both Raymond Khoury and Chris Kuzneski to be great authors in this genre as well. I expected Frozen to be a typical thriller since a profiler was the main character, and I was happy when it took a different turn.

Ulysses Grove is an FBI profiler working on the Sun City case. He's known as the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit's golden boy, cracking cases that no one else is able to close. He has been working on the Sun City case for over a year without any breaks in the case, and his superiors are beginning to believe that's he's having a nervous breakdown.

After an incident on the job, his unit director sends him to Alaska to investigate a mummy at the request of a journalist for Discover magazine. There, he meets off-beat journalist Maura County and discovers a link between the death of the neolithic mummy and the MO of his Sun City serial killer.

My only complaint about the writing is that the author has a tendency to foreshadow too much. He says things like "she didn't know how important this person would be," or "he didn't know that this would help crack his case." There were quite a few show, don't tell moments in the writing. I've come to the conclusion that this is a pitfall for first time fiction authors. Possibly it is confined to this particular genre.

I really enjoyed the book, and I can't wait to read more about Ulysses Grove. I really hope that all Bonansinga's books have a historic/supernatural twist like Frozen. If you enjoy James Rollins, you'll love Frozen!

Fair Warning by Hannah Alexander

I really like these books! Each one I pick up has such realistic, well-rounded, solid characters. They seem like people that I would like to get to know.

Willow, the main character in this book, has moved in with her brother Preston after quitting her job as a nurse. Her husband, a police officer, was killed in the line of duty, and she suffered a miscarriage shortly after. Her brother manages a small apartment building for Dr. Graham Vaughn.

Shortly after Willow's arrival, Preston's house burns down. Preston is injured in the fire, and Willow loses all her belongings. The police find the accelerant used to start the fire in Willow's car, throwing suspicion on her. The forensics point in other directions, so the police allow her to obtain a hotel room with the promise that she will not leave town.

Other suspicious events happen, and Willow becomes convinced that someone is trying to harm her. Graham and his sister Ginger take Willow in and help her to solve the mystery of who is out to get her.

I really can't say enough good things about these books. I really enjoy reading them. If you enjoy suspense/mystery and you want a book with Christian values, these books are perfect for you. There's also a bit of romance thrown in, the perfect combination.

Exit Strategy by Kelley Armstrong

I've read several of Armstrong's paranormal romances, and I had high expectations for this book. It's the story of Nadia, a disgraced police officer turned hitwoman from Canada. I'm generally not okay with books about professional assassins. I did read one recently that was pretty funny and that I enjoyed. Generally, the professional assassin has to do vigilante-type killings in order for me to be willing to read about it. That's Nadia, in a way.

Nadia joins forces with a few other professionals in order to track down a hitman turned serial killer. The professionals don't want themselves linked with a serial killer, so it's all in self-interest. She works with her mentor Jack, the game-playing Evelyn who tempts her with vigilante hits, Felix, and Quinn, who is also an FBI agent.

The five of them leapfrog across the US, keeping their identities secret, changing appearance on a regular basis, and planning traps for the hitman-slash-serial-killer. Along the way, Nadia finds herself irresistably attracted to Quinn, but unable to even think about entering into a relationship because of their shared profession. She takes risks and puts herself in the position of bait in order to catch the killer.

While it sounds pretty exciting, it really wasn't. The only part that had me turning pages was the end. Because of the nature of the assassin profession(I imagine), we didn't learn a lot of personal facts or quirks of the characters other than Nadia. I don't want to just get acquainted with one character--I want to know all of them. It didn't feel like an ensemble, didn't feel cohesive, didn't feel like real people.

I think I would recommend giving this one a miss.

Hunting the Demon by Jaci Burton

Silly me, I picked up the second book in this series to read first. I didn't realize it until after I'd already started reading. Thankfully, it's not one of those books that is incomprehensible if you haven't read the first book. I enjoy that sort of book, but it's often difficult to find them in order at the library, at BookMooch, or even at the bookstore.

I've actually been quite surprised at the number and popularity of paranormal romances recently. There are books about werewolves, books about vampires, and books about demons, among others. I wonder at the appeal of beings that are generally viewed as being so quintessentially evil. And yet, I still read them.

Dominic Diavolo is the son of a demon and a human woman. He was kidnapped by his father at the age of 8. Nic doesn't remember his life before that, and his father told him that he was in an accident and had amnesia.

In truth, Nic has an older brother, Derek, who has been searching for him in the twenty-some years since he was kidnapped. Derek is a member of the Realm of Light, an organization of demon hunters. Shay is also a member of the Realm of Light, and she feels a connection with Nic. She manipulates it so that she is the one who is used to bait Nic.

Shay has a difficult task getting Nic to believe that his father was a demon, as well as overcoming the betrayal Nic feels over his kidnapping. Once Nic catches sight of his first demon, he becomes a believer and joins in the efforts of the Realm of Light to overcome the Sons of Darkness. In the end, he has to fight to master his inner beast, his demon.

I really enjoyed this book, and picked up the first book at the library once I realized there was another. I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series as well. I would recommend this book for those who enjoy paranormal romance.

After Dark by Jayne Castle

This book's spine labeled it as romance. It was, but it had a very strong Fantasy bent as well. I would probably have labeled it fantasy over romance.

I enjoyed this book once I got through the acronyms! The book is set on another world with a whole different set of physics rules. Instead of engines or gas, vehicles move by using psychic power. Most people on the planet have some small amount of psychic talent. People with more psychic talents become either ghost hunters or tanglers. Ghost hunters summon or dissipate the energy of ghosts. Tanglers either set or untangle traps found in the cities left by the people who inhabited the planet before the current inhabitants came through the curtain.

Lydia Smith used to be a para-archaeologist who explored the cities of the past. After a weekend caught in a psi-trap, she loses her job because no one has ever come out of a trap before. She now works at Shrimpton's Museum, which is along the lines of a wax museum. She is trying to start her own consulting business on the side.

She is meeting a new client, Emmett London, when the two of them stumble upon the body of Lydia's shady friend, Chester. Emmett has come to Lydia to get help with finding a curio cabinet that came through the Curtain with his family. Lydia comes to find that Emmett is not telling the entire truth, and the two of them are pulled into a tangle of disappearing teenagers, untrained ghost hunters, and dreamstone that has been worked when it usually crumbled during mining.

My favorite part of the book was Lydia's pet dust bunny. I want to have a dust bunny as a pet! They have six legs/feet and two sets of eyes. They're predators, but they love pretzels.

I would recommend this book to people who like romance, suspense, mystery and fantasy. If you don't like fantasy, move along and find another book.