Get Lost in Literature

 The older Strike got, the more he’d come to believe that in a prosperous country, in peacetime – notwithstanding those heavy blows of fate to which nobody was immune, and those strokes of unearned luck of which Inigo, the inheritor of wealth, had clearly benefited – character was the most powerful determinant of life’s course. PI Robin Ellacott is approached by cartoonist, Edie Ledwell, who has been harassed to the brink of a nervous breakdown. Edie rose to fame when her an her boyfriend Josh Blay created The Ink Black Heart, for YouTube and it generated a massive following with a devoted fanbase, complete with overly obsessed superfans. One fan in particular, screen name Anomie, has devoted their life to ruining Edie's, harrassing her through social media and using an online game to help whip the fandom into an angry mob hell bent on punishing the cartoonist. Edie's desperate to learn Anomie's true identity. Robin turns down the case and, a few days later, Edie Ledwell is

  "The hotel room was pain and noise and chaos. Victor came to, dazed, trapped between the school lab and the hotel room, Angie's scream in his head and Sydney's in his ears. Sydney? But the girl was nowhere to be seen..." The book blurb for this story, describe Victor and Eli as "brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys..." but that's an understatement. Victor and Eli are psychopaths who meet in college; they're both geniuses, top of the class, with the world at their fingertips and they're both hungry for power. Victor is a loner, who's world famous psychologists parents have abandoned him for book tours, leaving him to his studies in neuroscience. He doesn't try to fit in, he doesn't want to... But he finds himself drawn to Eli- a charismatic, athletic, pre-med student, who enjoys being the center of attention. Working together, they figure out that the key to having all the power they want is surviving . I love an antihero story, and here

 “Every morning is an afterlife. Every evening, I die anew in the trenches amid nightmares of artillery finding their target.” Beacon23 is a “lighthouse,” a one-man space-station anchored on the fringes of an asteroid field, there to guide space travelers safely through danger. The man who runs Beacon 23 is nameless, one of many stationed to a solitary life, making sure NASA’s never fail Beacon’s never fail… Until one day, his does. So this book will delight sci-fi nerds. If it’s space travel, intergalactic war, and aliens that you like, this book has it. If you like explosions, quick impulsive decisions, and crazy characters, this book’s got those. It’s a fast read, if you like that kind of thing, and if you do, that’s okay and this book’s for you. But if you’re the type of reader who likes to read a little deeper, this one might also be for you, too. Beacon 23 appears to be anti-war propaganda wrapped in a fast-paced space opera. The main character who’s real name is never revealed,

  The main characters of this story aren't particularly likable. Which perhaps is motivation to keep reading, that the main characters are realistically human. Tom is a bit of a narcissistic dick and his wife Abby comes off as cold and oblivious. Both parents were left broken when their daughter was kidnapped. Abby turned to the church in her time of need and Tom obsessively continued investigation into his daughter's disappearance. Overall, there was an easy flow to the writing style even as the subject matter was grim. At times I wondered if Uncle Buster was really necessary to the story, mostly he just seemed a little cliché and some of his conversations felt like a waste of time. I kept turning the page, wanting to know answers to questions like "what happens next?" and "how does it end?" so it absolutely hit its suspense quota. After four years apart, Tom finally gets what he wants: Caitlyn comes home. It's not enough. She's not the same, how co

...there is no you there is no me there is only we we we we we..." There's quite a bit going on in this book. Elisa Esposito is a mute woman working as a janitor at a government research facility in 1960s Baltimore. Colonel Richard Strickland has been put in charge of an expedition to the Amazon to capture a river creature the local tribes are worshiping. The creature is captured and brought to the research facility, tying Strickland and Elisa's lives to its own. The writing is sharp, the story is fast paced, the characters are well thought out. If you just want a really good story to fall into this is a good one. Woman meets monster, woman wants to save monster. What could go wrong is as intriguing as what could go right. It goes a touch further, I think, riddled through with political statements using the way things were to point out how things are. A mute woman, a gay senior, a black woman, and a Russian spy are standing between the creature and its absolute destruction

  "The moments that define lives aren't always obvious. They don't always scream, LEDGE, and nine times out of ten there's no rope to duck under, no line to cross, no blood pact, no official letter on fancy paper. They aren't always protracted, heavy with meaning." I am really enjoying this, but I've got a thing for anti-heros...  * Thursday Quotables  invented by  Bookshelf Fantasies .