Book Review - Rearview Mirror by Stephanie Black

I recently finished reading Rearview Mirror by Stephanie Black. I've read one other of her books, Cold As Ice  and loved it. It made its way around my office where I'm the resident library. Rearview Mirror  is now making the rounds as well. As a disclaimer, the author provided me with a free copy of this book, but it didn't impact my review. I would definitely purchase it.

So what's it about?

On a rainy night eight years ago, Fiona Claridge lost control of her car and crashed, injuring herself and killing her roommate, Mia Hardy. Now, she strives to keep the painful past at bay by staying burrowed beneath the demands of her job as a college professor in a small New England town. But when someone starts leaving her gift-wrapped boxes containing malicious reminders of Mia’s death, Fiona’s guilt and grief come flooding back.

She assumes her stalker is Kimberly Bailey, a disgruntled student, and enlists the help of fellow professor James Hampton. But when Fiona encounters the angry wife of an old flame, it becomes clear her student isn’t the only one with an eye for revenge. Cruel messages escalate to danger, then murder. As past and present become horribly entangled, Fiona struggles to unravel the truth about a determined killer—before she becomes the next victim.

What did I think? I loved it. I really haven't been that much of a mystery/suspense reader, but I'm finding myself being pulled into this genre thanks to Stephanie. My heart went out to poor Fiona who already bears so many scars--both physically and emotionally--from the accident all those years ago.

I thoroughly enjoyed the characters that Stephanie created in this story because they were believably flawed. You're only given a part of each character's story and left to guess the rest. I found myself getting really nervous as the end of the book approached because I was emotionally invested in so many characters ... and I knew one of them was the villain. I kept thinking, "No, it can't be ***; I like *** too much." or "No, it can't be *** because if it is *** then **** will be devastated, and I don't want **** to be hurt."

Stephanie messed with my head so much that toward the end of the book, when things were getting really tense, I had a nightmare where my own romantic interest in the WIP I'm editing right now ended up turning into a villain. O_o Mine is not even a mystery/suspense!

If you're interested in reading the first chapter of Rearview Mirror, you can check it out here.

Well, it's Halloween, and tomorrow is the first day of NaNoWriMo.

I decided to be a Zombie but, man, they're sure a lot more bloodthirsty than when I was a girl. I'm going to be a Vegan Zombie.






Are you dressing up?

Book Review - The Key of Kilenya by Andrea Pearson

So what's The Key of Kilenya by Andrea Pearson about?

When two vicious wolves chase fourteen-year-old Jacob Clark down a path from our world into another, his life is forever changed. He has no idea they have been sent by the Lorkon--evil, immortal beings who are jealous of powers he doesn't know he possesses--powers they desire to control.
The inhabitants of the new world desperately need Jacob's help in recovering a magical key that was stolen by the Lorkon and is somehow linked to him. If he helps them, his life will be at risk. But if he chooses not to help them, both our world and theirs will be in danger. The Lorkon will stop at nothing to unleash the power of the key--and Jacob's special abilities.

My thoughts
Poor Jacob. He's minding his own business, practicing for what he hopes will be the start of a pathway leading to future basketball stardom and instead he ends up in an alien world with strange peoples and even stranger creatures. And no basketball!

But there is magic, and they tell him can learn to do it, too. Well, he'll need to if he hopes to survive during his quest to find the missing key. The key, he's told, only he can retrieve.

Something I particularly enjoyed was the heading at the beginning of each chapter as they were parts of a journal of someone who'd made a similar journey several years before. These little snippets from the past foretold things that Jacob and his company would also face as followed a similar path.

Not all story lines are tied up at the end, so Jacob's adventure isn't finished yet.

Have you read any good books lately? Want to share?

Oooo ... Where's Your CARMA?

Shh ... once again, I'm not really posting today, so don't get confused.

November is rapidly approaching and with it, on the significant date of 11/11/11, is the release of five fabulous fables as part of Dark C.A.R.M.A.:

Become by Ali Cross

Sixteen-year old Desolation Black wants nothing more than to stay in Hell where it’s cold and lonely and totally predictable. Instead, she’s sent back to Earth where she must face the evil she despises and the good she always feared.

When Desi is forced to embrace her inner demon, she assumes her choice has been made—that she has no hope of being anything other than what her father, Lucifer, has created her to be. What she doesn’t count on, is finding a reason to change—something she’s never had before—a friend.

Bound by C.K. Bryant

When a photo shoot ends in tragedy, Kira discovers her best friend, Lydia, has been keeping a secret. Knowing the truth, and accepting it, will change Kira’s life forever and thrust her into a world of ancient curses, magical objects, and savage enemies. What happens next will challenge everything Kira knows about her world, herself and the shape-shifting warrior she’s falling in love with. No longer the timid mouse her mother accused her of being, but a woman who finds the mental and physical strength to endure and survive.

BOUND is a heroic tale of true friendship, infinite sacrifice and untamed love.

Breathe by Melanie McCullough

Life’s hard. People make it harder. They tether you to them. Make it difficult to breathe, and damn-near impossible to leave…

Seventeen year-old Abby Rhoades knows this all too well. Born to a mother who could never love her and who vacillates between a sloppy drunk and a suicidal maniac, Abby’s never had it easy. But Abby can swim. And Abby has a plan–win the state championship, earn a free ride to Penn State, and leave her small town and suffocating mother behind.

But then the body of Tom Ford, her mother’s latest boyfriend and a man Abby adored, washes up along the shore of the Susquehanna River. His injuries suggest murder and suspicion quickly falls on Abby then on her best friend Garrett Scott, both of whom saw Tom the night he died.

They both know what happened that night, but neither one is talking. There’s too much at stake and the truth could tear them apart.

 Exiled by Rashelle Workman

Stubborn, sixteen-year-old Princess Venus of Kelari wants one thing, to become immortal, that is, until someone exiles her to Earth, kills her irrihunter and takes her family.

Now she wants revenge.

First she’s got to get home. But before she can return to Kelari, the Gods have commanded her to help an arrogant boy named Michael find his soul mate.

Only she doesn’t know the first thing about love.

Pigments of my Imagination by Angela Kulig

From the moment Lucia steps into Bayside Art Academy, she is fed a steady stream of lies, but it’s not until she meets Michael that she begins to question the people she trusts. Unraveling fact from fabrication seems impossible until Lucia finds her first painting, and discovers the dead do not lie–at least not to her.

A dozen lifetimes ago, Lucia started a war. Not a war with armies or guns, but a bloody war nonetheless. The path leading Lucia to the truth is hidden within lovely art that spans the ages. In this life, however, Lucia doesn’t know where to look. Lost, she turns to the one thing she knows with certainty–she is in love with Leo, and has been before.

Grammar Friday - Mr., Mrs., and Ms.

Or is it Ms?

(Can you see what the difference is?)

Mr. is an abbreviation for Mister. 

Mrs. is an abbreviation for Mistress (not an adulterous woman).

Mr. doesn't identify marital status.

Miss identifies an unmarried woman.

Mrs. identifies a married woman or a widow.

Ms. / Ms  is not an abbreviation for anything.

So should you use a period at the end or not?

Since it's not an abbreviation you don't have to. However, it is also appropriate to add one if you wish.

The key here is consistency.

Pick one way of doing it and stick with it.

That way people think you know what you're doing.

Do you have a preference? Why?

"Variant" by Robison Wells

I'm not posting today. Just in case you're confused because it's not Friday.

But I just finished listening to Robison Well's book Variant. Oh, my freakin' heck! I LOVED it! Kept me right on the edge of my chair all the way through. Crisp writing, lots of action, but it really got me into the characters, which is a big deal to me.

From amazon:

Benson Fisher thought that a scholarship to Maxfield Academy would be the ticket out of his dead-end life.

He was wrong. 

Now he’s trapped in a school that’s surrounded by a razor-wire fence. A school where video cameras monitor his every move. Where there are no adults. Where the kids have split into groups in order to survive. 

Where breaking the rules equals death. 

But when Benson stumbles upon the school’s real secret, he realizes that playing by the rules could spell a fate worse than death, and that escape—his only real hope for survival—may be impossible.

You so have to check out this book.

I'm just sayin'!

Pay It Forward Blogfest

Click here or here for more information.

Short and sweet today. It's the Pay It Forward Blogfest, hosted by the freaktastic Matt and Alex (click the here links in the picture above if you don't know who they are). The idea is to introduce everyone to everyone else, kind of speed dating for bloggers.

Following are three blogs that I enjoy reading and encourage you to check out:

Donna Hosie at Musings of a Penniless Writer (I've known Donna for several years now--a little boy who lived brought us together at the Leaky Lounge, and she's been a great inspiration and mentor to me)

Susie F at My Not So Secret Writing Life (Susie is another HP fan and former staff at the Lounge, though we didn't meet until I got involved with a Bloghop Donna was in)

Laura Josephsen at Everything you didn't want to know about writing (I think we met on a bloghop a year or so ago. I love her fun posts and hilarious books)

This is a Blog Hop!

---

1. Alex J. Cavanaugh	2. Untroubled Kingdom
3. Matthew MacNish	4. Live High - oceangirl
5. A Daft Scots Lass	6. Been there, done that
7. Laura Pauling	8. JP @ ~Where Sky Meets Ground~
9. CineMarvellous!	10. Clarissa Draper
11. Kid-Free Living Humor	12. Jennifer Shirks Me, My Muse and i
13. Writers Ally/SA Larsen	14. Sommer Leigh @ Tell Great Stories
15. Shannonigans	16. Christine Rains
17. Talli Roland	18. Abby Has Issues
19. Ashley Elston	20. Em-Musing
21. The Daily Harrell	22. A Shift in Dimensions
23. Deana Barnhart	24. WriteEscape
25. Rebecca Mahoney	26. Stephanie M. Lorée
27. Michael G-G	28. Stephen Tremp Breakthrough Blogs
29. Catch the Rush	30. The Word is My Oyster
31. Daily (w)rite	32. Dont Forget the Samovar
33. The Written Word	34. Writer Musings
35. Donna K. Weaver	36. Arlee Birds Tossing It Out
37. Nancy S. Thompson	38. Melissa Bradley
39. Notice Your World	40. Life by Chocolate
41. Mark Noce Stories	42. DG Hudson - Rainforest Writing
43. Susan Oloier	44. Huntress aka CD Coffelt
45. Susan Kaye Quinn	46. Think Dream Inspire
47. My Not So Secret Writing Life	48. Dafeenah
49. Fantasy Nibbles	50. Sub Radar
51. Putting pen To Paper	52. Kelly Polark
53. Stina Lindenblatt	54. Thats Write
55. Christina Lee	56. Fabulosity Reads
57. Fabulosity Nouveau	58. The Eagles Aerial Perspective
59. The Character Depot	60. Alison Pearce Stevens
61. SLC Kismet	62. Inside Out
63. Musings of a Restless Mind	64. Mary Pax
65. Angela Orlowski-Peart	66. Dawn Kurtagich
67. Angela Brown in the Pursuit of Publishness	68. kpfwrites
69. Real World on Writing	70. Susan Says
71. Milo James Fowler, Speculative Fictioneer	72. Tyreans Writing Spot
73. Beanstalks & Bookends	74. Empty White Pages
75. LynNerds Random Acts of Writing	76. StrangePegs
77. Michael @ In Time . . .	78. Elizabeth Mueller
79. Mithril Wisdom	80. Creepy Query Girl
81. Healthy Sustainable Living Today	82. Amity
83. Literary Rambles	84. One stiletto At A Time
85. KH LeMoyne	86. Kathy- Imagine Today
87. A Pocketful of Dreams	88. My Pet Blog
89. Jemi Fraser	90. Barbara Kloss. . . the adventures of a writer
91. Notes Along the Way	92. Jonathon Arntson
93. Miranda Hardy	94. Writing In A Nutshell
95. Cynthia Lee	96. Mike Chens (Brilliant Unpublished) Novel Blog
97. Daily Dodo	98. Beths Blog
99. Laugh Quotes	100. mainewords
101. Patrick Tillett	102. Jessica Bell: The Alliterative Allomorph
103. Sierra Godfrey	104. Left Brained by Day; Write Brained - All the Time
105. L. Diane Wolfe - Spunk on a Stick	106. Silver Lining
107. Liz Fichera	108. From Pen to Paper
109. Isis Rushdan	110. Joanne Brothwell - Thoughts Interred in Phrase
111. ali cross	112. Pensuasion
113. Donna Hole	114. CINDERELLA TRIPPIN
115. Bish Denham	116. tara tyler talks
117. Christine Fonseca, Author	118. Just Following a Dream
119. Fantasy Author KH	120. Nicole Zoltack
121. David Powers King	122. Ciara Knight
123. Carolyn Abiad	124. The Corner
125. Patricia Stoltey	126. Another Slightly Scary Story
127. Ellis Shuman Writes	128. A Gay in the Life of Melinda Finch
129. The Sentinels Son	130. Get Your Giggle On
131. thefeatherednest	132. Drewciferianisms
133. Write About Now	134. Donea Lee
135. Angela Orlowski-Peart	136. PK HREZO
137. Donnas Book Pub	138. Marta Szemik
139. Susan Roebuck, author	140. One Little Spark
141. Word Doodles	142. Kiwis Life
143. Culture Shock	144. Have You Heard
145. Crazy California Claire	146. cluelesseve
147. They say everyone has a story. .	148. Wannabuyaduck
149. Sangu Mandanna	150. Stuart Sharp
151. Culture Shock	152. Book Dreaming
153. Judy Black Cloud-Writing up a Storm	154. Cate Masters
155. Reading on the F Train	156. C. K. Bryant @ Day Dreamer
157. Shelly Brown	158. Emily White, Author of Elemental
159. Piedmont Writer -- Anne Gallagher	160. Green Monkey Tales
161. Loralie @ Apathys Hero	162. Lady Readers Bookstuff
163. Patti Nielson	164. Ninja Girl Reads
165. The blog that helps you diagnose your character	166. Elle Strauss "writing otherworldliness. . . "
167. Lynn Kelley: LynNerds Random Acts of Writing	168. Uniquely Moi Books
169. Brand New Day	170. B-Word
171. Forever Rewrighting	172. A. J. Walker, fantasies & mysteries
173. Civil War Horror (Sean McLachlan)	174. J. C. Martin, Fighter Writer
175. Katie OSullivan

We went to see Thriller by Odyssey Dance Theater. So much fun and some great dancing.





What are you up to this weekend?