Darkly, deftly twisted story of love and loss
936053
RJ Samuels A Place Somewhere, is like nothing Ive ever seen in this genre. In fact, Id go out on a limb and say this is genre-bending fiction because it is much more than pure les fic romance and much darker than others in its class.

A Place Somewhere is not a lighthearted romp, nor is there the humor we saw in Ms. Samuels excellent Falling Colours. But thats okaysometimes a dark, edgy story is the one that needs to be told, and Ms. Samuel obviously needed to tell an intricate story that speaks to the emptiness and pain inside those of us who have experienced profound loss.

A Place Somewhere is a tragic tale of love and loss that unearths the ugly side of meeting a potential partner online, with many twists and unexpected turns. It is a romance, a mystery, and a ballad all wrapped into one. But where there is loss there can also be redemption.

In RJ Samuels vision painter books, she added something extra by inventing a profession that only existed in her imagination. Once again, Ms. Samuel adds a delightful extra goodie for her readers in A Place Somwhere, by teaming up with singer-songwriter Sharon Murphy to co-write the recorded song that bears the same title as this booka song that ties in very neatly and directly to the story.

Bravo to RJ Samuel for once again giving readers the unexpected, keeping us guessing right up until the end, and making us think about what truly defines love.
820518
This is one of those books that leaves the reader wanting...for nothing, and for more. It's a torturous love story, filled with angst, longing, and gut-wrenching emotion by the truckload. The characters suck you in, protaganists wrapping you around their little fingers, begging for that final moment when all of their pain culminates in a twist of fate, and they come crashing together...or does it all come crashing down? Masterfully written.
751770
Lovers Niki Ky and Daria Parker witnessed something strange and disturbing over a decade ago, and have spent the ensuing years trying to repress their damaging memories of those events. Each has dealt with the trauma in her own way. Daria tries to distract herself with her musical career, liquor and an affair with a band member. Niki, who sought psychiatric assistance, takes a variety of medications to ease her pain.

Still, the memories persist, and the past begins to exert an even greater hold on their present day lives, as Niki begins to experience ghostly visions which become more powerful by the day. Those visions, caused by an apparently unbreakable link to her deceased former lover, the enigmatic and mysterious Spyder Baxter, are pushing her towards a date with destiny, a fate from which even death cannot free her.

A sequel to Kiernan's impressive 1998 International Horror Award Winning debut novel Silk, the beautifully written Murder of Angels effortlessly picks up on characters and situations created there, carefully building to a devastating, but ultimately satisfying conclusion. It's a superior book to Silk, if only because Kiernan has continued to refine her craft, and because it focuses less on mood and atmosphere and more on exploring the problems and motivations of its superior cast, making it far more readable and accessible than its predecessor. A well plotted dark fantasy, Murder of Angels is an intricate novel of character about raising and lowering emotional barriers, and about the difficulty and cost of accepting one's responsibilities.
1213839
Wow!  Adrian McKinty's "Dead I Well May Be" is a blistering rogue of a novel; an intelligently savage tale as melancholy as it is brutal - a fatalistic tour through upper Manhattan's mean streets which are pale and gentle against a Mexican prison's brand of hard-time.

Michael Forsythe flees native Ireland reluctantly but just ahead of the law to work for Darkie White, head of the Irish mob controlling the drug flow in one of Harlem's burned out hoods in the Wild West Days of David Dinkin's New York.  Michael has not yet turned 20, but he already has a lifetime behind him: a failed stint in the Army and veteran of Belfast's "Troubles", young Michael finds himself strangely at ease meting out violence to transgressors without discrimination to creed, race, or religion, while finding enough time for hard drinking and loose women.  But what could have been just another simple - if well told - tale of drugs and drug runners shooting each other up in the city takes a furiously unexpected turn down a desperate path of betrayal, survival, and  vengeance in an Odyssey-like journey that has the reader hanging on by the fingernails as McGinty lurches through twists and corners, each more shocking than the last.  Where Homer's Odysseus faces Scylla and Charybdis, young Michael has Dominicans and sadistic prison guards to deal with; Homer's Sirens are Micheal's Bridget, Darky's irresistible moll who launches Michael's voyage into Hell.  True to the fabled warrior-poets, McKinty's pen spins, despite the viciousness of the storyline, achingly beautiful prose.  Michael's fever-fed, hallucinogenic escape through the hurricane is poetry as a raw, open wound. But this is hardly Homer - it is much more readable and infinitely more disturbing - the kind of stuff the IRA likely reads for bedtime stories.

In young Michael Forsythe, McKinty creates the likable, flawed hero -  self educated and deeply literate, wisdom honed by days and nights on the streets - the learned thug who brings "War and Peace" - in audio form - with him on a stake out.  Masterful foreshadowing leads the way but only makes the anticipation greater, and while the climax comes as no surprise, the redemption is no less satisfying.

Part Cormac McCarthy, part Ken Bruen, with a hint of Charlie Huston and Dennis Lehane, Adrian McKinty is the most talented author I've never noticed - till now.  This is powerful fiction - unrepentant and unapologetic - and certainly not for the easily offended or feint of heart.  For me, can't wait to dive into the next two installments of the Michael Forsythe trilogy.  Bravo, Mr. McKinty!
2579632
ZAM's smooth love stories often feel like rolling in a meadow of sweetness. In this book, the twisted mood is shown in one of its sentences. "Every few seconds, lightening erased the dark."

Dare, a disgraced cop, can only find work in his childhood town. He left at 14 after his dad's suicide, and ignored his best friend's attempts at contact. Dare was once Finn's hero, since Finn, 5 years younger, entered kindergarten as an outsider and the son of the town skank. Dare soon learns Finn was victimized after his departure, and is either the victim and/or perpetrator of equally heinous crimes - which may relate to the suicide.

Nothing is as it appears.  Like "Bride of Frankenstein," which they watch, readers wonder who is the monster, only to learn we all are. ZAM holds her characters' light and dark traits so lovingly close, that we find ourselves able to cherish their weaknesses as dearly as their strengths. Masterful.
3124116
McGrath has created an evocative, shadowed mystery all the more compelling for the fact that it is born in childhood experience, young Charlie Weir the heir of a dysfunctional family that ultimately casts him in the role of caretaker. With parents that lash out at one another and a gregarious brother who seeks his identity outside their troubled home, Charlie is the de facto caretaker of his alcoholic, depressed mother, who pens somewhat successful mysteries in her later years, ever praising older son, Walt, a successful artist, while denigrating Charlie's efforts to bring a modicum of peace and order to his mother's self-destructive days. While Fred Weir abandons his family for a younger woman and a wasted life of philandering, Charlie is the only one willing to step into the breech and protect the family from complete disintegration. It is no surprise, then, that in the 1970s Charlie should become a doctor who specializes in treating the mental disorders of returning Vietnam vets suffering from PTSD.

One of these damaged vets, Danny, is the focus of Charlie's professional energy, the young man severely traumatized by what he has seen- and done- while in service to his country. Danny's sister, Agnes, is an unexpected gift to the young doctor; Charlie and Agnes marry and have a daughter, Cassie, embracing the tormented Danny as a part of their small family. But Danny's slow disintegration ultimately takes a toll on the marriage, Charlie unable to comfort Agnes when she most needs him. His work becomes salvation until his mother's death, when Charlie's careful house of cards comes crashing down: he assumes her chronic depression, a cloak of dread that weighs upon every aspect of his life. Charlie finds brief respite in Agnes' kindness and a chaotic romance with an equally-damaged Nora Chiara; but Charlie soon realizes that the needy Nora, while thrilling and seductive, is an emotional burden he cannot carry.

In an effort at self-preservation, Charlie changes jobs and location, drawn to a familiar place to confront his family drama. Subconsciously searching for safety, Charlie comes face to face with his own truth. His protagonist the heart of this complex psychological thriller, McGrath exposes the layers of denial and pain that have shielded Charlie Weir from the memory he fears. The human mind as dark and many-chambered as any nightmarish crime scene, this illness is far more subtle and pervasive, turning a well-meant life into a series of painful episodes that batter Charlie's psyche and leave him unable to navigate the world. Facing his brother, Walt, and an indifferent father in a heart-stopping moment of reckoning, Charlie's harrowing confrontation with the past is long overdue, his path strewn with loss and disappointment. A broken man, Charlie must find the strength to save the child he once was from a long-buried memory, to return to a life worth sustaining. Luan Gaines/ 2008.
3732596
A haunting, bittersweet love story. Sublime is a ghost story with a complex love story at it's heart. You know when you read a story about a girl who's a ghost, and boy with a heartbreaking past, that things may not go in the happily ever direction, at least it seems impossible right? Sometimes if there's a will, there will be way, if it's a different kind of way.

Sublime is a story about Lucy and Colin. Lucy is a ghost. She's dead, yet, she's very much real. At least in a twisted, haunted sort of way. When she awakes in the frozen forest outside the prep school, she can't remember what happened, and how she got there. That's what first intrigued me with Sublime. I wanted to know more about her. What happened to her, how long has she been out there, and what in the heck is she now. Through out the course of the story those questions are all answered in the form of Lucy getting some of her memories come back. Even though the truth of what happened to her is devastating to learn, there's more to what she is and why she's there that she and Colin uncover.

Colin is the boy with the heartbreaking past. He's what you may call reckless, has no fears, and is a true daredevil at heart. In a twisted sort of way, it was so surprise to me that Lucy and Colin developed a connection, or maybe I should say it was fate that brought them together. Either way, Lucy and Colin have a strong connection. At first it hooked me. There was so much mystery surrounding Lucy, that I wanted to know more. I wanted to know why she felt so drawn to Colin. With Colin, I wanted to know why he was the only one who saw Lucy the way he did. Lucy and Colin's story uncovered a dark past about the place Lucy is tied to.

I really liked that Sublime is told from both Lucy and Colin's points of views. In doing so, it allowed me to get more of the story, as well as both the characters. There were parts of the story I enjoyed reading about, and other parts I didn't enjoy as much. I loved the mystery that Sublime has. There's ghost, a history of hauntings, and the murder mystery that readers learn more about as the story goes on. I liked that I had to read the entire book to learn the reasoning of why Colin and Lucy are tied together. It's complex, and not at all what I was excepting.

There were a few things with the story I didn't like. The connection between Colin and Lucy when it went from something that hooked me, to being one that crossed the obsession/unhealthy line, was one of them. Without giving away any spoilers, there is a reason why it's like that, and it does get answered towards the end of the book. While the characters intrigued me, I was hoping for more character development, and didn't get it. On the flip side, not having in depth characters does work for this story, as it's a story that doesn't need a lot of depth to it. I felt that the ghost story, murder, mystery and love story elements are what drive this story. Despite my not loving the story over all like I wanted to, I liked that Sublime is not the typical YA paranormal "ghost" story. I can say I've not read anything story like Lucy & Colin's. *There are some sensual scenes and there is language in the book that might not be suitable for younger YA readers.
765769
Dark, twisted and haunting tale. My heart grieved each page of Froi and Quintana's story. Looking forward to the final story in this series!
1523090
This is a well written and dark tale of love and hate in a paranormal circus. The author is very good at setting the gothic tone of the book and at painting these very unusual characters. Their emotions are often rawly displayed for us as well as the history that produced them resulting in a number of well developed characters that tug at our own emotions. Even so, we often have mistaken impressions about certain characters that lead us to feel what the main character feels--we love an unappealing and possibly dangerous character. This is so skillfully done that I am involved in reading a series which is far darker in tone than my usual fare, and I loved being led off the beaten path. There are a few awkward phrases or passages here and there and it could benefit from some mild skillful editing, but overall, this is a very good book that you will not forget very soon.
3161202
I have no clue where to start with this review, so I'll jump right in and start by saying that this book really wasn't what I thought it would be. I knew from a friend who recommended it to me, that it is a really dark read, but it was a lot darker than I anticipated - so much so that it bordered on becoming a depressing, emotionally draining read.

I'm giving it a four star rating however for the mere fact that it is an exceptionally well-written dark and disturbing read. At times it gripped me, but after a few chapters I would lose interest, only to be drawn into the story again nearer the end. It took me a little more than a week and a half to finish the story, since this isn't something you'll want to read in one sitting. The characters are well-developed and very realistic, but I still had a hard time connecting to any of them. The plot moved at an excruciatingly slow pace as the devil really was in the details.

Overall, this might be a worthwhile read to some, and I genuinely cannot fault the author on anything being "wrong" with this book. It just turned out to be a novel that wasn't much to my taste.
290904
a mindf*ck of a book ... still trying to grasp what i just read
this book was dark and twisted with romance stitched in
from the beginning you sucked in...  theirs love, but there's heartache and betrayal
and just when you think you got it figured out, your thrown for a loop
well-written with good characters
232737
Cold, Cold Heart by Karin Slaughter is a very highly recommended dark short story.

When the story opens, Pam, 52, is on her way to California for the third time in her life to deliver something important. We learn that a few years early her emotional abusive and controlling ex-husband, John (aka Jon), contacted Pam to tell her he was dying and wanted her to visit him in California, sending her a first class plane ticket. Pam was unsure about going, but saw it as a potential opportunity to extract some closure or revenge.

Her ex was a serial adulterer and a liar. When their marriage fell apart after the death of their son, John blamed Pam. Then he wrote a book, changing his name to Jon, on healing after a loss that was full of slander and cruel indictments of Pam, things millions of people have read and believe. Now her ex lives with a 19 year-old Pilates instructor and is a multi-millionaire. Pam doesn't want his money. She wants a different kind of payback.

Exceptionally well written and perfectly executed, I really, really liked Cold, Cold Heart. I was cheering Pam on and wanted to high five her, saying "You go girl!" While there is no doubt that this is a rather dark story, there are plenty of ex's out there that deserve some special attention. This one is for all the women who put up with their own versions of "John."

Disclosure: My advanced reading copy was courtesy of the publisher for review purposes.
3694191
This is a complicated weave of a dark secret about to implode a family and coping with the insidious progress of a slow death and its consequences to the living and the dying. It is equally about love and trust lost and found, forgiveness, redemption, pain, hope and acceptance. The characters are very real, the story is entirely believable. The writing is good. It does start slow and seems complicated in the beginning, but hang in there a little while and the story will grip you. It does end a little abruptly but I really liked this book. The author hovered right on the edge of brilliance.
3697983
The Girl in 6E (#1) by A.R. Torre
5 stars

I couldn't put this book down, I'm not even sure why it grabbed me so strongly. It's definitely not a straight up romance, not even really an erotic romance. It is definitely a suspense or thriller type (IMO). It left my head spinning with a book hangover I couldn't have anticipated and didn't see coming. This is definitely a dark and twisty story.

Deanna is a troubled, damaged, confused, and yet confident young woman. She knows she's not normal, she's sought out help to face her demons, to try and get them under control at a minimum. She doesn't expect to ever heal enough to be normal.

She can't help but want to protect an innocent little girl when she knows deep down that non one else will be able to find and save her. Her humanity, what she thought was lost, is challenged. Her strength is hiding underneath the image she has had of herself for years.

There are plenty of questions raised in this story that are left unanswered, but unanswered because there will be a sequel that should answer them. I'm not disappointed that there will be another book to expand upon this twisted tale.

A.R. definitely took me on a different type of emotional ride than her other books have taken previously. I hope she expands this side of her creativity in more books than just the sequel!
4550339
Devlin's book is haunting.  A mother's terminal cancer diagnosis puts her three daughters on edge as they try to cope with the illness and their own feelings.  The story takes many unexpected twists and turns, drawing you deeper into the suffering of middle daughter Vanessa, her sisters, and her father too.  It is a very thought-provoking book about parental love and loss, and finding yourself.  The themes are serious and there are references to sex, although it is not key to the story.  I'd recommend for mature teens only.
2654246
If I had encountered this haunting, atmospheric novel before reading&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/A-Tale-of-Love-and-Darkness/dp/B004H1U2HE/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">A Tale of Love and Darkness</a>, I don't think I would have known what to make of it: other than a slow-moving journey of a depressed young wife whose sexual fantasies (and shopping spurts) are about all that keep her going through tedious years with a dull husband and a matter-of-fact child she can't relate to. But ATLD is the key. The novel and the memoir complement each other. When you see that Hannah and David are, more or less, the author's parents and young Yair is Oz, then the window to the past that Hannah begs fortune to keep transparent lets you see clearly what will happen to them in the end, even if it is off stage. You should read both books for a fuller appreciation of each one.
1604497
Route 12 by Marietta Miles comprises two evocative, disturbing novellas set in Appalachia in the 1960s and 1970s. These are bleak stories about people who have been dealt a rotten hand by life: a boy dragged into reform school at an early age, due to his mothers unhealthy lifestyle choices  only to emerge with a violent disregard for society; a girl crippled by a bad dose of polio vaccine, and left friendless and exposed; a drunken mother desperate for cash who makes a terrible mistake In these pitch-black stories the characters choices define them  for better or worse.

Marietta Miles brings a gothic intensity to these tales of damaged small town lives, which seem to congeal in the worst way imaginable.  Opening story Route 12 is the jewel in the tarnished crown  a tremendous, nastily memorable piece of work. Chief protagonist Percy is a horribly damaged young man, whose queasy charisma sucks a pair of vulnerable young girls into his sick orbit. Miles displays an unfailingly sharp eye for detail, teasing small, haunting nuggets out of the plot, and imbuing the drama with a skin-crawling level of tension.

While the title story will likely attract the most attention, B-side cut Blood & Sin is no less compelling, and the character of Pastor Danny Friend is a true literary grotesque. Although it feels like the story has the life choked out of it just as it starts getting really twisted, the gruelling content still packs one hell of a punch.

All in all, a dark, unsettling pair of novellas that adds a bold, new dimension to the All Due Respect slate. Impressive, distinctive work from Marietta Miles.