Two Book Reviews

Reading is my first love (sorry Marshall), and I'm thrilled to say I've been getting some extra reading time in recently. 

Because it's one of those things that feels like an "extra" (a hobby), I don't "allow" myself to partake usually during the day. It's a personality defect I'm working on... feeling like I should be working during working hours, even though the fact that I work from home suggests I should be able to arrange my days however I want. 

Unfortunately, the Responsible Woman in me comes out & reminds me that I work better during daylight hours & for a couple hours after dinner randomly. Sooo I try to abstain from my true love until I need a break or until I go up for bed. 

There's no good tv on lately, so I've been heading upstairs early & reading for a couple 2-3 hours!! 

Still Missing is Chevy Stevens' debut novel. She did a fine job of keeping my interest & of writing a compelling story:

Annie O'Sullivan's story splits between the present-day conversations with her psychiatrist & and an in-the-past year she spent held captive in a remote cabin.

Annie is kidnapped at the end of a rather boring open house she hosted as a realtor. Her last visitor was unassuming, gave off no "creep vibe", and all she had on her mind was the recent argument she'd had with her mother & of meeting her boyfriend for dinner.

Before she knew it, Annie had been attacked from behind, forced at gunpoint to a nearby van, drugged & awoke in a fully equipped, unescapable cabin. What unfolds is her story of surviving a very warped idea The Freak had of love & family. 

Stephen King's Full Dark, No Stars is a compilation of four short stories which are just what the title suggests: full of darkness with no light being emitted, not even from some faint, far-off stars:    

1922 ~ 

As disturbing as this story becomes, I felt compelled to find out, "what next?". A wife has inherited sizable acreage, which she means to sell to a hog farmer. Being an obstinate woman not inclined to meekness, she held firm, whilst the husband fumed at his lack of control. He wasn't going to stand for a hog farmer moving in next door, stinking up his land, the air, and polluting the stream his cows drank from! He wasn't going to stand for his wife's disagreement. This is where the story really begins...


Big Driver~
A woman on her way back home after a speaking engagement finds herself stranded just outside of town with a flat tire. Being a writer, it's second nature to ask "why". Investigating what happened with her tire, she realizes the plank with nails poking up looks like a trap. She laughs at her overactive imagination & pushes those thoughts aside when a man stops to help her change her tire... until he starts pushing her around. Beaten, raped & left for dead in a ravine, Tess lives, makes her way home & begins to ask "why" again. Her investigation leads her on a trail of vigilantism with which most can empathize.


Fair Extension~
To what lengths would you be willing to go IF you were dying of inoperable cancer that was responding to no treatment? What if you were offered something so unbelievable you started to believe? What if doing so would hurt someone you've loved most of your life... but of whom you've been jealous & hurt by as well??


A Good Marriage~
This story explores the psychology & behaviors one might go through if one found their significant other of 27 years had been hiding a terrible secret. 


I've also been perusing some Labrador Retriever books, but I'll spare  you those boring details. 


I wish you all a Festive, Safe, and Happy 4rth!