Showing posts with label Blood Echo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blood Echo. Show all posts

February 19, 2019

Review: Blood Echo by Christopher Rice

Blood Echo (Burning Girl #2)
Author: Christopher Rice
Genre: Adult Mystery/Thriller
Release Date: February 19, 2019
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer

Description:

A conspiracy that promises bloodshed and the only woman who can stop it collide in the page-turning thriller by Christopher Rice, Amazon Charts bestselling author of Bone Music.

Kidnapped and raised by serial killers, Charlotte Rowe suffered an ordeal that made her infamous. Everyone in the world knew who she was. But no one in the world has any idea what she’s become…

Charlotte is an experiment. And a weapon. Enabled by a superpower drug, she’s partnered with a shadowy pharmaceutical company to hunt down and eliminate society’s most depraved human predators. But her latest mission goes off the rails in a horrifying way. Unsettled by her own capacity for violence, Charlotte wants some time to retreat so she can work on her new relationship with Luke, a sheriff’s deputy in the isolated Central California town she now calls home.

If only the threats hadn’t followed Charlotte there.

Something sinister is evolving in Altamira, California—a massive network of domestic terrorists with ties to Charlotte’s influential and corrupt employers. As a vast and explosive criminal conspiracy grows, the fate of Charlotte’s hometown hangs in the balance. With everyone she cares about in danger, Charlotte has no choice but to bring her powers home.

Charlotte Rowe has been triggered, and now she’ll have to take matters into her own powerful hands.
  


https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40113384-blood-echo
 
Bone Echo is the thrilling second book in a genre-defying series that will appeal to readers of all kinds. I'm a big fan of the author and have read several of his other books. I've read the first book in the series and really liked it, so I was excited to see where this story would take us. I definitely wasn't disappointed - the author delivered another fantastic book for readers to lose themselves in. There were a couple small things that bothered me personally. The one that stood out the most was the author's writing style - namely the third person point of view. It's my least favorite - mostly due to the fact that we as readers can't connect as deeply with the main character. There are several major characters in this novel and I understand the choice to use the third person POV, but I (personally) would have loved it even more if it had been done in the first person from Charlotte's perspective. She's an awesome main character and I definitely wish I could have connected with her and gotten to know her better throughout the book. She has a very unique history and with all the craziness happening, it would've been great to get a front row seat to everything. The other thing that sort of bothered me were the multiple "mini" story lines that occur at the same time as the others and eventually come together in one way or another. It's a bit confusing at first, but once I got used to the writing it became easier to integrate the various plots into one major story line. 

As for the rest of the novel - it was fantastic and all that I had hoped for. As I mentioned, Charlotte is an awesome MC and I loved getting to know her even better. She continues to grow throughout the story and I liked watching her gain confidence and power. The secondary characters were well rounded, even though there were quite a few of them. They all had distinct personalities with quirks and flaws and helped flesh out the story line. The main plot of the novel wasn't exactly unique or wholly original - not much can be called that anymore. But the author found a way to take a couple of different plots and wound them together to create something new and fascinating. Like I said earlier - it's a genre-bending novel that is sure to appeal to fans of several different types of fiction. 
 

Christopher Rice is a recipient of the Lambda Literary Award and a Bram Stoker Award finalist. His novels include Bone Music, the first novel in the Burning Girl series; A Density of Souls; The Heavens Rise; and The Vines. He is the head writer and an executive producer of The Vampire Chronicles, a television show based on the bestselling novels by his mother, Anne Rice, currently in development for Hulu.











 

April 13, 2013

Blood Echo Tour: Guest Post & Giveaway

Blood Echo
Author: Melissa Simonson
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Release Date: March 27, 2013
Publisher: Red Adept Publishing

Description:

Obsession is the dark side of love. 

Iris Avery and her best friend, Estella, spend their time drowning in the empty excesses indulged in by their crowd of Upper East Side snobs until Estella’s sudden, shocking death. Iris searches for answers in everything from philanthropy to hypnotherapy, feeling her existence is nothing more than a dark half-life full of guilt and repentance, but finds only endless questions. And several of them revolve around her when she discovers she’s connected to a high-profile murder. Later, Iris begins hearing Estella’s voice whispering cryptic commentary in her head, and she can’t help but wonder if the hypnotherapy has been helping or hurting. Is her friend trying to warn her about something? Bizarre packages pile up on her doorstep, and their meaning is obvious: Iris’s secrets aren’t so secret after all. 

I agonized over what I’d write about for this guest post for a few days. As far as writers go, I’m shockingly unimaginative (no really, I am). So eventually, I drove my sorry no-idea self over to my mother’s house and started to complain. I don’t know what I expected (a hug? A latte? Maybe a few decent ideas I could run with?) but it wasn’t an argument. In retrospect, I should have known it would end that way; arguments are what my mother and I do best. Sometimes we even flap our arms and speak in pitches only dogs can hear.

Somehow ‘I can’t think of anything—I’m not creative’ offended my mother’s sensibilities, because she said, ‘Stop lying. You’re perfectly creative. You liar.’

Anyway, I’ve heard somewhere that nothing keeps a relationship on its toes as much as animated debate. Isn’t it lucky then, that my mother and I agree on absolutely nothing.

Think of it as combining utter disagreement on everything, ever, with the fact that I am an odd twenty-something with dyed brown hair (what’s wrong with blonde, eh? Says my mother. You just can’t stand having the same hair color as me, RIGHT?!) and a firm belief in reality and logic, and then the fact that she is a lunatic, and I think we’d be headed in the right direction.

Our most recent arguments include:

a)Which way to drive to the store. The distances were exactly the same. It was the principle, for God’s sake.
b)The best way to cut an apple.
c) Gun control.
d)What my character thinks. (this one always amuses me, because how would she know, when I WAS THE ONE WHO MADE THEM UP IN THE FIRST PLACE.)
e)Who started That Argument.

While I’m on that train of thought, I’ve realized there are many arguments we’ve had over arguments. Who started That Argument is a favorite of ours, a good old go-to fall back on when we’re out of things to discuss. One thing I’ve noticed about women is that they never stick to the current argument at hand. An argument that started over Who Started That Argument suddenly morphs into one about how once, when Melissa was fifteen years old, she ran the car into the garage. When the garage door was shut. Which is obviously a foolish thing to do, but it wasn’t what we were arguing about! She swerves around from topic to topic, while I frantically follow along, shouting my logic, but when I do, she isn’t on that subject anymore.

And, when I tell her to stick to the argument, I get this:

“I’m not arguing—you’re the one that’s fighting. I’m having a discussion.”

I’m gritting my teeth just typing that line out. It’s almost as annoying as when I tell her I can’t locate my sunglasses, and she responds with, ‘Well have you LOOKED for them?’

I’m beginning to wonder if most of my characters are motherless for a reason. 


Melissa has been writing on and off since she was in high school, but didn't start taking it seriously until about four years ago. She's a caffeine addict, a terrible driver, and has weird fascinations with rosary beads, complicated cocktails, and basically anything considered dark or creepy.

Since she saw him in her favorite movie Snatch, Melissa has wanted to marry Jason Statham.

When she's not writing, she can be found watching endless hours of Dexter or looking up random things on Wikipedia.

www.lissasimonson.wordpress.com 

 

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