The First Order

Jeff Abbott is quickly becoming one of my favorite suspense authors. I've always liked him and I've read nearly all of his books at this point. His standalone novels are great (Panic being a particular favorite of mine), but his Sam Capra series  is where he really shines.

The First Order is the fifth Capra book and (spoiler alert!) I highly doubt it will be the last. Capra is a classic good guy who's not afraid to kick ass and I don't think anyone will be getting tired of him anytime soon - hopefully Abbott has many more great Capra stories to tell.

The First Order picks right up from the cliffhanger ending of the previous installment, Inside Man. Sam has discovered that his older brother Danny may not have been dead for the last 6 years after all. The novel takes us through his search for his long lost brother and inside the politics of the new Russian oligarchy. The book starts out heavy on adrenaline and never lets up until the end.

I look forward to the next Capra book.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Armada

I love Ernest Cline. 

I shouldn't - I'm not really his target audience at all. I'm approximately the right age, but my interests are all wrong. I hate video games, I'm not that into sci-fi and I've never been much for 80's nostalgia (the 90s were my decade, thankyouverymuch).

All that said, I love Ernest Cline. He's just a good story-teller. His first book, Ready Player One is one of my all-time favorite books. I've recommended it to more people than I can count and I'm so excited that it finally looks like the movie is really going to happen. 

Armada, his second effort, is good, but it's not quite the powerhouse that Ready Player One was. But that's not really a criticism, honestly. It's like saying Pet Sematary wasn't as good as The Stand. Pet Sematary was really good, but The Stand was great. Armada is good, but it doesn't have the depth that Ready Player One did. It's good. Really good. It's just not great.

Armada tells the story of Zach Lightman, a high school senior in Beaverton, Oregon who has always dreamed of adventure. Zach is a gamer - a really good one. He's ranked 6th in the world in his favorite space flight simulation game Armada which means that when aliens attack for real, he's one of the first to be recruited to fight them. 

Armada is a fun, fast read. I was totally supposed to be reading a book for review when I picked it up and told myself I was just going to read a chapter or two to get a feel for it. Of course I got 100% sucked in, shoved aside the review book and spent several nights reading Armada way past my bedtime, finally finishing up at around 1:00 this morning. 

I recommend this one for anyone who likes sci-fi, 80's pop culture references, thought Ready Player One was genius, or who appreciates well-written, off-beat stories.

Loose Ends

Obviously the holidays took a lot out of me this year! I am so behind in almost everything in my life right now that at this point, I'm just going to combine a whole lot of what should have been individual posts into this one. Thanks for bearing with me. Hopefully things will settle down soon and I'll be back to a normal schedule.

First up - December wrap-up. I finished quite a few good books in December. I've got standalone reviews up for most, so I won't re-hash. I'm still working my way through the Oz books - I'm on book 11 now and let me tell you - they just keep getting weirder. Also? Not such a fan of continuity, that L Frank Baum. I'm just saying... Don't get me wrong, I'm loving them, or else I'd stop reading them, but I feel compelled to point out that if these were written today, you'd have fans howling over errors in canon as the books go on. He truly just made it up as he went along and changed his universe to suit his needs. You kind of have to admire that, in a way.

Next - January. I've gotten a good start to my reading year. I've pledged 100 books in this year's Goodreads challenge. Last year I'd pledged 150, but life got in the way and I just couldn't do it. 2015 was a bad year for me, personally and I had some medical issues that made it hard to focus my attention on much of anything for a good chunk of the year. I'm back on track now, but taking it easier this year.

Also - a few short and sweet reviews:

Movie Star by Lizzie Pepper by Hilary Liftin - OMG, such a fun read! I devoured this one! It totally fed my love of celeb gossip and kinda sorta seemed like a plausible behind-the-scenes post-mortem on the whole TomKat thing. Definitely recommend this book.

The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan - I've loved the authors' blog, www.gofugyourself.com forever, it seems like and I always read their books as soon as I have the chance. This one was really good. It's similar to Movie Star in that it's a fictionalized retelling of the whole Will and Kate story. Only this time it's Nick and Bex. And Bex is an American. I recommend this one, but I'm not quite so gushing over it as I was for Movie Star. Some parts felt a bit drawn out and I wasn't 100% satisfied with the ending - maybe there's a sequel planned? - but overall, it was great.

After the Crash by Michel Bussi - I received a copy of After the Crash from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Honestly? I loved this one. (I am really starting off my year right - three books in a row that I have really enjoyed!) After the Crash is a fast-paced suspense novel  that begins with a plane crash in which all on board are killed - except for a 3-month old baby girl, found in the snow outside the wreckage, thrown from the plane. What at first seems to be a miracle for one family quickly turns into a nightmare for two. Turns out, there were two babies on that plane - both girls, both born within two days of each other. Set in the days before DNA testing could have solved everything quickly and easily, the mystery of who the little girl really is eats away at both families. Full of twists and turns and excellent writing, this one was hard to put down and is recommended for anyone who loves a good mystery/suspense novel.  I look forward to reading more by Bussi.

Finally - January TBR. This month I'm focusing on finishing up the Oz books and making my way through the STACK of piled up ARCs I need to get through. Wish me luck!