Elin Gregory

So, what lit up your world this week?

Last week I was all excited about reading the Brandstetter novels, and I am still reading those when my eyes feel as though they might cope with the ridiculously tiny print. But it was pay day recently so I splurged a bit on ebooks and have been binge reading. This is something I do regularly the week after payday, and even more so if as now, I have writing of my own to do. All the “How to Write” books stress the importance of reading so I can follow their advice AND procrastinate at the same time. 🙂

Three books in particular have stood out for me recently and since I really can’t choose between them I’m going to do a combination post rather than my usual coin tossing. These books are in order of reading not of preference. I found things to revel in in all three.

Necropolis by Jordan L Hawke

The Whyborne & Griffin stories are very close to my heart so imagine my joy on winning an ARC of the latest instalment in a Facebook event. Here our two heroes have abandoned the dangerous climes of Widdershins for the even edgier environs of Egypt where friend and colleague Christine is making discoveries that will put them all into deadly danger.
By this time Whyborne and Griffin have settled into their relationship and are at the stage of finding things to disagree about [which is just as it should be] so I was delighted to find myself reading a good old fashioned action adventure yarn with loads of hairsbreadth escapes, eerie lurking half seen dangers and some truly horrible monsters. Christine never disappoints, she’s such a lovely hard case, but in this displayed some welcome vulnerabilities that made her character even more interesting. There were also developments with Percival’s use of magic that bode well for the next instalment in their story. So, hardships gallantly met, enemies confronted, monsters vanquished and a bit of a tease – thank you, Jordan, for another terrific read.

Stranger on the Shore by Josh Lanyon
I can’t be the only one who grabs each new Lanyon as soon as time and finances allow. My internet arm is short and I doubt that anyone I can reach will have failed to hear about this book. Let’s just say that this is a pleasing mystery with an evocative setting and some moments of genuine pathos and alarm. The tension between protagonist Griffin and is he the antagonist or isn’t he Pierce just jumps off the page and I was completely blind-sided by finding the sex scenes a little bit hot instead of winnowing through the acrobatics for traces of plot or character development, which are there too, of course – trust the master.
The plot thickens admirably and took its own sweet time in reaching the denouement. Naturally, because I’m God’s passive and accepting gift to mystery writers, I couldn’t guess who done it, I was having too much fun letting the story unfold to even try to guess.

Mark of Cain by Kate Sherwood

Definitely a last but not least, this story of a priest slowly and unwillingly falling for the man who murdered his brother impressed me so much! It’s not easy reading, both protagonists have their moments that made me scowl at the screen, and the whole situation is one rife with moral and ethical problems. There are ample well rounded secondary characters, oodles of character development where good people do bad things, bad people do good things and one can never relax because anything might happen.

Thinking it through again the only real points of comparison between the three books is that they all achieve a happy ending, they are all superlatively written and I’m giving them each a bit of a plug because I loved them. Give them a go, you might love them too.