Chuckles Mini Review Catchup

I review everything I read, on my blog and on Goodreads. Most reviews are of a decent length but sometimes you don't have much to say about the book because of its length or you DNFed it or various other reasons. In cases like that it makes sense to write a few mini reviews in one post and clear them out your way! So lets catch up with reviews from earlier this year.

1) Chris Lowry-Flyover Zombie 
End of Days. The Zombie Plague swept the nation but a fast thinking leader in California took charge and built a wall on the Rockies and Appalachian mountains. It blocked off the middle of America, but contained most of the virus that turned the world upside down. The middle is a wasteland. No one goes in, no one flies over. Everything is rationed in the cities struggling to support millions of refugees. Martial law controls their lives.

But when that leaders daughter goes down in a plane, he breaks all the rules to get her back. He assembles a team and send them to get her, and when they go missing, he works the black market to hire mercs to do his bidding even if it costs him everything the survivors have left.
 
Fans of zombies will love this book in a new series set in the world leftover after Battlefield Z.

I haven't actually read the Battlefield Z series and grabbed this one as a free book. This spin off series starts well after the zombie apocalypse when the walls that protect the east and west coast populations are doing their job, but all those living in the central plains are on their own trying to survive. The man credited with saving the coastal cities continues to run things but when his beloved daughter's plane crashes in the wasteland, he is determined to risk as many lives as necessary, military and civikian, to save her. Pam will have to rely on the kindness of abandoned survivors to keep her safe from the zombies until help arrives.

I think you can read this without having read the main series as there is enough information provided to get you up to speed on how the walls came to be there and how they are protecting both coasts from the continued zombie threat. Roger runs the TV network which is used to inform and educate, rather than entertain, which annoys him but he does like the power it gives him. He uses that to demand military help to rescue Pam when the plane crashes. He is pretty ruthless but then that is what saved a lot of people when the apocalypse began so it is hard to see him as bad. He is various shades of grey and the character interests me! I like Pam and the military team as well as the leaders of the survival community. If time allows I would certainly consider reading more of this series and perhaps the main series itself. Nice zombie fun!

Read January 2019
3 stars

2) Jaye Wells-Violet Tendencies (Sabina Kane #2.5)
Former assassin Sabina Kane heads to Los Angeles to find her kidnapped sister. Helping her on the mission are her hot mage partner, her Mischief demon minion, and a Vanity demon named Valva. The problem? She's got to figure out how to find her sister without letting her enemies know she's back in town. But when Sabina seeks out an old ally -- a vampire strip club owner named Fang -- for help, Sabina learns the hard way that Vanity demons don't know the meaning of the phrase "low profile."
 
Sabina, Adam , Giguhl and Valva have returned to the hostile territory of Los Angeles as part of a plan to move against the vampires. Sabina's friend Fang runs a strip club and reluctantly agrees to let Sabina's group live in his back rooms as long as they keep a low profile and don't bring any trouble to him. Low profile goes out the window when the attention seeking Valva decides to do her own strip onstage to the fury of the vampire strippers and a full scale riot breaks out.

I loved this short story as a bridge between The Mage in Black and Green Eyed Demon. Valva just can't resist a chance to perform without permission and the money she starts making gets the backs up of the other strippers and infuriates Giguhl who does not want to see her acting up with other men. Fang is trying to restore order while Sabina tries to get Valva out of the way but as Sabina's luck goes, it turns into a full riot. It was pretty funny! Just a typical bad day for Sabina and Adam, while Giguhl sees his girlfriend in a new light. 

Read February 2019
4 stars

3) Sharon Penman-The Queen's Man
AD 1193. England lies uneasy, a land without a king. Richard the Lionheart is feared drowned on his return from Crusade, his brother John conspires to usurp the crown. On the throne, in the Lionheart's stead, sits Eleanor of Aquitaine. She is determined to prevent a civil war, but there are few she can trust.

Justin de Quincy is bastard-born son of the Aubrey de Quincy, Bishop of Chester. The Bishop never acknowledged Justin, bestowing on the boy - in lieu of name or fortune - only an education. As it happens, it is a gift that, together with a blood-stained letter given to him by a dying man, will take de Quincy to the very centre of power - and into the heart of danger.

Moving from the Tower of London to the alehouses and stews of Southwark, from to the mountains of Wales to the wild coasts of Brittany, de Quincy will prove his mettle as the Queen's Man - or find an early grave - as he uncovers the dark intrigues of Eleanor's court.  

King Richard has been gone for two months and his brother John is determined to take the throne for himself. When word is sent to England of Richard's imprisonment, there are people who want that letter to go missing. Justin is travelling south looking for work when he witnesses what seems to be bandits attacking riders, but finds himself caught up in a royal conspiracy instead. He agrees to take the letter to Queen Eleanor and finds himself in her service with a murder to investigate.

I admit that I'm more of a Tudor and Plantagenet/War of the Roses kind of reader so the events in the book are less familiar to me. I liked the characters of The Queen and Justin himself was reasonably interesting. I did think that leaving home because your mentor turns out to be your father was a bit extreme-can't you just talk to the guy who did after all take you in when he didn't have to? Anyway, the plot itself was interesting enough until Justin arrives in the town to investigate and seems to come across one annoying character after another. The sly mistress, the spoiled daughter, the evil law enforcer...it just put me off the whole story. I'm very much about liking most of the characters so when there are lots of nasty and annoying characters I can lose interest. I'd rather have seen Justin on a mission to rescue Richard personally. This wasn't bad but just didn't suit me personally.

DNF February 2019
2 stars

4) Ryan Casey-Into The Dark
It happens in one devastating moment: an EMP strikes. The nation is plunged into darkness. Mass confusion soon becomes mass panic as planes fall out of the sky and cars fly off the roads. Families are stranded. Hospitals are in meltdown. It doesn't take long for the government to collapse and for the looters to take control of the cities.

 When the lights go out, Mike is one of the first to realise what is happening. He has spent years studying the impact of EMPs, and how to prepare in case of disaster. His goal? To reunite with his daughter, before making his way out of the city and into the countryside.

Holly is with her friends when the EMP strikes. Cut off from social media and trapped in a busy suburban street, she knows she has to use all the skills her dad has taught her to get out of the city and get into the wilderness. But how much of her dad's teachings can she put into practice in a harsh and terrifying new world?

 Do Mike and Holly have what it takes to survive? Or will this dangerous new world defeat them at the first hurdle? 

I read a zombie book by the author and really hated it because I couldn't stand all the dumb charactersin it. I decided to give him a try with two of his apocalypse books but sadly I didn't enjoy them for the same reasons-the characters. When Mike loses his wife during a heart operation, he turns to drink at the expense of looking after his daughter. He wallows in self pity and alcohol, loses his job through drink driving and is pretty whiny. I didn't like him at the start but liked him even less when he gets wasted and then decides to drive to Holly's school to see her ballet performance, turning up late and having run people off the road. Mike thinks being 4 times over the limit on the wrong side of the road when arrested is ok and blames the police for iverreacting. Frankly he is vile and when Holly calls him out on his drinking and being a bad parent he throws her out. Charming guy. Holly's friends are also drunken losers. Harriet is a nasty bitchy cow and the other girl whose name I can't remember is so whiny that I wanted to slap her.   

The plot was also poor. When the EMP hits a plane crashes close to the police station, and Mike escapes with the officer who arrested him. They don't check for weapons and survivors in the area and Mike gets nasty about taking along a rescued dog which is another point against him for me. NOW he decides to worry about his daughter? Nice one. The characters seem to keep making dumb choices and bicker and I got fed up with it.

DNF February 2019
1 star.

5) Ryan Casey-Blackout
Will Stuartson is having the worst month of his life. His wife is leaving him, he can't see his daughter anymore, and he has been kicked out of the family home. He sees no better opportunity to take a trip into the Scottish wilderness with his trusty dog, Bouncer. And a bottle or two of whisky. But Will's retreat is interrupted when a devastating series of EMP strikes hit the country. All electrical and battery power, from cars to watches, is down. Will is cut off from society and forced into a world where survivalism is required to stay alive, and where the sudden lack of communication is driving the country to destruction.



Now, forced into a dangerous, primal world where the elements and other people all pose a threat, Will must make the long trek back down to Preston in order to find and save his wife and daughter. 

This is the third and final book by this author that I'm going to read as I'm just not enjoying any of them at all. This is another apocalypse story about an EMP hitting but to be honest I was already tired of Will long before we got to that part. Will is a writer who goes off on research breaks for whatever story he is working on. This time when he returns, his wife tells him she wants to finish with him and he decides to take the dog for a week in Scotland. Will is annoying and I can understand his wife having had enough. He sets off for a Scottish retreat armed with a pile of alcohol. Oh surprise, Every MC this author writes is a virtual alcoholic and I fid that kind of MC really boring and frustrating. To be honest I didn't read that far with this one which closely follows the other one I reviewed above but it's the same bad characters and dumb decisions. If you want a full review of this book I recommend the Goodreads review by Claire https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2418627508?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1

DNF February 2019
1 star.