Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Bared to You

I read this book because of a casual recommendation from a friend. It captured my attention in the beginning but the theme of this book, similar to the theme of Gabriel's Inferno (Sylvain Reynard), seems to be over emphasized. The needs of the subjects were discussed towards the beginning but does it need to go on over and over and then to end it with such a typical ending...a lead up to a sequel. If the author trimmed some of the unnecessary parts of this book I am sure whatever will be covered in book two could have been finished in book one. Just because it worked for Fifty Shades does not mean it will work for all the others riding the on the wake if it's success.
While reading this book does no one notice the workplace sexual harassment? What person get's away with saying to his subordinate 'I want to fuck you" and gets away with it? Often crude in its vocabulary it builds a semi decent love story. Lots of convoluted stories which I am sure will work themselves out in the next book but with the way this book left, I am not sure I will be anxiously waiting for the October release of Reflected in You (remained from Deeper in You).


Summary:

Gideon Cross came into my life like lightning in the darkness...
He was beautiful and brilliant, jagged and white-hot. I was drawn to him as I'd never been to anything or anyone in my life. I craved his touch like a drug, even knowing it would weaken me. I was flawed and damaged, and he opened those cracks in me so easily...
Gideon knew. He had demons of his own. And we would become the mirrors that reflected each other's most private wounds... and desires.
The bonds of his love transformed me, even as I prayed that the torment of our pasts didn't tear us apart...
http://www.sylviaday.com/






Monday, July 23, 2012

Gone Girl

When I was reading though my Twitter feeds one day,  I saw Anderson Cooper had read this book and he said it was a good read. He was 100% correct. This books, written from the point of view of the wife and husband, it extremely well written. You just never know where the story is going to go. It is so unpredictable!
This kept me on the edge of my seat just trying to figure out who was going to really win this battle. Right when you think it is going to go in one direction there is another twist that takes you on a whole different path. At one point you just don't know whose side you should be on. I loved this book. It is completely different than what have read recently and I am glad that decided to read it.

I would recommend it to anyone who loves a thrill.


Summary:

Marriage can be a real killer.
   One of the most critically acclaimed suspense writers of our time, New York Times bestseller Gillian Flynn takes that statement to its darkest place in this unputdownable masterpiece about a marriage gone terribly, terribly wrong. The Chicago Tribune proclaimed that her work “draws you in and keeps you reading with the force of a pure but nasty addiction.” Gone Girl’s toxic mix of sharp-edged wit and deliciously chilling prose creates a nerve-fraying thriller that confounds you at every turn.
   On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?
   As the cops close in, every couple in town is soon wondering how well they know the one that they love. With his twin sister, Margo, at his side, Nick stands by his innocence. Trouble is, if Nick didn’t do it, where is that beautiful wife? And what was in that silvery gift box hidden in the back of her bedroom closet?
   With her razor-sharp writing and trademark psychological insight, Gillian Flynn delivers a fast-paced, devilishly dark, and ingeniously plotted thriller that confirms her status as one of the hottest writers around.

-Amazon




http://gillian-flynn.com/gone-girl/

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Creation in Death

Book 30

Summary:

Eve has seen this crime scene before: the artfully arranged body of a young brunette, arms spread, palms up, body marked by the signs of prolonged and painful torture. Carved into her torso is the time it took her to die - in hours, minutes, and seconds. And on the third finger of her left hand has been placed a silver ring.Eve is catapulted back to a case nine years earlier, when a man whom the media tagged ?The Groom? put the city on edge with a killing spree that took the lives of four women in fifteen days. Eve and her partner Feeney, her friend and mentor, couldn?t stop him before he disappeared, only to resurface in other parts of the world to kill and kill again. But now The Groom seems to have come back to where he started.When it turns out that The Groom's most recent victim was employed by Eve's billionaire husband, Roarke, she brings him onto the case. A move that proves fitting when it becomes chillingly clear that the killer has made it personal. The corpse was washed in products from a store Roarke owns and laid out on a sheet his company manufactures. With the Groom's monstrous return, Eve is determined to finish him once and for all. Familiar with his methods, she knows that he has already grabbed his next victim.But his sights are set on the biggest challenge of his illustrious career - an abduction that will test his skills and that promises to give him satisfaction as he's never known. Time is running out on another woman's life?and for Eve

Innocent in Death

Book 28

Summary:


The phenomenal series set in a future New York City returns as NYPSD Lt. Eve Dallas hunts for the killer of a seemingly ordinary history teacher-and uncovers some extraordinary surprises. Craig Foster's death devastated his young wife, who'd sent him to work that day with a lovingly packed lunch. It shocked his colleagues at the private school, too, and as for the ten-year-old girls who found him in his classroom in a pool of bodily fluids-they may have been traumatized for life.
Eve soon determines that Foster's homemade lunch was tainted with deadly ricin, and that Mr. Foster's colleagues have some startling secrets of their own. It's Eve's job to sort it out-and discover why someone would have done this to a man who seemed so inoffensive, so pleasant . . . so innocent.
Now Magdalena Percell . . . there's someone Eve can picture as a murder victim. Possibly at Eve's own hands. The slinky blonde-an old flame of her billionaire husband, Roarke-has arrived in New York, and she's anything but innocent. Roarke seems blind to Magdalena's manipulation, and he insists that the occasional lunch or business meeting with her is nothing to worry about . . . and none of Eve's business. Eve's so unnerved by the situation that she finds it hard to focus on her case. Still, she'll have to put aside her feelings, for a while at least-because another man has just turned up dead.
Eve knows all too well that innocence can be a facade. Keeping that in mind may help her solve this case at last. But it may also tear apart her marriage.
--The Penguin Group

Born in Death

Book 27

Summary:

Eve Dallas has a grisly double homicide to solve when two young lovers - both employees of the same prestigious accounting firm - are brutally killed on the same night. It doesn't leave Eve a lot of time leftover to put together a baby shower for her best-friend Mavis, but that's supposedly what friends are for. Now Mavis needs another favour. Tandy Willowby, one of the mothers-to-be in Mavis's birthing class, didn't show up for the shower. Having only recently arrived from London, Tandy has few friends in New York and no family - and she was really looking forward to the party. And when Eve enters Tandy's apartment and finds a gift for Mavis wrapped and ready on the table - and a packed bag for the hospital still on the floor next to it - she realises something is wrong. Normally, such a case would be turned over to Missing Persons. But Mavis asks for Eve's help - and she can't say no. She'll have to track Tandy down while simultaneously investigating the deals and double-crosses hidden in the files of some of the city's richest and most secretive citizens, in a race against this particularly vicious killer.

Memory in Death

Book 25

Summary:


Eve Dallas is one tough cop. She's got no problem dealing with a holiday reveler in a red suit who plunges thirty-seven stories and gives new meaning to the term "sidewalk Santa." But when she gets back to the station and Trudy Lombard shows up, it's all Eve can do to hold it together. Instantly, she's plunged back into the past, to the days when she was a vulnerable, traumatized girl - trapped in foster care with the twisted woman who now sits in front of her, smiling.
Trudy claims she just wanted to see how Eve was doing. But Eve's husband, Roarke, suspects otherwise - and his suspicions prove correct when Trudy arrives at his office demanding money in exchange for keeping the ugly details of his wife's childhood a secret. Barely restraining himself, Roarke shows her the door - and makes it clear that she'd be wise to get out of New York and never bother him or his wife again.
But just a few days later, Trudy's found on the floor of her hotel room, a mess of bruises and blood. A cop to the core, Eve is determined to solve the case, if only for the sake of Trudy's bereaved son. Unfortunately, Eve is not the only one to have suffered at this woman's hands, and she and Roarke will follow a circuitous, dangerous path to find out who turned this victimizer into a victim.
--The Penguin Group

Origin in Death

Book 24

Summary:


New York police lieutenant Eve Dallas and her partner Peabody enter the hallowed halls of the Wilfred B. Icove Center for Reconstructive and Cosmetic Surgery on an open and shut case of self-defense. But before they can leave they are called to another crime scene. Dr. Wilfred B. Icove himself has been found dead in his office - murdered in a chillingly efficient manner: one swift stab to the heart. Struck by the immaculate condition of the crime scene, Dallas suspects a professional killing. Security discs show a stunningly beautiful woman calmly entering and leaving the building - the good doctor's final appointment. Known as "Dr. Perfect," the saintly Icove devoted his life to his family and his work. His record is clean. - Too clean for Dallas. She knows he was hiding something and suspects that his son - and successor - knows what it is. Then, like father like son, the young Dr. Icove is killed...with the same deadly precision. But who is the mystery woman - and what was her relationship with the good doctors? With her husband, Roarke, working behind the scenes, Dallas follows her darkest instincts into the Icoves' pasts. And what she discovers are men driven to create perfection - playing fast and loose with the laws of nature, the limits of science, and the morals of humanity...
-- Copyright © The Penguin Group

Survivor in Death

Book 23

Summary:


No affairs. No criminal connections. No DNA. No clues. Eve Dallas may be the best cop in the city - not to mention having the lavish resources of her husband Roarke at her disposal - but the Swisher case has her baffled. The family members were murdered in their beds with brutal, military precision. The state-of-the-art security was breached, and the killers used night vision to find their way through the cozy middle-class house. Clearly, Dallas is dealing with pros. The only mistake they made was to overlook the nine-year-old girl cowering in the dark in the kitchen. . .
Now Nixie Swisher is an orphan - and the sole eyewitness to a seemingly inexplicable crime. Kids are not Dallas's strong suit. But Nixie needs a safe place to stay, and Dallas needs to solve this case. Not only because of the promise she made to Nixie. Not only for the cause of justice. But also to put to rest some of her own darkest memories - and deepest fears. With her partner Peabody on the job, and watching her back - and with Roarke providing the kind of help only he can give - Lieutenant Eve Dallas is running after shadows, and dead-set on finding out who's behind them.
--Penguin Group

Visions in Death

Book 22

Summary:


On one of the city's hottest nights, New York Police Lieutenant Eve Dallas is sent to Central Park - and into a hellish new investigation. The victim is found on the rocks, just above the still, dark water of The Lake in Central Park. Around her neck is a single red ribbon. Her hands are posed, as if in prayer. But it is the eyes -removed with such precision, as if done by the careful hand of a surgeon - that have Dallas most alarmed.
As more bodies turn up, each with the same defining scars, Eve is frantic for answers. Against her instincts, she accepts help from a psychic who offers one vision after another - each with shockingly accurate details of the murders. And when partner and friend Peabody is badly injured after escaping an attack, the stakes are raised. Are the eyes a symbol? A twisted religious ritual? A souvenir? With help from her husband, Roarke, Dallas must uncover the killer's motivation before another vision becomes another nightmare...

Divided in Death

Book 21


Summary:


The year is 2059. It is a future in which technology and humanity collide, and a new computer virus has become the latest form of terrorism.
Reva Ewing, a former member of the Secret Service, a security specialist for Roarke Enterprises, is a prime suspect in a double homicide. She had every reason to want to kill her husband, the renowned artist Blair Bissel. Not only was he having an affair, he was having it with her best friend. But Lieutenant Eve Dallas, who's on the case, believes Reva is innocent. Eve's instincts tell her that the murder scene looks too perfectly staged, the apparent answers too obvious. And when she digs for more, she discovers that at nearly the exact time a kitchen knife was jammed into the victim's ribs, the passcode to his art studio was changed - and all of the data on his computer deliberately corrupted.
To Roarke, it's the computer attack that poses the real threat. Signs show that this is the nightmare his company has secretly been preparing for. He and Reva have been under a code-red government contract to develop a program that would shield against a new breed of hackers, the Doomsday Group. These techno-terrorists with brilliant minds and plenty of financial backing hack into systems, steal data, and corrupt computer units on a large scale and kill anyone who gets too close.
Eve and Roarke must infiltrate an extraordinarily secretive government agency to expose the corruption at its core, before the virus spreads from one office to a corporation to the entire country.

Monday, July 2, 2012

Remember When

Book 20

Two-part book: the first part is a present-day Nora Roberts story which sets up the back story for the second part, which features Eve Dallas and has been republished as Big Jack




Description:


1/2 Remember When


Laine Tavish is an ordinary woman living an ordinary life in the small town of Angel's Gap, Maryland, as the proprietor of Remember When, an antique treasures and gift shop. At least, that's what everyone in Angel's Gap thinks. They have no idea that she used to be Elaine O'Hara, daughter of the notorious con man Big Jack O'Hara. Or that she grew up moving from place to place, one step ahead of the law . . .

Laine's past has just caught up with her, though-in a very dramatic way. Her long-lost uncle suddenly turned up in her shop, leaving only a cryptic warning before dying in the street, run down by a car. Soon afterward, her home is ransacked. Now it's up to Laine, and a sexy stranger named Max Gannon, to find out who's chasing her, and why.

The answer lies in a hidden fortune-a fortune that will change not only Laine's life but also the lives of future generations. And danger and death will surround that fortune for years to come. Until New York City detective Lieutenant Eve Dallas gets on the case.

A thrill-ride of a novel that blends present-day romance and futuristic suspense, Remember When is a tale of deceit and secrets, of strong women and fascinating men-a brilliant combination of the incomparable talents of the two sides of Nora Roberts.



1/2 Big Jack


In New York City in 2059, someone is pursuing missing gems from a decades-old heist...someone who's willing to kill for them. Sharp-witted and sexy, NYPSD Lieutenant Eve Dallas is used to travelling in the shadowy corners outside the law. And in a future where crime meets cutting-edge technology, she will attempt to track down the diamonds once and for all-and stop the danger and death that have surrounded them for years.

Imitation in Death

Book 19


Description:

The summer of 2059 is drawing to a sweaty close when a killer makes his debut with the slashing and mutilation of a prostitute. He leaves behind a note addressed to Lieutenant Eve Dallas, commending her work and inviting her to participate in his game...and signs it "Jack." Now Eve is on the trail of a serial killer who knows as much about the history of murder as she does, and he's paying homage to some of history's most vicious, and infamous, killers, beginning with Jack the Ripper. But who will he choose to emulate next? And will Eve be able to stop him before he decides to finish the game by coming after her?

Portrait in Death

Book 18


Description:

After a tip from a reporter, Eve Dallas finds the body of a young woman in a Delancey street dumpster. Just hours before, the news station had mysteriously received a portfolio of professional portraits of the woman. The photos seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary for any pretty young woman starting a modeling career. Except that she wasn't a model. And that these photos were taken after she had been murdered.
Now Dallas is on the trail of a killer who's a perfectionist and an artist. He carefully observes and records his victim's every move. And he has a mission: to own every beautiful young woman's innocence, to capture her youth and vitality—in one fateful shot...


Purity in Death

Book 17

Description:


Louie Cogburn had spent three days holed up in his apartment, staring at his computer screen. His pounding headache was unbearable... like spikes drilling into his brain. And it was getting worse. Finally, when someone knocked at his door, Louie picked up a baseball bat, opened the door, and started swinging...
The first cop on the scene fired his stunner twice and Louie died instantly. Detective Eve Dallas has taken over the investigation, but there's nothing to explain the man's sudden rage or death. The only clue is a bizarre message left on his computer screen: Absolute Purity Achieved

Reunion in Death

Book 16


Description:


At exactly 7:30 p.m., Walter Pettibone arrived home to over a hundred friends and family shouting, “surprise!” It was his birthday. Although he had known about the planned event for weeks, the real surprise was yet to come. At 8:45 p.m., a woman with emerald eyes and red hair handed him a glass of champagne. One sip of birthday bubbly, and he was dead.
The woman’s name is Julie Dockport. No one at the party knew who she was. But Detective Eve Dallas remembers her all too well. Eve was personally responsible for her incarceration nearly ten years ago. And now, let out on good behavior, she still has nothing but bad intentions. It appears she wants to meet Dallas again—in a reunion neither will forget…

Seduction in Death

Book 15




Dante had been courting his victim in cyberspace for weeks before meeting her in person. A few sips of wine and a few hours later, she was dead. The murder weapon: a rare, usually undetectable date-rape drug with a street value of a quarter million dollars.
Detective Eve Dallas is playing and replaying the clues in her mind. The candlelight, the music, the rose petals strewn across the bed—a seduction meant for his benefit, not hers. He hadn’t intended to kill her. But now that he had, he is left with only two choices: to either hole up in fear and guilt. Or start hunting again…


Betrayal in Death

Book 13



Description:

Detective Eve Dallas investigates a homicide on familiar grounds: her husband’s hotel—and finds herself up against a murderer with a passion for the finer things in life—and death…


At the luxurious Roarke Palace Hotel, a maid walks into suite 4602 for the nightly turndown— and steps into her worst nightmare. A killer leaves her dead, strangled by a thin silver wire. He’s Sly Yost, a virtuoso of music and murder. A hit man for the elite. Lieutenant Eve Dallas knows him well. But in this twisted case, knowing the killer doesn’t help solve the crime. Because there’s someone else involved. Someone with a more personal motive. And Eve must face a terrifying possibility—that the real target may, in fact, be her husband Roarke…