Tag: suspense

#BookReview: Paulie Zahn Vampire Huntress (The Purloined Pint Series Book 2) by E.M. Sørensen @bookhubauthors #vampires

~ Sharon Clayton ~ Leave a comment

Publication Day: 24 June 2018
ISBN: B07F1BBP5X
Pages: 368
Category: Fiction, Genre: Fantasy/Paranormal, Vampires, Series

ABOUT THIS BOOK

The last thing Sgt. Paulie Zahn expects when she wakes up in a strange hospital is to be told that a Rogue Vampire bit her.

Worse, she must cope with the inexplicable changes her body’s going through she’s stronger, faster, and she feels and senses things she never believed to be possible. Her mentor, Eddie Vangh, has been a Vampire since World War II. He wants to teach her how to live by the code of his clan, which includes not directly feeding off human beings. Continue reading “#BookReview: Paulie Zahn Vampire Huntress (The Purloined Pint Series Book 2) by E.M. Sørensen @bookhubauthors #vampires” →

#BlogTour #BookReview: Abel’s Revenge by Ross Greenwood @greenwoodross @CarolineBookBit

~ Sharon Clayton ~ 1 Comment

BLURB

This is a story about a city. As with all others, it’s a place of violence. There are murderers, and they live among us.

This is also a tale about a couple — sometimes friends, occasionally lovers, but always partners. Dan and Olivia are fighting modern battles; the ones parents have over a lack of money, time or peace.

Continue reading “#BlogTour #BookReview: Abel’s Revenge by Ross Greenwood @greenwoodross @CarolineBookBit” →

#BookTour #BookReview: 88° North (Nadia Laksheva Thriller Series #3) by J.F. Kirwan @kirwanjf @rararesources

~ Sharon Clayton ~ 2 Comments

88 North

BLURB

The deadliest kind of assassin is one who is already dying…

As the radiation poisoning that Nadia Laksheva was exposed to in Chernobyl takes hold of her body, she knows she has mere weeks to live. But Salamander, the terrorist who murdered her father and sister has a deadly new plan to ‘make the sky bleed’. Nadia is determined to stop him again, even if it is the last thing she ever does.

The only clue she has are the coordinates 88˚ North, a ridge in the Arctic right above one of the largest oil fields in the world, three thousand metres below the ice. If Salamander takes hold of the oil field, he could change the climate of the whole planet for generations to come…

But can Nadia stop him before her own time runs out? Continue reading “#BookTour #BookReview: 88° North (Nadia Laksheva Thriller Series #3) by J.F. Kirwan @kirwanjf @rararesources” →

#BookReview: Liar, Liar: The Omnibus by Suzie Quint #SuzieQwriter

~ Sharon Clayton ~ 2 Comments

She’d gotten nervous about her first day at The Inside Word—a tabloid! God help her, how had she come to this?—and before she knew it, she’d found herself walking out the door of her new apartment dressed in what, in her saner moments, she referred to as her slut suit.

Cleo is an up-and-coming investigative journalist who got her former employer, The Tucson Sun, a nomination for the Pulitzer.  So why is she now accepting a job with The Inside Word, a tabloid?  It’s complicated.  In fact, her life has been nothing but.  Her mother is a former Vegas showgirl who is now a choreographer in Vegas which Cleo likes to keep on the down low.  Even her ex-boyfriend Martin Howard Prescott the third didn’t know about that side of her life, but now she has sold her soul to the devil and her sign on bonus will be in the bank soon to take care of some debts.  Everything is going as planned…or is it?  She didn’t count on having to work with sexy Alec Ramirez with those bedroom eyes and smoldering good looks.

“She’d thought that Ramirez fellow had been within a breath of backing her up against the break area’s counter and taking her right there. And for a second, it hadn’t seemed like a bad idea.”

Continue reading “#BookReview: Liar, Liar: The Omnibus by Suzie Quint #SuzieQwriter” →

#CoverReveal $25 Giveaway – If I Could Stay by Annette K. Larsen @Annetteklarsen @KathyHabel

~ Sharon Clayton ~ Leave a comment

Coming February 22, 2018


If I Could Stay by Annette K. Larsen

They killed her mother, and if they find her, Leila could be next. Being pursued from one state to another, she has learned to constantly look over her shoulder, and when necessary, to become someone new. She’s burned through four cities and four identities, always managing to stay one step ahead.

Now Leila is left with nothing. No car, no money, and no choice but to trust the man who finds her, half frozen, wandering the back roads of Missouri. Continue reading “#CoverReveal $25 Giveaway – If I Could Stay by Annette K. Larsen @Annetteklarsen @KathyHabel” →

Book Review: When the Serpent Bites (The Starks Trilogy #1) by Nesly Clerge (9780996501705)

~ Sharon Clayton ~ 1 Comment

26206867“You have to come to terms with what you can do and let go of thoughts about what you want to do but can’t.”

Frederick Starks had it all, a beautiful wife, three wonderful kids, a beautiful home and a thriving business, but his neat and tidy life came to an abrupt halt when he found out his wife betrayed him.  When Starks takes the law into his own hands, he is convicted and thrown into a maximum security prison where he has to learn quickly to survive in a very dangerous environment.

Starks is an anti-hero.  He comes across as arrogant and entitled, but also vulnerable and exposed.  He not only tries to come to terms about his wife’s betrayal, but also struggles to just stay alive.  Will his quick wits and business savvy keep him alive, or will more secrets in his life be his undoing?  The reader will have to find out in the second of Clerge’s Stark’s Trilogy, When the Dragon Roars.

Continue reading “Book Review: When the Serpent Bites (The Starks Trilogy #1) by Nesly Clerge (9780996501705)” →

Book review: The Other Side of Him by Alice Rene (0996949003)

~ Sharon Clayton ~ Leave a comment

othersideofhimClaire is a young woman with a dream. A dream to go to college and get a job of her very own. Growing up in Chicago with her older brother and her German mother in the 1950’s have been hard and she wants more. When she hears her brother Tom will be moving to California, she uses her scholarship and goes to university in San Francisco. She enjoys her studies at the hospital and enjoys her time with Greg, a handsome surgeon and friend of her brother, until Greg starts to change and things start to happen.

I appreciate seeing such a strong character in Claire and how Ms. Rene was determined to keep Claire’s strength throughout the story even though the time and setting would not necessarily have required it. The story is fast-paced, engaging and refreshing with little violence and no sex.

This book has won a 2016 IPPY Award, a Bronze Medal in Regional Fiction and was a Finalist in the Category of Suspense in the Beverly Hills Book Award 2016 Contest.  Thank you to Ms. Rene for giving me the opportunity to review her award winning book!

Book review: The First to Say No by Charles C. Anderson (9781432791018)

~ Sharon Clayton ~ Leave a comment

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“Nobody wants to make any moral judgments.  We pay for everything with no one looking at the harm we are doing.  No one is willing to admit that we can’t afford to pay for everybody’s self-destructive behavior.  Somebody must prioritize and someone must say no.  Our country is already technically bankrupt.”

Dr. Katherine (Kate) Taylor will no longer tolerate the violent acts towards her staff by the local gangs, drug addicts and alcoholics that come into her hospital.  The hospital administrator and the hospital Board of Trustees don’t care because they have their own agenda for the hospital and the local police are corrupt and refuse to arrest and hold the criminals.  It is a revolving door of carnage and chaos.  With the help of friends and family, Dr. Taylor takes the law into her own hands, but will Detective Dave Whitt stop them before they get their revenge.

This is a medical thriller full of revenge and suspense which shows the horrors of a health care system that has gone array.  Mr. Anderson is a “38-year veteran emergency physician, critical are physician, and trauma specialist who has direct multiple hospital Emergency Departments and emergency medical transport systems” so his medical prose is concise and he explains the medical terms in layman’s terms.

Thank you to Mr. Anderson for the opportunity to review his book.

Book review: The Twisted Window by Lois Duncan (0440201845) E-book

~ Sharon Clayton ~ Leave a comment

This is an unusual and disturbing story about mental illness.  The attractive, new guy at school, Brad Johnson, has taken an interest in Tracy Lloyd, but what does he really want from her.  If it only could be so easy.  His story is heart-wrenching and frightening and her fate is in the hands of this confused young man.

A young adult novel with twists and turns that catch you off guard.  It will take you in and leave you gasping.

Thank you to Ms. Duncan, Open Road Media and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

Book review: Dead in the Water by Stuart Woods (9780061711916)

~ Sharon Clayton ~ Leave a comment

0061093491.01._SX53_SCLZZZZZZZ_In St. Marks, death by murder is punishable by hanging. Little did Stone Barrington know that his long-awaited vacation was going to be interrupted by a legal case from Hell.

Stone Barrington is a retired cop and a New York lawyer on a beautiful Caribbean island alone. He has been stood up by his girlfriend who has an exclusive interview in the States with her ex-boyfriend and Hollywood’s top leading man. Just when he starts to relax and enjoy his vacation, Allison Manning sails in on a huge yacht, alone, claiming she buried her husband at sea after he suffers a fatal heart attack, but is that the true story? The minister of justice, Sir Winston Sutherland charges her with murder, but Stone is not convinced.

Allison Manning is a beautiful young American widow who is fighting for her life in a foreign land, but will she have a chance with the help of an aging barrister on the island and Stone Barrington? Is her attraction to Stone a ruse? Is she telling the truth about what happened to her husband?

Sir Winston Sutherland is a power-hungry official who will stop at nothing to make a name for himself by prosecuting Allison Manning for the murder of her husband. With St. Mark’s justice system on his side, it’s a huge possibility.

With all of the books I have read, I’m surprised that I have missed Stuart Woods’ Stone Barrington series. This was a fast-paced, suspense thriller with plenty of plot twists and surprises right up until the end of the book. Just when you think you’ve got it figured out, it throws you for a loop. A great read that will keep you entertained until the end.

Book Review: A World I Never Made by James LePore (9780981608723)

~ Sharon Clayton ~ Leave a comment

0981608728.01._SX50_SCLZZZZZZZ_It’s January 2004 and Pat Nolan has received a call from Paris informing him that his estranged daughter Megan (well-travelled, freelance journalist) has committed suicide. When he gets to Paris it is revealed that the body is not Megan and she has left behind a strange suicide note to stage her death. The plot thickens when he finds out she had been staying in Morocco for some time with an extended diplomatic visa and she is hiding from a powerful enemy who stops at nothing to exact revenge.

Pat’s all consuming quest is to find his daughter before her enemies do. He is aided by Officer Catherine Laurence, a hauntingly beautiful and competent Parisian detective who finds corruption in her department and puts her career on the line to help solve the mystery.

Intermixed with Pat’s story is Megan’s quest to stay alive. It starts in January 2003 with her visit to Morocco to do research and she meets Abdel Lahani, a Saudi businessman. With all her worldliness and experience with men, she has met her match and has made a dangerous mistake. Megan is running for her life, but can her father save her?

LePore’s first novel takes us to Paris, Morocco and the Czech Republic and is packed full of raw suspense, terrorism, corruption, and the love of a father who wants to save his daughter. I was hooked at the beginning and was not too surprised at the end, but I enjoyed the unique plot, diverse characters and exotic settings.