BLACK SUN by Owen Matthews

Doubleday  

July 23, 2019

978-0385543408

Thriller, Suspense

Hardback

Reviewed by Gina  (myreviewbooks@aol.com)

Obtained by Publisher

3 Hearts

The year is 1961 and it is the height of the cold war.  The USSR and United States are vying for supremacy and building bigger and better bombs is a popular mode of achieving that goal.  America had “Little Boy” and the USSR is in the midst of building RDS-220 – an even bigger nuclear bomb in a secret city, Arzamas-16.  When one of the scientists building the bomb dies, State investigator Major Alexander Vasin, is sent to investigate.  When he arrives it seems the death is not, as the initial report claims, a suicide.  Is it an accident?  Or is it murder?  The deeper Vasin digs into the mysterious death, the more questions he has.  And this is communist Russia where spies spy on each other.  Where the state controls every aspect of life…and death.  And what of RDS-220?  Will it create devastation or prevent further war?

I was definitely enticed by the blurb I read for Owen Matthews’ Black Sun.  It sounded like it was going to be a white knuckle page turner of a thriller.  While there were some intense moment, especially at the end, for the most part the story rolled along without much drama.  There was a considerable amount of technical information and to Matthews’ credit he had the characters explain a lot of what it meant.  I found the information on uranium and its various make up fascinating.  The tone of the story, Matthews’ story telling voice, lends itself strongly to the overall idea of what I thought Russia, the USSR, was like growing up—cold, dark, dreary—and that was the people. 

Every so often there was a bit of humor thrown in – which made the story richer because you never saw it coming. 

I never warmed up to Vasin  I’m not sure if it was because he was a victim of his circumstances or he just wasn’t a character I’d ever relate to.  Black Sun is an interesting read, one that I think most male readers would enjoy.  The twist at the end was a letdown.  Here Vasin has come so far and now this…and you’ll have to read it to see just what “this” is.

                                                                             

This is an objective review and not an endorsement

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THE GUEST ROOM by Chris Bohjalian

Publisher:      Doubleday

Published:     January 5, 2016

ISBN:        978-0385538893

Genre:      Contemporary Fiction

Format:     Print  

Obtained via:  Library

Reviewed by name and email address:  Gina  Ginalrmreviews@gmail.com

FIVE HEARTS

Thinking he’s doing the right thing by his younger brother Richard Chapman agrees to host his younger brother’s bachelor party at his home.  Richard has built a nice life for himself.  A stable life with a wonderful wife, Kristen and daughter, Melissa, he adores.  His brother, Philip, has always been a tad irresponsible but still, family is family.  Suspecting things might get a tad wild, at least with a stripper involved in the festivities, Richard sends Kristen and Melissa to stay with her mother in Manhattan.  But it’s not just the two strippers who show up for the party that causes the party to spiral out of control.  When one of the women lashes out at the bodyguards sent to accompany them and kills him in a violent rage followed by the death of the second man, Richard’s life begins to crumble.  In a matter of moments he stands to lose his wife and daughter, the job he thrives in and so much more. 

Meanwhile the strippers escape…it appears their profession was far from one they chose themselves.  Terrified and alone but for themselves they find themselves navigating the streets of Manhattan—trying to avoid both the police and their captors.  The lives they knew and the ones they were promised become more and more divergent as they try to survive. 

THE GUEST ROOM is the first book of Chris Bohjalian’s I’ve read.  It will not be the last.  What a fantastic and compelling read.  I picked it up because the blurb sounded so interesting.  It sounded like a thriller with maybe a hint of noir.  It was much, much more.  The blurb and promotional quotes do not begin to cover the depth of this story. 

Told in part first and part third person the story takes you into the life of a man who has tried to do and be the right thing.  Someone who is stable, reliable and decent.  It then takes you more deeply in the frightening world of sex trafficking and the violence that accompanies it.  Parts of Alexandra’s story were incredibly painful to read because it is not entirely fiction.  I work with a woman who is completing her masters in the area of finding ways of protecting victims of sex trafficking and when I spoke with her about different aspects of Alexandra’s story she added to the horror that can happen to a young woman…or child…caught in the web this character was. 

I didn’t see the ending company…an incredibly sad and disturbing ending—yet so well done.  This isn’t a happy or feel good book—but it is one that you do not want to miss if you are looking for a really good read. 

This is an objective review and not an endorsement of this book.

 

WINTER PEOPLE by Jennifer McMahon

Publisher:  Doubleday
Published:   February 11, 2014
ISBN:  978-0385538497
Genre:   Horror
Book format:  Electronic – Edelweiss / Above the Treeline
Obtained via:  Publisher
Reviewed by name and email address:  Gina Gina@loveromancesandmorereviews.com

 

Three hearts

 

What would you do for your loved ones?  Your child?  And if that child died, what would do give to have him or her back?  What lengths would you go to for even another hour with them?  Another week? If you knew there was a way to bring them back, no matter what the risk, even for that short time, would you do it?

In 1908 in West Hall, Vermont, Sara Harrison Shea is found dead.  Her passing is made all the more tragic because it follows on the heels of her daughter, Gertie’s unexplained death.

Now, a little over 100 years later, a young woman named Ruthie lives in the house where Sara and Gertie lived along with her mother and younger sister.  They have lived in their own quiet away, keeping to themselves.  Then one day Alice disappears.  There is no reason or rhym, she is just gone.  There one second, gone the next.  In the hours and days after Alice’s disappearance Ruthie finds a diary begun by Sara all those years before.  In those pages Ruthie learns a secret, one that she cannot credit as true, but in hope against hope, she begins to follow the path laid out by that secret.  She and Fawn are soon joined by Katherine who is mourning the loss of her husband, Gary and their child.  When Katherine learns that there may be a way to bring her husband back, she ventures to West Hall.  There events unfold that none of the participants may ever recover from.

Jennifer McMahon’s WINTER PEOPLE is in no way, shape or form an easy read.  It is not a story to be read when you are alone at night and you certainly want to leave the lights on when you do sleep.  She brings together two spellbinding stories—one from 1908 and the other in the present day into an amazing tale.  She raises the question of what would you do for a loved one who has died?  What would you give to have them back for even a few hours?  The character, Katherine, speaks to that kind of desperation when she says that even a week more with Gary alive and in her life is worth anything.  Just a week to talk to him, to hold and be held by him.  Just one more week.  And even after the horrors she sees revealed when she arrives in West Hall that desperation to be with her husband one more time over rides any other emotion.

I sat down to read WINTER PEOPLE expecting little more than a good ghost story and found myself unable to put the book down as the characters’ stories were unveiled.  Ms. Mchahon tells her story in a voice that is monochromatic in detail that brings out the ghostly impressions of the story.  If it were to be brought to the big screen it would be most dramatic done in black and white with only spaces of color when the ghosts appear. 

 

If you like horror and ghost stories, WINTER PEOPLE is definitely one to keep an eye out for….just don’t turn off the lights when you are done!

 

This is an objective review and not an endorsement of this book.