Abdallah ABRA ABRA itibaren 32137 Piñor, Ourense, İspanya itibaren 32137 Piñor, Ourense, İspanya

This book is about a Mormon bishop's wife who seeks the help of her vampire neighbor in order to save the life of her dying child. It was interesting, but vampire books have never really been my thing. I certainly can't really recommend it as "church" literature, but if you're looking for a different twist on the vampire myth it might be something you'd enjoy.

Put simply, this is not a great book, but it was thoroughly enjoyable. It helps to not get uptight about things not making sense, because they basically don't - the ending in particular is still baffling me a few days after finishing it. Even still, I'd recommend it as a silly quick read.

** spoiler alert ** Agent Melanie Ward, the ass-kicking spy, returns in this second novel of self-published author Kate Mathis's "Agent Melanie Ward" series. I'm going to be brutally honest... just a heads-up. It took me a while to get through this book because, right off the bat, the characters don't seem to be the same ones we left off with in Living Lies (Book 1 of the series). Agent Ward is dumped by her assassin beau from the first book, and she immediately flips out and starts doing things a top-notch spy wouldn't do. While I assume she was doing these things because her mental faculties were all a jumble from the break-up, I felt more like I was reading a story about teenage angst than a story about an older keep-it-cool-under-pressure and top-notch spy. The angst upped the ante when Melanie's ex-boyfriend from college pops back into the picture. That's not to say it was a bad plot twist, but Mel's actions seemed out of character. In Book 1, when she flipped out, she went home to crash on her parent's couch and visit friends... she didn't try to get even or spy on her ex. (...or did she?) The evolution of the character happened within a couple of pages, after she dumped Adam and moved back to Danny, and screamed "this is not the Melanie from Book 1"-- one scene in particular that outlines this odd out-of-character style is on page 220, when Melanie thinks to herself "... Being the best doesn't get you what you want, out-smarting does." Book 1 Melanie was all about hard work and how she was "the best" and Finn out-smarted her. The supporting characters seem to maintain their continuity, their character changes happening much slower and more reasonably paced, in my opinion. Scenes that didn't fit, though-- the scene where Melanie goes out of her way to help uncover the political subterfuge for her friend Carla. Some of the things I felt a top-notch spy would do were not done in this scene. For example, cutting the power? Taking the cellphone in the safe rather than make a copy of the phone's SIM card? All those things would make it difficult to believe this was an experienced spy. So, maybe she was doing these things to get the attention of the man whose house she broke into? Okay... but say that Melanie was being so sloppy so he would know and be unnerved by those actions. Without saying this, I just assumed that she was still flipping out over her break-up. One other thing about that scene was that it would have been cool to make it a sub-plot that lasted the rest of the book rather than wrapping it up so fast. The story line in the book is somewhat linear-- not a bad thing-- but without tying it into the rest of the book it's more of a stand-alone story, and it could be pulled out of the book all together. Wouldn't it have been cool if the car dealer fellow was the one to hire the hit on Melanie, but missed and killed Finn?... and then to have Mel dodging all sorts of threats the car dealer sent her way while she was trying to figure out if it was something Finn and Hugh were plotting, but got the two mixed-up and had to sort that out? The writing style is fast-paced... but too fast-paced as, in the beginning of the book, the characters jump from place-to-place without any sort of transitions. For example, on page 47, "She changed as quickly as possible into a pair of jeans and it wasn't until they found a quiet corner booth..."-- Here the character goes from being upstairs in her hotel room, putting on a pair of jeans to suddenly being in a booth in a bar-- In the same sentence. I had to keep re-reading things to figure out where the characters were because this would happen far too often. I will admit, the later half of the book (p240-ish on) seemed to be a little more polished... but there needs to be better writing when it comes to scene changes. Put on the pants in one sentence. Leave the hotel. Enter the bar. Sit down. My brain can follow that without feeling like she has magical, transporting pants-- I mean that as a joke, not a dig. =) Other "who-za-what-happened-now?" moments include: * P 44- Finn's phonecall-- say who the he is for the "... Yes!" because the last proper noun used was Melanie. I first read that thinking Mel was talking. * P 50- Feeling the swoosh of time should be at the end of the conversation, not the middle. When I read things like that, I think the convo is OVER... but I read that and the chat continued. * P 52-53- They're in the elevator... or did they walk to the door? when? * Chapt 24, p222- When I first read this, I thought they were still at the Danny thing... There needs to be some sort of transitory sentence to indicate the scene change to readers. * p 225- "Paul and Sugar"-- I'd put an extra gap between the start of this paragraph and the next. They're still in the same location, but there's a brief time lapse. The reader needs to know, so a gap-- not a swirl-- could help. ... a few spelling/grammer errors I encountered (once I started keeping track sometime around p 240 and on): * P 238, 1st word in the last line should be "Her" not "He" * P 269, 2nd line on the page-- sentence should read "You can change your life" * P 284-- Half-down the page, the paragrah that starts "I'll be in touch." Her icy tone... * P 286 4th paragraph from bottom (starts "That wasn't what she was expecting")-- the quoted text has a double word. Remove the "with" in "with the boyfriend"-- otherwise she says, "Nothing to do with with the boyfriend." *P 341 bottom of page "Melanie didn't dare to breathe" ... there are a couple others I know I saw, but I didn't have a pen to jot down. I mentioned these because I know the author does print-as-you-go and can rectify the spellings. I will say one thing for the author-- Kate Mathis can tell a really, really good story. The plot to her books has been wonderfully rich... but I think I got bogged down too much by the lack of transitions and all the things I felt were out of character to really enjoy the book (hence the "okay" two star rating). Once I got through the first part of the book, I did enjoy it a little better... but I would have to say I enjoyed her first book a little bit better than this one. If the whole book had been like the second half, I'd have given it 3 stars-- which is the average for books I read.

Funny enough, when I started reading the Shining, I had the same "friends" scenes in my head. Incredibly scary, I was actually scared everytime I had to open it again. The build up is impressive and the way King has written the story pushes your curiosity and fascination a little bit further every page. Really liked it, but equally relieved I have finished it.