Book review | June 2017

Almost half way through July, but better late than never: here is my June book review. I read another 4 books last month, which seems to be my average. So far I’ve read 26 books this year, which means I’m still right on track for completing my reading goal for this year. Last year around this time, I was doing a lot worse and summer vacation is almost near, so I hope to be reading some more and get ahead of the schedule again.

Leslie Silbert – The Intelligencer
Alex Grecian – The Harvest Man
Jonathan Stroud – Lockwood  & Co – The Creeping Shadow
Lauren Kate – Fallen

I was on a massive YA kick towards the end of May, early June, so naturally, halfway through the month I felt out of love with it. So I switched to some adult detective/ mystery novels towards the end. Still, I was really feeling the supernatural/ historical fiction again this month. I just love a good historic setting. Here’s what I read in June!

Jonathan Stroud – Lockwood  & Co – The Creeping Shadow

Lucy is off on her own, trying to protect Lockwood from a sinister fate. But being a freelancing ghost hunter isn’t always easy. When she ends up being chased after she discovers what happens to people who do not listen to the most powerful people in London, she finds her way back to her old agency to get to the bottom. In the mean time she sorely misses that nasty skull and finds out that even the biggest agencies have some skeletons in their closets.

Another thrilling installment in this entertaining, fast paced YA series. Set in an alternate London, Lockwood & Co is by far one of the more original series out there, but few people talk about it. I’ve read that the next book will be the last one in the series and I’d be sad to see it go. I love the adventures of this fearless threesome, by now foursome and love the sassy character of Lucy.

Lauren Kate – Fallen

Lucinda is shipped off to a reform school after the umpteenth incident happens in her life. After all her friends left her after she claimed to see dark shapes circling around her, trying to come get her, she gets one final chance to resolve herself. While her mental wellness isn’t the best, she instantly falls in love with the bad boy of the school. But she feels she knows him from somewhere. But where?

This book was not my cup of tea. Too much like Twilight and while I enjoyed that at the time, this is the bad rendition of that. Instead of vampires, we’re now dealing with fallen angels and biblical illusions. The plot is so predictable and cheesy that I only rated this 2 stars. It is not bad per se, it was still fairly entertaining, but I have no desire to read anything else from this series.

Leslie Silbert – The Intelligencer

Kate Morgan is a modern day private detective. Christopher Marlowe, Elizabethan era playright, her historical counterpart. Kate is drawn into the web of a billionaire criminal mastermind, she slowly uncovers the secrets that Marlowe quite possibly dealt with, relaying them to the court of Queen Elizabeth I herself.  As Kate unravels the manuscript that was the source of an attempted burglary, her own past and present seem to collide.

This was an older book that had been sitting on my shelves for a while. I think I got this around the time The Da Vinci Code and similar books were making the rounds. This works in the same vein: old manuscript *check*, detective work *check*, seemingly random alliances *check*. While an enjoyable read, the combination of the plot lines and characters was sometimes confusing. The historical plot line felt a bit of a misfit in the book as a whole. While an interesting concept, I felt this story could have done more than be the cheap detective with a sudden twist at the end that it was.

Alex Grecian – The Harvest Man

Walter Day isn’t really feeling himself after his encounter by Jack the Ripper. As he sits at his desk, he becomes a mere figment of the detective he once was. Hammersmith on the other hand is trying to make a name for himself, not given up where others have. Their paths collide once again, as a former inmate, now escaped convict, known only as The Harvest Man, wreaks havoc on Victorian London. Creeping around attics until the family goes to sleep, he sets to work to remove the ‘masks’ of his real parents…

Where I wasn’t much into the third book in this series, this one I enjoyed. The Ripper plot line was pushed to the back, which made this much more enjoyable. It made for more room for the characters and the story. It is still an action packed book that cleverly fuses the Victorian era with detective work. While the book ends on a bit of a cliff hanger I am still not sure whether I’ll read the 5th book: it seems to be more focused around Jack the Ripper which I found hardly original at the first attempt. I can only imagine what I will think of the second.

What was the last book you read?