100 Book Challenge - Book 38 - The Girl in the Clockwork Collar

Book 38 / 100

Book: The Girl in the Clockwork Collar (The Steampunk Chronicles #2)

Author: Kady Cross

ISBN: 978-0-373-21082-4

Pages: 368

Of course I had to get the second book in Kady Cross’s Steampunk Chronicles, who wouldn’t after the first one? And I wasn’t disappointed.

Following their friend Jasper across the ocean from London to New York, Finley Jayne and her band of misfits go head to head with a crime boss intent on using Jasper to locate the pieces of a machine. To what end? Well, that’s just one of the many things they’ll have to discover along the way.

Jasper meanwhile is in the clutches of Dalton, a ruthless man who is holding the life of the woman Jasper loves hostage with the help of a clockwork collar that will strangle her if the wrong person touches it.

As the story takes us from the rough streets of lower Manhattan to the elegant Fifth Avenue, we find Griffin King, The Duke of Greythorne at war with himself over his growing attraction to Finley, Sam, more machine than man, finds his heart being tested, and the sweet Irish Emily, who can talk to machines, finds that the streets can be dangerous if one isn’t careful.

To help her friends Finley must go undercover in Dalton’s gang. But can she pull herself away from the dark side after everything is done?

Rating… 5 out of 5 gears. While a few small bits dragged a little, overall this was a great read, I love the seamless blending of the late 1890s with the steam powered inventions, and I especially enjoyed the guest appearance by Nikola Tesla!

100 Book Challenge - Book 37 - Through the Killing Glass

Book 37 / 100

Book: Through The Killing Glass (Alice in Deadland #2)

Author: Mainak Dhar

ASIN: B007M4I6NA

Pages: 183 (I’m averaging this with book one that I previously reviewed so together they total 413 pages)

It’s been more than two years since Alice’s adventures began, over two years since she first followed a Biter with rabbit ears down a hole. With the help of the biters and the humans living in the Deadland she’s fought the Chinese Red Guard to a standstill and the survivors have begun to rebuild a society, beginning in a place they call Wonderland.

But sometimes people mistake quietness for safety and peace. When Alice is ousted from the government of Wonderland and the guard patrols reduced, it can mean only one thing. The Chinese Central Committee are beginning a new, much more insidious, campaign to take control of the Deadland.

A campaign that utilizes a new breed of Biters and Alice’s most formidable opponent yet, someone just like her, a biter/human hybrid known as The Red Queen!

Rating: 5 out of 5 Shotguns. This was a really fun journey, after the twist ending of book one, I just had to see how things ended. If you’ve read Alice in Deadland then you have to read this book. It’s an interesting take on things, and offers the reader a glimpse at how humans react and how they, more than likely, stab each other in the back at the first opportunity.

100 Book Challenge - Book 36 - Alice in Deadland

Book 36 / 100

Book: Alice in Deadland (Alice in Deadland #1)

Author: Mainak Dhar

ASIN: B006AQYAA4

Pages: 230

The end of the world came. Fifteen years ago the world was laid to waste, leaving behind it a wasteland and the remnants of the human race struggle to survive. Their plight is made terrifying by the hoards of undead Biters that attack and convert any living and moving human.

Teenager Alice has spent her life in the Deadland that was once the thriving country of India, where her education consisted of combat and survival. One day while out hunting Alice spots a Biter, wearing bunny ears, disappear into a hole in the ground. Following him, Alice finds herself in a fabled underground Biter base.

What Alice discovers there changes not only her understanding of the Biters and their origin, but it will change life for everyone in the Deadland, and maybe the entire world. The truth about the nuclear war, The Rising and the rise of the Biters could spell ruin or freedom for Alice and the other humans.

While in the base Alice comes face to face with the Queen of the Biters, and her destiny is revealed, her destiny to one day free the enslaved humans and bring peace between humans and the Biters. A destiny foretold in a prophesy by the Queen, a prophesy based upon the charred remains of the last book in the Deadland… A book called Alice in Wonderland.

Rating: 5 out of 5 Shotguns. Okay, I admit, it was a little slow to start, but the story is catchy. A dystopian tale of survival in the face of overwhelming odds, we go on the ride along with Alice as she learns the truth, and then begins the fight to bring freedom and revenge to those who need it.

I admit, this isn’t my normal faire when it comes to genres, but if dystopian tales are this good maybe I’ll have to look into other ones.

100 Book Challenge - Book 35 - Stirred

Book 35 / 100

Book: Stirred (Jack Daniels/Luther Kite Thriller)

Author: J.A. Konrath & Blake Crouch

ASIN: B0050KIRDC / ISBN: 9781612181462

Pages: 505

In the thrilling conclusion to both Konrath’s Jack Daniels series and Crouch’s Andrew Z. Thomas / Luther Kite series the writers pit Konrath’s heroine, Jack Daniels, against Crouch’s villain, Luther Kite in an insane battle and race against the clock.

Jack, heavily pregnant, has been living on a knife edge waiting for Luther to make the move he promised when they last met (at the end of Shaken), and it’s beginning to take its toll, on her, Phin and their unborn daughter.

With Jack’s health on the line the men in her life try to convince her to do the right thing, but Jack is spurred on by Luther’s reappearance and continued killing. But that’s just the beginning as Luther manages to kidnap Jack and her boys and deposits them somewhere worse than imaginable… A real life representation of Dante’s nine circles of Hell!

Rating: 5 out of 5 Stiff Drinks. Reading this book was bittersweet to me, it’s strange to become so attached to characters in a book that you didn’t write, but I guess that’s a sign of a great writer, they pull you in and never let you go. I admit before this book I didn’t know anything about Crouch’s Thomas/Luther books, but the character is above and beyond the worst villain Jack’s faced throughout the series, another reason it’s bittersweet.

And Luther’s real life version of Dante’s Hell… Without giving too much away, is absolutely insane in its interpretation. That alone makes reading this book worth it, even if one does feel bad for the people in there.

100 Book Challenge - Book 34 - Shaken

Book 34 / 100

Book: Shaken (Jack Daniels Mystery #7)

Author: J.A. Konrath

ASIN: B003M69XAM / ISBN: 9781935597216

Pages: 310

Shaken is essentially a story that jumps back and forth in the time, so I’ll review it in three parts… Then (Twenty One Years Ago), Then (Three Years Ago) and Now…

Then (Twenty One Years Ago).

When a young Chicago police officer Jacqueline Streng chases after a deviant soliciting hookers and catches up with him in a dumpster, she finds a gruesome discovery… The dismembered remains of an escort. Recruited by a Homicide detective named Herb Benedict, Jacqueline goes undercover as a high class escort to hunt the killer. At the same time trying to decide her future, if she really loved her boyfriend Alan Daniels, and considering his proposal.

Then (Three Years Ago).

Chicago police Lieutenant Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels and her partner Herb Benedict are hot on the trail of a suspect they believe is the worst mass serial killer they’ve ever heard of, the elusive Mr. K. With well over a hundred named on his body-count, they really don’t want to let him get away. But their suspect is ready for them and sends them on the hunt for boy who will be gone in 24 hours. But in 24 hours their suspect will be leaving for a country that doesn’t have any extradition laws.

Now.

Former Chicago police Lieutenant Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels has been kidnapped. Her boyfriend, her “brother” and her former partner must race the clock to find her before the infamous Mr. K has his way with her. Using every skill and contact the three of them have leads them to a case from twenty one years earlier and a case from three years earlier. But there’s another force out there that wants Jack for himself… Who will reach her first? And will she survive the race?

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stiff Drinks. Okay, so at the start I found the book to be a bit distracting, each chapter was set in a different time to the previous, and that caused a little bit of disjointedness. However once the story picked up speed the scene changes became smoother and easier to take. I think of all the Jack Daniels Mysteries, this was the most shocking for me, add in Jack’s revelation and then the author’s revelation at the end that the next book, Stirred, will be the end of the Jack Daniels Mysteries, it was quite a lot to take in…