100 Book Challenge - Book 27 - Whiskey Sour

Book 27 / 100

Book: Whiskey Sour (Jack Daniels Mystery #1)

Author: J.A. Konrath

ASIN: B00BBE4BFE / ISBN: 978-1482374131

Pages: 232

Lieutenant Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels is a Chicago Police Lieutenant with the Violent Crimes division, and she’s having a bad week.

Take one shot of insomnia, a dose of a food obsessed partner, a pound of emotional turmoil, two glasses of FBI agents and a big pile of crazy serial killer and you have the perfect recipe of a stiff drink.

A dead body is dumped in a trashcan outside a 7-Eleven with a message that reads “You can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man.” Soon Jack and her partner Herb are tracking down the leads, but it’s not until a second body turns up in a similar manner that they realize they have a serial killer on their hands.

Enter the FBI, two agents from The Violent Criminal Apprehension Team of the Behavioral Science Unit and their profiling computer nicknamed Vicky, Vicky has some crazy ideas about their killer, for instance, he’s a Canadian Mountie with a hunchback at one point. Despite the “help” clues begin to come in that help Jack and her team narrow down the perp.

Unfortunately the perp has set his sights on a new victim… Jack herself!

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stiff Drinks. Whiskey Sour is undoubtedly a great hardboiled Detective thriller, and while the story did get a little slow in places, it was interesting to follow Jack as she hunted the killer, and struggled with her own personal life and the mess it’s in after having to focus on her career in order to make it in what is really an Old Boys club.

100 Book Challenge - Book 26 - Beautiful Redemption

Book 26 / 100

Book: Beautiful Redemption (Caster Chronicles #4)

Author: Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

ASIN: B00936ROW4

Pages: 465

Ethan Wate is dead. But that, as they say, was just the beginning of his adventure.

Having given his life to restore The Order, Ethan finds himself in the Otherworld. With the help of his mother, Aunt Prue, a Dark Caster and a hideous bat/human monster he begins a journey to find his way back to the Mortal World and the love of his life Lena Duchannes.

Lena has to continue on, not giving up hope that Ethan would find his way back to her, so when Ethan finds a way to communicate with her from the Otherworld, things begin to fall into place that would lead to the final showdown with the evil Abraham Ravenwood for possession of The Book of Moons, a key piece in Ethan’s quest.

As Ethan continues his quest, he learns the truth about his fate, and the dark heart of the Far Keep and how one Mortal man’s quest for power lead to things that were never meant to be. Can Ethan face the evilest of Keepers, Angelus, and win his freedom to return to the mortal world?

 Rating... 5 out of 5 spells. This folks, this is the final chapter in what I would almost call an epic story of love, loss and magic. And while it does drag in a couple of places, it almost feels as if that was intentional to make you feel what Ethan is feeling. I highly recommend this book series, you can’t just read one, you gotta do them all.

100 Book Challenge - Book 25 - Beautiful Chaos

Book 25 / 100

Book: Beautiful Chaos (Caster Chronicles #3)

Author: Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

ASIN: B005JZD382

Pages: 529

The Order is broken. It’s the End of Days.

With Lena’s choice to be herself and claimed by neither and both light and dark, chaos is reigning on Earth. The signs of the apocalypse are descending on the small town of Gatlin. The casters and supernatural folk are finding that their powers are off, the mortals are cowering in fear. Meanwhile Abraham Ravenwood is searching for the hybrid Incubus John Breed, with urgency as the Eighteenth Moon approaches.

There is one way to save the world, Gatlin, Lena, Link and all Ethan’s loved ones. A sacrifice that must be made in order to bring about The New Order. The One Who Is Two. But just who is this person, and can they find them before the Eighteenth Moon?

Rating... 5 out of 5 spells. Okay, so it should be clear to anyone reading all my reviews that I am loving this series... Although I must caution you, if you’re anything like me you will need a box of tissues around for the end of this book, trust me on this.

100 Book Challenge - Book 24 - Beautiful Darkness

Book 24 / 100
Book: Beautiful Darkness (Caster Chronicles #2)
Author: Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
ASIN: B00457X7IQ
Pages: 513

Beautiful Darkness picks up where Beautiful Creatures left off with Lena unclaimed by light or dark and the future of both sides of her family hanging in the balance... But not deciding and saving Ethan has had a bad effect on Lena... Especially with the consequence of taking Macon's life!

Lena begins to descend into darkness, egged on by her cousin Ridley and the mysterious John Breed and in doing so she pulls away from the one person who can help her out... John convinces her that The Great Barrier is the place to go to find the answers to all her questions.

With Ethan, Link and a Keeper-in-Training, Liv, following closely they head into the Caster tunnels heading for the place where the mortal and Caster worlds meet. Meanwhile Lena's mother and the evil Abraham begin to turn the tide of things in the natural order, swaying Lena to the dark side.

With help from the light casters and from beyond the grave can Ethan reach Lena in time to save her from herself and her mother and ancestor?

Rating... 4 out of 5 spells. If you enjoyed the first book then this will be a must read. If you haven't read the first book then I recommend reading that first then picking this one up.

100 Book Challenge - Book 23 - Beautiful Creatures

Book 23 / 100

Book: Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles #1)

Author: Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

ASIN: B00371V710

Pages: 563

Nothing ever happens in Gatlin, and Ethan Wate knew that all too well, that’s why he was counting down the days until he could leave. At least he had been, until the new girl arrived in town. Old Man Ravenwood’s niece was like nothing the town had seen, and that was just the start.

Lena Duchannes is a Caster, as in Spell Caster, and she’s struggling to contain her powers and dealing with a curse that has sealed the fate of her family for generations. On the 16^th moon of their 16^th year all the Casters in her family are Claimed by either light or dark. And it’s Lena’s 16^th birthday soon.

Inexplicably, Ethan is drawn to Lena, and vice versa. A connection that means that in a town where nothing ever happens, something big is about to happen.

Rating: 4 out of 5 spells. Okay, so I went into this book knowing that several friends had told me it was slow and hard to get into, but I found that it was a captivating story, by a few pages into it I was hooked. I’d recommend it to anyone who has a liking of paranormal romance and magic.

100 Book Challenge - Book 22 - Grave Witch

Book 22/ 100

Book: Grave Witch (Alex Craft #1)

Author: Kalayna Price

ISBN: 978-0-451-46380-7

Pages: 325

Alex Craft is wyrd. A Grave Witch who has the power to talk to the dead, raise their shades, and see into the realm of the dead. As it happens she’s also a private investigator and consultant to the police. And, much to her dislike, the daughter of the new Governor and Humans First Party supporter.

Add to all that the fact her finances are drying up, and she’s just been drafted to do a pro-bono raising for the police, and things are looking a little grim. But still, there’s Death, who looks great in jeans, and homicide detective Falin Andrews, who both help her to work out the twists and turns in the case she’s investigating… The death of the previous Governor. And it’s going to take all her wyrd abilities to pull it off.

Rating… 4 out of 5 gargoyles. I really enjoyed this book, it was a little slow at the start, but you got the pay-off for sticking with it. In the world of the book, the Fae (or fairies if you insist) have come out of the mushroom ring and the witches out of the broom closet, the folded spaces have unfolded and suddenly the world was a much larger, and magical place. I love stories like this that fold the fantasy into the reality of the world as it is, it’s almost enough to make one believe that there are things like that out there… Now I gotta wait for book #2 in the series to arrive.