Book: The Man Made of Smoke

 Book: The Man Made of Smoke

Author: Alex North

Pages: 307

This is my 138th read for the year

What Amazon says:

Dan Garvie's life has been haunted by the crime he witnessed as a child - narrowly escaping an encounter with a notorious serial killer.  He has dedicated his life since to becoming a criminal profiler, eager to seek justice for innocent victims.  So when his father passes away under suspicious circumstances, Dan revisits his small island community, determined to uncover the truth about his death.  Is it possible that the monster he remembers from his childhood nightmareshas returned after all these years?  

That book was okay.  I like Alex North's books, and was excited for this one, but I had trouble getting into it.  Might have been a timing issue.  I found it a slow burn, which was probably on purpose, but way too descriptive with the mundane - just to fill pages.  The ending did not land for me like I was hoping.  The pace and the twists did not work for me.  I did enjoy large parts of the book - trying to figure out where it was going, but overall, it just was a bit slow.

Stars: 3.5

Book: Dr. Sleep

 Book: Dr. Sleep

Author: Stephen King

Pages: 531

This is my 137th read for the year

What Amazon says:

Years ago, the haunting of the Overlook Hotel nearly broke young Dan Torrance's sanity, as his paranormal gift known as "the shining" opened a door straight into hell.  And even though Dan is all grown up, the ghosts of the Overlook - and his father's legacy of alcoholism and violence - kept him drifting aimlessly for most of his life.  Now, Dan has finally found some order in the chaos by working in a local hospice, earning the nickname "Doctor Sleep" by secretly using his special abilities to comfort the dying and prepare them for the afterlife.  But when he unexpectedly meets 12 year old Abra Stone - who possesses an even more powerful manifestation of the shining - the two find their lives in sudden jeopardy at the hands of the ageless and murderous nomadic tribe known as the True Knot, reigniting Dan's own demons and summoning him to battle for his youn girl's sound and survival....

This was a great book.  I have actually seen the movie and really liked it, and the movie follows the book pretty closely.  It is well written and I like the character development.  A little rambly in true King fashion, but not terribly so.  It is a sequel to the Shining so we get to relive some parts of Dan's young life in this story and how he became the man he is.  It is an interesting twist on the vampire idea.  Wraps up nicely.

Stars: 5

Book: The Secret Wife

 Book: The Secret Wife

Author: Gill Paul

Pages: 418

This is my 136th read for the year

What Amazon says:

1914: Russia is on the brink of collapse, and the Romanov family faces a terrifyingly uncertain future.  Gran Duchess Tatiana has fallen in love with cavalry officer Dmitri, but events take a catastrophic turn, placing their romance - and their lives - in danger.

2016: Kitty Fisher escapes to her great-grandfather's remote cabin in America, after a devastating revelation makes her flee London.  There, on the shores of Lake Akanabee, she discovers the spectacular jewelled pendant that will lead her to a long-buried family secret.

I really liked the start of this book.  I thought it was going to be a 5 star read for me for the longest time.  But then near the end it fell apart in my opinion.  I do not like the direction it took.  Until the last 1/4 of the book it is well written with great characters and good story movement.  It flowed well between the 1914 and 2016 parts of the book - I liked them equally.  I liked the writing style.  I liked the plot for most of the book.  I just wish she would have taken the ending another way - and if you read this book you might agree with me.

Stars: 4

Book: Danse Macabre

 Book: Danse Macabre

Author: Stephen King

Pages: 512

this is my 135th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

This i a vivi, intelligent, and nostalgic journey through 3 decades of horrow as experienced through the eyes of the most popular writer in the genre.  In 1981, years before he sat down to tackleOn Writing, Stephen King decided to address theb topic of what makes horror horrifying and what makes terror terrifying.  Here, in 10 brilliantly written chapters, King delivers one colorful observation after another about the great stories, books, and films that comprise the horror genre.

This was a pretty good book.  It is from 1981, so I would have loved to read a more updated version from King now as the horror genre has evolved in the last 44 years.  A lot of his references are still favorites that we still enjoy in the tv/movie/film horror genre, but 44 years futher on, I wonder if his list would change.  But this book is well written and delves deep into the details on how he feels about different aspects of horror from the 50s-80s.

Stars: 4

Book: The Final Gambit

 Book: The Final Gambit

Author: Jennifer Lynne Barnes

Pages: 386

This is my 134th read for the year

What Amazon says:

To inherit billions, all Avery Kylie Grambs has to do is survive a few more weeks living in Hawthorne House.  The paparazzi are dogging her every step.  Financial pressures are building.  Danger is a fact of life.  And the only thing getting Avery through it all is the Hawthorne brothers.  Her life is intertwined with theirs.  She knows their secrets and they know her.  But as the clock tickets down to the moment when Avery will become the richest teenager on the planet, trouble arrives in the form of a visitor who needs her help - and whose presence in Hawthorne House could change everything.  It soons becomes clear that there is one last puzzle to solve, and Avery and the Hawthorn brothers are drawn into a dangerous game against an unknown and powerful player.  Secrets upon secrets.  Riddles upon riddles.  In this game, there are hearts and lives as stake - and there is nothing more Hawthorn than winning.

This is the 3rd book in the Inheritence Game series.  While I am still enjoying it, I found this book the weekest one so far  I think Barnes was having a hard time advancing this story along.  This one I found harder to follow - a lot of characters and a lot of knew family members made it is a bit convoluted.  The puzzles and mystery were just as good as the past, but all the other stuff got a bit tiresome.  And the love story is a bit bigger in this one.  There are three more books in the series, but I think they are more off shoots than continuation, so I might take a break and come back to them later.

STars: 3.5

Book: Buried In The Sky

 Book: Buried in the Sky

Author: Peter Zuckerman

Pages: 320

This is my 133rd read for the year

What Amazon says:

When 11 climbers died on K2 in 2008, 2 Sherpas survived.  Their astonishing tale became the stuff of mountaineering legend.  This white-knuckle adventure follows the Sherpas from their remote villages in Nepal to the peak of the world's most dangerous mountain, recounting one of the most dramatic disasters in apline history from a fascinating new perspective.

This was an interesting book.  I found it when researching something else and did not know there was a tragedy on K2 like there was on Everest (which I read in John Krakauer's book Into Thin Air).  This is a book about the Sherpas and others who help the hikers up and down these mountains as much as it is about the tragedy.  We learn the backstory of many of the Sherpas and climbers that lead to the fatal hike.  Glad I found this one.

Stars: 4

Book: The Spymaters: How The CIA shaped History and the Future

 Book: The Spymasters

Author: Chris Whipple

Pages: 400

This is my 132nd read for the year

What Amazon says:

Only 11 men and 1 woman are alive today who have made the life and death decisions that come with running the world's most powerful and influential intelligence service.  With unprecedented, deep access to nearly all these individuals plus several of their predecessors, Chris Whipple tells the story of an agency that answers to the US president alone, but whose activities - spying, espionage, and covert action - take place on every continent.  At pivotal moments, the CIA acts as a break on rogue presidents, starting in the mid 70s with DCI Richard Helm's refusal to conceal Richard Nixon's criminality and continuing to the present as the actions of a CIA whistleblower have ignited impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump.  Since its inception in 1947, the CIA has been a powerful player on the world stage, operating largely in the shadows to protect American interests.  For The Spymasters, Whipple conducted extensive, exclusive interviews with nearly every living CIA director, pulling back the curtain on the world's elite spy agencies and showing how the CIA partners - or clashes - with counterparts in Britain, France, Germany, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Russia.  

This was a pretty interesting book.  It is well written and quite thorough coverage of the CIA over the years.  Each president form Nixon to Trump are covered in this book and how the CIA worked with them.  (I can give you a pretty good idea how that last one is going).  I learned a lot about the CIA in general and new information related to different difficulties each President faced.  Good book.

Stars: 4