Onyx Webb Book Nine by Richard Fenton and Andrea Waltz

If you are a fan of the Onyx Webb series, Book Nine is out. And you know what the means...
Book 10 and the final installment in the series, is coming out in July.



About Book Nine:

"Welcome Back to the World of Onyx Webb! This is Book Nine. (Episodes 25, 26, 27, & 28) Haven't Gotten Entangled Yet? Please Start with Book One.

Book Nine is the most cataclysmic book in the series yet and what we have been building to for so long. The web is almost entirely formed now. But questions remain: what happens to everyone now that it is?

Onyx Webb is a complex multi-genre mash-up that combines elements of supernatural suspense, crime, horror, romance, and more. The Onyx Webb series follows the unusual life of Onyx Webb along with a central group of characters in various locations and times.

In Book Nine: The Mulvaney's host the Solstice Eclipse Ball for the Restoring Savannah Foundation and Gerylyn's prediction comes to pass. Stan Lee gets his revenge and Juniper battles a dark evil at the mansion. Onyx Webb spends her days at the lighthouse alone again without Noah Ashley but Noah may have other plans."

I know I have said "this is the best one", with each book, but I have to say, Book 9 may be the best one (Will wait for Book 10 to make a definitive choice). If you have been reading the series, you won't believe the ending. And you won't believe how the web is tightening and tightening around the characters. We know from previous books in this series, just because a character dies, doesn't mean they are dead. So many questions to be answered in Book 10. This is a series that you will hate to see end, yet you can't wait to see how it ends.        

I was privileged to be one of the "100" readers for the authors.  We received copies of the books, swag, treats, got our names mentioned in the front of the books, got to vote on the colors of the writing, and got to vote on the cover change from the original. It really was fun. I would have read the series despite all the goodies, because I like supernatural soap opera type books and shows. (Did I say Dark Shadows?) This series is really good without being too gritty, gory, scary...there are some things but it isn't the majority of the story. I heard the authors are talking with some producers about a series. That would be so cool!

You can get the books on Amazon Kindle for $2.99 and $3.99 or free under Amazon Prime. Give it a try.

    

The Watson Girl

Just finished The Watson Girl by Leslie Wolf.

This is the second in the FBI Special Agent Tess Winnett series.



Here's what it's about:

"An entire family is murdered and, by a quirk, a young girl is left unharmed. For fifteen years, she believed the killer had been caught, and he’s now on death row, awaiting execution. While trying to be content with her adoptive family, she’s living in relentless uncertainty and the fear of remembering what really happened that night when she was five years old. She’s The Watson Girl.

A therapist has asked her to participate in regression session treatments to attempt to bring back those lost memories. The closer she gets to the truth, however, the less time she has to remain alive. Now, the real killer is going to silence her, before she can remember the details of that horrifying night, when she was an innocent witness."

The clock is ticking for the Laura, the Watson Girl. Can Tess go back through the initial investigation from 15 years ago in just a few days, before the real killer makes a move on Laura? Tess's superiors think she is wrong, don't want to provide help and worse than that, they don't want to provide protective custody for Laura.

 

What I like about Tess, is her deductive reasoning, like Sherlock Holmes. For instance, she comments on a colleagues coffee choice and when he asks her how she knew what he had, she proceeds to describe her observations; his age, his build, his probable medical issues, why he would choose low fat and no sugar, and the smell of the coffee which told her the blend. We see this skill in her investigation.

 

 We also hear from the killer and what he/she is thinking and plotting, but we don't know who it is.

 

Quite the page turner, a little gritty at times but you won't want to put it down. Surprise ending too.

 

Leslie Wolfe is one of my new favorite authors. Her third in this series is "A Glimpse of Death".

 

Leslie also has written a series of five Alex Hoffman books. I have read the first one, The Executive.

 

About the author:

 

"Bestselling author Leslie Wolfe is passionate about writing fiction, despite spending a significant number of years climbing the corporate ladder. Leaving the coveted world of boardrooms for the blissful peace of the Florida-based “Wolves’ den,” Leslie answers one true calling: writing.
Leslie’s novels break the mold of traditional thrillers. Fascinated by technology and psychology, Leslie brings extensive background and research in these fields, that empower and add texture to a signature, multi-dimensional, engaging writing style.

Leslie released the first novel, Executive, in October 2011. It was very well received, including inquiries from Hollywood. Since then, Leslie published numerous novels and enjoyed growing success and recognition in the marketplace. Among Leslie’s most notable works, The Watson Girl (2017) was recognized for offering a unique insight into the mind of a serial killer and a rarely seen first person account of his actions, in a dramatic and intense procedural thriller."


I received a free copy and voluntarily reviewed The Watson Girl.

 

The 14th Colony

I bet you are thinking I am not much of a blogger since I have been absent for 3+ weeks.

Had some days off work and did some fun things and went toodling around. As far as reading, I was reading our Mystery Book Club,s May selection: The 14th Colony by Steve Berry.




It is the 11th book in the Cotton Malone series. Here is what it is about.

"Shot down over Siberia in what was to be a simple meet-and-greet-mission, ex-Justice Department agent Cotton Malone is forced into a fight for survival against Aleksandr Zorin, whose loyalty to the former Soviet Union has festered for decades into an intense hatred of the United States.
Before escaping, Malone learns that Zorin and another ex-KGB officer, this one a sleeper still imbedded in the West, are headed overseas to Washington D.C. Inauguration Day-noon on January 20th-is only hours away. A flaw in the Constitution, and an even more flawed presidential succession act, have opened the door to political chaos and Zorin intends to exploit both weaknesses to their fullest.
Armed with a weapon leftover from the Cold War, one long thought to be just a myth, Zorin plans to attack. He's aided by a shocking secret hidden in the archives of America's oldest fraternal organization-the Society of Cincinnati-a group that once lent out its military savvy to presidents, including helping to formulate three covert invasion plans of Canada.
In a race against the clock that starts in the frozen extremes of Russia and ultimately ends at the White House itself, Malone must not only battle Zorin, he must also confront his deepest fear, a crippling weakness that he's long denied but one that now jeopardizes everything. Steve Berry's trademark mix of fact, fiction, history and speculation, is all here, front and center, in this provocative new thriller."

I will start with what I thought about the book and then share the MBC's thoughts.

I will call this a political thriller. There is a lot of true history inserted into the story, history that I was not aware of. Partly because I was a little young at the time and partly because I never followed politics. History about President Reagan and the Pope at the time. And of course history about the title of the book; The 14th Colony. I never knew that the US had it's eye on Canada to be the 14th colony-way back in the late 1700's.

I found the history interesting. Cotton Malone is a likeable character. (I haven't read any other of the Cotton Malone books.) The end was good, fast paced. The writing is very good. But...it was a really long book for me. Well over 400 pages. I wasn't particularly interested in the storyline until I had beca me interested in Cotton and what was going to happen to him towards the end. It just wasn't the type of book I like to read. It took me over three weeks to read it. Not good for me.

Here is what the MBC group said: One person really loved it and read it in three days. She read it alongside of a history book and kept going back and forth between the two, to compare. One person that has read other books by Steve Berry of the Cotton Malone series, said he liked the other books he read, but didn't like this one as much and it was really long. Others that finished it, agreed that the end was good and are considering reading other in the series because this book talked about something that had happened between Cotton and  Casseopeia (apparently had a relationship) and they want to know what that is all about. There were others that didn't finish it. We also discussed/debated whether or not this was a mystery. I said yes because the mystery is where are the items everyone is looking for. I say it is a thriller.

So, I would say if you like history, politics and spies, you would probably like this book.