Sandra C. Lopez's Blog, page 258

Review: PERFECT by D.D. Larsen

Graphic Image designed by Sandra Lopez

As her senior year of high school nears its end, Seryna believes she knows what she wants out of life. But when she falls in love with a handsome stranger, untapped feelings and desires she never knew she had come forward.Pulled into a romance that changes her life, she engages in an affair with rich and powerful Kieran. Soon, complications beyond new love emerge for the young woman, including her lover’s role in the FBI investigation of her family’s potential crimes. It results in a suspenseful romance filled with twists and turns.Is her family hiding a dark secret? Will she take a chance on a new life of passion and romance, even if it means giving up her plans for the future?In this sexy novel with a passionate love story, author D. D. Larsen introduces readers to a young woman at the crossroads between the old family ways and a new world of passion and fulfillment.

Available on Amazon




My review: “My life was perfect. I had worked very hard for what I had achieved, then a mystery man came into my life and everything changed.”
It was her senior year, and Seryna goes to her first party, gets drunk, and almost gets raped. Then she’s saved by the mystery man. Who was he?
Her life was all planned—graduate, go to college, become a doctor—but her world suddenly filled with doubt and uncertainty ever since she saw the mystery man. With no luck in finding him or learning who he was, she wondered if she imagined him, if he was even real. For once, she was not looking forward to her future. “What if I can’t live up to this perfect girl they all think I am?” (LOC 290)
Then, one night, the mystery man finds her again and sparks a passionate encounter. “I should stay away from you, but I can’t.”
Book had an easy narrative and a story you just fall into. The mystery behind Kieran and why he kept showing up was alluring. Then her world is turned upside down when she realized that her father might be the leader of a dangerous narcotic that’s being passed around, putting people in danger; and Agent Kieran was hired to stop it.
There was a slight lag as she becomes smitten and infatuated in a fast, sexual romance with the daring and altruistic Kieran. Ever since the beginning, she just couldn’t take her mind off of him. Still, it doesn’t deter from working the case, whether her dad was innocent or not. Can they stop this before more people get hurt?
It’s an interesting spy thriller, even though tempered by the pensive eagerness of a young girl, which made it more worthy as a coming-of-age romance. But it’s a pretty good read once you get into it. The ending certainly is a bombshell that will undoubtedly continue in Book 2.
My rating: 4 stars

Review: INSPIRED BY MURDER by Audrey J. Cole

Eric was a licensed psychiatrist who was feeling unfulfilled lately. “He was bored with psychiatry. What he cared about was murder.” He wanted to be a famous writer and what he couldn’t stand was the constant b#@ching of his patients anymore. One day, a patient brought up a murder that he could use in his book. He wanted to write a bestseller so bad that he would kill for it. Wait, that was an idea.


His plan to kill the patient was organized and planned out to the T. It was very slow and agonizing. Just kill the b#@ch already! I do agree about having some respect for those murderers that get away with it. This Eric was not even a good killer. Man, you suck!


My rating: 1 star

Review: WHAT SHE FORGOT by Cole Baxter

Hannah woke up dazed and confused in a hospital. What happened? No voice, no idea how she got there, and no idea who she was. A car accident had put her in a coma for 6 months. Now she’s awakened to a husband and kids she has no memory of. She returns home, but nothing about her old life seems right. Hannah spends the whole time feeling lost and confused.
There was some odd phrasing to the writing. For instance, “he pulled the door to behind himself.” That’ so odd. I mean, the writer wasn’t British, right? The story itself was kind of slow and trivial. The only bright side was that she was being stalked before, but it didn’t quite progress from there.
The concept was interesting, but the read wasn’t too exciting.
My rating: 2 stars

Review: THE SWISS MISHAP by Amey Zeigler

Elaine was supposed to start an internship in the chocolate department of Alpine Foods. She traveled so far (all the way to Switzerland) only to find out that they cut her internship. What was she supposed to do now? Chocolate! She needed chocolate!


But when one door closes, another one opens. Instead, she gets a job working for Pet Care.


The story is not always easy to follow. It kind of zig-zags everywhere.  It didn’t quite grab me as much as I thought it would. I thought this would be a delicious novel—after all, it involved chocolate. The character didn’t really strike my fancy either. I just thought it might’ve been too complicated. Didn’t really like it.


My rating: 2 stars

Review: HER EYES UNDER WATER by Romona Simon

Graphic Image designed by Sandra Lopez

Do You Lock Your Doors and Windows at Night? Find Out Why You Should...Someone might be watching. Set in the vast and pristine wilderness of 1970s Montana, this true-crime inspired novel is a unique mix of slow-burning dark romance, suspense, and a little bit of horror.
During a chance encounter at a café, restless and unfocused university student Julia Strauss meets a captivating man. She is instantly attracted to the handsome stranger and pursues him obsessively. Meanwhile, the mysterious object of her affection has a secret agenda of his own. Can Julia see beyond the haze of her infatuation before it's too late?

Available on Amazon


Excerpt:


He grabbed her face again and continued. She grasped at his dress skirt and tasted his tongue. He pulled back once more, but kept his hands on her. His eyes were still closed. His jaw was tense and his breath was rapid. He opened his eyes and then one of his hands lowered part way, to the neckline of her dress. He pulled his own scarf off her chest and hooked his fingers right at her neckline to pull her to him one final time. His eyes smoldered in a way she had never seen before on anyone. They turned their electric blue fire on her before someone’s yelling finally broke through.   “People in the back! This is a store! If you’re not going to buy anything, get out!” The cashier was ranting at them.They forced themselves apart and slumped against the refrigerator. He kept the inferno of his eyes on her and panted. She could hardly look over at him. The lust in those eyes was like the sweltering burn when skin touched an element accidently. It seemed to cripple him and he staggered a bit.  “You couldn’t have done that in the road?” She said to break the intensity. It helped somewhat, but their heads still drifted back together and they spoke in low whispers, like school children with a chaperone. “My feet were cold,” he breathed. Their foreheads were fused and they shared hushed laughs as the cashier started threatening to have them removed. Alex finally stood straight up, breathlessly walked to the counter and said, “Two packs of Marlboros, please.” He pointed at the ones he wanted. The cashier flipped them on the counter and Alex flipped him a bill larger than what was needed. “Keep the change.” The scowling vanished. He walked back to her with his shoulders shaking in merriment and straightened his shirt collar. She wanted this forever. She had been trying to hold back those thoughts, albeit unsuccessfully, during most of their interactions, but she refused to do it now. She had never been so sure and so vulnerable. Her heart was flopping around unchecked and unattended, abandoned outside of her body and lying on the un-scrubbed gas station floor. If he didn’t pick it up and put it in his pocket, no one would ever possess it again and it would shrivel and die or be kicked around between the shelves eternally.



  My review: Julia met the handsome stranger at a local café. “Female eyes followed him like hungry dogs.”
It was kind of slow at the beginning as she was mostly entranced by him as she takes a ride upon first meeting. Then his eyes turn cold and dark, and she becomes frightened thinking she’s going to die. Then…he becomes normal again. Whoa, that’s a little creepy.
Afterwards, Julia becomes too obsessed with Alex. Why doesn’t he talk to her? How can he not like her the way she likes him? Over the course, Julia becomes an unbalanced character—brimming with over-confidence yet self-deprecating when it comes to Alex. And it goes on and on like this for most of the book.
The literary narrative, poetic in itself, does well concentrating on the tension and drama within the collegiate spectrum; however, it lacked endurance as far as suspense was concerned.
As Alex and Julia’s puzzling interlude leads to a complex romance, a wide forage of jealousy, doubt, and confusion spill into the mix. Meanwhile, something sinister is furrowing in the depths of this middling plot. Most of the time, things are normal; other times, they’re not. The reader is constantly being turned around in this spinning “Jekyll and Hyde” coin, deepening curiosity and prolonging doubt. There was even a lingering question whether this Alex was a man or some other “being” the way Julia talks about him. One thing was for sure: Alex was not normal.
The concept was certainly enticing, but the whole thing was watered down in mild and tepid tones, which distorted into complexity and darkness. In fact, it’s the story’s alluring dark side that beckon audiences to read on. It’s a decent read that can border on literary horror.
My rating: 3 stars

Review: SPELLBOUND: THE WORKINGS OF DRUG TECH by Marcel V. Sahade

Jake was a high school kid, who, one day, finds a book—The Book of Spells.” Inside were spells on things like “How to run like a Cheetah” and “How to breath underwater.” In this instance, the plot becomes interesting as you read through it; however, certain areas lagged a little with repetition and excessive detail. There were certain details we could’ve done without to quicken the pace. For example, we didn’t really need to know what was in every picture of the book.
Jennifer was a law student, an apprentice of a barrister that can “read face,” a special deduction ability to know what one is thinking or feeling.
Charlie was a lab technician working at Drug Tech that found a cure for cancer.
Overall, this was relatively easy to read. I was interested to find out how the initial characters would come together in the plot. But then, as I started getting deeper into the book, I realized how many more characters came up. There was a law student, a high school kid, a biochemist, an astronaut, a captain, a prisoner, a fortune teller, and so on. There were like 20 different characters, making it hard to keep track. Although some were interesting, it was still way too many characters. This could’ve been narrowed down to a select few to make it simpler. At this point, this seemed to have several stories. We had an invisible boy, a lost treasure, a possible vampire. The way Robert’s story turned out was wonderfully ironic. Thinking he had killed his cheating girlfriend, he becomes shocked to learn that it was her twin sister instead. That was a good one. But what would these different stories come to reveal? A conspiracy at Drug Tech? And what did it have to do with the lost treasure?
The stories didn’t really coalesce together; one didn’t link to another. And the characters often didn’t show up again. For example, the first chapter started off with Jake and then he just disappeared. The updated cover is an improvement to the monochromatic image of a lab against white text, which didn’t make the title stand out too much. The writing was okay, but I didn’t think it was strong in telling the story the way it was meant to. This either should’ve been more simplified or it would’ve been better off as a collection of unconventional short stories.
My rating: 3 stars

Review: THE GIRL IN THE SNOW by Alexandria Clarke

Carolina is the mother of 2, divorced, and a former FBI agent who teaches Criminology at the local college. Who goes skiing with their ex and his new family? Well, it’s only 5 days and it’s for the kids.
After being disappointed by his father on his birthday, Benji (Carolina’s son) takes off and goes missing at a snowy resort. Carolina goes bonkers.
Shedding her investigator’s hat was not going to be easy when she clashes with the lead detective on the case. Did he run away? Or was he kidnapped?
A mother’s mission to find her son.
I thought this was really good, but my only question was why this was called “Girl in the Snow” when it’s a boy that goes missing.
Well-written and engaging. A riveting mystery!
My rating: 4 stars

Review: THE PROFESSOR by Alexandria Clarke

The strange disappearance of a history professor.
Nicole was one of his grad students and his TA, both with “a mutual dedication to research and stories of the past.” She received a frantic message from him on that horrible, rainy night, directing her to some evidence he has. What evidence? She searches through his findings, trying to make sense of it. Why did he collect all this sordid info on faculty and students? Nicole was determined to find out. In the midst, she must write her thesis or she won’t graduate.
Unveiling a prestigious university’s secrets and shady dealings (teachers that got tenure; average C-student that became valedictorian.)
I liked the easy-going narrative as well as the follow-through and fierce tenacity of the main character. Nicole is an inquisitive researcher and a fearless solver. She had taken up the professor’s quest and now she worried that her fate was sealed by the secret society. Would they kill her to keep her quiet?
With the society turning her world upside down, then kidnapping her boyfriend, Nicole concluded: If it’s a fight they want, it’s a fight they’ll get.
Full of twists and surprises. A gripping read! Wonderfully exciting!
My rating: 5 stars

Review: DROP by H.D. Kirkland

“I am no prophet, and never claimed to be, but I understand what I was shown. The only night worth remembering in my life is the only night I try to forget. It was a night I lived with even before I lived it. It was the night I met the shadow within myself - the part of me that had been whispering violent noises that foreshadowed that night with subtle and inconspicuous caresses.” (6)
Writing is dark and lovely. Although the narrative is from the views of a young man coming-of-age journey, it’s purely philosophical. It constantly provokes deep-rooted questions with uncertain answers. The way the main character views life, it’s almost like reading about Holden Caulfield. For me, the reading was a combination of fiction and a textbook with my preference leaning more toward the former.
But, all in all, the writing was strong and the read was inquisitive.
My rating: 3 stars

Review: DEATH TALK SILENCE by Janine Purvis

16-year old Nick was a high school drop out with no skills and no future. After a fight with his stepfather, he just about had it and left.
Throughout the story, Nick wanders the streets, facing obstacles and interacting with various characters. The dialogue was relatable, but the characters weren’t that memorable.
A simple YA story with a decent narrative. I wasn’t really that into it, but it’s a suitable read nonetheless.
My rating: 3 stars