Book Review: Child's Play, by Darcia Helle
Darcia Helle's latest novel in the Michael Sykora series, "Child's Play", was released on Friday! It's a page turner. I was lucky enough to read a pre-release copy of the book.
Here's my review:
Child's Play by Darcia Helle
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
"Child's Play" is the 4th in a series of books by Darcia Helle. If you're new to the series, I think you can still enjoy the book without reading the others first because with each of her novels in this series, Helle has included enough background to enable the reader to understand the story without needing to have already met the characters. However, the first three books are excellent so I would definitely recommend you read them too.
"Child's Play" is quite a dark novel, and I've come to expect this from Helle's writing. She does always have just the right balance between dark and light as there's a good dose of humour in all of her work. The subject for this work is perhaps one of the most disturbing as it involves child abduction, and child trafficking, abuse, and pornography. Helle's character Sean is seen at his most brutal as he deals with the criminals in a way only he could do.
Helle has a talent for building suspense in her stories. This is most noticeable whenever Sean and Michael have caught a criminal and are about to set about trying to get answers. There is that expectation of violence, and there are some quite hard-hitting scenes, but somehow the author always stops short of allowing the violence to become gratuitous. It's one of the things I admire about her writing.
In this story there is a lot of tension as we follow the characters who are trying to track down members of a paedophile ring.
When the character Kate is introduced, one of Nikki's old friends, the story takes an interesting twist and becomes more fast-paced until the nail-biting conclusion.
The criminal element of the story is nicely balanced with the romance element as we follow the interaction between Michael and Sean with their respective partners.
This is a compulsive, emotional, and edge-of-your-seat read. Highly recommended if you like crime, action, edgy, suspense fiction.
View all my reviews
***************************
You can get a copy on Amazon (Worldwide):
US: https://www.amazon.com/Childs-Play-Mi...
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Childs-Play-...
CA: https://www.amazon.ca/Childs-Play-Mic...
AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/Childs-Play...
FR: https://www.amazon.fr/Childs-Play-Mic...
JP: https://www.amazon.co.jp/Childs-Play-...
IN: https://www.amazon.in/Childs-Play-Mic...
ES: https://www.amazon.es/Childs-Play-Mic...
NL: https://www.amazon.nl/Childs-Play-Mic...
MX: https://www.amazon.com.mx/Childs-Play...
BR: https://www.amazon.com.br/Childs-Play...
DE: https://www.amazon.de/Childs-Play-Mic...
IT: https://www.amazon.it/Childs-Play-Mic...
Also at B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/chil...
The cover was designed by Jason McIntyre. As well as being a talented author, Jason now offers a cover design service to fellow writers. You can check out some of his designs on his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorJasonM...
Author links:
Website/blog: http://quietfurybooks.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/QuietFuryBooks/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DarciaHelle
Here's my review:
Child's Play by Darcia HelleMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
"Child's Play" is the 4th in a series of books by Darcia Helle. If you're new to the series, I think you can still enjoy the book without reading the others first because with each of her novels in this series, Helle has included enough background to enable the reader to understand the story without needing to have already met the characters. However, the first three books are excellent so I would definitely recommend you read them too.
"Child's Play" is quite a dark novel, and I've come to expect this from Helle's writing. She does always have just the right balance between dark and light as there's a good dose of humour in all of her work. The subject for this work is perhaps one of the most disturbing as it involves child abduction, and child trafficking, abuse, and pornography. Helle's character Sean is seen at his most brutal as he deals with the criminals in a way only he could do.
Helle has a talent for building suspense in her stories. This is most noticeable whenever Sean and Michael have caught a criminal and are about to set about trying to get answers. There is that expectation of violence, and there are some quite hard-hitting scenes, but somehow the author always stops short of allowing the violence to become gratuitous. It's one of the things I admire about her writing.
In this story there is a lot of tension as we follow the characters who are trying to track down members of a paedophile ring.
When the character Kate is introduced, one of Nikki's old friends, the story takes an interesting twist and becomes more fast-paced until the nail-biting conclusion.
The criminal element of the story is nicely balanced with the romance element as we follow the interaction between Michael and Sean with their respective partners.
This is a compulsive, emotional, and edge-of-your-seat read. Highly recommended if you like crime, action, edgy, suspense fiction.
View all my reviews
***************************
You can get a copy on Amazon (Worldwide):
US: https://www.amazon.com/Childs-Play-Mi...
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Childs-Play-...
CA: https://www.amazon.ca/Childs-Play-Mic...
AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/Childs-Play...
FR: https://www.amazon.fr/Childs-Play-Mic...
JP: https://www.amazon.co.jp/Childs-Play-...
IN: https://www.amazon.in/Childs-Play-Mic...
ES: https://www.amazon.es/Childs-Play-Mic...
NL: https://www.amazon.nl/Childs-Play-Mic...
MX: https://www.amazon.com.mx/Childs-Play...
BR: https://www.amazon.com.br/Childs-Play...
DE: https://www.amazon.de/Childs-Play-Mic...
IT: https://www.amazon.it/Childs-Play-Mic...
Also at B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/chil...
The cover was designed by Jason McIntyre. As well as being a talented author, Jason now offers a cover design service to fellow writers. You can check out some of his designs on his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorJasonM...
Author links:
Website/blog: http://quietfurybooks.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/QuietFuryBooks/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DarciaHelle
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Darcia wrote: "Thank you so much, Maria! This is the book I swore I'd never write. The topic of children (an animal abuse!) is totally off limits for me, but my characters blissfully ignored me as I jammed on m..."
I was thinking that as I was reading the book. I remember you saying once that you can't read books if they contain anything about child/animal abuse. I agree though, sometimes the stories just have to be written and we don't really have much say when it comes to the content! I never thought, for example, that I'd be writing a horror about spiders... but it happened LOL :)
Child's Play is awesome. Hope it sells millions :) x
It's an odd thing not to have control over what goes on in our mind, isn't it? Sometimes I feel like I'm just along for the ride. :)
Darcia wrote: "It's an odd thing not to have control over what goes on in our mind, isn't it? Sometimes I feel like I'm just along for the ride. :)"Hahaha! Yes, true, but that's part of the fun, I think :)
Great review, Maria! I'm looking forward to reading this.
Jennifer wrote: "Great review, Maria! I'm looking forward to reading this."Thanks, Jen :) You'll love it! x
This is the book I swore I'd never write. The topic of children (an animal abuse!) is totally off limits for me, but my characters blissfully ignored me as I jammed on my creative breaks. Some stories simply need to be written, whether we want to or not. :)