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Alex Halprin doesn't mind being left behind when his parents and younger sister go on vacation without him.  In fact, the 15-year-old is thrilled.  He's not planning any wild parties either; he just wants to enjoy a nice, quiet weekend without anyone bugging him.  It looks as if Alex is going to get exactly what he wants.  Then a supervolcano in Yellowstone National Park erupts, covering the Midwest and beyond in a thick, choking layer of ash.  Fires break out, looting begins, and people become frantic to find food, water, shelter, help.  As Alex watches his ordered world crumble into a brutal, post-apocalyptic wasteland, he forgets about video games and alone time—he just wants to survive.

After disaster strikes, Alex realizes he can't just sit around in small town Cedar Falls, Iowa, waiting for the world to go back to normal.  Normal no longer exists.  Alex decides to take action, to hike across 140 miles of ruined terrain in the hopes of reaching Warren, Illinois, the town for which his family was heading before the volcano blew.  What he doesn't realize is just how much the world has changed in such a short amount of time.  Alex thought the biggest challenge he would face on the road would be finding food, water and shelter.  Not so.  While those are certainly issues—vital, life-or-death issues—they're nothing compared to the monsters lurking around every corner.  Only they're not monsters.  Not exactly.  They're good, Midwestern folks turned hungry, desperate and dangerous by their increasingly hopeless situation.  Does a lone, teenage boy have any hope of surviving, let alone making it all the way to Illinois?  Alex is about to find out.

Like most YA dystopians, Ashfall by Mike Mullin paints a pretty bleak picture of humanity's hope of surviving a catastrophic ecological disaster.  It's not just lack of food and water that will destroy us, according to such stories, but our own selfish, savage selves.  In the world Mullin describes, it takes less than a month for humans to turn into wild, cannibalistic beasts.  While that may be far-fetched (let's hope), it does make for an exciting, action-packed story.  While Ashfall's not especially original or brilliant, it's definitely entertaining.  With a fast-paced plot, interesting enough characters and some food-for-thought situations, it's a decent YA dystopian. Not the best and not my favorite, but not bad either.        

(Readalikes: The Road by Cormac McCarthy; The Last Survivors series [Life As We Knew It; The Dead & the Gone; This World We Live In] by Susan Beth Pfeffer; and a little like the Gone series [Gone; Hunger; Lies; Plague; Fear] by Michael Grant) 

Grade:  B-

If this were a movie, it would be rated:  PG-13 for language (no F-bombs), violence and some sexual content (not graphic)

To the FTC, with love:  Another library fine find 

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(Note:  While this review will not contain spoilers for Acceptable Loss, it may inadvertently reveal plot surprises from earlier books in the William Monk series.  As always, I recommend reading books in a series in order.)

I normally write my own plot summaries, but sometimes I don't feel like reinventing the wheel—especially when a book's jacket copy does it appropriate justice.  So, I'm going to go ahead and cheat on this one (any typos/mistakes in the following are my own):

"Give her a good murder and a shameful social evil," The New York Times Book Review once declared, "and Anne Perry can write a Victorian mystery that would make Dickens's eyes pop."  And Perry's new William and Hester Monk story, a mesmerizing masterpiece of innocence and evil on London's docks, outshines all her previous novels in this successful and beloved series.

When the body of a small-time crook named Micky Parfitt washes up on the tide, no one grieves; far from it.  But William Monk, commander of the River Police, is puzzled by the expensive silk cravat used to strangle Parfitt.  How did this elegant scarf—whose owner was obviously a man of substance—end up imbedded in the neck of a wharf rat who so richly deserved his sordid end?

Dockside informers lead Monk to what may be a partial answer—a floating palace of corruption on the Thames managed by Parfitt, where a captive band of half-starved boys is forced to perform vile acts for men willing to pay a high price for midnight pleasures.  Althugh Monk and his fearless wife, Hester, would prefer to pin a medal on Parfitt's killer, duty leads them in another direction—to an unresolved crime from the past, to blackmail and more murder, and to a deadly confrontation with some of the empire's most respected men.

To a superlative degree, Acceptable Loss provides colorful characters, a memorable portrait of waterfront life, and a story that achieves its most thrilling moments in a transfixed London courtroom, where Monk faces his old friend Oliver Rathbone in a trial of nearly unbearable tension—in sum, every delectable drop of the rich pleasure that readers expect from an Anne Perry novel."

I know what you're going to say and, for the record, I absolutely agree: the subject of this novel is repugnant.  So much so that, at times, it made me feel physically ill, even though Perry steers away from describing all the lurid details of the so-called "pleasure" boats.  Still, she gives enough of it and implies enough of it for readers to get the whole, sickening picture.  For that reason, Acceptable Loss is not an easy book to read.  There were several times I wanted to put it down for good, but I didn't for two reasons:  because it was nominated for a Whitney Award and because, in spite of its distressing topic, it's an enthralling read.  Why?  Well, the paragraphs above sum it up nicely—Perry creates deep, interesting characters; vivid, carefully-drawn settings; and a plot twists that are unexpected, but masterfully executed (the Epilogue of this book is an especially brilliant example).  So, while Acceptable Loss is disturbing in the extreme, it's also a rich, compelling story that satisfies almost as much as it unsettles.  I'm not going to say I loved it, but it definitely pulled me in and kept me turning pages because I had to know how it ended.  And, let me say, it ended well, my friends.  Very, very well.

(Readalikes:  Other books in the William Monk series; it also reminded me a little bit of Y.S. Lee's The Agency series [A Spy in the House; The Body at the Tower; and The Traitor in the Tunnel])          

Grade:  B

If this were a movie, it would be rated:  R for violence, language (no F-bombs), and very mature content

To the FTC, with love:  Another library fine find

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Reclusive Dr. Erin Cross, the 29-year-old scientist in charge of research and development at Timpanogos Research Industries in Lehi, Utah, lives an uneventful life.  She works, she reads, she does little else.  Until an ordinary lunch at her favorite deli goes horribly awry.  When a shooter bursts into the restaurant, Erin assumes it's random violence.  That assumption melts when she discovers the lab where she works has been locked down and her townhouse has been ransacked.  Someone's trying to get to her.  The question is who?  And why?  

Erin's terrified, but has no idea to whom she can turn.  She has few friends, none of whom she's willing to put into danger.  There's only one person she can think of who could possibly help her—Sean Flannery, the ex-Marine who took on the shooter at the deli.  Before she knows it, she's on the run with the handsome, enigmatic Sean.  He makes her feel safe and maybe something more.

As the two of them try to figure out who's behind the threats and violence toward Erin, a greedy virologist is up to no good on a remote island in Hawaii.  Can Erin and Sean figure out what's going on in time to stop Dr. Krantz, saving the lives of a small group of indigenous people, or will their own lives be snuffed out by a powerful organization bent on ruling the world?

(Readalikes:  Reminded me a lot of MICRO by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston and a little of The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown)

Grade:  C-

If this were a movie, it would be rated:  PG for violence and scenes of peril

To the FTC, with love:  I received an e-ARC of Bloodborne from the generous folks at Covenant Communications via the Whitney Awards Committee.  Thank you!    

    

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(Note:  While this review will not contain spoilers for Smokescreen, it may inadvertently reveal plot surprises from earlier novels in the Saint Squad series.  As always, I recommend reading books in a series in order.)

Studying art in Europe has been a dream come true for 24-year-old Taylor Palmetta.  Not only has she learned a ton about painting, but she's almost—almost—forgotten all about Quinn Lambert, the Navy SEAL who broke her heart.  But when someone breaks into her Paris hotel room, targeting her for some unknown reason, Taylor's so shaken up she's not sure what to do.  Returning to her home in Virginia Beach seems to be the only solution, the only thing that makes her feel safe. 

Until she can find her own apartment in Virginia, Taylor moves in with her sister, Riley, who's married to Tristan Crowther, a member of the same SEAL squad as Quinn.  The fact that Tristan and Quinn are not just co-workers, but also best friends, means Taylor's thrown into the latter's company way before she's had a chance to prepare herself.  And she really should have taken more time to steel her heart because as soon as she sees Quinn, she realizes her feelings for him have not cooled one bit.  He obviously doesn't feel the same way, so, once again, Taylor's got to figure out how to move on. 

In the meantime, Taylor's not feeling any safer.  Even so far from Paris, she's still being harassed.  She just can't figure out why.  She needs answers—and soon.  With the help of Quinn and Tristan's "Saint Squad," she'll get them, but knowing why only makes Taylor more terrified.  And while the SEALS are figuring out how to save the world, she's got an even bigger mystery to tackle:  Quinn.