Review - "Purity" by Douglas Clegg

This is my first horror novella, and that is not bad! I am widening my horizon, as was one of my objectives with jotting down my reading challenges for 2012. I wasn't disappointed! I didn't know Douglas Clegg, but with some active reading on Amazon.com I found enough reviews to convince me to try. Maybe a touch of Dean R. Koontz? One can only hope..

A bit about the novella

Owen is the teenager son of the gardener who tends the gardens to the rich and famous house owners at Outerbridge Island. He lives with his father and mother in a small house which belonges to the Montgomery family. Owen is so in love with the rich Montgomery girl about the same age as himself. She visits the island every summer holiday and spends a few weeks there every year. Owen gets really upset when she brings her new boyfriend, Jimmy, to the island the same year they are going to celebrate their 18th birthday.

Owen decides to win Jenna back by seducing her sexual frustrated boyfriend. Owen is mentally a very complex person and his mother starts to fear the evil that now more often comes to the surface. Owen has also a secret that he has hidden in one of the ponds in the garden, a scary god-like statue which means a lot to him. He realizes, that if he cannot compete against Jimmy to get Jenna, stronger measures need to be taken. Even if it means murder...

My evaluation

What the author has accomplished  is to give the reader an in-depth knowledge of Jimmy's mental health, and this characterizes the whole story. Normally in novellas I feel that the characters are a bit shallow, due to the fact that novellas are short stories, but in "Purity" Clegg really manages to build a very believable main character, Owen. You get drawn into Owen's world and don't think about that this is a novella. The story has a very surprising end, I like it!

The only thing I react to is that this story is classified as a horror novella. I don't think it is, even if Owen's psyke isn't actually standard business. Yes, he worships the ugly, fishlike statue Dagon and Dagon was the fishgod to the Philistines - a people who in medieval times lived by the Mediterranean - but the statue doesn't intervene in the history enough to affect it much. This is more a disastrous triangle love story with some dark undertows, well developed characters and a surprising end more than anything else. No horror, in my opinion. This is not a must-read, but a good novella. I am, however, tempted to check out some of Clegg's novels. From the reviews I have read they seem more horrorlike.

My rating

of 5



Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 460 KB
Publisher: Alkemara Press (April 10, 2009)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
Language: English
ASIN: B00267RC60

Review - "Scarecrow Returns" by Matthew Reilly

It feels like I have been hit by a train, thrown into the air and landed in a rollercoaster, bullets flying and a muscular James Bond-like hero just beyond reach coming to save me. The adrenaline is pumping and I think - WOW, I'm definately alive!

No, I haven't watched a movie, I have just read Reilly's new action novel. In one day. Yesterday. And my heart is still racing!

A bit about the book (from Amazon)

Deep in the Arctic, a long-forgotten Soviet military base enshrouds a weapon of unimaginably destructive force, a Cold War doomsday device with the power to obliterate the planet.

When a mysterious and brutal terrorist group known as the Army of Thieves seizes control of the remote base and unleashes the weapon upon an unsuspecting world, there is only one team close enough to sabotage them: a ragtag band of Marines and civilians led by Captain Shane Schofield, call sign “Scarecrow.” Outnumbered, outgunned, and with the fate of humanity hanging in the balance, Scarecrow has only a few short hours to bring down the Army of Thieves, or see the Earth go up in flames.

Filled with nonstop action and told in Matthew Reilly’s characteristically white-knuckle prose, Scarecrow Returns is a work of gripping suspense and complete exhilaration.

My evaluation

Reilly strikes again! No one writes hard core action thrillers like this author! I am thoroughly amazed and gets totally blown away! This novel contains non stop explosions, bullets flying, rocket launchers boom'ing, a litte bit conspiracy, a touch of romance and our hero Scarecrow handles it all. People with heart problems should be warned about this book, and action junkies should definitely try out this one. There are no slow parts in this book anywhere! I couldn't stop reading this book. I started and ended it yesterday - in one go. And I want more! Much more!

There are no author who manages to pump my adrenaline as Reilly with his Scarecrow hero. I have to admit I am very hooked on James Bond-, Mission Impossible- & Die Hard movies to mention just a few. If you have the same tendencies - buy this book! If you love action you should definately not miss this novel. Keep them coming, Reilly!!!

My rating

of 5
No one above, no one even close when it comes to action thrillers!!!

Other novels in the Scarecrow series

Ice Station (1998)
Area 7 (2001)
Scarecrow (2003)
Hell Island (2006)

I addition Reilly has written three books about Jack West Junior. These are even better than Dan Brown's! Conspiracy theories on a high level combined, of course, with action. This series is also very very good:

The Seven Ancient Wonders (2005)
The Six Sacred Stones (2007)
The Five Greatest Warriors (2009)




Scarecrow Returns:

Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 1229 KB
Print Length: 370 pages
Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1416577599
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (January 3, 2012)
Sold by: Simon and Schuster Digital Sales Inc
Language: English
ASIN: B004T4KWYM

.

Review - "Season of the Harvest" by Michael R. Hicks

Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Thriller/Action

What if the genetically modified crops that we increasingly depend on for food weren’t really created by man? What if they had a far more sinister purpose?

FBI Special Agent Jack Dawson investigates the gruesome murder of his best friend and fellow agent who had been pursuing a group of suspected eco-terrorists. The group's leader, Naomi Perrault, is a beautiful geneticist who Jack believes conspired to kill his friend, and is claiming that a major international conglomerate specializing in genetically modified organisms is plotting a sinister transformation of our world that will lead humanity to extinction.

As he pursues the truth, Jack is drawn into a quietly raging war that suddenly explodes onto the front pages of the news, and discovers that Naomi's claims may not be so outrageous after all. Together, the two of them must battle a horror Jack could never have imagined as he learns the terrifying truth behind the old adage that "you are what you eat..." 

My evaluation

This book is REALLY good! And I do not normally misuse big letters...! I was originally in doubt about a fantasy/thriller book based on the subject GMO's (Genetically Modified Organisms), but boy was I wrong! The tempo in this book is fantastic. This is non-stop action, and always something new. Something different. 

At the same time Hicks manages to develop his characters in his own, marvellous way. There is just somehing about his understanding of how to build stories and credible characters in them that is unique.

There is quite a bit of research done prior to this book which makes it not only very believable and interesting, but also educating and thought provoking. Parts of the story takes place in my parts of the world, at Svalbard Global Seed Vault - a secure seedbank which preserves a wide variety of plant seeds in an underground cavern. It's Sci-Fi all right, but with enough realism you begin to wonder if it could really happen to us. A must read!

My rating

of 5 - and a very strong one, too :-)

Click on Hicks and be transferred to the author's own page about "Season of the Harvest".

Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 547 KB
Sold by:  Amazon Digital Services
Language: English
ASIN: B004MME1RU

Pic of the day: Spring flower from my garden