Maryse's Book Blog

Following my heart, one book at a time...

Johanne Pearl Couturier

Guest Review (my sister!!) – Fool me once by Harlan Coben 

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Fool Me Once

Review by Johanne Pearl Couturier

The second book I read on vacation (well, it was the first book in fact but I did not give it 5 stars like I did for Final Girls by Riley Sager) was up to Mr. Coben’s standards, in my opinion at least. He is a very prolific author AND I love almost everything he writes. The minute I get into one of his stories, the mind movie starts. I forget who I am, where I am, that I even exist. From the first line, he sets the tone. By the end of the first page, I’m THERE. We are “God” who knows everything… particularly everything going on in Maya’s head… read more

Guest Review (my sister!!) – Gone by Lisa Gardner

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Gone: An FBI Profiler Novel by Lisa Gardner
(4.5 stars)
Review by Johanne Pearl Couturier
OK so it is an OLD book… 2006… maybe older, but it is GOOD! It is not about two individuals falling in love, it is the story of love itself!
Sometimes incidents happen that create some distance between you and the loved one, distance not in reality, but more like you become a stranger to the person living in the same house as you do… but when his wife goes missing, this man goes crazy to find her back. He feels the love for her so strongly, he needs to know what happened to her and it seems that her abductor is giving the police a deadline. Time is not his friend. He knows that his wife is capable, she was a cop too, but how is she now?
I loved the way Lisa Gardner kept me alert and wanting to know more and more. Even when you get to be with the abducted, you do not know more than her and you feel her fright, her desperation and the absolute knowledge that her husband is out there, doing everything he can to get to her, but that does not stop her to try her best to get out of the situation herself.
The other characters are also awesome… it happens in a little city and, if you have seen the movie Fargo, well I got that kind of feeling when I was reading about the investigation. Until the end, no one and even me, the reader, knew what and why and who! Very very good!
I had a paperback copy that I brought to Cuba for my mom to read if she wanted to. My mother has Alzheimers and she has a hard time remembering short term things so reading is a bit difficult. Nonetheless, she started to read it and then, each morning, she would go back one chapter to read it again, making sure she would remember things freshly to go on with her reading. She finished it in no time! She likes to read love books WAY MORE than anything else, and said she had no interest in police or crime stories… well some stories are just that, good stories!
And a good story well told is something you want to read. 😉
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Guest Review (my sister!!) – Invader by C.J. Cherryh

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Invader: Book Two of Foreigner (Foreigner series 2) by C.J. Cherryh
Review by Johanne Pearl Couturier
4 stars
Looks like Bren Cameron’s life is a problem… a big problem for everyone it seems, even people from his own government. Stuck between his job dictating what he should do and say as a diplomat, and his own respect for the people he is living with, the choice is not going to be easy.
In the sequel to Foreigner, C.J. Cherryh continues the saga of “the man stuck in the middle”, in a world where he has to judge who is with him and who is against him… while the leader he is associated with makes him look like a pawn on a chessboard. Atevi are divided now and more than one group want his life to end while other are not sure yet… seeing him as a very dangerous disturbance with his wild ideas. His life and work are already complicated enough but other players decide to reappear from the past… a past Bren knows less about than he thinks and, suddenly, he wishes that some of these people could be with him, making is loneliness as a human being more bearable, if only by teaching a new guest what the Atevi want him to learn.
Bren is not the only one who wants to be informing the new group of the intricacies of this world and the scales could be tipped in a way that could create another war. He has to use all his talents and knowledge to make sure no one has clear advantage over the other, but what does he really want? Who is he really? Can he develop feelings for an Ateva on whom he does not know much, beside the fact she is a member of the assassins’ Guild? She clearly expressed her curiosity about intimacy but can a relationship develop between two species who do not understand each other at a core level?
So many things are happening in this book, it is insane! You’re wracking your brain with “what ifs”? Trying to find who is loyal and who is not? Being surprised by twists and turns? Go ahead! Give yourself this pleasure and be immerged in a world that you get to understand more and more as you follow Bren’s train of thoughts. If you think your life is not easy, try to walk a mile in this human’s shoes… or ride on the back of a Macheiti for that matter. Did I tell you I love those beasts? Oooops, yes I did already! Lol
Well, time for me to go on reading book 3 so I can find out how the new “guests” will adapt to all this madness! And if his 9 feet black alien beauty’s curiosity, making him so uneasy around her, will be satisfied or shift to that new someone…
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Guest Review (my sister!!) – Foreigner by C.J. Cherryh

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Foreigner: 10th Anniversary Edition (Foreigner series) by C.J. Cherryh

Review by Johanne Pearl Couturier

4.5 stars

Science fiction at its best! Imagine humans lost in space. A LOT of humans. The planet they are close to is already inhabited by a race of humanoids that seem to have developed technology in a way that looks like humans when they were using steam trains. Some humans decide to colonize and others will just go on in their supersized spaceship to find a better place.

They land and establish the laboratory in an area where they think there are no people living close by, but they are wrong and first contact… well, it rapidly leads to war, both parties not understanding each other… written many many years ago, this is so realistic! read more

Guest Review (my sister!!) – Wool by Hugh Howey

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Wool Omnibus Edition (Wool 1 – 5) [Kindle in Motion] (Silo series)

Review by Johanne Pearl Couturier

4 stars

This first book of the series is amazing! Hugh Howey presents characters in a way that you can see them, feel them, almost touch them. So why only 4 stars?

Because… well… I was destabilized twice and, yes, I must admit, I was really pissed, TWICE!!! So much so that I wanted to throw that book on the wall!

The story starts with many people living in a silo and only seeing what is left of the “outside” through cameras that are located on top of the silo. After several generations, can you imagine how a society could evolve and function in such a closed space? Life and death rules, working rules, all sorts of rules to make sure everybody has its place in this post-apocalyptic world Hugh Howey created. He lets us discover everything slowly by all sorts of events, and it really makes sense! Humans are humans wherever they are. read more