The Darkest Time of Night by Jeremy Finley – Review

Tags

5 stars, alien abduction, Book Review, Jeremy Finley, scifi, X-files

About The Darkest Time of Night by Jeremy Finley

When four-year-old William vanishes in the woods behind his home, the only witness is his older brother who whispers, “The lights took him,” and then never speaks again. With these words, the boys’ grandmother Lynn Roseworth fears only she knows the truth. But coming forward would ruin her family and her husband’s political career.

As Lynn and her best friend Roxy revisit the secrets of her long-buried past to find clues that will lead to William, they’ll get ensnared in a much larger conspiracy. The truth is hidden for a reason, and not even a grandmother’s love may be enough to save her grandson from what is coming for them all.

Author Jeremy Finley was inspired to write this story after interviewing so many families of missing people for stories and seeing how far people will go to try to find their loved ones. He combined this experience with that of his mother-in-law, who was a secretary in an astronomy department, like Lynn, for professors who researched UFOs and were featured in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind“.

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Review of The Darkest Time of Night

X-Files. Yeah.  If you like X-Files, you will probably like The Darkest Time of Night. For a couple of reasons. First it is very X-Files like except the investigators are not FBI agents. Second reason, if you watched X-Files when it first aired, you are in a certain, er, older generation. The protagonists in this story are also of an age. We can relate.

Lynn’s love for her missing grandson, William, and for Brian, the grandson traumatized by William’s disappearance, set her on the search for the answers. She is relentless as only a grandmother can be. Aid from her long-time friend Roxy, as well as her past experience with an abduction researcher, will lead her down a crazy path lined with secret meetings, codes, black suits, and an ever present past to haunt our heroine. Lynn was the perfect heroine and with Roxy as her sidekick handling some of the dirty work, this partners story is a relentless hunt and chase. Because, the truth truly is out there.

Print (paperback or hardcover) prices are typical, but the Kindle price of this book is a bit steep. So you might find it at your local library like I did.

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Links

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Giveaway

Don’t forget the ongoing Holiday Treat Giveaway for the audiobook of The Mystery Woman by Amanda Quick, or the print books of Tiffany Roberts’ Dustwalker and Bec McMaster’s Nobody’s Hero.  If you haven’t entered yet, you might be interested to know that commenting on today’s post helps qualify you for an entry – see the giveaway post for all the details.  Or go straight to the giveaway….

Click Here:  a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Inheritance (Confluence #3) by Jennifer Foehner Wells – Review

Tags

5 stars, alien abduction, Jennifer Foehner Wells, scifi, series

Review by Riley

Right after I read this book, I went to Arizona for vacation. When my brother-in-law asked if we wanted to go for a hike and experience the vortex, my first thought was of the Inheritance character Darcy, experiencing the unexplainable when she touched the pile of stacked rocks and then getting abducted by the aliens in Arizona.  On my hike, I did feel the vortex and saw a lot of those stacked rocks. I did not touch the rocks!

So, no alien abduction for me.

About Inheritance

Darcy has a ten-thousand-year-old secret buried in her genetic code.

As a second year medical student, her life revolves around classes, studying, and her boyfriend Adam—until she treks through the desert, touches some mysterious stacked stones, and a network of glowing blue lines radiates under her skin.

Then she saw the spaceship. And it was coming for her.

She faces impossibly bad choices and a missing boyfriend.

Darcy struggles to accept her heritage and master her newfound powers as she navigates deception, betrayal, and danger in order to prevail in the galaxy’s most dangerous game—and survive to save Adam.

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Review of Inheritance

Darcy is blessed/cursed with the Druid gene, genetics left over from a race that populated the earth years ago, but have died out. This special gene is what gets her abducted by aliens. It also gives her unusual abilities that she must learn to control and use. But that takes time. In the mean time, she is one of many captives of various races, held on a space ship by the insect-like hymenoptera.

Why they are captive is unknown, though it is generally thought they will all be sold as slaves.  It will become clear that the captors have more than a passing interest in Darcy though.

Darcy will develop an unusual relationship with Raub, who ends up in a cell with Darcy after she attacks her captors.  He will teach her to fight and to defend herself. All along, she wonders why he would do this. Why does he want her on his ‘team’?  The truth is, no one on the ship can be trusted, as much as she really wants to see the good in people.

Tesserae71, a hymenoptera and two fellow prisoners, Nembrotha and Selpis are secondary characters that also fall into that can-they-be-trusted? category.  But they end up working with Darcy and Raub in an escape attempt, which makes them a permanent part of the ‘team’.  The addition of three different aliens to the core group serves to remind you that Earth is very far away.  And aliens are not human.

Raub’s motives will be revealed in the tense, climatic last few chapters. I really like the way this story was told. Despite the nastiness Darcy endured, the telling of the tale has Darcy developing from a sweet medical student who only wants to help people to a kick-butt heroine who doesn’t take crap.  And she can still help people.

Inheritance is part of the Confluence series, but does read as a stand alone. The other books Fluency, Remanance, and Valence need to be read in series order.

I am very intrigued with this character and how she will play into the continuing Confluence series, and how she might interact with the characters I came to know in the first two books. Confluence is continued in Valence, which is most definitely on my TBR list.

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Links

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2016 SFR Galaxy Awards

Tags

alien abduction, award winner, Bec McMaster, Catherine Cerveny, Donna S. Frelick, favorites, Jody Wallace, luck, pets, Pets in Space, post-apocalypse, scifi, scifi romance, SFR Galaxy Awards, zombies

If you follow this blog, you know that I enjoy a variety of genres.  But if you really follow this blog, you know that Scifi is my favorite.  And if romance is part of the story, so much the better.  That is why the SFR Galaxy Awards are one of my favorite awards.

These awards were created in 2012 in order to recognize standout SciFi Romance stories. But here is the best part.  It is not just one best story, but an abundance of really great stories!

You may wonder how a book is picked for a Galaxy Award.  I happen to be a judge, so I can tell you that.  Several judges, avid SciFi Romance readers and bloggers, pick them.  It’s a bit arbitrary, yes, but the judges have such a wide array of personal interests, that the awards end up including something for everyone that loves the genre.

The specific awards change from year to year, depending upon exactly what stood out to the judge who picked it.  For example, one of my picks won the award for Best Zombie Book for People Who Don’t Read Zombie Books.  In each case, the award is based on some element of the story that stood out to me, but, and this is important, each book is a remarkable work of fiction and one of my favorites reads of 2016.

It is really hard to narrow the list to only five books.  I’m not the type of person who can easily pick a favorite.  I have to have several favorites.

Here are the books that were my award winners. After this list, you will find links for the SFR Galaxy Awards. I hope you will visit all six rounds of the 2016 awards – there are so many great titles!

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2016 SFR Galaxy Awards

Best Zombie Book for People Who Don’t Read Zombie Books
Nobody’s Hero (The Burned Lands #1) by Bec McMaster

Okay, it’s not really a zombie book but there are zombies in it.

This post-apocalyptic tale of humans, wargs and zombies is such a great story that even someone who does not read zombie books (me) can really get into it. I even shy away from post-apocalyptic stories, but this is one well-imagined story. I sympathized with the heroine, Riley and cheered for the not quite human hero Luc as they fought their way through the wasteland and monsters. Bec McMaster is an awesome storyteller.

Nobody’s Hero also gets special recognition for the heroine’s most engaging character name.

Best New Series
The Rule of Luck (Felicia Sevigny #1) by Catherine Cerveny

The best thing about The Rule of Luck is Alexei. You can call him the hero, the Russian, a business tycoon or maybe even top ranking family member of an organized, er, crime family. Is he a good guy? Is he a bad guy? I don’t really know. He has many aspects, and I feel there is much more to him that was not laid out in the first book of this new series.

Also, there is that luck thing. Word is, that it is in the genes. Very interesting…..

Another cool thing about this series: Book 2, The Chaos of Luck, just came out.

Best Anthology
Pets in Space by Cara Bristol, Susan Grant, Laurie A. Green, Pauline Baird Jones, Lea Kirk, Alexis Glynn Latner, Carysa Locke, Veronica Scott, and S.E. Smith

Pets in Space would also qualify as the most highly anticipated book for me. From the moment I heard about it, I knew I would love it. Every story in the collection is a good one. Why? Well, scifi romance. Duh!

But really, the fact that every story also had a pet – cat, dog, robot, dragon, or otherworldly creature – is the true appeal to me and likely to anyone who is an animal lover. If you have had one or more of these special creatures in your life, Pets in Space will appeal to you. There may have been a pet-centric passage or two that caused my vision to blur.

Early proceeds from the sale of this book supported the charity Hero-Dogs.org, which provides service animals to veterans. Just another reason to put this book in the ‘remarkable’ category.

This Series Just Keeps Getting Better Award
Fools Rush In (Interstellar Rescue Series #3) by Donna S. Frelick

Aliens are abducting people of earth for slave labor. But luckily there are people who are working to save them. Rayna and Sam are great characters that showed up in the first two books of the series. Fools Rush In takes a step back and tells the story that brought them together.

There is something about this couple. They are two very different people, but they make a connection. And let me just say that connection is hot! Rayna and Sam also get my vote for best SFR couple!

Best Series Finale
Prodigal (Maelstrom #3) by Jody Wallace

Whew! That is the feeling I got when I finished reading Prodigal. Maelstrom is a great series and each book has a unique flavor to it. But the finale – well, think human that sometimes has super-powers (ala Marvel/DC) and takes on the biggest baddest monster out there to:

a) prove he is not a wimp,
b) impress the girl,
c) get the big bad out of the way so he can go to dinner or
d) save the world.

I decided to make this multiple choice to avoid spoilers. Multiple answers may be correct.

If you want to check out more award winners, follow the links that follow.  While you are there, I encourage you to check out the Judges page.  You might find some additional cool blogs to follow.  May you find many great books to read!

Round 1 is by me and you just read it.  So on to the rounds 2-6:

Round Two by Jo Jones

Round Three by Lee Koven

Round Four by Anna McClain

Round Five by Heather Massey

Round Six by Marlene Harris