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What I hate about living in small town is that my local Walmart has an extremely small book section. However, the store does normally get in the novels by popular authors, so I had my hopes that the massive book Fire & Blood by George R.R. Martin would be there. Well, I was disappointed when the book didn't come in stock last November. Due to the holidays and a family emergency, I had completely forgotten about the novel until I stumbled upon it at the local library.

Fire & Blood is volume one of two in the History of the Targaryen Kings of Westeros, which is set 300 years before A Game of Thrones (a.k.a. - A Song of Ice and Fire series).

At over 700 pages, Fire & Blood is written like a history book with George R.R. Martin telling us about all the past Targaryen kings and queens, as well as all the dragons that once ruled across the lands. It begins with Aegon the Conqueror, the creator of the Iron Throne and takes you to the Dance of the Dragons.

The book features gorgeous illustrations by Doug Wheatley!

Final Thoughts

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Last month was a little chaotic for me. If you've been following this blog as of lately, then you would know I had a family emergency recently; which has resulted in me being slightly late with a couple of reviews. I had read Mind Games by Nancy Mehl back in early December, but with everything that was going on with my grandmother, I had completely forgot about writing the actual review for it!

Mind Games ($15.99; Bethany House Publishers; 396 pages) is the first book in the all-new Kaely Quinn Profiler series. It centers around FBI Behavioral Analyst Kaely Quinn, a woman who made it her mission to track down serial killers after a childhood "event" changed her life forever. She has tried her best to put her past in the past, but she can no longer do so after a reporter unveils the truth about her: She is the daughter of a serial killer.

Demoted and transferred to St. Louis, Missouri, Kaely once again tries to move forward with her life; well, until the same reporter reenters her life, claiming he received an anonymous poem predicting a series of murders.

Along with her new partner, Special Agent Noah Hunter, Kaely investigates a murder that fits the exact details that was in the poem. Now she must race against the clock to stop the killer before he or she strikes again.

Final Thoughts

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As many of you probably already know, my least favorite historical setting to read about is WWII. I don't really have a reason why; I just don't like reading books set in this era. It just doesn't interest me, though I do like watching WWII movies and documentaries.

Over the last few days, I have been reading Ashes in the Snow by Ruta Sepetys, a WWII drama about the the genocide of Baltic people in 1941. The book was originally published as Between Shades of Grey, but was retitled to tie-in with the film adaptation that was just released to limited theatres and VOD on January 11th!

The novel centers around Lina Vilkas, a fifteen-year-old girl who, along with her mother, Elena, and her 10-year-old brother, Jonas, are removed from their home in Kaunas, Lithuania on June 14, 1941 by the NKVD (Soviet officers). Lina's family has been put on a list of citizens (teachers, scholars, lawyers, doctors, etc.) who are threat to Russia's leadership (a.k.a. - Joseph Stalin). Separated from her father (a professor), Lina, Jonas, and their mother are forced into a train car with many other innocent people who are deemed as criminals.

Given barely little food, Lina and her family survive the extremely long train ride, though many of the other people didn't survive the journey. They are taken to a work camp in Siberia, where they are all treated cruelly by the NKVD. Lina befriends Andrius Arvydas, a teenager boy who she met on the train. Their relationship grows throughout the years. And, yes, I mean years, as Lina and many others were imprisoned for twelve years.

Final Thoughts

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I spent yesterday morning sipping on a cup of coffee while reading the newest romance from bestselling author Robin Lee Hatcher, titled Who I Am With You, which is book one in "A Legacy of Faith" series.

Set in Hope Springs, Idaho, the novel centers around pregnant Jessica Mason, who had lost her husband and daughter in a car accident five months ago. Now her Grandma Frani has passed away. To deal with all this grief, as well as learning about her husband's betrayal, she turns to great-grandfather's Bible for guidance through this troubling time.

Since this is a romance, there has to be a leading male character, which happens to be Ridley Chesterfield, who finds himself hiding from the media in Hope Springs after a political scandal. The last thing on his mind is romance, but that's exactly what he is thinking about after he befriends his neighbor, Jessica.

The book is split up into two different timelines - one set in the present day with Jessica and Ridley and the other set in the 1930s centering around Jessica's great-grandfather, Andrew Henning. Inside the Bible, Andrew had marked specific verses and scribbled words in the margins, which mysteriously connects to what Jessica is currently going through emotionally.
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I very seldom seek out a novel unless I'm extremely interested in reading it, which happened to be the exact case with The Sinner by Petra Hammesfahr. It was first published in German as Die Sunderin in 1999 and was adapted into a limited series on USA that aired in 2017 starring Jessica Biel and Bill Pullman. I attempted to watch the series on Mediacom On Demand, but for some reason the cable company decided not to put up the final four episodes. I ended up buying the series on DVD around the same time I got the novel. Despite my eagerness to finish watching the series and then read the book, I never got around to doing either. I had forgotten about both until I stumbled upon season two's DVD last month, which I ended up buying. It seems the second season is an original story with Bill Pullman's detective character investigating another crime.

Anyways, I'd picked up the book, which was collecting dust on the coffee table, on Dec. 23rd. I had a few minutes to kill until Outlander started on STARZ, and I read a few pages with no real intent to actually reading it. I didn't open the book again until the end of last week and I finished reading it last night.

While I had only seen 4 episodes of the USA series, I could clearly tell many differences between the series and the book. For starters, the book is set in Germany and many of the character's names have been changed. In the book the main character is named Cora Bender, but in the television series her name is Cora Tannetti. Her husband Gereon was changed to Mason and police commissioner Rudolf Grovian was changed to Detective Harry Ambrose.

The novel centers around a very troubled twenty-four-year-old Cora Bender. Sure, on the outside she looks like a loving wife and mother to a little boy, but she actually has a deranged past that she can no longer run from anymore. On a nice day at the lake, Cora jumps in the water for a quick swim, well at least that's what she told her husband. However, she had all intentions of drowning herself, but she doesn't go through with it. She returns to her husband and son at their picnic spot. Nearby, two couples are having a bit of fun listening to a radio cassette player. After one of the couples begins making out, Cora snaps, picks up the knife that she had just used to cut her son a piece of apple, and charges at the couple. She attacks the man, Georg Frankenberg, and stabs him to death!

To everyone else, Cora is a cold-blooded killer, but Rudolf Grovian, the police commissioner, suspects Cora somehow knew the victim. He takes it upon himself to investigate a connection between the two, but in order to find out the truth, Cora must unravel her own dark, twisted past!

Final Thoughts