Sean

I've become a fan of Mark Lawrence. Obviously, he has the pedigree to be one of the best ever, but that doesn't mean he's flawless. RED SISTER, while a great book, definitely has its flaws, but the high spots and the character work go well to cover the bumps.

In RED SISTER, we meet the Sisters of Sweet Mercy convent. The Sisters are no mere religious nuns. Instead, the Sisters are basically a cross between assassins, fighters, and wizards. Depending on their bloodline, they might be gifted with a form of shadow magic, or a form of destructive magic, or perhaps unnatural speed or strength. In the convent, the young novices learn to harness their gifts and become what they were meant to be.

Nona is the main character. She runs of the Hunska blood giving her the ability to harness speed (sort of like The Flash, but not as fast). Nona is on trial for murder, but Sister Glass, the abbess of the convent, steals her from the hangman's noose and takes her to train at the convent.

The novel covers Nona's training and the friends (and enemies) she makes at the convent. It is a solid opening novel for a trilogy, but it suffers from some predictability that I'm not used to from Lawrence, and it also feels like it's about 100 pages too long. Some of the scenes and descriptions plod along, rather than hustling to their conclusion to keep the pace brisk. Toward the end, when the big final climactic battle was happening, I found myself skimming pages and passages because the action began to drag. Some might say I'm incorrect in thinking that, but it's just how I felt it drag.

RED SISTER'S strengths lie in the characterizations of Nona, Ara, Clera, and the other girls, and their interactions and bonding. In some ways, it reminded me of the friendships between Harry, Ron, and Hermione, and I found myself wanting more of that, rather than the labored action passages and the explanations and world-building.

The sequel comes out next year and I will definitely be checking it out.

After you've written as many Joe Pickett novels as CJ Box has, it's important to keep them fresh. NOWHERE TO RUN succeeds on this front. By starting off the novel with the “bad guys” and putting Pickett deep into a high stakes game of cat-and-mouse, it's not a slow build mystery to a big a conclusion like his other books.

However, Box is smart enough to know that readers are not stupid, and that bad guys are rarely bad guys without a reason. Figuring out why these guys are the way they are is half the fun.

This was a worthy addition to Joe Pickett's considerable legacy.

An interesting piece of fantasy. It's atypical of most fantasy novels because of the lack of violence and sword play, but the political realm Addison builds is worth visiting.

I've read that she wasn't planning any sequels for this book, but may revisit the world she created for a different book. I hope she does more. It's worth it.

Grisham is sort of hit or miss for me. I'm not really into legal thrillers, but as far as legal thrillers go, this was a good one. Grisham really hammers home the horrific details of how Big Coal conducts business, and the rock and a hard place that the poverty-stricken miners and people in Appalachia have are put in daily between testing their love for the land that surrounds their little towns and the desperate need for the jobs offered by the mining industry–and all the ramifications that come with them.

Grisham is no slouch when it comes to prose, but after so many books, he has a definite beat-sheet, and you can feel him writing to it. When the “big twist” happens about 65% of the way through the book, you might be a little surprised, but the second it happens, you know EXACTLY how the rest of the book will proceed. And it does.

I liked this book, but found myself raging at the world during parts of it because we, as people, should not treat our fellow human beings the way some folks in this book get treated. Unfortunately, that's not a writer stretching the truth. It was born out of a writer stating plain, hard truths that we don't care to always acknowledge.

A very enjoyable detective book from the Man Himself. It was not what I was expecting, but at the same time, like most of King's work, it was very readable and paced itself quite well. I enjoyed the character of Hodges. I liked the villain. I liked the secondary characters. I'm looking forward to reading the next two in this trilogy.