Interview with Steven Amsterdam

Check out my interview with author Steven Amsterdam on nudge-book.com
Steven is the author of The Easy Way Out, and this his latest novel is about
assisted suicide, a very controversial subject.

http://nudge-book.com/blog/2016/11/amr-steven-amsterdam-and-teresa-ohalloran-in-our-author-meets-reviewer-series/

All thanks go to nudge-book.com for facillitating this interview.

Audio Book Review: A Campy Christmas by Karen Musser Nortman

After an unexpected change of plan, Frannie and Larry Shoemaker join the Ferraros on a camping trip for the Christmas holiday. Unfortunately they all get caught up in a snowstorm and find themselves stranded, with no electricity and no phone coverage. How are they going to get out of this difficult situation? And just who made those footprints in the snow?

This was a charming novella and I listened to the audio edition. I believe it is also available in print form and e-book. It is #6 in the Frannie Shoemaker Campground Mysteries Series, and the first one I have read.

This is a wonderful way to while away an afternoon. What could be better than curled up by the fire with a cup of coffee, and listen to the Shoemakers and Ferraros struggle through a snowstorm! I really enjoyed myself, and will certainly check out the rest of the series. I was a little disappointed that there was no real mystery here, and certainly no body count, and I believe it was tamer than the other books in the series. Perhaps because this was a Christmas story it was a tad mild in the mystery stakes.

This audio version was narrated by Michelle Babb, and she did an excellent job of bringing the book alive for me.

I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator, or publisher.

Her Darkest Nightmare by Brenda Novak

Dr Evelyn Talbot was held captive by her psychopathic boyfriend Jasper, when she was sixteen. He raped and tortured her for three days. He also did the same to her three best friends, the only difference - Evelyn lived to tell her horrific story, her three friends didn't. Jasper was never caught, and Evelyn went on to study psychiatry and became among the top in her field.

Evelyn went on to establish Hanover House, a mental health facility for psychopaths, the first of its kind. Here at Hanover House, buried in the heart of Alaska, Evelyn hopes to study a prison full of psychopaths, to discover what makes them tick, why they do the terrible things they do, and how to stop them. But then a woman is found horribly mutilated and the hunt for a murderer is on.

The first half of this book was slow for me. There was a lot of romance, and racy love scenes which are not what I look for in a book. Evelyn annoyed me because she was so beautiful, every man good or bad wanted to take her to bed. The state trooper was impossibly handsome, and all the women drooled over him. Once I managed to get past this though, and the more the plot deepened and the excitement built, I really began to enjoy this book, and really tried to figure out who the murderer was, and believe me, there are a lot of red herrings here.

I loved the setting. Alaska in the middle of a bitter winter. Where the roads are impassable unless you drive a snowplough, and where there is only one law officer, despite a prison full of psychopaths just outside the town. This all added to a really creepy atmosphere.

At the beginning of every chapter we are presented with a quote from a real, true life serial killer, in which they explained or attempted to explain, how they felt, why they did what they did, essentially, what makes them tick. I really didn't like those quotes, and I wish they had been left out. Why should they be given a platform to tell us how or why they did what they did and how it made them feel. I don't want to know. I found their words deeply disturbing.

On the whole this was a good book. It came at things from a different angle to the usual thriller. This is the first in a series with Dr Evelyn Talbot at the helm. Before this book there is an e-novella, Hanover House and it might be a good idea to read it first if you can. I hadn't realized this and wondered why the characters would hint back to previous events the summer before which had obviously been covered in the novella, and I would have liked to have read it first.

Thank you to the publisher Headline via bookbridgr for my paperback copy of this book.