Bogormen

Title: Velocity Author: Dean Koontz Genre: Horror/Thriller Rating: 4/10 # pages: 496 Date read: March, 2006

Summary: Bartender Billy Wiles's life spirals out of control after he finds a note on his windshield telling him that he has a choice: involve the police, and a lovely blonde schoolteacher dies. Do nothing, and an elderly woman active in charity work dies. His options only become harder once the killer targets people whom Billy knows and plants circumstantial evidence tying him to the crimes. His greatest fear is for his comatose fiancée, and he works frantically to find the murderer before Barbara is hurt.

Review: I bought this in the airport on the way to Austria as I thought the concept sounded really interesting. A man is left a note on his car "If you go to the police, I will kill an elderly woman who works for charity. If you don't go to the police, I will kill a young, beautiful school teacher" -- what a dilemma! And it was a page turner, but I have to admit it left me... disappointed. Which is why I only gave it a 4. It seemed to me that it was constantly either too far-fetched or too predictable. This is one of the few books I've given away after reading.

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Title: Salem's Lot Author: Stephen King Genre: Thriller Rating: 7/10 # pages: 464 Date read: March, 2006

Summary: Salem's Lot takes place in a very isolated town in New England, where people have little dealings with outsiders, and have little better to do than gossip. The town is cursed by an old mansion on top of the hill containing a terrible secret. That same secret draws something even more evil to the town, and the town slowly descends into chaos as vampires take over.

Review: I think it was madlori who recommended this to me last year sometime. I was looking for more books to read in the thriller genre. I enjoyed it, but think it's one of those books that loose quite a bit on a second reading, because the element of surprise is no longer there. Still, it was good entertainment while it lasted :)

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Title: Sisterchicks Down Under Author: Robin Jones Gunn Genre: Christian fiction Rating: 8/10 # pages: 235 Date read: March, 2006

Summary: Kathleen joins her husband for a three-month trip to New Zealand when he's hired by a film studio in Wellington. Leaving behind all that is familiar in her comfortable corner in Southern California, she realizes that the past twenty years have been so tightly woven into the life of her only daughter that she's not sure who she is on her own or with her husband. In her isolation, Kathleen begins to contemplate reinventing herself, but before her crazy schemes take flight, she meets Jill at the Chocolate Fish café. Even though the two women are very different at first glance, they find they share a common Sisterchick heart and instantly forge a friendship that takes them on a journey where both Kathleen and Jill find that God has returned to them the truest part of themselves that was set aside so many years ago.

Review: Mum bought this while in NZ and recommended it to me when she came home. It's the first Sisterchicks book I've read, but from what I've heard other people say, it's quite different from her other books, in that the women don't know each other prior to this book. Anyway, I loved it! A foreigner's view on New Zealand - hilarious! Especially since there were so many things I could recognize in it. Oh, and I got quite a thrill when they started talking about NZ slang, and I actually understood every word of it! :-D

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