BOOK REVIEW: MORE THAN HER BY JAY MCLEAN

Title: More than Her

Author: Jay McLean

Genre: Romance, New Adult

Published on: November 18, 2013, self-published

Please note that this is the second book in the series and should not be read prior to reading More Than This.

"For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."
For every choice you make there are rewards, or there are consequences.
It was my choice to walk away the first time. And my choice to chase her the second.
But sometimes you don't get a choice, and all you get are the consequences.
Unless that someone is Logan Matthews.

Because loving him didn't give me the strength to walk away.
It didn't give me the courage to fight for him.
And when it was over, all it gave me was a broken heart.
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”

Despite having liked More than This and More than Forever so much, I’ve hesitated to read this book. It’s part of a romance series, and each book focuses on a particular couple. Jake and Micky were great, just like Cameron and Lucy. More than Her focuses on the character of Logan Matthews. He was introduced in the previous book, as one of Jake’s best friends. Part of the reason I put this book off for so long is that Logan’s, well, a bit of a jerk. He loves girls, but isn’t as good at treating them well as Jake and Cameron are. I also confess that Logan seemed so much like high school me, except with the jerkiness dialed down two or three notches.

Like me, Logan absolutely worships women. He is very eager to meet the girl who’ll sweep him off his feet, like Micky did Jake. Actually, Logan happened to have met Micky first (by a few minutes). He had a big crush on her, but backed off as soon as Jake showed interest in her. It didn’t help that Logan made a very poor first impression on Micky. Things turned out more than fine in the end. Logan eventually meets another girl who gets way deeper under his skin than even Micky did. Pity that he once again had bad luck when it comes to how they met. It started out okay, but Logan seriously misread the situation and royally screwed things up.

BOOK REVIEW: THE THOUGHT READERS BY DIMA ZALES

Title: The Thought Readers (Les Lecteurs de Pensée)

Author: Dima Zales

Genre: Science Fiction

Published on: July 27, 2015

Une nouvelle série sur les mediums par un auteur de best-sellers (classements du New York Times et de USA Today) 
Tout le monde pense que je suis un génie.

Tout le monde a tort. 

Oui, je suis sorti de Harvard à dix-huit ans et je me remplis les poches dans un fonds spéculatif. Mais ce n’est pas parce que je suis extraordinairement intelligent ou travailleur. 

C’est parce que je triche.

J’ai un talent unique, voyez-vous. Je peux sortir du temps pour entrer dans ma version personnelle de la réalité — un endroit que je nomme ‘le Calme’ — où je peux explorer mon environnement pendant que le reste du monde est immobile. 

Je pensais être le seul à pouvoir le faire — jusqu’à ce que je la rencontre.

Je m’appelle Darren et voici comment j’ai appris que j’étais un Lecteur.

 

After teaching myself French, I searched for novels in that language in the Kindle store. It ended up being harder than I expected, as there aren’t that many. Les Lecteurs de Pensée is one of the first I came across. It’s part of a series centering on the character of Darren Goldberg. He’s a guy in his early twenties who has an unusual ability. Darren first discovered it when he was a kid. He can stop time, in a way: Darren can phase out of his body, a la Doctor Strange, and the world around him freezes. He calls this “drifting into the Calm”. Darren has used this power to his advantage a myriad times once he learned how to control it. For instance, freezing time allows Darren to cheat at casinos without being caught. The book introduces him during a game of poker.

Unbeknownst to Darren, his life is about to change irrevocably. A new challenger comes to the table to play. All of a sudden, the world freezes around Darren. Only this time, Darren didn’t willingly drift into the Calm. Then he sees the challenger, a woman around his age, who has phased out of her body and inadvertently brought Darren with her. This is significant because his whole life, Darren has believed he was the only person who could “freeze time”. He goes to regular therapy sessions because of this. Before Darren can question the woman, though, she bolts out of the place and vanishes.

BOOK REVIEW: SNAP JUDGMENT BY MARCIA CLARK

Title: Snap Judgment

Author: Marcia Clark

Genre: Mystery, thriller

Published on: August 29, 2017 by Thomas & Mercer

In the third installment of Marcia Clark’s bestselling series, attorney Samantha Brinkman’s investigation into a family’s deadly secrets is compromised by a threat from her past.

When the daughter of prominent civil litigator Graham Hutchins is found with her throat slashed, the woman’s spurned ex-boyfriend seems the likely suspect. But only days later, the young man dies in what appears to be a suicide. Or was it? Now authorities are faced with a possible new crime. And their person of interest is Hutchins. After all, avenging the death of his daughter is the perfect reason to kill. If he’s as innocent as he claims, only one lawyer has what it takes to prove it: his friend and colleague Samantha Brinkman.

It’s Sam’s obligation to trust her new client. Yet the deeper she digs on his behalf, the more entangled she becomes in a thicket of family secrets, past betrayals, and multiple motives for murder. To win her case, she’s prepared to bend any law and cross any boundary that stands in her way. Sam has always played by her own rules, and it’s always worked…so far. But this case cuts so deep and so personal that one false move could cost her everything.

Defense attorney Samantha Brinkman is back with her newest high-profile case. She and her associates (Michelle Jones and Alex Medrano) first find out about it through the news. Alicia, a college freshman, was found dead in her bathtub. As usual, the primary suspect is her ex-boyfriend Roan. There are…issues that point to his guilt. The case against Roan takes a wild turn when he turns up dead too. While the police investigate the circumstances, Alicia’s father Graham Hutchins stops by Samantha’s office. He feels like he may need an attorney soon.

Samantha first gives Graham condolences for the loss of his daughter. He’s a lawyer too, so Graham and Samantha are acquainted with each other. When Roan’s case becomes more pressing, Samantha officially takes on Graham as a client. She and Alex, her investigator, begin looking into Alicia’s life. They interview her friends seeking to find out who killed Alicia. Samantha’s goal is to discover if someone may have wanted both Alicia and Roan dead.