All tagged Romantic Suspense

Recommendation Tuesday: Jill Sorenson's Aftershock Series

Recommendation Tuesday: Jill Sorenson's Aftershock Series

Sarah Moon
Books

Recommendation Tuesday started as a joke and is now an official thing. If you've got a book to recommend on this or any Tuesday, tweet me at @FullShelves and I'll help spread the word.

View all of the past recommendations over here. 

I'm not sure how I discovered Jill Sorenson's Aftershock suspense series--it's highly likely that I first heard about it from Brie, when I was looking for a series to replace Laura Griffin's Tracers series, which isn't as fun as it once was.

Regardless, this series continues to hit that sweet spot of interesting characters and fabulous WTFery. (That's a compliment.)

There are several books and this series, and while they do stand alone, there's actually quite a bit of world-building in the first novel, Aftershock, which depicts the immediate aftermath of a catastrophic earthquake in San Diego. We're introduced to characters who will serve as protagonists in future installments and the earthquake influences characters' arcs in the future. So, basically, start with Aftershock and read in order if you get hooked.

Review: Scorched by Laura Griffin

Review: Scorched by Laura Griffin

Sarah Moon
Books

Scorched by Laura Griffin

In Laura Griffin’s Tracers series—like in the television series 24, which I enjoyed—practical considerations are unnecessary. In the Tracers world, domestic terrorists drive MINI Coopers, anthropologists defuse bombs and everyone is terribly attractive. 

Scorched is the sixth book in the Tracers series, which follows employees of a top-notch private crime lab in Texas. The series has featured hackers, scientists, sketch artists, cops, criminal investigators, writers and FBI agents who all work to solve crimes while simultaneously finding true love.

Yes, Laura Griffin’s Tracers books are as awesome as they sound. 

Admittedly, this latest installment isn’t my favorite because it marks a distinct departure from the previous novels which focused on local crime-solving and veers toward stopping a terrorist plot (in addition to solving a local crime—it’s complicated). However, it still features Griffin’s trademark fast-paced writing and capable, tough characters.  

Scorched features forensic anthropologist Kelsey Quinn at the Delphi Center, where she focuses on identifying bodies. While on a dig in The Philippines, where she’s investigating a mass grave, Kelsey discovers a body that’s buried separately from the others, one that’s had facial reconstruction and appears very out-of-place for a remote Asian island. Suspicious, she takes samples and sends them to her former fiance, Blake, who works for the FBI. 

Upon her return to the United States, Blake asks Kelsey to come to his apartment because he has information about the evidence she collected oversees. Except when she gets to his apartment, Blake is murdered and Kelsey is a witness and on the run. And because she fled, she’s also a suspect. 

Kelsey suspects that law enforcement is involved in a larger conspiracy related to Blake’s murder, and turns to her ex-boyfriend Gage, a Navy SEAL who worked for her uncle Joe. This is where I was a bit confused—I’d not realized that Griffin has published a novella featuring Kelsey and Gage, Unstoppable, and that provides much of these characters’ backstory.

{Review} Twisted by Laura Griffin

Sarah Moon
Books

Oh, Laura Griffin, why can’t I quit you?

For real… you’d think after I went mildly ballistic over the Magical Missing Condom Syndrome in Griffin’s previous novel, Snapped* and wanted to strangle the main character in One Wrong Step (Celie is the worst main character I’ve ever read—I wanted the bad guys to kill her and leave her body in a ditch), I’d be able to make a clean break from Griffin’s books. But, oh no… a new Tracers book magically accidentally landed on my Kindle and I devoured it in a couple of evenings. 

This is my problem: I enjoyed the hell out of Laura Griffin’s Glass Sisters duology (especially the first one, Thread of Fear). Those two books were the perfect formula for awesomesauce brain candy: decently suspenseful but not too stressful, smart/tough women, smart/tough guys, an interesting setting. I also really, really enjoyed the first book in the Tracers series (which is kind of connected to the Glass Sisters series), Untraceable, because one of the main characters is a female computer hacker for good, which is incredibly badass. So, I keep reading Griffin’s books, hoping to recapture that magic.

And, a lot of those elements are there in subsequent books—plus, Griffin’s a pretty good writer.

She’s got a snappy, journalist style and doesn’t get bogged down in procedure or unnecessary details. (Do not bring details and nuance into my brain candy!) Yet, with that said, her novels still seem well-researched—more so than your average CSI episode at least. Trust me on this.

Since I have lost my stomach for a lot of mysteries in the last few years, I’ve tried a lot of the fluffy rom/suspense writers and most of them are just not at all my thing. They tend to be painfully formulatic and beyond ridiculous. (Ridiculous**, I can handle, in fact, I kind of love ridiculous—beyond that… no thanks.) 

Also, I have learned two things about Texas from Laura Griffin’s books:

  1. The state is virtually crawling with serial killers. It’s amazing anyone survives past thirty there.***
  2. The state is also virtually crawling with extremely attractive law enforcement officers.****