Ten new books as my heartfelt recommendation at the end of this reading year are here for you! Thrillers, YA dystopia and thriller, business non-fiction, horror, mystery and suspense, coming-of-age literary fiction, and poetry may be the most unusual mix of genres I’ve enjoyed reading and reviewed and rated on Goodreads. I hope you make at least some of those books as your reading choice for the end of this and next year, too.
The Institute, Black & White (Part 1 of the Black & White Trilogy), The Freedom Master Plan: Put Your Mission, Movement and Message on the Map - For Vegan and Ethical Experts, Influencers and Entrepreneurs, Pina Coladas and Rats 2, The Lost Child, Subscriptions for Authors: How to Make Consistent, Sustainable Income from Your Stories, Upgrade, Floating Twigs, The Tree of Life: A Chapbook, The Rules (Ryan Jacobs #1)
It was a special pleasure reading The Institute by Stephen King because this great thriller has the same tropes (human experiments, child exploitation, fate of the world) as my YA multi-genre novel Cruel Summer, with three differences. Unlike The Institute, those tropes are a backdrop in my story, and this is all I will say so as not to spoil the reading if someone decides to give a chance to Cruel Summer as well.
Waiting to read The Institute was long and full of expectations, but it was worth it. It gripped me from its first pages, not losing my attention until its grand finale. My impressions are still very fresh, so it is too early to tell whether it is one of my favorite books by Stephen King, but it isn’t too far. Either way, The Institute is the book I will recommend to everyone because of the exceptional bunch of its young protagonists and the important message it carries.
A great idea and a successful portrayal of two societies: black (dirty and dying) and white (clean and healthy). What didn’t work for me in this novel is the choice of the names for practically all characters. They reminded me more of Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings, so I often felt like I was stranded in a fantasy world instead of dystopia.
The Freedom Master Plan: Put Your Mission, Movement and Message on the Map - For Vegan and Ethical Experts, Influencers and Entrepreneurs by Mitali Deypurkaystha
This is a great, informative book with lots of practical advice for everyone who wants to start their own business. Vegan and animal rights business owners are especially welcome to read it! What I like best about this book is that Mitali suggests, no claims, that books are number one marketing and self-promoting tool. I agree with her.
Pina Coladas and Rats 2 is darker than the first book and more sinister as centipedes join rats in their attempts to kill everyone (including each other) and take over the island of Puerto Rico. Trapped between killer rats, killer centipedes and cultists determined to sacrifice more people and animals to their god Babalu, what are our protagonists’ chances of surviving this horror? How many of them will live to continue escaping through the living nightmare in the third installment of the series?
A psychological, dark mystery thriller delivered in an old school slow-paced way. If you are looking into more than just gruesome scenes, action, and dead bodies, you will enjoy this book. The characters are alive and real; the writing is capturing and fluent, and the scenes describing fear and agony of Daniel wandering lost through the unfamiliar streets of his hometown are perfect. For a moment I thought the author would ruin the ending and not finish the book the way I wanted it to end, but all is good. It’s the end to my liking, as I would write it myself.
I have received an advance review copy from the author at no cost and with no obligations toward the author.
Subscriptions for Authors: How to Make Consistent, Sustainable Income from Your Stories by Michael Evans
I was thrilled to find this book by Michael Evans on Amazon. I follow Michael from his writing and self-publishing “baby steps” and am a die-hard fan of his Control Freakz Series, Conspiracy Chronicles, and World Gone Mad series. Michael Evans is one of my favorite authors, so seeing him venturing into writing nonfiction books for authors was not much of a surprise to me. Upon reading Subscriptions for Authors: How to Make Consistent, Sustainable Income from Your Stories, I realized why it didn’t surprise me. Once again, he proved to be a perfect storyteller, although this book is far from being a story, and a teacher. With easy and fluent narratives, he explains even the most complicated math for subscription authors. Young Evans is not only a successful sci-fi thriller author, but he is also an incredibly talented and inspirational businessman we all can learn a lot from.
The scariest part of this book is that I wasn’t sure if I was reading a fictional story, or if the upgrade was happening for real in some hidden corner of our mad society. Yes, Upgrade is one of those prophetic books, so we better open our eyes and ears and all our senses because Blake Crouch’s future is just around the corner. And it will come, like it or not.
This is a fast-paced, thrilling story of two siblings on their separate missions to save the world with occasionally a little too detailed scientific descriptions of genetic manipulation which slow down the reading. Which may be a good thing for the mental state of the readers who take such novels and their warning seriously.
BRILLIANT. I want to see a movie!
Refined and gentle. Painted with words and paintbrushes.
Is it strange that I enjoyed a thriller for boys aged 13-15? No, because Ryan Jacobs offers us enough excitement, action, suspense, and rebelliousness to like him and cheer for him throughout the entire book. A thriller about a 13-year-old boy wunderkind hacker will leave even older readers with a good feeling and interest to look for another book in the series.
Happy reading!
BJ