Blogging Anniversary - 10 years

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A while ago I checked when I did my first blog post, in order to celebrate with an anniversary post. Well, that day came and went without any reaction from me. Better late than never, so here a reminder of my very first blog post from 24 October 2012.  The book was New Finnish Grammar  by Diego Marani. Marani is an Italian novelist, translator and newspaper columnist. While working as a translator for the European Union he invented a language ‘Europanto’ which is a mixture of languages and based on the common practice of word-borrowing usage of many EU languages. It was a suitable book to start with, being a book about letters, languages and memories. With a beautiful prose, the novel went directly to my heart.  "One night at Trieste in September 1943 a seriously wounded soldier is found on the quay. The doctor, of a newly arrived German hospital ship, Pietri Friari gives the unconscious soldier medical assistance. His new patient has no documents or anything that can ide...
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The Lucy Kincaid series by Allison Brennan

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I recently reviewed the book 'Love Me to Death' by Allison Brennan. I liked it so much so I threw myself over the rest of the books in the series (Kiss Me Kill Me, If I Should Die, Silenced, Stalked, Reckless and Stolen). The books are just soooo good I can't stop reading. The stories are absolutely fantastic, so thrilling with many different layers and I can't remember when I read such suspense novels last. Maybe the books of Henning Mankell can match. There you also have a story and a suspense that makes it difficult to put down the book.

This is a series of books and like with the Sookie Stackhouse novels it is a continuing story that covers a shorter period. Where one book ends the next one takes up. That makes you feel like part of the family and you follow the development of the relationship between Lucy and Sean and their relationship with their respective families and jobs.

It seems there is a new trend in writing series with characters that belong to a tight family or 'clan'. I am thinking of the Sookie Stackhouse novels and the Twilight series for example. I am sure there are other books out there with the same setting. The persons within the family or clan help each other and there is a goodwill feeling of caring about each other. It is a nice change to all those stories where people seem to only want to hurt others.

This book sees Sean Rogan go undercover for the FBI and is set to join his former hacker gang. Lucy meanwhile is making her training with the FBI. Neither Lucy, nor his family, understands what is happening. The job is not a clear cut as it seems and as usual other actors have other plans. Thrilling as it can be!

I said in my earlier review of the books that I thought they had something of the books of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. There is the same day to day, hour to hour scheme of the story and the whole set is only covering days or a week. I just finished the last book of the series 'Stolen' which was so exciting that I had to force myself to stop reading at 2.30 a.m.! The stories are seen from the perspective of different persons and I find myself thinking or screaming in my head 'don't do it, don't do it' when the heroine or the hero is doing something because they don't know as much as I do. It is all very thrilling.


Allison Brennan (her home page  http://www.allisonbrennan.com/) is like Charlaine Harris a very idle writer. She writes about three books a year and she has five kids! Where does she get the time? Apart from the Lucy Kincaid books she writes books referred to as Romantic thrillers, Supernatural thrillers and Short stories.  The next book in the series (I can hardly wait) is called 'Cold Snap' and will be out in October.

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