Fair Warning

 

Fair Warning by Michael Connelly

A seemingly innocent genetic testing is being used by a serial killer targeting women with a certain genetic marker as his victims.  Jack McEvoy, a journalist for an online media outlet "Fair Warning" is another main character written by Michael Connelly.  When a woman Jack had a one night stand with was murdered brutally, he investigated and found out that a number of women across the nation has been killed the same way and they all have the same genetic marker.  How can he prevent future killings of these women?

Genetic testing is something you see constantly being advertised as being helpful for people who were adopted searching for their biological parents or for individuals just wanting to know their ancestors and relatives,  maybe helpful also for those who wants to know if they may be carriers of some hereditary diseases.

In this book Michael Connelly will show you that genetic testing although helpful in so many ways, can also be perverted.  The book is a page turner from start to finish.  

Lethal Agent

Mitch Rapp is a favorite series of mine and with a title like "Lethal Agent"  I could not resist and borrowed a copy from our library when it was available.   

As I was reading this in October of 2020, I kept on thinking Kyle Mills might be a clairvoyant or have some kind of a premonition as he was writing this book as this was first published in 2019.  But the book reads like you are reading the current events with Covid 19 and our own Presidential election going on.

Here is a link to the author Kyle Mills page.  Kyle was able to continue Mitch's character just as Vince Flynn had written in the past with Mitch's strong sense of saving the United States no matter what the cost and without any political agenda to his actions.

In this book ISIS forces a French microbiologist to manufacture a lethal bioweapon in Yemen and tried their best to bring it in to American soil which include working with drug cartels.  All  while America is in a political chaos with a presidential election coming up and the leading presidential contender being an enemy to the CIA director which made Mitch's job even more tricky.

The House In The Cerulean Sea

Thank you "K" for recommending this book.  This was my first TJ Klune book.  The House in the Cerulean Sea is pure enchantment with a story that is touching to the core. It is about Linus, a caseworker for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth.  He was sent to the Marsays Island Orphanage to investigate the house, the six magical youth living there which include a sprite, a gnome, an urchin-like blob, a pomeranian-boy shifter, a wyvern and the anti-christ and their caretaker the mysterious Arthur.

Linus is a very kind person in his 40s living his life as a caseworker for 17 years.  He love his job and has no plans of changing anything.  Living the same every day life in a bubble where everything is safe and predictable.  But he eventually got the Extremely Upper Management to notice his work which made them decide to send him to the island.  The adventure begins and he realized what has been missing in his life.

In this day and age when everybody is categorized, stereotyped and judged before acceptance into a community, this book will show you that people even the very different ones have the same wants and needs as all of us.  In the 4 countries I have visited and lived, the US of A is the loudest about acceptance no matter your gender, color, religion,your culture or traditions.  But it is also the country where everybody is so pressured to belong, to prove their worth or be closeted.  This book will really hit people who are inclined to be prejudice towards the unknown, the different, the anti-christ who is portrayed as a six year old charming boy and those who are against gay romance.  

A Woman Is Not A Man

This is a must read if you love learning about other cultures.  Thank you to my friend "K" who recommended it.  It is an eye opener and makes you sympathized with women in cultures where women are very restricted and abused. 

The book is about three generations of Palestinian women in the United States.  It is very heartbreaking and makes me want to cry a lot but I still can't put it down. 

I want to think that not all women from that culture are treated in an abusive way these days.  But if you really think about it, some women here in the western world are still victims of domestic violence and other inequality.  When can women really be treated fairly and equally as their male counterpart?  How can we make it possible? 

Kudos to Etaf Rum for writing this very courageous book.

The Lincoln Lawyer

I love reading legal thrillers, so when the library app "Libby" recommended this book, I got intrigued by the title and borrowed it.  Michael Connelly delivers on all account.  This is a great read.

This is the first book in the series about the defense lawyer "Mickey Haller".   If a client can pay, he will defend them to the best of his ability.  His office is in his "Lincoln Town Car" where he is driven around from court house to court house by his chauffeur.  His clients are usually repeat offenders for drugs, prostitutions and gang related crimes.

As a private defense attorney he has to do a lot of advertising and he has to keep the facade that is expected from those who left the district attorney's office for private practice.  He has four Lincoln Town Cars that he rotates.  Haller lives in a rich neighborhood but is behind in his payments.  So when he is called to defend Mr. Roulet,  a high paying franchise client who is charge of committing a crime against a prostitute.   The twists and turns of events as the case moves forward will keep you reading until the end.

The Winner Maker

This was my first Jeff Bond book and it will not be the last.  If you love mystery, thriller and suspense, Jeff Bond will not disappoint you.

Bond created characters you can relate.  Fiske, a high school english teacher  and football coach have an inner circle of kids he called as "The Winners".  Everybody wants to be part of this winner's club.  They are supposed to be the group who will grow up successful later in life.  He disappeared along with a young high school girl.  

Former "Winners" reunite to find him.  Clues brought them back to "prom night".  Secrets from decades ago will destroy their lives.  The quest to find Fiske will test their loyalty toward him and to each other.  Who can they trust?  Will they be able to survive these events and still have their lives intact?

Jeff Bond will keep you guessing until the end.

Placemaker

I was given a copy of this book by Handlebar in exchange for an honest review.  

I give this book a four star.  Because it took me a while to get into the rhythm to find that reason why I have to finish the book.  Some books you read the introduction and you continue reading because you want to know how the characters end up being.  This one is more of an autobiography about Christie and her life journey.

This book describes the places Christie Purifoy and her family lived through the years and how they try to make every place their home.  How every move brings them closer to the ultimate place where they finally belong and decide to pour all their money, time and energy to make into the home they wanted.  You will learn a lot about trees, plants and flowers throughout most of the book.

Here are some lines I would like to share from the book:

"A home is a place to make and a place that might make or unmake you."

"Many of us long to put down roots in some particular place, but we guard ourselves against heartbreak by waiting for the perfect place."

"Perhaps that is precisely where the power lies; not in the choosing but in learning how best to live with our choice."

The Dream Peddler

If you can order a dream with satisfaction guaranteed or you get your money back.  What would you ask for?  That is what the dream peddler, Robert Owens offer the small farming town where Evie Dawson lived.  Her son disappeared the same morning that Robert arrived.

This is a first novel written by Martine Fournier Watson, she has her own beautiful writing style that will keep you turning the page to the end.   The book is set in the old days when life was simple and yet Martine is able to give us a book with just the right amount of twists and turns to keep you reading. 

Using dreams to find adventure, to escape or to find happiness is temporary albeit satisfying.  One scene that resonates with me is when Robert was having a conversation with a young guy telling him that life is an adventure, whether you choose to leave or stay, the adventure is here, as he touched his heart. 

The Store

This book is a bit dragging compared to other books written by James Patterson.  A few pages in and you know what company is being fictionalized in this book. 

These days we only need to enter one company name and they sell everything you ever need or want.  But, what really goes on behind The Store?

Jacob and Megan Brandeis accepted a job at The Store with an ulterior motive.  What they did not know is that their lives will not be the same once their family moved.  The goal of knowing how The Store operates inside and exposing the truth, end up being a fight for their lives.

  Privacy is something some people worry about these days, yet we have all these social media, cameras and drones popping up all the time.  They are slowly becoming part of our everyday life.  What if these things becomes a constant?  Can you imagine a life where you are constantly being watch?

The Biggest Lie In The History Of Christrianity

This book was given to us by our church in December.  It is a quick and very easy book to read.  Matthew Kelly, is the founder of The Dynamic Catholic Institute, a speaker, a business consultant and an author.  

This is my first Matthew Kelly book and I would recommend this to anyone who would like to read  about living our lives to the fullest, to be the best versions of ourselves and to strive to flourish instead of just surviving.  He does not try to convince us to be Catholics or to scare us to his belief.  He implores and inspires us to exercise One Holy Moment at a time.

In this fast zoom zoom modern era where everybody is just eyeing for the next promotion, next added digit to our salary, next bigger office,  nobody really care about kindness, respect, or even more so for holiness.  Most of us think holiness is just attainable to just a chosen few.

How can we promote holy moments when we struggle just to be nice to ourselves and to each other.  We wake up in the wrong side of the bed, had a bad hair day, don't have enough caffeine,  then we easily succumb to being mean and rude.   Instead of congratulating a person for getting more responsibility or promotion, people end up testing his/her character just to prove that they are better.  But with so many books like this being given away, we can only hope that very slowly... one holy moment at a time... we are all going to try to be more humane to ourselves and to one another.

Origin

 

Robert Langdon attended the unveiling of a discovery made by a billionaire friend and student Edmond Kirsch.
The twists and turns of events in this book will keep you guessing until the end.   The waiting to find out what the discovery that could answer the two oldest questions of our origin and destiny as human race and to find out who really masterminded the assassination of Kirsch was suspenceful enough to keep you reading to the end of the book.

If you are religious, keep in mind that this is fiction and the plot revolves around the discovery of an atheist.  

Bad Blood

This book is captivating.  Being a medical technologist who works in a hospital laboratory, I can't fathom the things she was able to do.  The depth she would go just to get the funding.   The things she was letting her laboratory personnel do and the deceit were unthinkable especially since her company deals with lives.  How her company lasted as long as it did was unimaginable.  Although, I already know what happened in the end and there were times when she would irritate me, I still can't stop reading the book to the end.

If you want to know about Theranos, a Silicon Valley startup, a company poised to change the medical laboratory world,  how it started, rise and fall.  This is a very good book that will keep you turning the pages.

Elizabeth Holmes was a young Stanford dropout with a great vision.  She is very charismatic and very well connected.  She was able to hire great minds from great schools and recruit people from big companies to come work for her.  Not only that, she was able to raise funds in the hundreds of millions from reputable investors.  She was on her path to become the next Steve Jobs.

People who heard her vision just poured in money after hearing her speeches.   She ran her company in deep secrecy and fear.  Different departments were not allowed to collaborate.  Obviously without teamwork and open communication within the company the goal was not met.  If you work in the healthcare laboratory field, you know the vision is just too good to be true.  But she was a great speaker who made people believe her even without visible reliable proof of anything.  

Big kudos to the writer/journalist John Carreyrou and those who helped him get the truth out.   Carreyrou did not waver and relentlessly pursue his investigation into the company against all the charming tactics, threats and lawyers Elizabeth Holmes sent his way.

Outliers

This is my first Malcolm Gladwell book.  Thank you friend for recommending this book.   "Outliers" is  very interesting and proved to be thought provoking.  The book is a result of his research on exceptionally successful people like Bill Gates, The Beatles, Joe Flom and others. 

I was always curious about how these people become so successful at their chosen careers and Mr. Malcolm will give you the explanations that comes with their successes.  The book is not a "how to become an outlier" but it explains how some has achieved such success. 

It explains how successful hockey players are  mostly born from January to March.  That kids born earlier in the year are physically more developed and thus get noticed and given more opportunity to play and better coaching.  Bill Gates and other software tycoons were born at the right time.  They were in college when computers are just starting out.  They seized the opportunity for computer time when the computer world was just young.  Michael Jordan might be very tall but it is not just his height that made him such a successful player.  Joe Flom a good Jewish lawyer, who was practicing business takeover law when nobody else was taking those cases.

Intellect may be important but as the psychologist Lewis Terman followed high IQ children into adulthood, it shows that intellect and achievement are FAR from perfectly correlated.  That one can have general and practical intelligence but it does not imply the presence of the other in all instances.  High I.Q. kids with involved parents also contributed to their success in adulthood.

The outliers possesses the combinations of being born at the right time and place, were given the extraordinary opportunity to put in the 10,000 hour rule to practice their crafts, has vision, talent and were in the right time and place.  They were not just innately programmed to be a success, they put in hard work, lived in a community where their potentials were encourage and "luck" was there at the right moment. 

In our everyday life scenario, does it mean we should prevent our kids from being the youngest in everything they do?  Should we demand hours and hours of practice in the things they decide to play,  be it in academics, sports, music and others? 

I have a friend whose kids all have close to and even more than 4.0 GPA, all excel at the extracurricular activities they joined.  Is it just because they are genetically intelligent and talented?  Or is it because of the cultural legacy of being a second generation Asian-American?  But then, not all second generation Americans are Bill Gates in the making.  Are all their waking moment spent in studying and practicing?  I don't drive my kids around to lots of stuff like my friend did all these years, does it mean I am giving my kids less opportunity to excel?

Soul's Gate

This is my first James Rubart book and it will definitely Not be my last.  Soul's Gate is captivating and suspenseful.  We get mystical battle scenes mixed in with some Biblical scriptures.   I like Christian fiction writers who stick with their storyline without categorizing other faiths and religious groups.

Reece Roth has an ability to enter into a person's soul.  He invited four friends to go on a religious retreat with him.  Then he started training them to become spiritual warriors.  They are to fulfill a prophesy where they will fight against evil.  But first they have to be free themselves. 

I highly recommend this book.  It is a very entertaining book that will leave us thinking about how we live and deal with the evils in our lives and free ourselves from it.

The authors note in the end of the book he wrote that his hope is that we will come away from reading this novel with more freedom than when we started. 

I got this book free from Booksneeze in exchange for an honest review.

Here are some quotes from the book:

Courage is not the absence of fear, it is action in the face of fear.

Weeping may last for the night, but a shout of joy comes in the morning.

Living in the past creates a barrel of iron that weigh down the present in a great heft.

Proof of Heaven

This is my second near death experience book, the first being Heaven is for Real. Heaven is for Real is Bible base. Everything the boy saw is accompanied by a scripture the father who is a pastor would include in the book.

In this book, Dr. Alexander is a church (episcopal church) goer, but he was not religious. As a neurosurgeon he is more scientific in his approach to life than religious. So when he hears of NDE's from his patients, he would listen but don't really take them seriously.

Dr. Eben Alexander is a respected and distinguished neurosurgeon who suddenly got ill with a rare and severe case of  E. coli meningitis.  He went on a deep coma for almost a week and survived.  While his body was in coma he went on his near death experience (NDE), where he saw the core, the gateway, brightness, darkness, higher beings and others.

Now he is a believer of the spiritual realm as he calls it.  That the very fabric that make up the spiritual realm is love, compassion and acceptance.

If you are not extremely religious or extremely scientific in your approach to the "after death" topic.  This would be a book, you can enjoy.  It is easy read and you get to learn some things about meningitis, about what Dr. Alexander saw and feel while in heaven and about his life as well.

10 Christians Everyone Should Know

I was inspired to read this book while I was reading the 12 Extraordinary Women.  Biographies are not really my cup of tea.   But 12 Extraordinary Women made me want to know more about the history of our Faith.  Not just the people in the Bible but also the Christians before us.

The book begins with St. Patrick, Galileo, Anne Bradstreet, John Bunyan, Johann Sebastian Bach, Jane Austen, D.L. Moody, George Washington Carver, Sergeant York and William F. Buckley, Jr.
All ten are from different times.  They were of different professions.  But we have heard, read and listen about them and their works in some way.  They were all greatly respected and all have very strong Christian Faith.  Even Galileo with his scientific mind and straining relationship with the church of his time was a believer.  Each chapter is a little synopsis of the lives of each of the 10 Christians.  There is a lot to learn from each of them. 

I would like to quote Sergeant York:  "If this country fails it will fail from within. I think we've just got to go back to the old time religion".

Twelve Extraordinary Women

A church friend invited me to join their study group and this was my first book with them.  If you have been reading this blog, you know I read a few Christian base books.  Reading the Bible has not been part of my life yet.   But I like reading about what people think about God.  After a few meetings about this book, I got interested and learned some things about some women in the Bible and their faith in God, even under the circumstances and situations they were in.  How God used them and how we as women of today could learn from them.

Then the chapter about Mary the Mother of Jesus came and all I can say is if you are a devout Catholic, you will not like this chapter.  The whole chapter was  difficult to read for me since it basically tells us what the author thinks about Catholicism.  He thinks that Mary was extraordinary but consider the Catholics' devotion to her as a cult practice.  The whole chapter is very anti-catholic.

John Macarthur is obviously a respected pastor who wrote a lot of books about people in the Bible.  These are his own versions, his assumptions and interpretations of what people in the Bible time was like.  Who am I to say otherwise,  I have not read even the whole book of Genesis, I don't have a degree on how to teach about God.

But the more Christian books I read, the more I understand why my first blog about God was being received badly.  Not everybody wants to believe in One God.  Each of us interprets our God our own way.  If a person is intelligent, have backers with money, is a great speaker and charismatic enough to have followers, then you can start your own church, translate and interpret the Bible in your own way and grow your church.

I think that ancient times when travelling was difficult, God may have come to Earth, showed himself at different times and different parts of the world in a way that people of that era and place will understand HIM.  When travelling was made possible, people who thought they were superior starts conquering other groups of people which started changing  people's traditions, views and even about how they pray to God.

Now with phones, internet, boats and airplanes.  The World is getting smaller, we can reach anybody anywhere, but morality and our perception of God is getting wider and far apart even more.  Church leaders are wondering why people going to church are getting fewer.  For me, I think it is because of too much churches claiming to bring the truth and that only their church and their interpretation of God will save us.   Now if you are young, wanted to go learn about God, which church will you go to?  How do you know that the church you are attending is really teaching the truth?  Or do we just go to the church where most of our family and friends go, if they don't go, then we don't go.

The Choice

This is my second Robert Whitlow book, the first being "Life Support".  In The Choice, he gave us another page turner about choices and how it affect our lives and our future.

The year was 1974 in Rutland, Georgia, Sandy was a normal teenager with a perfect life and a great boyfriend.  A decision to be intimate got her pregnant.  The boyfriend Brad and family wants Sandy to get an abortion, so they could get on with their lives. 

Sandy made the choice of completing school and the pregnancy in Atlanta with her aunt and giving the babies (twins) up for adoption.  On her way to Atlanta she met an old woman who gave her a prophecy and a warning.

Thirty years later, she is a teacher in the same high school in Rutland, Georgia.  A pregnant student came to her for help.  How is she going to advise the student? 

Pro-life, pro-choice, also a topic for this coming election.  Does the government have to give away free birth controls and abortions to prevent unwanted pregnancies?  Whatever decision a person decides in life is a choice one has to live with her whole life.  This book shows us how much an unwed pregnant teenager has to face decades ago and at present time.  How God is always there for and with us.  The last part of the book are questions for study group.

I got this book from booksneeze in exchange for an honest review.

Pursuit of Honor

 This book continues where Extreme Measures left off.   The three terrorists involved in the death of 185 citizens in D.C. and the attack on the National Counterterrorism Center are still at large.  Mike Nash is having trouble adjusting back with family life and his life as a CIA agent after the event.  Mitch Rapp has to answer to the politicians who were questioning his methods.  He also have to flushed out the person who is leaking intel.  All the time, trying to locate the three terrorists still in American soil.

Karim the self appointed "Lion of Al Queda" is making all kinds of decisions that makes them easier to track. 

There are people who sacrificed a lot to keep us safe.  Most of the time we don't really know them and their heroism since they are kept off the media for their own protection.  But politically there will always be two or even multiple sides of everything.  Whatever you do or not do can be interpreted as pro or con and all sides will have a right answer to everything.

Our current political situation is very hot because of the election coming up.  Vince Flynn demonstrated in this book how it is like when you are really doing all the arguing for political correctness.  Everyone can make an argument to make the other sides sound wrong. Yet all sides are for the common good of the people.

For me it was not as fast paced as other Vince Flynn books I have read. But it was not disappointing.

Song of the Brokenhearted

This book is about Ava Kent.  She lives a perfectly normal and blessed life.  Ava is a mother of two.  A daughter who is in college and is engaged to be married to a guy everybody loves, and a son in high school who is a star football player.  Her husband has a thriving business that affords them to live handsomely in a good neighborhood.  She kept a busy schedule leading a ministry that helps and comfort people who are suffering and broken hearted.

All of a sudden things changed.  Her husband is getting too busy at work, long hours and  seems distracted.  Her daughter called off the engagement, her son made a decision that could potentially ruin his future.  Just when you are thinking what else could go wrong to this woman, she receives a gift on her doorsteps.  Which would bring her back to her past.  A life she has been trying to forget.

A good book about forgiveness, about faith in God, hope, love and family.  The last part of the book includes questions for book clubs to discuss and reflect on.

I got this book free from "booksneeze" in exchange for an honest review.