Mercury Falls by Robert Kroese
Let me start off with this: I absolutely hate prologues. Hate. Them.
Reading on the Kindle makes it a little harder to skip prologues, and a sample means a prologue eats up space from the main story, which is what really gets me. Here, I read it, because it was easier than skipping ahead. (I’m a lazy reader). And guess what? The prologue is actually a frame story. I hate frame stories even more than I hate prologues.
And yet…
So far, I have to say I’m interested. The prologue manages to tease without actually telling me anything that ruins my journey through the story. I’m grooving with the voice, even if it is trying a little too hard to be Good Omens. (The omniscient point of view and footnotes are what give this impression, though I can’t actually seem to read the footnotes in the sample because of where in the file the data is stored).
What gets me is that I love a good silly apocalypse story (here’s where the Good Omens vibe is a good one), I love the quoted information about proposed ends of the world. Handled the wrong way, they would slow things down, but for the length of the sample, I am grooving with them.
I’ll probably read the whole thing (and thus, buy the book) in the hopes it keeps living up to its premise.
In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor’s Journey in the Saudi Kingdom by Qanta Ahmed
This was interesting. It is set in the pre-9/11 days in Saudi Arabia. A British-Arab doctor who studied in the United States decides to take a job opportunity in Saudi Arabia, a land where she is theoretically connected to yet is still an outsider. The story starts with her first patient, a very old Bedouin woman undergoing the procedure to put in a central line. With that stark contrast of modern medicine and ancient traditions, we are dropped into a world as fascinating for us as the author.
As you can no doubt tell, I was intrigued by what was shown in the sample–and at 2.99, it is worth a read. It is outside my normal reading selections because it is a memoir, but I’ll still probably buy it.
Side note: This is an Amazon Encore book.
The Duke and the Pirate Queen by Victoria Janssen
I only occasionally read romance. When I do, it is because it was recommended to me by someone I trust. I really wish I knew where I’d stumbled into this one because it really wasn’t to my taste at all. I like romance more along the line of Jennifer Crusie–smart, witty, with strong characters I like and quickly get a feel for.
This one left me cold. It started way too in media res, so much so that I wasn’t sure of people or place or time. It’s a historical, though I’m not sure of any of that–none of the love of the time period that you normally see. The overly hysterical woman on page one did nothing to establish the male protagonist, since all he did was stand there and take it (and as far as I know, deserve it). Instead of a fun romp with pirates, I got…well..something not suited to my taste. Just couldn’t get into it, and indeed, didn’t finish the sample.
Pass.
I have always been intrigued by the little OK–it’s a tricksy word. At times it is invisible. At others, jarring, even when it should be perfectly acceptable to use in a story. First used in 1839 in a newspaper article, it still comes across as feeling too modern for the 1800s.
This book purports to give me more details, and it does give the beginnings of it in the section of the sample. However, the book didn’t convince me that it had a lot to say after the sample. The voice just wasn’t compelling enough–at times it felt a little too dry, and yet tried a little too hard to be clever.
Still, I may read it in library form (either for Kindle if/when available, or in good old hardcopy). Just not enticed to buy it.