Huntress Moon by Alexandra Sokoloff

Genre: Adult, Thriller

Source: I purchased a copy

Huntress Moon by  Alexandra Sokoloff

This story has two main characters. First we have FBI Agent Matthew Roarke.  He has always had a special sense about people. From the time he was a small child he knew he would grow up to work in a field where he would put bad people away. He now has his sights set on a blonde woman who seems to always be seen at the scene of murders. Is she responsible? Is it possible that SHE is a serial killer? This seems almost improbable because most serial killers are men.

Agent Roarke learns her identity and learns she (Cara) is after more than he originally thought. The question this author makes you ask yourself is how bad is bad? Are there instances that would make you overlook the evil in someone? Could they ever be justified in their actions? This is a book where you find yourself not justifying what Cara does, but looking for the why’s. You empathize with her. You want to help her change her ways because you know the path she is going down is not going to end well. You want at the same time for Roarke to be successful and put away a dangerous killer. There are no set answers for you as you read.  The author has done a superb job of creating characters you like no matter what their position in the story. The action scenes keep you glued to the edge of your seat.  Since this is a series, when I was asked to review one of them I looked them up and immediately purchased the first two. I got so into it my husband bought me the third. Make sure you have all three so you can read seamlessly from the first to the third book. Get plenty of sleep before you begin because you won’t want to sleep, or I should say you won’t be able to sleep until you complete the book, and for me the entire series.  This is a series I definitely recommend.  I am so pleased that every book I’ve started the new year reading has been so good.

Alexandra Sokoloff Guest Post

I am very pleased to present to you a guest post by Alexandra Sokoloff. Wednesday I will be

 reviewing her book Huntress Moon,Thursday I will be reviewing Blood Moon, and

 Friday I will be reviewing Cold Moon. You will definitely want to get your hands on this series.

Guest Post

I love the holiday season. There’s nothing better than having everyone around me caught up in a holiday frenzy so I can sneak away and get caught up on my reading.

Only this week, when I picked up a couple of highly recommended books, I was horrified to find that they’re torture porn. Yes, two more books about women (beautiful women, of course) being captured, raped and tortured in gruesome, sexualized detail.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but am sick to death of reading crime novels and seeing movies and TV shows about women being raped, tortured, mutilated and murdered. I’m not too happy about it happening in real life, either.

So my Huntress Moon series turns the tables. The books follow a haunted FBI agent on the hunt for a female serial killer.

I worked as a Hollywood screenwriter for ten years before I snapped and wrote my first novel, and in that time I worked on several film projects featuring serial killers. One of my core themes as a writer is “What can good people do about the evil in the world?” – and as far as I’m concerned, serial killers are an embodiment of evil. So for several years I was doing research into the subject every way I could think of besides actually putting myself in a basement with one of these monsters. I tracked down the FBI’s behavioral science textbook before it was ever available to the public. I stalked psychological profilers at writing conventions and grilled them about various real life examples. I went to forensics classes and law enforcement training workshops.

And while I was doing all that research, one thing really jumped out at me about serial killers. They’re men. Women don’t do it. Women kill, and sometimes they kill in numbers (especially killing lovers or husbands for money – the “Black Widow” killer; or killing patients in hospitals or nursing homes: the “Angel of Death”). But the psychology of those killers is totally different from the men who commit serial sexual homicide. Sexual homicide is about abduction, rape, torture and murder for the killer’s own sexual gratification.  (And please don’t get me started on books and films that portray serial killers as having an artistic or poetic bent. Ridiculous….)

The fact is, one reason novels and film and TV so often depict women as victims is that it’s the stark reality. Since the beginning of time, women haven’t been the predators — we’re the prey. But after all those years (centuries, millennia) of women being victims of the most heinous crimes out there… wouldn’t you think that someone would finally say — “Enough”?  

And maybe even strike back?

I do.

With the Huntress series I finally have an umbrella to explore, dramatically, over multiple books, the roots and context of the worst crimes I know. And at least on paper, do something about it. So at those times like this week, when I come across yet another thriller that’s barely veiled torture porn, I throw it in the trash where it belongs and get back to my own writing.

I believe my job as an author is to give my readers a thrilling, sensory, gripping adventure that makes them feel — and also makes them think. It’s all about the fight against everyday evil, for me, and about the deep connections people make with unlikely other people when they commit to that fight.

Whoever she is, whatever she is, the Huntress is like no killer Agent Roarke – has ever seen before. And you may find yourself as conflicted about her as Roarke is.

As one of the profilers says in the book: “I’ve always wondered why we don’t see more women acting out this way. God knows enough of them have reason.”

Alexandra Sokoloff is the Thriller Award-winning and Bram Stoker, Anthony, and Black Quill Award-nominated author of the supernatural thrillers The Harrowing, The Price, The Unseen, Book of Shadows, The Shifters, and The Space Between; The Keepers paranormal series, and the Thriller Award-nominated, Amazon bestselling Huntress/FBI Thrillers series (Huntress Moon, Blood Moon, Cold Moon), which has been optioned for television. She has also written three non-fiction workbooks: Stealing Hollywood, Screenwriting Tricks for

Authors, and Writing Love, based on her internationally acclaimed workshops and blog (www.ScreenwritingTricks.com), and has served on the Board of Directors of the WGA, West (the screenwriters union) and the board of the Mystery Writers of America.

Alex is a California native and a graduate of U.C. Berkeley, where she majored in theater and minored in everything Berkeley has a reputation for. She lives in Los Angeles and in Scotland, with Scottish crime author Craig Robertson. www.Alexandrasokoloff.com

Blog URL:  http://www.screenwritingtricks.com

Facebook URL: http://www.facebook.com/alexandra.sokoloff

Twitter: http://twitter.com/AlexSokoloff

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/AlexandraSokoloff

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/axsokoloff/

Amazon: The FBI Thriller Series: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B011M9AOBM?keywords=huntress%20moon&qid=1451693113&ref_=sr_1_1_ha&s=digital-text&sr=1-1

Heavenly Vision by Koos Verkaik

Genre: Adult, Fantasy

Source: I received a copy to facilitate my review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

Nothing is what it seems, in this new, exciting Koos Verkaik novel… 
It starts with the finding of an old manuscript hidden in an old atlas of the Cape of Good Hope, around the year 1745. 

“Allart Vroom climbed down from the ship, and we stood ready to catch him,” wrote Captain Adriaen Kalf. “His clothes, his flesh, his bones pulverized in our hands. He formed a small heap of powder at our feet. Please, believe me—it is not, like someone suggested, the contents of broken hourglasses.” 

Jan Glas, an Amsterdam publicist, reads about a machine that could cause the end of the entire world! Of course, he wants to find out the truth about the remarkable manuscript! A long journey takes him to England and the USA. 

A peculiar man crosses his path - Wesley Dunn, Raso Preacher, Center of the Heavenly Vision, Franks Knight, Florida, USA. This man says that the world will be destroyed by ‘the Machine of Colton’, which is also mentioned in the manuscript that Jan found! Only a few people will survive – the true followers of the odd Mr. Wesley Dunn, and the Raso way of life! 

Murder, mystery and intrigue will keep the reader guessing as to what is going on. Is the world coming to an end, and if so, who will survive? 

My Thoughts:

If you like books that bounce back and forth between the past 1700s,  and the present then this is the book for you. It makes it a little confusing, but if you are willing to hang in there it all becomes clear in the end. In the past we have an old manuscript, in the present we have a machine that is said to be able to end the world. What are the connections if any between these two? The author has taken these two events and woven them into a story that will have you reading cover to cover just to find that connections. Once again this author has created a book that grabs you and forces you to read to find the answer to all of those questions you had at the beginning. I applaud him for this ability.