Review: Untraceable

16-year-old Grace has lived in the Smokies all her life, patrolling with her forest ranger father who taught her about wildlife, tracking, and wilderness survival.
When her dad goes missing on a routine patrol, Grace refuses to believe he’s dead and fights the town authorities, tribal officials, and nature to find him.
One day, while out tracking clues, Grace is rescued from danger by Mo, a hot guy with an intoxicating accent and a secret. As her feelings between him and her ex-boyfriend get muddled, Grace travels deep into the wilderness to escape and find her father.
Along the way, Grace learns terrible secrets that sever relationships and lives. Soon she’s enmeshed in a web of conspiracy, deception, and murder. And it’s going to take a lot more than a compass and a motorcycle (named Lucifer) for this kick-butting heroine to save everything she loves. 

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My Review:

Untraceable starts with suspense you can't ignore. I like that each chapter starts as a survival skill. It gives the book a unique trait while making chapter names low maintenance enough for the author to focus on the actual story. I've seen a lot of criticism about the naiveté of Grace's search, but I think that's what makes her a believable, well rounded character. 

Because we know Grace has grown up in the woods and that makes her confident about her search. But her search is very clearly emotionally driven, which we see as she tears up every time she sees a photo of her dad or talks about him. And even though she grew up in the woods, she's still young and hasn't really gone through the professional training that the Fish/wildlife preserve and the police department had. 

So emotions+young ambition=naive recklessness.

I very much enjoyed this book, and would recommend it to several people, but I would much sooner buy it from a library than buy it for myself.

Book Review: The Ciphers of Muirwood

From the moment she was banished by her father, the king, Princess Maia journeyed to seek sanctuary at Muirwood Abbey, the epicenter of magic and good in the land. Now safe for the first time since her cruel abandonment, Maia must foster uneasy friendships with other girls training to be Ciphers: women who learn to read and engrave tomes of ancient power, despite the laws forbidding them to do so.

As Maia tries to judge whom to trust, she makes a shocking discovery: her destiny is to open the Apse Veil and release trapped spirits from her world. Then she learns that her father is coming to Muirwood Abbey to celebrate the Whitsunday festival—and Maia’s estranged husband, whom she was forced to abandon, will join him. Torn between deadly political machinations and unstoppable spiritual forces, Maia must channel unknown powers within herself to save her friends, the abbey, and the entire kingdom of Muirwood.

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My Review:

I read the first installment of this series in graphic novel form, which has its merits. The last time I read a series in split formats was when I read Spy Goddess. I don't believe reading just one format for an entire series makes the experience any more or less enjoyable, but that's just me. Anyway, I got this version from NetGalley after reading the first book. In this installment, Maia finds a for of freedom from her father, and meets other powerful women like her training to be ciphers. Of course, in this world everyone is scared of the power a woman can wield, so her father and ex husband have plans to pass a law that would give her father far too much power. I really liked watching Maia develop as a person and seeing her deal with the sudden information that she needs to basically save the world with powers she doesn't have a complete hold on just yet. Pair this with the fact that nearly everyone she meets seems to not like her at all, it's inevitable that we get to see her find inner strength.
It takes talent and guts to release books so closely together as Wheeler is doing. It's not a bad thing--the previous book is fresh in our mind, we're still excited--but what a deadline! this book is set to release just a few months after the last one. Will we be reading the last one before Christmas? Luckily, Wheeler's prowess at writing keeps readers at the edge of their seats anyway, so he's doing a public service releasing these so close together.
Overall: I'd get it a library, and recommend it to friends. I wouldn't quite buy it for myself, but I would get a print version for my sister and then my daughter when she's old enough, so it still counts. 5/5

Book Review: Arrgh!

Welcome to Day 6 of Children's week!

Join Christopher and Lucy, Leo the Attack-Mouse-for-Hire, Sugar the Monkey, and a throng of talking bats--as they battle pirates on the high seas. When 13-year-old Christopher runs away from an orphanage, he is kidnapped by undercover pirates who force him to pretend he is a relative who cannot speak, as they sign on to a merchant ship they are plotting to plunder. Trapped in silence, Christopher discovers he can talk with a highly skilled mouse who will teach him Five Life Lessons. The Captain's 12-year-old daughter Lucy discovers the truth about Christopher and befriends him. But can they stop the pirates? This thrilling tale piles on the fun, hidden treasure, swashbuckling swordfights, terrifying storms and island paradise adventures that make pirate sagas so enjoyable. What sets Arrgh! apart is its hero's heartwarming wish for family, and how he comes to find the family he will treasure forever.

Buy on Amazon

My Review:

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

At first I thought this was going to be a graphic novel. Can you blame me, with that cover? But once I got past that fact, I really enjoyed this book and it's loose parallels to the Orphan Annie story. To me, Annie was an important tale of self strength, confidence, and who your real family is--especially when you have none by blood near you. As I thought about it more a lot of stories were out there to do that for me. A little Princess, Matilda...but none I could think of that did the same thing for boys. Aargh! is a very much needed tale of bravery and friendship that was enjoyable to read even at 22 years old.

Book Review: The Blind Scorpian, book one by Farsheed Ferdowsi and Mike Wells

The BLIND SCORPION is a Top Secret computer program for simulating nuclear weapons explosions and the catastrophic havoc they wreak. The most advanced technology of its kind, the BLIND SCORPION requires such intense number crunching capability that it runs on a dedicated mind-numbing 1,400 teraflop IBM Blue Gene supercomputer burrowed underground at the National Energy Research Computing Center in Oakland, California. 

Dr. Ross Shaheen, the developer of the software, is living the American dream. Between his internationally-recognized nuclear weapons research career at the prestigious Berkeley Lab and his picture-perfect family in the San Francisco suburbs, it's a good life that can only get better...until he is lured into lecturing before an elite group of scientists in the country of his birth: Iran. 
The seven thousand mile trip takes Shaheen back to the land of the lion and the sun, yet it also delivers to Iran's very doorstep an important American citizen with Top Secret security clearance. It soon becomes clear what the Iranians are really after: the BLIND SCORPION. The coveted software is the key to advancing their clandestine nuclear weapons program without the rest of the world being able to prove its existence. Shaheen becomes entangled in a twisted web of espionage, corruption and survival, putting to the test not only his secret knowledge but also the very core of his allegiance to the land he now calls home. 

My Review: 
Sometimes you'll read a book and realize that the author was intentionally making this the first book in a series. Little things clue you in--big blocks of information that may sometimes seem boring but turn out to be necessary later, a character introduced but not really worked with by the end of the book and most of all--the lack of a climax. There's no action in this one. It's all setting up for the next book. That's not to say it was unenjoyable; on the contrary, I really enjoyed the writing itself and Ferdowsi's prowess at the written word gave me large expectations for book 2.

My Rating: 3 of 5, but keep an eye out for the series review once I see how everything in this book ties into the other ones.