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Book Review – The Shadow Priest

The Shadow Priest

The Shadow Priest by D.C. Alexander

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Thriller, Vigilante

“Awareness and fear of death = destructive yearning for false feelings of immortality provided by myriad sources—power, control, victory, an enduring legacy, fame, a place in one of the afterlives promised by the world’s religions = evil!”

Nate Arkin was once on the rise within DCI, Counter Intelligence. Making a name for himself by running some big Ops, he was taken under the wing of the director himself, and became like a son to him. Then it was all taken away because of “Politics and a failure of character” within DCI and he was the scape goat. He was banished to Four Corners, Colorado and transferred to a bureau of the DOD no one has heard of.
6 years later, Arkin is called to the scene of a murder of a fundamentalist reverend who ran a hate camp of sorts. Killed with a .50 BMG sniper rifle with armor piercing ammo, clearly this was an assassination and not just a murder.

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Book 6 – Colorado

“In the remote Four Corners region of Colorado, Special Agent Nathaniel Arkin, a disgraced former intelligence officer, investigates the killing of a bigoted, vitriolic preacher who was about to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. In processing the murder scene, Arkin thinks he recognizes the modus operandi of a shadowy group he pursued and was on the verge of exposing years earlier, just before his abrupt fall from grace and exile from Washington, D.C. Rumored to be run by a self-righteous, lapsed Jesuit priest, it was a group Arkin long suspected of orchestrating an international assassination campaign targeting charismatic, fledgling fanatics—future Hitlers and bin Ladens—just as they emerged from obscurity, before they were capable of instigating mass murder. Reluctant, but aching for redemption, Arkin resumes the chase, setting in motion a chain of events that could lead to his salvation—or his doom. Along the way, he confronts a question that has troubled him for many years: What creates murderous fundamentalists and fanatics like Hitler and bin Laden in the first place?”

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January Reading Recap

5 books

1,717 pages

Average rating 3.8

Murder at Harbor Village 🌟🌟🌟🌟

American Predator 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Bound Through the Ashes 🌟🌟🌟

A Painted House 🌟🌟🌟

1st to Die 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Off to a good start to the year!  Had some really great picks and some that were just okay.  I was most excited to read American Predator and I was not disappointed!  1st to Die has been on my TBR list for so long and I am so happy that I finally got around to reading it.  This series has instantly become one of my favorites. 

I am very thankful for Lyrical Underground, Viking Books, and Danelle Nelson for proving me with some of these good reads!

Check them out!

What was your favorite read from January?

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Book Review – 1st to Die

1st to Die (Women's Murder Club, #1)

1st to Die by James Patterson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Crime Thriller Mystery

“What is the worst thing anyone has ever done? Phillip Campbell asked himself again, heart pounding in his chest. Was it this? Had he just done it? Not yet, a voice inside answered. Not quite yet.”

Homicide inspector Lindsey Boxer is called to the Mandarine Suite of the Grand Hyatt where a prominent couple that had just gotten married the night before are found brutally murdered.

“She was so young and beautiful: calm, tranquil, and undisturbed except for three crimson flowers of blood spread on her white chest. She looked as if she were a sleeping princess awaiting her prince, but her prince was in the other room, his guts spilled all over the floor.”

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Book 5 – California

“In San Francisco, newlyweds are being stalked – and slaughtered.  Enter four unforgettable women, all friends…Lindsey, a homicide inspector in the city’s police department…Claire, a medical examiner… Jill, an assistant D.A. …and Cindy, a reporter who has just started working the crime desk of the San Francisco Chronicle.  Joining forces, pooling their talents, courage, and brains, they have one goal:  to find, trap, and outwit the most diabolical and terrifying killer ever imagined.”

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Book 4 – Arkansas

Summer 1952,  in the Arkansas Delta a 7 year old boy, Luke Chandler, faces a summer of secrets no young boy should be exposed to.  Two groups of migrant workers arrive to pick the cotton fields for the Chandlers, two very dangerous men among them.  A brutal murder, a fatherless baby is born, and other secrets Luke slowly unfolds that will change his and his family’s lives forever.

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Book Review – Bound Through the Ashes

Bound Through the Ashes (Bound #1)

Bound Through the Ashes by Danelle Nelson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Time travel, Western, Romance

Lorena Durrell is a 28 year old single woman living in Alaska, working at a job she hates. She has enough one day, quits her job and heads to Arizona for a vacation to visit her grandparents and the home she left 15 years ago. Lorena goes to visit the Montezuma Well alone, looking forward to having a nice hike and taking some great pictures that she can bring back and show her grandparents. She makes her way over to the historic cliff dwellings and as she wanders in to have a closer look, she meets an old Indian woman.
“This is not your time, you are needed elsewhere. Young child, I have seen you in my dreams. I have seen you in a time far away. The Mountain Spirits have come to me, they have showed me your life. The life you have yet to live.”

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Book 3 – Arizona

Lorena is tired of the Merry-go-round her life has become.  She quits her hated job and decides to take a much needed vacation in Arizona.  She makes a trip to the Montezuma Well, where she meets an old Indian woman.  Lorena ends up catapulted into the year 1826.  Arizona during the wild wild west, cowboys and outlaws.  There she meets a cattle herder who changes everything.  Lorena must make the unbearable decision of returning back to her own time or remaining in 1826 with Alexandre Castro.

“Disclosure: Bound Through the Ashes contains steamy romance and dark subject matter and may not be suitable for all audiences. Reader discretion is advised.”  😊 Ooh.  Ready for a little change of pace. 

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Book Review – American Predator

American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century by Maureen Callahan

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


True Crime, Nonfiction

Who is Israel Keys?

“The rarest form of murder is serial. Despite what we see on CSI or Mindhunter or the films and procedures that dominate popular culture, people who kill randomly and for no reason are extremely uncommon. It’s also why many of us think we know of every such American killer. But the subject of this book was unlike anything the FBI had ever encountered. He was a new kind of monster, likely responsible for the greatest string of unsolved disappearances and murders in modern American History. And you have probably never heard of him.”

It all came to light when a young girl was kidnapped from a coffee stand in Anchorage Alaska.

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Book 2 – Alaska

“The rarest form of murder is serial.  Despite what we see on CSI or Mindhunter or the films and procedures that dominate popular culture, people who kill randomly and for no reason are extremely uncommon.  It’s also why many of us think we know of every such American killer.  But the subject of this book was unlike anything the FBI had ever encountered. He was a new kind of monster, likely responsible for the greatest string of unsolved disappearances and murders in modern American History.  And you have probably never heard of him.”

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