Review: The Haunted - Bentley Little

Book Completed 8/12/2012 - Days it Took to Complete: 3.5

 

 

Summary: A typical family of 4 moves from one to another because, well, just because. The new house is pretty cool at first as everyone's rooms are bigger and they have a yard where they can have a garden. Weird events start happening in the house. Events such as family members having the same dream about a old, homeless man in the basement with really white teeth hiding out or the laundry basket keeps moving in kitchen. Eventually the daughter has a sleepover and notices the evil spirit toying with one her friend while she sleeps. The presence is so powerful, in fact it can text and email you threatening words so as to wield it's power.  It even omits a sexual accelerator to the husband Julian and wife Claire that they're not used to. Eventually they discover the house is on ancient land that has had evil around it for centuries. Claire and the kids move out but Julian is staying put as he believes he has found away to get rid of the demonic spirit. I will not spoil the ending, but I will say it was more satisfying than I had thought it would be and a little surprising as well. 

Thoughts: This is my first read of Bentley Little as he is a pretty straightforward author. He doesn't try and dazzle you with large words and drag his sentences out more than it needs to be. The characters are fairly typical, but the father, Julian is a little too pigheaded as it takes quite a bit of evidence for him to believe that the house is haunted. I thought any rational person, based on the events in the book, would realize that there is something wrong with the house, much less the surrounding neighborhood as everyone is trying to sell their house. Overall a good read and I will try and reas another of his. I will say that there are a few very explicit sex scenes that didn't bother me, but didn't see coming based on the description of the book and what i had read prior to the book.

Final Analysis: 7.5 out of 10 stars

Next Book: American Assassin - Vince Flynn. At the time of this post I was already 255 pages into it as i had read 240 pages yesterday.

Football season has arrived. For a die hard Chiefs' fan, and Viking's fan, hope springs eternal as we get to dream about being the next team to go worst to first. In the real world, the Packers and Pats will play in the Superbowl in 2013. You heard it here first (well okay, maybe 20th), but the game will last roughly 6 hours as neither team will be able to stop the other and in the end, overtime that is, Roger's will hit a very fast Jordy Nelson on a post route and the Packers will win their illustrious 5th Super Bowl.

Final Score: Packers 41 Patriots 35 (OT)

Review: Separation of Power - Vince Flynn

Book Completed 8/8/2012 - Days it Took to Complete: 3 

SUMMARY:

This is the third book in the Mitch Series by Vince Flynn. While I've read others in the series, I'm trying to start at the beginning, since I'm noticing that one story blends into the next story. Here we have Mitch and his soon to be fiancee Anna becoming boyfriend and girlfriend and doing stuff together, but Mitch still cannot divulge information to her that is considered "classified". He wants to take her on a trip to Italy, unfortunately he has to take care of some business while he there. Mainly, he has to find out who wanted him dead in the last book, "Transfer of Power." He knows knows who killed Peter Cameron, it's his former lover and spy partner Donatella, a curvaceous and dark haired beauty, according to the author, who is now a assassin by contract only. One thing leads to another and she is almost killed because she used to work for Israel's version of the CIA and they now want her dead. Mitch gets caught in the middle, he brings a wounded Donatella back to his hotel, Anna freaks out after she finds out this is his former lover (not caring that she was shot, hilarious) and leaves.
Moving forward, the main plot of the book is that Iraq is hiding WMD's under a Baghdad hospital. The president, along with CIA director Irene Kennedy, and cast of thousands (actually more like 8 or 9) plot to infiltrate the hospital under a mask of cruise missiles and bombings and take the nukes out. Mitch and his team succeed and Mitch gets back to the US and he and Anna get back together. Mitch proposes and they become engaged.
The end of the book shows Micth and Donatella covertly taking out the evil Senator Hank Clark (who was the one who had hired Peter Cameron to take out Mitch in the last book.

THOUGHTS:

I great thrill ride from start to finish. Of all the books I've read so far in this series, this one delves more into the emotions and mind of Mitch Rapp. He actually sheds tears and goes back and forth on if he should even be with any woman, much less Anna. The sequence of them infiltrating Baghdad is tense and gripping. I highly recommend this novel to anyone who is a fan of Vince Flynn.

FINAL ANALYSIS:

8 out of 10 stars

NEXT BOOK:

The Haunting by Bentley Little. This will be my first reading of his so I'm looking forward to it. Stephen King highly recommends him and Bentley has won some Bram Stoker awards for his novels. as of 8/9/2012 I'm 20 pages in and so far so good.

Pizza and Power

Today I cooked veggie pizza and read part of Separation of Power by Vince Flynn.