Who Gets The Apartment by Steven Rigolosi

 

 

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It all started with a newspaper ad.

Corrine Jensen’s life it about to change. And not for the better.  Facing eviction from her current home because she can’t afford the condo fees, she wonders if she will end up homeless and on the streets.

Untill she reads a classified ad on the “Bulletin Board” of the Clarion, a community newspaper published on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. At first Corrine can’t believe her eyes; a luxury apartment for $600 a month? There had to be some sort of mistake. Corrine contacts the rental agent, Andrew Weisch, who assures her that there is no mistake. The apartment can be hers for first and last month’s rent.

Corrine can’t believe her luck. She pays Weisch first and last and he hands her the keys to apartment 18D. He tells her she can move in on the first and Corrine is overjoyed and believes that her luck may finally be changing.

Until she goes to move in.

When she arrives at apartment 18 D, she finds that the apartment has also been promised to three other people: Ollie, and up and coming artist, Venice, an assistant district attorney and Ian, a computer expert. They’ve all been promised the apartment and each has paid first and last months rent. They’ve all been duped.

They examine their leases and find that each one of them is a legally binding document. But now the question remains: Who gets the apartment? Each of the four has no place to go, they’re all essentially homeless; and each of them wants the apartment very, very badly. So who gets the apartment? But more importantly…

….what is each of them willing to do to get it?

Be warned before you start reading: this is not your average run of the mill mystery. Who Gets The Apartment? Is a serious mind trip that just gets better with each page. A quick prologue gives you the impression that you are in for a wild ride but you have no idea what’s coming.

What sets this novel apart from other mysteries is that you are given four possible scenarios, each more puzzling than the last, and you have no idea which one is the real outcome of the situation until the very end. It’s almost like a choose your own adventure except you’re shown each outcome and the story won’t let you go.

I absolutely loved this book. It gives the mystery genre something to be immensely proud of. Rigolosi has crafted four very different scenarios of guile, suspense and pitch perfect humour that the novel moves forward at break neck speed.

The characters are unique and far from the usual cookie cutter talking heads that populate normal mysteries and you would swear you know someone exactly like them. Rigolosi is really an expert in studying the human mind and uses this to great flair within the pages of Who Gets the Apartment?

I haven’t had so much fun reading a mystery in eons. Who Gets the Apartment? is perfect for a day at the beach, a ride on the bus. It’s good for anywhere you want to be entertained because one thing is for sure: Once you start Who Gets the Apartment? you won’t want to put it down until the very last page.

Circle of Assassins by Steven Rigolosi

 

Revenge is Sweet

Every day we are brutalized by those who hurt us, take advantage of us, steal what is ours, mistreat our loved ones, destroy our property, terrorize us psychologically, criticize and condemn us, or trample our self respect. Enough is enough! It’s time to turn the tables. Write to A care of Box 270. (For entertainment purposes only) 

 

When five people answer the above ad, they have no idea that they have started a chain reaction that will result in the ultimate revenge: death. Each answers the ad in hopes to rid their life of an unwanted person. Someone known only as “A” offers to help them, if they kill someone else.

The deal is simple: Five strangers each assigned a letter and a colour. Each will receive details in the mail about the person they are to kill. Each of them must be careful to leave no paper trail and to destroy any and all communication.
Coordinated by “A”, they are each sent letters, pictures and address information in order to more effectively murder the person their contact has chosen. But why must these people die? There are all sorts of different reasons for someone to die; maybe this person is a drug dealer. Maybe he is a pedophile. Maybe he is not who he seems on the surface.

They become a circle of killers, a circle of assassins. Their identities are hidden, even to themselves. But, as with most secrets, something goes horribly wrong.

Each of them must reach deep down into their hearts, and their souls, in order to survive…

To tell you any more of the plot would be to ruin what is without a doubt the most engaging and ingenious mystery novel I have read in years. Make no mistake; this is not your ordinary mystery novel. Told in a series of letters, emails, book proposals, prose, newspaper articles and anything in between, this novel really makes you consider the question “What if?”

What Rigolosi has done is turn a mystery novel inside out. Through the correspondence, we get inside the characters’ heads. We know WHY they have chosen their particular person, what has driven them to such extremes. Normally, you don’t feel sympathy for a killer in a mystery novel. Circles of Assassins is the opposite of this; I felt nothing but sympathy for each of the characters driven to commit murder.

Because it’s told from each character’s point of view, you get to see them, really know them, and this makes Circle of Assassins different from anything you have read before. I found myself rooting for the murderers, hoping that their killings would go off without a hitch. Because you know the killers, you’re involved with them. It’s an emotional, page turning adventure that will leave you breathless.

Rigolosi has given us a case study of five people who are willing and able to commit murder. No other book I’ve read before has been able to see into the heart of a killer so effectively. He also shows us that even regular people, not just psychopaths, can be driven to kill.

What really threw me were the multitude of twists thrown into the novel. Nothing happened the way I expected it to, nothing went according to where I thought it should. And the twists are HUGE. I can’t tell you what any of them are but, suffice it to say, they will have you looking at the book in a new, frightening light.

This book is so good that I’m reading it for a second time, just to pick up everything I missed the first time. Circle of Assassins is an incredible read that sucks you in from the first page and then doesn’t let go until you’ve finished the last. If you haven’t read it yet, pick it up. It’s liable to be the best mystery you’ll read in years.

Billionaire Extraordinaire by Leanne Banks

 

I finished this book in a day and it was a sheer delight.

I’ve only read one other book by Leanne Banks and it was Hot Stuff, co-authored with Janet Evanovich. So I really had no idea what to expect when picked it up as I had never read a book written by Banks on her own. But I did have a vague idea that it would enjoyable.

Thankfully it was more than that. Billionaire Extraordinaire was a sheer, lovely delight from start to finish. And one of the better contemporary romances I’ve read in a while.

Emma Weatherfield is worried. She has been assigned as an Administrative Assistant to Damien Medici, a billionaire who has been chosen to reorganize Megalos-De-Luca Enterprises, the company she works for. And reorganization means cutting jobs.

She’s been asked by her two former bosses, Alex and Max, to spy on Damien and make sure that she reports all information necessary to protect the company directly to them. Emma knows that she can do this. All she has to do is fake it and she’s been faking it since she was six years old.

But she doesn’t count on Damien Medici being so incredibly good looking and handsome. Nor does she count on that little flare of desire that erupts inside of her every time she looks at him.

Damien has his own agenda as well: years ago, the Megalos-De-Luca family ruined the Medici’s, leaving them in poverty and Damien and his brothers in foster care. He sees this contract as the perfect way to settle an old score. And he will achieve this using whatever means necessary. Even if this means seducing Emma to gather information of his own.

What he doesn’t count on is falling for Emma Weatherfield.  Revenge is much more difficult when the heart, and emotions, are involved…

This is a fabulous read. It’s under 200 pages so it’s a quick one, but I wasn’t able to put it down and was hooked from page one. The writing is crisp and funny, the desire is full of fire and passion. It’s a great read whether your on the beach or you wish you were.

If you want a great romantic read, pick up Billionaire Extraordinaire; it will leave you breathless and wanting more!

Men of the Otherworld by Kelley Armstrong

 

I love the Otherworld Series by Kelley Armstrong.

That being said, I had never read the free novellas that she offered on her web site. I don’t know why this is. Part of it has to do with the fact that I love holding the book in my hand. The other part of it, I guess, was that I didn’t want to read anything outside the actual series of books.

I know, finicky but true.

But I was extremely excited to hear that most of the online fiction would be taken off of Kelley’s web site and published into a couple of collections, the first of which is Men of the Otherworld.

I was a trifle worried that it would read like a bunch of mismatched short stories that wouldn’t really flow together very well. However, I am happy to report that I was way more than wrong.

Men of the Otherworld consists of the tales Infusion, Savage, Ascension and Kitsunegari, the collection of otherworld tales actually reads like a novel. The book follows the progress of the men of the pack including Jeremy’s birth, Clay’s being bitten, his training and acceptance of his new life.

In fact, though these tales were written at the same time as the novels, because of how they are arranged, they make for a better read than some of the more recent Women of the Otherworld novels. Not because those novels were bad; far from it. More, I think, because there is an urgency to these tales, a need that burns off the page.

If you’ve never read Kelley Armstrong’s novels before, Men of the Otherworld is actually a great place to start as everything but the last story takes place before the series itself.

And with all of Kelley Armstrong’s proceeds going to World Literacy of Canada, you’re getting a great read and doing something good. How can you go wrong?

The Deadline Murders by Ron Morgans

 

I am not really a big fan of mystery novels.

I find that a lot of mystery authors kind of move their characters around, try to surprise us with red herrings or twists in the plot that aren’t really twists as we can see right through them. The other problem mystery novels have is that they’re boring. I just flat out can’t read most of them.

There are a few mystery authors that I do like however: Agatha Christie, Minette Walters, Mo Hayder. I know that when I see their name on the cover of a book I can (usually) expect a great read from them.

However: Ron Morgans blows them all out of the water. Really, he does.

The Deadline Murders is the freshest and most fun mystery I have read in years. It’s heroine, Henrietta Fox, is a paparazzo, a celebrity photographer. She’s tall, lean and has flaming red hair to match her Irish temper. At the beginning of The Deadline Murders, she’s pissed that she’s at the Farnborough Air Show instead of photographing some sort of celebrity mess up.

That all changes when a plane, a prototype Sumxu military transport plane from China nosedives and crashes, bursting into flames. Henrietta captures this all on film, not realizing that she has just started events in motion that could mean her death.

She teams up with newspaper reporter Cass Farraday and, as the two begin to dig further into events, they realize that five reporters have each been murdered and Henrietta might just be the next in line…

This is an absolutely wonderful mystery. If you read one good book this summer, make sure it’s this one. The Deadline Murders is fresh, funny, fast and furious. It hooks you from page one and doesn’t let go.

I can’t wait to read the other books in the series. 

Italian for Tourists by Jo Lindsell

 

I have always wanted to learn Italian.

There are several reasons for this; but most of all because the language sounds so incredibly beautiful. I would listen to foreign films, to operas, to Italian music and think to myself: I wish I could speak in such a beautiful language.

I would wonder, though, what I would do if I ever travelled to Italy. I’ve looked at every phrase book, every guide book and found no help within their pages. They would talk of grammar, punctuation, places to visit, sites of interest. But none of them ever taught me how to speak Italian.

Until now.

Upon flipping through Italian for Tourists by Jo Lindsell, the whole book looked rather simplistic. After reading through the book several times, I realized that this was part of the books beauty.

What Jo has done is to take a language and bring it back to it’s basics, back to its beauty. She has made the impossible possible with Italian for Tourists: she has helped me to learn another language.

I often struggle with learning new languages and new phrases, but Jo makes it incredibly easy. Italian for Tourists gives you every bit of language that you could possibly need if you were on holiday in Italy.

Divided into seventeen sections, all a tourist has to do is skim the table of contents and skip to the correct section. Sections include hotels, sight seeing, food and drink, greetings and more. Even better, each word and each phrase comes with a pronunciation guide, helping you speak like a true Italian in no time.

I never knew that learning another language could be so simple, so helpful and so much fun. If ever you are going to visit Italy, this is the only book you will need!

Private Midnight by Kris Saknussemm

 

Inside all of us is something wanting to break free.

No one knows this better than Detective Birch Ritter. He is a man on the edge of himself and he doesn’t know if he can keep himself from falling. Divorced and alone, he lives for his job. His job is his life. The long hours keep him from thinking of what could be.

And especially what was.

While investigating a case where a business man was chained to the inside of his car and the car set aflame, he receives a visit from an old police buddy, someone he never thought he would see again. Someone who knew his secrets.

Saying nothing, the man leaves Ritter only a business card with an address written on the card in what looks like scarves. The words move and shift; Ritter knows this must be a trick of the light, or his mind playing tricks on him. The past can haunt you in many ways.

Knowing that he should just ignore the business card, something pulls at him to go. He knows that going to an address written on a mysterious card left by someone who knows his past could be dangerous.

But something compels him to go.

When he arrives, he meets Genevieve. A curvy red head with looks that won’t quit, he follows her inside her house, still not sure what he is doing there or why he came. He is entranced by her, almost hypnotized. Shocked by her beauty and what she wants him to do.

Genevieve introduces Ritter to the world of bondage. Shock collars and blindfolds, submission and darkness. She knows things she could not possibly know, knows secrets from his past that he has told no one about. Though he is frightened of her, he cannot stay away.

The deeper he follows her into the darkness, the more of his past confronts him until all he is left with is a choice: cling to his safe, boring, lonely life? Or embrace the midnight darkness that waits inside of him? As Genevieve strips Ritter physically, emotionally and physiologically, he knows that he has no choice.

He must submit and change his life forever…

My meagre plot description doesn’t even come close to describing how great this book is. Its part gumshoe detective story, part noir thriller, part erotica and part something else altogether. Combined, all these elements make one of the best and most frightening novels I have ever read. Indeed, Private Midnight is one of the best books of 2009 so far.

Private Midnight defies genre. There is absolutely no way to categorize this book. It is not simple fiction. Instead it is an incredible tour-de-force that defies all genres, transcends them all and becomes something all its own.

For me, reading Private Midnight was like being inside a train that was destined to crash. It was like watching a car wreck in slow motion; I knew what would come would challenge my ideals of what is normal and acceptable, that it would make me uncomfortable and leave me haunted. But I welcomed every blood soaked word.

Not only is Private Midnight an incredible mystery, it is also the ultimate study in human nature. What makes us tick? What are our desires? What frightens us? What happens when fear, pleasure and desire are mixed together? What drives us to stay away from the darkness or give into it and swim in its depths?

While reading Private Midnight I was shocked, uncomfortable, thrilled and frightened. Rarely has a book affected me in so many different ways. Many authors would not be able to write a book that transcends genre and make it good. Saknussemm does this and more and the result is a heady, incredible thriller that is seedy, sexy, thrilling and tantalizing.

If you read one good book this Spring, make sure its Private Midnight.

And discover the darkness inside of you…

Tangled Roots by Sue Guiney

 

There is something wrong with John.

He should be happy. He knows this. His niece, Amanda, has just married her fiancée. He is well off. He is a respected physics professor. He has money in the bank and can live comfortably for some time. He is good looking and women still find him attractive. He has money to spare and everything in his life is ordered and in it’s proper place.

But still, something is bothering him, something is eating away at him from the inside. John is obsessed with time. He calculates it, studies it, peers at it day in and day out. But he can’t control it. He can’t control his past, present or his future. His is angry at the world, furious for reasons he can’t put into words. But he knows that the trouble started in London.

That the trouble started with his mother.

John does not have fond memories of his mother. After a family tragedy, his mother was a different person. She was no longer his mother but someone more. She was different, her habits were different. And she no longer had time to be his mother. Though he is loathe to admit it, John still carries those scars of what he sees as her betrayal.

While John has one way of looking at things, his own secrets to hide, his mother has her own stories to tell. Grace remembers everything; every word, every occasion, every utterance. She tells her story, tells what really happened, her voice firmly rooted in the past.

She is a consummate storyteller, a spinner of tales with the occasional exaggeration thrown in for good measure. Through her eyes, we hear a different side of things and discover some incredible secrets about life itself.

And though John is loath to go back to London, where all the trouble with his mother started, he will have to go. And what he finds there may be his undoing…

There is no way that my meager plot summary can ever hope to do justice to Tangled Roots. There is so much substance, so much emotion and so much story tucked between the covers of this incredible novel that it would take me pages and pages to describe every delicious detail.

Tangled Roots isn’t a novel you read. It’s a novel you experience. Though at first the shifting of narrators is a bit jarring, it slowly grows to comfort you. You will be reading about John, absorbed in his troubles and turn the page to find Grace waiting for you like an old friend. Though John and Grace’s stories are incredibly different, one rooted in the present, one in the past, both stories are the same and grow from the same bond.

Part mystery, part education on physics, part family drama, part oral history, Tangled Roots is a novel that defies classification. It is also incredibly, wonderfully beautiful. Sue Guiney has written a novel of such beauty, such seemingly simple storylines that, before you know it, the roots of the story have grown into you and won’t let go until you finish the last page.

Sue Guiney has also written a novel that everyone can identify with. How many of us have had troubles with our mothers? How many of us have had trouble with our lives? How many of us struggle with the past that has made us as we are in the present? How many of us struggle with our present so our future is controllable?

Guiney has given us two distinctly different narrators, but we can relate to both of them. She has given us a story of physics, baseball and human nature and the power of story. John and Grace become friends, confidants when the book is done and I know that they will haunt me forever.

Tangled Roots is one of the most amazing books I have ever read. I urge you, plead with you to read Tangled Roots. It will dip its roots into your imagination and you will never want it to let go.

Fury Calls by Caridad Pineiro

 

 

Blake Richards is a vampire haunted by the past.

Four years ago, he was forced to either sire Meghan Thomas, making her a vampire, or risk having her die. So he did the only thing he could do and turned her…and lost the only woman he had ever loved.

Though he is still tortured by his love for her, Blake knows that he will have to make it up to her, somehow. And maybe then, she can forgive him…

Angry at having her life taken away from her, Meghan doesn´t want anything to do with Blake. She misses her former life, misses what she once was. She is fueled by anger at having her life taken from her, at having the decision made for her.

Meghan is also haunted by the past and can´t forget the attraction she felt for Blake, the attraction she still feels for him. Fury fills her every time she thinks of him and yet, she can´t stop herself thinking of Blake and the passion they shared.

Both of them must put aside their fury and anger when something threatens the vampire community. Bodies of vampires are found, ravaged beyond recognition.

Blake and Meghan come together to try and find out what is killing others of their kind. During the investigation, the attraction that they feel for each other starts to grow stronger until neither of them can ignore it.

But they are in a race against time. Though no one knows who has been killing the vampires, there are suspicions. And those suspicions begin to fall on Blake.

Meghan must put aside her fury and make a choice: Is Blake the man she could love? Or is he a killer?

If you haven´t read the other novels, there is no need to. Pineiro manages to make each novel stand alone as a complete and wonderful story.

The newest book in Caridad Pineiro´s amazing The Calling series is the best yet and is one of the best romances I have ever read. It has everything you could possibly want in a romance novel: a thrilling plot, amazing characters, and an incredible dark storyline.

But Fury Calls is so much more than that.

In Fury Calls, Piniero has given us a story of true, bittersweet emotion. She has given us a novel where the characters on the page are so alive, they seem to live and breathe off of the pages. She has given us the ultimate love story that pulls at your heart and your emotions. Not an easy feat to manage, but Pineiro pulls this off with style and grace.

Though this is the seventh full novel in The Calling Series, Pineiro manages to keep things fresh by giving us a hero and a heroine that we care about, that we become emotionally involved with. She also manages to keep the mythology of the vampire new and fresh by introducing different elements never before seen.

Fury Calls is also her darkest offering yet in The Calling series. There were several uncomfortable moments in Fury Calls, but Pineiro handled them with ease. Unafraid of taking the series to new, darker places, she forces the reader to confront the darkness within themselves and the world around them.

The Calling Series, though about vampires, is really the ultimate study in human nature. What drives someone to love, to hate, to kill? And though the characters that populate the series are vampires, Pineiro still manages to make them incredibly vulnerable, incredibly human. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Fury Calls.

Fury Calls is a dark, incredible ride and I didn´t want it to end. It´s a wonderful story of love, lust, murder and redemption that leaves the reader wanting more. It´s one of the most amazing romances that I have ever had the pleasure of reading.

Do yourself a favor and read Fury Calls and experience true, exquisite passion.

Honor Calls by Caridad Pineiro

 

Michaela Ramirez has always fought what she was. Literally.

A half vampire, she is a huntress in the night as she finds and then kills vampires who have no regard or respect for humanity. She is called by honor to defend others, driven by her past and by what she is to do the right thing.

Even if it means putting herself in the line of fire.

FBI Assistant Director, Jesus Hernandez, has always believed in what he can see and touch. He has seen a fair share of crime in his lifetime. He knows that evil lurks on the streets of Manhattan and that it is his job to protect its citizens.

Despite the darkness that Jesus has seen, his current case worries him. It feels different. Bodies left out in the open, their throats ravaged to a bloody mess.

Knowing that the killer may have left a trail, Jesus decides to stop by The Blood Bank, a popular Goth hang out, for clues. He knows that The Blood Bank caters to those who favor the darkness, who like the darker things in life.

Though he knows there are those who whisper of things going bump in the night, the rumors hold no credence for him. He is a man who needs truth, who is called by honor to uphold the truth and the law.

All that is challenged when he arrives at The Blood Bank. In an alleyway, he spies Michaela attacking what he thinks is a man. Then Jesus sees the glowing eyes of the beast and knows that the attacker is something different. Something not human.

Though his honor demands he uphold the law, he is drawn to Michaela by an incredible attraction. And though her honor is put to the test, something in Jesus pulls at Michaela´s heart, something dangerous.

As the attraction between them grows, both of them know that, in the end, they must heed the call of their honor; despite what it may cost them…

Honor Calls is one of the best romances I have ever read. Caridad Pineiro is well known for creating a thrilling story with great characters and a moving plot but she has outdone herself this time. Not only do we get thrilling danger and searing love, but her characters are beautifully flawed.

Jesus is so bound by what he can see and touch that, when he is confronted with something other than the ordinary, he struggles inwardly. Michaela is so bound by revenge that, when she has to stop and contemplate the attraction she feels for Jesus, the fear she feels if he should run for her, the worry is palpable.

Though a short read, what Pineiro has given us is really a study in human, and un-human nature. She has taken something that all of us deal with and given it a supernatural twist.

How many times have all of us struggled with something we wanted, though we knew that it might be bad for us? How many times has we denied ourselves pleasure, though our hearts and minds have called out for it?

Honor Calls is an incredible, wonderful read that will help you chase away an afternoon and leaving you craving more. Do yourself a favor and read Honor Calls.

Heed the Call and fall prey to passion…you won’t regret it.