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Despite a pretty busy schedule, I’ve actually been able to get some decent reading done lately. I think I’ve finished on average a book a week over the last two months which is pretty good for me since I don’t have a lot of spare time. Rather than talk about every book I’ve read recently, I want to focus on two which I feel really stand out from the rest.
The first one is actually more of a series than just one book.
Here is the official blurb for the first book:
Five days after Owen Zastava Pitt pushed his insufferable boss out of a fourteenth story window, he woke up in the hospital with a scarred face, an unbelievable memory, and a job offer. It turns out that monsters are real. All the things from myth, legend, and B-movies are out there, waiting in the shadows. Officially secret, some of them are evil, and some are just hungry. On the other side are the people who kill monsters for a living. Monster Hunter International is the premier eradication company in the business. And now Owen is their newest recruit. It’s actually a pretty sweet gig, except for one little problem. An ancient entity known as the Cursed One has returned to settle a centuries old vendetta. Should the Cursed One succeed, it means the end of the world, and MHI is the only thing standing in his way. With the clock ticking towards Armageddon, Owen finds himself trapped between legions of undead minions, belligerent federal agents, a cryptic ghost who has taken up residence inside his head, and the cursed family of the woman he loves.
Business is good . . .
Welcome to Monster Hunter International.
I read the first book in Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter series (Monster Hunter International) at the beginning of 2011. Leah and I both loved the book, but it took awhile for us to get to the sequels. I just finished the third book, Monster Hunter Alpha, shortly after completing Monster Hunter Vendetta.
As a result of the series, Correia is becoming one of my favorite authors. His POVs are distinct and enjoyable. Although he relies on standard tropes throughout the series, Correia is able to put a unique spin on many of them. Generally the dialogue is great (though there are a few cheesy moments). The action/fight scenes (lots of guns and big weapons) are a huge strength of the series and coupled with brisk pacing, it’s not hard to finish these books fairly quickly.
You don’t have to read fantasy to enjoy this series. Do yourself a favor and give it a shot.
The second book is called Flee.
Here’s the blurb:
CODENAME: CHANDLER
She's an elite spy, working for an agency so secret only three people know it exists. Trained by the best of the best, she has honed her body, her instincts, and her intellect to become the perfect weapon.
FLEE
Then her cover is explosively blown, and she becomes a walking bulls-eye, stalked by assassins who want the secrets she holds, and those who'd prefer she die before talking.
Chandler now has twenty-four hours to thwart a kidnapping, stop a murderous psychopath, uncover the mystery of her past, retire five highly-trained contract killers, and save the world from nuclear annihilation, all while dodging 10,000 bullets and a tenacious cop named Jack Daniels.
This was both my first time reading a JA Konrath novel and also the first time I've read anything in the thriller genre. Needless to say, I'll be trying out more by Konrath, especially within this series. The best compliment I can give the book is that I felt like I was watching a huge Hollywood blockbuster while reading it. The pacing was great, the protagonist suffered a lot, and the POVs were very tight and well written.
My only real complaint is an overly graphic sex scene. As I’ve discussed in a previous post, I just don't like reading about sex in my fiction so I skipped over it, stopping only when I thought there might have been something relevant for character development. It turns out there wasn’t. I feel like the scene could have happened off camera and the story would have been just as strong.
Besides that, this is another story worth your time.
So, what have you been reading?
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