Blogging Is Murder - Gilian Baker Review

(Book Cover Courtesy: Ryan Stabile)

Hello Readers...

As many of you may know....blogging is such a fun activity. Can we actually use the skills which we learn because of blogging in real life and that to for solving a crime mystery....that is what today's book is all about. Blogging For Murder is a crime mystery book written by Gilian Baker. But before beginning with the actual book I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Ryan Stabile for providing the ARC of the book.

Let's quickly take a look at the synopsis followed by the video trailer.

"

Though she was certainly born with all the traits of a world class private detective, blogger Jade Blackwell believed she would do nothing more than solve the murders in her latest favourite cozy mystery book.

Set in mountainous south-eastern Wyoming, Jade Blackwell lives in a log home in the quaint village of Aspen Falls with her husband, Christian and daughter Penelope (Ellie). She left her life as a tenured college English professor at the University of Wyoming four years ago, sick of the bureaucracy, mounds of essay to grade and apathetic students. She turns to blogging and ghostwriting as her new career.

Jade's promising career as a blogger halts abruptly when she learns of a hacker who is controlling her friend and fellow blogger Liz Collin's business remotely. When the hacker is found dead in her home, Liz is thrown in jail.

Determined to help her friend regain her life and livelihood, Jade teams up with Liz's reluctant lawyer, Gabriel Langdon, to get Liz off the hook and out of jail. What she learns will break the case wide open, while unraveling her faith in humanity and the safety she feels living in the Rocky Mountain hamlet she calls home.

An exciting thrill ride from the first page, to the last. Read Gilian Baker's Blogging is Murder, the first book in the Jade Blackwell cozy mystery series!

"

The thing which really grab my attention was the video trailer and the story of the book in itself. The story was looking promising before I began reading it (being a blogger myself I was bound to get attracted). The story is centered around or protagonist blogger Jade Blackwell who uses her interrogation skills which she learned by reading the mystery thriller book for proving the innocence of her fellow blogger friend who is charged of committing a murder. Jade believes that her friend is wrongly acquainted of the murder charge and decides to find the real culprit herself. The story really seems interesting and unique to me and many of you will also feel the same.

The characters feels good but could have been a bit better. The author Gilian Baker did a great job in creating few central characters and created the entire story plot around these few characters which actually makes it easy for the readers to stay with the characters as the story progresses. However, the remaining characters could have been use in a better way. Still no complains..

The writing and the narration is pretty good. The author Gilian Baker has used simple vocabulary and simple language which makes it easy for majority of the readers to enjoy and get engrossed in the story without having to deal with the language difficulty. The narration is excellent. This book had my complete attention since the beginning of the book. Gilian Baker managed to grab my attention in just few pages and I was completely engrossed into the story. The mids and the end were also the same. One interesting thing I would like to highlight is that in the middle when the character was feeling confused as to what was happening...the narration also adapted the same confusion. Loved that aspect....It lets you feel a much intimate affection with the characters itself.

The transitions.....both in terms of the  transition of the story within the chapter and the transition between the chapters were pretty good and was going with the pace of the book. Kudos to Gilian Baker for that.

However, I wished the end could have been planned a little better. I felt the end was little rushed as the author unveiled the complete suspense in just 10-12 pages which slightly bothered me. I would have loved if the end could have been a little better also since the book is just 190 pages....addition of few extra pages could have been better for proper ending to the book. Also, there were few typos at some places. Since, this is an ARC copy....I am expecting this errors to be resolved in the actual release.

So to sum up, I liked the book. For me personally it was good read and worth the time which I spent reading this book. If asked to rate it, I would give this book 3.5 stars out of 5. This book is set for a February 19 release. So if you are interested, here are links to the Amazon from where you can pre-order this book.

Amazon India: Blogging Is Murder by Gilian Baker

Amazon US: Blogging Is Murder by Gilian Baker

So that's all with today's review. I hope you might have liked the review. If you have then don't forget to smash the like button and share it among the reading community. And if you have already read this book then do let me know your opinions in the comment section below....I would love to read them. Also don't forget to SUBSCRIBE to the blog to get all the new post right into you mail box.

So until next time, this is me Sushant signing off. You guys have a great day.

CIAO.

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Absinthe - A.L.Miles Review

(Book Cover Source: Goodreads)

Hello Readers...

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the author of the book, "A.L.Miles" for providing a copy of this book for review.

Lets take a look at the brief synopsis of the book before beginning with the review:

" He pictured my mangled body beneath his. I am going to die, and he is going to be the one to kill me...

Absinthe: I wished for a new life, for a mother that loved me, for my abilities to be stripped from me forever. Instead, I get death. I get pain and heartache. Will I even know happiness before my untimely departure from this life? Do I run or stay and fight my painful ending? My days are numbered. My Ideas are running thin. I am left asking, how am I going to survive this?

Ash: It started with her art, and then it was her body and a simple bet. What is it now? I started as one person at the beginning, but now I wonder, who am I?

Absinthe is a mind reader. She set up a meeting with a potential client and was waiting for him when a man she did not want to see showed up. Her potential client was fake, and the man that showed up was thinking one thing. If this urge was not to heavy, I would keep you around. Unfortunately, for you, I need to kill again, and you, my dear Absinthe, are going to be my victim.

With her life on the line, she must figure out what to do next."

What drew my attention to the book was the cover and the theme of the book. The cover looks stunning and the theme of a girl who has mind reading ability is quite unique. However, I felt that the author couldn't make the most out of the concept. The story could have been a more amazing and interesting if the concept of mind reading was utilised in a more better way.

The story is narrated in the perspective of two people, Ash and Absinthe, who fell in love with each other. The author choose the narration in terms of the two characters in alternate fashion, for eg. if one chapter in narrated with  respect to Absinthe then the subsequent chapter will be narrated with Ash's perspective. However, I felt that the transition could have been a little smother in certain places. The author has written and narrated in simple words and at an appropriate pace. I am sure many of you will have no complain in that regards.

However, I just couldn't connect with the book, the characters and the story. The entire story line for most of the time was moving on the same level. Though, in the end author did a good job in making the novel slightly better as compared to previous sections. Also, many things in the novel were unexplained till the end. The attention to the details was clearly lacking.

This book also contain some content which might not be appropriate for children's below the age group of 14-15. Parents do take a note of this.

So to sum up, this book didn't do well in my opinion. Yes the concept was good but the book was struggling at many fronts. If I have to rate it,  I would give this book 1.5 stars out of 5. Still, if you wanna buy the book, here are the link to the Amazon for the same.

India: Absinthe by A.L.Miles

Outside India: Absinthe by A.L.Miles

So, this is what I feel after reading this book. Do let me know in the comment section what do you feel about the book. Guys if you like this review, do hit the like button and share it among your fellow readers and if you don't, do mention the reason in the comment section below as it will help me to get better and do SUBSCRIBE to the blog to get all the reviews right into your mail box. To know more about Astrid Lee Miles and her recent work you can head on to her website: A.L.Miles

So until next time, this is me Sushant signing off. You guys have a great day.

CIAO.

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The Secret Billionaire - Teymour Shahabi Review

(Book Cover Source: Goodreads)

Hello Readers...

Thanks for being patient with this review. I know many of you were eagerly waiting for the review of this book. But before beginning with the review, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the author of this book "Teymour Shahabi" for providing a copy of this book for the review.

Here is a brief synopsis of this book:

" 1960 - March 24. Billionaire Lyndon Surway takes off  in his private plane and never returns.

His will leaves the entirety of his wealth - one of the largest fortunes in history - to his "dear friend Lucian Baker". Only there is no trace of anyone by that name. And the fortune itself is nowhere to be found.

Andrew Day knows nothing of wealth and privilege, but he won a scholarship to study at the most exclusive school in the country, in the town where the mystery, decades later, remains unsolved. There he discovers friendship and danger with the aristocratic Cameron and the beautiful Olivia. But watchful eyes follow him everywhere...Until, one night, he comes across a secret that will change his life. As he begins to unravel what really happened to the Surway fortune, the question remains; who is Lucian Baker?"

After reading the synopsis, I was really excited about the story and the theme of the book and this book being 430 pages long, I was really pumped up to read such a great story plot unveiled. The cover looks good, the synopsis looks good, the theme looks good. Every thing was looking great with  this book.

I must say, the story is really great and the writer "Teymour Shahabi" has has done an immensely great job in writing this book. This book being 430 pages long, most of us will find difficult to read the entire book in one seating. The writer has ease our job by keeping the chapters small, so that most of us can stay connected with the story. Also the transitioning between the chapters is super smooth. You will start admiring the writers work in terms of the choice of words, the way the chapters are structured, the transitioning of the chapters, the story build up and lot more. The characters are also lively and felt genuine to me. Everyone will have an instant connection with the characters of this book.

The cover looks good, the synopsis looks good, the theme and the concept of the book looks good, the narration and the writing of the author looks good. But everything is not rosy as it feels. Though writer stayed focused with the main theme of the book, but I felt the story build up was just round the central character "Andrew". The use of other characters in the story build up was lacking in my frank opinion. For eg. The use of other characters such as of Cameroon and Olivia and even that of the Brandow felt lacking. I really felt sad that the author miss this opportunity of using such great characters. Also inclusion of more characters around the central story could have made this book and the further story less predictable.

Also the end of the book left lot of questions unanswered. What happened to those mask man? What happened with the Andrew after that? What happened with Cameroon and Olivia? Did the Brandow's got to know of the Andrew's wealth? Many such questions were still unanswered. I feel that the writer rushed a little while conceptualizing the end of this book. A little more attention on the writer's part could have made this novel a stellar book.

So to sum up, if you are a casual reader and want to read a book for good story plot, you will like this book. But if you are too picky just like me about the details and the intricacies of the book. you might feel this book lacking in certain aspects which I mentioned above. So if asked to rate, I will give this book 3 stars out of 5 because of good story and great narration. The book is set for release on 29 September, 2016.

So, this is what I feel after reading this book. Do let me know in the comment section what do you feel about the book. Guys if you like this review, do hit the like button and share it among your fellow readers and if you don't, do mention the reason in the comment section below as it will help me to get better and do SUBSCRIBE to the blog to get all the reviews right into your mail box. To know more about Teymour Shahabi and his recent work you can head on to his website: www.teymourshahabi.com

I would like to end this review with an excerpt of this book:


" And then suddenly, he stopped. He narrowed his eyes. There was a round table in the middle of the landing in front of him. He couldn't tell if the table was big or small, as big as a pond or as small as a pie, because he couldn't understand the proportions of anything around him. But he saw something on the table's surface, something whose size he could grasp. It was a letter. It was folded over. He stepped closer to the table. He could feel his arm reaching for the letter, reaching for the golden initials LS that had been engraved in it long before he was born. And even before he unfolded it, even before he touched it, he knew the letter was for him. He picked it up and smiled, as he read the single word written inside.
Welcome " So until next time, this is me Sushant signing off. You guys have a great day.

CIAO.

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