18 | December | 2018

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by The Purple Booker.
Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This is my choice of the day:
Hurricane – Book 3 in the Hive Mind series by Janet Edwards

42% I pulled back into my own head, and opened my eyes to look out of the window. No, this was no hallucination, but shocking reality. The beach had some similarities to one of the Hive beaches, but the sight of the sea devastated me.

This sea was nothing like the ones on Hive beaches. This sea was a powerful, menacing grey, with giant waves that threw themselves at the beach in anger, and the far cliffs…

There were no far cliffs. There were no supporting pillars either. The sea stretched on unbroken into the distance, as if it reached to the end of eternity.

BLURB: Eighteen-year-old Amber is the youngest of the five telepaths who protect the hundred million citizens of one of the great hive cities of twenty-sixth century Earth. Her job is hunting down criminals before they commit their crimes, but this time a simple case leads on to something far bigger.

This is a case where Amber’s team have to face the unknown and break all the rules they usually follow, while Amber has extra burdens she can’t share with anyone. She has a personal mystery to solve, and questions she wants answered, but curiosity is a dangerous trait in a telepath.

I really enjoy Janet Edwards’ writing – see my review of the first book in the series Telepath. This near-future world has most of the population living in close quarters underground and once again, I’m enjoying the adventures of this likeable protagonist. She is growing up fast with the huge responsibility resting on her shoulders – and circumstances are stacking up to crisis that only she can solve – with catastrophic consequences if she doesn’t… I’m finding it hard to put this one down!

I have heard good things about Cudney’s writing from a number of book blogging friends, particularly Rae Longest, so when I got the Goodreads invitation to read his latest release, I was delighted to accept. This is my honest, unbiased opinion of the book.

When Kellan Ayrwick, a thirty-two-year-old single father, is forced to return home for his father’s retirement from Braxton College, he finds the dead body of a professor in Diamond Hall’s stairwell. Unfortunately, Kellan has a connection to the victim, and so do several members of his family. Could one of them be guilty of murder?

I really enjoyed this one. Kellan has had some tragedy in his past life and now is attempting to bring up his daughter alone and establish a career in Hollywood, dealing with an obstructive boss. But that doesn’t prevent him being a chippy character, who isn’t thrilled at returning to the family home, yet again, leaving his young daughter in the care of his in-laws. His father is a rather distant workaholic and his mother seems very wrapped up in her career, while his nan is full of snark and never happier than when she’s feuding with someone, including her frenemy. It’s intriguing to have a murder mystery where a whole family is involved, including Kellan’s sister.

But as is often the case in cosy murder mysteries, this is a closed community. So we get to know a fair number of the characters, including Kellan’s former best friend, who is now the security officer on the campus and the grumpy sheriff who has the responsibility for solving this one. Kellen is busy trying to work out if any of the cast of suspects were actually responsible for the murder, while keeping on the right side of those who are officially attempting to solve the crime. It means this plot is twistier than a corkscrew, while the stakes go on getting steadily higher. There is plenty of snark and attitude as the sheriff is determinedly dismissive of Kellen’s efforts, while his nan is busy trying to find him a girlfriend.

With all this going on, it could have been so easy for the plot to descend into a morass of pointless clues, confused characters and dodgy pacing. However Cudney keeps absolute control of the narrative throughout and the result is a delightfully intricate bit of plotting – I certainly didn’t work out whodunit, and once I did, it made absolute sense. Highly recommended for fans of quality cosy mysteries.
9/10