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Title: The Break Down

Author: B. A. Paris

Type: Fiction

Page Count: 432

Rating: 4/5

I normally find thriller novels pretty hit and miss, but I’ve quite enjoyed what I’ve read of B. A. Paris so far. I might even be slightly more kindly disposed towards her because I was sent a copy of Behind Closed Doors, her first novel, ahead of its publication.

I think part of it is the fact that her writing just feels a little more polished to me. There’s a sort of style of writing that’s pretty common amongst thriller writers that just grates on me somehow, a way with words that just feels clunky and which pulls me out of the story. That doesn’t seem to happen with B. A. Paris.

Still, it wasn’t flawless. One of my biggest problems with it was a scene in which a group of French students steal a phone and then give it to the main character. I don’t want to say too much because I don’t want to spoil things for you, but it was kind of a Deus Ex Machina kind of thing where it all just felt too coincidental. And if it hadn’t happened, the whole story couldn’t have taken place.

Overall though, I did enjoy reading this, and I was particularly impressed by how gripping it was. I found it difficult to put down, and there wasn’t a slowdown in the story towards the middle, which I find is pretty typical in thriller novels. I think it probably also helped that it did some fun stuff with layout towards the end as we start to see a series of text messages, and this meant that the page was broken up and you could whizz through a dozen pages in just a couple of minutes. I think that layout might annoy some people, but not me.

So would I recommend The Break Down? Absolutely. It’s a refreshing little read in a genre that’s been done to death. In fact, I think that most people would probably enjoy it even if they don’t consider themselves to be thriller readers, and that’s saying something. It’s just pretty approachable, and it does a great job of the whole “twist” thing, to the point at which you could probably re-read it and still enjoy it because you’d start to look for the clues.

Now that I’ve enjoyed both this book and Behind Closed Doors, I think we can safely say that I’m a fan of B. A. Paris, and I’ll definitely check out more stuff.

Learn more about The Break Down.

George R. R. Martin and Lisa Tuttle – Windhaven | Review

Title: Windhaven

Author: George R. R. Martin and Lisa Tuttle

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 388

Rating: 8/10

George R. R. Martin and Lisa Tuttle – Windhaven

This book was interesting, because one of the writers is George R. R. Martin, the guy behind the A Song of Ice and Fire series which, in turn, was adapted into a TV show as Game of Thrones. I’ve always thought it’s strange when two authors work together on a single book, mainly because it’s difficult to tell who contributed what.

Luckily, I’m happy to judge the book without giving too much of a damn who wrote it – I’ve always thought that the identity of the author is unimportant, and I think that if publishers switched to accepting manuscripts based on their merit, rather than who wrote them, we’d see a lot more talent in front of a mainstream audience.

But that’s neither here nor there. What we have here is a book that A. E. van Vogt – whoever that is – described as both romance and science fiction, but that I see more as a straight up fantasy novel. It follows the life of a woman called Maris, who challenges tradition and finds that this challenge could have led to unexpected consequences.

George R. R. Martin

See, Maris wants to be a flyer, a right which is traditionally handed down through blood. Anyone can fly, but they have to have a certain passion for it, and Maris certainly has that passion – she wants to soar in the skies on her metal wings, delivering messages between the islands.

The story line started slowly at first, at least for me, but I soon found myself getting dragged into it, although I did find it hard to love the characters from time to time. But the cool thing is that the characters are defined by the events that surround them, and vice versa. That makes them feel fully fleshed out, and more realistic than they might otherwise have felt.

Overall then, this was a fun little read, and one that would be suitable for younger readers, as well as for folks like myself who just like a cracking read, a well-told story that obeys all of the rules of a classic fairy tale without actually managing to be one. I read it in just a couple of days – I gobbled it up.