New Challenge

This month, the month of May, I have my exams. I'm not looking forward to it. So this is a simple challenge.

Read the book that you most recently bought.

For me that's the new paperback JD Robb book. I love JD Robb books, I have read every single one, and I adore Eve Dallas. So this is a pretty easy challenge for me, because I know I'm going to love this book.

It was just another after-work happy-hour bar downtown, where business professionals unwound with a few drinks, complained about the boss, maybe hooked up with someone for the night. Until something went terribly wrong. At first it was just a friction in the air. The noise intensified. The crow seemed oppressive. some sharp words were exchanged, some pushing and shoving. 

Then the madness descended. And after twelve minutes of chaos and violence, eighty people lay dead.

Eve Dallas is trying to sort out the inexplicable events. Surviving witnesses talk about seeing things—monsters and swarms of bees. They describe sudden, overwhelming feelings of fear and rage and paranoia. When forensics makes its report, the mass delusions make more sense: it appears the bar patrons were exposed to a cocktail of chemicals and illegal drugs that could drive people to temporary insanity—if not kill them outright.

But that doesn't explain who would unleash such horror—or why. Eve's husband, Roarke, happens to own the bar, yet he's convinced the attack wasn't directed at him. It's bigger than that. And if Eve can't figure it out fast, it could happen again, anytime, anywhere. Because it's airborne....

Review: The Drowning Pool by Syd Moore

After finished Warm Bodies, I decided to start another book I'd had sitting on my shelf for a while.

I bought it for £2.99 at a little book shop in Helmsley, and it sounded great.

Here's the summary: After her world is shaken by a series of unexplained events, young widow Sarah Grey soon comes to realize that she is the victim of a terrifying haunting by her 19th century namesake…A classic ghost story with a modern twist by a talented new writer in the genre. Relocated to a coastal town, widowed teacher Sarah Grey is slowly rebuilding her life, along with her young son Alfie. But after an inadvertent séance one drunken night, her world is shaken when she starts to experience frightening visions. She tries to explain them away. But Alfie sees them too and Sarah believes that they have become the targets of a terrifying haunting. Convinced that the ghost is that of a 19th Century local witch and namesake, Sarah delves into local folklore and learns that the witch was thought to have been evil incarnate. When a series of old letters surface, Sarah discovers that nothing and nothing is as it seems, maybe not even the ghost of Sarah Grey…

I had high hopes for this book. I wanted something scary, because it's not a genre I often read. However, this really wasn't what I ended up getting.


Book name: The Drowning Pool
Author: Syd Moore
How long did it take to read: 7-14 days
Review: Not quite what I expected. Definitely odd at times, and when reading at night it got me looking out for ghosts before sleep. But I expected it to be scarier I guess.
There was a very contemporary feel to this book, which I didn't expect at all. I definitely enjoyed the characters though, and I enjoyed all the back sliding into Sarah Grey's life (that is the ghost Sarah Grey, not the protagonist Sarah Grey).
However, the ending seemed a little...well it was a bit of a cop out. So much could have happened, it could have been amazing. Instead I finished the book feeling a bit like...meh.

Rating out of 10: 5