patchworkbunny's reviews
2115 reviews

Enjoyable conspiracy thriller.

I think a lot of people complained that from this book on there's too much sex. There is one sex scene which I'm sure lasted three chapters but after that it went back to normal. There were a few rather moving moments and whilst the plot rambled a bit in places, it was still thoroughly enjoyable.

Like most of the books in The Myths series, this is a slim volume, more of a novella. For me Eldorado is the City of Gold but Milton Hatoum has written about the Amazonian legends of the enchanted city at the bottom of the great river which he suspects is the origin of the European myth.

This is essentially a riches to rags story, Brazilian style. Translated from Portuguese into English, it is lacking in quotation marks for direct speech. This makes it difficult to follow who is speaking or even if someone is speaking. This seems the norm for such transaltions but I wish the translators would use relevant punctuation for the target audience.

I would probably give this 4 stars with quotation marks, but struggling with the text does take away some of the pleasure.

I do get the feeling that a gimmick was needed for this book. The characters are archaeologists therefore the crimes must reflect that. Having said that, it's still a good, easy to read thriller.

I won't write much as I read this book for the Read It Swap It book group discussion. I think this might be one of those books you have to read twice to understand it. However I found City Of Glass hard to follow so I'm not tempted to restart it. Ghosts was a bit better and I actually enjoyed The Locked Room though I am left feeling like I've got chunks missing. Maybe that's the point!

I think a lot of people have marked this book down as it's been marketed as a romantic comedy but it really isn't. I did love reading the descriptions of the vintage clothes (by now I want one of those prom dresses too) however the vintage shop is a vehicle for the characters to meet and their stories to unravel and intertwine. Phoebe is interested in the lives the clothes were part of and through that she hears a story from the past that mirrors her own guilt. The book does have a central romance, but that's not what it's about, its themes are guilt and loss. I stayed up late to finish it and cried in a few places...signs of a good book!

I'd advise reading "One Word Answer" before Defintely Dead if you're reading the Sookie Stackhouse books as otherwise you feel you've missed a book out. The Anita Blake story is set before Obsidian Butterfly but it doesn't really advance the story much, if you're a fan of Jean Claude it's worth a read though. I liked to Queen Betsy story though I haven't read any of that series yet. I don't think it's much of a spoiler story as it is centered around a vet from another town. "Blood Lust" was OK, nothing great and I didn't read "Galahad" as it is part of a series I have no interest in reading.